This Is Woman's Work with Nicole Kalil - 163 / Do You Believe in Love? with Arielle Ford

Starting point is 00:00:00 I am Nicole Kalil, and I've made some confessions before on This Is Woman's Work, but this one is a doozy. Here's my confession. I have judgment about other people's relationships. You might be thinking, ah, that's nothing. We all do. Or you might be thinking, holy shit, I can't believe she just admitted that out loud or something in between. And before I share more about this judgment, I want to be very clear that I know my judgment provides far more insight into me than it does into anyone or anything that I'm judging. We all have things that trigger our

Starting point is 00:00:47 worst judgments. For some of you, it might be how others look or what they wear. It could be how others parent. It might be judgments of other people's success or lack thereof. It could be about people's life choices, how they treat people, where they spend their time. I mean, let's be honest. The list is endless. And I bet you have a thing or two that really presses your buttons and triggers judgment. Whatever it is, your judgment is saying more about you than the person you're judging, just like mine does. And I don't say that to be mean, but rather to elicit a place of curiosity and discovery. It's a good opportunity for reflection. For me, more often than not, it boils down to what I consider lopsided relationships

Starting point is 00:01:33 where it seems like one person is doing all the heavy lifting and the other stopped deserving it a long time ago, if they ever did. I find myself biting my tongue, so I don't scream, what are you doing? You deserve so much better. I'm part of several women's groups and far too often I see someone post or hear someone share something about their partner where I want to

Starting point is 00:01:58 scream, run, leave, get out, and don't look back. I catch myself thinking, I know leaving will be so hard, but it can't be any harder than staying is. And there are times where I create revenge plots in my mind on behalf of women who have never asked me to. So what does this say about me? Well, a whole lot, but for the sake of time, I recognized a few things. First, I grew up in and have been in myself more than my fair share of unhealthy relationships, especially during times in my life where my confidence was low. And when I bought into the societal message that someone was supposed to want me in order for me to feel worthy. And now I'm projecting that onto other people and not wanting them to feel the pain and wanting them to walk away faster than I ever did.

Starting point is 00:02:50 It tells you that I far too often use the standard of whether or not I'd want to be in that relationship, not whether or not the relationship works for them, which is arrogance on my part. I also perceive that people have dismissed and justified partner's bad behavior in the name of love for far too long. And it drives me a little nuts when we do that. I also have experienced now what it feels like for me to be in a healthy, loving relationship. And I want that so much for other people. So why am I telling you all this? Well, because we're going to talk about love today. And I think it's important that I tell you that I might be just a little jaded.

Starting point is 00:03:33 Do I believe in love? Yes. Do I want all of us to experience more of it? Hell yes. Do I think love is patient to become one and excuses and justifies everything? All decisions should be based on it and that it needs to be romantic love that results in marriage in order for it to be considered real love at all? Absolutely not.

Starting point is 00:03:55 Given that I clearly have some energy around this topic, I've brought in a guest for all of our benefits. Arielle Ford is a celebrated love and relationship expert, author, and speaker, whose mission is to help people find love, keep love, and most importantly, be love. An award-winning author of 11 nonfiction books, including the international bestseller,

Starting point is 00:04:18 The Soulmate Secret, Manifest the Love of Your Life with the Law of Attraction, Arielle has been called the Cupid of consciousness and the fairy godmother of love. Her debut novel, The Love Thief, is a rollercoaster ride of love betrayal and unexpected transformation with a juicy revenge subplot,

Starting point is 00:04:37 which you know I'm here for, and a surprise ending. And she's here today to talk to us, maybe me especially, about love. Arielle, thank you so much for being here. Let's dive in. How's that for an intro, huh? You know, I so appreciate your authenticity and your transparency. And I am in alignment 100% with you in ways that you'll understand over the next 30 minutes. So you go, girl.

Starting point is 00:05:10 All right, let's dive in. Arielle, how do you define love? This is your area of expertise. This is what you do for a living. How do you define love? And is there such a thing? And if so, what is a soulmate? Great. So my two favorite topics.

Starting point is 00:05:36 So let's first talk about what love isn't. Most women in particular think that love is the state of being in love where it feels like champagne bubbles are going through your nervous system and water tastes wetter and air smells sweeter and you're obsessed and you just are craving this other human being. That is not love. What that is, that's your brain on drugs. That's your brain on oxytocin and dopamine and adrenaline and serotonin and it's the world's greatest free drug high, but it is not love. In fact, most of the time, it only lasts six months to three years, and then it's gone. So what is love? Love is first and foremost a behavior. Love is a choice. Love is an action. Love is a decision. Love is a way of being. And for anybody who's ever been in a long-term committed partnership, you know that there

Starting point is 00:06:30 will be days when you absolutely hate your partner and it doesn't mean that you don't love them. So while there are some good feelings to love, the feelings come and go. So you can't say that love is a feeling. There are feelings to it, but love is a behavior. We choose to love our partners. We choose to take sacred vows to commit ourselves to them. And that's why the vows are, you know, for better or for worse, because there's going to be a lot of worse. I was talking with a friend of mine yesterday that I had lunch with who has been in a long-term marriage with a man she considers her

Starting point is 00:07:11 soulmate. And we were talking about how if you consider yourself a spiritual person, if you're looking to walk the path of enlightenment, there's no harder spiritual path than relationship. If you really want to get to know yourself and connect to god get in a relationship because there's there's no more difficult way to go about it so that's what my assessment of what love is as far as what a soul mate is i believe that a soul mate is somebody you can completely be yourself with, somebody with whom you choose to share unconditional love. And most importantly, when you look into their eyes, you have the experience of being home. And so that could be your parents, your siblings, your best friends, your co-workers, your neighbors, your dogs, your cats, all of them can be soulmates.

Starting point is 00:08:09 So while the word is generally attached to finding a romantic soulmate, that whole happily ever after, our eyes locked across a crowded room, love at first sight, you know, what makes a Hollywood rom-com, but it's not real life. So those are, those are my hardcore beliefs about what love is and what a soulmate is. I'm kind of loving your hardcore beliefs. These are great. So I want to go back to a couple of things that you said you talked about. I'm just going to call it this drug state that happens often early on that we think is love. And then it wears off as it's meant to, is it possible to get that back with the same person or does it just evolve into something bigger and greater or different? The reason I ask is I feel like I know I've done this and I observe other people do this sometimes as they have that with someone, but then when it evolves and wears off as it's meant to, they hang on to someone or something

Starting point is 00:09:12 that doesn't work for them anymore because they're chasing that old feeling. Yeah. So I believe that the state that we call being in love is the socially acceptable form of insanity. It's crazy because you're out of control. You're reaching for this high, high, high, and you want it. It is a drug. It's nature's trick to get us to procreate to keep the species going. That's the purpose of it, right? But when you're in a really truly mature adult chosen partnership I don't believe those feelings ever really come back nor are they meant to come back because we're now going for a deeper more mature more intimate steady kind of relationship. I remember when I was in therapy years ago, I was in my 20s. And, and my therapist was saying to me, she said, you're always going for the highs, you want to

Starting point is 00:10:14 live your life up here, you want that really intense feeling. And when you don't have that, you drop into this deep depression, and you're going for the lows. And she said, and happy life is in the middle. You need to learn to modulate, you know, so you're not going for the super high. And when you get to the lows, you remember that you have the tools to pull yourself back up, that happiness can be a choice. And I've spent my whole life studying happiness, you know, because I was such a miserable person until I decided, Oh, my God, why don't I just study happy people? Now, what did I learn about happy people? I chose, I chose my two aunts, my mother's sister, my father's sister, as the happiest people I knew.

Starting point is 00:10:56 And one of the first things I observed about them is neither one of them had kids. And I was like, okay, happiness. Oh, my gosh, it so funny, but I can, I have a kid and I can understand that, you know, but I did, I started studying happy people. And so, you know, yes, it feels great to be in love, but at the same time, after you've been there a few times and after you've had your heart broken and your dreams crushed, and you're, you know, in a big, nasty puddle of lover, you know, but also my biggest cheerleader. And the sex may not be the hottest sex I ever had because that comes with the being in love thing. But at least, you know, I know I'm, I'm not going to die from sex, which is, you know, that's a whole other story. So, so yeah. So I don't even remember what the question is.

Starting point is 00:12:03 No, it was just that, that it's, you know, meant to wear off and, and everything you said actually aligned so much with my personal experience. My relationships in my twenties and early thirties were like crazy roller coasters, right? High, high, high highs, and then scary fast drops. My relationship now, I would compare it more to a kiddie coaster. It's, you know, there's some ups and there's some dips, but that sort of getting back to center or the middle that you were talking about feel so much easier and so much safer. And yes, there's that experience of being home.

Starting point is 00:12:46 What's better than that? Because you can wake up in the morning and roll over and see this person sleeping and just feel gratitude that you're sharing your life with a best friend. You may not be the only best friend, but a best friend that you're not, you know, you're not going to have the rug pulled out from under you. You have this stability because really we human beings are pretty simple creatures. We all want to be loved and accepted for exactly who we are. The good, the bad, the ugly, the porkiness. We want someone who's just going to, you know, find it funny that, you know, we do stupid things or that we can't remember stuff or that, you know, find it funny that, you know, we do stupid things or that we can't remember stuff or that, you know, we have fascinations with weird shit. You know, we want

Starting point is 00:13:32 somebody who knows that about us and is accepting. We want to be accepted. Yeah, totally seen and accepted. And I love that you said that love is a behavior, a choice, action. One of the things that I think can be really challenging is how we choose to demonstrate love with our behavior and our choices and our actions may not be the exact same way that we want to or that our partners choose to demonstrate love. And there might be some misses on how we experience that. Any advice or thoughts about, you know, two individuals coming together in a relationship and how to. Yeah, well, that's normal, right? You know, we all have our ideas of what perfect would look like.

Starting point is 00:14:19 And I ended up writing a book about this called Wabi Sabi Love. Wabi Sabi is the ancient Japanese aesthetic that seeks to find all things old, worn, imperfect and impermanent and then find the beauty and perfection in them. Because we know that we're imperfect and everybody else is imperfect. So why can't we just find something beautiful about it? And I'll give you, I'll give you one example of a story. I had a woman in one of my workshops. And after I explained Wabi Sabi, I put them into groups of three, where they could each complain about their partner. And then the team had to come up with a Wabi Sabi solution to it. And so this woman stood up after hers and she said, she said, well, I have a problem even you can't solve. And I said, well, what's that? And she said, my name's Stephanie and I've been married to Garth for 16 years and I don't think I can take it anymore. She said,

Starting point is 00:15:18 I am a clean freak, germaphobe, neat Nick, everything in its place, perfectionist. And Garth is a total chaotic, messy slob. And the only thing that keeps us together right now is that he has an out of state job. So two weeks of every month he's gone and two weeks of every month he's home messing up the place. And I just can't stand it I said to her well Stephanie do you have a dog and she said yes I said does your dog shed and she said yes and I said well what do you do when the dog sheds I said well I vacuum up after him and I said oh I see and do you love your dog and then she got really quiet and she said, oh my God, Garth sheds. And she saw in that moment, just like the golden retriever can't help it, who she still loves,

Starting point is 00:16:16 she just cleans up after him. So two years later, I start writing this book called Turn Your Mate Into Your Soulmate. And I think about Stephanie and I have to find her. And I call the promoter of this event that I did. It was in, I don't know, some state far away from California. And I call the promoter and I said, listen, I had 300 people in this workshop. I know I'm asking you the most crazy question, but there was a woman named Stephanie who's married to a guy named Garth and I need to find her. And she said, Stephanie's my best friend. Here's her number.

Starting point is 00:16:50 I call Stephanie and I said to her, hi, I just wanted to check in. Are you and Garth still together? And she said, together? She said, we've never been happier. In fact fact he quit his out-of-state job so we could be together 24 7 and yes he's still a slob so that's what wabi-sabi love is you just have to reframe it you got to make up a new story you know her story was he's like a golden retriever he can't help it i'll just clean up after him b Brian did that with me and every couple there's a neat neck and a slob pretty much you know and and Brian figured it out six months into our marriage and he's and after he like was asking me all the time why is your coffee cup still in the sink why are there crumbs around the toaster one day he said to me he said

Starting point is 00:17:42 he goes I decided that I'm going to spend the rest of my life cleaning up after you because I'm the one that's bothered by the cup and the, you know, that's out there and the crumbs around the toaster. And so that's what it is. You just, you know, you could fight forever and say it's not fair. And you're the one who's bothered. I feel like my husband may have slipped you a note before recording, but that's a topic for another day. Okay. So that is such good information. And

Starting point is 00:18:15 I sometimes worry that we do this to an extreme. Like there are some things like being messy or being a night owl versus a morning person, or like there's things that you work through in your relationship. And then there are things that I'm not sure we should. So let's take this to an extreme. As a relationship expert, how do you see women falling for and what is your advice? Cause I'm imagining it's not the same advice. If you find yourself in relationship with a narcissist or sociopath or a real cheater or whatever the case is. Right. And so when there's bad behavior, you've got to, you have two choices. I can choose to just put up with this for the rest of my life, or I can get out. You cannot fix sociopaths. There is no drug or therapy to change a toxic narcissist. That's what my whole novel is about.

Starting point is 00:19:14 I wrote the nastiest guy. I mean, I've had people call me. I hated him from page one. Yes, because he's a gaslighting, toxic, crazy person who's only out to have you become his slave. So some things are not solvable. You know, the everyday annoyances, that's when you can make up another story, you know. But if it's really bad behavior, if there's active abuse or addiction, you know, or they're lying about money or they're committing crimes, you, you have to understand, okay, I'm an adult. Do I want to spend the rest of my life with this person that I don't trust? Or do I want to leave? And it's hard. Of course it's hard,

Starting point is 00:20:00 especially when there's kids involved, but it's, it's a choice that you have because sometimes there is no fix. There's a quote that just popped into my head that says, don't keep making a mistake just because you've already spent a long time making it. And that I think sometimes as hard as it's like, I've been in this relationship for so long or I've hung out, like it's that reminder of, yes, we still have a choice and don't invest any more time into the mistake. Right. And, and it doesn't mean that at some point they weren't your soulmate. So you don't want to kill off the good years, you know, especially if you have kids, it's like, well, most people would say, well, thank god i've got these great kids and

Starting point is 00:20:45 and he was a an okay enough sperm donor and he was a good enough dad for long enough and then sometimes relationships come with an expiration date people change circumstances change and it's okay in this day and age to change with them you know back in the day when you know the life expectancy was 41 or whatever it was, you know, so marriages lasted forever. They don't last forever anymore. And it doesn't mean you have to be pointing fingers and killing somebody off. It's over. It's over. Let's just try and be as civil as possible, be as kind to each other as possible and move on and know that there's no shortage of love in the world.

Starting point is 00:21:26 If there's one message I want people to hear, there's no shortage of love in the world because I get these women who show up, I'm too old, I'm too fat, I'm too damaged. All the good ones are taken. The one and only got away, you know, all these excuses and none of them are true. There are 8 billion people alive on the planet. Okay. 50% of them or more are single. Statistically, you are walking past potential lovers every day. As long as you're not throwing out this energy, I'm too old. I'm too fat. I'm too damaged. You know, whatever. You kind of brought up 50% being single. And I often joke around that I'm really grateful I don't have to date in this day and age. Let's talk a little bit about online dating. What are

Starting point is 00:22:14 your thoughts, experiences about finding love in today's day and age, accessing and leveraging things like technology? Listen, I'm a big, big fan of the apps. I have nothing but success stories of women who have found love online. The thing is we tweaked their expectations. And what you should go in knowing, not just like knowing, is 90% or more of the people you connect with are going to be total 100% losers that you're not going to be interested in that are going to ghost you and lie to you and aren't who they seem and just know that you know and and and if somebody rejects you don't see it as rejection they don't even know you right but somewhere in that haystack is your one. If you're willing, I'm going to tell you a quick story about my friend, Liz.

Starting point is 00:23:10 My friend Liz was 49 years old, very attractive, big career, very successful, really smart, 49 and never married. She decided that she was going to spend one year on Match.com. And if she didn't find her husband, she was going to mortgage her home to hire a $100,000 matchmaker. Liz went on 79 first dates over nine months. And that's not counting the guy she went out with more than once. And number 80 has been her husband of 10 years now. And he was perfect for her. And he was only like, you know, half a mile away from her, but they would have never met. And it just

Starting point is 00:23:53 works. So it's possible out there, but you have to like really, you know, put the elbow grease in, you have to be willing to spend time every day. And I've written this totally free online dating guide that I give away at my website that in nine pages tells you how to do it. So even though you're going to tell me I have this history, no, I tried it and this happened, that happened. Quit complaining. You weren't doing it right. Right. It's like, like we all go out to eat. Right. And all of us have gone out to eat and we've had some really bad meals, really bad meals. But did that stop us from eating? No, no. We just went on and tried a new restaurant. And we didn't go back to the old shitty ones.

Starting point is 00:24:39 Right. Exactly. It's like, well, God, I had a good meal there five years ago. You know, it's like, grow up, put on your big girl panties, take responsibility for your life. We have these tools. We all know how to shop online. We excel at shopping online. And right now, Amazon does not offer one-click soulmate shopping. It may never happen. Dropping them off by those little planes.

Starting point is 00:25:05 That doesn't happen. But you can go online. You can go on multiple apps and you can give it your best. At any time it looks like you've been ghosted or somebody doesn't respond to you and they don't want you, just remember this line.

Starting point is 00:25:21 Rejection is protection. God is setting it up to stop you from finding that cute new sociopath. I didn't want you it's protection, not rejection. It's so good. I actually always, well, I didn't when I was younger, but now I start appreciating the rejections or the ghosting or the whatever. Cause it's like, thank you for making it obvious that this was never going to work, whether it's a business relationship or a friendship or a personal relationship. When sometimes when people behave in certain ways, it's like, thank you for waving that huge red flag right in front of my face so I could see it.

Starting point is 00:26:01 And then we have to, like you said, be responsible and not go, not look at that red flag and not look at it and go, there's that orange drapey thing and try to make it something that it's not. Red flags are red flags. So let's talk about that. What are some red flags that you would encourage people to be mindful of in loving relationships, whether they're new or old? Well, especially if you're just dating and they're new, the number one biggest red flag is to know when you're being love bombed. Love bombing is when they come on really fast. Oh my God, where have you been all my life? You are the most beautiful, sexy creature I've ever seen. Our children are going to be so gorgeous. And you've

Starting point is 00:26:45 only had one drink with them, you know, and I, you know, tomorrow I have to go on a business trip to Paris and I, you know, I own the company, pack a bag. I'm taking you to Paris and I'm going to kiss you on the Eiffel tower. You're off and running. And you think I've been waiting for this my whole life. And all they're doing is setting you up to break your heart and steal your money. So love bombing. This is what toxic narcissists and sociopaths do. And they're really good at it because they tend to be smart, gorgeous, charming, charismatic, and they know how to whisper in somebody's ear all the things they ever wanted to hear. So I would say that's the biggest red flag. The other thing that happens is though

Starting point is 00:27:30 quite often they're so charming, you have sex with them and then you're now oxytocin bonded to them. And you know, you spend three weeks or three months falling in love and being romanced. And then when the real them shows up, you know that this other good person's in there and you keep trying to claw your way back. What did I do? What did I say? How can I have this, you know, good feeling back? And you can't because it was never anything but you being prey. You were prey for them. They saw something in you they wanted. This happens a lot to women who tend to be very empathetic because they want to make people feel good. And they sense on some level that underneath all this bravado is this hurt person and they want to

Starting point is 00:28:19 fix them. Yeah. You can't fix people. It's not your job. You know, don't become their mother or their therapist. Yeah. Nobody can be changed or fixed unless they want to change or fix something. That's probably one of the bigger life lessons I've learned very painfully. I have one last question and it sort of ties into your book. The reality is we've all experienced heartbreak. And I think a lot of people have experienced either having been cheated on or cheated themselves. What's the message you hope readers will take away from your book, The Love Thief, and this really awful character in there? Well, you know, there's two messages. The first one is that when the worst thing that could possibly happen to you happens, and if you're

Starting point is 00:29:14 at the bottom of the pit and you think you're going to die and life's never going to get better, don't give up. Don't give up. It's the start of a whole new life that you can't even imagine. You're just in so much pain. It's going to get better. The other message is, is that you can recover from a broken heart, you know, and it does take some time, but there is no shortage of love in the world. There is more love out there for you. So you can't give up on yourself. And that's what happens to Holly, my protagonist in the book. She gets hurt so badly on so many levels and is really ready to give up. And by the end of the book, you're just jumping up and down and cheering for her. But she took the time.

Starting point is 00:29:56 She found a guide. She found a retired professor of psychology in a bookstore who became what I called her love walla, the person who was there to really hold her hand and guide her and show her what love is and what love isn't and explain to her that she was a victim. She was an absolute victim. It wasn't her fault and that love would find her again, which it does. It's a beautiful story. And you all should make sure you order the book, go to thelovethief.com. And you can also find the free online dating guide

Starting point is 00:30:35 that Arielle mentioned earlier at arielleford.com. We'll put both of those in show notes as well as all of her social media handles so you can connect with her. Arielle, thank you for your time today and for bringing so much fun to this topic and so much wisdom and knowledge. I greatly appreciate it. Thank you, Nicole. It was really great talking to you. Okay. I started this episode with a confession, so I'll end it with a proclamation. You are worthy of love, and there's so much love out there. Is it possible for someone to love you if you don't first love yourself?

Starting point is 00:31:14 Of course. But why wouldn't you want both? And if loving someone more causes you to love yourself less, well, then I'm sorry, friends, that's some unhealthy version of love, if it is in fact love. Of course, I'm not the decider of what love looks like, and my judgments are about me, and I want the best for you. When it comes to romantic love, I wish you someone who sees you, who celebrates you, who honors you, who respects you and wants you both to win. And when things get hard, as they inevitably will, we'll fight with you, not against you. We'll talk and listen and hold space. We'll challenge, respect boundaries and believes you both deserve better when your relationship goes off track. Where trust, respect and support are commonplace. Where you both give,

Starting point is 00:32:04 maybe not in the exact same ways or at the exact same time, but enough so that it feels like you are both holding and building this relationship. I wish you the feeling of coming home. And maybe that's just what I want. You go find what you want. If you know in your heart of hearts that you've been settling for something less,

Starting point is 00:32:24 consider setting it aside so that you can create the opportunity for something more. I think we've received enough messaging about finding love and what love is and what it isn't across the course of our lives. So I'll end with this. Love yourself so that you know what it feels like to love and be loved so that nobody can come along and offer you less and trick you into thinking that it's more. Knowing what it is to both love and be loved.

Starting point is 00:32:52 Now that is woman's work.

This Is Woman's Work with Nicole Kalil - 163 / Do You Believe in Love? with Arielle Ford

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