How To LET GO, MOVE ON & HEAL From A Toxic Relationship! | Dr. Ramani & Lewis Howes

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 0:00 One thing I would tell people is don't shame your triggers.

Lewis Howes 0:02 Yeah.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 0:03 Because I think when people say, "I don't wanna be triggered," I'm like, "Nah, you know, you don't have that line into your sympathetic nervous system. It's always gonna be quicker than you." So, it, because it's always gonna be quicker, we have to be aware-

Lewis Howes 0:13 I think you gotta have a dream. The School of Greatness. Really? [laughs] Yeah. Please welcome Lewis Howes. So we were talking about this beforehand, that this is one of the biggest challenges people face in, in modern society-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 0:25 Yeah

Lewis Howes 0:25 ... is understanding and navigating narcissism.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 0:28 Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 0:28 How to understand if you're a narcissist, how to understand if there's people in your life who have these tendencies-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 0:33 Yep

Lewis Howes 0:33 ... or personality traits.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 0:35 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 0:35 And really how to create healthy boundaries-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 0:38 Yep

Lewis Howes 0:38 ... the best way possible. First thing I wanna talk about, uh, with you is because the previous one, we kind of went through unpacking what a narcissist is.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 0:46 Yep.

Lewis Howes 0:46 The different types of narcissism-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 0:48 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 0:48 ... and how to f- how to spot it and how to see it.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 0:51 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 0:52 Uh, and I think a lot of people got through, went through breakups since then. You know, a lot of people probably ended relationships that they realized were very toxic and unhealthy-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:00 Mm

Lewis Howes 1:00 ... and not a vision for what they wanted in their life.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:02 Right, right, right.

Lewis Howes 1:04 And so for people, the first question I'm gonna ask you, for people who, um, who have ended relationships with a narcissist or narcissistic personalities-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:14 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 1:14 ... um, what's the best way for them to enter a new relationship without PTSD or without the remnants of-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:22 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 1:23 ... are they gonna lash out at me?

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:25 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 1:25 Are they gonna gaslight me? Are they gonna do these things that I've experienced in the pa- What's the best way to overcome that and enter a new relationship without bringing that baggage-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:34 Right

Lewis Howes 1:34 ... in the new one?

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:36 I'd say, I, when I work with survivors in my practice and when I speak to them in my, in a, in a subscription, like a sort of healing program I've got that people come every month, the one thing I say is, "You got a way to beat." The temptation is, I'm gonna throw myself into a new relationship as a palate cleanser. I'm like, "You know what? Sit with that dirty palate for a minute."

Lewis Howes 1:54 [laughs]

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:54 Because you need to do this work in you, because I think the challenge is, is that when people get into narcissistic relationships or antagonistic or toxic relationships, they don't know what they're dealing with, or they're replicating cycles from earlier in their life, right? Or both.

Lewis Howes 2:10 Right.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 2:10 And so what happens is, is that it's, if you, if you pivot too quickly, you don't get a chance to sort of know you. A, a narcissistic relationship does such a number on you. You have now been living in someone else's reality, right? People forget, like, "Do I like pepperoni pizza?" Or, "Do I enjoy this TV show?" Or, "What temperature do I want the house at?" Like, you literally lose sight of your own subjective sense of who you are. You lo- lose sense of reality or your, and,

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 2:40 and your own perception of things. You just lose it all because you literally have been living in psychological servitude to this other person. So I tell people, "Listen, my gold standard is a year. Give yourself a year," which I know is not a short period of time, and everyone... I'm like, "You know what? Take care of your own business, but a year." I understand that feels like a long time, but here's the thing. These relationships get so much into someone's head that in a year, a person can recoalesce, and they can unpack it, and they can start putting down some of the rumination. You certainly don't wanna do that in a new relationship, right?

Lewis Howes 3:16 You don't wanna bring that.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 3:17 You don't wanna bring that in. And you can also learn what you like, what you don't like, so that when somebody encroaches on that and says, they say something contemptuous, says, "Ugh, who eats that?" And say, "Okay, this is not, this is not okay. I'm not doing this again." You can start recognizing those patterns of what just doesn't feel right. But if you roll right into it, it's almost like a recreation of the old cycle. You need that separation. You need a break from anniversary dates. You need to have that first birthday alone, their first birthday alone, the holidays you do, the vacations you take. You've gotta go live a life without them. And once you've, because otherwise you're so, again, caught up. You might get caught up in someone else's sort of whole toxic bomb storm. So, t- now, I know a lot of people say a year just feels too long. I'm like, "I got you. I get it." A year is optimal, and the folks who've done it said, "I don't regret doing that at all now."

Lewis Howes 4:10 Sure.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 4:10 But for a lot of people, it might even be eight months, nine months. But there's a moment, Lewis, after a narcissistic relationship where a person will look up as they go to bed that night and say, "Oh, my God, I didn't think of them once today." That's a good day.

Lewis Howes 4:26 That's an amazing day.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 4:27 And I want not just one of those. I want a person to have a month of those.

Lewis Howes 4:30 Not a year.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 4:31 A while of those where they're just, you know, sure, something might remind them or something, but not that like, "What are they doing? What are they up to?" Almost to the point where you've detached. It might even be a moderate indifference. Like, "Oh, whatever," you know?

Lewis Howes 4:43 Yes.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 4:43 Like, "Let them do them."

Lewis Howes 4:45 It doesn't, like, trigger you.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 4:46 It doesn't set you off in the same way. But I do caution people, depending on the severity of the narcissistic relationship, sometimes people will report feeling those echoes years down the line, even if they've fallen in love with someone else.

Lewis Howes 4:59 Wow.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 4:59 And some p- someone will say, "Does that mean I'm not over them?" Not at all. It means that y- the way the trauma systems in the mind and the body hold on to information, it means that anything that reminds you of that can still activate you. I've been through this, and I gotta tell you, to this day, I think if I saw some of the people who harmed me in the past, I can think of a few-

Lewis Howes 5:18 You'd have a response

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 5:18 ... oh, my gosh, beyond a response. I actually think I would have to, I would almost, it would be akin to panic. And I'm, I honestly do not care what happens to those people, but if I saw them, it would be really upsetting for me. It's not that I'm not over it, it's just that I, it's just my nervous system is just like, "Danger."

Lewis Howes 5:33 Right.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 5:33 "Danger, danger, death, crime one."

Lewis Howes 5:34 Get away from this experience.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 5:35 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 5:35 Yeah.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 5:36 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 5:36 Interesting. Wow.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 5:37 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 5:38 So you're, the optimal is nine months to a year, uh, but it's really more like taking the temperature of allowing your nervous system to heal. See if you can have a few days in a row and a month in a row where you're not thinking about that person, or it's not triggering you consistently before you enter into a new relationship.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 5:53 And that you're clear on who you are.

Lewis Howes 5:55 Yes.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 5:55 You're not... Because in a narcissistic relationship, you're defined by the relationship. Are they happy today? Are we having a good day? Are they happy with their lives? It's everything is about them, right?

Lewis Howes 6:05 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 6:05 So now, for the first time, you make things be about you. Like, "I'm, I'm good." Like, "No, I wanna pursue this job. Yeah, no, I'm moving to New York." And not like, "Oh, is this gonna work? Mm-mm, mm." ... you for a minute, you. And w- and when you meet your person, capital P, and it's healthy, they might say like, "Ah, you know what? For about six months we can do this long distance," or, "I can work remotely. I'll come to New York or we'll figure it out." You'll start to see that there's a possibility for compromise.

Lewis Howes 6:37 Mm.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 6:37 But I do think that a lot of people after a narcissistic relationship, their trip wire's a bit more sensitive, and they may throw a c- back a few fish that are big enough to keep, and that's okay.

Lewis Howes 6:48 Yeah.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 6:48 I'd rather that they, people over-correct than under-correct.

Lewis Howes 6:52 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 6:53 And they might say, "Am I..." And this is where, again, when I work with clients they'll say, "Am I being too intense about this? Is this too big an ask?" Nine times out of 10, Lewis, it's not too big.

Lewis Howes 7:01 Nice.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 7:01 Like, they're right on point with the thing they're sensing feels red-flaggy to them or doesn't feel comfortable or something doesn't, isn't sitting well, and I'm teaching people, "Listen to that."

Lewis Howes 7:12 It's so funny you're saying this because, uh, when I got into my, my relationship with Martha, my girlfriend now-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 7:19 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 7:19 ... in the beginning I was like, "Listen, part of..." I think I re- I specifically said to her, like, "I kinda want you to run away from me."

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 7:26 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 7:26 "Because I wanna be so authentically myself-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 7:28 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 7:28 ... that it either draws you into me 'cause you accept and receive who I am-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 7:34 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 7:34 ... or it kind of repels you away from me, of, like, my truth and my vision and my mission and who I am in this world-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 7:40 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 7:40 ... and my, my being, right? My, what I wanna create in this life." Because I think I gave in so much in previous-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 7:46 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 7:46 ... relationships to please others-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 7:48 Ah, mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 7:49 ... and to be, change who I was and morph to make sure that they were okay and happy-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 7:53 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 7:53 ... which is all my responsibility for, for, for doing that. Um, but I was like, "I'm not changing who I am just to make one person, uh, happy," right?

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 8:04 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 8:04 "I'm, I'm going to... This is who I am. If you wa- if you wanna hang out and be friends and see how where it goes, cool. If not, that's cool, too."

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 8:11 Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 8:11 "But I'm not going to change myself to try to get you to like me and make you-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 8:16 Right

Lewis Howes 8:16 ... constantly happy or-"

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 8:18 Mm-hmm. Right

Lewis Howes 8:19 ... you know? Or any time you're upset at me for doing something I'm gonna stop, you know, doing it just to make you happy and be-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 8:24 Right

Lewis Howes 8:24 ... on edge.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 8:24 Right. Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 8:25 And I'm so glad that I did that.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 8:27 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 8:27 Part of me was like, probably some PTSD in the beginning where I was like, "I'm just doing this to protect myself-"

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 8:33 Right

Lewis Howes 8:33 ... "'cause I'd rather be single-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 8:35 Correct

Lewis Howes 8:35 ... than get into a relationship that's unhealthy."

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 8:37 And that's the key, right? That I'd rather be single than get into a relationship-

Lewis Howes 8:41 Yes

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 8:41 ... that's unhealthy, and that's the, that's... Because that's, that's what people are afraid of.

Lewis Howes 8:45 Mm-hmm. Yeah, and I was like, "I'll be single the rest of my life-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 8:47 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 8:48 ... if it's, if it means I'm not gonna be in this type of relationships that I've been in the previous."

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 8:53 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 8:53 Uh, and it's creating a new standard for myself.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 8:55 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 8:56 You know, what I'll allow in and what I want to allow, what boundaries I'll create, and, and making sure that it's in alignment with-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 9:02 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 9:02 ... my partner as well. And I'm glad I did that even though in the beginning she's like, "You might have a little PTSD still from the previous [laughs] relationship." I'm kinda glad that I came with that, I would call it, uh, I was very courageous in my communication about-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 9:15 Mm-hmm, mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 9:15 ... this is my truth.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 9:16 Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Lewis Howes 9:17 And it, and it may scare you away.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 9:18 Right.

Lewis Howes 9:18 And I have to be okay if you're not-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 9:20 Correct

Lewis Howes 9:20 ... accepting it. I have to be okay if you don't like me.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 9:23 Correct.

Lewis Howes 9:24 And here's, like, an amazing woman that may not wanna be with me-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 9:26 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 9:26 ... and I have to be okay with that.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 9:27 Yes.

Lewis Howes 9:28 But it's not giving in anymore.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 9:30 Right.

Lewis Howes 9:31 Right?

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 9:31 It's not giving in.

Lewis Howes 9:32 And I think-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 9:32 And I think that that's the key.

Lewis Howes 9:33 Yeah, and it was a, it was a beautiful experiment for me-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 9:37 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 9:37 ... entering a relationship that way by being honest about this is who I am, this is my values, this is my vision, this is what I'm aligned to and what I'm not aligned to.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 9:45 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 9:46 Um, if this is something you wanna explore, then let's keep dating and exploring it-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 9:49 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 9:49 ... and seeing how it goes. And I think that was a, was a beautiful experience for me to witness the receiving of that-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 9:55 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 9:55 ... on the other side.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 9:56 Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 9:56 And just being consistent with my word.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 9:58 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 9:59 You know, this is what I want, this is what I not want.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 10:01 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 10:01 And being in that place. But, um, how can we make sure... But in the beginning I'll probably say there was a little PTSD remnants of, of-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 10:08 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 10:08 ... of it. How can we make sure we don't bring in that energy? Is it just waiting for a year and nine months and doing the work on the healing process? But how do we not bring any of that past relationship into new relationships?

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 10:21 When you say bring that past relationship into new relationships, what do you think that looks like? What do you mean by that?

Lewis Howes 10:27 The traumas of the past relationship, the re- trigger responses, the, you know, things that you did in previous relationships to protect yourself. How do you continue to keep an open heart, an open mind, and not go back into the default?

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 10:42 Right. So one thing I would tell people is don't shame your triggers.

Lewis Howes 10:45 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 10:45 Because I think when people say, "I don't wanna be triggered," I'm like, "Nah, you know, you don't have that line into your sympathetic nervous system. It's always gonna be quicker than you." So you are, it, it is, it, because it's always gonna be quicker, we have to be aware. For example, sometimes we even feel it. Like, I know that for people in a relationship something will happen. They'll hear something, and they'll feel that tightness in their chest, that funniness in their gut, right? The key then becomes is to say, "Okay, I am uncomfortable. Let me hear through..." That, that's where the mindfulness, you almost gotta try to punch through that. Let me be present with what they're saying, even though... You know, it's almost like trying to listen to someone in a noisy bar at that point. You know, when you lean in and you're like, "Okay, I'm fully concentrating-

Lewis Howes 11:26 Yeah

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 11:26 ... on what this person's saying 'cause, oh-

Lewis Howes 11:27 It's distracting, yeah

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 11:28 ... it's chaos around me," but, so that's, that chaos, that sympathetic nervous system turning on is like the noise in a bar. So now you're really leaning in, you're looking at them. I know when I have that response I literally watch their mouth 'cause I'm like, "Okay, I can shape out the words," and it almost gives me a totally mindful space to watch them shape the words. It's almost like you can think of it in a movie when they go right to someone's mouth. And so now I'm really paying attention to what they're saying, 'cause the, the danger of the trigger is that we, we don't hear. Right? So it's to be aware.

Lewis Howes 12:00 We're in defense mode right away, right?

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 12:00 Yeah, we're just like, we're, we're in freeze mode. Our eyes become wide, the whole nine yards. We feel that, and then we start to name it and say, "Ah, I can feel that I'm getting activated like I did before. I've really gotta listen. I'm not gonna sh- I..." 'Cause we can't, you're not gonna turn that off. That's my point is that people say, "I've gotta wait till I can turn it off." I'm like, "Then you're gonna be 117, and that's when you're gonna start dating again."

Lewis Howes 12:24 [laughs]

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 12:24 Which I'm sure you're gonna be... You know, there's a great dating pool I'm sure, no doubt, but at that point, of the other 117-year-olds.

Lewis Howes 12:30 Oh.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 12:30 But no. You can't... You, y- otherwise, you're forever... Then you're living in the, in... You're liv- still living in service to that relationship, and the whole idea is to no longer live in service to your narcissistic relationship

Lewis Howes 12:42 To the past relationship

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 12:42 ... to the past relationship

Lewis Howes 12:43 Interesting

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 12:44 So the trigger then becomes, to me, triggers are communication. Your nervous system's saying, "Whoa, something dangerous is happening." And you're kinda saying, "I get it. I need to listen. This is new." 'Cause when you think of what post-traumatic stress is, right, it's a programming. So if you use a classical example, I know a person got into a, an accident on a particular-

Lewis Howes 13:05 Cross or something, yeah

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 13:05 ... stretch of the freeway, right? So they avoid that road, right? And let's say then one day the Uber driver takes that road, and their heart is racing because th- th- that, that's almost been sort of imprinted in. But you know what? You go down that road enough times, you set... You don't let the racing heart say, "I can't go on this road. Something terrible's gonna happen." You say, "Okay, I'm gonna tolerate this." Maybe you have someone in the car with you-

Lewis Howes 13:29 Mm

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 13:29 ... the first time. So it, you can't stop living, but you, you can also hear those triggers happening. And in the new relationship, give yourself permission to communicate. Not say like, "I'm being triggered and I think you're cheating on me." That might be a little heavy. And say, you know, "I need a minute. I, you know, s- in my past, X and Y happened, so at these moments, I know it just, it takes me a minute. Can you... It's hard for me. I, I, my trust was betrayed, so I'm gonna need time to build that trust." I always say that in some ways people coming out of narcissistic relationships are at an incredible advantage. Because if you can really be honest with yourself about saying, "I'm gonna ask for what I need, and if this person ain't gonna give it, then th- maybe this isn't my person." And time is a big one. Narcissistic relationships are usually like this, fast, fast, fast, right? Let's do th- we're in love.

Lewis Howes 14:22 Yes

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 14:22 This is the best thing ever. Let's move in. Let's do this. Let's go to Paris for three years. Like, whatever kind of over-the-top stuff. But time is usually a way that people can build trust. You can see that there's a new way to respond. A loving, kind person will say, "We're good. We're gonna take this really, really slow if, if you need that." Because then that's telling you that this person's hearing you on one of many things you need someone in an intimate relationship to do. And maybe because I'm older I say the, I think and say these things, is that, you know, I... This, forgive me, this is gonna sound so off-color, but I'm just gonna say it, is the, um, I call it the ass-wiping test. I need you to look at this person, you know, ev- everyone's young and beautiful and dating.

Lewis Howes 15:10 Uh-huh

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 15:10 I want you to fast-forward to you're 85 or maybe 90, and you've, you snapped a hip or something. S- this person gonna wipe your ass and be loving about it? And if the answer is yes, it's probably a keeper.

Lewis Howes 15:22 Right

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 15:23 But if you think like this person's gonna sneer or doesn't wanna be in the hospital, no, not your person. And I know that... But if you're really thinking you're gonna go the distance with this person, are they gonna stay up all night with a kid who has diarrhea? Are they going to wipe your ass? Are they gonna be okay if when things are no longer okay? Because that's where narcissistic relationships fall apart, when real life comes along. So try that ass-wiping test.

Lewis Howes 15:48 Right

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 15:48 I'll tell you now, ain't no narcissist in the world gonna wipe your ass.

Lewis Howes 15:50 [laughs]

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 15:51 I promise you that right now.

Lewis Howes 15:53 Yeah, I think Esther Perel talks about, uh, the difference between a love story and a life story.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 15:57 Yeah, yeah

Lewis Howes 15:57 Or a love partner and a life partner.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 15:59 Life partner

Lewis Howes 15:59 Right?

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 15:59 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 15:59 Where it's like you could have romance and adventure and, you know, crazy sex with a, a love partner, right?

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 16:06 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 16:06 But are they gonna be a great life partner for you-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 16:08 Yep, yep

Lewis Howes 16:08 ... during these times you're talking about?

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 16:09 Correct

Lewis Howes 16:10 There's also kinda like the, someone else mentioned this, I can't remember who, the, the 10,000-meal test.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 16:16 Mm.

Lewis Howes 16:16 Do you wanna have 10,000 meals-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 16:18 That's a great one

Lewis Howes 16:18 ... with this individual?

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 16:19 Yeah. Mm

Lewis Howes 16:20 If every other meal they're exhausting to be around-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 16:23 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 16:23 ... and they're ungrateful and they're-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 16:24 Mm

Lewis Howes 16:24 ... gaslighting you or whatever they're doing, do you want 10,000 of these-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 16:28 That's a great... I love that

Lewis Howes 16:29 ... for the rest of your life?

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 16:29 Mm

Lewis Howes 16:29 Like, can you imagine sitting down for 10,000 meals with this person?

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 16:33 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 16:34 So ass-wiping, 10,000 meals-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 16:35 Mm

Lewis Howes 16:35 ... life story, you know, all these things I think are great. But I feel like, I'll speak from example. I used to get caught up so much in the passion, the excitement, the, the chemicals-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 16:46 Yeah

Lewis Howes 16:47 ... of the early relationship moments, right? And I used to think, "This is incredible, this feeling, this love," right? And then six months, nine months, 12 months, it's like you start to unwind and realize, well, what are, do we have the same values, and are we in alignment of what life looks like together and our lifestyle? And then you try to, I tried to make it work, right? So it was always out of alignment from the start. And you mentioned something off-camera about, you know, when we find someone who is, quote-unquote, boring-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 17:16 Mm

Lewis Howes 17:18 ... that's a great sign.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 17:19 Mm. I, I, uh, especially for people with histories of trauma.

Lewis Howes 17:22 Yes

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 17:22 I mean, I think that for some folks, you know, it's the, it's the, again, it, it, the, the activation, the trauma bond, the, the sort of hot and cold is what equals love, that I need to earn love, that I constantly have to feel like I'm running faster and faster on the treadmill becomes equated with love, that's the love equals chaos kind of thing. So the person where it's kind of like-

Lewis Howes 17:43 Yeah, that's not healthy love

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 17:44 ... flat. It's not. The flatness, though. And I think, I even hate the word boring words-

Lewis Howes 17:49 Yes

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 17:49 ... as much as it's not-

Lewis Howes 17:49 Or calm

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 17:50 ... volatile.

Lewis Howes 17:50 It's calm

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 17:51 Right, it's calm. It's-

Lewis Howes 17:52 Calm

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 17:52 Yeah. Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 17:53 ... run towards the calm

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 17:54 Calm is, calm is, those are what long-term relationships look like. But I think people-

Lewis Howes 17:59 They want the chaos

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 17:59 ... they, they, they want... The chaos becomes, is equ- It, it's not even that they want the chaos. It's that chaos equals love. They want love. And so it's a rewriting of that love is stable.

Lewis Howes 18:10 Why do they s- why do people, you know, I'm as guilty as anyone in the past for this, why do people th- feel loved or think it's love when there's explosiveness or there's chaos or there's someone screaming at you and then apologizing?

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 18:24 Mm.

Lewis Howes 18:24 And it's just this pattern. Why does that feel like love? Is that 'cause we maybe saw this as a model as our, as our childhood from our parents? Or why is that?

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 18:33 Mm.

Lewis Howes 18:33 Why do some people feel that's love where others can- ... can see that's not healthy, I don't want that.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 18:39 Right. Well, I mean, part of it goes to this concept of trauma bonding, which is sort of the core of the narcissistic relationship. And in the trauma bond is, is formed by a relationship that has an alternation of good and bad, hot and cold, high and low. So in a way, you're sort of chasing a high. Because where there's a bad day, guess what's gonna come again? Make-up sex-

Lewis Howes 18:57 Mm

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 18:57 ... or whatever make-up looks like, right? Because as a kid, what it was was that you'd live for those good days. Despite all the abuse, then there'd be a fishing trip. Despite all those bad days, then your parent would do some- there'd be something so quirky and fun about them. Or you're like the day they do something good, now you can go back to constructing the narrative that, "I come from a normal, happy family." That is the origination of that trauma bond. But then in order to keep the mindset that the relationship's good, you have to justify, justify, justify. You have to make sense of those bad days to fit the good days, so the justification and the denial become big parts of the trauma bonded theme. Now, obviously, that trauma bond is gonna play out a lot more powerfully in somebody who has that in their backstory because your entire childhood was wired around, "How can I get this parent to notice me? How can I be seen? How can I be heard? How can I be cherished?" It's about a chase because that child was put in the unfortunate position of believing they had to earn that, or even worse, their needs were shamed, and their parent resented them for having needs. So they learn, "Well, if I'm gonna be in love, gotta be quiet."

Lewis Howes 20:06 Mm. Mm.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 20:06 "Can't bring up my needs. There's gonna be bad days, but then there's gonna be good days. And those bad days are because, well, maybe I was too demanding, or, you know, maybe I'm expecting too much." So it, a lot of it becomes self-blame focused, and that becomes a really profound kind of connective tissue.

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Dr. Ramani Durvasula 21:15 It's not to say, though, people who... Not everybody who gets into a trauma bonded relationship has that history. They're by far the people who are going to be more vulnerable. But because narcissism is about such a good front game, right? The charm, the charisma, the love bombing, you, you feel like you're in something really, really special, but the reason narcissistic relationships are so confusing is because there's enough good days to confuse you, and the good days are good.

Lewis Howes 21:45 Right.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 21:45 I mean, they're really, really good.

Lewis Howes 21:47 They're over the top.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 21:47 Yeah, they're over the top, and they al- sort of feel perfect. And remember-

Lewis Howes 21:52 You, you try to go back to that, right?

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 21:53 You al- and go back to it, but, uh, the thing we gotta remember is sometimes those good days even stay in there years later. You know, that it's whatever that moment is. And narcissistic relationships are all about alignment. If they're having a good day, right? For whate- maybe they had a good day at work, or maybe they flirted with someone at the gym. You don't know what it is. Th- then and you-

Lewis Howes 22:14 The narcissist

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 22:14 ... the narcissist. And you are having, happen to have a good day, something good happened to you, and you're bo- then you're like, "They get me, and they love me." No, it's just coincidence, a fortunate coincidence. And then, because the narcissist could just as easily have had a bad day, their car got dinged in the parking lot, their friend got the raise and the promotion, and they didn't get it. Angry, angry, angry. You had that same good day. They will invalidate. They will criticize.

Lewis Howes 22:40 Really

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 22:40 So it's all about alignment and timing, and that alignment is what makes people say, " [gasps] We have such a great relationship." I'm like, "It just sounds like luck." It's like-

Lewis Howes 22:48 We're so connected

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 22:48 ... yeah

Lewis Howes 22:49 ... we have great chemistry.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 22:50 Yeah, it's like you thinking, like, roulette can be gamed. I'm like-

Lewis Howes 22:52 It's so funny

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 22:52 ... you got lucky on the double zero there.

Lewis Howes 22:54 It's so funny you say that. I mean, I'm gonna start having flashbacks now and memories, uh, like I did in the last interview, where I remember a time for a few years I had this dream of going to the Olympics.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 23:08 Mm. Fun.

Lewis Howes 23:08 And, and making, and making the USA na- First, it was making the USA National Team, so I had the opportunity to go to the Olympics.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 23:15 Oh.

Lewis Howes 23:15 Right?

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 23:15 When you said, "Go to the Olympics," I'm like, "To watch?"

Lewis Howes 23:17 No.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 23:17 So you see, your dreams are up here. [laughs]

Lewis Howes 23:19 No, no, no. This was 2008. 2008, I watched, um... I, I'd just gotten a ca- I had surgery playing professional football.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 23:26 Mm.

Lewis Howes 23:27 Broke my wrist. Uh, had a cast on my arm from here to here for six months in this position. Just got it off, and the Olympics came on, and so I was kinda down in the dumps because I couldn't train, I couldn't play football anymore.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 23:40 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 23:40 But I was watching the Olympics, getting inspired, and I see this sport at, like, 3:00 AM in the morning that I'd never seen before in my life called team handball.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 23:48 Oh, yeah. Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 23:49 It's not well-known in the US-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 23:51 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 23:51 ... but it's a big sport in Europe.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 23:52 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 23:52 It's kinda like water polo on land.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 23:54 On land, yeah.

Lewis Howes 23:55 Yes.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 23:55 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 23:56 With, with no water. And, um, and I watch this, and my mind is blown. I'm like, "This is incredible." Like, this looks like the sport I should've learned growing up. Like, I'm built for this.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 24:05 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 24:05 I'm the size. I got the speed. Like, this is my game.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 24:09 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 24:09 And it gave me this opening into a new possibility in my life. Like, let me research this. Maybe there's a USA team. Maybe I can make the team. Maybe we could qualify for the Olympics.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 24:18 Mm.

Lewis Howes 24:18 This is what happened-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 24:19 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 24:19 ... in about 10 minutes of watching this sport in 2008. 2010 rolls around. I moved to New York City to play for a team on team handball.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 24:34 Wow.

Lewis Howes 24:34 The top team in the country. I mo- New York City's got the best team-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 24:38 Oh

Lewis Howes 24:38 ... in the USA for the club teams. I moved there, uh, to literally to go learn this sport-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 24:44 Mm

Lewis Howes 24:44 ... for a year. I meet a girl

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 24:48 Mm.

Lewis Howes 24:48 And this girl, we have this, you know, kind of this, this chemistry, this connection, all these things in the first, like, month or whatever, right? But then I start to see the signs later, but I wasn't aware of it. And she knew that this was a part of my dream.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 25:02 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 25:03 And I'd been training this whole year for this chance to make the USA national team.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 25:08 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 25:08 They'd select 16 Americans-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 25:10 Wow

Lewis Howes 25:11 ... the whole population, to be on the USA national team.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 25:14 Wow.

Lewis Howes 25:15 Been planning this for two years, training for a year, moved to a new state, new city to practice every week. I get an email, and I'm with the, with the person I was with at the time. I get an email. It says, "You've been selected to the USA national team."

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 25:28 Wow. Congratulations. I'm kind of excited about what's happening now.

Lewis Howes 25:30 I, I get goosebumps thinking about it, right? I like... This was some-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 25:32 Amazing

Lewis Howes 25:33 ... the email I was waiting for.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 25:34 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 25:34 "You've been selected. You're going to the Pan American Championships with the national team-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 25:38 Wow

Lewis Howes 25:38 ... to compete for our country." And I'm reading this. I'm literally, like, so vulnerable and in tears, like, thinking about this when I'm reading it, and I was with her. She was in the other room, and I take it to her. I'm like, "You're not gonna believe what happened. Look at this email."

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 25:54 Amazing.

Lewis Howes 25:54 I just got... I'm, like, so excited, and right away she goes, "Man, I wish my career was doing better right now."

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 25:59 Ugh.

Lewis Howes 26:00 There was no congratulations. There was no nothing. It was like, "God, I wish..."

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 26:04 Oh.

Lewis Howes 26:04 It w- she went to a depression, kind of.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 26:06 Yeah, yeah. That's it.

Lewis Howes 26:07 It was like a depression-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 26:07 That's it

Lewis Howes 26:08 ... of like, "Oh, gosh, I wish I could do this with my career. I wish this was happening, and da, da, da." And so I put my attention on her-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 26:14 Of course

Lewis Howes 26:14 ... to make sure she was okay, when I'm like, "I've been dreaming about this for two... I've been busting my ass, like, telling you about this in my mind," but I was like, "Well, let me just make sure her needs are met in this moment."

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 26:24 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 26:24 "And I'll get back to celebrating me one day."

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 26:26 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 26:27 And I... It wasn't ever even an, an acknowledgement of, like, congratulations, right?

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 26:31 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 26:32 Um, anyways, this happened multiple times in many relationships.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 26:34 Gosh.

Lewis Howes 26:35 Uh, similar situations like that-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 26:37 Yeah, yeah

Lewis Howes 26:38 ... which I didn't even know that was a sign, right? I was just like-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 26:40 Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Lewis Howes 26:41 I didn't know-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 26:42 Yeah, mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 26:43 ... until I talked to you whenever this was-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 26:44 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 26:44 ... six months ago or something. But how... You know, I don't even remember where I was going with this, but just, I think, like, the good days-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 26:52 The talking about-

Lewis Howes 26:52 It's like they had a good day

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 26:53 ... talking about alignment.

Lewis Howes 26:54 Right.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 26:54 Yeah, mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 26:55 If they have a bad day-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 26:56 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 26:56 ... and you have a good day, they're gonna kinda try to take you down is what you said, right?

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 27:00 And your, and your story's so interesting, too, because who knows if she was having a bad day or not.

Lewis Howes 27:04 Right.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 27:04 But your, your good news is always a threat to a narcissistic person.

Lewis Howes 27:09 Why is that?

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 27:10 Always. So, you know, it's funny. It... Why is that? Because it, it... Remember, at the core of it, narcissism's about insecurity. Deep, deep insecurity. We always think of these people of ha- as having really big self-esteem. They have what we d- I can only call inaccurate self-esteem. They have this sort of falsely grandiose vision of themselves, but at this unprocessed, deep, unconscious level. It's not like they walk around thinking, "I'm really insecure, so I better be grandiose." The insecurity's unprocessed.

Lewis Howes 27:39 They're not even aware of it.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 27:40 They're not even aware of it, but it's almost like this nagging thing that's always in the background. So anything that activates that sense, like, it's almost like it starts to percolate up out of the groundwater. That's when you'll see all kinds of things, passive aggression, which is what you were up against, um, a sullenness, resentment, um, sometimes overt aggression because they're trying to s- to protect themselves against the threat that this, that this insecurity will pop up. That's, that's the dance,

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 28:11 right? So when I've worked with folks who are in narcissistic relationships, listen, people have, who have been married a long time or in long-term relationships or have kids, it's not so easy to say, "Just break up and follow your bliss."

Lewis Howes 28:23 It's challenging.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 28:23 It just doesn't work that way. And so I'd say, "Okay, I'm gonna have to give you some strategies to stay in this." And I always call it the good, bad, indifferent rule. Never, ever share... Never, ever let the narcissistic person be the first person you share your good news with. Never. You should have called your bestest person at that point.

Lewis Howes 28:43 Who's gonna celebrate you.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 28:44 Who would have been like, "Oh my gosh." We all got them, right? Like, the good thing happens, and you're like, "I gotta tell this person." And they're like, "Oh my gosh, 20 bottles of champagne. We're having a party." That's who you tell first. Then you got your other people who are gonna be happy for you. And then, and only then, do you tell the narcissistic person because at that point you felt that your good news was held and cherished and celebrated, and you just feel happy. You shared it with people who were able to mirror it back to you, that feeling of goodness. That's what parenting's about, by the way, when your kid says, "Look, Mommy, I got an A on my test." "Honey, that's so great." Not like, "Oh, I'm too busy to deal with that right now." And that's what kids who have narcissistic parents get a lot of, like, "I don't have time for that right now." Right?

Lewis Howes 29:26 And their success is never enough. It's never, yes.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 29:28 Mm-hmm. Yes, it's never enough.

Lewis Howes 29:28 What else do I need to do to get the attention?

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 29:31 Right.

Lewis Howes 29:31 Yeah.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 29:31 But in adulthood, that mirroring matters. And then once you do that, and you roll up to the narcissistic person like, "I wish my life was like that," in some ways you've been so buoyed that it'd be like, you know what? Like, you don't even... You... At some point you're like, "Whatever." You know?

Lewis Howes 29:45 Yeah.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 29:45 Like, I, I hope it is too. I hope that works out for you.

Lewis Howes 29:48 You've been celebrated enough. You've been seen, yeah.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 29:48 You know, you feel good. You feel seen.

Lewis Howes 29:50 Uh-huh.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 29:50 And that's the good. The bad, same thing. Never go to a narcissistic person first with your bad stuff.

Lewis Howes 29:57 What happens though?

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 29:57 It could be-

Lewis Howes 29:57 What happens when you share bad news?

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 29:58 They'll either feel inconvenienced, frustrated. "What do you want me to do about this? Um, oh my gosh, like, oh, I'm under... I, I have so many things are being asked of me."

Lewis Howes 30:08 Right.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 30:08 They go into their victim thing.

Lewis Howes 30:10 Yeah, you figure it out. Yeah.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 30:11 Yeah, you figure it out, like, how... And you feel. Let's say it's, like, really bad news, like I found out my mom is really sick, or I, um, you know, it turns out they're gonna be downsizing my division, and I'm probably gonna be in that first r- round of layoffs or whatever it is. You know, you find out your friend is ill, or you're ill or something. More often than not, the narcissistic person, it's almost like they don't wanna hear that there's, like, real stuff that happens in the world that has nothing to do with them.

Lewis Howes 30:38 Yes.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 30:38 Your mother being sick has nothing to do with them, so they're really not that interested. And that you might interrupt them and bring some, like, negative juju into their life, they don't want that. So I always say to people, have your people to take your bad news to so people can offer empathy, compassion, emotional support, practical support, and only as an afterthought will you say... 'Cause now you've been held, you've been supported, you might have the strength to say at some point, like, "Yeah, my mom's sick." And they're gonna have whatever foolish, you know, unempathic response they have. But now you've been supported. So that takes us to the indifferent. And I tell everyone in a narcissistic relationship, keep it in your phone, make a little list of completely vacuous topics. The weather, they're building a new house across the way.

Lewis Howes 31:24 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 31:24 Can you believe that new grocery store is coming into town? G- back to the weather. Um, you avoid anything that's a third rail, that's a sensitive issue, that, and w- or where their negativity could hurt you.

Lewis Howes 31:38 Oh my gosh.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 31:38 So then you can kinda keep the trains running on time. Like, can you believe this heat? It's great. I live out in the San Fernando Valley, so we always go, "Can you believe this heat?" C- I, every y- In fact, all the narcissistic people out there are gonna know now I think they're narcissistic 'cause that's how I always start the conversation.

Lewis Howes 31:52 [laughs]

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 31:53 [laughs] Can you believe this heat? But because there's nothing else to say.

Lewis Howes 31:56 So what do you say with a narcissist then? What can you talk about?

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 31:58 You're like, yeah.

Lewis Howes 31:58 You know, like, you've taken out almost everything you can talk about.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 32:00 Can you believe this heat? [laughs] I mean-

Lewis Howes 32:01 But if you live with someone, and you have kids with them, and you have to interact-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 32:05 Procedural stuff. And I think that what happens is people want a real partner. They want someone to share s- stuff with. And I'm like, "You don't, you're never gonna have that here."

Lewis Howes 32:12 With a narcissist.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 32:13 You're never gonna have it, so give it up. So you're just gonna have to recognize, it might be things like, "Who's taking him to soccer today?" And if they say, "I'm too busy to take him to soccer," realistic expectations, of course you're too busy. Say, "Piece of cake, I got it." I always tell folks, "If you're in a narcissistic relationship, you need a plan A, B, C, and D, because they are always going to let you down."

Lewis Howes 32:33 Oh my gosh. Okay. So you mentioned a little bit, moment ago about there are certain situations where you're not gonna be able to get out of a relationship and follow your bliss.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 32:42 Yeah. No, you can't. Mm-mm.

Lewis Howes 32:43 But is there a world where you could at some point? As opposed to saying, "I've gotta s- live for the next 30 years with this person, or 10 years with this person," that sounds like a, a, you know, a, a free prison sentence.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 32:58 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 32:58 You're in the free world, but you're living in prison inside in your own home. That doesn't seem like a healthy lifestyle.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 33:04 It's not. Because I work with such varied audiences, I'm very, very mindful-

Lewis Howes 33:08 Mm-hmm

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 33:08 ... of how painful it is for people to say if you don't go then. Now, I've said to them, "If you don't go, w- there's limits to how far I can take you on this growth process, because you're still constantly having this echoing voice that invalidates you and reminds you of that invalidation, you know, in the next room." So there's only but. There's only so much, but there's still a lot of growth. I mean, your life almost becomes a series of silent acts of rebellion. You know, some people, literally, I know some p- folks told me, "You know what? I was inspired by what you said, so I just went to an online university and I got my degree, and I never told him."

Lewis Howes 33:45 Wow.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 33:45 And I was like, that to me is triumph.

Lewis Howes 33:46 And it's just like inner victories. Yeah, inner, like-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 33:47 That's a triumph.

Lewis Howes 33:48 It's like everything's a little game-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 33:49 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 33:49 ... for yourself to, like-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 33:50 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 33:51 ... find your own joy.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 33:51 Correct. And they, or they volunteer in their community. And what they recognize-

Lewis Howes 33:55 Ah

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 33:55 ... is that the volunteering was joyful.

Lewis Howes 33:56 Oh, yes.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 33:57 The narcissist would say to them, "Why would you wanna s- b- help a bunch of people who are too stupid to help themselves?" They, they, if anything, they'll say their horrible negativity only reinforces that I'm totally right about them. I'm not wrong about this. I'm not a bad person for recognizing that they're toxic, and I can go out and do something that fills my soul. But you're right, it's only a partial victory.

Lewis Howes 34:21 Yes.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 34:21 Um, but if you can get out, get out.

Lewis Howes 34:24 Right. Okay. So let me ask you this. So again, I know there are certain cultures and situations-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 34:30 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 34:30 ... and countries that probably have harder li- uh, harder restrictions-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 34:34 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 34:34 ... of removing yourself. So, but it... Okay, so let's, let's figure this out.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 34:39 [laughs]

Lewis Howes 34:41 It's gonna be painful to stay in the marriage-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 34:43 Yeah

Lewis Howes 34:43 ... if there's with a narcissistic person.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 34:44 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 34:44 It's gonna be extremely painful to leave for-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 34:46 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 34:46 ... potentially years-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 34:48 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 34:48 ... where you might have to find a whole new community, move, you know, build friendships and relationships again.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 34:53 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 34:53 Like, be on your own.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 34:54 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 34:54 All that stuff. But if there's light at the end of the tunnel when you leave, you know, three, five, seven years out, as opposed to being in the relationship for that time-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 35:04 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 35:04 ... is that the better solution?

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 35:07 You know, I, I don't... I think that here... And it's so hard to say, because if you, somebody said to me, "Tell me the best solution," take away all the contextual factors-

Lewis Howes 35:17 Mm-hmm

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 35:17 ... it's obviously not to be in such a relationship. When we talk about how people manage themselves in these relationships, there's all these forms of contact you can have, and the most extreme is no contact, which means done. You block them, you cut them out, you don't speak to them, you don't take their calls. Nada, nothing. And you know what? There's n- there's places I've actually seen the hard data on this. Everyone will say, "No contact, awesome. Like, I, I feel so much better now that they no longer exist in my life." But it's a really limited strategy. If it's your family member, if it's someone you co-parent with, it's somebody you might still-

Lewis Howes 35:52 It's hard

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 35:52 ... have professional contact with. So that's such an extreme that it might work. Like, somebody, let's say someone dated someone, and you don't have a ton of mutual friends, and you move away physically, no contact can happen. And let me tell you, I've done no contact. Whew, it's good. Okay?

Lewis Howes 36:07 [laughs] Yeah.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 36:08 Then there's low contact. Now, low contact can be done in a couple of different ways, but it tends to be, you know, what I'd say more perfunctory. You don't really engage with them. It's just really, like, just sort of... If, let's say it's a family member, you've decided, like, "Okay, this person's so bad for me. I want nothing to do with them," but your beloved cousin's getting married. You may just u- say to beloved cousin, "Just whatever the opposite side of the room for seating me is, I'd appreciate it." Maybe they come and talk to you, and you give them very simple yes, no, kids are great responses. You go to the bathroom a lot when they approach you. People are gonna think you have some sort of digestive problem, but it's a great out. But you step away, and if it gets to be too much, you give yourself permission to leave. So it is, you know, low contact doesn't mean, like, you, they come to you and you don't speak to them. You might say, "Oh, hi, yeah. Mm-hmm. Kids are great. Yeah. Mm-hmm. It's been a long time. Yeah, I, I actually gotta run to the restroom."

Lewis Howes 37:03 Right. [laughs]

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 37:03 It's one of those. And so, or, "I got, I gotta run. I've got a call," or whatever. So- You find your ways to maintain... A- and then you won't have contact with them maybe for 10 more years until there's another wedding or funeral or something like that. So that's more of the low contact. And, you know, and then there's all these techniques, like gray rock and yellow rock, like all these techniques to figure out ways to communicate. But the tool I give people, and I think maybe I talked about this last time, I don't remember, but it's something I call don't go DEEP with them.

Lewis Howes 37:32 Ah, keep it surface.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 37:32 Which means don't defend, don't engage, don't explain, and don't personalize. And I, it's a mantra. Like, don't defend, don't engage, don't explain, don't personalize. DEEP.

Lewis Howes 37:41 What happens if you do any of those four?

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 37:43 If you defend, you're gonna get in the mud with them, and they like it, and you get dirty, so that's doesn't make sense. So you don't want... If you defend, it's just gonna escalate and gaslight and fight and, and there's no point, 'cause you're not gonna end at any kind of sane, rational place. When you explain, they will definitely gaslight you, so there's no point to that. Engaging means don't get into a conversation with them. Do not ask them what they think of something. Do not tell them that good news. And don't personalize. This isn't about you. They do this to anyone in your position. They're gonna manipulate. It's what they do. And so they're going to lie. They're going to gaslight. It's just how their personalities are organized. It's not about you. There's nothing you can do to change this. Not you, not me, not anybody. And so that's the... It's a really fun... It... Then that's what we call radical acceptance. Nothing you can do.

Lewis Howes 38:34 Oh, man. So true. [laughs]

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 38:35 I won't... It ain't gonna change, and that's not because... And a lot of people say, "Well, it's not gonna change, 'cause I'm not enough."

Lewis Howes 38:40 Ah.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 38:41 It's not gonna change, 'cause it's not gonna change.

Lewis Howes 38:43 No one's ever enough for them.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 38:44 Mm-mm.

Lewis Howes 38:45 So I... Can I ask you a practical question? The, uh, there's different stages of being in a relationship, right? You meet someone.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 38:52 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 38:52 You go on a date with them. That's a, a certain stage of a relationship. You date for weeks, months, however long before you say, "We're gonna be committed or-"

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 39:00 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 39:00 ... "exclusive with each other," right? Then there's a, you know, a marriage commitment-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 39:05 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 39:05 ... and that type of relationship. What would be, in your mind, the key things that an individual would, should really focus on seeing or experiencing from the person that they wanna date before they say, "I wanna get committed and exclusive with you"?

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 39:22 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 39:22 Not before marriage-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 39:22 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 39:22 ... but just, "Okay, I feel comfortable enough to be in an exclusive-"

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 39:26 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 39:26 ... "committed relationship with you." What are those key things you would need to see or experience to make sure you feel comfortable taking that step?

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 39:34 Watch how they respond to stress or frustration. If you only had one thing you can do, it's that, because that's the test, right? Do they start, do they become really dysregulated, impulsive, say really awful things, and then, "Oh, uh, you know, I was just really stressed out." You know, nah. Because if they did it there-

Lewis Howes 39:57 They'll always do that

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 39:57 ... they're always going to do that, 'cause they're on their best behavior in this early dating relationship.

Lewis Howes 40:01 They'll do it worse in the future.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 40:02 You know?

Lewis Howes 40:02 Yeah.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 40:02 How are they handling themselves in a, in a traffic jam? How do they handle themselves when you get to the restaurant, and they say, "Oh, we've lost your reservation," you know? Because you really are looking for the person who says, "You know what? You up for fast food? 'Cause there's a place across the street."

Lewis Howes 40:17 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 40:18 And you know what? It could be the dinner where you fall in love with that person over your-

Lewis Howes 40:22 Ah

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 40:22 ... you know, over your cheese burgers.

Lewis Howes 40:23 Some French fries and burger, yeah.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 40:24 Exactly. And so, but if that person makes up, "Do you know who I am? Ugh, let me tell you. Yelp review," blah, blah, blah. "You're gonna be sorry," blah, blah, blah. No. I mean, I'm... And I think those, those situations manifest pretty early on. And the trick is because everything else is sort of new and sparkly and fun, people wanna say, "Oh, they just had a bad day."

Lewis Howes 40:46 They have bad days all the time.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 40:47 That, I would say-

Lewis Howes 40:48 They... [laughs]

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 40:48 ... that's your r- e- especially that early in the game-

Lewis Howes 40:50 Mm-hmm

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 40:50 ... that's your-

Lewis Howes 40:51 First few months

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 40:52 ... a runaway kind of like, kind of... Or not even runaway. To say, you know, just sort of slowly start distancing. Some people need to see two of those events. Okay. So-

Lewis Howes 41:00 Right

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 41:00 ... great. There's your s- You'll get your second soon enough. And so I would say that's a really, that's a big one. Um, I think other things you wanna look at are things like, ar- are around equity, equitability, and balance in the relationship. How often are you knocking yourself out for them? So in other words, you're shaping your schedule to them. You're shaping your preferences to them. You're giving up things for them, and yet they still make it sound like you, you give up maybe a, I don't know, you're, you're invited to a f- a old friend's birthday party, you know, it's gonna be a girls' night out, and they doubt your commitment. Like, "Oh, really? It's your friends instead of me." And then you end up canceling on the friends, and you go out with them, and they'll say, "Isn't this so much more fun?" So they make it seem like your sacrifice was actually good for you. That's something else you could see-

Lewis Howes 41:53 Oh, my gosh. Yeah

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 41:54 ... early in the game. You know, and especially narcissistic people do tend to like to control the narrative, so they will, there will be some isolating happening. If you feel that you're not... Y- you, you don't feel comfortable saying, "I'm gonna go see my friends," or, you know, "This is a, I, I wanna spend time alone with my sister," or something like that, and they pathologize that. Especially when it's early.

Lewis Howes 42:17 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 42:17 This is sort of a, a process for you. And if they're trying to annex all of your time, that's a sign, too, that you need to pay attention to.

Lewis Howes 42:24 Yeah, if they're trying to take you from your friends and family.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 42:26 But it, sometimes it's not even that obvious. It's, it's more of a why am I, why can't I come? Um, or they doubt your commitment. And so it's not as like, "You're not seeing your friends," it's, "You know, you spend a lot of time with your friends. Like, you know, maybe, maybe this just isn't the right time in your life for a relationship."

Lewis Howes 42:43 Oh, wow.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 42:44 "I get that. I got that." So they play that game. And then you're thinking, "Oh, I'm kind of really into this person."

Lewis Howes 42:49 So they're not angry at you-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 42:50 No

Lewis Howes 42:50 ... but they're doing it in a covert way

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 42:52 ... they gaslight you.

Lewis Howes 42:52 Yeah. Interesting.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 42:52 They doubt, they doubt your commitment. And because people wanna prove their commitment, right? I mean, "No, I'm really committed to this." "Okay, you know, it just, so I find it interesting that on a Saturday night that's what you chose," even though you've told them weeks ago, and then you give in.

Lewis Howes 43:08 So look out for those two things.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 43:09 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 43:09 It's interesting, because I'm a, I'm a, uh, you know, I'm, am [laughs] Every time you say something like this, I'm reminded of the past of like, okay, all these stressful situations. But, um, uh, with Martha, and I talk a lot about Martha on the show 'cause she's been amazing for me, but, uh, with Martha, we, we had an experience. We went on a trip within-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 43:27 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 43:27 ... the first like month, right-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 43:29 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 43:29 ... of kind of knowing each other and dating. And we were supposed to go to Vegas. Um, and we had flights booked, but for whatever reason, f- all the flights that day like got canceled-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 43:40 Hmm

Lewis Howes 43:40 ... and we couldn't get there for like the event. We were going to see an event, until like the next morning on the flight, and we were gonna miss it.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 43:46 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 43:47 And so I'm coming to her, kind of bringing some, a little bit of this PTSD-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 43:50 Yeah, yeah, yeah

Lewis Howes 43:51 ... remnants of like, hope she's gonna be okay, you know, is she gonna be upset this, the flights-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 43:56 Yeah

Lewis Howes 43:56 ... this. And I bring it and I say, "Hey, the flights are not, you know, happening. We could try to take a later flight. Um, but we may not make it in time for the event. What do you wanna do?" She went, "Let's just drive."

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 44:08 Yeah. That-

Lewis Howes 44:08 She was like-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 44:08 I was gonna say, if this girl's-

Lewis Howes 44:09 She was like-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 44:09 ... got it going on, she would obviously-

Lewis Howes 44:11 She goes, "Should we make-"

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 44:11 ... obviously just drive

Lewis Howes 44:12 ... she goes, "Oh, it's no worries."

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 44:12 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 44:13 Like, "Let's just drive."

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 44:13 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 44:14 Where I'm so used to people being like, "Well, I need first class," and I needed this, and I... You know, this kind of like, "Don't you know who I am?" type of mentality.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 44:21 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 44:21 She was like, "Let's just... You wanna drive?"

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 44:23 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 44:23 Kind of like fun with it.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 44:24 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 44:24 And I was like, "Uh, you sure you're okay with that?"

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 44:26 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 44:26 And she's like, "Yeah, let's go." And I was like-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 44:28 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 44:28 ... cool, let's jump. So we jump, we just grabbed our bags, we packed.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 44:30 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 44:30 We went in and we dro- and had the most incredible-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 44:33 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 44:34 ... five-hour drive.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 44:34 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 44:34 There was traffic, and it was on a Friday night, and it was like, whatever, stressful, but we had so much fun.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 44:40 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 44:41 I was like, "This girl's got something."

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 44:43 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 44:43 You know?

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 44:43 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 44:44 She got something going on. And it's... And I think when you travel with someone, you can see-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 44:47 Yeah, yeah, yeah

Lewis Howes 44:48 ... these stressful experiences.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 44:49 Yes. Yes. I do agree that if you travel with someone, you can see a lot, and that's where I'm saying that stress can come out there too.

Lewis Howes 44:54 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 44:55 But I do think it's al- it's almost a way to create a living lab and cr-

Lewis Howes 44:59 Ah

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 44:59 ... set up a trip in the first three months of the relationship. It doesn't have to be a lab, but it can be something as quick as Vegas.

Lewis Howes 45:03 Yeah, a weekend trip or something. Yeah.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 45:04 Could be a weekend trip. It doesn't have to be like two weeks somewhere.

Lewis Howes 45:06 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 45:07 Watch how they do. Because I will tell you, that's the test. Somebody who can be chill while they travel, done. That's, that's one of... It's almost like a final exam-

Lewis Howes 45:16 Really. Before you get committed

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 45:17 ... of the early part of the relationship.

Lewis Howes 45:18 Yeah.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 45:18 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 45:18 Before you exclusively commit.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 45:20 Yeah. And again, for people to know, this doesn't mean you have to have air tickets and this.

Lewis Howes 45:24 Yeah.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 45:24 It could really be like a road trip, it could be a camping trip.

Lewis Howes 45:26 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 45:27 It could be any number of things, but like a few days where it's really just you and them, and there's... Because when you travel, inevitably it's something, right? And to watch how you manage that, it's a great test. Because if it's a narcissistic person, if everything isn't just so perfect, and the thing is you gotta watch how they, they gaslight, try to gaslight it away. If you start getting a little leery, "Hmm, this is not okay," they're gonna make it into, "Don't you understand? I wanted to make it perfect for you, okay? I just wanted it to be a great trip." You know, and, and so if, because if you might be pushing back and saying, you know, "The way you were acting under stress," or, "I just am trying to make it right for you," and now you're feeling so guilty 'cause they were trying to make it right for you. So I will tell folks this, if you're noticing there's some of those early patterns and you decide to distance from this relationship 'cause it feels like there's some red flags, don't tell them the why.

Lewis Howes 46:22 Really?

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 46:23 Yeah. They're saying you, you-

Lewis Howes 46:23 What happens if you tell them why?

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 46:24 ... you ain't their teacher, their life coach.

Lewis Howes 46:26 Oh. [laughs]

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 46:26 You're j- you're trying to get out of this relationship. Because if you tell them the why, they're gonna gaslight you.

Lewis Howes 46:32 They're gonna say, "Well, I was stressed," or this or that.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 46:34 I was stressed. I was trying to ha- be, do something nice for you. You're being too particular.

Lewis Howes 46:38 You're unappreciative. Yeah.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 46:38 You're unappreciative. Exactly. You're sensing a red flag.

Lewis Howes 46:41 Oh, gosh.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 46:41 You can make it about yourself and say, "Yeah, you know, uh, what- whatever your reasons are, I, I think work's getting to be a lot for me," or, "Maybe this isn't the right time for me to have a relationship." And people say, "Well, Dr. Ramani, isn't that a missed opportunity?" No. They ain't listening to you.

Lewis Howes 46:57 [laughs]

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 46:58 So it really, there, there... If you say to them, this is why, it'll be gaslight city, and you're gonna stay in it. Because I think people feel like, "Well, I need to tell them, and maybe they'll improve." They're not going to improve. That's the radical acceptance.

Lewis Howes 47:11 Right. What about if... What if someone feels just stuck in a relationship? Maybe there's narcissistic tendencies, maybe not.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 47:20 Mm.

Lewis Howes 47:20 But they feel stuck in a relationship.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 47:22 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 47:23 Um, what's a good conversation that someone should have with their partner to evaluate where it's at and how they can get unstuck? Whether there's narcissism or not.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 47:33 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 47:33 What's just your-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 47:34 Yeah

Lewis Howes 47:34 ... what's your opinions on that?

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 47:35 I mean, it's a differ- it's an in- it's a different scenario, right? Because I think-

Lewis Howes 47:38 Yeah

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 47:38 ... in a, in a narcissistic relationship, you're working for survival, right? So you may not even... I, I have to tell you, people in narcissistic relationships may not initially feel stuck. They may be like, "Okay," it's, it's like the MacGyver of relationship situations. Like, what kind of duct tape do I need to use-

Lewis Howes 47:55 Fixing everything

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 47:55 ... to fix this thing

Lewis Howes 47:56 Yeah, yeah

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 47:56 ... right? So you're doing, doing, doing. Where people feel stuck in a narcissistic relationship is when they get in too deep. Share a place, kids, marriage. That, that's where the stuckness happens, because I think by and large, peop- And then, and then honestly, there's one big interesting thing with narcissistic relationships, is the fear that the narcissist is gonna change for the next person.

Lewis Howes 48:18 Oh, never.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 48:18 Because there's a lot of stuff they like about that person. Like, um, they're really attracted to them. They have great sex with them. They, they have-

Lewis Howes 48:25 Charismatic. They're-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 48:25 So they're charismatic. They have shared interests. People love them. They've got a really amazing career, job-

Lewis Howes 48:31 They're talented

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 48:31 ... status, whatever. Whatever it may be, there's a lot of magnetic qualities. And so that idea that the new person is gonna get, you know, Mr. Magnetic, is actually really overwhelming. But in the sense of stuckness, it's a r- it's an interesting issue, and it's something I've encountered even with couples I've done therapy with. And it's... You know, listen, there's, there is the, uh, you know, there's sort of the, kind of the standard advice around like, how do you s- how do you start dating again in this relationship? How do you keep that piece of, of it alive? How do you keep giving it some level of priority status? How do you make sure you do communicate, make the time? Like, part of that is, I mean, mindfulness has such an important role in human relationships, not just intimate relationships, all relationships. Everybody's talking about mindfulness, mindfulness, mindfulness. It means paying attention to what's in front of you, and that means that it's, it's, it can be the littlest things about, oh my gosh, that's right, he had an appointment, he had a meeting at 2:00 You text him at 3:00 like, "Hey, how did that meeting go? Was just thinking of you." That stuff-

Lewis Howes 49:38 Mm-hmm

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 49:39 ... becomes the stuff of the relationship. And then saying, "Hey, you had a tough one today. Let's cook this, go here, pop the champagne." It's that idea that someone's noticing you. So put... Mindfulness can be one piece of the stuckness. The other is what... Do you have shared vision? I mean, we talk about this in the workplace all the time, but is that there? Because it's, it do- And that doesn't even mean there's something wrong with someone if they don't have shared vision, but sometimes if you don't have that, that can contribute to the stuckness 'cause you're not working towards a common goal, right? If you have a company and one person's like, "I wanna sell lots of hand lotion," and the other person's like, "I really envision us as being a salsa company," you're gonna be stuck.

Lewis Howes 50:24 Right, right, right.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 50:25 Right? Someone's chopping tomatoes, someone's, like, putting on us all this lotion. You're like... So you're gonna be stuck. So it's the salsa hand lotion of it all. Like, one of you may be wanting to work towards family and children, the other one wants to travel the world. Both people are afraid to talk about it. And so how do you get unstuck? You actually go to the edge of the cliff-

Lewis Howes 50:44 Mm

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 50:44 ... and recognize that if you open up and they go, 'cause that's the fear, that fear of abandonment, that fear of being alone, that fear of loss. That if you can go to the edge of the cliff and say, "This is actually what I want," and can tolerate that early in the game, especially if you don't have stuff like kids and commitments and all of that, where you've spoken your truth and they can say, "That's not what I want," and not personalize it. 'Cause as kids, it's the... It's almost like the equivalent of bringing our picture to our parents and say, "Look what I drew," and the parent not caring. Or even worse, the parent saying, "You're not my kid anymore," 'cause that's a bad drawing. [laughs]

Lewis Howes 51:26 Oh, my God. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 51:27 Right? And so w- the idea that we could bring our truth to someone and they'd say, "Yeah, no, that's not what I want," it's, it starts becoming the sunk-cost fallacy, which kills most relationships.

Lewis Howes 51:40 Yeah.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 51:40 Right? That's the idea of, "I've already put all this resource into something."

Lewis Howes 51:44 Time and energy.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 51:44 That's how people get stuck-

Lewis Howes 51:45 They do

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 51:46 ... is the sunk-cost fallacy.

Lewis Howes 51:47 Oh.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 51:47 And you've gotta remember, behavioral economics often does have [laughs] some of these answers. The... You've already put the money in. You got a human experience. Don't put more into this. And so then you have the conversation, and I've actually seen some people have beautiful ends to their relationship where they say, "I, you know, I still have I, this... I'm not ready for X or Y. I don't wanna do X or Y. That's not the direction I wanna go in," and they manage to salvage friendships and genuine curiosity in each other, and then that, and then that's that.

Lewis Howes 52:17 Yeah.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 52:18 But that, it's scary. Very.

Lewis Howes 52:19 It takes a lot of courage for someone-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 52:20 Yes, it does

Lewis Howes 52:21 ... to end a relationship.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 52:22 Yes. But-

Lewis Howes 52:22 No matter what type of, you know.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 52:24 And I wouldn't even say it's ended. I think it's, it takes a lot of-

Lewis Howes 52:26 Transition

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 52:26 ... courage to speak your truth-

Lewis Howes 52:28 100%

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 52:28 ... in a relationship.

Lewis Howes 52:29 100%.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 52:29 It's not even the ending. It's saying, "What I want in this relationship is I want us to se- I wanna have kids. I wanna live, I wanna move out of the city. I want to put our focus there." And the other person might say, "I don't want those things." And that's when you say, "Okay, then we're on very different paths." But it's so easy for me to sit here in a studio and intellectually say this. I'm, let's say I'm a 39-year-old woman. That's not the... What then?

Lewis Howes 52:59 Right.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 52:59 What then?

Lewis Howes 53:00 Yeah.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 53:00 You know? Now you're thinking, "Oh, my God, I have to, I want a child. This is, this is what's in front of me, but I'm g-" And then they start doing the math. "I'm gonna... Me-"

Lewis Howes 53:07 How many years of this? Yeah

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 53:08 ... da, da, da, ba, de, de, da. Now I'm 42.

Lewis Howes 53:10 I wanna find someone that-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 53:10 Da, da, da, da. You know-

Lewis Howes 53:11 Is there someone better than this? Yeah, all these things.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 53:13 It, and it's not even like... Or not even better, as much as somebody who's more on my path.

Lewis Howes 53:18 Aligned.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 53:18 This is how it happens, because we do fig- forget that there is a sort of a biological piece to all of this. I mean, reproductive technology is changing that, and some women out there, and I, women close to me have said, "You know what? I want the kid. I'm not so sure I want the relationship. And should I fall in love with someone, I don't wanna fight with them for, over custody." So women are having their own children without a partner and saying, "I now... Now motherhood's out of the game, it's actually easier to date. And now I'm gonna meet a man. Either he wants a woman with a child or he doesn't. If he doesn't, he's not my guy."

Lewis Howes 53:50 Right.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 53:51 "But I'll never have to fight this guy for custody of this kid." It's a new world, and people who are making allowances-

Lewis Howes 53:56 Mm-hmm

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 53:56 ... for not wanting to get stuck in toxic relationships are going different path. And I know men who have done that, too, men who have gotten surrogates and said, "I want to be a-

Lewis Howes 54:05 Really?

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 54:05 ... father."

Lewis Howes 54:06 Without the-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 54:06 They... No. They look.

Lewis Howes 54:08 Ah.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 54:08 They find a, they find this, "I'm gonna to get egg-"

Lewis Howes 54:10 A donor, egg donor.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 54:11 Donor eggs. They get donor eggs, and they-

Lewis Howes 54:13 They find a surrogate

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 54:13 ... they find surrogates, and they're like, "I wanna be a f- Being a father, to me, was foremost."

Lewis Howes 54:19 Wow.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 54:19 "If I meet and fall in love with someone, super, but I wanna be a father." It's not cheap, though. So these are very-

Lewis Howes 54:25 Yes, yes, yes

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 54:25 ... privileged folks who can do this. But the fact is that there are paths forward-

Lewis Howes 54:31 Mm-hmm

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 54:31 ... in a way. And I think that the amount of damage, Lewis, that people being raised in toxic relationships, having witnessed toxic relationships, may be one of the biggest psychological crises that most people bring into adulthood. So I think making different choices-

Lewis Howes 54:45 It's how we were raised

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 54:46 ... is how we were raised.

Lewis Howes 54:46 Yes.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 54:47 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 54:47 And not breaking the cycle and not-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 54:48 We have crappy blueprints.

Lewis Howes 54:49 Very crappy. I have this, uh, I don't know if I wanna call it formula, but just some steps that I've been developing through my own healing journey and reflection of previous relationships and, and now being in a very, I would call, conscious, healthy relationship.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 55:06 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 55:06 I would love for you to either pick apart or validate or add to or whatever you want to these kinda steps that I've been putting together myself that I think have helped me in this-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 55:16 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 55:16 ... transition, um, towards what to create when stepping into a new relationship. The first one is for a conscious, healthy relationship.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 55:26 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 55:26 The first one is you working on your healing journey.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 55:29 Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 55:30 Before you get into it.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 55:31 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 55:32 Or if you're into it, start it while you start the relationship.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 55:35 Mm.

Lewis Howes 55:35 Being in a healthy, focusing on a whole, healthy-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 55:38 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 55:38 ... body, mind, spirit, and soul. Healing the past- And being on that journey

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 55:43 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 55:43 ... step one. Without that, I feel like it's not-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 55:46 Yeah

Lewis Howes 55:46 ... a strong foundation, right? 'Cause you're gonna be more susceptible. Step two is, I don't know if this, for me, feel free to pick a hole at this. Step two would be to do the love language test with the person you're dating, and to see if you're in alignment with the way you receive and give love-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 56:05 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 56:05 ... naturally.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 56:06 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 56:08 Um, I think in previous relationships, I, for whatever reason, I chose women that didn't receive the love that I naturally gave. They liked acts of service and gifts, where I was like, "I don't care about giving someone a gift," 'cause that, it doesn't, it's not value for me.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 56:20 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 56:20 I like praising someone and touching someone.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 56:22 Mm, you're a words of affirmation guy.

Lewis Howes 56:24 Yeah, and touching them-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 56:24 The physical touch

Lewis Howes 56:25 ... and, and giving affection and telling them how much, uh, you know, I appreciate them. Like-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 56:28 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 56:28 ... but they wanted a gift to feel loved, 'cause that was-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 56:30 Mm

Lewis Howes 56:30 ... their blueprint.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 56:31 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 56:32 So I was always doing something that was more work for someone to feel loved.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 56:36 Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 56:37 And in the current relationship, we have, like, identical love languages-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 56:40 Oh, that's nice

Lewis Howes 56:41 ... in order.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 56:41 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 56:42 So we both naturally show up who we are and feel loved by the other person.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 56:46 Okay. Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 56:47 So it's just less friction.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 56:49 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 56:49 I don't have to think, "I need to buy a gift," or, "I need to do this every week-"

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 56:52 Right, right

Lewis Howes 56:52 ... that I normally wouldn't wanna do.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 56:54 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 56:55 That's number two. Number three, four, and five is getting clear with your honest truth about your values, your vision, and your lifestyle.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 57:03 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 57:03 Kinda like what you were saying.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 57:04 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 57:04 Like, if your, if your values are out of alignment, it's gonna be challenging. If your vision is, you know, "I wanna make hot sauce," and you wanna make s- shoes, you know, we have a different shared vision of our relationship. And if you wanna live in the city and I wanna live in the country, with the lifestyle-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 57:17 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 57:17 ... there's gonna be some friction there. Um, number, number six, uh, for me, this is, this was a non-negotiable entering this current relationship.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 57:29 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 57:29 Maybe this is too tough, but for me, I was like, "We need to enter a relationship in therapy."

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 57:34 Hmm. Great.

Lewis Howes 57:35 And start the relationship in therapy-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 57:37 That's great

Lewis Howes 57:37 ... so that we can communicate in a conscious way with a third party about agreements.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 57:42 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 57:42 You know, there's gonna be things that come up. There's no perfect relationship. You're gonna have a different lifestyle, this and this. But can we create agreements together so there's alignment on our communication-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 57:52 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 57:52 ... our agreements, to just minimize some friction.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 57:55 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 57:56 Not have expectations, but get clear on agreements-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 57:58 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 57:58 ... and a standard we both have. And then with that, going through those first six things-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 58:04 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 58:04 ... choosing to fully accept the person for who they are.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 58:08 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 58:08 Once you've gotten clear on all these things over a period of time-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 58:12 Right

Lewis Howes 58:12 ... saying, "Okay, I, I'm not expecting you to change into a potential in the future-"

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 58:16 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 58:16 ... "but do I accept who you are-"

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 58:18 Right

Lewis Howes 58:18 ... from your values, your vision, your lifestyle-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 58:20 Right

Lewis Howes 58:21 ... your, your healing journey. We're doing therapy together. Um, can I accept this person?

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 58:26 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 58:27 My girlfriend, she's an actress.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 58:28 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 58:29 So she's, does movies. She's on set. She's kissed guys on movies in the past-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 58:32 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 58:32 ... and maybe she will in the future. I had to be like, "Do I accept this is who she is?"

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 58:36 Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Lewis Howes 58:37 Or am I gonna need to change her and say, "You can't do this anymore?"

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 58:39 Correct. Correct.

Lewis Howes 58:41 So I f- said I fully accept you.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 58:43 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 58:43 You know? And, um, and this process has been very powerful for us.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 58:48 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 58:48 I'm sharing from my personal experience-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 58:49 Yeah

Lewis Howes 58:49 ... what's worked for me. Uh, is there anything that you would poke a hole in or add or remove from these kind of seven things that I've been, you know, kind of playing with myself?

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 58:59 So it's almost like I'd make a step zero, right?

Lewis Howes 59:01 Okay. Give it to me.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 59:02 And a step zero is addressing legacy issues and your own traumas and all of that, right? Because this, the word healing is so ephemeral, and it's so sort of nonspecific. But when I think of hundreds, probably now thousands, of people whose narcissistic abuse in, in intimate relationship stories I've heard, it was a... They went into the relationship... And, and actually, I take that back, because some folks enter this relationship confident as can be. It's not like they entered in, in, in deficit territory. But it was for s- a lot of people, for many people, their own backstory shaped what they thought they even deserved in a relationship. And I will tell you this, in that part of that step zero is, how do you reconcile yourself with societal messages? You had said something earlier that made me think about this too, which is this idea of the romance and how we view relationships early on. We're very programmed, whether we like to think that we are or we're not. We can, you know, everyone brings up the Disney movies, but it's beyond Disney movies. It's about what a love story is supposed to look like, what a, at least a heteronormative relationship is supposed to look like. Um, you know, we have these... And this is where we get to this idea of a gift. Like, what do you... How many people say, "You mean he didn't give you anything for Valentine's Day?"

Lewis Howes 1:00:24 That, yeah.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:00:24 And I've had to say that, and I'm in a relationship, and I said, "If he brought home something home for Valentine's Day, I would slap that man silly," because think of, what are you wasting your money for, fool? But the day after, the candy's on 50%, so you're welcome to go to CVS-

Lewis Howes 1:00:36 [laughs]

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:00:37 ... and grab me a box, honey.

Lewis Howes 1:00:38 Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:00:38 So it's a-

Lewis Howes 1:00:39 'Cause your value was something different.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:00:41 Right.

Lewis Howes 1:00:41 Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:00:41 Yeah, so, and, and so it's that. But, but beyond that is that I, we get this message of what it's supposed to be. And when it's not that, we think, "Well, there's gotta be something wrong with me."

Lewis Howes 1:00:52 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:00:53 And so I do think-

Lewis Howes 1:00:54 Interesting

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:00:54 ... that it's a, it's, there's some, there's some pushing back on existing sort of societal messaging. There is being aware of one's own legacy issues. What are you trying to work through? One's own history of trauma and those kinds of adverse experiences from early in life, to me, those are sort of like the step zero before the step one.

Lewis Howes 1:01:16 So being aware of those things.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:01:18 You've gotta be aware.

Lewis Howes 1:01:18 Talking to your partner-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:01:19 Yeah

Lewis Howes 1:01:19 ... about them, or just being aware?

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:01:21 Mm, ta- no. I think that's the word. Step zero-

Lewis Howes 1:01:22 [clears throat]

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:01:22 ... is almost like before you ever meet-

Lewis Howes 1:01:23 Yeah, yeah

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:01:24 ... any partner.

Lewis Howes 1:01:24 And, and part of me is thinking, you know, the healing journey is being aware of those things, addressing them, you know-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:01:30 Right. Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 1:01:30 ... reflecting on them, and then starting to integrate a-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:01:33 Yeah

Lewis Howes 1:01:33 ... some type of therapeutic healing process.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:01:35 Yeah. A- and then I think that I, w- the other thing I'd say is the-

Lewis Howes 1:01:38 Yes

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:01:38 ... the a- going back to that societal message, is the abyss at all. Like, I think a lot of people would hear a list like that and be like, "Homie, you're high. Like, if I do this, I am gonna be alone for the rest of my damn life."

Lewis Howes 1:01:49 But I was willing to do that.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:01:50 You were, and I-

Lewis Howes 1:01:50 Because I had felt so much-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:01:51 Yes

Lewis Howes 1:01:51 ... suffering inside from the pain.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:01:53 Yes.

Lewis Howes 1:01:53 I was like, "I'd rather be alone with a cat and dog-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:01:56 Correct

Lewis Howes 1:01:56 ... be peaceful-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:01:57 Right

Lewis Howes 1:01:57 ... than be in a relationship where I have to- You know, give up who I am every day-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:02:02 Right, right

Lewis Howes 1:02:02 ... and walk on eggshells.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:02:03 But that means that y- people have to understand that giving up who I am means that they value the who I am, that that's actually something to give up.

Lewis Howes 1:02:11 Right.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:02:11 And I think that what, what I'll... I wish this happened in school. I wish that a significant part of the curriculum was on the who am I? What am I about? What do I stand for? What matters to me? What are my values? I got a, I got a text from my daughter two days ago. She's in, in uni- in college right now, still trying to figure out her major, and she texts me and she's like, "Mom, I've decided I'm gonna pursue a career in the arts." And I, I, I text her back like-

Lewis Howes 1:02:38 [laughs]

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:02:38 ... "That is absolutely magnificent." And she texts me back, "Said no mother ever. Do you realize that I'm probably never gonna have a lot of money?" I said, "Girl, I've been broke since I was 15."

Lewis Howes 1:02:47 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:02:48 So I said, "And I wasn't happy." So I said, "If you wake up every day excited about what you do, you're good." And so what my daughter was doing-

Lewis Howes 1:02:57 [laughs]

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:02:57 ... was she was unfurling herself in front of me. Now, inside, am I thinking, like, you know, rice and beans and-

Lewis Howes 1:03:03 She might have a tough life, yeah [laughs]

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:03:03 ... your studio apartment? Okay, yeah, you could do that. You could do that. That's all. But you know what? If you're doing what you love, that rice and beans and that studio apartment's gonna be A-okay.

Lewis Howes 1:03:12 It's gonna feel like a filet mignon, you know?

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:03:13 And she's loved. You know, that this is not like, how dare you take this expensive education. Just like, you are loved, and I want you to be you, and I want you to find your path. You know, that's definitely not how I was parented, you know, and that's, um, not how-

Lewis Howes 1:03:28 It's like-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:03:28 ... a lot of people were parented

Lewis Howes 1:03:29 ... you're loved if you do what we tell you to do

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:03:30 ... you're loved if the word doctor is in front of your name. They're like, "I don't care what damn way you get to that."

Lewis Howes 1:03:35 Now, here's-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:03:35 "You're gonna be a doctor."

Lewis Howes 1:03:36 Here's the funny thing. You, the doctor is in front of your name, do you feel loved, or did you feel loved after you got that accomplishment?

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:03:43 Um, no, and I think I became the wrong kind of doctor. I think they had the whole MD thing in mind.

Lewis Howes 1:03:47 Sure, sure.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:03:47 But you know, I also understood where they came from. As immigrants at the, in the generation they came, they really did believe, they said, "No one in this country's gonna take you seriously," you know, s- th- when they look at your face. So they said, "At least with the doctor, you're gonna get a little respect when they say your name." So I'm like, "Okay, I can work with that." But the fact is, I did think like, "Oh, they're gonna love me more if I do this?" No. They had their own story.

Lewis Howes 1:04:07 Yes.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:04:07 But I think that for, and in, in bringing in my daughter is like she's trying to figure out who she is. Who are you? What do you stand for? And that, that idea, what are your personal values? Like, we, I, I do leadership training with folks, and you actually, they actually take a values deck of cards, and you realize, like, whereas your, your v- if you and I did that ex... We should do that one. We should have that epis- I should bring in my values card.

Lewis Howes 1:04:30 Bring them in.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:04:30 Let's do that.

Lewis Howes 1:04:31 Okay.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:04:31 For sure. I'm gonna bring them in, and we're both gonna do it.

Lewis Howes 1:04:34 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:04:34 And then I think you put your f- top 15, and you take a look at them, right? And so ours are gonna be completely different.

Lewis Howes 1:04:41 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:04:42 And yet w- I, I adore you. You're-

Lewis Howes 1:04:44 Yeah, yeah

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:04:44 ... a friend of mine, all of that, but we'll have very... And you know what?

Lewis Howes 1:04:48 Wow.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:04:48 I'm gonna get your own deck, take it home, do it with Martha.

Lewis Howes 1:04:51 Well, it's funny you say that because before we got committed [laughs] , and maybe you think I'm high 'cause these, these things were, like, important for me-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:04:58 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 1:04:58 ... 'cause I was like, I'd rather scare her away from being intentional about my communication and my values and my vision and who I am or, or what I wanna create in this world than attract someone on a false foundation.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:05:10 So I wanna push back on your language there.

Lewis Howes 1:05:12 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:05:12 I wanna scare her away. How interesting that you still view that-

Lewis Howes 1:05:15 Not scare her away, but make sure that we're the right match.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:05:18 Right, but it, your, your li- but let's... Language matters.

Lewis Howes 1:05:20 Sure.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:05:21 I'm gonna scare her away.

Lewis Howes 1:05:22 Sure.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:05:22 The real Lewis is scary is sort of that, and that-

Lewis Howes 1:05:25 Right, right, right, right

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:05:25 ... sh- you know, that's sort of, there's a certain ingrained assumption that-

Lewis Howes 1:05:28 Sure

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:05:28 ... if I'm me, that is going to scare her rather than-

Lewis Howes 1:05:32 Mm-hmm

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:05:32 ... simply I'm gonna show her the real me-

Lewis Howes 1:05:34 True

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:05:35 ... and let's see if that's a fit. So I hear some-

Lewis Howes 1:05:37 I like that. I like that

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:05:37 ... unconscious bias within you towards that.

Lewis Howes 1:05:38 I like that. I like that. I like that. I'll start correcting myself. That's good. Um, so I wanted to share her with the, the real me-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:05:45 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 1:05:46 ... and be honest about all these things that I wanted-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:05:49 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 1:05:49 ... to create in my life unapologetically.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:05:50 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 1:05:51 Let's say that. I wanna be unapologetic about what I wanted to create.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:05:54 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 1:05:55 And so before we got together, you know, got into a, a committed exclusive, uh, you know, dating experience, we had a, we'd had an amazing few months already.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:06:05 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 1:06:06 I- like so many trips and things.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:06:07 Mm.

Lewis Howes 1:06:07 And it was just, like, peaceful, right?

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:06:09 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 1:06:11 And so I took her to Sedona, and I took her up a, a, a vortex, right?

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:06:17 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 1:06:18 Like this kinda little mountain vortex in Sedona, and I had a, a workbook for us.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:06:24 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 1:06:24 A journal, and I gave it to her. I put some music on, and I said, "Listen, I wanna do a values exercise with you."

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:06:29 Mm. Good for you.

Lewis Howes 1:06:30 So it was kinda like the value deck, but I said-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:06:32 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 1:06:32 ... "I want you..." I put some music on, some gentle music. We're up. The sun is setting.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:06:36 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 1:06:36 We're on this energy vortex. I said, "I want you to be so honest and authentic with what your core values are."

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:06:42 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 1:06:42 "And list as, list as many things that are part of your values in your life, you know, and take five, 10 minutes, right? I'm not gonna look at it. I'm not gonna, uh... You know, you do your thing."

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:06:51 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 1:06:52 I do that. She writes it. I, then I, I say, "Give me a blank piece of paper," and I take it, and I do the same exercise. And I said, "Now I want us to look at them-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:07:01 Mm. Mm

Lewis Howes 1:07:01 ... side by side without a bias-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:07:04 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 1:07:04 ... without me seeing it first and then me writing down the same things 'cause I want you to think I have the same values. Are we in alignment?

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:07:11 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 1:07:11 You know, is there alignment? Not perfection. Is there alignment?

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:07:14 Sure.

Lewis Howes 1:07:15 And 80% of the things we wrote down were the same, right?

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:07:18 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 1:07:18 And the 20% that was different, it was like, okay, cool. That's, nothing against that here and nothing against here.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:07:23 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 1:07:24 And it felt just more organic, right?

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:07:26 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 1:07:26 It felt, because we were honest about it.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:07:28 Right.

Lewis Howes 1:07:29 I don't think there were many relations in the past where I talked about values and vision and lifestyle-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:07:33 Right

Lewis Howes 1:07:33 ... until it was too late.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:07:35 Correct. Correct.

Lewis Howes 1:07:35 When we were, when we were-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:07:36 That's the point. Yes

Lewis Howes 1:07:36 ... breaking down, and it's like there's frustration-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:07:38 That's right

Lewis Howes 1:07:38 ... and we're like, "What are we doing?"

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:07:39 Right.

Lewis Howes 1:07:40 But we've already chemically bonded, and we've already, like-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:07:42 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 1:07:42 ... gotten deeper into a commitment, and you're like, "Well, we just lacked the, I guess, emotional courage or intelligence to have those conversations early."

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:07:50 And I just don't think a lot of people live their lives from that examined standpoint.

Lewis Howes 1:07:54 Yeah.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:07:54 Like, what are my values? What do I stand for? And people are like, "What do you mean, what do I stand for? I, I can't afford gas."

Lewis Howes 1:08:00 Right, right.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:08:00 You know? And so that... And I understand that.

Lewis Howes 1:08:02 Surviving, yeah.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:08:02 Right, I'm surviving. You are surviving, but there are certain things you, that you're willing to fight, really, really fight for and be- And that you actually do need... You know, like for some people, for example, spirituality may really matter. You cannot minimize that. And if a person for whom-

Lewis Howes 1:08:17 Wow

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:08:17 ... spirituality matters enters into a relationship with someone who doesn't, it's not an indictment of either of them, but that may not be a, a language they can use with each other, which might leave both of them frustrated. But there's, uh, there, and there's some things that we- you're not gonna fully map onto someone else. Someone may say, "I'm very comfortable with your spiritual world. I'm some- simply not gonna participate in it." And then that will work, and they'll say, "There's a... I can see how joyful it makes you." But what the, the struggle here, though, and the main sort of pushback I would have on your list-

Lewis Howes 1:08:47 Give it to me

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:08:47 ... is your list is predicated on two healthy people.

Lewis Howes 1:08:51 That's why step one is both need to be healing.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:08:53 Yeah. And so-

Lewis Howes 1:08:54 And both need to be in a therapeutic-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:08:55 Yeah

Lewis Howes 1:08:55 ... journey together.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:08:56 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 1:08:57 That's why for me it's if one person is working on their healing journey-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:09:01 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 1:09:01 ... and doing some type of therapy-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:09:03 Right

Lewis Howes 1:09:03 ... consistently with accountability and emotional intelligence and integrating that process-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:09:07 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 1:09:07 ... and the other is not, I feel like it's gonna be challenging. That's why I was like-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:09:10 I think it's gonna be impossible

Lewis Howes 1:09:11 ... that's why I said enter the relationship in therapy.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:09:14 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 1:09:14 Which again, this is maybe hard for people to do. And-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:09:17 I think it's great to enter a relationship in therapy. It's just not a typical third date activity. "Hey-

Lewis Howes 1:09:22 I get it

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:09:22 ... instead of going out for drinks, you wanna come to therapy?" [laughs]

Lewis Howes 1:09:25 This is after a few months.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:09:26 You know?

Lewis Howes 1:09:26 You know, this is after a few months, but yeah.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:09:26 But even still-

Lewis Howes 1:09:28 I get it

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:09:28 ... I do think that there's some, there's some-

Lewis Howes 1:09:30 Mm-hmm

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:09:30 ... there's a business for me to open, like third date therapy, you know?

Lewis Howes 1:09:33 But here's the thing. What's the alternative?

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:09:35 Um-

Lewis Howes 1:09:35 Getting in a relationship where 50%, you know, get, go through divorce within however many years, and then-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:09:40 Right

Lewis Howes 1:09:40 ... s- and then those that stay together more unhappy, and then-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:09:44 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 1:09:44 ... you're suffering and you're-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:09:45 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 1:09:45 ... feeling trapped and you feel stuck. And it seems like very few in their first marriage-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:09:50 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 1:09:50 ... make, you know, create a peaceful, thriving life with, you know, challenges and bumps along the way, but just seems like it's rare.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:09:58 Right.

Lewis Howes 1:09:59 And so if you want that, if you want a healthy, thriving, long-term, committed relationship, not perfect, but-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:10:04 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 1:10:05 ... a healthy one, I mean, I feel like it's rare. You, you gotta do the ex- the extreme or the different things that people have never done. I don't know.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:10:13 Right. But you also have to value yourself, and that's-

Lewis Howes 1:10:16 Mm

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:10:16 ... the work, right? Is for a person-

Lewis Howes 1:10:18 Yes

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:10:18 ... to be able to say, "I am valuable."

Lewis Howes 1:10:20 Yes.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:10:20 And once... If a person can get there, all relationships in some ways are, have a, a fighting chance, not toxic ones, but because they do value themselves, so they're willing to set a boundary. They're willing to extract from unhealthy situations. They're, they are m- they're mindful and aware of what another person... You know, they're self-aware. They, they're able to... And also aware of another person, and, and can make judgments and statements and all of that about the, you know, in, in, in an informed, aware manner.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:10:51 And then above-

Lewis Howes 1:10:51 Mm-hmm

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:10:51 ... all else, they have empathy, right? And either you got it or you don't. And in the absence of empathy, your whole, your whole system goes away, right? You c- without that, this, this doesn't work.

Lewis Howes 1:11:01 Compassion, empathy. Yeah.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:11:02 And, and I think that there's, you know, I think that a lot of people right now in the world are engaging in pseudo-healing, and I think it's just narcissistic navel-gazing and they're actually not really healing.

Lewis Howes 1:11:12 What does that mean, pseudo-healing?

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:11:13 I think it's that they're g- they're, they're doing whatever they're doing. Like, "I meditate 75 times a day," and, "I do-

Lewis Howes 1:11:19 Yeah, yeah

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:11:19 ... mindfulness this, and I ayahuasca that," and blah, blah, blah, blah. And they do all of that, but they're still really going through the world in a rather monstrous, entitled, dismissive, contemptuous way. But it's sort of like, you know, what I call healing porn or recovery porn. Like, "Look at my recovery. I'm so recovery-ish," and-

Lewis Howes 1:11:36 It's like a spiritual bypass.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:11:37 Yeah, exactly. It's a spiritual bypass. And that p- that gives me pause.

Lewis Howes 1:11:40 Mm.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:11:40 So you can't even just say, "Oh, they're doing all this work on themselves." It's like I don't care how much work they're doing on themselves.

Lewis Howes 1:11:45 How are they showing up?

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:11:45 Watch their behavior. Exactly.

Lewis Howes 1:11:46 Yeah. How are you showing up?

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:11:47 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 1:11:47 What's your thoughts on plant medicine as a professional, you know, i- in terms of a, a therapy?

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:11:54 So it's-

Lewis Howes 1:11:54 In terms of helping people heal.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:11:56 Right.

Lewis Howes 1:11:56 Is it-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:11:56 You know, I'm always very... I, I tread so lightly here because as a licensed person, I always have to recognize that my, my f- my feedback will always carry weight. I am not... I, I'm not an MD, so I can't prescribe medication. I do believe this, though. What's happening in plant medicine, what's happening in the psychedelic world is the future of, of-

Lewis Howes 1:12:14 Really?

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:12:14 ... psychiatry. I do. I think that there's things happening there. Um, s- the early clinical trials on MDMA and, um, and PTSD, we're seeing some really extraordinary things starting to happen.

Lewis Howes 1:12:26 Hmm. Interesting.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:12:27 And I'm enough of a cynic, and I don't know, maybe I look like I have a tinfoil hat right on right now.

Lewis Howes 1:12:31 [laughs]

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:12:31 But I do believe big pharma doesn't want this to happen.

Lewis Howes 1:12:35 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:12:35 Because I think that there, there may be a lot of answers lurking there. But folks, this is not about you going home and going to a rave and, and doing some MDMA and saying, "Oh, I'm treating myself for PTSD." No, no, no, no, no, no. The treatment protocols for this have to be done with licensed people in controlled settings. Therapy is happening while the person is using the psychedelic. This is under the mo- it has to be done under the most-

Lewis Howes 1:13:02 Hmm

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:13:02 ... clear, formatted protocol. So this isn't just-

Lewis Howes 1:13:05 Yeah

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:13:05 ... like party drug time, and look at me, I'm treating myself. This is not self-medication. It's none of that. This is highly controlled. The dosages are controlled. But I do think there's a tremendous future there. I would be... Uh, it would be arrogant for me-

Lewis Howes 1:13:19 Hmm

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:13:19 ... to, to say otherwise. And I... When I've talked with folks doing this kind of work, it's, it's impressive what they're showing. I'd like to see more data. I, you know, I'm not... When it comes to w- what I do from a practice perspective, for example, I can't say to someone, "You need to be on Zoloft." I have to say, "I'm going to give you a referral to a psychiatrist. You will work with that psychiatrist, and they will make whatever medication recommendation they have for you." But I can't, the way my license works, make clear recommendations. So if a client of mine says, "I wanna explore this," I'll say, "If you do, we just simply need to make sure you're doing it with a licensed..." Um, you know, so somebody who's doing this in a very legitimized, thoughtful kind of a way.

Lewis Howes 1:14:00 Yeah. I have a... I feel like I, I feel like I have an open mind to a lot of things, but for whatever reason, I f- I'm gonna be intentional with my words here.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:14:12 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 1:14:14 Um, I've met a lot of people, I have a lot of friends-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:14:16 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 1:14:16 ... who've done a lots of different-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:14:18 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 1:14:18 ... you know, ayahuasca and plant medicine-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:14:19 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 1:14:19 ... journeys and experiences-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:14:21 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 1:14:21 ... and retreats and all these things that swear by it, right?

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:14:24 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 1:14:25 And people I respect, people that I love and I appreciate, and nothing wrong with it. Um, but years down the road, I don't, I don't, I don't see it having, like, the, the healing effect that I'm like-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:14:37 Correct

Lewis Howes 1:14:37 ... "Okay. Well, you're keep going to doing it, and, and-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:14:40 Right

Lewis Howes 1:14:40 ... but where is the, the pro- the progress?" There's, like, a week or two of this euphoria.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:14:46 Yes. [laughs] Yes.

Lewis Howes 1:14:47 You know, but then you're s- you're still struggling in your rela-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:14:50 No

Lewis Howes 1:14:50 ... you're still being a b- a bad per- you're still... You know, and it, it's not for everyone that does this that I know, but I've just-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:14:55 Right

Lewis Howes 1:14:55 ... I've experienced that where people swear by it as this euphoria experience, but then six months later they're suffering again.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:15:01 Right. It's the by- but then there's the bypass, though, right? Because the work. And then I, I've worked with narcissistic clients, Lewis. It's not like I'm only on the survivor side.

Lewis Howes 1:15:10 Yes.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:15:10 I've worked with many in my time, and let me tell you.

Lewis Howes 1:15:12 That's exhausting, probably.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:15:13 I mean, that's, I, I feel like Foreman in the ring. And mercifully, I'm actually really good.

Lewis Howes 1:15:18 Yes.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:15:18 And, you know, actually more like Ali, 'cause I can get them against the ropes and exhaust them a bit.

Lewis Howes 1:15:21 And you probably create an energy field-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:15:22 You know?

Lewis Howes 1:15:23 ... so you're not like these...

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:15:24 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 1:15:24 Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:15:24 Or I can take the... Actually, no, Foreman gets them against the ropes. Ali can take the punches.

Lewis Howes 1:15:29 Yeah, just-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:15:30 I can take the punches.

Lewis Howes 1:15:30 Yeah. [laughs]

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:15:31 And so it's a... But what I would see is I would s- I say to... Uh, 'cause here's the thing. What would be really interesting, being in the room with a narcissistic client who actually saw through the therapy. They didn't drop out. One of the interesting things for me, I was fortunate 'cause I had so, I had no spots in my, my practice, and now I've completely downsized it and mostly have ended most of it. But I, back in the day, I'd say, "You don't show up, you lose your slot, and you're not in this practice." And they're like, "Oh, I don't wanna lose my slot." Right? They don't like that, so they'd show up. But the fact is, is that when they'd show up, they would sometimes say, like, I would say, "Gosh, that thing you just told me you said to your wife, like, how did she feel? And how did..." And they-

Lewis Howes 1:16:10 Well, she felt fine. Yeah

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:16:11 ... and then, uh, no, no. They'd be like, "Oh, I didn't really think about it." I'm like, "Let's think about it, shall we?"

Lewis Howes 1:16:15 Ah.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:16:15 And that's something called mentalization, when you have someone reflect on what they think. How they think someone feels, how they f- think their behavior is affecting someone. Like, put yourself in that head space. So I'd say, "How do you think your wife felt when you did X or Y?" "Oh, yeah, I guess that wasn't cool." "Okay. So what, what might you want someone to do for you in that circumstance?" Right? And get them to do it.

Lewis Howes 1:16:38 That's good.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:16:39 And they would sometimes say, like, "Yeah, you're right, that wasn't..." So they, they weren't, like, punching me in the face. They were just kinda like, "Okay, that wasn't cool." Would they keep making the same mistakes? Yes. Me repeatedly saying, "What do you think she felt?" Or sometimes I'd even say, like, "That's not cool." You know, that was, that... And I, I would often say, "How would you feel if your wife saw the text-

Lewis Howes 1:17:02 Hmm

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:17:02 ... that you sent?" "I'd, I'd divorce her." Really? You know. And so they... And I said, "Do you see you have a double standard?" Here's my point, though, Lewis.

Lewis Howes 1:17:11 Yes.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:17:11 And one of the most, you know, and this is gonna be sort of a com- what do you call it? Like, a composite of multiple people, you know, from a confidentiality perspective. But-

Lewis Howes 1:17:19 Sure

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:17:19 ... I do remember working with a series of people to the end of their, their relationships, and couple of them said, more than a few said, "You're telling me to make my marriage work I gotta listen to her talk about her emotional stuff. You know, she's getting old. I don't even like to look at her that much anymore. You're telling me that I can't s- like, all right, so I'm having, I'm just having sex with this other person, but you're telling me it hurts her."

Lewis Howes 1:17:43 Ugh. Oh, my gosh.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:17:43 And they're like, and they'll be like, "Okay, so you're telling me I've gotta listen to her, and I have to care about her feelings, and, and then, and you're also telling me I have to do this with this other woman I'm having sex with who thinks I'm gonna have a relationship with her. Please."

Lewis Howes 1:17:56 Oh, my gosh.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:17:56 And they, like that. Okay? So you know what? I remember one of my more successful, you know, some of the more successful cases, they come back and say, "I divorced the wife and I dumped the mistress. Like, if this is, if I don't wanna be causing this much harm." They weren't sadistic, you know? But, and after the therapy they're like, "Okay, if that, if this is never gonna change, I don't, I, I, I, it's very clear I wanna do what I wanna do."

Lewis Howes 1:18:18 Right.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:18:18 And I thought that was a win. They're like-

Lewis Howes 1:18:19 It's a big win

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:18:20 ... "I'm not changing."

Lewis Howes 1:18:20 Yeah.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:18:20 They were even aware they weren't gonna change. They're like, "I'm not listening to her nonsense, and I don't like looking at her, and I don't think she's attractive anymore." It's like, yikes.

Lewis Howes 1:18:29 But it's a win for the, for her-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:18:30 But it's a win for the-

Lewis Howes 1:18:31 ... and for them

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:18:31 ... the other people who have been released. Now-

Lewis Howes 1:18:33 That's big

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:18:34 ... most folks, most narcissistic folks or people with these personalities don't stay in therapy. They're not great candidates for therapy. And my guess is, to your point about these people who all slide backwards, there ain't enough ayahuasca in the world to turn these people around.

Lewis Howes 1:18:50 Yeah.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:18:50 I can tell you that right now. There's not enough MDMA, MDMA. There's nothing. I think everyone's looking for the empathy pill, right? That's what they're... There's, that, it's not how it works. You know? There's just no such thing.

Lewis Howes 1:19:02 There needs to be a, you know, this could be something that unlocks you and allows you to start processing-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:19:07 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 1:19:07 ... and bringing up, you know, potential wounds if you could start-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:19:10 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 1:19:11 ... to, to heal.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:19:11 To do that work.

Lewis Howes 1:19:12 But-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:19:12 Yes

Lewis Howes 1:19:13 ... but you've gotta be willing to do some other therapies that's not-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:19:15 Correct

Lewis Howes 1:19:15 ... uh, you know, external focused around, like, a medical drug or something to-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:19:21 No. No

Lewis Howes 1:19:21 ... to, to fix you

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:19:22 You have to do the inner work.

Lewis Howes 1:19:23 You've gotta do the inner work-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:19:23 Yeah. Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 1:19:24 ... to continue that journey.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:19:25 Mm-hmm. Right. Exactly. And that's where I'm saying that any of the protocols that are showing any efficacy, again, around things like PTSD and everything, have to be done in a managed circumstance. And to your point, I remember once meeting a guy swearing by whatever psychedelic, they're swearing by it.

Lewis Howes 1:19:40 This is it. Yes.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:19:41 I, can I curse on here? 'Cause I'm gonna tell you right now, this guy was-

Lewis Howes 1:19:43 You can. I believe what I'll believe. Yeah, go ahead

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:19:44 ... the biggest A-hole-

Lewis Howes 1:19:45 Yeah, yeah

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:19:46 ... I have ever met. I mean, I, he was just-

Lewis Howes 1:19:48 A jerk

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:19:49 ... just a jerk, and cold and abrupt. And he was, but yet he had the audacity to say, "I am so empathic now." I'm like, ooh. You know? Like, okay, that's not, that's not how it's usually done. And I didn't, I was not, I had no skin in this game. I was just sort of watching this conversation happen. He was talking to a group of people. But he was just a jerk for the full two days I had to spend in his presence, and yet was extolling how much growth he had had. And so I don't know what that meant to him, and maybe people in his life thought there was progress You know, remember, I mean, if you're starting from negative 10, even getting up to zero-

Lewis Howes 1:20:26 [laughs] Yeah

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:20:26 ... is growth.

Lewis Howes 1:20:27 Right.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:20:27 So there is that too.

Lewis Howes 1:20:29 Right.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:20:29 But, um, it's, it's, it's really tough because I do think... There was an interesting article in The New York Times, actually, I think it was today or yesterday, about this idea of like, um, does being in therapy make me a good person? You know, and is that what the point of therapy is, to make someone a good person? And what really is a good person?

Lewis Howes 1:20:47 Hmm.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:20:47 So it really raised a lot of philosophical issues.

Lewis Howes 1:20:49 What is that? Yeah.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:20:50 Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 1:20:51 Interesting.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:20:52 And that's, it's subjective to a point, but I don't think it is.

Lewis Howes 1:20:55 Yeah.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:20:55 I, I think one thing we do know when we look at personality, in general, the... I, I do think we do believe that compassion and respect make for a good person, but we also live in a world where people like that are viewed as suckers.

Lewis Howes 1:21:11 Right. You have to have discernment around things and not just buy into what everyone's saying. Yeah.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:21:15 But it's not even that. If you're just comp- especially men, this is, and I really feel-

Lewis Howes 1:21:19 Hmm

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:21:19 ... for men having to endure this. If you're compassionate, sweet, and respectful, often it's not, those are not masculine enough qualities.

Lewis Howes 1:21:25 It's looking as a weak man that you can take advantage of.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:21:27 Weak man versus the guy who is like a corporate raider, who has a ton of money, who drives the fast car, is, is somehow viewed as strong. That's, I mean, this is, and, and right now that that's right there, the paradox of what masculinity is in our modern age. Until we can make compassion sexy, we're in trouble.

Lewis Howes 1:21:43 What do you wish every man could learn to develop more of in society?

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:21:48 Emotion. D- uh, being vulnerable with emotion, to share, to share vulnerability, to share sadness. The number of men, for example, who've been sexually abused-

Lewis Howes 1:21:58 Hmm

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:21:58 ... we don't talk about it.

Lewis Howes 1:21:59 One in six.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:22:00 I mean... I, yeah, exactly. And we, uh, for women, there's actually, at least in therapy, I'm talking about-

Lewis Howes 1:22:04 Mm-hmm

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:22:04 ... the safe space, but I'm telling you for clients I've worked with, with, um, m- m- male clients, I remember some of them saying, "I don't wanna... I, I have something to talk to you. Can we do this session by phone? I don't wanna look at your face."

Lewis Howes 1:22:16 So shameful.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:22:17 You know, so shameful. And I think that, and when I taught abnormal psychology at the university level and I was te- teaching about adverse childhood experiences like child abuse, child sexual abuse, what I did notice was that some of the, the, the male students were really shifting uncomfortably in their seats. And I would slow down, I'm like, "Listen, if, you know, we can take this topic slow." Uh, it felt like the women in the class were actually had processed that a little bit more on the, on the macro, like overall, than the male students in the class. So I think that to hold space, to be able to feel safe with talking about their insecurities, their vulnerabilities, their feelings, to show tears, I mean, there is n- nothing more beautiful when a person's able, n- to cry because they're feeling a genuine emotion. And I think of how we pathologize men for doing that. We do. We literally pathologize. The, there will be, it'll be the cold open on Saturday Night Live, they'll make jokes about it, there'll be memes about it. It horrifies me. So why would a man ever be vulnerable if he thinks he's gonna be turned into a big joke?

Lewis Howes 1:23:20 To be made fun of. Yeah.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:23:21 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 1:23:22 It's interesting you say this, and I, you know, I wrote a book five years ago-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:23:25 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 1:23:25 ... called The Mask of Masculinity-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:23:27 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 1:23:27 ... which is about my journey of-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:23:28 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 1:23:28 ... you know, letting go of anger, frustration, resentment, and stepping more into vulnerability.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:23:33 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 1:23:34 Right? The healing journey and, and allowing myself to be vulnerable.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:23:37 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 1:23:37 Talking about sexual abuse for the first time in 25 years-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:23:40 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 1:23:40 ... since it happened, and just unpacking it all.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:23:42 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 1:23:43 What it means to be a man, how to take off these masks.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:23:47 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 1:23:47 And in the process of doing this, I would go to events and talk about the book, right? And there'd probably be 50/50 men and women who would be in the room.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:23:56 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 1:23:56 And I would ask, at some point in the event, I'd say, "All the, all the women in the room, raise your hand if you, uh, once a week talk to your, your girlfriends or you have a place where you can go and talk about your challenges or insecurities or fears and things like this of life, your, your body, you know, shaming issues, whatever it might be, you can talk to someone about it." And pretty much every woman in the, the room would raise their hand.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:24:17 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 1:24:18 I'd say, "Keep your hands up if you do this every day with your girlfriends-"

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:24:20 Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 1:24:20 "... your mom, your sister." And pretty much all of them kind of laugh-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:24:22 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 1:24:22 ... and say, "Yeah, I call people every day." Um, and I said, "Okay, guys in the room, raise your hand, you know, if, if you do this once a month, you talk with your guy friends and you feel safe to be vulnerable and open up about your insecurities," and all these different things as well. Maybe two hands out of hundreds in a once a month-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:24:40 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 1:24:40 ... would raise their hand.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:24:41 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 1:24:42 And I'd say, "Are you guys part of a church group that does this kind of like mandatory like-"

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:24:46 Yeah, yeah.

Lewis Howes 1:24:46 "... structural thing where you feel safe in this place?" And they all kind of laugh like, "Yes."

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:24:51 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 1:24:51 And I go, "How many of you do this once a year?"

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:24:53 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 1:24:54 No hands.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:24:55 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 1:24:56 And so I go, "Ladies, imagine going once a month."

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:25:00 Incredible.

Lewis Howes 1:25:00 "Not even going once a month."

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:25:01 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 1:25:01 "Not even going once a year. Imagine going a lifetime-"

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:25:04 Yeah

Lewis Howes 1:25:04 "... without ever being vulnerable and opening up because you feel-"

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:25:06 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 1:25:06 "... like you're gonna be shamed. Just think about the weight."

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:25:10 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 1:25:10 I'm not saying how men act and treat you and this and this is okay, or actions are, are okay. But just think about-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:25:18 Yeah, it's true

Lewis Howes 1:25:18 ... that.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:25:19 It's true.

Lewis Howes 1:25:19 And, and I had, and I talked to different men throughout this period-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:25:23 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 1:25:23 ... who said, "Lewis, I, I, I started the opening up with my wife-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:25:27 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 1:25:27 ... and after years-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:25:28 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 1:25:29 ... that she would always say, 'I wish you were more vulnerable. I wish you would-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:25:33 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 1:25:33 ... show emotion more, not just-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:25:34 Mm

Lewis Howes 1:25:34 ... be stoic or angry.'" And some men would say this, "And I started to do this, and I got the worst response from my wife, my partner."

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:25:43 Oh, interesting.

Lewis Howes 1:25:43 'Cause they weren't available to receive me being-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:25:46 Yeah. Yeah.

Lewis Howes 1:25:46 They're so used to me being stoic and this, having it all together-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:25:49 Yeah

Lewis Howes 1:25:49 ... that when I was emotional, they needed me to be strong for their emotional challenges.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:25:55 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 1:25:56 Some of these women. I'm not saying all these women. So how do we get women to be, to accepting-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:26:00 Yeah, yeah

Lewis Howes 1:26:01 ... of m- of men starting to shift and be, to-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:26:03 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 1:26:03 ... show emotion, to cry, to say, "Hey, I'm, I'm struggling."

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:26:06 Right.

Lewis Howes 1:26:06 "I'm really going with some issues right now."

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:26:08 Right.

Lewis Howes 1:26:08 "And I've got some stuff I gotta deal with." How do we get women also to be like, "Hey, it's encouraging. It's okay."

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:26:14 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 1:26:14 And, and keep a safe space-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:26:17 Right

Lewis Howes 1:26:17 ... so that men will continue to and not be like, "Well, I'm never doing that again. She, she la- she made fun of me. Like-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:26:22 Right

Lewis Howes 1:26:22 ... why would I ever do this? I'm gonna be strong and tough again."

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:26:25 And that's something that all, you know, all, everyone has to work on-

Lewis Howes 1:26:28 Yeah

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:26:28 ... is how do, to say, what are our, um- ... our biases about masculinity. Does that, how, how do we, would that change how you view a partner? Would that... You know, I mean, again, we, you and I, I was watching you talk about something recently-

Lewis Howes 1:26:41 Yeah

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:26:41 ... where someone was talking about masculine and feminine energy and all that. I'm not so sure I agree with that dichotomy, to be honest with you, but I do think that it is a, you know, the shaming of emotion, and anger being the only acceptable emotion. So men use that. They j- they've turned it into, like, the Swiss Army knife of emotion. "I'm sad. I'm gonna be angry. I'm vulnerable. I'm gonna be angry." Angry, angry, angry, right? [laughs]

Lewis Howes 1:27:01 Right.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:27:02 It's like, it's just like the one, the one-stop shop kind of thing. And, uh, and to me, anger is an incredibly acceptable, healthy emotion. It's in the, it's in the whole... But it's, it's meant to be a whole drawer full of stuff, not just one emotion you use for everything. And that's, that's the challenge, is that men do have emotion, anger, and that, that it's sort of switching that up societally, not pathologizing that, and, uh, and, and women holding space for that. But I think the other piece for men is I want them to have more deep friendships. Again, something else I read, a great article I read about a guy, wrote this idea of how many men out there have colonoscopy friends? And I, that headline grabbed me-

Lewis Howes 1:27:40 Wow

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:27:40 ... so I kept reading. You know what his, his point was, he, I think he had a girlfriend or wife or something, and he said, "If she wasn't in my life, there's nobody to drive me home from a colonoscopy," 'cause you can't drive yourself home and you can't take an Uber home. So a person has to come and get you at the colonoscopy. And so-

Lewis Howes 1:27:56 That's vulnerable

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:27:56 ... it's very vulnerable.

Lewis Howes 1:27:57 Oh, man.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:27:57 But most men don't have a... And this is, like, men over the age of 40, which is when you would be getting a colonoscopy, that men often don't have friendships. They have, like, "Let's go play golf. Let's go watch a game."

Lewis Howes 1:28:09 To the bar.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:28:09 "Let's meet at a bar." But that person, where women have been, are really good at that, and in fact, it's why women often fare better later in life after a spouse dies, whereas a guy, it's sort of like they'll often decline-

Lewis Howes 1:28:22 Downhill

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:28:22 ... rather quickly. Some women, not, not 'cause they flourish, but some women actually do flourish, but they often have a stronger support network because women are often doing that, that cultivating of, of social relationships, and so because that's part, that's just something that's more validated for them. And so, and I love that, that analogy of the colonoscopy friend, like the person you call-

Lewis Howes 1:28:43 That's interesting

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:28:44 ... and say, "Can you pick me up from this?" And that, "Well, we'll go to work." You know, of course. Like, I'm thinking of all the friends I have. Like, if you give me enough notice, of course I'm gonna come get you, and there's dozens of women I would do that for. And so, um, when I even ran that by my partner, he got really sad. He's like, "I don't think I have any colonoscopy friends."

Lewis Howes 1:29:01 Really?

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:29:01 Yeah, and he's like, "I gotta work on that." And so, yeah. Mm-hmm. Yep.

Lewis Howes 1:29:07 Dr. Ramani, I appreciate you. Uh, I want people to get more of your work. Navigating Narcissism.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:29:13 Yeah, you gotta tune in.

Lewis Howes 1:29:13 Podcast, powerful. Season one is, uh, almost complete. Season two's gonna be coming out early next year.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:29:19 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 1:29:19 But they can go through 30 episodes-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:29:21 Mm-hmm, yeah, yeah

Lewis Howes 1:29:21 ... of the podcast. If you want more, go there, subscribe, uh, everywhere podcasts that you listen to. Also, your YouTube's an amazing resource. They can go check that out as well.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:29:32 Mm-hmm. Thank you.

Lewis Howes 1:29:32 And subscribe there. Uh, you've got an online program for people healing from narcissistic-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:29:37 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 1:29:37 ... relationships and abuse. Uh, if they go to your website, dr-ramani.com-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:29:43 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 1:29:43 ... they can learn more about that.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:29:44 Mm-hmm, yep.

Lewis Howes 1:29:44 They can sign up and get that as well. You got great content on social media. How else can we be of service to you today?

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:29:51 I would say that, you know, for people who wanna do the deeper dive into healing, I have that monthly healing program. I know some people say, "I don't know. I don't know if I'm getting this in therapy. I may not have the money." It's, it's a, it's very affordable. And, and I'd say to people, you know, try it for a month.

Lewis Howes 1:30:05 Yeah.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:30:05 If you don't like it, it's, you know, it's really not that much lost. And some people say, "Okay, this is working," or you see there's a community of other people who've been through this. So definitely encourage people to check out my healing, uh, com- healing platform. They can go to my website and find that. And, you know, for people who wanna hear lived experience, that, the podcast is great for that too because on, on YouTube I teach people about stuff. On Navigating Narcissism, I talk to people who've been through, and all kinds of things.

Lewis Howes 1:30:31 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:30:31 They've survived cults. They've survived abusive relationships. They've survived spiritual abuse. They've sur- I mean, pick a form of abuse. We have talked about it. And so it's a real interesting opportunity to hear that conversation happen in real time, and the insights-

Lewis Howes 1:30:47 Mm

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:30:47 ... people get when it's framed in that way. And, and like I said, YouTube is like a big old library where I, if I haven't talked about it, then drop me a line, and I-

Lewis Howes 1:30:56 If you will

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:30:56 ... if, if it makes sense, then I'll make a video about it.

Lewis Howes 1:30:58 [laughs]

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:30:58 And that's where a lot of our content ideas come from.

Lewis Howes 1:31:00 Yeah.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:31:00 People saying, "Could you talk about this or that?"

Lewis Howes 1:31:02 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:31:02 And so I do that. And then I'd say, you know what? Get out there and be empathic, be compassionate, and practice what I call recognition. By recognition is that see, uh, see other people, feel them, be, you know, experience them, hold space for them because that moment of recognition for some people, this might be the very first time they've gotten it in years, and it can be a real eye-opener.

Lewis Howes 1:31:27 Mm.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:31:27 That every time we meet someone, there's something really extraordinary about them.

Lewis Howes 1:31:30 Yeah.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:31:30 Recognize it.

Lewis Howes 1:31:32 Powerful stuff. Um, I asked you a couple questions last time.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:31:35 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 1:31:36 But I want people to go to our previous episode to see your three truths-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:31:39 My answers changed [laughs]

Lewis Howes 1:31:40 ... and your definition of greatness. They probably have changed. Uh, next time I'll ask you those again. Uh, but I wanna acknowledge you first be- before I ask you the final question. I wanna acknowledge you for what you just said about five minutes ago about how I think it was a week or two ago in your own therapy-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:31:52 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 1:31:52 ... you realized you're still having a w- a, you know, awakenings and growth-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:31:57 Mm-hmm, mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 1:31:57 ... and creating more wholeness in yourself-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:31:59 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 1:31:59 ... which is really cool to see that you're teaching the work, but you're doing the work yourself.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:32:02 Oh, you have to do the work.

Lewis Howes 1:32:03 Yeah.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:32:03 It would be, it would be disrespectful to everyone I work with if I didn't do the work myself.

Lewis Howes 1:32:08 Yeah. Well, I appreciate it and acknowledge you for-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:32:10 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 1:32:10 ... how you show up in so many ways, you know, in private conversations with people, the way you coach people, the way you're teaching in all the different platforms, so it, it's amazing. We need your voice. Very grateful for you and appreciate you for-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:32:22 Thank you

Lewis Howes 1:32:22 ... for learning and, and using your wisdom from experience on how to teach this stuff.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:32:28 I appreciate that.

Lewis Howes 1:32:29 You're welcome. And my final question, I want people to go check the, the three truths in the previous episode. We'll link it up. But my final question is if you could go back to ... your younger self before the first narcissistic experience that you witnessed yourself. You know, you probably-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:32:45 Mm

Lewis Howes 1:32:45 ... weren't even aware of it, obviously.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:32:46 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 1:32:47 But if you could go back in before that, and she was standing in front of you-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:32:51 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 1:32:51 ... whatever age that was, what are three things that you would say to her-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:32:57 Hmm

Lewis Howes 1:32:57 ... to support her in the journey she's about to experience, or to help kind of like, you know, minimize some of the things-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:33:04 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 1:33:04 ... that she was about to experience. If you could go back with the wisdom you have, what would you say to her?

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:33:10 Um, I would say to her, [sighs] "Keep getting lost in the daydreams because they are going to happen, and don't be afraid to change course." And especially that last one is, don't be afraid to change course. I'm somebody who went a very traditional educational route. You know, four years of undergrads, five years of grad school-

Lewis Howes 1:33:45 Right [laughs]

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:33:45 ... one year of the training, I mean, like residency kind of thing-

Lewis Howes 1:33:48 Wow

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:33:48 ... two years of postdoc, and there was a time in there that I thought to change course, and I didn't. And then I became an academic and tenure and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And when I was, golly, I really didn't change course, so I was 55 years old, and it worked out just fine. I landed on my feet, and, but there was a lot of work that had to lead up to that. There was times I was working three and four jobs. But I would say, "Don't be afraid to change course." I don't know what would've been different if I had changed course when I was earlier in education-

Lewis Howes 1:34:21 Hmm

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:34:21 ... and knew probably there was a different path for me. There's a lot of dreams I haven't... I, I don't know that I might ever get a chance to do. I've always wanted to live in another country and things like that. I don't know if those will ever happen for me.

Lewis Howes 1:34:33 Hmm.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:34:33 Had I changed course, those would have. So I'd, would tell her, "Change course." Like-

Lewis Howes 1:34:37 Hmm

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:34:37 ... it's okay if in the second year of grad school you were jealous and... We end up where we end up, so it's, um, I think that it, the, the path is the path.

Lewis Howes 1:34:46 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:34:46 And, um, but I, uh, yeah, those, those are the... But I'd say-

Lewis Howes 1:34:51 Hmm

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:34:51 ... it's gonna be okay, and when I look at pictures of myself at that age, I'm thinking of my life exceeds anything that she would have allowed herself to think.

Lewis Howes 1:35:00 Hmm. That's beautiful. Dr. Ramani-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:35:02 Thank you

Lewis Howes 1:35:03 ... thank you so much. Appreciate it.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:35:04 Thank you so much.

Lewis Howes 1:35:04 [whooshing sound] If you got value from that, then go ahead and stick around for more coming up right now. [whooshing sound] Would you say with your research, if, um, kids grew up in a healthy family, let's say it's, they got all the tools and resources-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:35:19 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 1:35:19 ... and their parents were healed from their traumas and gave them a, you know, discipline, but love-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:35:25 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 1:35:25 ... and all these things in the way that, the best way you could.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:35:28 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 1:35:29 Is it possible for someone to still be raised as a narcissist even if they have this environment of love and safety and... or how does a narcissist become one? Is it only through family environment and the way they were treated, or how does it actually happen?

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:35:43 So the problem, if you, if they, someone had all the fundamentals-

Lewis Howes 1:35:46 Yes

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:35:46 ... right? The safety, the love, the consistency, the freedom from trauma-

Lewis Howes 1:35:51 Great values and-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:35:51 ... the, the great values, all, you know, all of those things, supportive educational environment, all of that, you still will have a handful, but you will have-

Lewis Howes 1:36:00 [laughs]

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:36:00 ... dropped the probability from here down to here.

Lewis Howes 1:36:02 Okay.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:36:02 Right? It's, it's a horse race, right? You, you've really dropped the likelihood significantly. Narcissism is a, it's, it... Creating adult narcissism is a complex interblend of that biological temperament meeting up all these environmental conditions.

Lewis Howes 1:36:17 Hmm.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:36:17 And there's a range of conditions that can result in, result in adulthood narcissism. At the most extreme and probably most difficult is trauma in childhood. So a child who is raised and, and experiences trauma, uh, you know, significant caregiver loss, chaos, abuse, observing abuse, in, 'cause that results in inconsistent caregivers, right? And so that can put a person at risk for developing an adulthood-

Lewis Howes 1:36:41 Hmm

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:36:41 ... narcissistic personality. But here's where it gets tricky. The majority of people exposed to trauma in childhood don't become narcissistic. You see what I'm saying?

Lewis Howes 1:36:49 The majority of people. Okay.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:36:49 So we're talking about-

Lewis Howes 1:36:50 So you could

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:36:50 ... risk factors.

Lewis Howes 1:36:51 Yeah.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:36:51 You could, but you don't always. So that's one pathway. This overindulgence, this over like, "You're so great. You're so special. You're so extraordinary. My kids are the most extraordinary thing," that's another model towards narcissistic personality development. Conditional love, Kobe Bryant's father, "I'm only gonna love you if you come back having scored 20 points. If you didn't, don't even show up."

Lewis Howes 1:37:12 Right.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:37:12 That, uh, now imagine that happening 1,000 times, 10,000 times.

Lewis Howes 1:37:16 Wow.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:37:16 "I love you when, I love you when you clean the dishes. I love you if you get straight As. I love you if you make the soccer goal. I love you if you," whatever. The child learns that they're, all love is conditional, which is really, that's transactional, basically.

Lewis Howes 1:37:29 Right.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:37:29 All narcissistic relationships in adulthood are transactional.

Lewis Howes 1:37:32 Interesting.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:37:32 You set the tone there with conditionality. A lot of this, though, comes down to something called attachment, and attachment is something that's created in the first year or two of life.

Lewis Howes 1:37:41 Hmm.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:37:41 It requires an available, consistent, responsive caregiver, one, singular. You need that, that person who is there, who looks at the baby, who responds when it cries, who loves it, who holds it, who feeds it. You need that safe, it's called a secure attachment. A lot of the research really points to the important of the, importance of that secure attachment, that as being something that predicts a lower likelihood of adult narcissism.

Lewis Howes 1:38:07 So if you have a secure, secure attachment-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:38:08 You're less likely to be narcissistic

Lewis Howes 1:38:09 ... you're less likely. If you don't have that-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:38:10 But if you have an anxious attachment, and an anxiously attached baby is the child who absolutely flips out when their caregiver leaves. Like, you know, if the mommy-

Lewis Howes 1:38:21 Right

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:38:21 ... drops them off and they lose it, then person who receives the child has a hard time soothing the child. And then when the child sees the parent again, they start crying again. Like, almost like, "How could you leave me?"

Lewis Howes 1:38:31 "You abandoned me for-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:38:32 Exactly

Lewis Howes 1:38:32 ... five hours," or something. [laughs]

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:38:34 And that anxious attachment style is very much associated with the narcissistic style-

Lewis Howes 1:38:38 Interesting

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:38:39 ... in, in adulthood. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 1:38:42 Can you break down the differences between narcissists, um, psychopaths-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:38:48 Mm

Lewis Howes 1:38:48 ... sociopaths-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:38:49 Mm

Lewis Howes 1:38:49 ... and then also how you spot them?

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:38:51 Mm. So there's a big difference.

Lewis Howes 1:38:53 [laughs]

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:38:54 I- i- if- if I was at a chalkboard here-

Lewis Howes 1:38:55 Yes

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:38:56 ... I'd be drawing a Venn diagram with overlapping circles, okay?

Lewis Howes 1:38:59 Okay.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:39:00 Lots of overlap between narcissism and psychopathy. Lots, okay? The boldness, the meanness, the impulsivity-

Lewis Howes 1:39:08 [laughs]

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:39:08 ... the disinhibition, the, um, always working the angles, the exploitativeness, the manipulativeness, the entitlement. Well, absolutely overlapping.

Lewis Howes 1:39:17 Whoa.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:39:17 So you might be wondering, "Then what's the difference?" Here's the difference.

Lewis Howes 1:39:21 [laughs]

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:39:22 Narcissistic people are insecure, and they are con-

Lewis Howes 1:39:25 Very insecure, right?

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:39:25 Very insecure.

Lewis Howes 1:39:26 Gosh, that's so-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:39:27 And lots of feelings of inadequacy, okay? So but that's all happening at an unconscious level, but I want you to think of a narcissist as somebody who constantly has a stomachache, right? Because they're going through their lives, but they're like, they're, they- there's almost this tension. They're not aware why they have it, but the tension that the top's gonna get blown off and we're gonna be able to see their inadequacies. That's why they're so sensitive to criticism.

Lewis Howes 1:39:51 Oh my God.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:39:51 Like if I were to say-

Lewis Howes 1:39:52 They can't take feedback

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:39:52 ... "Hey, like, um, hmm, yeah, it's interesting, you got some dust on your shirt," and you're like, "Oh, really?" And you start coming at me. It's like such a ma-

Lewis Howes 1:39:59 "Oh no, you got this on yours."

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:40:00 Yeah, right.

Lewis Howes 1:40:00 "What are you talking about me?"

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:40:01 You got that. Like, yeah, yeah.

Lewis Howes 1:40:02 "Look at this and this and this," criticizing you.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:40:04 Yes. Yes. You see what I'm saying? That's a hedge against the shame.

Lewis Howes 1:40:06 Eeh.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:40:06 That's the narcissist game. Psychopath doesn't go there.

Lewis Howes 1:40:09 Psych-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:40:09 Psychopath is not anxious. Psychopath is not insecure.

Lewis Howes 1:40:12 They're calm.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:40:13 Their nervous systems are different. So there's a part-

Lewis Howes 1:40:15 [laughs]

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:40:16 ... of our nervous system called the autonomic nervous system.

Lewis Howes 1:40:18 Uh-huh.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:40:19 This is the, this is the involuntary part of our nervous system, and it's- it's from which the sympathetic nervous system comes off, which you know is fight or flight or freeze.

Lewis Howes 1:40:28 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:40:29 And that fight, flight, freeze, and there's even a fourth part to it called fawn, which we could talk about.

Lewis Howes 1:40:33 Yeah.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:40:33 But that, that autonomic reaction, that like, boom [claps] , adrenaline, gut, you know, eyes wide open kind of reaction, that's not there for the psychopath. So whereas I, I don't know, if I saw something out there and I saw someone had a $100 bill hanging out their wallet, never could I ever... Like, I would have a heart attack from the anxiety of thinking about like, "No," you know, 'cause I have a very probably overly functioning autonomic nervous system. But for somebody who's a psychopath, they'd clip that, and their heart rate would maybe go up-

Lewis Howes 1:41:02 They would not think

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:41:02 ... maybe nothing

Lewis Howes 1:41:03 ... they'd just take it, steal it, and...

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:41:05 So they have no anxiety. They're-

Lewis Howes 1:41:06 No excitement around it

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:41:07 ... no excitement, no anxiety, and they're very stress-resistant. In that way, that's why there's so many psychopathic CEOs. If you're gonna be a CEO and nothing bothers you, you ra- you're able to say, "Cut those 100,000 jobs," and then you still go off and play golf for the afternoon-

Lewis Howes 1:41:21 Wow

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:41:21 ... because nothing gets you. They sometimes make great surgeons. Because when all hell's breaking loose, they're just sort of calmly doing their surgery [laughs] thing. It's, it, it really is, but there is-

Lewis Howes 1:41:30 There's the-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:41:31 ... a coldness and a callousness-

Lewis Howes 1:41:32 Interesting

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:41:33 ... because there is almost like no-

Lewis Howes 1:41:35 [laughs]

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:41:35 ... capacity for empathy, no capacity for intimacy.

Lewis Howes 1:41:38 Interesting.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:41:39 And, and w- and psychopaths are almost singularly motivated by power, pleasure, and profit, and mostly by power. They solely wanna dominate because that's what they do. Narcissists like to dominate, but they actually kind of seem like dumb dogs next to the psychopaths.

Lewis Howes 1:41:54 Really?

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:41:55 Yeah. The closest we get to overlap is what we call malignant narcissism. So that's when we have all the goodies we see in narcissism, but we see as more of a sadism and a paranoia in the malignant narcissist. They're the most dangerous narcissists. They're still not fully psychopaths, 'cause they still have the insecurity and the inadequacy. It, the psychopaths don't have that.

Lewis Howes 1:42:15 They're not insecure.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:42:16 They're not insecure, no. I mean, if you, if you see a psychopath get mad, it's simply because you might have gotten in the way of something they needed to g- to get, to get done.

Lewis Howes 1:42:24 Right.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:42:24 You know what they'll instead do? They'll very quietly figure out a way to destroy you.

Lewis Howes 1:42:28 To get rid of, yeah, yeah.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:42:29 Exactly, or they'll calmly have someone say like, um... I'll literally look at you if I was the psychopathic boss and you were working for me. I'd be like... And I'd be calm, and I'd go... And then I, I don't know whether that means you'd kill them-

Lewis Howes 1:42:41 That you're generally done, yeah, yeah

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:42:42 ... or fire them or whatever. But no problem with that.

Lewis Howes 1:42:44 Right.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:42:44 And very easily-

Lewis Howes 1:42:45 They don't have the emo- the emotion. They don't have empathy.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:42:47 Emotions, yeah. No empathy, narcissism.

Lewis Howes 1:42:48 Does narcissists have, um, empathy?

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:42:49 Narcissists have... We, we tend to say, "Oh, they don't have empathy." They have what we call, I like to call it, u- instrumental empathy. They weaponize empathy.

Lewis Howes 1:42:59 Gosh.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:42:59 So narcissists get what empathy is. They know like-

Lewis Howes 1:43:02 They use it against you

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:43:03 ... they use, they use it-

Lewis Howes 1:43:04 Oh my gosh

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:43:04 ... they use it to get what they need. They don't necessarily use it against you, but, like-

Lewis Howes 1:43:07 Oh

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:43:07 ... if they want to get you to do something, "Oh man, I heard your mom's sick."

Lewis Howes 1:43:12 Oh, man.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:43:13 "You, oh my gosh, how's she doing? Oh, I'm so sorry. Like, it's rough. You know, my mom was sick."

Lewis Howes 1:43:17 Right.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:43:17 "She, she was really sick for a while, too." I get all that. And then we'll-

Lewis Howes 1:43:21 To build rapport and like-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:43:21 You know, it's a rapport, and then they're getting something from you.

Lewis Howes 1:43:24 Oh my gosh.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:43:24 Right? So it feels like empathy, you know? And especially when you first meet them. That's why so many people think narcissistic people are charming and charismatic.

Lewis Howes 1:43:33 Oh.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:43:33 They know what the fe- they know what's right. They kn- or I should say, they know what empathy is. They know how to read the room. So they got it.

Lewis Howes 1:43:42 Mm.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:43:42 But they can't be bothered with it. They actually cognitively get it. They can think about empathy. "Oh, I need something for him, from him. Somebody said his mom's sick, so let me, let me work the mom angle here."

Lewis Howes 1:43:54 Wow.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:43:54 "Because that's gonna help him feel better." What they don't have is any regard for... So they have no regard for the feelings of others. They don't care. So when they're done with you, and they've gotten what they need from you, and someone's, like, the next week, when they're fully done with you and say, "Hey, his mom got sicker," and, and be like, "So yeah, so what do you want me to do about it?" So it's very cold when they're done. So they, it's, and that's why people say, "Well, don't tell me they don't have empathy, 'cause it seemed like they cried at that movie, or they were really understanding my feelings." Odds are they needed something at that point.

Lewis Howes 1:44:23 So what was the most, uh, the scariest narcissist? What was it called? Or the most-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:44:29 Malignant

Lewis Howes 1:44:30 ... most, um, dangerous-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:44:31 Mali-

Lewis Howes 1:44:31 Malignant narcissist.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:44:33 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 1:44:33 Okay, so can you explain again what that, what that is?

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:44:36 So let's talk about, let's, let's view narcissism as almost like this inner core, okay?

Lewis Howes 1:44:39 Okay.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:44:40 And the inner core of narcissism is this variable e- empathy, usually a lack of empathy-

Lewis Howes 1:44:45 Okay

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:44:45 ... entitlement, grandiosity- ... validation seeking, a sense of envy for other people or the assumption that other people envy them, um, th- the inability to regulate their anger when they're frustrated, disappointed-

Lewis Howes 1:45:01 Oh my gosh

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:45:01 ... or stressed, a, a sense of shame, so if anyone points out a flaw in them, they tend to react with rage, a reactive sensitivity to criticism, so if anyone points out anything, they, ah, they come at them, blame-shifting and responsibility shifting.

Lewis Howes 1:45:16 Oh.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:45:17 So they blame other people for what, you know, what is actually their responsibility. They're very controlling, very egocentric.

Lewis Howes 1:45:24 Oh my gosh.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:45:24 Everything is about them.

Lewis Howes 1:45:26 [laughs]

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:45:26 Everything is self-serving.

Lewis Howes 1:45:28 Insecure.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:45:29 Um, very, deeply insecure, deep with lots of feelings of inadequacy, but those are all sort of pushed down. All of these things I'm ca- talking about, the entitlement and all the rest of it, it's like a suit of armor that protects that inner core of inadequacy so nobody ever sees it. If I'm walking around telling you I'm all that, well, then I can't be inadequate, right?

Lewis Howes 1:45:47 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:45:47 And if I got a big fancy car and a big fancy house and a big fancy person on my arm, then I'm all that, right? So with a narcissism, we have to talk about sort of the top-of-the-line behaviors.

Lewis Howes 1:45:58 Mm.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:45:58 And those are, are, are presentations. Charm.

Lewis Howes 1:46:01 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:46:02 Charisma, confidence, curiosity.

Lewis Howes 1:46:06 Mm.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:46:06 Um, and they also, um-

Lewis Howes 1:46:09 Can you have those things and not be a narcissist?

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:46:11 You can.

Lewis Howes 1:46:12 'Cause I'm a very curious person. I carry, you know, my-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:46:14 You can. So here, here's where it gets interesting, right? Is you can be curious and it, it... When you can find an empathic, charismatic person-

Lewis Howes 1:46:23 Mm

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:46:23 ... behold to them. They are the unicorns of the human being. Like, you really are like-

Lewis Howes 1:46:27 Someone who's confident and caring

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:46:28 ... when I meet the, when I meet the confident, charismatic, empathic, kind, respectful, humble person-

Lewis Howes 1:46:35 It's a unicorn

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:46:36 ... I do. I literally am like, "Okay."

Lewis Howes 1:46:38 [laughs]

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:46:38 Everyone... And I, I can tell you it doesn't happen often. And I'm usually like, I look goo goo eyes 'cause I'm thinking... And then of course I'm poking at it. I'm like, "No, no, no, I'm gonna find-

Lewis Howes 1:46:47 Let's see. Let's see

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:46:48 ... I'm gonna find what's wrong with it." Every so often I find it, and I'm like, it, it hasn't happened often.

Lewis Howes 1:46:52 Oh.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:46:52 It hasn't hap- happened often. But here's the thing, the charm, the charisma, the confidence, the curiosity, um, there's also comfort-

Lewis Howes 1:47:00 Mm

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:47:01 ... that they also offer. It's like they'll often feel like they're rescuers. "I can take care of it all." They'll be very generous. They'll-

Lewis Howes 1:47:08 Oh, up front, right?

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:47:08 You know, all, it's all a front game, right?

Lewis Howes 1:47:11 Yeah, gosh.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:47:11 So what happens then, the curtain comes down-

Lewis Howes 1:47:13 Oh

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:47:13 ... across all your common sense and you miss the little things.

Lewis Howes 1:47:17 They're like, "This is amazing."

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:47:17 Yeah. And people-

Lewis Howes 1:47:18 [laughs]

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:47:18 And if you, either you miss the lack of empathy and the anger and the rage and the, all the other stuff, or you justify it.

Lewis Howes 1:47:26 You just... Well, they... Yeah.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:47:28 The, the, you know, "Well, he's got a big job," or, "She's really stressed," or, "She doesn't mean that," or, "That's just their culture." I was lis- I was reading an article by a linguist recently, and the linguist was talking about how, um, people talk over each other in certain cultures, right? And they were using that as a way to rationalize interrupting. And there's interrupting and there's interrupting. Narcissistic interrupting is not only... It's, it's contemptuous interrupting. Like-

Lewis Howes 1:47:56 What's that mean? Like dismissive interrupting or?

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:47:57 Like, it's dismissive. Like, um, okay, all right, you, you know, you're talking and then I, I not only cut in, but it's basically like, "I don't know what you're talking about."

Lewis Howes 1:48:04 Your point of view doesn't matter or yeah.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:48:06 Exactly.

Lewis Howes 1:48:06 You're, you're an idiot and this is-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:48:07 You're an idiot.

Lewis Howes 1:48:07 I know what's really... Yeah.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:48:08 Yeah, yeah.

Lewis Howes 1:48:09 Okay. So you, you shared some of these signs of, um, malignant narcissism.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:48:13 No, that's... Okay, so q- let's go back to the core.

Lewis Howes 1:48:15 Yes, core.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:48:16 So we got the core of l- lack of empathy, all that stuff I talked about.

Lewis Howes 1:48:18 Entitlement, yes.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:48:19 Yes. Now the problem with narcissism is there's subtypes.

Lewis Howes 1:48:23 Oh my gosh.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:48:23 Not all narcissists are created...

Lewis Howes 1:48:25 [laughs]

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:48:25 We really do need a whiteboard here.

Lewis Howes 1:48:26 Wow, that's crazy.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:48:27 Like, I'd be writing notes up there.

Lewis Howes 1:48:28 Yes.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:48:28 Because what we have then is the classical narcissist, the sort of '57 Chevy of narcissism is the grandiose narcissist. It is the, the big, charming, confident, "I'm the one, I'm the best," no insight, very little empathy kind of, but very like big salesperson-y.

Lewis Howes 1:48:52 Mm.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:48:52 That's the grandiose narcissist.

Lewis Howes 1:48:54 Wow.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:48:54 But then when we talk about the malignant narcissist, again, we have all that stuff, lack of empathy and all that other stuff. But they are more menacing. They are more controlling. They're a little bit more scary. They're sadistic. They're paranoid. Um-

Lewis Howes 1:49:12 What if they have both of those things?

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:49:15 Usually-

Lewis Howes 1:49:15 [laughs]

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:49:16 ... they can. They can.

Lewis Howes 1:49:17 Fuck.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:49:18 And what would... That's a horrific combination because then that person's real charming on the front end, and then once you cross the threshold and walk through all the way in with them, now you're dealing with their malignant-

Lewis Howes 1:49:30 Oh my gosh

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:49:30 ... manipulative, scary, and, and when we see-

Lewis Howes 1:49:33 Controlling

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:49:33 ... controlling. When we see manipulative narcissism, uh, manipulative, I'm sorry, malignant narcissism, we're seeing people who are often, they're more, they're more likely to be aggressive, to be violent, to be abusive, to isolate people from ever being able to get help.

Lewis Howes 1:49:48 Oh my gosh.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:49:48 From being abusive in the workplace. We hear these big, awful workplace abuse stories-

Lewis Howes 1:49:53 Mm-hmm

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:49:53 ... a lot, especially a lot in the Me Too era. A lot of those folks were malignant narcissists.

Lewis Howes 1:49:57 Right.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:49:58 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 1:49:59 So what happens if you're with a narcissist? You, you, maybe it's been a year, you've been dating someone, or your, your boss didn't seem like it at the beginning, but then you're figuring out-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:50:09 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 1:50:09 ... oh, check, check, check. They've got a lot of these things. But you're, you know, the first six months was, seemed great or it seemed like it was amazing, but now we're seeing the curtain, you know, pull back and some of these things are coming out, and we're not feeling good about the relationship we're in.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:50:24 No.

Lewis Howes 1:50:25 Whether it's a working relationship, a friendship, an intimate relationship-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:50:29 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 1:50:29 ... we've spotted it.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:50:30 Yep. What I'm hearing you say is there's really no way to change- No ... a narcissist. No. So trying to change them- Mm-mm ... is not gonna happen. That's a fool's errand. So does that mean we just pretty much have to rip the cord and, and, and- Mm ... rip the Band-Aid and get out? Or how does it- So life's- How do we navigate- ... not that simple. Yeah. Right? We can't walk away from all relationships. People can't just quit their jobs. Yeah. Um, let's say, let's say a person starts figuring this out five years in a relationship and they're married and they have children. They got kids. Ugh. What if it's their family of origin and they're like, "I've done my homework and this is actually my parent or my sibling." People say, "Well, I don't know that I'm willing to cut off from my entire family." So I'm not gonna sit here- Mm ... and tell people that, oh, you just gotta always go. In fact, my s- my first book on the topic of narcissism's called Should I Stay or Should I Go? Surviving a Relationship with a Narcissist, and I wrote it from that point of view because it's too simplistic to say, "Well, get up and go," like you said, rip off the Band-Aid. So if you're... A- and neither path is easy, but- Right ... in an ideal world, I will be frank with you, and there's actually an interesting group in Israel that's gathering, has gathered some data on this, on narcissistic abuse, and they have found that the thing that works best in dealing with a narcissistic relationship that resulted in the best outcomes was going no contact, like, having no contact with them. Completely blocking- That's the, that- ... cutting you off ... completely done. And because it's almost like a toxin, right? If you, if there's a toxic gas, the best way to feel better is to- Eliminate it ... have no more toxic gas. [laughs] If you have a little bit, you're just gonna feel- Yeah. You, you should avoid it ... a little bit of pain consistently. It's gonna be holding onto it. Correct. Oh my gosh. But a lot of people don't have that, so the biggest- [sighs] The, the, if you're gonna have to stay in this relationship, you have to engage in something that I and others have called radical acceptance. This is never gonna change. This is who they are. This is who they are. This is it. So, and I, then I tell people, I have something called the DEEP technique that I, I talk about, and the DEEP technique is when I tell people, "If you're dealing with a narcissist, don't defend, don't engage, don't explain, don't personalize." So DEEP, don't defend, don't engage, don't explain, don't personalize. And so when they're coming at you, and if you can remember, you're, you really are keeping it tight. It's a lot of, y- you, it's like you're in a deposition. Yes. No. Okay. Sounds good. Sure. Now- Man ... narcissists don't like that because they love the fight. So they're gonna keep coming and digging and digging in. They're gonna bait you. They're gonna bait you. [sighs] And they, when I tell you when they bait you, they, they don't play. They go for everything. They go for everything that's gonna make a- And make something else. They'll make stuff up ... they go after your kids. They, they start making stuff up. They go after your friends. They draw your friends in it. Threatening to shame you publicly, whatever it is, right? Mm-hmm. And so then at some people, people take that bait, and then the narcissist's like, "Game on," you know? And they're all in. I got you. I got you. Because when you're fighting, they're fighters. That's what they do. In fact, there was a great research study came out from Ohio State University. Ohio boy. Yeah. And, um, phenomenal study that came out this year, and over, over, over 450 studies they examined and found really strong effects that narcissism is consistently associated with aggression. It's a ve- there, it's, this is, there's nothing soft about this. This is about aggression. They want the fight. They are always a better fighter. Oh my gosh. And they want the fight, so they bait you. You gotta be made of steel. Don't defend. Man. Don't engage. This is crazy. Don't explain. All right. To not get into the fight. Every relationship with a narcissist is a threesome. You just don't know it because they- [laughs] ... always need that third person in the relationship, whether it's someone gave me their number or someone's noticing me or- This person DM'd me or this person's- Exactly ... hitting on me or- They're always trying to cr- they- Gosh ... they're always trying to create that sense of intrigue or the idea that somebody is more into them or they're, or, again, it's often them creating the jealousy, or they be incredibly jealous of their partners. Oh. There's a difference between- They're so jealous ... jealousy and pathological jealousy. What's the difference? There's two different things. Okay. What's the difference? So jealousy's normal. Yes. Jelo- we are a, actually, we're a pair-bonded species, we human beings. Uh-huh. We're, we, we, we like to, we pretty much are about, generally, normatively, have sex with one person. Yeah. People are like, "No, that person cheated on me." I said, "Yeah, they were only having sex with them. They weren't having sex with you." Right. They're still mono- sexually monogamous. With one partner at that moment. Just at that moment, they're banging you. [laughs] They're banging someone else. Yes. You were on paper in a relationship with them. You came- Mm ... you, you went to the same home, but their sex was with someone else, okay? Mm-hmm. But we tend to be pair bonded. We tend to be monogamous. All right? So jealousy is a threat- Mm ... to that. Think of it Darwinianly, right? Mm. If, if I'm in a, if I'm in a relationship and a, a threat comes in, right, normal jealousy is that sort of evolutionary jealousy. Normal. Right? I'm with a person. If somebody is, comes in as a threat to that relationship, I've lost the resources and support for our offspring, right? Right, right, right. That's all the Darwinian- Gotcha, gotcha ... Darwinian stuff, sort of reproduction. Okay. Pathological jealousy- Pathological jealousy- [laughs] ... though, that starts getting into the realm of things like paranoia and, um- Oh my gosh ... and negative mood states and all that. Oh my gosh. Like, jealousy doesn't feel good, but it, it, I always t- when I've worked with couples, they're like, "I'm jealous." I'm like, "That's good. That means you still got skin in the game." Like- Right, right ... 'cause when people, I've been with people, worked with couples and, or worked with individuals, and they'll say, "I'm not even jealous when people notice my husband." And I kind of feel sad 'cause I'm like, yeah, this thing, this thing's kind of- Oh, gotcha ... kind of done-ish. I feel like, yeah, I don't feel jealous. I feel like I trust the person I'm with. It's, yeah, but that, that's- And- ... where we're talking about pathological jealousy, right? Yeah, gotcha, gotcha. So I think of my partner. Yeah. I, ironically, on our, on my drive here, he was talking about something and about this woman who I knew we were gonna to see who had hit on him once, and this- Oh, okay ... this, this dude is so loyal, it, it levels it to a whole new level. And I, I remember thinking in the drive, I'm like, I got that little funny thing in my tummy. Oh, okay. I, I, and I'm like, huh, he's, this dude live in this country. Yeah. And so I'm thinking that's, and I was like, that's good. That's good that I'm still feeling it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, I still got- You care ... a dog in the fight. I care. But it doesn't mean you're like- I, but I, my homie- ... for days letting it stress you out and, like, talking to him about it ... I want, I, only 'cause we're talking about it here. Yeah, of course. Yeah. Yeah. And so the pat... What did you say it was? Paranoid. Paranoid. The pa- the pathological jealousy. Pathological jealousy. Yeah. Mm-hmm. That's a narcissistic trait. Yes. That's more of an, it's, it's more paranoid. It's more antagonistic. Mm. It's more about- You must be doing something or- I mean, yeah. You're doing, so it's accusatory. Gosh. It's almost delusional. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Okay.

Lewis Howes 1:56:46 What would you say again are the main causes, uh, what are the main things that happen to cause someone to become a narcissist?

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:56:53 Like-

Lewis Howes 1:56:53 Is it all trauma-based?

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:56:54 It's... No. It's, it's partly trauma. It's also that ch- that temperament. It is-

Lewis Howes 1:56:59 Mm-hmm

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:56:59 ... um, chaos in the early environment.

Lewis Howes 1:57:01 Yes.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:57:01 It's, it's lack of secure attachment. It's overvaluation of the child.

Lewis Howes 1:57:06 Gotcha. Okay

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:57:06 Basically, the child can do no wrong, and, uh, they're so wonderful. I mean, it's interesting. We're about to see something fascinating happen, and I don't know how it's gonna go down. We're co- we're about to see, 'cause what, Facebook's coming up on 20 years soon, right?

Lewis Howes 1:57:18 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:57:19 We're about to see the first generation of kids who are born into the Facebook world-

Lewis Howes 1:57:23 Mm

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:57:23 ... where every moment being documented and shared as a children, baby-

Lewis Howes 1:57:26 Since they were born

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:57:27 ... since they were born. This is the first time we're gonna be seeing this. So I bless the people out there who are gonna start collecting this data because we now have... You know, you're gonna see what happens if you were... 'Cause I, I had kids way before this, so I did not.

Lewis Howes 1:57:38 Mm.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:57:38 The only people who saw their pictures were the people I actually-

Lewis Howes 1:57:40 Your friends and family

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:57:41 ... put, put them in an envelope, mailed the picture kind of thing.

Lewis Howes 1:57:43 Right, yeah. Or came over to the house and looked at the picture. [laughs]

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:57:43 And so, or came to the house and looked at the actual baby. But, um, this is a, this is a whole new game for kids whose, whose basically were accessories to their parents' lives.

Lewis Howes 1:57:53 Oh, gosh.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:57:53 Like, "Look at my child this. Look at my child this. Look at my child this." Every day there's a new picture.

Lewis Howes 1:57:57 So is it a... Do you think it's okay to share some of your family life on social media and some of your children's, you know, special moments? Or do you think we should be protecting our kids at all costs and never show their face, never show anything until they're, whatever, 10 or 12?

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:58:11 It's a super interesting area. There's some actually really interesting thinking and writing about this, which is these children aren't consenting to this.

Lewis Howes 1:58:17 Mm.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:58:18 Is it... Are these children consenting to you showing them, um, have a meltdown? Or, you know, we see all these silly child videos, and sometimes I kinda feel a little sadness 'cause these things stay evergreen. They didn't agree to that. And as much as we say, "Oh, no, it's so cute," it's a still a, they didn't consent. It's, it's a vulnerability, right? So there's some, I know some folks in the developmental sphere of psychology saying, "Oh, this may not be entirely cool."

Lewis Howes 1:58:41 Yeah. What happens when-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:58:41 "They're not agreeing."

Lewis Howes 1:58:42 What happens when the kid's 23 and they start going back and seeing all these, like, things that their mom or dad posted, and they're like, "Huh, that's not really cool. I wish you wouldn't have done that to me"?

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:58:52 But it goes beyond that because even when the child is young, there's this sense of things are constantly being done to them without them agreeing to it.

Lewis Howes 1:58:59 Posing and put these clothes on-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:59:00 In a public way

Lewis Howes 1:59:01 ... and do this, and let's post you.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:59:02 Yeah, in a public way. And that, and then the child also gets this sense of their utility, their importance to their parents is their social media persona. You look so pretty in your dress. You look so cute in your costume. Like you're wondering, are you costuming your child for Halloween for you or for them?

Lewis Howes 1:59:19 Or for the validation online.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:59:20 Yes, exact. For the validation the parent is getting.

Lewis Howes 1:59:23 For the likes and engagement.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:59:23 Yes, exactly. Exactly.

Lewis Howes 1:59:24 Man, that's tough-

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:59:25 Tough

Lewis Howes 1:59:25 ... 'cause I have, I have friends who never show their kids' stuff, and then I have friends who do show their kids. And, oh, man, it's just like, yeah, how do we, how do we navigate that conversation? And how do we...

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:59:40 I, I th- we're building this airplane in the sky.

Lewis Howes 1:59:42 Oh, man.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 1:59:43 And so the challenge becomes then that I would say it's a, it's a balancing act between parents talking to each other, both parents. But also, I think there's the larger issue of how much is the child feeling that they're valued, validated for being the kid who poses in social media, right? 'Cause what does every child want? They want their, they want their parents' love.

Lewis Howes 2:00:05 Love and attention.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 2:00:06 And that's all they want is their parents' love and attention.

Lewis Howes 2:00:08 Yeah.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 2:00:08 So if they start to recognize that if I'm looking good on social media and Mommy's getting validated, then they'll put on the weird thing they want her to wear or do the thing that she wants them to do, but what's not happening is that their interests, what they value, may not be cultivated, or everything's a photo op. It's as though the child feels that they're constantly on display versus just having a moment where they're being present and mindful, and it doesn't all have to be documented. That, I'm c- I've been frankly-

Lewis Howes 2:00:36 Oh, man

Dr. Ramani Durvasula 2:00:36 ... with psychologists, I'm concerned about when these chickens come home to roost, and they're going to.

Guest 2:00:40 Eroticism in a relationship is the quality of imagination, curiosity, playfulness, mystery, risk-taking, novelty that people bring to their relationship. Those are the things that I think bring life to a relationship.

Lewis Howes 2:00:58 Mm-hmm