9 Harsh Truths About How Relationships Work - Chris Williamson with Jillian Turecki

Jillian Turecki is a relationship coach, teacher, writer and author. How do you create a thriving and loving relationship that truly lasts? While many may stumble into one by chance, building a deep and meaningful connection often requires more than luck. So what role does the inner work play in not just finding love, but building a relationship that continues to grow and flourish over time? Expect to learn why having a thriving relationship begins with self-work, why the mind is a battlefield in relationships, why lust is not the same as love, the critical reasons it's important to love yourself properly, why you can’t convince someone to love you, why it's important to make peace with your parents and how to do so, and much more…

Core Principle: Taking Responsibility for Relationship Outcomes

• The central concept is that personal insecurity, not the partner, is the biggest obstacle to relationship success, encapsulated in the title, "it begins with you".
• Individuals are the common denominator in all their relationships, meaning they hold the power to change their relationship lives. This requires a willingness to look within, which many only do when they become desperate.
• The universal fear driving relationship drama, confusion, and disappointment is the belief "you are not enough", which causes one to fear that love will be taken away.
• Negative behaviours are rooted in fear: when people are angry, lashing out, clinging, or shutting down in a relationship, they are afraid.
• Accountability is the most important relationship skill, defined as being 100% responsible for one's own experience, including thoughts, perspectives, and behaviour.

The Battleground of the Mind and Projection

• The mind is a battlefield that constantly creates stories, and if thoughts and beliefs are not questioned, the mind can quickly become turbulent.
• The "monkey mind" metaphor describes the mind swinging wildly from thought to thought, and failure to tame it allows it to take full control.
• The story assigned to any event determines how we feel about it. A relationship going poorly often involves two brains creating negative stories about each other.
• The mind is designed to keep us safe, not happy, requiring us to discipline our thoughts and bring mindfulness to the relationship to gain awareness of how stories and meanings (e.g., "if he loved me then...") can destroy the experience.
• Individuals often end up having a relationship with the story they have about the relationship, rather than the person themselves, leading to isolation and resentment.
• Projection is common in relationships: partners are often viewed through the filter of one's past (e.g., as an ex, mother, or father), resulting in blaming them for one's "unfinished business".

The Illusion of Love and the Need for Mature Commitment

• Lust is not the same thing as love, and understanding the difference is essential for building long-lasting love.
• The initial euphoric state ("the crush") is often a metaphor for novelty, adventure, or an escape from monotony, having very little to do with the actual person.
• During the honeymoon stage (lasting 3 to 9 months), people can act like drug addicts due to the rush of excitement and hormones.
• When the euphoria subsides and reality sets in ("you're just a person and you have flaws"), people mistakenly conclude that the relationship is not fun or that "this must not be love".
• Immature love idolizes a projected idealization of the partner and pulls away when the partner shows their real self. Mature love sees a person's nuance, shortcomings, brilliance, past, and chooses them anyway.
• Love is a verb—an intentional practice—not just a feeling.
• To manage the deceleration from passionate attraction to comfortable, companionate attraction, one should reframe the transition as an opportunity to focus on other aspects of life (like work) and to explore true emotional connection, trust, camaraderie, safety, and respect.
• We cannot convince someone to love us, nor can we will ourselves to love someone we do not desire.

The Hazards of Unspoken Needs and Expectations

• Unspoken expectations are premeditated resentments.
• Hiding what one sees, feels, or needs causes a relationship to spiral quickly and betrays both oneself and the partner.
• The price of not speaking the truth is resentment, relationship deterioration, and preventing the partner from knowing how to contribute to one's happiness.
• Vulnerability gets one far in a romantic relationship, especially in difficult conversations about feelings and needs, because people bond when they open up their inner worlds to each other. Stoicism acts as a wall and signals emotional unavailability.
• When communicating, one should not blame, but rather focus on communicating how they feel.
• Partners are constantly training each other. For example, failing to pay attention when a partner opens up trains them to withhold their experience in the future.

The Role of Self-Love, Self-Acceptance, and Voids

• Self-love is essential for thriving in a relationship. While one can love and be loved without fully loving oneself, a lack of self-value leads to tolerating "crappy things" and engaging in pretense to run away from intimacy.
• Self-love is best defined as self-acceptance: holding oneself in high regard even while understanding there are things that need to be improved.
• A relationship should not be expected to fill all personal voids; no flawed person can put all the pieces of another person back together.
• A healthy expectation is that partners will hold each other's hands and help each other face their own challenges.

External Stress and the Relationship Dynamic

• If a couple's intimate relationship is struggling, they will suffer, even if their career, money, and health are going well.
• Babies can profoundly rock the foundation of a marriage or relationship.
• Stress and fear can turn a secure relationship into a dysfunctional one.
• People frequently unload stress on their partner due to the law of familiarity, treating them like an "emotional crutch or punching bag" because they hope/know the partner isn't going anywhere.
• When highly stressed, individuals become self-involved and emotionally unavailable (not feeling sexual, loving, or open), which causes the relationship to suffer.
• Not knowing how to handle stress (a turbulent mind and nervous system) is often what ends relationships, not the actual relationship itself.

Advice for Men: Safety and Presence

• Women fundamentally seek safety in a partner, which most men do not fully grasp due to the differing reality of physical threat (e.g., walking alone in a parking lot).
• In the modern world, this translates to women wanting their male partner's presence and emotional listening.
• Men should avoid rushing to fix a problem when a woman is overwhelmed; instead, they should listen and offer a hug.
• Women often feel that their emotions scare men off or that men take their bad moods personally, stemming from an unconscious male need for their woman to be happy.

The Importance of Presence and Avoiding Complacency

• People get into relationships thinking the partner will fulfill them or rescue them, but fulfillment can only come from the inside.
• We must not take our partner for granted or stop pursuing them just because the initial intense stage has passed.
• It is a mistake to stop being one's "best self" after the honeymoon stage, consistently showing up as moody, irritable, or cold.
• When confronting the "battlefield of the mind," the pathway to rationality and responsiveness is to get out of the head and into the body. This involves deepening the breath, moving (e.g., walking, working out), or eating to calm the nervous system and physiological state.

Making Peace with the Past and Parents

• Making peace with one's parent(s) involves reframing and investigating the story held about them, emancipating oneself from the "prison of your own mind".
• Adult relationships often reflect relationships with parents, and it is important to view parents through the filter of one's adult self, not the lens of the "little boy or little girl self".
• Grieving the parent one wished one had, accepting them for who they are, and letting go of resentment are necessary steps.
• Sometimes, making peace means breaking up with parents metaphorically as the leaders of one's belief system (e.g., leaving a desired profession to pursue happiness as an artist).
• Trauma and pain can lead to resilience and success. Life is often about making lemonade out of lemons and creating meaning from hardships.

Chapters

00:00:00 It Begins With You
00:05:05 The Parallels Between Romance & Business
00:14:06 The Stories We Create in Our Minds
00:20:00 Why Accountability in a Relationship is So Important
00:25:43 How to Stop Your Mind Being a Battlefield
00:28:57 Differentiating Love & Lust
00:40:03 The Importance of Self Love
00:44:13 Speak Up & Tell the Truth in Relationships
00:51:58 What Do Women Really Want From Men?
01:05:48 How Stress & Fear Ruin Relationships
01:14:00 Relationships Aren’t Supposed to Make You Happy
01:18:50 Why You Need to Make Peace With Your Parents
01:30:06 Where to Find Jillian