What Is An Ideal Relationship?

 

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What Is An Ideal Relationship?

We talk a lot about wellbeing from a very holistic standpoint, physical, mental, emotional and something that is certainly a big part of wellbeing is our relationships. We focus a lot on our relationships with ourselves, but we have done a few episodes that at least touch upon if not center around relationships with other people, romantic relationships specifically. Jason, I’ve noticed how a lot of people end up finding our website and our show because they’re searching for information about relationships. I thought that we could talk more about that now and dive in a little bit deeper.

That’s a great idea. To your point, Whitney, a lot of people have been tuned in to the episodes about romance, archetypes, love languages and a lot of the things that we’ve talked about. The concept of human relationships goes far beyond the romantic relationships we have in our life. It makes me think about the Greeks in particular and how many individual distinct words they had for different kinds of love. They had phileos, which was brotherly love, agape, which is universal all-encompassing love. We have eros, romantic love. It’s cool that you’re opening the space up for this. We can dive into maybe a broader exploration of what it means to be in relationship with one another.

The keyword that a lot of people have been using to find our website and our show is the phrase ideal relationship. That’s because of an episode we did. It was one of the original episodes that we put out. It looks like it was recorded in April 2019. A lot has changed since that time. Like anything else, our feelings change, our education evolves. It’s important to revisit things just because we felt some a certain way or we had a certain thought or viewpoint in the past, doesn’t mean that it’s the same, even if it’s only been a little over a year since we talked about something. I wanted to dive into what your feelings are about what an ideal relationship is, Jason. What is your perception around it? When you think of the phrase ideal relationship, what does that mean to you? What comes up for you? It doesn’t need to be a definition. It could be like, what’s your reaction to that phrase, ideal relationship?

The first thing that comes up for me right now, as you so beautifully outlined, I’ve been reflecting on all of the lists that I’ve written over the years in terms of the qualities, the attributes and the personality traits that I wanted in a partnership. I’ve written several of those lists over the years after hearing about other friends doing it or them encouraging me to do it and put into words what I wanted to manifest in a type of a romantic context. I’m realizing that when you bring up the phrase ideal relationship, I’ve been sitting with some of my quote ideals and how for a long time, Whitney, I have been so specific, so incredibly specific about what I’ve wanted in terms of a relationship.

I’ve been reflecting on this during the quarantine period a lot is have I unbeknownst to myself, push certain people away, or maybe didn’t give certain things a chance because I was so fixated on these specific characteristics attributes and personality traits, the way that I wanted to be with someone. It makes me reflect on several people I know that have been in long-term relationships. One of which is my mentor, Michael, who has been with his partner, Kevin. They’ve only been married for a few years, but they’ve been together many years. I asked Michael sometimes about their relationship, he and Kevin, the dynamic and the personalities. It’s by no means “ideal.”

He’s told me many times that there are things that irritate the shit out of each other personality traits, but at the core of it is so much respect, love, playfulness, communication and allowing. I don’t know. I’m giving you a long answer because I’m making it up in real-time as we do with pretty much near everything on this podcast. We’re figuring it out on the fly. I suppose what I’m saying is that the feeling, the energy, the love, the respect and the communication I’m finding are more important to me. Other more specific physical things or her interests or things like that. What I’m saying is I’ve broadened maybe a little bit. My perspective on what an ideal relationship looks like by relaxing some of those ideals.

I feel like we might have touched upon it either in that episode we were referring to. It’s called Elements of An Ideal Relationship. You could go back to these episodes if you’re curious, and that came out towards the beginning of our launch for this, and I don’t remember off the top of my head what order it is. Go to our website Wellevatr.com. I can’t remember if it was in that episode or another or maybe if we talked about this at all, maybe you’ll remember, Jason. I too had a list of ideals in a partner. I pulled it up because I saved it in my notes. It looks like I wrote this in 2010 originally, and I started adding to it. Several years later looking over this as fascinating, does this ring a bell? I feel like I brought this up on one of our episodes. I went through the list.

It wasn’t in the Jason Green episode about attachment styles.

It might’ve been in the other ideal relationship episode, I’m not quite sure. To your point, I’m thinking back ten years after I wrote this list and I’m sure there were others growing up, we would often fantasize about all of these things. My mentality was perhaps a combination of getting clear about what I wanted. It’s also comforting to list out the ideals. It’s like, “I can visualize it.” There’s a lot of comforts and thinking about what we want. I saw this on TikTok how a lot of people love going on Zillow and looking at their dream homes, even though they might not be able to afford them at this point, but it feels nice to fantasize.

We get caught up in what relationships look like instead of focusing on what they feel like. - Whitney Lauritsen Click To Tweet

There’s nothing wrong with that. A lot of us do that through social media as we look at each other’s lives and we think about who we admire and what we want for ourselves. That can be helpful, but also sometimes a little dangerous especially if we’re relying too much on something else that somebody else has, or getting superficial with it in a way, writing out characteristics that you wanted somebody, whether they’re based on their appearance or personality or lifestyle. The older that you get, the more relaxed you get. I don’t know if it’s a combination of feeling like you want to be less picky because the dating pool gets smaller, the older that you get, or at least it feels like it does. Statistically, it does, but a lot of preferences start to change as well.

Maybe some of the things that you fantasized about later on you realize aren’t as important or you realize you don’t need. It is interesting to create these lists because part of me feels like, “Maybe that’ll help you manifest it.” If you write it down, it’ll happen. It’ll help you be clear, clear about what you want and what you don’t want. That’ll keep you centered because sometimes when you meet people and they’re not a good fit for us, but maybe we’re attracted to them for something else or we’re drawn to them. Maybe that’s related to our trauma, are we interested in this person for poor reasons? Is there something about them that’s not good for us in other words?

Trauma bonds, they call them.

Maybe writing down this list like anything else we’ll keep you centered on what’s important to you. To your point, Jason, having a list, if you’re too attached to it, you may disregard some people if they don’t fit in that. You’ll see this a lot with dating apps because you can go on there and filter out people based on their age or you can skip over people because of their height or whatever other factors versus the difference it is when you meet somebody outside of a dating app, you may find that you’re interested in somebody that you never would have even given a chance if you filter them out in an app. You start to realize, “I was attracted to this person and I’m interested in this person for so many other reasons besides my list.”

It’s interesting because the phrase that comes up to me, Whitney, as you’re describing this is, “It looked good on paper.” I can’t tell you how many times I’ve said that when I had these different versions of these lists. I first wrote this list of the attributes and characteristics of personality traits in 2007. I still have the journal with those. It’d be interesting to go back. That was several years ago. I have written different lists, but I can’t tell you the number of times where I would meet someone or go on a date, connect with someone and realize that they fit in a few cases, the majority of the big things on that list. Here’s the other part, no one’s ever met 100% of the attributes on those lists. No one, that I can tell or that I could perceive, rather.

The comment of it looks good on paper is thinking of these specific situations where I met these women and it was like, “They’re into this. They eat this way. They pray this way. They meditate this way. They’re into this. They love these things,” whatever it is. There are 1 million examples of interests, likes, lifestyle, the way that they see the world. There was something energetically that wasn’t clicking with us in a romantic sense, in a sexual sense, in a perspective of physical or emotional connection. It’s an interesting thing to say it looks good on paper. You can list out all of these externalities or their viewpoints or their beliefs, but it doesn’t guarantee that if you meet someone who embodies all of these characteristics in these ways of being. There’s going to be a connection or at least a romantic, intimate connection.

There are too many examples to list of this where I would meet someone, who is super excited. A few dates in or a few weeks of getting to know them. I’m like, “This isn’t this isn’t driving energetically.” It’s almost an intangible thing. I can hear people saying, “You should have given it more time.” I feel that you either click with someone and you’re on that energetic level. You’re on that sexual level. You’re on that vibrational level to go there for a second. All the attributes, traits and personality quirks don’t guarantee that you’re going to click with someone and link with them on that level. It’s so it’s weird because you can write this out and then meet someone who fulfills most of those things. You’re like, “I’m not feeling this.” There are so many times where I had to check myself and be like, “Why am I not feeling this? Look at how many amazing traits this person has.” I don’t know if it’s not there, it’s not there. It’s strange but true. I’ve experienced that a lot.

A lot of these changes over time. Our relationship with ourselves changed so much and our relationships with other people. Our ideals are going to change so much too. It’s interesting how even the word ideal, what exactly does that mean? There are different levels of the ideal in terms of how we perceive them. Is it that we’re trying to prepare ourselves for a relationship by trying to make ourselves ideal and trying to find the ideal partner? Once you’re in the relationship with somebody then trying to make that ideal? Is that another level of perfectionism? Are you trying to get it right? Are you trying to increase your chances? One thing we’ve touched upon in a few episodes and this might’ve come up with our episode with Sunny.

We spoke about challenging the typical relationship struggle. Not a struggle, but while we talked about that a little bit, but challenging, like the cultural definitions of relationships and marriage and how you might be doing something radically different than other people, you might be doing something that isn’t perceived as normal, or you might be going against the grain and other words. Some people are afraid to do that because A, part of being in a relationship like this ideal idea of a relationship is how can I make this look good to others? now, keeping up those appearances so that other people will see that I’m in a good relationship. Are you doing this for yourself? Are you doing it for somebody else? Are you doing it for your partner? Is it nourishing to you? The problem with trying to make things ideal, which again feels a lot like trying to make things perfect is that you get so caught up in what it looks like versus what it feels like.

 

That’s a soundbite. That’s a tweet. We get caught up in what it looks like rather than what it feels like. I’m in that in the sense of why do we create these ideals or these lists or these parameters? You spoke to one reason, that’s super on point, which is this externality of look at how amazing my partner is. Look at how together my relationship is. Look at this beautiful family we created or this house we created together. A lot of it, if we, as humans were, to be honest about it, it is about keeping up appearances. The same reasons why we may be by certain cars we do or live in certain zip codes. It’s about like, “I’m worthy of love. I’m worthy of success. I did a good job. I have a good relationship. I have a great house. I have a great family. Look, everyone, I’m winning.”

The other side of it that comes up for me too, as you were detailing that, Whit, is this idea of manifesting. The whole idea for me in writing these lists over the years was I’m going to manifest my partner. I would put images on my vision boards, the dynamics of images I wanted to feel in a partnership along with the list of characteristics of this person. As part of a broader discussion of this practice of manifestation, I’ve been looking inside myself at any narcissistic or self-centered qualities that are infecting this manifestation process. To me, there’s a fine line between desire.

Desire is interesting because, on the one hand, you have perhaps some lineages of traditional Zen Buddhism that say, “Desire and attachment to desire, leads to suffering.” You have luminaries and people like Danielle LaPorte, who has something called The Desire Map or Abraham-Hicks, who says, “You can’t, in this human experience, fully remove yourself from desire. It’s not possible.” Desire can be healthy when focused the right way. As part of that discussion of desiring things, I’m realizing that my desires aren’t going away and I have no intention of killing those desires. As some people say, kill your ego, which I also don’t believe as possible. In yielding to our desires, being honest about them and talking about what we desire as related to this manifestation conversation, partnership and ideal relationships, I’ve noticed that there’s a bit of a narcissistic type of thing thereof like, “I’m going to get exactly what I want and this person’s going to have this and this. If not, I’m going to stay single.”

There’s nothing wrong with that. I’m not shaming that approach, but I’ve been in that mindset before if I don’t meet someone who has all these qualities, all these attributes and doesn’t drive on these levels, I’m going to stay single.” I see a lot of that advice floating around the internet from people, coaches, whatever. It’s interesting and maybe narcissism isn’t the right word. For myself, there’s almost like this energetic feeling sometimes in the manifestation conversation where it’s like, “If I don’t get it exactly this way, I don’t want it at all.” It’s a slippery slope for me.

It makes me wonder how do you have a strong relationship with somebody if it’s based on something so superficial? What I want to be with somebody because I look the way they want me to look. No, of course not because my looks are going to change over time. I feel like a lot of people’s lists of ideal mates have to do with looks or even when we meet through a dating app that has a lot to do with how you look in those pictures, or if you meet at a bar, it has to do with that. A lot of times if you meet somebody once and they look a certain way, and then catfishing is a challenge for a lot of people because you see somebody in one capacity and a lot of women have to shame around what they’ll look like when they don’t feel presentable, for example. I bet you men do as well. It’s like, “I happened to look good in that photo, or I happened to look good at that moment that you first saw me. What about how I look when I first wake up and I don’t have any makeup on? My hair is a mess. My breath doesn’t smell very good? What do I look like when I’m sick or when I’m having a bad day and I’m sad or depressed?

Jason, I would love for you to share about that if you’re open to it. I know one thing you’ve expressed with me and in your relationship dynamic is how you felt with this new person during some of your challenging, emotional times when you were feeling depressed and vulnerable. It sounded like you were almost surprised by the level of support you were getting. If you want to expand upon that and even in comparison if you’d like to share your past experiences and your experience now.

It’s interesting when things are going “good,” or the metrics that we assigned for goodness in our life are all being checked. Those lists in our mind of like, “Making a lot of great money. I’m at a job that feels good. My health is great. I’m feeling myself, got a fresh haircut, got brand new shoes,” whatever the arbitrary externalized lists in our minds are. It’s easy to feel good in our relationship when we have all of these external types of things that are being met. The interesting thing is in this new relationship that I’m in, we met right before the lockdown and the quarantine, maybe ten days prior to here in Los Angeles, at least things being quarantine, shutdown, stay at home, all those orders being met. It was right before we were in the pandemic already. It was before the lockdown. First of all, it’s been an unusual, unique and interesting container to get to know someone, explore someone new because I’ll preface it by saying that a lot of the I’ll use the word distractions. I don’t mean that in a negative way, but a lot of the things that one would normally do with a new person you’re dating or a new partnership, going to the movies, going to libraries, going to walks in the garden, going on hikes, going to the beach, taking trips have been on available.

Those options have been completely unavailable. A lot of the styles of dating or dating rituals, moreover, are not there. They’re not options. We’ve been in a container of I’ll call it accelerated intimacy because it’s deeper conversations and getting to know each other in a much more quick and accelerated way. When I say distractions, it’s when you’re at a theme park or you’re at the park together, you’re doing these dating type of things, these dating rituals, you’re so in the moment that sometimes you’re not necessarily talking about your past or your trauma or the things you’re struggling with.

By virtue of this focused container of quarantine, COVID-19 and everything that’s been happening in the world, we’ve had an opportunity to get to know each other quickly, which has been beautiful. I have not been withholding it all my mental health struggles from her. I certainly have been, haven’t been withholding my financial struggles during the quarantine, which it’s been a lot of, it’s been a lot of questions of what am I doing in the world. I haven’t worked for over three months. Where’s my career heading? What is happening? What am I doing? It’s been a lot of emotions.

If we don't love ourselves, how can we imagine somebody else loving us? Click To Tweet

With the civil demonstrations and the bringing to light a lot of the racism and tensions in our society in America, there are so many layers of emotions that I’ve been feeling. She said, “I’m not used to dating someone who’s this emotional or a man that’s this emotional.” She was surprised by my breadth or depth of emotional capacity. Now she has told me she cares for me deeply and loves the fact that I’m such an emotionally sensitive person. To answer your question, Whit, that was a very long way of getting the answers through my mental health struggles or my struggles with purpose, money and career over this portion of the time. The other thing too is I’ve had a foot injury. I’ve had a flare-up of gout the past week that’s been extremely painful. She keeps showing up and keeps showing up.

She’s not tolerant of my struggles but has been so wonderful in the small things of, “Can I go to the grocery store and gets you things because you can’t walk on your foot right now. It’s too painful. Can I hold space for you crying?” Sometimes I need to cry. I don’t necessarily need to be told it’s going to be okay or anything like that although she does say that. I need someone to be a container for my suffering and my emotion because it’ll pass. She’s so wonderful and loving in that way. Those are the kinds of things that I wasn’t writing on those lists.

I wasn’t like, ”When I’m super emotional and sensitive and having a breakdown or having struggles with my mental health or my sense of purpose in the world, she’ll hold space and be loving and nonjudgmental.” That’s not the crap I was writing on those lists. In realizing that beyond the physical attributes, although I do find her very beautiful, I’m very attracted to her and that chemistry is there. Beyond the physical things, there are those emotional interactions, those spiritual interactions, those ways that we support each other in our times of pain, our times of darkness, our times of confusion are times of questioning who the hell we are. Those hold a lot of meaning for me.

I’m realizing that the power of that when you’re with someone you’re dating or you’re in a relationship and the proverbial shit hits the fan or the challenges arise, that’s when you get to see the layers of a person that you wouldn’t see when you’re going out to the movies or going to a theme park or going on vacation. It’s through the challenges and being put in the uncomfortable, dark, painful situations that you see those aspects of a person. With Laura right now, I’m getting to see like, as we’re both in challenging situations in life, how we’re showing up for one another and it’s amazing. I’m not sure that we would have seen those sides of each other as quickly. Had we not been in the situation in the world that we’ve been in?

It’s such a great gift too. One thing that is interesting that you said, Jason is how she keeps showing up. It almost to me feels like you’re surprised by that, which is interesting. I feel like a lot of times we assume that people aren’t going to show up for us in the ways that we need or we are attached to things that happened to us in the past. Assume that the way we were treated in the past is how we’re going to be treated in the present and/or the way that we feel about ourselves is the way somebody else feels about us. It’s fascinating to reflect on all of these things and what it’s like to be with a very nourishing person like her, someone that is there to support you in all of these ways and how it’s almost you be feeling. It’s rare and unusual. What I’m saying about feeling something so basic is new and surprising? Is that how you feel? Is that why you were almost surprised that she keeps showing up for you?

It is surprising in two ways. It’s surprising in the sense that I’m getting to unravel a lot of the mechanisms of how I think I ought to show up as a man. I touched upon a few of these in our episode about toxic masculinity. To touch back on that episode in a few of the things that I talked about, there’s still a reticence and a hesitation sometimes for me to be vulnerable, especially when I’m in emotional pain or physical pain. There are still layers of conditioning for me as a man in a society or don’t show weakness when you are struggling with money, struggling with emotion, struggling with feeling like you’re not your best self. Let me say it that way. Let me encapsulate that whether I’m having a career or financial struggles during this COVID crisis or depression or anxiety during this COVID crisis, or this foot injury.

The mindset in my mind has been, “I’m not my best self-right now,” which I think about that phrase because that’s been coming up in my mind. I said to Laura, “Thank you for loving me when I’m not my best self.” If I examine those words at that moment, I am doing my best. It’s still this layer of conditioning of as a man, you’re supposed to be making money. You’re supposed to be providing. You’re supposed to be strong. You’re not supposed to have this level, of weakness and instability in your life. I have felt sad. I have felt weak. I have felt sensitive. I have felt confused. I have felt a complete lack of stability in certain aspects of my career and moneymaking.

I have felt all those things. The gift of this new relationship is can I still show up and be fully authentic in those things and still love myself and give love to her? Even though I’m feeling sensitive in pain, confused, “not my best,” but maybe that’s too self-deprecating. Maybe instead of saying, “I’m not my best right now.” Maybe it’s saying, “I am doing the best I can right now on all these levels.” One of the things that I have struggled with a lot over the entire course of my life has been being way too hard on myself. You know this as my best friend, the people that I’m close to knowing this that I set the bar so high that if I don’t reach it, I’m wounding to myself and incredibly cruel sometimes.

By virtue of the instability of career, money, pain, confusion, depression and all these things I’ve been feeling in this new relationship, I haven’t held back with her. We’re going deep because my philosophy at this moment, Whitney is like, I don’t want it to be the highlight reel. I don’t want it to be the walks through the rose garden, the movies, the amusement park, the beach time and all that’s wonderful. I want it to also be like, “I’m struggling right now. I’m a little bit fucked up, feeling imbalanced, scared and confused. Can we both be a container for all of it?” I don’t know, to answer your question. My surprise is maybe I started to expect in some way the dating scene in LA to be cliche for a second was full of narcissistic, self-centered, closed down people and who wants to give a fuck? Who wants to care anymore? Does anybody want to care anymore? Maybe in a certain way, I started to get jaded if I’m honest about it. Maybe that’s something I need to look at. It’s interesting you bring this up.

 

That’s one of the gifts of relationships, whether we’re in them or not, is we can learn so much about ourselves. Part of this is letting somebody love you. In a lot of ways, we put up a lot of barriers so that people won’t love us. It’s like we’re self-sabotaging and talks about manifestation. We do things to get that confirmation bias like, “I’m not lovable.” We repeat these things. We do these things that we don’t even realize they’re putting up so many obstacles and barriers. Every once in awhile, we’re blessed. Not everybody experiences this, but sometimes we are blessed with getting into a relationship with somebody willing to be patient or to work through those barriers. As you’re saying, continue to show up, even when you don’t expect someone to show up. Maybe in your head, you’re thinking, “This person isn’t going to show up for me and I’m not going to let them show up for me. That way I can prove that I’m not lovable or I can prove that nobody can love me. I can get that confirmation bias for being so jaded.”

We set up our partners for failure too in a way because we use that as a way to protect ourselves. It feels safer sometimes to be alone. A lot of people are afraid and keep everybody at an arm’s length. We can go back to that episode we did with Jason Green about attachment styles and all the different ways that we might avoid relationships or become attached to people that we’re not in a good dynamic with. We feel anxious about it. We never feel like we’re good enough. We always feel like we’re doing something wrong or we’re constantly trying to push people away by saying things and doing things. It ends up in this vicious cycle. It’s interesting. I reflect on these things a lot.

There’s something to be said about being in a long-term relationship and letting it unfold as you’re saying too, Jason. You have had an accelerated experience simply because a lot of the times, the first few months, or maybe even the first year or so of a relationship is slowly peeling back the layers on somebody because you’re spending so much time. It depends on the circumstances. How often you’re seeing each other. If you’re only going out on occasional dates, it’s going to take longer to get to know somebody. If you’re spending a ton of time with them, then you get to see them faster because there’s only so much hiding you can do of yourself, especially if you’re in the same space for a while.

That’s why traveling with somebody is often a test of a relationship. When you’re traveling, you’re in closer quarters and you’re put in stressful situations. It’ll be interesting to see the data that comes out about relationships during the quarantine. Some relationships are being massively tested and some are not making it through that test. They’re not together anymore as a result of all the stress from COVID and all the stress from spending so much time together, or maybe not seeing each other. There are several people that have barely seen each other because of the quarantine. The opposite could be true. Those same things that sabotage your relationship in some ways can end up helping a relationship. It certainly is a beautiful opportunity for you to experience somebody in their love for you. It’s not to say that other people for your past haven’t loved you, they’ve loved you differently. This is a way that you haven’t quite experienced before. Maybe this is a type of love that you need and you had never even come across. That’s fascinating.

It’s an increased allowing of it in the sense that I have had a very, not self-deprecating, but almost defensive stance of I’m going to let you love me, but only when I’m at my best. If I’m not at my best or what I perceive as my best, then I’m not worthy of love. That’s the clearest thing that I can come to in this moment of how much I’ve pushed away love or pushed people away because I perceived in the past that I wasn’t “doing my best.” I wasn’t making as much money as I wanted to. I wasn’t successful enough in my career or my body or my health wasn’t where I wanted it to be. Forget ideal partner, once I hit the ideals, I’ve set for myself, then I’ll be worthy of love.

This was something that I tackled for years with my therapist, Gary was this more specific concept, I remember saying this to him a few years ago, “Unless I’m fully healed, who’s going to love me?” I’m bringing my trauma, my confusion, my questions, my working on myself into a relationship, who wants to hold space for that? That’s so heavy. He had to help me unravel that and be like, “There’s no one who’s fully complete on this planet. There’s no one who doesn’t have some shit or trauma or pain or confusion they’re dealing with. That’s part of the human experience. In some ways, Whitney, I was trying to, in some bizarre way, transcend or subvert or avoid that part of my human experience of like bringing that level of what I perceived as “being fucked up” or in pain or confusion or trauma into a relationship because if they see that side of me if they see those parts of who I am or my journey or my work, they’re going to get scared or freaked out or whatever.

There’s this subjugation we go through via the dating apps, the media, Hollywood, the idealization of romance that if it’s not that thing, then it must not be valid. If it doesn’t fit the archetype of what we’ve been raised in, the fairytales, the movies, the songs and all this imprinting we’ve had over our lives, how many of those tails, and there are a few movies. Like Marriage Story with Adam Driver and Scarlet Johansen was phenomenal. By and large, if we look at media and storytelling, there’s not a lot of deep, poignant, honest examples of how difficult human relationships are, getting into the shit, the confusion, the pain and trying to love each other through it. There’s not a lot of examples we have of that. For me, my journey right now is can I bring all of it to the table and be okay with that? Instead of thinking that I have to be a perfected idealized version of myself in order to be lovable.

The opposite is true as well. I was having a conversation with someone earlier and we were discussing somebody else’s relationship that is close to both of us. It’s always interesting. As I get older, I try not to place judgment on my friends or family members’ relationships because you’re not in it yourself. Who are you to judge it? I’ve had to let go of almost like this protectiveness, if I can judge somebody else’s relationship, maybe I’m protecting them somehow. If I can like to determine whether or not this is a good person for them, I can help them through it, watching out for them. What the truth is that person loves this other person for reasons that we will never fully understand. There’s so much within a relationship that no one could understand unless you’re in it. That’s shown me a lot of maturity over the years of letting it go and saying, “That person is on a journey and I’m going to love them and support them.”

It also reminds me of something that happened as a little tangent. I went to a restaurant for the first time and sat down. Not the first time, but the first time since quarantine and the restaurant shut down. There are several restaurants in Los Angeles that are opening up. I felt unsure about it, but there is one in particular that I missed a lot. They had been closed. They weren’t doing takeout during the quarantine. I’d miss their food. I also miss the experience of going there. It felt like a safe place because it was counter service. There was a little bit more cut and dry versus like some traditional restaurants where the wait staff is going back and forth from your table a lot and all that.

Trying to avoid pain in any relationship is fool's gold. It's entirely focusing our energy in the wrong place. Click To Tweet

My precautions aside, what was most fascinating about that meal was not dining in a restaurant for the first time in many months, but the people that were sitting at the table nearby. It was a couple. They were loudly arguing. I should say the man was being very loud. To me, I felt triggered because it seemed like he was being a little emotionally abusive. I was trying to pay attention because I started to get this instinct. Maybe I should say something because I didn’t want to be silent if there was some abuse going on and I kept trying to observe. I was like trying to create a game plan. How could I like to do something without causing any more harm?

Sometimes it’s a very delicate situation where it was a stranger trying to help, you can make things worse. You can trigger the abuse. You have to be very careful in those situations. I thought the only way that I could say anything as if the guy like got up to go to the bathroom and he didn’t the entire time I was there, unfortunately. I also was trying to pay attention to my assumptions and listen in, because it sounded like the woman in that dynamic may have also been saying some things that were triggering the guy. I had to like step back and say, “I have no idea what’s going on here.” I’m like taking the woman’s side automatically, but what do I know about their dynamic? I don’t know, maybe they’re having an argument and it happens to be public.

Maybe they’re having an off day. I have no idea. It was fascinating. It ties back to my point here about this conversation I had earlier, which was about a couple that seems like it’s going to end this relationship. The person I was speaking with was saying how the man in this relationship seems like he may never be in a long-term relationship, such as marriage simply because he’s always looking for the perfect woman. He’s so seemingly obsessed with the ideals that no one will ever be good enough for him.

He’ll always find a flaw. That’s the perception. Who am I or who is this person that I was talking to know we’re only going off of little bits of information that we collect? That’s an interesting thing too. It’s similar to what you’re saying, Jason, about how you’re feeling about yourself, but sometimes we are other people are so fixated on finding that perfect person that keeps us from being in a relationship because there is no perfect person. There truly is no ideal relationship. It’s what works for you in that present moment that you’re in that. As we explored a bit with Sonny in our episode, sometimes it changes like you might think that you’re going to be with this person forever. Maybe your relationship or your marriage feels amazing.

It’s always going to work and no matter what you’re with each other through thick and thin, but that might not always be the case like forever is relative. There is going to be an end at some point, whether something changes in the relationship, one person changes, one person’s desires change, the circumstances change, or even losing somebody for whatever reason, whether it’s death or you decide that you want to live different lives. There are so many factors. It’s a lot more fluid than set in stone even if it is marriage. I’ve also seen people in marriages that didn’t seem like they were going very well, but that person was committed to staying in it, no matter what, whether it was religious reasons or strong commitment.

From the outside, you can judge it and say like, “This person should get out of that relationship.” I also admire people that have stayed in relationships even during incredibly challenging experiences. There’s something to be said for that too.  At this stage, I don’t know if there is a global ideal. It’s what the ideal relationship for you is right now. Just like anything else in life, knowing that could change. Relationships are such a sensitive subject matter because most of us don’t want to be alone. We’re terrified of being lonely and yet we also want to protect ourselves. We know that nobody can truly understand us as much as we understand ourselves. A lot of us don’t even truly understand ourselves anyway. How could we imagine somebody else understanding us?

If we don’t love ourselves, how can we imagine somebody else loving us? We’re two people like magnifying each other’s life challenges, and that can sound terrifying. We cling on to it because as human beings, we’re designed to be connected in one way or another, we survive with each other. We are procreating and adding more human beings to society oftentimes in our relationships. That feels important to the human lifecycle in general. There’s like so much weight that we play some relationships so they become very important to us. They feel complicated. There’s all this pressure. Yet maybe if we step back and realize like there’s no right or wrong way to them, it’s what is in that moment.

I love that you said that there’s no right or wrong way because we’ve talked a lot about formulas, roadmaps and people with their plans. More specifically in previous episodes, we’ve talked about it in terms of business or career or financial successes, “I did it this way and this is how I made my millions. This is how I scaled my company and take my formula and my roadmap and you’ll do it too.” I see the same stuff in relationships online of people, not even relationship experts. These are coaches, influencers that aren’t even in the relationship sphere. Yes to relationship experts, but I see it filtering into other people in the entrepreneurial/wellness/consciousness space.

It’s usually the same story and it goes like this, “I got out of another failed relationship. I was so heartbroken and devastated that I decided that I was going to stay single for, whatever it is, a year or 2 or 3 years. During that time, I worked on myself. I got super clear about how to love myself, optimizing myself care and taking care of me, learning who I was for the first time in my life. I wrote a list of all the ideal qualities I wanted in a man. I learned so much from my previous wounding, took the three years to work on myself and stayed celibate and didn’t date and wrote my list. All of a sudden, one month later, he showed up. We have a new house we bought. I always believed this would come true.”

 

I’m not throwing anyone under the bus. I am saying that this is again, to me, going back to a very pedantic, myopic, privileged position of like, “I did all these things in this way. If you do these things in this way, you’ll get your dream guy too, or your dream girl.” I see a lot of positioning like this of “Do it as I did it, keep believing and don’t give up. I see don’t compromise a lot.” We’ve given fuel to these people. It’s great. If you found someone you jive with like, congratulations, but not poo-pooing the relationship. I’m, poo-pooing the mentality of formula, steps and roadmaps of doing it as I did. You’ll manifest your dream partner too or you’ll make your first million dollars or you’ll scale up your company or you’ll make the Fortune 500,” whatever it is.

There’s so much of this bullshit mentality. It’s bullshit because it’s like all you need to do is do it the way I did it and you’ll have all the things you want to. It starts to feel icky to me when I see that stuff, Whitney. There’s a part of me that goes like, “That’s great.” I’m not taking away people’s happiness when I say this. I’m taking umbrage and issue with the formulaic mentality of doing it like I did it and you’ll have all your dreams come true too. It doesn’t work that way.

Formulations, in general, are a little bit dangerous for lack of a better word because then it can make you feel like if you followed the formulation and you didn’t get it right, something’s wrong with you. If you want to do things differently, you feel like an outlier because your way is different than the other way. We’ve talked about this so much with like expertise, how the danger of expertise is that it can make it feel black and white. This is the right way. This is the wrong way. If you want to fail at something, don’t do these things or do these things and you’re going to set yourself up for things not working out.

I remember at least a couple of times in my history of relationships. When I was going through a rough breakup, I would often turn to guidance to try to figure out like how can I do things differently next time? I would often turn to them during the hardest parts. I was looking for comfort. It was comforting to try to understand it. That’s how I process. It’s like, “If I can understand it better than I’ll be able to heal my pain and I’ll be able to like setting myself up for success.” That’s what led me to read the five love languages for the first time. I’m grateful for that.

That gave me a greater understanding. As I mentioned earlier, I’ve read books on the attachment style and I’m friends with Jason Green, who he had on the show. He’s doing a lot of great workarounds that stuff. It’s interesting to watch his success on TikTok, which is astounding what he’s been able to accomplish through that platform. A lot of people are drawn to his content on relationships or attachment styles because it’s very comforting. It’s like, “Now I understand.” There’s that feeling of if I can cognitively get something, I’m going to do it better next time or maybe I can like understand my way through this, but we’re complex human beings.

It’s very helpful to have those tools and that knowledge, but that doesn’t give you protection. It’s like we’re looking for the answers. The truth is like in life, there are no black and white answers. Relationships being such a huge part of our lives. The fact that we are in a relationship by definition with somebody else. There’s only so much that you can do as a person because that other person has to be doing their work and they have to be on the same page with you.

There’s only so close that we can get to being on the same page. We’re never going to be exactly on the same page. If we’re in a heterosexual relationship, men and women are inherently different, but even in homosexual relationships, I imagine, because you’re the same gender doesn’t mean that it’s easy. Maybe it’s even harder because you’re so similar. Even personality-wise, are you better off with somebody who’s like you, thinks like you, acts like you, lives like you, or maybe it’s beneficial to be in a relationship with somebody different than you. You can complement each other. There are so many different factors. We have aged like should you be the same age as somebody? Is it better to be at different ages? Should the man be older or the woman?

All of these different factors,  there is no perfect formula. There isn’t and some things work when you don’t think that they would work. Some things don’t work even though it seems like they’re checking off all the boxes. When I talk about the dangers of a formula, to me, it’s more of like an emotional danger because it’s all about expectations. If you’re expecting that if you follow a formula that you’re going to get a certain outcome, it’s emotionally tough. If you don’t get that outcome, your expectations are blown apart.

It’s tough when you have expectations in a relationship in general. You’re expecting a certain person to act the way that you do and think the way that you do. Looking back to that dynamic, I saw at the restaurant, what I seem to be witnessing was two people who thought very differently about something from the little bits and pieces I heard. It was like they were both arguing for their positions. You see this in a lot of tension between two people. They’re not seeing eye to eye. They’re both seeing things differently and it can be so frustrating. The older that I get and the more relationships that I’ve been through in my life, the more patients I’m developing for that.

When we fully show up or give ourselves over to something, and it doesn't work out, we find it hard to pick ourselves up and try again. Click To Tweet

Before either I or the person that I was in a relationship with would fight so hard to be understood or to get somebody to see it our way. I feel like I don’t need that person to see it my way. I need for us to both like come to a place of loving each other, no matter what, and respecting each other and listening to one another. It’s like simply that active listening is one of the most powerful things that we can do. Letting go of the expectations of what will happen. A lot of us like to expect that if we do things right, we will get this outcome. If we do things wrong, it won’t go our way.

It’s a good dual-edged sword of if I follow the formula, the roadmap and do everything right, then I’ll get the love I want. There’s also a motivation that’s close to that, which is if I do everything right, and I manifest the partner with all these qualities, then I won’t be hurt again. That edge between checking all the boxes, doing all the things right, and having a person who embodies these qualities means I’ll get the love that I desire, but it also means I won’t get hurt as bad. It’s almost as if we come out of relationships that have ended saying, “I’ll never let that happen again or I’ll never be with someone like that again.” As long as I’m with a person who’s like this that’s different or quote “better.”

One of the mental infections of our society, one of the mental health issues is we’re constantly told we need new, better and different with everything. You got to be new, better and different. It’s no different with relationships. The next one’s got to be new, better and different than the last one because then I’ll get the love I want and I won’t get hurt again. We have to be mindful of what our motivations are. If we’re constantly trying to avoid pain or idealizing things so that we’re not hurt, or we “get what we want” to your point, Whitney doesn’t guarantee a damn thing. To me, if you are committed to knowing yourself, you’re committed to doing the work of healing your trauma and your pain, and doing that in a container of any intimate relationship.

We’re talking about romance now, but I think even deep friendship or deep partnership out of a romantic context. I feel there’s going to be pain no matter what even my deepest friendships. You and I have had many challenging, painful situations in our friendship, but the depth of love that I have for you and the commitment I have to our friendship and the way you and I love each other as friends and colleagues is solid. It’s there and it’s an anchor. It doesn’t mean that I don’t expect you as friends and colleagues. There’s not going to be another challenging situation or another painful moment probably will be. I almost guaranteed there’s going to be. As we know each other and reveal those layers, go deeper, have a commitment to truth and knowing each other, those kinds of situations will arise. I’m at a point where I feel trying to avoid pain in any relationship is fool’s gold. It’s completely focusing our energy in the wrong place.

Another thing that comes up for me too, one of the reasons that we’re looking for this information about how to be in an ideal relationship is like, how can I set myself up so I’m an ideal person? Another part of the pain is being rejected. That feeling of, “I must not be good enough that this person is rejecting me” or like being broken up with like, “What did I do wrong? Maybe I checked off all the boxes. Why doesn’t this person love me?” I’ve been through that too of feeling like, “I must not be good enough because that person doesn’t want to date me” or I must not be good enough because that person broke up with me. That is also incredibly painful of feeling like either I haven’t done enough or wow. I thought I was doing everything right. Yet it still didn’t work out.

It’s devastating because the ladder situation you talked about of I thought checked all of the boxes of what a “good boyfriend is or a good partner is.” It’s still failed. That to me is a particular type of suffering because it has made me a question in the past, if I’m doing everything right or how I think I ought to, or embodying the qualities of a “good boyfriend partner,” why should I even try again? If I did all the right things, I showed up, gave love, was generous and listened and whatever the things are in my mind of what I think that should be, or what the other person told me they wanted. I tried my best to embody those qualities. It’s like a mind virus almost like, “If I couldn’t make this work and showed up and did my best, why try again?”

That’s a painful headspace because in some ways in life and not just relationships, whether it’s sports or something competitive or business or career, whatever, for me, I know when I’ve half-assed stuff. It’s like, “It didn’t work out and almost in a way by not showing up fully in our relationships, again, not romantic, business, career, creative relationships, partnerships, the whole enchilada. It’s almost an out when we have fast shit. It can be used as one, “I don’t care that much.” OR I know I didn’t give my all to it. That’s why it failed. It’s almost like we give ourselves an out when it doesn’t go the way we wanted to. When you in your heart feel like you showed up fully, there’s no real out. It’s not like, “I didn’t give a shit, or I didn’t care that much.” When we fully show up or give ourselves over to something and it doesn’t work out. I have found it hard to pick myself up and try again.

There’s so much ego wrapped up into it as well because it also makes me think about the revenge body. That’s a cliche thing, women. I bet you men do this too. It’s like, “This relationship didn’t work out. I’m going to go change myself and improve my worth. I’m going to go lose weight and get in good shape or do my makeup, or change my hair color, or get a new car or move more money.” It’s like, “Let me show how great I am. You wonder how many times people’s social media accounts are basically like trying to prove how great they are. I’ve done this too. I’ll be the first to admit it like posting things on social media because I know somebody I like follows me. I’m hoping that they’ll see me and see how great I am because of how nice I look in photos. Looking back on that, it’s so cringy, but it’s so common. Have you done that too, Jason? In all seriousness, have you ever posted something online because you’re hoping that it would impress us with a specific person that you were interested in?

I don’t feel like I’ve done that romantically.

 

How about this? Have you ever done it as a way of proving how great you are after somebody rejected you or you went through a breakup like, “Let me show how great my life is online so that person’s going to regret not being with me?”

Yeah. In the context of like, “I’m not suffering for you. Do you think I’m suffering? Fuck you. I’m not suffering. Look.” In my way, yes. Not in a way of like being a thirst trap of like “Look at my abs or look at my muscles or look at my butt.” Not that I would post pictures of my butt online. It’s not that nice or big. In the way of, “You didn’t destroy me. You thought you were going to crush me. No, you didn’t. Look at this. I’m great. I’m in Costa Rica or I adopted a new cat or I bought my new motorcycle.” Those are random examples. Not specifically related to that. I’ve done that of you’re not going to catch me suffering. No. I was suffering privately, but publicly no. I feel like I have done that.

To confront that, step back and think. I’ve done that a lot in my life of using social media to try to prove my worthiness. The lengths of which I would try to go to make myself look like the type of person that somebody else might be interested in. I remember as a kid, when I first was developing romantic feelings or my hormones, however, you would phrase it when I was starting to be interested in boys, I remember very distinctly. I can’t remember if I brought this up, Jason. You’re going to react the same way, even if I have repeated this, but have I ever told you about the time that me and my best friend from childhood and still to this day, we’re very close.

She and I wanted to go find boys. We’re like, “Where are we going to find them? Maybe if we go to the mall and go to the arcade, that’s where the boys are going to be.” Getting dressed up. We were young. I’m estimating we were like ten years old or something. Maybe somewhere like 10 or 11, I don’t know. I remember like going to the mall and going into the arcade, looking for guys and like dressing up a certain way however we thought that we needed to look. It’s funny to reflect on that because we were so young. Who are we going to date back then? Trying to make ourselves look the way that we thought boys would want us to look. As a woman spending so much in my life doing things like that and trying to create this image. There have been instances where I’ve changed part of myself or at least like my outer self or got new hobbies.

Even my vegan story is tied to that. I originally went vegan because of a guy that I was interested in, which is coincidental, somebody else Jason knows separately from me. It’s like my whole journey into being vegan started with a crush that I had and hoping that I could like to impress somebody by changing this huge part of my life. Sometimes that works out to your benefit. There are certain things that I’ve added into my life or changed about myself for somebody else that became for me. That’s why I don’t have regrets about them. The sad part of it for me is like feeling the need to change, feeling the desire to prove myself or not feeling good enough, not feeling accepted or loved, feeling rejected and thinking like, “Maybe if I show them how great I am, they’ll change their mind about me.”

I feel like this is the same mentality that in fact, our business dealings too, Whitney. For the audience to give you a glimpse into the world of online content creators or influencers, and Whitney and I still cringe so much at that word. I wish there was a better word, but it’s an umbrella being used for convenience at this moment. This idea of not being good enough, proving our worth and showing our worth is such a dangerous place mentally to be in because of book deals, TV deals, brand endorsements, clothing endorsements and the beauty industry. Many aspects of marketing now, if you are a writer, an author, a content creator, a YouTuber, a person who specializes in a specific industry, how much you get paid from a corporate sponsor or brand sponsor, a publisher, a TV network.

The things are all very much tied to your online following and your numbers. They’re constantly not everyone, but the industry is driven by your numbers. When one has a conversation with a publisher or a TV network or a brand sponsor, a lot of times more often than not, how big is your platform? What’s your platform where your numbers at like that comes into the conversation. You can understand why that is because these entities want to invest their marketing dollars in something that’s going to give them some semblance of an ROI in terms of eyeballs, views, comments, click-throughs, conversions. We get that.

It’s putting us in a position as human beings of evaluating our inherent worth based on these external numbers and digital platforms, based on how much money we make, or how much success these “gatekeepers” will give us in the world. It’s hard mentally to navigate that space. When you’re rejected or you get past on a book deal, or you get passed on a brand partnership. There have been situations where I’ve seen it go to other people. I was passed on something and saw it go to someone else. It’s like, “I need to do a lot of work around my self-worth in comparison now.”

That’s a direct comparison with relationships. I’m sure you have. You see somebody break up with you and then they move on to somebody else. When they get married or something to the next person. It’s so similar that feeling of, “I wasn’t good enough, but this next person was. This person was chosen over me.”

There's no perfect formula and no actual ideal relationship outside of what's ideal for you in your life at this moment. Click To Tweet

It’s more opportunities life is giving us to love ourselves. Get to the heart of inadequacies we feel or ways that we start to feel like it goes back to the not good enough of what did I do wrong? How am I not good enough? Did I not show up? No matter what we do, as you said, Whitney, whether it’s a business relationship, a career thing, a partnership, romantic, whatever the context of human relationship is, we can never control or manipulate how someone else is going to choose to think about us, react to us, respond to us, or treat us. We can inform that person of, “I prefer you didn’t speak to me that way” or “I don’t want you to treat me this way or “Could you treat me with more kindness?” We can request and be very clear about how we want to be treated in the container of that relationship. We have zero control over another person’s thoughts, reactions, interpretations and meaning they assigned to things. We have no control over what is going on inside that person’s universe. This idea that we do the things the right way and we check all the boxes. I was my best self. Why didn’t this work out? It’s because we can’t control another person. We can’t do it.

It takes a lot of mindfulness. That’s what this comes down to is that self-awareness and being mindful about your relationship dynamics. Having an idea of what you want is helpful for a lot of things, the path to getting what you want is usually paved by clarity and having a direction to go in. Relationships are tricky and businesses too. Coming back to Jason’s point is that you can want things in your life, whether it’s love, money, success, all of these things that we go after as human beings. We have to let go of attachments and expectations because we don’t have that much control.

We do have control over our desires to an extent we have control over our behavior. The best that we can do is focus on that present moment, finding peace, gratitude and love at that moment. Knowing that our lives can change for better or for worse, they can feel good. In the next moment, they might feel worse. In the next moment, they might feel good or bad. Without us having control over how another person acts and behaves towards us and thinks about us, that’s why relationships feel so tricky and vulnerable is because we don’t feel like we have control. A lot of the control that we feel that we have in life is not there. Most things are very uncertain. That’s why mindfulness is so key that personal awareness. For me, what I aim is to be happy, grateful and address things moment by moment and try not to control them, try not to predict them, try not to be attached to expectations.

One of the ways that we try to protect ourselves is like, “If I take care of myself, then I’ll be good. I’ll be safe. Nobody else is going to have any effect on me.” It’s a little bit different in relationships. It’s like, “Yeah, you might need to put on the oxygen mask first, but then you also should be aware of how your actions and behavior affecting other people and how they’re feeling. Do your very best to take care of them as best you know-how. That’s part of the reason some people are afraid to be in relationships that seem so scary, complicated and so much work. It’s like, “I’d rather be alone. I’d rather push people away and keep them at an arm’s length. I’m going to sabotage things and all of that.”

There’s no right or wrong. If it feels better for you, more comfortable being alone, I’m not going to judge you for that. I have some friends in my life that haven’t been in a relationship for a long time and that might be a comfort thing. It’s our role here with this show to encourage you to go outside your comfort zone and continue to re-examine things and know that there isn’t a right or wrong. There are formulas. My point is there’s no like perfect formula and maybe no actual ideal relationship outside of what’s ideal for you in your life at this moment. Maybe that feels scary to people. Maybe they want to follow a rule. Maybe it feels safer, more comfortable to follow a formula and feel like they’re getting it right and feel bad when they’re getting it wrong. I feel better knowing that there is no right or wrong. I’m going to try to feel my best and do my best in every given moment and lead with my heart. I feel best when I’m centered, know that I’m giving myself love and putting out love into the world the best I know how at that moment. Allowing myself to grow my mindfulness, grow my awareness and stay curious every day.

There was an article I read, Whitney as a tangent, but related to what you said about Bruce Lee. It was an article about whether or not Bruce Lee would be an MMA champion, a Mixed Martial Arts champion? Did Bruce Lee ever win any real fights? That’s not the point of Bruce Lee’s fighting prowess. It went into his philosophy about life and how he is raised in Wing Chun, Kung Fu and being trained by a very traditional martial art. Bruce Lee died at 32 throughout his short life, his wonderful life, he created his version, his martial art called Jeet Kune Do, which his philosophy was no philosophy at all.

If you’re following formula, if you’re following a tradition, if you’re following a rigid fixed system, you never have the ability to adapt to life situations, not fights and protecting yourself, but life in general. One of Bruce Lee’s biggest quotes is “Be like water, my friend.” Him going on an interesting talk about how water takes the form of whatever you put it in. It can be liquid in a cup. It can be vapor. It can be ice. It takes on whatever form it’s given. When it comes to relationships, the philosophy I’m starting to look at Whitney is very similar to the philosophy of looking at our lifestyle, our diet, our exercise, how we connect with people.

How we relate to the world is that if people are looking for one system to define themselves for the rest of their life, whether that’s an eating philosophy or a way of looking at the world or a meditation technique or yoga practice. There’s this real desire in people like, “I found the way. This is the way this is the only yoga I’m going to practice for the rest of my life. This is the only way I’m going to eat. This is the only way I’m going to worship. This is the only way I’m going to do for my career.” It’s ignoring that we as human beings are incredibly dynamic beings.

We’re ever-changing. We’re ever-growing. We’re ever-evolving, not on a cellular level, on a level of consciousness, on a level of spirit, on a level of the experiences shaping us and our being in different ways. Instead of being in a rigid fixed system or a formulaic mentality, not in a relationship, we encourage you, our audience, to examine how fluidity, change, evolution and growth plays a role in your life. If there are any systems or ways of being that you’re attached to in your life that is maybe no longer serving you in certain ways, can you let go of those rigidly fixed systems and maybe be open to a different input and different information and living differently?

 

That’s our encouragement to you. Something that I’m looking at every single day and thinking about how I can be more fluid and adaptive in life. That being said, we have so many great resources for you, our audience, on our website, Wellevatr.com. We have all of the episodes of This Might Get Uncomfortable along with the videos, documentaries, books, links, quotes, anything of importance, virtue and depth that we referenced during the episodes. You will also find some free resources on our website including our eBooks. You are enough and also are a growing library of courses, including The Consistency Code and Wellness Warrior Training if you want to get even more tools, techniques and trainings on your mental and emotional wellness. You can also connect with us on all of the social media platforms, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, and Pinterest @Wellevatr.

What we love most is hearing from you directly. Whenever we get emails from our audience and supporters, that is so fantastic, including our patrons on Patreon. We also do have a Patreon account. We have some great supporters there. If you want to check that out, it is Patreon.com/Wellevatr. If you want to get ahold of us directly, shoot us an email, [email protected] We will be back again soon with more content about how we navigate this crazy little thing called life. Until then, we love you. We appreciate you. Thanks for getting uncomfortable with us!

Important Links

*We use affiliate links in our show notes. This means we receive a small sales commission if you purchase an item based on our recommendation.

• JasonWrobel.com
• Whitney Lauritsen.com
• Elements of an Ideal Relationship – Previous episode
• Attachment Styles and the World of Dating with Jason Green – Previous episode
• Cruelty-Free Lifestyle, Conscious Beauty and Ageism with Sunny Subramanian – Previous Episode
• Danielle LaPorte
• The Desire Map
• Abraham-Hicks
• Understanding Toxic Masculinity – Previous episode
• Gary Glickman, PhD, MFT
• Marriage Story
• Jason Green TikTok Channel
• Could Bruce Lee Win a Real Fight? – ESPN Article
• The Consistency Code
• Wellness Warrior Training
• Wellevatr on Patreon

 

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