00:00:00- I found on Reddit five questions to ask yourself
00:00:04if you're unsure about your relationship.
00:00:05- Okay.
00:00:06- Number one, if someone told you
00:00:08you're a lot like your partner,
00:00:09would this be a compliment to you?
00:00:11Number two, are you truly fulfilled or just less lonely?
00:00:16Number three, are you able to be unapologetically yourself
00:00:19or do you feel the need to show up differently
00:00:21to please your partner?
00:00:22- It's a good one.
00:00:22- Number four, are you in love with who your partner is
00:00:25right now as a whole or are you only in love
00:00:27with their good side, their potential, or the idea of them?
00:00:30And number five, would you want your future
00:00:32or imagined child to date somebody like your partner?
00:00:35- These are good questions.
00:00:38Those are good questions.
00:00:40I think as well, would you...
00:00:43I think this is a good one.
00:00:44If you and your partner had a child and then you died
00:00:49and your child was gonna be raised by them and only them
00:00:56with all of their habits, values, behaviors,
00:00:59would that worry you or would you feel like that was a problem
00:01:04or would you be super happy with it?
00:01:06- Wow, yeah.
00:01:07Are you basically hoping that your future parenting,
00:01:12you're going to act as a gatekeeper or as a magnifier?
00:01:15It's like, oh, well, I'll be there,
00:01:18so I'll be able to protect them from the parent
00:01:21or I'm happy to get the fuck out of the way
00:01:24because they're much better than I am.
00:01:25They're a much better person than I am.
00:01:27There was another one that I read this year
00:01:29that I thought was so fucking interesting,
00:01:31which was a question to ask yourself
00:01:34if you're unsure about your relationship.
00:01:36If you could wake up tomorrow morning
00:01:39and the relationship was over
00:01:40without you having to say it to them,
00:01:43would you feel relief or would you feel wistfulness?
00:01:52- I always remember having a dream about someone
00:01:56that I was, at the time, really heartbroken over.
00:01:59And it was like the moment I realized
00:02:05something had truly shifted in me that meant I was better.
00:02:08'Cause in the dream, we got back together,
00:02:14and then within five minutes of getting back together
00:02:19in the dream, the same things that made my life hell
00:02:23in the relationship were happening again.
00:02:29And I suddenly in the dream thought, what have I done?
00:02:33Like, I've made a terrible mistake here.
00:02:35Why did I go back?
00:02:37Why am I back in this situation?
00:02:39And I woke up and I realized the nightmare was being back.
00:02:43The nightmare wasn't having been heartbroken.
00:02:49And that was a very, I'm not big on dreams,
00:02:54don't get me wrong, but that was a very profound moment
00:02:59for me to realize like, oh, I'm finally,
00:03:03like my brain has switched.
00:03:05But I do even remember, even in the midst
00:03:10of the worst heartbreak of my life,
00:03:11I do remember a sense of relief.
00:03:17And I don't wanna say for one second
00:03:21I wasn't in the worst pain, 'cause I was in terrible pain.
00:03:25And I was questioning myself, I was questioning my worth.
00:03:28I was like in a dark place.
00:03:30But I still remember feeling a sense of relief
00:03:35when I thought I don't have to continue
00:03:39to feel the way that I did, because I was so anxious.
00:03:44I was like a version of me that I really didn't,
00:03:48not just didn't like, but that I didn't,
00:03:51it was a version of me that was like
00:03:55the worst possible version of me in many ways.
00:03:58And I felt this sense of relief that no matter what,
00:04:02even if this is the worst heartbreak ever,
00:04:04I don't have to, I no longer have to feel that anxiety.
00:04:09I'm now deeply, deeply heartbroken in its place,
00:04:14but I don't have to feel that anxiety.
00:04:17- Definitely one of the pains I think that people feel,
00:04:25the sort of odd kind of inheritance of a relationship
00:04:28that went on too long when you knew
00:04:29that you should have left, is the sentence,
00:04:32and the worst thing of all is I lost myself.
00:04:35You know, because the relationship is now over,
00:04:38but there is this weird inheritance
00:04:41that future single you has gotten from the relationship,
00:04:45which is this weird parasite or, you know, pattern
00:04:50that was a part of that, and unfortunately,
00:04:56because of how long you have tried to fold yourself
00:04:59into a shape to make this person happy, you have left,
00:05:04but the shape that you're in has remained in part.
00:05:08And I think that the knowledge of that,
00:05:11the knowledge that, well, I don't think
00:05:14that I am the person that I was
00:05:15when I got into this relationship anymore,
00:05:17a person who I preferred to the person that I am now,
00:05:20is another motivation for not leaving.
00:05:22Because you say, well, I'm not even me,
00:05:25because that's more sunk cost fallacy,
00:05:26that's more loss aversion, right?
00:05:28And you go, well, when I get out of this,
00:05:30I can't even do the things that I did
00:05:35to get myself into this.
00:05:37So like, my value, maybe my stock has decreased,
00:05:40but worst of all, my stock has decreased
00:05:42because of something that that person did to me.
00:05:45So I'm gonna get them to redeem me.
00:05:47- I always remember, I don't even know,
00:05:52I don't know Jordan Peterson's work very well,
00:05:54but I always remember hearing something
00:05:56or reading something about the lobsters.
00:05:58- Yeah, yeah.
00:05:59- And what is it, what is it?
00:06:00A defeated lobster sort of gets,
00:06:02it's like affected afterwards.
00:06:04I had, that gave me like this invasive thought
00:06:08that like, yeah, this like, what if I am the lobster
00:06:12that now is like, you know, there's some,
00:06:16I now walk away as this permanently sort of
00:06:19- Scarred thing.
00:06:20- Yeah, a little red crustacean.
00:06:23- The weird thing is, I think people have this fear
00:06:29that leaving is going to make them lonely.
00:06:35But in relationships where most of your time
00:06:40is spent questioning whether or not
00:06:41this is the right relationship, you're already alone.
00:06:45You're already alone in this relationship
00:06:49and leaving is the first step to stopping that.
00:06:54- And that will bring on the, you know,
00:06:58all of those feelings will come to a kind of crescendo
00:07:01at that point and, you know, there'll be heartbreak to go
00:07:04through and all of that.
00:07:06And, you know, any good coach or therapist,
00:07:11when someone is going through the most acute heartbreak,
00:07:14is not going to start by saying,
00:07:17why did you let that go on for so long?
00:07:19They're going to start by just treating the wound.
00:07:25Like let's, we have to get you back to a, you know,
00:07:28feeling of safety again, of, you know,
00:07:32getting, lessening this acute pain that you're feeling.
00:07:37But at a certain point, the question will come,
00:07:41somewhere down the line, what happened there?
00:07:45Like what was, now that we're in a better place,
00:07:48what actually happened in that situation?
00:07:51You know, what was going on that made you ignore
00:07:57your intuition?
00:07:59By the way, not instincts.
00:08:03Instincts and intuition are different.
00:08:05- How do you distinguish those?
00:08:07- Your intuition might be telling you something's not right.
00:08:11Like some, this isn't, I shouldn't be treated like this,
00:08:14or I should be in a relationship that's not this hard
00:08:16or whatever.
00:08:17Your intuition can tell you that.
00:08:19Your instincts, as my boxing trainer used to say,
00:08:24will get you killed.
00:08:26'Cause your instinct might be, I feel unsafe, try harder.
00:08:31I, you know, I'm not getting love.
00:08:34Try harder, do more, stay in it.
00:08:37Instincts are what tell you when you get sucked out
00:08:40by a riptide in the ocean, to swim straight back to shore.
00:08:45And the riptide's stronger than you, so you die.
00:08:48The, your instincts won't tell you swim,
00:08:51take a longer part, you already feel like you're gonna die?
00:08:54Take a longer swim back, swim sideways,
00:08:58parallel to the ocean or to the shoreline,
00:09:01and then swim around once you're out of the tide.
00:09:03Your instincts won't tell you that.
00:09:05Your instincts in boxing don't tell you to slip.
00:09:10Your instincts in boxing tell you to blink,
00:09:12right at the time where you need to have your eyes.
00:09:15So it's in a relationship we all, most of us at least,
00:09:21have some bad instincts that have been trained.
00:09:25And those instincts get us into a lot of trouble.
00:09:27And actually, it's not, your instincts aren't necessarily
00:09:31you listening to yourself or that deeper voice.
00:09:34Your instincts are actually often what get in the way
00:09:36of that deeper voice and stop you protecting yourself.
00:09:40So to add some compassion and some comfort to that idea
00:09:45that we get into this thing and then I'm afraid to leave
00:09:49because I don't wanna be the version of me
00:09:50that is like realizes I've now lost myself
00:09:53and I feel like I'm starting from further behind
00:09:56and all of that.
00:09:57I think in many ways we shouldn't focus on the person
00:10:04that has become the object of all of this anxiety
00:10:08and cortisol and fight or flight.
00:10:12We should instead see them as a kind of like
00:10:16a revealer of something.
00:10:18Like there's something was already there in me
00:10:23and that could have been ignited by 10 different people
00:10:28like this.
00:10:29And if it wasn't gonna be ignited by this person,
00:10:32there's a very good chance it was gonna be ignited
00:10:35by somebody else.
00:10:36And in a way, it might be a blessing that it got ignited
00:10:41by this person this year than someone 10 years from now.
00:10:47Because if this draws my attention to some,
00:10:50like it's not our, I wanna be very clear about something.
00:10:54I'm not saying it's our fault when someone treats us poorly.
00:10:58But when we ignore certain behaviors,
00:11:04when we continue to put ourselves in the firing line,
00:11:07it's worth, it's in some ways powerful to know,
00:11:12okay, that revealed that, that showed me that.
00:11:15I now, it's not that I'm further behind.
00:11:18It's that I got, it became revealed exactly where I am.
00:11:21And now that I know that, that's beautiful.
00:11:27I know, forewarned is forearmed.
00:11:30I now know that that's something happened to me there
00:11:35instead of personalizing it,
00:11:37which actually makes this person too powerful.
00:11:40I shouldn't make this person that powerful.
00:11:42They're not that powerful.
00:11:43In our love lives, we have a tendency to make people
00:11:46into angels and demons.
00:11:48You know, they're either the angel on the pedestal
00:11:50that can do no wrong, and that's false.
00:11:53Or they're the demon that has like got so much power over us
00:11:56because of, you know, the way they've hurt us
00:11:58and what they've become.
00:11:59And that gives them way too much power as well.
00:12:01I think instead it's like, no,
00:12:03let me take both of you off that pedestal
00:12:05and give you a lot less respect.
00:12:09And instead realize that all you were was the person
00:12:14that I met along the way that revealed something
00:12:16that was already there in me.
00:12:18And you're not so powerful
00:12:19that only you could have revealed that.
00:12:21There's a thousand people
00:12:22that could have revealed that about me.
00:12:24But what I do now get to do is address that.
00:12:28And me addressing that today might be the thing
00:12:31that actually allows me to find healthy love.
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00:13:43Thank you very much for tuning in.
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00:13:51Go on, press it.