thank you so 12 years ago almost to the
day actually I was moving into a new
house that I just bought with a
girlfriend that had been dating for five
years and on the day that we were moving
in together I planned on getting engaged
I planned on it right so that was the
plan so I got to the house early to sort
of set the stage and I got there in and
laid out some roses from the front door
that led in and I know what you’re
thinking like very cliche but you have
to understand I didn’t have Pinterest
back then so this was like my best work
okay
so stay with me though so she gets to
the house she walks in she follows her
roses okay we’re on set I think like for
women if you lay out roses there’s just
something in their DNA where they just
follow so she follows him to the kitchen
and she gets in the kitchen and on the
island is a takeout container from our
favorite restaurant she opens the
container and inside it says you know
will you marry me yes no and there’s a
pen hanging and she checks yes right so
we did it okay it’s it gets worse before
it gets better
okay so she in that moment for the first
time in my life that I can remember I’m
sort of like outside of me like the
matrix in a way don’t worry it’s not a
wool we would talk so I’m thinking about
how I’m feeling I’m sort of like
watching us celebrate and I’m really
observing my feelings and I’m thinking I
think I should be more excited than this
and before I gotten engaged that was
actually quite nervous about it I felt
anxious and so I would talk to people
that I really trusted and I asked their
advice and they would say things like I
think you’re just afraid of commitment
and I thought well maybe I am but maybe
it’s something more than that and so I
would spend all my spare moments on the
internet searching for things like how
do you know if she’s the one ya know
whose small topic and it would bring me
to this website that was called the
runaway bride which no longer exists
unfortunately and I posted my story on
the forum and people on there are people
who are like going through what I was
going through or had been and what was
beautiful about it is they didn’t
care what I chose they just care that I
made a choice that was right for me and
so this one woman she asked me three
questions that would forever change my
life and the first question was if she
left you tomorrow would you be okay and
I thought yeah I would be okay and the
second question she asked me was can you
imagine what it would be like waiting
for her at your altar whatever your
altar is and I thought no that like made
my stomach hurt made me anxious and the
third question she asked me was can
someone else love her better yeah and
she was worthy of that she was and is a
amazing woman and it was actually the
first time that question was the first
time I ever even considered a situation
outside of my selfish bubble it was like
how’s this gonna affect me what will
people think if the relationship ends I
don’t want to hurt anyone and it was
like wow this fear of stepping into my
truth or honoring whatever my feelings
were I wasn’t allowing her the
opportunity to have the relationship she
was worthy of so I invite you if you’re
in a relationship or even to think of
your past partner to ask yourself can
someone else love them better and if the
answer is yes then of course why are you
leaving that gap because if you don’t
fill it someone else will and of course
the follow-up question to that is do you
want to and for me I didn’t want to and
I didn’t know why I just knew that I
didn’t want to and my truth was that I
needed to end the relationship so I did
but on the ending on the day that that
engagement story ended that part of my
story was sort of like the beginning of
this amazing journey that has brought me
to the stage today I since that moment
have been obsessed with understanding
relationships with understanding the
science and psychology of why they work
and why they don’t and why are we
attracted to people who are not good for
us often and why when things are
terribly bad do we have such a problem
leaving relationships if we even do and
why when someone’s actually ready to
show up for us and love us we’re like
they’re too nice right and it’s
unattractive
like that’s messed up and I thought why
is it that if relationships matter to us
so much that we don’t take the time to
learn about them and to be really good
at them now I have the belief that we
are all obsessed with relationships
because no matter where I go coffee
shops the seawall people are talking
about their relationship stuff they will
pin you against the wall if you ask how
is your relationship and I don’t have
the research to support this statement
but I am almost certain that more coffee
and wine is consumed on the subject of
and the recovery from relationships
right than anything else so I might
decline sales in those areas after this
talk hopefully so if we’re so obsessed
with it why because when relationships
are great they’re amazing I love this
painting from lorem bans and Martin
because it’s everything it’s why we’re
here we’re here to connect but when
relationships don’t work they’re
devastatingly painful relationships
literally love literally affects our
hearts in a study where they took people
and they gave them a wound on their arm
they saw that if they were in high
conflict relationships they actually
healed slower and John Gottman who’s
like the godfather of release that’s my
gum otherwise he’s the Godfather of
relationship research I know it wasn’t
good he he saw that if he was observing
a couple that were seemingly fine and he
measured their physiological responses
if they were in a high conflict
relationship they actually their bodies
were responding like they were beside a
tiger it’s not crazy our bodies don’t
know the difference between a
high-stress job a high-stress life and a
high-stress relationship so you imagine
if it just affects a small wound on your
arm that healing what does it do when
we’re fighting things like heart disease
or cancer and if really bad
relationships or challenging ones can
affect our health in a negative way can
positive ones help us heal maybe or
preserve our health and the answer is
yes in the longest-running study
unhappiness the Harvard men’s study
which now includes women
about time they saw that it wasn’t your
blood pressure your cholesterol that
predicted your health at 80 it was the
quality of your relationships at 50 yeah
but not just romantic relationships
relationships of all kinds friendship
family because the skill set of being
able to connect to another human being
and communicate effectively is the most
important skill we can develop and the
other thing is love with another person
it’s probably the most challenging thing
that we’ll all face because love
requires us to look at the things were
not good at it requires us to accept
them and you know the areas of
development that work talked to us about
we have relational areas of development
– and you know really deeply fulfilling
loving relationships require so much
humility but they also require so much
more courage when we actually begin this
journey of understanding which I did and
I didn’t know it was called this till I
got to this stage of my career
um building relational awareness
essentially like that’s a fancy way of
saying like what is my stuff and then
how does my stuff play with their stuff
which actually sounds dirty when I think
about it but
my stuff yourself but it’s like what is
my stuff and what is their stuff and how
does it relate and anyone we relate to
our stuff relates to and when we
actually look at the research on why we
do what we do we see that about 95 to 99
percent of what we do is subconscious
that crazy 1 to 5 percent of what we do
is conscious that doesn’t seem good
right and so what’s happening is from
the from birth to around 7 we are
literally learning how to walk and how
to talk obviously that’s important but
we’re learning how to be part of a
society we’re learning how to be part of
a culture we’re learning how to be a
part of a religion we’re learning how to
be part of a family we’re essentially
learning how to fit in we’re learning
how to become who we need to be in order
to be loved by the people around us and
in some way we’re abandoning ourselves
our true selves in some sense we’re
learning what it means as we heard
earlier to be a little boy or a little
girl we’re learning what our
relationships are supposed to look like
we’re learning how we’re supposed to act
in relationships if you think about our
minds being like a computer these are
sort of the background the programs that
are running in the background I don’t
know about you and this will likely be
the only time I ever say this but I
actually want to be the programmer like
this is the only time that I really want
to get into this we have to understand
what they are because they shape what we
choose and in order to do that we have
to start to look at our childhood until
I am NOT gonna elect Freud you on the
couch right now but this is me as a
little boy and I was forced to ask
myself some challenging questions like
what did I observe and what was I
explicitly taught about relationships in
communication and invite you to explore
that too because it matters a lot I
think some of the messages I was sent
was like get married by 25 to 27 have
kids by 30 and if you don’t do that
you’re kind of broken or men are bad at
communicating men are afraid of
commitment I got don’t don’t do an arts
degree cuz they don’t make money to a
business degree or become a lawyer or
doctor cuz you’re gonna have to be a
good provider there’s so many messages
that we receive and they don’t just come
from family they
from marketing as well this is an actual
booklet from the 1950s right learn how
to train your wife in five easy lessons
which we know is obviously misleading
because it’s way more lessons than that
I was like how’s that joke gonna go I’m
not sure um especially after the Marines
talked earlier so but look at this so
teach her how to fetch your slippers in
pipe this one though sit quietly while
you browse your favorite TV stations or
respond to nonverbal cues such as
snapping of the fingers which I know is
a quick way to lose my fingers in my
house but all joking aside this is funny
but it’s not because imagine being a
little boy or a little girl and this is
a book on your coffee table what message
does this send and those little boys and
little girls are our parents or maybe
our grandparents or maybe even some of
us when we actually think of relational
understanding and education unless we
seek outside education on communication
and relationships the education we get
is from our family right and so if we’ve
never seen conflict turned into intimacy
how would we know how and so if you just
look at your family tree and you go up
five generations and assume no divorce
you have 30 people’s stuff funneling
into you like bags of luggage just
dropping on you like deal with this
right and then if you’re in a
relationship with someone you’ve got 30
people’s stuff coming down here –
assuming no divorce and if you’re
polyamorous you got tons of people’s
stuff and you got that’s a whole other
bag but so you have 30 people’s stuff
and then you got this person with 30
people stuff and you’re like why your
stuff like of all the people I see in
this u-haul you’re towing a senior
family why you but I think you’re you’re
yeah I want this but why right and you
hear people say things like um I never
want to become like my parents and then
inevitably the relationships become
exactly like their parents are you hear
you marry your opposite sex parent right
but that’s not entirely true we are
attracted
to intend to choose people who wound us
in a similar way as a parent who wounded
us the most or somebody raised us so
what is a wound okay so a wound is any
need that doesn’t get adequately met and
now we can’t possibly get all their
needs met so let’s just get that clear
so as a kid though you don’t even have
language for the first part of your life
so you can’t possibly express it anyway
so none of us escape childhood without
wounds so there’s this guy Claire we’re
all no wound sharing this is the trust
treat okay so you can think about a
wound being like when you’re when you
touch your hand to the stove and you
burn your hand you change the way
hopefully you behave around the stove
and the same is true for love when you
burn your heart even as a child you
change your behavior around love and so
why do we choose these people and what
I’ve noticed from just working with
thousands of people now the answer to
this question is consistently related to
what drives us in love and the question
is what I wanted most as a child and
didn’t get was so think about that what
I wanted most as a child and I didn’t
get was now the answer to this question
will be the thing we tend to long for
most from our partner now for most of us
the answer to this question will be
something like to feel chosen to be
important to feel understood to feel
safe to feel like I’m enough this will
be the thing we most want from them and
now it’s not one-sided right where it’s
like it’s not me it’s you there’s like
they’ll want something from us to you
know be nice if it was just but it’s no
it’s both sided now what can happen is
the opposite and what I mean by that is
if we had a parent who wasn’t around or
left or just was withdrawn
we might be attracted to people who are
overwhelming and smothering maybe
controlling but balance is not found on
the other end of the pendulum it’s found
in the middle right so the answer to
this question is so powerful in building
our relational awareness because we
begin to understand what it is that
drives us and what we want in
relationship what we’re constantly
seeking and then because what were
we’re seeking to heal it in a way I like
to call it wound chemistry because we’re
seeking the mistake we’d be making up
until this point for the most part is
that we’ve been waiting for someone else
to give it to us we’ve been waiting for
someone else to choose us someone else
to prioritize it someone else to love us
but the healing comes from us doing it
we are choosing these people and they’re
wounding us because they’re inviting us
to heal and when we do that we take all
these inherited familial patterns and we
begin to heal we begin to heal our
family the answer to this question is so
powerful because when we do the healing
we take the responsibility away from the
people we’re pursuing or our partners so
they can just love us when we do this we
begin to take massive responsibility for
our relationships I mean we don’t get to
choose what family were born into
although there are some existential
views that we do choose a family but
that’s a whole other TED talk so what I
say you don’t get to choose your family
and you don’t get to choose necessarily
everything that happens to you and you
can’t change your past none of us can
change our past but we are responsible
for everything that we have we’re
responsible for everything that’s on our
plate and when we do that we take these
patterns that we’ve inherited and we
change them we change them by changing
ourselves these wounds occurred in
relationship and that’s where they get
healed I love this statue from Burning
Man 2015 by Alexander me love because
this is all of us right whenever I see
this picture I’m just like whoa because
as adults we get angry right we get
upset we yell we would draw and we turn
our backs when really in all of us is
this child that says love me connect
with me
don’t turn your back our work is not to
learn how to love because we’re born
knowing that is to learn how to remove
the barriers we have to love it’s to
actually give this child a voice it’s to
give birth to this child who is in all
of us the person that we in some ways or
maybe a lot of ways left behind when we
were becoming who
to be in order to be loved by the people
around us there is no magic pill to
relationships right we’re trying to hack
everything you can’t hack relationships
I’m sorry but if when we actually do the
work when we actually build relational
awareness when we understand what our
stuff is and how it relates any of us
can have amazing relationships any one
of us when my engagement ended 12 years
ago I asked myself how did I get so
disconnected from me and the answer was
so simple it was that I avoided every
hard conversation so I want to ask you
what hard conversations are you avoiding
I made the promise on the day of that
realization and it was a very hard
promise to keep that I would have every
conversation I didn’t want to have
because those are the ones that matter
we avoid hard conversations because as a
society and a culture we have made being
in a relationship more important than
being honest and truthful just look at
how we celebrate anniversaries instead
of the depth of connection if we want to
have deeply fulfilling relationships we
have to be willing to have very hard
conversations with ourselves and so I
invite you to consider are you doing
your best
are you living and loving at your best
and if you’re not why like now is the
time I teach relationships and
relational wellness and how to be
awesome at them because how we love
matters so much and when we actually do
this work for you don’t just heal
ourselves and not just the family tree
of all the people that and drop their
bags on us but we also killed the
generations that come after us we heal
our children and when we do that we free
them to live the life that they’re
worthy of living so they don’t have to
spend it recovering from their childhood
thank you
[Applause]
day actually I was moving into a new
house that I just bought with a
girlfriend that had been dating for five
years and on the day that we were moving
in together I planned on getting engaged
I planned on it right so that was the
plan so I got to the house early to sort
of set the stage and I got there in and
laid out some roses from the front door
that led in and I know what you’re
thinking like very cliche but you have
to understand I didn’t have Pinterest
back then so this was like my best work
okay
so stay with me though so she gets to
the house she walks in she follows her
roses okay we’re on set I think like for
women if you lay out roses there’s just
something in their DNA where they just
follow so she follows him to the kitchen
and she gets in the kitchen and on the
island is a takeout container from our
favorite restaurant she opens the
container and inside it says you know
will you marry me yes no and there’s a
pen hanging and she checks yes right so
we did it okay it’s it gets worse before
it gets better
okay so she in that moment for the first
time in my life that I can remember I’m
sort of like outside of me like the
matrix in a way don’t worry it’s not a
wool we would talk so I’m thinking about
how I’m feeling I’m sort of like
watching us celebrate and I’m really
observing my feelings and I’m thinking I
think I should be more excited than this
and before I gotten engaged that was
actually quite nervous about it I felt
anxious and so I would talk to people
that I really trusted and I asked their
advice and they would say things like I
think you’re just afraid of commitment
and I thought well maybe I am but maybe
it’s something more than that and so I
would spend all my spare moments on the
internet searching for things like how
do you know if she’s the one ya know
whose small topic and it would bring me
to this website that was called the
runaway bride which no longer exists
unfortunately and I posted my story on
the forum and people on there are people
who are like going through what I was
going through or had been and what was
beautiful about it is they didn’t
care what I chose they just care that I
made a choice that was right for me and
so this one woman she asked me three
questions that would forever change my
life and the first question was if she
left you tomorrow would you be okay and
I thought yeah I would be okay and the
second question she asked me was can you
imagine what it would be like waiting
for her at your altar whatever your
altar is and I thought no that like made
my stomach hurt made me anxious and the
third question she asked me was can
someone else love her better yeah and
she was worthy of that she was and is a
amazing woman and it was actually the
first time that question was the first
time I ever even considered a situation
outside of my selfish bubble it was like
how’s this gonna affect me what will
people think if the relationship ends I
don’t want to hurt anyone and it was
like wow this fear of stepping into my
truth or honoring whatever my feelings
were I wasn’t allowing her the
opportunity to have the relationship she
was worthy of so I invite you if you’re
in a relationship or even to think of
your past partner to ask yourself can
someone else love them better and if the
answer is yes then of course why are you
leaving that gap because if you don’t
fill it someone else will and of course
the follow-up question to that is do you
want to and for me I didn’t want to and
I didn’t know why I just knew that I
didn’t want to and my truth was that I
needed to end the relationship so I did
but on the ending on the day that that
engagement story ended that part of my
story was sort of like the beginning of
this amazing journey that has brought me
to the stage today I since that moment
have been obsessed with understanding
relationships with understanding the
science and psychology of why they work
and why they don’t and why are we
attracted to people who are not good for
us often and why when things are
terribly bad do we have such a problem
leaving relationships if we even do and
why when someone’s actually ready to
show up for us and love us we’re like
they’re too nice right and it’s
unattractive
like that’s messed up and I thought why
is it that if relationships matter to us
so much that we don’t take the time to
learn about them and to be really good
at them now I have the belief that we
are all obsessed with relationships
because no matter where I go coffee
shops the seawall people are talking
about their relationship stuff they will
pin you against the wall if you ask how
is your relationship and I don’t have
the research to support this statement
but I am almost certain that more coffee
and wine is consumed on the subject of
and the recovery from relationships
right than anything else so I might
decline sales in those areas after this
talk hopefully so if we’re so obsessed
with it why because when relationships
are great they’re amazing I love this
painting from lorem bans and Martin
because it’s everything it’s why we’re
here we’re here to connect but when
relationships don’t work they’re
devastatingly painful relationships
literally love literally affects our
hearts in a study where they took people
and they gave them a wound on their arm
they saw that if they were in high
conflict relationships they actually
healed slower and John Gottman who’s
like the godfather of release that’s my
gum otherwise he’s the Godfather of
relationship research I know it wasn’t
good he he saw that if he was observing
a couple that were seemingly fine and he
measured their physiological responses
if they were in a high conflict
relationship they actually their bodies
were responding like they were beside a
tiger it’s not crazy our bodies don’t
know the difference between a
high-stress job a high-stress life and a
high-stress relationship so you imagine
if it just affects a small wound on your
arm that healing what does it do when
we’re fighting things like heart disease
or cancer and if really bad
relationships or challenging ones can
affect our health in a negative way can
positive ones help us heal maybe or
preserve our health and the answer is
yes in the longest-running study
unhappiness the Harvard men’s study
which now includes women
about time they saw that it wasn’t your
blood pressure your cholesterol that
predicted your health at 80 it was the
quality of your relationships at 50 yeah
but not just romantic relationships
relationships of all kinds friendship
family because the skill set of being
able to connect to another human being
and communicate effectively is the most
important skill we can develop and the
other thing is love with another person
it’s probably the most challenging thing
that we’ll all face because love
requires us to look at the things were
not good at it requires us to accept
them and you know the areas of
development that work talked to us about
we have relational areas of development
– and you know really deeply fulfilling
loving relationships require so much
humility but they also require so much
more courage when we actually begin this
journey of understanding which I did and
I didn’t know it was called this till I
got to this stage of my career
um building relational awareness
essentially like that’s a fancy way of
saying like what is my stuff and then
how does my stuff play with their stuff
which actually sounds dirty when I think
about it but
my stuff yourself but it’s like what is
my stuff and what is their stuff and how
does it relate and anyone we relate to
our stuff relates to and when we
actually look at the research on why we
do what we do we see that about 95 to 99
percent of what we do is subconscious
that crazy 1 to 5 percent of what we do
is conscious that doesn’t seem good
right and so what’s happening is from
the from birth to around 7 we are
literally learning how to walk and how
to talk obviously that’s important but
we’re learning how to be part of a
society we’re learning how to be part of
a culture we’re learning how to be a
part of a religion we’re learning how to
be part of a family we’re essentially
learning how to fit in we’re learning
how to become who we need to be in order
to be loved by the people around us and
in some way we’re abandoning ourselves
our true selves in some sense we’re
learning what it means as we heard
earlier to be a little boy or a little
girl we’re learning what our
relationships are supposed to look like
we’re learning how we’re supposed to act
in relationships if you think about our
minds being like a computer these are
sort of the background the programs that
are running in the background I don’t
know about you and this will likely be
the only time I ever say this but I
actually want to be the programmer like
this is the only time that I really want
to get into this we have to understand
what they are because they shape what we
choose and in order to do that we have
to start to look at our childhood until
I am NOT gonna elect Freud you on the
couch right now but this is me as a
little boy and I was forced to ask
myself some challenging questions like
what did I observe and what was I
explicitly taught about relationships in
communication and invite you to explore
that too because it matters a lot I
think some of the messages I was sent
was like get married by 25 to 27 have
kids by 30 and if you don’t do that
you’re kind of broken or men are bad at
communicating men are afraid of
commitment I got don’t don’t do an arts
degree cuz they don’t make money to a
business degree or become a lawyer or
doctor cuz you’re gonna have to be a
good provider there’s so many messages
that we receive and they don’t just come
from family they
from marketing as well this is an actual
booklet from the 1950s right learn how
to train your wife in five easy lessons
which we know is obviously misleading
because it’s way more lessons than that
I was like how’s that joke gonna go I’m
not sure um especially after the Marines
talked earlier so but look at this so
teach her how to fetch your slippers in
pipe this one though sit quietly while
you browse your favorite TV stations or
respond to nonverbal cues such as
snapping of the fingers which I know is
a quick way to lose my fingers in my
house but all joking aside this is funny
but it’s not because imagine being a
little boy or a little girl and this is
a book on your coffee table what message
does this send and those little boys and
little girls are our parents or maybe
our grandparents or maybe even some of
us when we actually think of relational
understanding and education unless we
seek outside education on communication
and relationships the education we get
is from our family right and so if we’ve
never seen conflict turned into intimacy
how would we know how and so if you just
look at your family tree and you go up
five generations and assume no divorce
you have 30 people’s stuff funneling
into you like bags of luggage just
dropping on you like deal with this
right and then if you’re in a
relationship with someone you’ve got 30
people’s stuff coming down here –
assuming no divorce and if you’re
polyamorous you got tons of people’s
stuff and you got that’s a whole other
bag but so you have 30 people’s stuff
and then you got this person with 30
people stuff and you’re like why your
stuff like of all the people I see in
this u-haul you’re towing a senior
family why you but I think you’re you’re
yeah I want this but why right and you
hear people say things like um I never
want to become like my parents and then
inevitably the relationships become
exactly like their parents are you hear
you marry your opposite sex parent right
but that’s not entirely true we are
attracted
to intend to choose people who wound us
in a similar way as a parent who wounded
us the most or somebody raised us so
what is a wound okay so a wound is any
need that doesn’t get adequately met and
now we can’t possibly get all their
needs met so let’s just get that clear
so as a kid though you don’t even have
language for the first part of your life
so you can’t possibly express it anyway
so none of us escape childhood without
wounds so there’s this guy Claire we’re
all no wound sharing this is the trust
treat okay so you can think about a
wound being like when you’re when you
touch your hand to the stove and you
burn your hand you change the way
hopefully you behave around the stove
and the same is true for love when you
burn your heart even as a child you
change your behavior around love and so
why do we choose these people and what
I’ve noticed from just working with
thousands of people now the answer to
this question is consistently related to
what drives us in love and the question
is what I wanted most as a child and
didn’t get was so think about that what
I wanted most as a child and I didn’t
get was now the answer to this question
will be the thing we tend to long for
most from our partner now for most of us
the answer to this question will be
something like to feel chosen to be
important to feel understood to feel
safe to feel like I’m enough this will
be the thing we most want from them and
now it’s not one-sided right where it’s
like it’s not me it’s you there’s like
they’ll want something from us to you
know be nice if it was just but it’s no
it’s both sided now what can happen is
the opposite and what I mean by that is
if we had a parent who wasn’t around or
left or just was withdrawn
we might be attracted to people who are
overwhelming and smothering maybe
controlling but balance is not found on
the other end of the pendulum it’s found
in the middle right so the answer to
this question is so powerful in building
our relational awareness because we
begin to understand what it is that
drives us and what we want in
relationship what we’re constantly
seeking and then because what were
we’re seeking to heal it in a way I like
to call it wound chemistry because we’re
seeking the mistake we’d be making up
until this point for the most part is
that we’ve been waiting for someone else
to give it to us we’ve been waiting for
someone else to choose us someone else
to prioritize it someone else to love us
but the healing comes from us doing it
we are choosing these people and they’re
wounding us because they’re inviting us
to heal and when we do that we take all
these inherited familial patterns and we
begin to heal we begin to heal our
family the answer to this question is so
powerful because when we do the healing
we take the responsibility away from the
people we’re pursuing or our partners so
they can just love us when we do this we
begin to take massive responsibility for
our relationships I mean we don’t get to
choose what family were born into
although there are some existential
views that we do choose a family but
that’s a whole other TED talk so what I
say you don’t get to choose your family
and you don’t get to choose necessarily
everything that happens to you and you
can’t change your past none of us can
change our past but we are responsible
for everything that we have we’re
responsible for everything that’s on our
plate and when we do that we take these
patterns that we’ve inherited and we
change them we change them by changing
ourselves these wounds occurred in
relationship and that’s where they get
healed I love this statue from Burning
Man 2015 by Alexander me love because
this is all of us right whenever I see
this picture I’m just like whoa because
as adults we get angry right we get
upset we yell we would draw and we turn
our backs when really in all of us is
this child that says love me connect
with me
don’t turn your back our work is not to
learn how to love because we’re born
knowing that is to learn how to remove
the barriers we have to love it’s to
actually give this child a voice it’s to
give birth to this child who is in all
of us the person that we in some ways or
maybe a lot of ways left behind when we
were becoming who
to be in order to be loved by the people
around us there is no magic pill to
relationships right we’re trying to hack
everything you can’t hack relationships
I’m sorry but if when we actually do the
work when we actually build relational
awareness when we understand what our
stuff is and how it relates any of us
can have amazing relationships any one
of us when my engagement ended 12 years
ago I asked myself how did I get so
disconnected from me and the answer was
so simple it was that I avoided every
hard conversation so I want to ask you
what hard conversations are you avoiding
I made the promise on the day of that
realization and it was a very hard
promise to keep that I would have every
conversation I didn’t want to have
because those are the ones that matter
we avoid hard conversations because as a
society and a culture we have made being
in a relationship more important than
being honest and truthful just look at
how we celebrate anniversaries instead
of the depth of connection if we want to
have deeply fulfilling relationships we
have to be willing to have very hard
conversations with ourselves and so I
invite you to consider are you doing
your best
are you living and loving at your best
and if you’re not why like now is the
time I teach relationships and
relational wellness and how to be
awesome at them because how we love
matters so much and when we actually do
this work for you don’t just heal
ourselves and not just the family tree
of all the people that and drop their
bags on us but we also killed the
generations that come after us we heal
our children and when we do that we free
them to live the life that they’re
worthy of living so they don’t have to
spend it recovering from their childhood
thank you
[Applause]
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