The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett: Moment 105 -The Single Biggest Killer Of Relationships: Lewis Howes

Of all the things you've learned from your good and bad relationships, if you were to

have, if I had to, if I said to you that, what is the single biggest killer of relationships?

What would your answer be?

I would say the biggest killer of relationships is being out of integrity with your authentic

power and abandoning yourself to create peace in the relationship because if one person

is doing that or two people are doing that, there's some type of codependency, there's

some type of wound on why we're doing that.

That's creating that.

So for me, the biggest killer is not healing.

That's the biggest killer.

Whatever wounds we have, be on the healing journey.

It's not going to happen overnight.

It's not like a moment.

It's a journey of healing and I think the more people are willing to dive into their heart

and their emotions and whatever insecurities, wherever they feel triggered, that's where

you need to lean into because that trigger is going to come up in a relationship's big

time if you haven't healed it.

So it's the emotional healing, I think is one of the most powerful things.

It's funny.

There's a brain surgeon who done over a thousand brain surgeries and studied the brain and

he's also a PhD in neuroscience.

So he studies the mind and thoughts and he was a brain surgeon and I said, what's the

number one skill you feel like human beings should learn to master?

And his answer was beautiful.

He said emotional regulation and I was like, I 100% agree because if we don't have the

power to regulate our feelings around a situation and environment, something that happens in

events, then that event has power over us as opposed to us over that moment and if it

has power over us to where we react so strongly, we need to ask ourselves, why am I so triggered?

Where is that?

That's a wound somewhere.

Where is that wound?

And how can I start the healing journey?

I'm not saying that things are going to happen in life and you're never going to feel something

but just not react and be overwhelmed emotionally to where it takes you away from love and takes

you away from your mission.

But if something is so strong that it causes you to lose sleep for three days or causes

you to react in a negative way, it's pulling you away from your heart, from love and from

your meaningful mission.

And I think we just got to get back to, okay, why is this stressing me out?

How can I process this and integrate healing in a healthy way so that when life happens,

it doesn't pull me off my mission and that's something I've experienced for the first time

in the last three months is really like, life has happened in a big way for me.

It's sidetracked me a little bit, but it's not pulling me off.

Like I'm needing to face it and deal with things and process, but it's not like defeating

me to where I feel like I'm exhausted.

And that's because I'm holding myself emotionally accountable and doing the work.

If someone's listening to this and they don't have a therapist, they don't have the resources

or whatever to have therapy, how else can they go about developing the self-awareness

required for that emotional regulation journey?

There's definitely things you can do on your own.

I would read a book called How to Do the Work by Nicole Lapera, which gives you a lot of

exercises and practices and things like that on how to do the work yourself.

So you can get the book for 25 bucks and start there and start your own ritual and healing

process, whether it be journaling, whether it be, you know, other types of meditation,

things like that.

She has different rituals in there you can do.

But I would recommend, I don't think there's anything more powerful than sitting in front

of a human and talking to someone about how you feel and what you're going through.

So whether that's a priest or a parent or a teacher or, you know, a friend that you

trust, someone you feel like who has a little bit more wisdom than you, I would start there

until you can afford the therapy.

And in terms of emotional journeys, you cite that you're still on one.

Absolutely.

What are the things that you're now talking to your therapist about that you're trying

to solve in yourself?

I had this photo for the last year, and I'll just show the camera, the photo of my five-year-old

self, and in the last session I did with her, it was all about healing the inner child,

right?

It was all about healing the inner child and doing the work.

I mean, I did some weird stuff, like putting myself in spiritual and mental environments

where I'm talking to my five-year-old self and looking at my five-year-old self, hugging

my five-year-old self, integrating my five-year-old self with my adult self and kind of re-parenting

that psychological child.

Some weird stuff, but for whatever reason, it's worked for me because now I can look

at a situation and say, okay, do I feel triggered?

Oh, where's that coming from?

Is it from that hurt child?

If so, all I need to do is have a conversation with that part of my mind and say, I'm an

adult now and the adult is here and I got your back.

I can take care of this.

I know how to process and soothe things in a healthy way.

I don't need to lean onto addiction or reaction or whatever it may be to process.

I know how to handle this.

I know how to breathe.

I know how to take a walk.

I know how to have a conversation and process.

You're safe.

You're okay.

It's all going to be okay.

Whereas before, I didn't have that ability to communicate with a wounded part of myself.

So now she said, we've healed the five-year-old version of you that was sexually abused because

I don't get triggered about it.

I don't get reactive to it.

I'm not defensive and guarded anymore.

And I'm also shifting the way I don't please people in relationships anymore.

So I've done a lot of things to do the work about intimacy and relationships and just

in life.

She's like, now, and I go, okay, am I done?

Because this is a lot of work.

You know, it's like, it's a lot, you're diving into your emotions, you're tapping

uncomfortable stuff, you're like crying, it's all these things.

She's like, this is a journey.

Do you want to go to the next level in your life or are you satisfied?

I'm like, okay, you got to keep going, you know, there's always something else.

So she's like, we want to tap into the 11 and 12-year-old self.

And she's like, find a photo.

That's my next homework is to put a photo of myself when I was 11 or 12 and start healing

that part of my life.

And there was a bunch of different stuff that happened in that phase that I haven't fully

healed or forgiven myself.

And so that'll be the next work to do.

And it'll be like stages of life until I meet myself to where I am now.

Interesting.

And working on the evolution of all the memories of the past that wrote a story and developed

chapters in a book that did not serve me.

It's like a script, wasn't it?

Yeah.

And rewriting the script.

And not diminishing the things that happened, but acknowledging them and healing them in

a different way and processing it in a healthy way so that I can meet myself where I'm at

now and then really start elevating.

How much has doing a podcast where you sit with these people, but also you reflect them

in?

Yeah, right.

It's a game changer.

I mean, I get the biggest like neuroscience.

I've had so many, and this year has been like the year of therapists and neuroscientists

and spiritual gurus and just being like figuring out more and more about emotions, about regulation,

about healing, about inner child work.

Because I have people on there where I'm like, when I'm struggling in something in my life,

I bring those people on and like teach me how to like overcome this.

Re-therapy, right?

It's incredible.

Yeah.

And so my audience would be like, oh, Lewis is going through stuff with this, oh, Lewis

is going through a breakup, oh, Lewis is in a relationship, oh, Lewis is in a relationship.

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