S15E1: Love from the Inside Out w/ Rob Mack

00:00:01 - 00:05:02

The dateable podcast is an insider's look into modern dating that The Huffington Post calls one of the top ten podcasts about love and sex. On each episode, we'll talk to real daters about everything from sex parties to sex droughts, date fails to diaper fetishes and first moves to first loves. I'm your host UA Shu, former dating coach turned dating sociologist. You also hear from my co host and producer Julie Kraft chick as we explore this crazy dateable world. We are back for season 15 of the date of podcast. This seemed like a really long hiatus for some reason, but it wasn't. No, it was actually shorter than durable because we ended up throwing the bonus one with Roman blade. So it's actually short at that attendant, but I agree. You know, we've just been gone for too long, and we're about to change that. Well, I think the reason why it feels like it's been a longer hiatus is because Julie and I have been working on something kind of secretive. We've alluded to this before. Let's just say we're bringing you more content in a different way, but the same sort of insights and the same tone as we've always brought it to you on data. So it's been keeping us busy. So it just feels like we've been gone longer because we've been working on this other thing, which you'll all find out soon. And we won't be as cryptic going forward. Yeah, I feel like we have a few other things going on, but this is probably the one that will be announced the most recent, but also we've been hard at work, recording season 15. So I feel like some of that too, I'm like, I want to put out into the world, these conversations that we've had. And I keep feeling like we can reference them because they're already out, but then realizing that we're just ahead of the ball this season. If you think about it, it's every new conversation we have, we take away a few new nuggets, but because we haven't broadcast these episodes, it's almost like you know a secret. And you can't talk about it openly yet. That's how I feel. But I'm glad this episode we're premiering with this one because there was just so much to be said after this interview with rob Mack. Yes, and you all probably remember we had rob Mack was a two seasons back at this point. Yeah, I believe it wasn't last season, but the season before, so season 13. And he is a happiness expert. But of course, when you ask people, are you happy? Aren't you happy? Dating relationships, love, inevitably comes into the picture. So thereby, by default, he is now a relationship expert as well. Or a love expert. I don't know if that was his attention starting out, but it has come together for him. But we'd love rob, we were, he wrote a new book, love from the inside out. And immediately when we saw this, we both said to each other, we need to get robbed back. And he needs to be there. We definitely do. And just as a refresher for anybody who can't remember who he is or maybe you haven't listened to the previous episode, he's someone who was so down on himself at one point in his life when where he became suicidal. And he said, I need to get myself out of this and this search for happiness became his mission, but in that search for happiness, he realized happiness is a default for all of us. Is that something we get just because we get that job we want, or the relationship we want. We can tap into it any time we want. And that's been the most powerful insight from our previous conversation is happiness is our default. Yeah, and we are shedding light into how love is also our default. This conversation. And I must say, you know, I kind of have this newfound appreciation for our podcast. I know the sounds weird. But as I was editing, said from the person that makes the podcast, I don't know what Lucy credibility there, but I feel like something about this episode and where I am in my current life hit home. And as I was editing this episode, I cried. I admit that I crafted, that shouldn't be that big of a shock because UA and others know that I cry easily, even when I'm happy. So it's an achievement from the content, but it also this is kind of my state in general. But part of it was by partner and I, things are going great, but we are kind of struggling with some timelines that we both have the same vision for our future. We just are, you know, bringing different life experiences into the picture, different ways of thinking. And it's, you know, it's something we're navigating through. It's not a bad thing. I think that's just a part of the course with a relationship that you're not going to always be a 100% aligned on every last thing. Two people with two different thought patterns. And I have this conversation in therapy and my therapist was saying, maybe you should spend more time alone. And I thought to myself, why would I do that? The whole goal is to bridge us together.

00:05:03 - 00:10:00

And it didn't hit until I listened to rob's episode with love from the inside out. The love within you is so core to everything and to how you love other humans and having that found appreciation isn't something that changes based on who you're with, but it's always there and fostering that self love is just as essential. And I'm not saying I don't have self love now, but I do think when you're in a relationship, it is easy to just do things all together all the time and lose a little bit of yourself and regaining that sense of self. I do think is so important. So it was kind of this perfect storm of therapy setting it. Rob's comments and I just hit and hit for me and you know a lot of people have written into us saying, okay, I needed that DTR brunch talk right at this moment or I needed this how to get over rejection and I think that is something that's so wonderful about this podcast is we are able to meet people where they are with the catalog of many, many topics we've covered. Maybe we are sinking like menstrual cycles because I feel like I'm going through something very similar and I've been spending a lot more time alone kind of soul searching because I realize, well, one part of me is like, I can't count on my partner to be everything for me, right? We've talked about this so much. But it's harder to put into practice when you spend time together. You kind of expect your partner to create this partnership that is totally idealized in your head. But then I was listening to this, okay, you're going to think it's funny. I joined this hypnotherapy app. This guy gets on, and he kind of hypnotizes you over the app. It's not really hypnotherapy. It's really like meditation. But he said, you know, every day we have these magic moments that we can look for. But because we're just racing through life, we don't stop to think about what those magic moments are. And it dawned on me that my magic moments I've been kind of relying on my partner to create these with me when I could create these magic moments myself. And in this meditation slash hypnotherapy, he said, recall back to a time you experience a magic moment by yourself. What is something that you ventured into? Something new, exciting place where it accomplishment. And I thought about the time I travel through Italy by myself and I just sat at the top of this mountain in Cinque Terre and looking down and thinking, this is a magic moment and I can still create that for myself. So I'm so with you on this Julius, it's not about pushing partners away. It's actually making yourself more of the pillar in your life so that you can be a stronger partner for the people in your life. Yes. And my therapist actually suggested solo travel, which is good. I think you know, honestly, listening to this episode in rob has such an emphasis that love comes from within and obviously human connection, the people in your life is important, but ultimately you hold that power and it actually beam me appreciate what I have with my partner more. And I'm definitely someone I feel like I've been guilty of being like, okay, I'm getting older. We don't have as much time and maybe like abiding by timelines a little more. And it definitely changed my perspective of like, I need to just appreciate what I have present and the love that I have with my partner. And it doesn't mean that you can't want these things and build a life towards these things, but rob's this episode that we did with rob, definitely helped shed light on, you know, we talk about it in here and a lot more, so I won't go too much and that the relationship is the container and love is a part of that container. And he does also emphasize presence and I think that's a problem with dating and also just everyday life for me is that I'm constantly 5 steps ahead of myself. Yes. That was so much pressure and anxiety on myself for something that hasn't even fucking happened yet. When I can't just sit still and shut off my brain for a minute because when you shut off your brain, that's when you realize all the good things that are happening around you and you can be more grateful for the moment that you're in. Instead of thinking of all the things that you don't have in a future that you have no control over. Yeah, you know, last season I feel like our theme was being intentional of your love life and how do you start to figure out what you want and how you get what you want. Maybe this season it's appreciating what you have a bit more because I think we are all guilty of that.

00:10:01 - 00:15:00

The 5 steps ahead is dangerous. And I think women especially, not to generalize because it's everyone, but women were almost like programmed like 5 steps ahead. It's good in subways because it makes things happen, but it's also does detract from current day. Okay, can we just actually talk about this? I know we don't like to talk in generalizations, but I find more and more proof of this. Oh, yes. My parents were packing for a two week trip to Alaska, okay? And so I came over to help them and my mom had already packed for the entire trip including the two days they come back, like what are they going to eat after they come back? My dad was still thinking about what he was going to wear on the plane. Like the guy has not even gotten past day zero. And that was just to me just watching this, I just had this moment of thinking, this is exactly the difference between men and women, biologically, and mentally, is that women are always thinking a thousand steps ahead, you've already basically you go on a trip, but you've already planned your entire trip. You've already been there. You only traveled it. And then much better at being the moment, but also men are a little bit behind. It was like my dad was like a step behind. So then how do you get two people to not be so frustrated with each other? Because my parents were definitely very frustrated with each other. They were just not aligned on where they were in their packing. I hate gender stereotyping too, but this is true. I'm sorry. There's all evidence. I've talked to so many girlfriends about just, you know, how did things progress with your relationship? They all basically were like, I needed to do it. Yeah. I feel like men are change resistant overall. And it definitely causes disconnect because also you don't want to feel pressured and you don't want to pressure your partner. But it's hard when you're a steps ahead. Not to feel that if your steps behind. So how do we bridge that gap? Because I think this shows up all the way from the first date where I think men in general, I've read a lot of studies about this that they're assessing the date more of just how do I feel in this moment and I have like a fun time where women are like, is this going to be my future husband? Do they have earning potential? What are our babies going to look like? It's a whole deal. And it really is jarring because that does cause people to feel like they're not on the same page. And that is challenging whether you're the one ahead or the one behind. I like to really explore this, Julie, maybe who can find an expert who can either prove us right or prove us wrong because I like to know if there are biological implications to all of this. I even think about how women just have so much on our minds all the time. Just because this is going to sound very superficial, but from clothes to accessories to make up all the things we have to think about because we have access to them. And our roles are keep changing. So the roles we're trying to portray or the perception of the roles that we are assuming, but for men, I feel like there isn't as much of that stuff, the distractions or the things to balance going on. And I could totally be wrong, but I like for an expert to come in and say, biologically, women were born to balance and juggle so many more things. Well, there are stats and experts that have said that women are better multitaskers. I think that is an actual way brains are developed is different in that regard. I do agree we should get someone to go in a lot more depth. But it is a very fascinating thing that keeps coming out. We need it so bad. I don't know if you've encountered this too. I feel like I'm also the optimizer in my relationship. Optimize the weekend, pack it in, optimize our days, optimize our meals. My boyfriend's simply like, I don't want to think about that. I don't want to think that far ahead, and we don't need to pack it in. Oh, yeah. I just did a trip to San Luis Obispo and pasta robles. I've learned that's how you pronounce it. Which is what I and everyone else calls it. Which is basically central California. It's right between LA and San Francisco. And I went with a girlfriend of mine and her partner that by partners was a double date trip. And the two of us planned the entire thing. Every aspect of it. Of course you did. 'cause if you didn't, nothing would fucking happen. Well, that's the problem, right? It's like you don't want to be the one pushing, but also you don't want nothing to happen because then you just get frustrated and that's where it is. But we can go on and on about that. But I think regardless of your stance, definitely write it and tell us if you've been in similar situations because we would love to dissect this topic much further. Yes, yes, okay. But to other topics, I guess we are very happy to be back for season 15 and we are also very happy we've survived all the way to season 15.

00:15:01 - 00:20:07

I don't know how we've kept this up for 7, almost 7 years. We say this all the time, but this is our longest relationship ever. And it's just going to, it's going and it's growing. So thank you to all of you who've stayed with us throughout the seasons, but also for any of our new listeners we so welcome you into the data family. Yes, I loved we made a really fun teaser video. So if you haven't seen it yet, follow us at dateable podcast on Instagram. It's also in love in the time of Corona Facebook group. I think it's pretty much everywhere, but go to your preferred platform pretty much. But I love seeing some of the comments, especially on Instagram. I think that's where most of them were just of, oh my God, I'm so excited. I've been counting down the days. I love you guys. You changed my world. All this stuff. Sometimes again, even though we've been doing this for several years, it almost feels like it's just UA and I talk or it's UA and I talk you to a guest and it's really, really helpful to keep us motivated to hear those types of comments that we are impacting your life and I love getting those emails of I needed this right now because I definitely related with this episode and hopefully others will relate with this episode and all the episodes. Yes, okay, so some announcements before we get into it. You've already heard, follow us at attainable podcasts are TikTok is growing too. So if you are a TikTok user 200 and 20 followers, guys. I feel like we had like 25 before. So it's getting better. This is why we need to put the plug out. This is why we need to put the plug out. My dog just looked up when I said 220. He's like, oh, that's not a lot. Mojo not approved. Help us get to a thousand. That's the goal, but even more of a push. Help us get to a thousand reviews. 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Go to a rally a box dot com that's a box dot com and enter the code dateable ten for 10% off. Okay, let's hear it from rob Mac, love from the inside out. So glad to have you back rob with us and congratulations on the new book, love from the inside out lessons and inspiration for loving yourself, your life and each other. So good to see you. It's so good to be back. Thanks for having me. Yay. Just a reminder who rob is, he's 40 years old, lives in LA in Miami, originally from Pennsylvania, single and actively going on dates. He's a positive psychology expert, celebrity happiness coach, executive coach and author of the book happiness from the inside out. We talk about love quite a bit on our show. And everyone seems to have their own definition of love. But when we talk about love, it's about receiving love, getting love, getting that validation of love from others. And your book is truly about finding love from the inside out. So let's just start with, we love to hear what is your definition of love. Yeah, it's a great question. My definition of love is your self love shared. It sure happiness share. I mean, you know, we could go deeper and say that it's the experience of felt oneness with life itself. So there's life within you and life within me and it's that shared experience of felt oneness that we all live for those folks that are a little more esoteric or abstract.

00:20:07 - 00:25:00

I'd say that the peaceful lives you feel inside, your body will call it that. You know, I think lots of us get this idea that love is an exclusive relationship that you have with just one person and usually it's a romantic exclusive relationship that you have with just one person and I think that's an extraordinarily limited way of looking at love, you know, for me love is an inclusive way. You have a related to everybody and the entire world. So it's more a trait almost than it is a state of emotion, and I would go further than that and say, it's not a state of emotion, it's not really a state of mood, ultimately it's a state of being. And so it's really more about love as a state of being as opposed to this roller coaster ride that we call dating a relationships with the ups and downs. There's a more stable sort of lasting meaningful and abiding experience of peaceful liveness or love or happiness. I think those are all beautiful synonyms for what we call love that I'm much more sort of inspired to share with people. I love that. This reminds me of our conversation from last time talking about happiness as a state of being. It's kind of your default. I really want to know what inspired you to write this book. Yeah, such a phenomenal question. I 20 years ago or more. I decided I was going to become a happiness coach. And I thought that as happiness coach, I'd get phone calls from people who were unhappy and were owning their unhappiness. And I could help them with that. And I discovered that's not the case. Most people were calling because they were struggling or challenged with relationship stuff. Usually romantic relationship stuff, but sometimes platonic or professional relationship stuff, and they were often simply saying, my boyfriend sex, my girlfriend, 'cause I don't have a husband, I don't have a wife. And so I felt like in that process and experience, I really wanted to help clarify some things for folks, including myself so that we could all experience more happiness, more peace and more love, more consistently, without having to wait for someone else to be what we want them to be or say we want them to say or think what we want them to think. You know, I wanted all of us to experience it more unconditional kind of peace and love and happiness. So it really came from that place of wanting to clarify for people. Some of the myths and misconceptions and flawed premises that we all operate under without being always aware of it. There was a part in the book that I really loved because I feel like you and I hear this a lot. We have realized that this actually kind of is the demise of a lot of folks. Is this overthinking pattern that we feel like we need to think our way through everything and especially with love, especially in the romantic sense, you're so afraid to not make the wrong choice or to not get hurt or whatever it might be that we tend to go to this crutch of overthinking. What are your thoughts about how much thinking should play into the act of love? Yeah, man, wow, I thought about this one a lot. Thought about overthinking a lot. I would say that it's easy to understand why we all overthink everything our lives, especially love. It seems like such a difficult experience to attract or to enjoy or to keep or maintain. And so it's understandable why we do that both for reasons based in sort of nature, but also nurture. You know, the challenges that most of the thinking we do around love is aimed at trying to get inside the other persons or other people's heads. And even when we do that well, it doesn't work out all that beautifully or all that isn't all that productive for most of us because we end up just getting in the way of this really fun playful and enjoyable and meaningful connection that we have with each other. If there's one thing that can be said about love, it's that it's presence and presence is nothing if it's not, not overthinking, right? Presence is like, let me keep my mind where my body is. First and foremost, that's the introductory sort of elementary level. Just let me keep my mind where my body is. That's the way the actor Vince Vaughn describes it. I would go a step further and say the graduate level of presence is not only keeping your mind where your body is, but keeping your mind quiet, cool, calm and composed while is where it is. And it doesn't mean you have can't have a fun time. In fact, you have a much better time when you're not lost in the past or the future. You're just present with the person you're with, not with an agenda, not with an expectation of reciprocity, not trying to script or plan or plot every single thought or word or move. When you went into the research for this book and you also alluded to this earlier too, is that we have these myths about love. And even the phrase finding love, Julian, I have a problem with that because it makes it feel like you're in control. So if you are ambitious enough, you can find love. What are some other myths that you really address in this book as well? Wow, that's what you said there. So it's true. Love is not an achievement, accomplishment, or an acquisition. So it's not something you achieve, acquire, accomplish. It's an acknowledgment of something that always exists within you. We'll call it as a set of being, but you often feel love, even when a person that you're not with or aren't with, is or isn't around, right? You can feel independent of who and who is around and who isn't around. So that's the first piece is that love is not something you achieve accomplish or acquire something that you acknowledge, always exist within you.

00:25:01 - 00:30:02

I think also love is most of us look for love in all the wrong places. And those places are outside of us in the future, and occasionally in the past. You will never find love in the future. We're never finding the past, and you will never find it outside in the world. You can have an experience, all kinds of relationships with people and you'll have a feeling of love that you'll then attribute to the other person, but the truth is that we'll call it feeling or emotion in this particular case. What's something that was in you all along, those other people in other conditions circumstances encouraged you to feel this love or this happiness inside of you, but that love and happiness or peace is always within you. So I think that's kind of the primary flawed premise is that love is something outside of you that you'll find or attract in a future that essentially never arrives. You know, this is so like couch or intuitive to what modern data is at what we're told we're supposed to be doing, right? It's getting something and you're basically saying it exists within you and it's about releasing essentially to also find I don't want to use the word fine, but almost attract someone else that's releasing love into the world. But why do you think then we have this mentality in society that this is something that we need to achieve because we definitely feel the same way that it feels like you got the milestone you need to get married. You need to have kids. You need to do all these things to be a complete human being and that drives so much of our actions. Why do you think that is? Oh, so many reasons. I'd say that most foremost, it's part of it. We can blame nature for the brain is wired to achieve and accomplish and acquire, we'll call it self preservation, but that's how we stay alive. We stay alive by looking for things we need for avoiding fear and danger and risk. And the brain is really wired to avoid problems, and it does that by seeking out problems to solve, right? So love feels like a problem that you need to solve. So right there and then, you know, almost an implicit assumption that if you need to solve it, the problem, or the solution, isn't available to you here and now. It's something you've got to find in a future somewhere out there in the world. So part of it is a sort of, I think, a nature challenge that we're presented with. And the brain is essentially well intentioned. We can sign attention to it. But it doesn't always play out well in our personal lives. I'm not a professionalized, but particularly around love. The other part is simply just nurture. You know, if we pay attention or notice most of the messages and stories that we receive from the media from TV and films from very well intentioned parents and priests and philosophers and poets, you know, you often hear this sort of bad deal of goods that sold over and over again. And it often is inference there that it's all about something to achieve in a future that you find when the right person happens to stumble in your life. So, you know, I get it. There's something kind of romantic about it for sure. And I would say that most cases with love and to all cases with true love, reality is sweeter than our stories about it. It's much sweeter than that. It's much more accessible and available than that. So yeah, it's both nature and nurture. The premise of romantic love, we've also addresses two as people treat it like it's different from other types of love. I think about the unconditional love I receive from my pet. I have no expectations for my dog mojo, but I love him regardless, but when it comes to romantic love, we have these gateways and I think people think, well, we're not aligned on our future goals. Our intentions for this relationship, then I am not able to get to the point of love. What do you think about that mindset? Yeah, it's interesting, right? First of all, we enter into relationships often with an agenda. So then you wonder at some point, are you really interested in loving someone else or being in love with someone else? Or you're just in love with the idea of your own ideas and your own expectations. Often relationships turn in, you're really into two people who are in love with their ideas of the other person. Their ideas they're in love with. Their own ideas. Not the other person at all. So I think that's in and of itself highly problematic. It's of course great opportunity there too, which is to love what is in front of you here and now. The other part that you make is a really valid one, which is we often think of romantic love is different from familial love or from platonic love. But it's really not. There's really only one kind of love if we can call it a kind. There's just one, right? It's that felt oneness that you share with all sentient beings. It's just, and sometimes if we make sex in there or tracks physical attraction in there, chemistry in there that we call it romantic love. But that's something that love is not different. They're not sort of differences in love. There's just one kind of love and call it your true nature, but it's that peaceful aliveness that you feel consistently all day every day that you're mostly or usually or consistently not aware of at all. It's just always there under the surface and when the right person comes along in the right way we feel it bubble up to the surface and we call it love and we attribute it to them and all of that is a little bit misleading. It doesn't really speak to the truth of where love is and how we can experience more of it. I mean, I think this is hard because I could feel myself conflicted on this too. It's like I understand the pureness of love, but then also there are things in life that you want.

00:30:02 - 00:35:09

So you want to make sure that if you're going down a path with someone that you're on the same path and whether it's society's influence or what not, you know, sometimes you do want to get married or have kids or whatever the future holds. How do you balance the two? Because I feel like we're told, you know, be smarter about dating that leads to thinking, which leads to overthinking, which becomes problematic. I love your take on this rob. Yeah, I know I feel you, that sort of inner conflict that you're speaking to, I think, resonates with most all of us, including myself. You know, the truth is you can love everyone, but you don't need to like everyone. You can love everyone and you don't need to spend your life with everyone, right? You can love everyone and you don't need to be in a romantic relationship with everyone, right? So what I'm trying to encourage people to do is one, experience the kind of unconditional removable love that doesn't come and go like the wind, right? That isn't dependent on other people and other places in other things to be just right so you can experience this fleeting thing that we call love. So I'd say that that is the first piece, which is just, you know, just because you feel something for someone doesn't mean you need a relationship with them. And just because you want love, doesn't mean it's only excluded to romantic relationships. You can love someone and not be in a relationship with them. You could be a relationship with them and not love them, right? And so we just want to just start now. In addition to that, I'm definitely a believer in like, you know, do what you can to find if you're going to connect with someone and you want to be in a relationship with someone. You know, you do want to be on the same page in terms of values and lifestyle choices. And that being said, love is not agreement. Love is not agreement. It is not two heads that are always in agreement with each other about all things in all points in time. Love is not two heads in agreement. It's too hard in alignment, right? And so there's something that comes or that it is greater than agreement. I'll call it alignment, but it's two people that have just said an intention to be love to be loving and to do what you can to support each other and feeling loved, right? That and of itself should take precedence over whether or not you agree on politics or religion. And that doesn't mean that politics and religion don't matter. So I'm going to matter mostly because you're wondering if this person is a good person. Do they have a good heart? And so I think people fall, we all fall victim to that quite often and we say, just because we don't like their opinion, we must not love them, or we can't love them. It's not true. We can found these things like intellectual agreement with something deeper than our simply just call alignment. What I'm kind of gathering is almost conflate relationships and love and of course love is a component of a relationship, but it's not the entire thing and you know we had author Mark Manson on this podcast a while back and he his whole thing was love isn't enough. It doesn't conquer all, essentially. And I think that's kind of where I'm hearing from you. And I'd love for you to elaborate more because I could see you want to. Yeah, just so insightful, I love having a conversation with you all because you're just so insightful, you're clearly so well educated in this space. We overthink this. Fair enough. We're going to tell people not to be over thinkers we are the queen of over queens of overthinking. Best kinds of guides and coaches for not overthinking it. People that have experienced it. Same reason I do what I do, right? Yeah, so yes, so you can think about relationship as the container and love as the content of that container. Relationship relationship is the form that formless love takes. And this is where we often get lost. Love is formless and faceless, and it can take any form that are quote unquote wants to take. So in the beginning, maybe it was a friendship, and then it turns into a romantic relationship, and then later you realized, you know, you're not meant for each other. So you separate, and now it's a divorce, and now your Friends again, or maybe distant Friends again. But the love doesn't have to serve the relationship. The relationship should serve love. And I think that's part of what I'm wanting to sort of remind us all of is that love is the highest value, not relationship. And we actually sort of prioritize relationships above love. Relationships often end up becoming, you know, not always but often. It's like two security seeking individuals, you know, sort of getting relationship with each other and create this ironclad contract. Then locks love out. It's like you enter a room and the room has fresh air and you're enjoying the fresh air and you're like, I just want to keep this fresh air in this room. It's just so good to you. Shut all the windows, you close all the doors, and you're like, what happened? It was so fresh when I walked in here. It's so stale now. Open up some windows. This is essentially what we do consistently with relationships. And for good reason, but also for reasons that are questionable. You know, it's jealousy and envy and we want often to possess someone. I mean, love is if it's one thing, it's certainly not possessiveness. You know, it's not possession. It's a freedom loving and freedom living and freedom giving experience. I think both the challenge and opportunity are you really interested in love, or you just interested in a relationship. And just going off of that when you're locking in in a relationship too, why is this so many times we feel like we need the permission to love if we love first we've lost in this love? Why is it so hard for so many people to say those words and to lose in some extent? Because you took my partner and I over a year to say, I love you because those words meant so much that we didn't want to use it too quickly.

00:35:10 - 00:40:05

That permission very interesting to me. It is, indeed, and I love that we've opened in those kind of experiences before, where you just want to hold on and wait and there's something also kind of sweet and beautiful and really exciting about knowing that you've got this next thing that you get to experience when you actually use the words. That being said for lots of others also this egotistical or ego driven piece to that, which is like, I don't want to be the person we're going to say it. I want to continue to have power in relationship. I want power the relationship and the other person loves me more than I love them or they tell me they love me and I haven't told them I hold the power. I hold the cards, right? And again, that's not love. That's the ego talking, and I get it, you know, we all have a lot of you can have a lot of that or a little of that going on. And this is part of the reason I wrote the book too, is because love, it's anything is hard to reduction quite the elimination as long as we're allowing these bodies. We're going to have some ego showing servicing that it's very helpful because it's alive. But relationships are often end up being these ego driven experiences where two people are more obsessed and committed to power plays than they are, having a loving experience, right? I think there's a great quote somewhere where something like an obsession with a love of power. Where there's love of power, there is no power of love, right? And so that's the idea. It's like, are you in love with power? Are you in love with love? If you're in love with love, you love for loving sake alone. You love the cashier. You love your partner. And it doesn't mean you necessarily to go out cheating or seeing other people. I'm not saying that, but it does mean I want my partner to be happy. I want my partner to be happy. If you're not happy, it's not love. So love is happy, and if it's not happy, it's not love. Love is free. And if it's not free, it's not love. That's ego. That is ego. Why would you ever want anyone else to suffer? Just to make you happy. It's like, you could do that on your own. It's your job. They can do that on their own. But yeah, I think that's important to remember that often what goes by the name of love is anything and everything but love. I feel like ego is the number one thing that gets in most people's way of finding love and having love with others and I know I've been there before where I've definitely held back because of ego and you know there's even times currently that I'll like resort because of eco. How have you first of all have you ever been in this position and how did you kind of work your way out if you have? Because I feel like it's always helpful to hear how you get to the other side. I've experienced all the things, all the things you'll I mean, all of them. You know, for sure. How do you get out? Well, I think awareness is the first step, right? So I think what happens often is you notice these things about yourself or others and insulate you and land on some kind of judgment about it. It's wrong. They shouldn't be doing it. I'm wrong, I shouldn't be doing it. You want to let that side if love has anything. It's non judgment, right? It's not judgmental aware. So just being aware that maybe you're coming from a less than healthy place from an egotistical or ego driven place, just being aware of that, just notice it. Don't feel compelled to change it to do anything about it, just notice it without judgment. Already, love is quote unquote entered the room. And that loving awareness often does the work itself. It does the transformation itself. Early in my experience, I would get in there and really try to fix it and force it and change it and I can't be this way and all I did really was repress what I was really thinking and feeling. And then it would surface later at some point in some really uncomfortable way often with lots more pain and suffering along with it. So just that awareness that nonjudgmental loving awareness or why you might be doing what you're doing. And if you want, you can exploit and go a little deeper. The challenge of the key really isn't to think about it so much, but just to notice that noticing is transformative. That loving awareness is transformative. So I'd say really that. If you just did that, you'll find pretty soon, like eating something that feels really bad for your body. You just don't have as much interest as eating as much anymore. And then the next time you want to eat even less and then before long, you're not eating any of it at all. You're like, it doesn't feel good when I eat that. That's such a great way of putting it. And I just remind me of the times that my mom's giving me love advice. To find someone who loves you more than you love them. Yes. I hear this a lot. I remember the first time I heard it and I was blown away. And I get it because it can feel safe. It feels safer, right? Yes. Yeah. Like you have the upper hand, right? It's a power play. Oh, I can do whatever I want because my partner loves me more than I love them. It's just so funny to me now. It's just hilarious to think that she used to give me that advice. What about this notion that you were speaking about earlier is looking for love in all the wrong places? Because I think a lot of our listeners with immediately go to my city. It's the apps. It's the people. What is finding love in the wrong places? So it's in the world. All worldly places are wrong places. That means anybody or anything outside of you. We often do is we say, oh, I'm so interested in love. I want to be in love. I want to experience love. But really what we want to do is extract love somewhere else, okay? It sounds like so sweet and so pure and so but it's like we're trying to extract. It's like, can I just give you enough that I can get back when I'm really ultimately wanting, right? But if you think about that, it's like, even if that were true, that you can give enough to get back what you need.

00:40:05 - 00:45:05

I mean, you're giving something. What do you call that? It's got to call it love. I don't know what else you call it, right? But the idea essentially is that if you aren't deeply self loving, if you aren't truly deeply happy. You are sort of like a beggar. It's like you're completely broke poor. And you're looking for someone in the world and you're going on to the world. You're looking for someone who in all likelihood is also very much that same thing. They're also broke, right? They're also poor, spiritually psychologically emotionally. So you've got two beggars that come together in an effort to make each other better off. That never works. They will make each other worse off. They will fight and they will argue about what the other person should be giving them, but that person doesn't have. And vice versa, right? So yes, all worldly places actually are wrong places. When you discover this infinite source and well of love that exists within you at all times, you can also call it happiness. You'll be surprised because you begin to find it everywhere, because you can see it everywhere, but you experience it everywhere. And then you get into relationships not to be or to become happy and not to get love. You get into relationships to share the love that you have to share that happens that you have to share the self love that you have. And it's great if they reciprocate it, we love it. And if they don't, it doesn't matter, there's always more when that came from. You know, but it really requires someone who's clear enough to recognize or realize that love is its own reward. It's so good. A good example, just this show. It's fantastic to have this conversation. I love it so much. And if you all never, if it never went to air, okay? If I never heard or connected with you all day, I would. I definitely will. My gosh, how can I have a single complaint? I just had the most incredible interview, the most incredible conversation with the most brilliant, beautiful people and souls ever. And I experienced that first and foremost. So whether you did or not, you're relevant because I experienced it. If I get it back from you, wonderful. It's icing on the cake, right? And so it is true that the more you give, the more you get, and it's exponential in nature, but you do have to first be able to access that place from which and from where you can give it almost endlessly without a concern or worry that it's going to be reciprocated. That ultimately is where we want to be. It can feel aspirational for most of us. That's just fine. But it's good to remember that other people don't hold the keys to your love life. I love that so much, but I'm also thinking like, I feel like that sounds so difficult because we're wired to be like, what are we gonna get in with return, right? That is the way we're wired, inherently, I think we're maybe American culture, maybe in other countries too, is inherently selfish. We're the center of everything. How do you start to free yourself from those stereotypes? Yeah. So it's so interesting. So you make a great point, you know? Disagree with you at all. I remember, I read recently a book called humankind, and it's all about the innate goodness of people, and it's really contextualized within history, so author does a great job of just talking about the ways in which we're actually, yes, on one hand, we can be quite selfish on the other work incredibly generous and kind and loving for no good reason other than it's just part of our nature who we are. And so I'd say, first, it's looking for evidence that that's true, that we are innately loving and kind and generous, even the worst of us. I mean think about how many times you open a door for someone. You let someone out in traffic, you give somebody some money, you lend somebody something of yours. You know, all these things that you do, you get out of the way of someone else. You're just these things, these little things that you do all day long, right? Your patient with someone. When maybe they haven't earned it or deserved it. You know, you let somebody go in front of you in line. Whatever it is that you do, just notice how much how often you do these incredibly loving, generous, kind things, with very little to know expectation of reciprocity, or expectation of reward, and in some ways you could even argue that maybe you're a little worse off for it, objectively speaking. But notice also how good you feel in doing it. So the first thing is to recognize that that even the worst of people still have their moments, right? They still have their moments. The other piece of it is just to notice how much of that love or that peaceful liveness or that happiness is within you all the time, right? Like even now you can just feel into your body. There's a peaceful live use in your body. There's a vibrating energy in your body and your hands in your feet. Think about the ways also in which we all continue to receive these priceless gifts from life or existence itself. I mean, the oxygen in the air that enters an extra lungs. Think about the ways in which your lungs love you. The ways in which your heart loves. I mean, rarely, I mean, when do the lungs are the heart, really ever get a break or take a break and do they ever complain, you're rarely you might have something happen, your heart disease is something sure. But think about the ways in which life and existence ceaselessly and endlessly and unconditionally supports us all even just physically. It's kind of mind-blowing when you realize how much we are all surrounded by love. You know, and of course, the negativity and the hate all get center stage because it's great, quick bait for the brain. The brain is always trying to solve a problem, and if it can find a problem to solve, it's even happier. So just notice the love that you're drowning in already, and the love that you extend on conditionally without an expectation of reciprocity already. And just notice the ways in which life for the universe or existence loves all of us, even the worst of us, and listening to unconditionally, it's just helpful to notice the love that already exists within you and your life already.

00:45:06 - 00:50:00

I'm so intrigued, because I think maybe it's immigrant mentality, but I feel very petty with my love. If I'm holding the door open for someone, I expect a thank you and if they don't, I murmur something like. You're welcome. There's this idea that I grew up with is like, you don't want to be taking advantage of. Yes. So if you give and give and you don't receive it back, then you are being advantage of. I guess personally for me and people who may feel this way, shift that mindset to think love, there's abundance of love and let's just keep giving it guilty also. Same, same same without question. So two things. First of all, notice that when you open the door for the person, your initial inspiration incentive to open the door had nothing to do with an expectation that they would thank you. Just think about it. Did you think beforehand, this person looks like someone who's going to thank me? I'll open the door for them. Not at all. You just open it. That's how natural already is. And yes, and then the brain gets in there and says, why the heck did this person not say thank you? So ungrateful. I'm not going to do that again, right? So I get it totally. So that's the first piece. And then also, I think, love being love, being loving, doesn't mean not having boundaries. It doesn't mean being boundaryless, right? In fact, I would argue that the people who are most genuinely loving, meaning they are loved, they exist as a state of love, meaning they are aware of their engine internal connection with the source of love itself, are really the only people that one love truly. And second, going all people have healthy boundaries. Because they know that the source of this love is within them. So if they have to cut someone out or off, or they have to set a boundary with someone, there's nothing at stake. It's only the people that are truly struggling or challenged or don't or haven't found this source of love inside that really struggle with the boundaries. It's the people that aren't self loving the struggles of boundaries the most, not the people that are deeply self loving, so it's like, if you're infinitely wealthy, do you worry if someone stole $10 or a $100 or a $1000, you don't. You lock your doors, you don't give away your bank account numbers, okay? But if they stole it, then you take care of it and move on. But it doesn't disturb your peace in the way that if you were completely broke, or if you had hardly any money, same thing with love. Let's hold that thought for a few messages. This episode is brought to you by attitude, want deep, restful sleep without taking melatonin, trying to stop your night sweats or looking to get a little more eco friendly. You won't get these with any old cotton sheets, but you will with bamboo. Upgrade your stuffy cotton bedding in attitudes naturally breathable bedding made from their innovative clean bamboo fabric. 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That's dot com slash DAT ABL E this is attitudes best offer right now so don't wait. Order today for free shipping and 20% off your order at attitude dot com slash datable. This episode is brought to you by drizzly. If you look for it every day has cause for celebration, celebrate a friend for their promotion, baby, wedding life thing, celebrate yourself for keeping the couch warm. It's no easy feat, especially if it's a big couch. Or maybe you just want to celebrate living in 2022, where you can get beer, wine, and spirits deliver from drizzly in under 60 minutes without leaving, said couch. No wonder drizzly is the number one app for alcohol delivery. And remember to share the love, you can get alcohol delivered to your friends and your coworkers and a nice surprise. Right now, drizzly is giving all new customers $5 off their first order with the code fast 5. So download the drizzly app or go to drizzly dot com that spelled DRI Z, LY dot com and use the promo code fast 5 that spelled FAST number 5 for $5 off your first order. You're welcome. Have you ever thought about how much better dating would be if you had a whole army of people supporting you along the way? We know that dating can be frustrating and lonely, but it can also feel fulfilling and fun. Have you recently decided you want to make some changes to your love life? Maybe you've recently reentered the dating scene. Maybe you've gone on one too many dates that went nowhere, or maybe you're just ready to take your current relationship to the next level.

00:50:01 - 00:55:03

That is exactly why we created the sounding board, a true extension of our podcast that delivers a personalized experience, which includes monthly office hours where you can drop in and chat with us about anything. Weekly sound offs with guided discussions and regular virtual happy hours, allow Julie and I to become your dating sherpas to provide real-time guidance and wisdom in a more intimate way so we can all navigate dating and relationships together. Join the sounding board today by going to dateable podcast dot com slash sounding board. Again, that's dateable podcast dot com slash sounding board. I love that. And I'm like going back to the earlier example that we're talking about is like this notion of love is a component of a relationship. And the question of how do you balance what you want in life versus love? What I'm gathering here is let's say you do want a family. And whoever you're with is not on the same page. It doesn't mean that you stop loving them, but you have the love that you can say, like I actually want this in my life. I'm going to find a partner that's aligned with me. I'm a good student. Rob is a teacher. You're a great teacher. Okay, it's clicking. That's where we're going with this. Absolutely. You can say to someone. I love you so much. And I would love nothing more to spend my whole life with you or the next ten years or whatever it is. And I really want kids. My life would feel more complete by had kids. Or my life would feel more complete if I moved Bali and I lived there. I know you want to stay here. And so I love you so much and I love me so much that I'm going to continue loving you. I'm going to continue loving me. I'm going to make this to sit this decision and who knows what tomorrow will bring over the next year or the next lifetime will bring. But I'm not going to use anything or anybody as a reason to stop being loved. I'm going to continue to be loved. And I can also make another decision or another choice. Love doesn't mean doing what the other person wants all the time. It's not it at all. You know, and I know that I've struggled with that a whole lot because I'm a people pleaser. It feels like by nature. And I want everyone to be happy all the time. And I want everyone to be able to love all the time. So that's often met me betraying myself, but self betrayal is still betrayal. In fact, that argues the highest betrayal, right? It's still betrayal. It's the highest betrayal betray yourself who's left to love the world, if not you, right? So it's important to be clear. Love is formless, and it can take many different forms, and it doesn't have to come at the expense of your own happiness. In fact, if it does, I would argue that we need to explore whether that's the love or not. Right. And I think that also is a good point with these situations or anything that's not fulfilling to you kind of what Mark Manson was saying. Love doesn't conquer all. You can love someone. But if that's not actually good for you in the long run, that self love and having that should be, if not, you're saying, more important than the love for that person. Absolutely. And I love Mark Manson and I have to agree with what he said there. I love it. And I want to add a little personal nuance. So human love does not conquer all. That is absolutely true. In other words, people break up for all kinds of reasons, even when they love each other. And often for good reason and hopefully to the benefit of both. That being said, when I might call divine love or conscious love is something that does conquer all because it includes an embraces all, right? So what I kind of love that I'm talking about is a state of awareness, I felt oneness that exists within all of us that ultimately is us. And so there's nothing ultimately but that. There's nothing but this felt or this oneness that we often fill all the time, but we're only aware that we feel sometimes, right? And so I would say that that kind of love that sort of divine love is conscious love that exists as sort of recall peaceful liveness. It's always there. It's always there that even in your happiness, unhappiness is there, even in your loneliness it's there. It's the very foundation, the very ground of your being. So to speak, can you know that when you all sleep at night and you're about to drift off in that moment right before your eyes closed or maybe when they've closed and you haven't quite lost consciousness, there's the most blissful, peaceful aliveness and happiness and love almost caught that in that moment that is that you experience regardless of who is or is it in your life and regardless of whether you're in a relationship or not, it's always there underneath above beyond between and below all thoughts, feelings, emotions, perceptions and sensations. I love that distinction. Would you say then that self love is the highest priority if you had to the highest form of love them in a hierarchy. So I would say that ultimately there's only one kind of love, I'll stick to that. There's only one kind of love and to your point. The self is another word for love, and love is another word for the self. And it's the one self that we all share. So when I think about self love, particularly in a traditional sort of way. At first, it's just looking for the best within yourself. Just looking for the best within yourself, highlighting that, focusing on that. And then eventually you go deeper than that, and you realize that I have a body, but I'm not a body. I have a mind, but I'm not a mind. I have a personality but I'm not a personality. There's something that's aware of the mind that isn't the mind. Something that's aware of the body that isn't the body. Something is aware of the personality isn't the personality. We'll just call it awareness. It's your true self. It's the essential self that's never changed when you're four and when you're a hundred.

00:55:04 - 01:00:01

That sort of thoughtless where this awareness, that you have a body or that you have a mind, that is your true self. When you're aware of that awareness, we'll call it love. We can call it peace when called happiness. We can also just call it the self, the true self. So that true self of me is the same true self of you, of you. The life forces in within me is the same life force that's within you. When I'm aware of it when I'm tuned to it, I call it love. But it's always love. It's just that now I'm aware of it. And so yes, self love, I would say, we want to say it in a way that people can sort of digest. Self love is the highest love. And yet self love is the only love. I'm all for self love and I a 100% agree with you because I know personally for myself. When I got to a place of not needing a relationship and just being content with who I was in my life and happy, that's when I found a relationship. That's when I invited a relationship into my life. But I feel like, at the same time, so I'm a 100% agreement. I also feel like the word self love is so cliche at this point. You think of affirmations and self help books and all this stuff. How can you break it down for folks, rob, of more tangible ways that aren't as cliche of what does self love even mean? So we can do it in sort of levels. So I'd say the low hanging fruit to your point is often what you hear there in self help books or in different kinds of places, but when you hear what I would strongly recommend to people who are just starting the self love journey, is keep yourself love journal. Just every night, every day, pull it out three, four, 5 things many things you can, that you genuinely, sincerely love about yourself. It's not a snow drop. So in the beginning, it might simply be and I remember for me, this is what it was. I love that I'm trying to love myself. Okay, that's all I had. And I kept so that's what I wrote for like 15 days in a row. It was like, I don't love myself, okay? Good enough. And then eventually something bumped up, and I was like, oh, I do actually care about people. I genuinely care about people. I don't want anyone to be hurt even people that have hurt me. I don't want them to be hurt. I ended that to the list. And I want to notice was, the more I did this, this is your heart. The list kept growing and growing growing. I stayed off the things that seemed unlovable, and after a period of time of focusing all the things about myself that I genuinely loved and appreciated. When I look back at the unlovable things or seemingly unlovable things, I even started to feel love for those things. So I would say things like, gosh, I hate the way I look and the way I talk in the way I walk. And after a period of time of focusing, not on those things, but the other things that I genuinely loved when I looked back, I said, I always thought I was the ugliest person in the world, but maybe I'm the second ugliest person in the world, or whatever, right? So you just start realizing, oh my gosh, it's bleeding into this really positive way into the other areas of my life that I thought were unlovable. That's like step stage one, okay? The deeper dive into self love is then just becoming aware of the thoughts and feelings and sensations and perceptions that you have without judgment. So another word for love is non judgment. Just notice what you're thinking, what you're feeling, moment to moment, especially when you're triggered, just notice it, don't get in there and start judging, condemning, shaming yourself, just notice, and try to do the same thing with other people, okay? That's maybe step two is just a non judgmental awareness. At some point, you then turn that awareness back on itself, right? So you come to realize I'm noticing the thoughts and feelings I have without judgment and I'm just breathing through it. And at some point you realize, what is it? How can I both be this awareness and what this awareness is aware of. So in other words, am I body and mind or am I this thing that's aware of the body and mind so you sort of turn their way and it's back in itself and you're like, that's interesting. I keep shining the side of awareness on my thoughts and my feelings perceptions other people and I do it non judgmentally and if I look or just notice that awareness itself, it already is full of peace and love and happiness. And so like a dimmer switch, the more we'll call practice in the presence. You can call it prices the presence of awareness, the presence of presence, or the presence of God, but it's just noticing the noticing. It's just being aware of their awareness. That and of itself is peace love and happiness that you're looking for. And when you spend more time just feeling that, sometimes I say, just fill in the pieces of a lot of your body. When you just feel that, it's like a dimmer switch that you turn up. And before long it becomes your predominant experience, it takes the place in the foreground, whereas everything else goes to the background. And that bleeds into every other aspect of your life too, because that scarcity mindset starts to subside and you start feeling the love, so therefore you're able to share it. That's right. Yeah, a 100% agree. I think it's not about updating your profile. It's not about swiping on the right day of the week. It is coming with a full plate and I a 100% agree on that, but then the one thing I'd love your thoughts on this rob, it's there's a line, right? You can work on yourself forever. You can go be in self improvement mode. But then that's not necessarily finding you or getting you to the place of what you're looking for if you're looking for a romantic partner. How do you and also it's never done, right? I even today am working on myself. It's not like a one and done thing. How do you balance the two so you're not coming from this place of deficit, but also you're not just waiting forever for something to happen.

01:00:02 - 01:05:02

Yeah, wow. I mean, just profound what a profound question. Self enjoyment, self enjoyment. So if there's one thing that can be said about love, particularly in the beginning, when you're dating, it's that it should be fun. If you really care about getting to relationship, you really want to get your relationship back. You need to have fun, okay? You need to have fun in the date, you need to have fun, connecting with people, and you need to make fun of habit. It doesn't mean it has to be, you know, rainbows and puppies and parks all the time. But I would say that if you can prioritize self enjoyment over self improvement, not only will you enjoy the experience, but you'll find yourself improving automatically easily and effortlessly. And without the judgment and condemnation that often ruins the self of proven experience. So for instance, the more you enjoy connecting with people, you'll find that your mood begins to just improve. And as you're moving improved, you experience what's called broaden and build sort of experience that psychological capital. So in other words, you start to see things that you didn't see before. Opportunities that didn't exist before. And you start to think in ways that are much more creative. And suddenly, what you discover is, oh, you know, I kind of like the way I dress and I also like the way this other person dress. I wonder if I could just add that little bit of something like that to my wardrobe, right? Or you say, you know, I'm feel good about the way I look, but you know, every now and then, kind of like I could probably do a little something prove my appearance. But it's not from a place of condemnation or deficit based place or none of that. It's just comes because you're enjoying yourself so much and you get this great little insider idea that maybe I'll just make this tiny little tweak and it ends up being a significant tweak, right? So you're right. If you prior to yourself improvement over self enjoyment, not only will you not enjoy yourself, ever, rarely. You also will not do a good job of improving yourself in meaningful ways. You know, you'll do a lot of things that seem really important, but you really won't make the significant meaningful difference, which is one ultimately, in mood, or we'll call it, I call it a state of awareness, but it's that. If there's one thing that pauses psychology, has shared a reveal to us, it's that happy people are better lovers. They're more attractive, literally and figuratively. They attract more people, particularly happy people, they attract more of. And they also attract better opportunities, better circumstances and conditions. They also get married earlier. State may or longer and happen all the relationships, whether they're married or not, right? So if there's something you want to improve, improve your happiness, we'll call itself enjoyment, but if you do that, I promise that will lead to all kinds of other improvements, and those improvements will not only be objective improvements, they'll be subjective improvements as well. So there will be meaningful improvements, both in how you feel, but also how you show up in the world. I'm so on board with that because I think there's so many self improvement resources out there that some people feel like I've reached the end. I've done everything I possibly could to improve myself. Why am I not getting the love that I deserve? And what you described there is that it's an ongoing skill that we have to keep Tapping into instead of thinking, this is the end of the line. I get a master's in happiness and I got love now. So I really enjoy listening to that. How would you address the people who feel like they had a great love that got away? I will never find a great love like this person again. Well, it's a great reminder that the great love you're really speaking up but not might not know it is of course yourself. There's that. So that experience came through you. And I don't know about you all, but maybe I know I've been in relationships before, you've dated someone before, and you maybe have romanticized the past, maybe a little or a lot, and then, you know, 5 years, ten years later, you would connect with the person you run into them, and you just think, what was I ever so interested in with that right? And you just think, wow, it's fascinating. Yes. It was the person. Wouldn't it still be? That person, when I still feel the same way, so the brain has this incredible ability to romanticize, can also catastrophize the past, but in this particular situation, the mind can run away from us. So I would say that ultimately, people in the world itself is not designed to make us happy or to make us feel love or loved all the time. That's not the purpose. The purpose is to lead you back to the source of love and happiness in peace that exists within yourself. So that great love you experienced, you think, was a moment in time was about a relationship. But it wasn't about some moment in time. It's about the timeless moment, which is the now, and it's about the relationship that you have with yourself, not that person or anyone else. Ultimately, of course, that benefits everyone else. But really, the lesson learned there is, I was able to experience the kind of love to this day I still remember. And that love, the source of that love exists within me all the time. What can I do to dive more deeply into that experience here and now? So instead of trying to get back into the past to relive that experience or reach out into the future and live that experience in some future moment, how can I experience more of that right here and now? And I care about love in the future. How can I make love now a thing? How can I put more time and energy into love now? And the more you can love and enjoy this current moment, this present moment, the more you'll find quote unquote love showing up in the future over and over again. So if you care about the future being full of love, make this moment full of love.

01:05:02 - 01:10:07

Before we get into takeaways, I think this whole part around turning it to yourself and love being synonymous with yourself. We hear all the time people frustrated and dating because no one wants them essentially. There's this feeling of needing to be chosen and dating. And it starts to make even the best of us when it happens a lot, feel unlovable. What's kind of like a parting piece of advice you would have for someone that's in that state of feeling unlovable and not seeing the love within themselves. Yeah, so people will always be very peoplely. And people will always disappoint you. And that's not because they're disappointing. It's just that no one can possibly keep up this game of loving you more than they love themselves for very long. So if you're looking or hoping that you'll experience this kind of lasting and meaningful and abiding love that you ultimately after, just look at the ways that people in your life that have done nothing but disappoint you in that way. So I met him when I for ten years when I was trying to go to business when I was going to business school I was trying to pay for it and I worked in an entertainment business and I was doing modeling jobs and mostly it meant I was being I was unemployed. I mean booked some great job but also it's a hard business and I had a photographer early on that said, you know rob, what makes for a great or spectacular picture, don't you? I said, no, I don't. What is it? He said, every great picture make a promise that it can not keep and I would argue that every experienced condition circumstance in person in the world. Very well intentioned, makes a promise that it can not keep. And the truth is, that's a great service to you that does a great justice to you. It would be a much greater in service and injustice. If people need you dependent on them by loving you exactly the way you want it to be love at all points in time because you would be led away from the very source of peace love and happiness within you. And so it's not the job the world's job and the world will always suck at making you feel what you want to feel and other people will always suck at making you feel what you want to feel. And so it's not the world's job. It's not other people's job and when the world or other people do a good job of that, we say we love them, but in lots of ways they are actually doing this a great injustice because they're leading us away from the very source of peace love and happiness that exists within you. So it may not feel like a gift at all right now, but I promise you it's an major gift to not feel loved or not feel lovable and to not find someone who quote unquote chooses you as a romantic partner is a huge gift because it's giving you opportunity to see through this illusion and through this matrix through this false promise that the world and other people make, which is I will make you happy forever. I will make you feel loved forever. That's bull. Ish. It's bullish. It's just not healthy and it's not happiness and not a way to experience the kind of love your old reactor. I love that so much. And I think it's a great segue to takeaways, which has been such a fantastic conversation. I mean, what I've gathering is oftentimes we think self love is selfish. But in theory, it's actually what, first of all, it's like the number one necessity in life I would say from what we're talking about. And if you do not have that within yourself, it doesn't mean that it detracts from your love to others, if anything, it allows you to give more love into the world. And we talk about this a lot. It's so often we're so outcome focused. We want to skip to the end. We want everything to go a certain way, but just enjoying all these moments and seeing them, like the example you just gave. It's like even when things don't go our way, how is that going to shape who we are and where we go in life? All of that is a gift if we choose to see it that way. So I feel like love is so romanticized of being this romantic love, but what I've gathered from this conversation is it is so much more and it all starts with it. You should host a really popular and profound podcast system. Interesting. Touche. I just love what you said. I think you're just spot on. This love conversation just makes me feel so warm because if makes me feel like I have so much more love to give reminder because there are days that I'm like, I just have nothing left in me. I need some love right now, but I have nothing left to mean to give and if we are putting the onus on ourselves as a source of love, I can turn that around and say actually I do. I do have love to give and it's not depleted in any means. I think this self love journal is fantastic because sometimes we talk about self love as like going to the spa and getting a cure, which I guess is a form of self love, but it's not a belief of self love. Self love journal, plants a seed for love, so it almost forces you to see it from a love perspective, as opposed to what is depleting you in your daily life.

01:10:08 - 01:15:04

And I really believe that sharing the love just get more love. I wholeheartedly believe this and I've shared this with Julie too. I have this friend named may, and she is just the most loving person I know, even though she doesn't come from love. She attracts people who leech aquifer who take from her, but she doesn't stick that way. She chooses to see as she's got so much love to give, that she can share with whoever comes into her life. And for so long, I was like, she's being taken advantage of. I need to sit down with her and talk to her about all the people who are taking her energy, but I think after this conversation, I can see it from her perspective where if you choose to see love, it is there. And if you choose to share it, then you'll just see more of it and when we want to spread more of the love as opposed to being petty about it like I used to be. I feel bad. I love that so much. Can I just add a comment because it was just so beautiful when you shared with you both shared there. So you're absolutely you're both absolutely right. We're all sort of trust fund babies walking around with this unlimited inheritance of love inside. And we don't know it. So we're all these trust fund babies, these kings and queens and prints and princesses. And we fall asleep and dreamed that we're beggars. And we're in the stream out there in the world trying to find love everywhere. Within everyone else, pretty getting all along that we're these trust fund babies we have this infinite source of love and peace and evidence inside it. So that's one at 2.8. And the other thing, love is formless ultimately, right? It's formless. And it can take any form, and it's important to remember that because sometimes we think that like happiness, it has to have this huge big smiley face plastered all over it, or that it has to come with chocolate. And flowers, or that we have to give all our money out. It doesn't mean that sometimes it might mean you can take it in a nap. You're taking an app because whether that love is shining or focused or sort of channeled to someone else or yourself, it's still love, right? So there's that. You know, second, if nothing else kind of remember, as you said, love isn't a state of mood or state of emotion. Sometimes you feel it that way. Just by dropping your judgment about yourself or about other people about life in the world itself, you're already dropping into love to the kind of state of awareness of love that I've been referring to like we've been talking about that during this podcast. You don't have to go do things that you feel bad for doing in the name of love. Just to be a loving person. Just notice the thoughts that bring you so much pain and suffering. Just drop that. Your audience source for good. You're already a source for love despite doing that. I love that. I think, you know, we all need to find love in all the places that exist in everyday life and every moment. What you said earlier of even if this podcast never airs, what I'm gaining from this moment in, I think that is something that I'm going to take to heart because I'm always trying to go a few steps ahead, but it's that's what makes our memories and our feelings and our learnings and all the things. Touche. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Another way to find love is in your book, love from the inside out. You're forward is from Vanessa Williams, the queen herself. That's amazing. And where can people find your book, rob? Yeah, you can find it everywhere great books are sold, including Amazon, Barnes and noble, target, Walmart, yep, those are probably the best places. Banyan books, mango books. And if people want to find out more about you? Yeah, if you want to find out more about me, you can find me at my website at coach rob Mac MA CK dot com. You can also find me on most all social media platforms, probably most consistently Instagram at rob Mac MA CK official. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for being here with us, rob. I feel like we need to have you back for another one. I still have so many thoughts and questions, but this is always so enlightening to have you as a guest, so thank you. It is truly my honor and I mean this. You all are always so gracious with me. You're so generous with me and you're so loving with me. And so I feel like I need to add a chapter to just to pay homage to the both of you. So thank you so much for that. Thank you for having me in the conversation and you for being so kind to me. I appreciate it. A forward by Vanessa Williams and an addendum by the database. There you go. That sounds like a great way to close out a book. There it is. There it is. That's right. We can sandwich there. Also, just want to say for everyone listening, thank you so much for listening. I hope you all felt the love from this episode. We certainly did. And if you did feel the love, give us a rating and review on Apple podcasts. 5 stars, maybe a little something nice. We always love that because we do reciprocate that love with good content, each and every week. But you don't even need to. It just makes you feel good. You know? But it does make the world go around.

01:15:04 - 01:16:40

Me too. And on that note, we're going to wrap up this episode. The dateable podcast is part of the frolic podcast network. Find more podcasts you'll love at frolic media slash podcasts. Want to continue the conversation? First, follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter with the handle at dateable podcast. Tag us in any post with a hashtag stay dateable and trust us. We look at all those posts. Then head over to our website dateable podcast dot com. There you'll find all the episodes as well as articles, videos, and our coaching service with vetted industry experts. You can also find our premium Y series where we dissect, analyze, and offer solutions to some of the most common dating conundrums. We're also downloadable for free on Spotify, Apple podcasts, Google Play, overcast, stitcher radio, and other podcast platforms. Your feedback is valuable to us, so don't forget to leave us a review. And most importantly, remember to stay dateable. Hear that. That's the sound of a patient whose health data is protected from a cyberattack. And that, that's the sound of a financial system that's digitally secured from bad actors. Right now, there's an invisible war being fought on a digital battlefield that impacts what we do every day. That's why a periton, we do that can't be done to help protect the vital systems we rely on because if we don't, the alternative is unimaginable. Periton.

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