Falling in love can be one of the most beautiful experiences in the world, but it can also be the place where we lose ourselves.
Today, Jay invites us to pause and reflect on how we fall in love, and what it’s costing us when we do. Love, he explains, isn’t meant to complete us or rescue us from our pain; it’s meant to add to a life that already feels rooted and whole. Too often, we mistake intensity for intimacy and attachment for alignment, ignoring the subtle signals that tell us whether a relationship is helping us grow or quietly pulling us away from who we are.
Jay unpacks the biggest mistakes we make in love, beginning with the habit of outsourcing our emotional healing. When we rely on a partner to regulate our emotions, fix our wounds, or validate our worth, love becomes a burden rather than a blessing. He encourages us to tune into the signals that matter most, how you feel after conversations, whether your energy expands or contracts, and if your values are being respected. These signals aren’t signs of failure; they’re invitations to deeper self-awareness and healthier connection.
In this episode, you'll learn:
How to Fall in Love Without Losing Yourself
How to Stop Making Love Your Identity
How to Let Love Add to Your Life, Not Replace It
How to Heal Yourself Without Relying on a Partner
How to Recognize Emotional Red Flags Early
How to Choose Someone Who Respects Your Life
How to Build Love That Supports Your Growth
Love doesn’t have to feel like losing yourself, proving your worth, or shrinking to be chosen. It can be calm, supportive, and deeply affirming when it’s built from self-respect and clarity.
With Love and Gratitude,
Jay Shetty
JAY’S DAILY WISDOM DELIVERED STRAIGHT TO YOUR INBOX
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What We Discuss:
00:00 Intro
01:11 How to Fall in Love Without Losing Yourself
02:10 The Biggest Mistake We Make in Love
03:42 #1: Love Should Bring More Join In
08:12 #2: Don't Outsource Your Emotional Healing
09:57 #3: Don't Ignore the Signals
13:14 #4: The Three Love Boundaries You Mustn't Cross
16:05 #5: Fall in Love with Someone Who Loves Your Life
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I've seen so many good people who are excited, desperate,
or impatient make bad decisions in love. Here's how not
to be one of them. See falling in love can
be one of the most beautiful experiences in the world,
but it can also be the place where people disappear,
not physically but emotionally, mentally, identity wise. We've all seen it, right.
(00:25):
Someone meets a person they're excited about, and slowly their
world becomes smaller. Their friends see them less, their goals
get blurry, their routines fall apart, their sense of self
starts to merge into the other person until they can't
recognize where they end and where the relationship begins. So
many of us dissolve into our relationships. One of the
(00:48):
most shocking things is how many people will push away
when we think we found our person. Your person won't
let you push them away, and you won't because you
won't leave your life for someone else. Because love was
never meant to erase you. Love was meant to reveal you.
(01:10):
So today I want to show you how to fall
in love or deepen love without losing the most important
relationship you'll ever have, the one with yourself. This episode
is for people who want a relationship this year, or
want to strengthen the one they're in without losing their independence,
(01:30):
or their identity or their inner compass. By the end
of these thirty minutes, you'll understand how to build a
relationship that feels like support not sacrifice, alignment not abandonment,
growth not disappearance. Let's get into it. So why do
we lose ourselves in love? Psychologists call it self expansion theory,
(01:55):
the idea that we merge with someone we love to
grow and banned our identity. Now that's healthy. What's not
healthy is when expansion becomes erasure. Here's what often happens.
The biggest mistake we make in love is we confuse
being chosen with being safe. We confuse intensity with intimacy.
(02:22):
We confuse butterflies with compatibility. We confuse staying together with
growing together. We confuse someone needing us with someone valuing us.
Let me give you a real life example. I once
coached someone who, whenever she entered a relationship, would slowly
give up the parts of her life that made her her.
(02:46):
She stopped her hobbies first, then she stopped seeing friends.
She adjusted her goals, then her schedule, then her standards.
When I asked why, she said, I didn't want to
lose them, but the irony was heartbreaking. She was losing
herself to keep someone else. And the research is clear,
(03:09):
people who lose their identity in relationships experience more anxiety,
more conflict, and more insecurity. You know why because when
you collapse your identity into someone else, you no longer
know what keeps you steady. When they pull away, you
know it's time to leave. When dependency replaces partnership, when
(03:33):
fear replaces love, when hope replaces habits. So here's our
first principle. Love should bring more joy in rather than
take more joy out. Love should give you the opportunity
to be more of you, not less of you. Love
(03:56):
should be the doorway to express yourself fully, not hide
parts of yourself. If you find yourself losing yourself, it's
you doing it to yourself. We often say you made
me do that, But if you're aware, if someone is
manipulating you, is shifting you in that direction, don't just
(04:19):
let go. It feels good at a start to give
up everything you love for what they love, only to
realize that if they loved you, why would you do
that so it's so important to know our priorities before
we get into a relationship. If you're in a relationship,
make sure you know what those priorities are too. So
(04:39):
remember keep your life big. One of the biggest predictors
of long term relationship success is how full your life
is outside the relationship. That's so counterintuitive, right. One of
the biggest reasons you'll stay together with someone for a
long time is if your life is good individually and
their life is good individually. Why. Because you bring greatness
(05:02):
to each other, you inspire each other. Science actually backs
this up. Studies on relationship satisfaction show that people who
maintain friendships, people who maintain hobbies, people who maintain passions,
people who maintain personal goals routines, all of that experience stronger, healthier,
(05:23):
more secure relationships because your partner fell in love with
a whole person, not a person who made them their
whole world. Imagine love like a beautiful new room in
your house. It expands your life, but it doesn't replace
the entire structure. Here's a quick exercise. List five things
(05:47):
you love doing alone. Now list five people who love
you outside the relationship. Now list five goals that have
nothing to do with love. These aren't extras or fillers,
their anchors and anchors are what keep you steady when
the waves come. One of my favorite quotes that I've
(06:09):
heard is, don't become less so someone else can feel
like more. Don't become smaller just to fit inside a
relationship that refuses to grow with you. Don't become who
they prefer if it means forgetting who you are. Don't
become responsible for someone else's insecurities at the cost of
(06:33):
your own confidence. Don't fall in love too fast. It's
when we fall fast that we ignore the mistakes. It's
when we fall fast that we don't see clearly. When
we slow down, when we're patient, everything becomes visible. We
can make better judgments, better choices, know our options better,
(06:57):
and ultimately fall in love at a pace where love
can always exist. When you fall in love fast, you
usually fall out of it as quick. When you fall
in love slow, it has the ability to outlast any
relationship you've ever had. Here's principle too, don't outsource your
(07:20):
emotional homework. Our generation has a quiet habit. We want
our partners to heal what we've never addressed. We want
them to heal our abandonment wounds. We want them to
heal our insecurities. We want them to heal our loneliness.
We want them to heal our self worth. We want
them to heal our emotional history. But that's not love,
(07:43):
that's outsourcing. A partner can support your healing, but they
cannot be your healing. A partner can support your growth,
but they can't do your growth. A partner can hold
your hand while you heal, but they can't walk the
path for you. Research shows that the healthiest relationships are
(08:07):
built by people who bring self awareness into the relationship,
not self abandonment. Tell your partner how you feel. If
you're anxious, name it. If you're avoidant, understand it if
you're triggered, Explore it. If you're overwhelmed, communicate it. Love
can flourish when two people are growing, not when one
(08:30):
person becomes the emotional life raft for the other person.
You can't expect someone to complete you when you haven't
met yourself completely. You can't expect someone to complete you
when you're still looking for love to fill the gaps
you refuse to face. You can't expect someone to complete
(08:50):
you when you're asking them to heal wounds they never caused.
You can't expect someone to complete you when you haven't
met the version of yoursel that's ready for real love.
(09:21):
Principal three, don't ignore the signals. People lose themselves in
love overnight because they don't stay vigilant about the signs
they see. These are the signs you're losing yourself in
a relationship. You apologize for things that aren't your fault.
(09:42):
Your partner's preferences always override yours. Your goals feel smaller
and theirs feel more important. Your voice feels quieter and
theirs feels louder. Your boundaries get blurry and they don't
respect them. Your world gets narrower, and you stop checking
(10:04):
in with yourself. Hearing this from a friend broke my heart.
They said, I love him, but I don't love who
I become around him. That sentence says everything. If love
is costing you yourself, it's not worth it. Healthy love
(10:24):
won't ask you to shrink. It won't punish your ambition,
It won't resent your independence, It won't dim your light.
Because healthy love says, stay who you are, Grow alongside me,
not beneath me. Stop ignoring red flags, just because you're
attracted to them. Stop avoiding red flags just because you
(10:47):
don't want to start over again. Stop avoiding red flags
because the attention feels good after a long time without it.
Stop avoiding red flags because you're scared this might be
the best you'll get. Stop avoiding red flags because you're
hoping their potential will one day become their reality. Whenever
(11:10):
anyone breaks up and I asked them if they saw
the signs, they can name all of them. They never
turned up on time, They never really messaged back. They
made me chase them a little. They never fully gave
me their attention when we were out together. They never
defended me in front of someone who is being harsh.
(11:30):
They never encouraged my independence. When I told them what
I wanted to do, they didn't really have anything to say.
All of a sudden, when someone breaks up with you,
you can see everything clearly, But when you were with them,
you let go of it because you were attracted to
how they sounded, how they looked, what they did for work,
what people thought about them. So many of us don't
(11:52):
listen carefully to these signals. So many of us avoid
these red flags that are staring us in the face,
and I get it. It's exciting, it's enthralling, it's intoxicating.
Right when you find that person and it feels good,
I get it. I know you want to be held,
You want to feel safe. But do you want to
(12:13):
be held for a night or held for your life?
Do you want to feel insecure when you're with them
and still look for safety elsewhere? Do you want to
say and here, I love you, but not really believe it.
So many of us avoid red flags because we're moving
(12:36):
too fast. Here's principal four, the three love lines you
must never cross. These are three boundaries the healthiest couples
never compromise. Number one autonomy. You maintain your own thoughts, interests,
and choices. The right person is not trying to change
(13:00):
your interests and your choices. They may help you understand
them more. They may help you learn about them more.
They're not making you want more. If your partner doesn't
want to start a business and you convince them they should,
that doesn't mean you care about them. You just projected
your goals onto them. If your partner feels you are
(13:21):
not ambitious enough, you get to ask yourself what ambition
means to you? You get to ask yourself what success
means to you. Number two equity. Both people give, both
people receive, not ninety ten, not eighty twenty. Partnership means partnership.
(13:42):
And here's the thing. In long term relationships, there will
be times when one person does more than the other,
knowing that a few years later the other person could
be doing more. But the point is both people are
willing to give and receive and show up for each other.
And the third is emotional honesty. If you're in a
(14:03):
healthy relationship, you can express discomfort without fear. You can
say I need this without feeling judged. You can say
that hurt me without feeling weak. You can say I'm
scared without triggering the other person. Couples who maintain these
(14:24):
boundaries report stronger long term satisfaction and lower conflict because
the relationship becomes a place of truth, not performance. Principal
five fall in love with someone who loves your life,
not just you. One of the biggest mistakes people make
(14:45):
is falling for someone who loves them but doesn't love
their lifestyle, their dreams, their values, their growth, their relationships,
their independence. If someone loves only the parts of you
that serve them, it's not love, it's possession. Real love
says I don't want to be your whole life. I
(15:08):
want to be a part of the life you're living.
The right partner isn't threatened by your dreams, they're inspired
by them. The right partner doesn't shrink your world, They
expand it. The right partner doesn't steal your identity, they
celebrate it. If someone requires your disappearance in order to stay,
(15:32):
they're not your person. They're a limitation. So many of
us get manipulated. We get limited by people who make
our feel our dreams are too small. I'm sure you've
been with someone before and you said, hey, this is
what I'm thinking of doing, and they said, well, I
don't know if you can really do that. I don't
know if that's really possible. Now they may be saying
(15:52):
it from a good intention, but you want someone who
engages with that and goes, how about tell me about it.
I want to know about it. By the way I've
made this mistake is well, sometimes the realist in me
can just be like, hey, yeah, I don't think that's
going to work. And I've had to learn that when
someone's sharing an idea with me, I've got to engage
with their excitement. I've got to engage with their enthusiasm.
(16:13):
I've got to engage with their energy about this. I
actually have so many friends last year who broke up
with their partners because their partners didn't like to see
them shine. And this has become a real challenge right now.
So many people are struggling with this where they're with
someone who doesn't want to see them work hard, who
(16:33):
doesn't want to see them achieve, who doesn't want to
see them grow because they'd prefer they played small so
that it makes them feel better. If someone doesn't want
you to win so that they feel better about themselves,
they're not your person. If someone doesn't want you to
grow so that they don't feel small, they're not your person.
(16:54):
If someone doesn't want you to achieve things so that
they don't feel behind, and they're not your person. Your
person will want you to be the best version of
you and tried to become the best version of them,
because it's not a competition, it's connection. I once met
(17:15):
a couple who'd been together for forty years. They didn't
talk about soulmates or destiny or perfect matches. They said
something far more profound. We built two whole lives and
then learned how to walk side by side. Their secret.
They never stopped becoming individuals. They never stopped tending to
(17:38):
their friendships. They never stopped learning about each other. They
never stopped growing together. They never stopped growing individually. They
never stopped choosing themselves, and they never stopped choosing each other.
They understood that the healthiest relationships are not two halves
(17:58):
becoming one, the two people walking side by side, staying connected.
That's what's so interesting. We feel like we become one.
When you meet the one you merge. It's you have
one life. Now, it's a mistake. If two minds, two brains,
two hearts, how can you have one life. There's two
(18:21):
lives that matter, and then the life of your relationship.
So here's the truth that I want to leave you with.
You can fall in love this year without losing yourself.
You can be committed and still be independent. You can
give without disappearing. You can love someone deeply and still
(18:42):
on the person you're becoming. Love is not meant to
erase you. Love is meant to elevate you. So remember this.
Choose the love that expands your world, not one that
replaces it. Choose a love that helps you grow, not
one you have to shrink for. Choose a love that
(19:03):
feels like partnership, not self abandonment. And most importantly, choose
a love where you don't lose yourself because the right
person will never ask you to. If you just went
through a breakup, I hope this episode helps you. If
you're in a relationship, I hope this episode helps you.
(19:24):
And if you're looking for love, I hope this episode
helps you. I made this episode because I think we
cause ourselves so much pain when we fall in love fast,
ignore the red flags, lose ourselves, don't protect ourselves, override
our beliefs and values in order to desperately find love,
(19:46):
only to still be alone at the end of it.
Here's the sad truth. We change who we are so
that they'll stay, and then they leave because we changed.
It's so interest We lose people, not because we were inadequate,
but because we lost ourselves and that person wasn't our person.
(20:11):
I think we put so much pressure on finding the
person that we think if we find someone who shows
interest in us, then that's enough, not realizing that interest
doesn't mean long term intimacy. It doesn't mean long term connection.
It doesn't mean that. So when I'm telling you do
not lose yourself in a relationship, it's so that you
(20:32):
always have yourself, so that you have the person you
can rely on, so that you have the person who
protects you. And then when you do find the right person,
you'll be able to build something together. Whereas hoping everyone's
the right person and pretending someone's the right person. How
many times have you ever done that? Where you meet
someone and you make them the perfect person. You make
(20:53):
them the right person because that's what you want. You
don't even get to know them because you're just projecting
what you want onto them. I hope this episode saves
you time and from the pain of lessons that you
don't need to learn yourself. Thank you for listening. I
hope you've subscribed. Remember I'm forever in your corner and
(21:14):
I'm always rooting for you. Hey, everyone, if you love
that conversation, go and check out my episode with the
world's leading therapist, Lourie Gottlieb, where she answers the biggest
questions that people ask in therapy when it comes to love, relationships, heartbreak,
and dating. If you're trying to figure out that space
right now, you won't want to miss this conversation. If
(21:37):
it's a romantic relationship, hold hands. It's really hard to argue.
It actually calms your nervous systems. Just hold hands as
you're having the conversation. It's so lovely.
I've seen so many good people who are excited, desperate,
or impatient make bad decisions in love. Here's how not
to be one of them. See falling in love can
be one of the most beautiful experiences in the world,
but it can also be the place where people disappear,
not physically but emotionally, mentally, identity wise. We've all seen it, right.
(00:25):
Someone meets a person they're excited about, and slowly their
world becomes smaller. Their friends see them less, their goals
get blurry, their routines fall apart, their sense of self
starts to merge into the other person until they can't
recognize where they end and where the relationship begins. So
many of us dissolve into our relationships. One of the
(00:48):
most shocking things is how many people will push away
when we think we found our person. Your person won't
let you push them away, and you won't because you
won't leave your life for someone else. Because love was
never meant to erase you. Love was meant to reveal you.
(01:10):
So today I want to show you how to fall
in love or deepen love without losing the most important
relationship you'll ever have, the one with yourself. This episode
is for people who want a relationship this year, or
want to strengthen the one they're in without losing their independence,
(01:30):
or their identity or their inner compass. By the end
of these thirty minutes, you'll understand how to build a
relationship that feels like support not sacrifice, alignment not abandonment,
growth not disappearance. Let's get into it. So why do
we lose ourselves in love? Psychologists call it self expansion theory,
(01:55):
the idea that we merge with someone we love to
grow and banned our identity. Now that's healthy. What's not
healthy is when expansion becomes erasure. Here's what often happens.
The biggest mistake we make in love is we confuse
being chosen with being safe. We confuse intensity with intimacy.
(02:22):
We confuse butterflies with compatibility. We confuse staying together with
growing together. We confuse someone needing us with someone valuing us.
Let me give you a real life example. I once
coached someone who, whenever she entered a relationship, would slowly
give up the parts of her life that made her her.
(02:46):
She stopped her hobbies first, then she stopped seeing friends.
She adjusted her goals, then her schedule, then her standards.
When I asked why, she said, I didn't want to
lose them, but the irony was heartbreaking. She was losing
herself to keep someone else. And the research is clear,
(03:09):
people who lose their identity in relationships experience more anxiety,
more conflict, and more insecurity. You know why because when
you collapse your identity into someone else, you no longer
know what keeps you steady. When they pull away, you
know it's time to leave. When dependency replaces partnership, when
(03:33):
fear replaces love, when hope replaces habits. So here's our
first principle. Love should bring more joy in rather than
take more joy out. Love should give you the opportunity
to be more of you, not less of you. Love
(03:56):
should be the doorway to express yourself fully, not hide
parts of yourself. If you find yourself losing yourself, it's
you doing it to yourself. We often say you made
me do that, But if you're aware, if someone is
manipulating you, is shifting you in that direction, don't just
(04:19):
let go. It feels good at a start to give
up everything you love for what they love, only to
realize that if they loved you, why would you do
that so it's so important to know our priorities before
we get into a relationship. If you're in a relationship,
make sure you know what those priorities are too. So
(04:39):
remember keep your life big. One of the biggest predictors
of long term relationship success is how full your life
is outside the relationship. That's so counterintuitive, right. One of
the biggest reasons you'll stay together with someone for a
long time is if your life is good individually and
their life is good individually. Why. Because you bring greatness
(05:02):
to each other, you inspire each other. Science actually backs
this up. Studies on relationship satisfaction show that people who
maintain friendships, people who maintain hobbies, people who maintain passions,
people who maintain personal goals routines, all of that experience stronger, healthier,
(05:23):
more secure relationships because your partner fell in love with
a whole person, not a person who made them their
whole world. Imagine love like a beautiful new room in
your house. It expands your life, but it doesn't replace
the entire structure. Here's a quick exercise. List five things
(05:47):
you love doing alone. Now list five people who love
you outside the relationship. Now list five goals that have
nothing to do with love. These aren't extras or fillers,
their anchors and anchors are what keep you steady when
the waves come. One of my favorite quotes that I've
(06:09):
heard is, don't become less so someone else can feel
like more. Don't become smaller just to fit inside a
relationship that refuses to grow with you. Don't become who
they prefer if it means forgetting who you are. Don't
become responsible for someone else's insecurities at the cost of
(06:33):
your own confidence. Don't fall in love too fast. It's
when we fall fast that we ignore the mistakes. It's
when we fall fast that we don't see clearly. When
we slow down, when we're patient, everything becomes visible. We
can make better judgments, better choices, know our options better,
(06:57):
and ultimately fall in love at a pace where love
can always exist. When you fall in love fast, you
usually fall out of it as quick. When you fall
in love slow, it has the ability to outlast any
relationship you've ever had. Here's principle too, don't outsource your
(07:20):
emotional homework. Our generation has a quiet habit. We want
our partners to heal what we've never addressed. We want
them to heal our abandonment wounds. We want them to
heal our insecurities. We want them to heal our loneliness.
We want them to heal our self worth. We want
them to heal our emotional history. But that's not love,
(07:43):
that's outsourcing. A partner can support your healing, but they
cannot be your healing. A partner can support your growth,
but they can't do your growth. A partner can hold
your hand while you heal, but they can't walk the
path for you. Research shows that the healthiest relationships are
(08:07):
built by people who bring self awareness into the relationship,
not self abandonment. Tell your partner how you feel. If
you're anxious, name it. If you're avoidant, understand it if
you're triggered, Explore it. If you're overwhelmed, communicate it. Love
can flourish when two people are growing, not when one
(08:30):
person becomes the emotional life raft for the other person.
You can't expect someone to complete you when you haven't
met yourself completely. You can't expect someone to complete you
when you're still looking for love to fill the gaps
you refuse to face. You can't expect someone to complete
(08:50):
you when you're asking them to heal wounds they never caused.
You can't expect someone to complete you when you haven't
met the version of yoursel that's ready for real love.
(09:21):
Principal three, don't ignore the signals. People lose themselves in
love overnight because they don't stay vigilant about the signs
they see. These are the signs you're losing yourself in
a relationship. You apologize for things that aren't your fault.
(09:42):
Your partner's preferences always override yours. Your goals feel smaller
and theirs feel more important. Your voice feels quieter and
theirs feels louder. Your boundaries get blurry and they don't
respect them. Your world gets narrower, and you stop checking
(10:04):
in with yourself. Hearing this from a friend broke my heart.
They said, I love him, but I don't love who
I become around him. That sentence says everything. If love
is costing you yourself, it's not worth it. Healthy love
(10:24):
won't ask you to shrink. It won't punish your ambition,
It won't resent your independence, It won't dim your light.
Because healthy love says, stay who you are, Grow alongside me,
not beneath me. Stop ignoring red flags, just because you're
attracted to them. Stop avoiding red flags just because you
(10:47):
don't want to start over again. Stop avoiding red flags
because the attention feels good after a long time without it.
Stop avoiding red flags because you're scared this might be
the best you'll get. Stop avoiding red flags because you're
hoping their potential will one day become their reality. Whenever
(11:10):
anyone breaks up and I asked them if they saw
the signs, they can name all of them. They never
turned up on time, They never really messaged back. They
made me chase them a little. They never fully gave
me their attention when we were out together. They never
defended me in front of someone who is being harsh.
(11:30):
They never encouraged my independence. When I told them what
I wanted to do, they didn't really have anything to say.
All of a sudden, when someone breaks up with you,
you can see everything clearly, But when you were with them,
you let go of it because you were attracted to
how they sounded, how they looked, what they did for work,
what people thought about them. So many of us don't
(11:52):
listen carefully to these signals. So many of us avoid
these red flags that are staring us in the face,
and I get it. It's exciting, it's enthralling, it's intoxicating.
Right when you find that person and it feels good,
I get it. I know you want to be held,
You want to feel safe. But do you want to
(12:13):
be held for a night or held for your life?
Do you want to feel insecure when you're with them
and still look for safety elsewhere? Do you want to
say and here, I love you, but not really believe it.
So many of us avoid red flags because we're moving
(12:36):
too fast. Here's principal four, the three love lines you
must never cross. These are three boundaries the healthiest couples
never compromise. Number one autonomy. You maintain your own thoughts, interests,
and choices. The right person is not trying to change
(13:00):
your interests and your choices. They may help you understand
them more. They may help you learn about them more.
They're not making you want more. If your partner doesn't
want to start a business and you convince them they should,
that doesn't mean you care about them. You just projected
your goals onto them. If your partner feels you are
(13:21):
not ambitious enough, you get to ask yourself what ambition
means to you? You get to ask yourself what success
means to you. Number two equity. Both people give, both
people receive, not ninety ten, not eighty twenty. Partnership means partnership.
(13:42):
And here's the thing. In long term relationships, there will
be times when one person does more than the other,
knowing that a few years later the other person could
be doing more. But the point is both people are
willing to give and receive and show up for each other.
And the third is emotional honesty. If you're in a
(14:03):
healthy relationship, you can express discomfort without fear. You can
say I need this without feeling judged. You can say
that hurt me without feeling weak. You can say I'm
scared without triggering the other person. Couples who maintain these
(14:24):
boundaries report stronger long term satisfaction and lower conflict because
the relationship becomes a place of truth, not performance. Principal
five fall in love with someone who loves your life,
not just you. One of the biggest mistakes people make
(14:45):
is falling for someone who loves them but doesn't love
their lifestyle, their dreams, their values, their growth, their relationships,
their independence. If someone loves only the parts of you
that serve them, it's not love, it's possession. Real love
says I don't want to be your whole life. I
(15:08):
want to be a part of the life you're living.
The right partner isn't threatened by your dreams, they're inspired
by them. The right partner doesn't shrink your world, They
expand it. The right partner doesn't steal your identity, they
celebrate it. If someone requires your disappearance in order to stay,
(15:32):
they're not your person. They're a limitation. So many of
us get manipulated. We get limited by people who make
our feel our dreams are too small. I'm sure you've
been with someone before and you said, hey, this is
what I'm thinking of doing, and they said, well, I
don't know if you can really do that. I don't
know if that's really possible. Now they may be saying
(15:52):
it from a good intention, but you want someone who
engages with that and goes, how about tell me about it.
I want to know about it. By the way I've
made this mistake is well, sometimes the realist in me
can just be like, hey, yeah, I don't think that's
going to work. And I've had to learn that when
someone's sharing an idea with me, I've got to engage
with their excitement. I've got to engage with their enthusiasm.
(16:13):
I've got to engage with their energy about this. I
actually have so many friends last year who broke up
with their partners because their partners didn't like to see
them shine. And this has become a real challenge right now.
So many people are struggling with this where they're with
someone who doesn't want to see them work hard, who
(16:33):
doesn't want to see them achieve, who doesn't want to
see them grow because they'd prefer they played small so
that it makes them feel better. If someone doesn't want
you to win so that they feel better about themselves,
they're not your person. If someone doesn't want you to
grow so that they don't feel small, they're not your person.
(16:54):
If someone doesn't want you to achieve things so that
they don't feel behind, and they're not your person. Your
person will want you to be the best version of
you and tried to become the best version of them,
because it's not a competition, it's connection. I once met
(17:15):
a couple who'd been together for forty years. They didn't
talk about soulmates or destiny or perfect matches. They said
something far more profound. We built two whole lives and
then learned how to walk side by side. Their secret.
They never stopped becoming individuals. They never stopped tending to
(17:38):
their friendships. They never stopped learning about each other. They
never stopped growing together. They never stopped growing individually. They
never stopped choosing themselves, and they never stopped choosing each other.
They understood that the healthiest relationships are not two halves
(17:58):
becoming one, the two people walking side by side, staying connected.
That's what's so interesting. We feel like we become one.
When you meet the one you merge. It's you have
one life. Now, it's a mistake. If two minds, two brains,
two hearts, how can you have one life. There's two
(18:21):
lives that matter, and then the life of your relationship.
So here's the truth that I want to leave you with.
You can fall in love this year without losing yourself.
You can be committed and still be independent. You can
give without disappearing. You can love someone deeply and still
(18:42):
on the person you're becoming. Love is not meant to
erase you. Love is meant to elevate you. So remember this.
Choose the love that expands your world, not one that
replaces it. Choose a love that helps you grow, not
one you have to shrink for. Choose a love that
(19:03):
feels like partnership, not self abandonment. And most importantly, choose
a love where you don't lose yourself because the right
person will never ask you to. If you just went
through a breakup, I hope this episode helps you. If
you're in a relationship, I hope this episode helps you.
(19:24):
And if you're looking for love, I hope this episode
helps you. I made this episode because I think we
cause ourselves so much pain when we fall in love fast,
ignore the red flags, lose ourselves, don't protect ourselves, override
our beliefs and values in order to desperately find love,
(19:46):
only to still be alone at the end of it.
Here's the sad truth. We change who we are so
that they'll stay, and then they leave because we changed.
It's so interest We lose people, not because we were inadequate,
but because we lost ourselves and that person wasn't our person.
(20:11):
I think we put so much pressure on finding the
person that we think if we find someone who shows
interest in us, then that's enough, not realizing that interest
doesn't mean long term intimacy. It doesn't mean long term connection.
It doesn't mean that. So when I'm telling you do
not lose yourself in a relationship, it's so that you
(20:32):
always have yourself, so that you have the person you
can rely on, so that you have the person who
protects you. And then when you do find the right person,
you'll be able to build something together. Whereas hoping everyone's
the right person and pretending someone's the right person. How
many times have you ever done that? Where you meet
someone and you make them the perfect person. You make
(20:53):
them the right person because that's what you want. You
don't even get to know them because you're just projecting
what you want onto them. I hope this episode saves
you time and from the pain of lessons that you
don't need to learn yourself. Thank you for listening. I
hope you've subscribed. Remember I'm forever in your corner and
(21:14):
I'm always rooting for you. Hey, everyone, if you love
that conversation, go and check out my episode with the
world's leading therapist, Lourie Gottlieb, where she answers the biggest
questions that people ask in therapy when it comes to love, relationships, heartbreak,
and dating. If you're trying to figure out that space
right now, you won't want to miss this conversation. If
(21:37):
it's a romantic relationship, hold hands. It's really hard to argue.
It actually calms your nervous systems. Just hold hands as
you're having the conversation. It's so lovely.
Host
Jay Shetty
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