 Natasha, welcome to the show. You have wrote a new book that is out how to win your breakup and how to be the one that got away. This book deals with toxicity in our relationships. Why don't you tell us what made you write this book? I started off writing a blog and the goal with the blog was to answer every question I ever asked Google at my lowest, loneliest, most confused points in regard to breakup, that I couldn't find the answers to. I would find these articles and they were so clickbaity, and the titles were so great, but it was the same repetitive stuff. And then after a few years, I started getting requests, do you have a book? Can you put this all in a book? And it's hard when you have a blog because I see a lot of people and they'll just basically staple their blog posts together and say, okay, I have a book. And I didn't want to do that, especially when I have the material on the blog already for free. So I wanted to really narrow it in. I help people with self-help, all kinds of stuff, right? But as far as breakups go, it's like the nucleus of what I do. And I looked at all the different books that were in regards to relationships and breakups, and no one had really come at it from kind of like a dignified Machiavellian playbook kind of way. It was more just put down the ice cream, go to a Zumba class, remember your worth, love yourself. But it's like, how do I even start doing that? And also, it's totally normal to have spiteful feelings after realizing you invested in a relational Ponzi scheme. And I hadn't seen material out there that recognized that and didn't make people feel bad for it, if that makes sense. I love the term that you used. And I had put together a four article series for our blog just on toxic people, how to recognize them, what to look for. I enjoyed writing it. And the first part of that, the first article that I put for that was, let's start with you first. How do I know that I am not the toxic person in this leadership? But the other part that goes along with that is incompetence as well. Because if it's a bad match, what could look like toxicity could naturally just be incompetence or immaturity. It comes in those disguises because if it's intent that is malicious, well, then we can see that as certainly more of a toxic behavior rather than just immaturity or incompetence as people learn, grow and evolve. Definitely. And I know it's really hard, especially in this day and age, you use a term and it's offended somebody. But I think you can get away with pretty much anything as long as people know where your heart is and that you're not doing anything for shock value, you're not just trying to get clicks or anything like that. And I use the term toxic because it's just toxic to my system. I could say that gluten is toxic for me. I have celiac disease. It doesn't mean that I hate gluten and it's terrible and I need to vilify it to get through the days. It just means it's toxic to my system. That's great. That's what people really have to understand that whether or not this person has malicious intent, the result is it's driving you crazy. It is hurting you. It is holding you back. 100%. And I define toxic as anyone who gets validation by exploiting your hunger for theirs. Whether they do that consciously or subconsciously, it's not good for you. It's not good for your mental health. And if you don't have your mental health, you don't have physical health. Now, before we get into the breakup itself, some in our audience might be in toxic relationships and not realize it. And I know the book is predominantly for women coming out of a breakup. So for the guys in the audience who might be wondering, am I a toxic person? Am I acting in a way that could be toxic to my relationship? Let's talk about some of the signs of toxic relationships that you've encountered. Well, first of all, I have a little bit of a disclosure in the beginning of the book. It's called The Deal. And I make it very clear. I'm not into male bashing. I love men. Men are not the problem. Self-hatred that's acted upon is the problem. Narcissism is the problem. Undelt with trauma is the problem. Selfishness, not men. When you try to please everyone, you please no one. So I could only write from the perspective that I am, which is a straight woman. But my clientele speaks for itself. Every age, stage in life, gender orientation, we all deal with the same BS. It's just different body parts and dynamics. But to recognize whether you're in a toxic relationship, I would just say a lot of people like to complicate it because where there's complication, there's an opportunity to have a license renewal on inactivity basically and keeping yourself in a mediocrity chokehold. But I would just say if you're continually questioning your worth, if you feel glitchy, if you feel like you need to continually try harder, if you find yourself consoling your partner for what they did wrong to you, stuff like that, that's just not good. If you feel more drained than you feel uplifted, it's toxic. It's not good for you. Those signs I think can be really hard when we're with someone who's very good at being toxic, who's very good at gaslighting us and shifting the blame onto us for their own behaviors. And I think that's why it takes a breakup for you to finally realize that, holy cow, all of this was toxic. Many of us will stay well beyond those signs and signals. Well, we'll stay beyond the signs and signals because we tell ourselves, you know, I'm in love and love is blind. And it's what's blinding me to all these red flags because I'm in love. I don't want to give up. But really love is not what blinds us. Love will get us to see so clearly that we will leave a toxic situation out of sheer self love. You know, if you genuinely love, you will see so clearly. And if you're in a situation of true love, you'll see the signs. But what gets us to ignore those red flags is having trauma from previous relationships that was undoubt with and the draining of our self-esteem and the process of that. It's very hard. And as you said, sometimes, yeah, it does take a breakup for us to realize, oh my gosh, this was toxic. But I talked to thousands of people around the world in over 30 countries. And I have to tell you, even if someone doesn't want to see it, you know your instinct knows if you're drained, your instinct knows if you're continually questioning your reality, you know somewhere deep down. Something you mentioned there that is important to understand. And it gets overlooked. But as we age, and the more experiences we go through, we're taking on damage. And if it's not processed, then it continues to build up. And then it affects how we see and maneuver through the world and with other people. We have to check that damage because it then it turns into baggage that we are going to just carry along. And just by living your life, you're taking on damage. And it may be a little bit here. This relationship wasn't good. Maybe your boss was a jerk. But all of these words, these situations, these experiences, they build up. They're not going anywhere. The only time that they're going to go anywhere is how you process them and what you're going to take away from them. If you don't do that, they're just lingering there. Not only do we take on this damage, not only does it accumulate, not only does it, do we use it as a filter to make poor relational decisions through. But I don't know if you guys have experienced this, it also sets us up to internalize the behavior of other people. So we think we made someone change. We think we made them act in a hurtful and disrespectful way when really, you've got to let people own their own behavior. Now, I have to say our behavior and the way we act can be a lubricant for someone to behave a certain way. I could cheat on my partner and that could make them jealous, let's just say. But the capacity for the partner to want to commit a crime, shoot us both or whatever it may be, that capacity is theirs and theirs alone. You may be able to make someone feel a certain type of way, but the capacities we cannot take ownership of those are preexisting before we ever even came into the picture. I think that's a really important point that many of us think we have far more influence over others than we really do. And especially in a situation of love where we feel beholden to this person, we feel like we're having an impact. And a lot of times they'll use those exact words, you've changed me, you've impacted me, I'm so much better with you as a way to gaslight us, exactly, to treat us in that way. Now, what I love is this idea of winning a breakup because, again, many of us come out feeling that way, but the sappy self-help guide is, oh, be soft to yourself, be gentle. When in actuality, we want to move on from the ex and we do want to win. We've realized that we shouldn't have been with that person and we want to take ownership of that and grow and move on from that person. So what does it really mean to win your breakup? It always makes me laugh when people see the title and they don't even give the book a chance and they say, it's not about winning. And that's actually what the book is saying, that the real win is realizing that you won by losing someone who was toxic to your mental health. You can never lose a toxic person. You can only win everything that comes with their absence. When I go to the restroom, I don't lose anything. I flush and I win a clean toilet. That's just what it is. And as far as winning goes, I always found that no matter who you are, no matter what you're struggling with, absolutely no one wants to feel as though they were nothing but a launching pad for someone else's greatness. The linchpin of the ideology for the book is to get a detailed, like think of everything your partner did. Think of how that made you feel and use the recognition of their toxicity to skyrocket you out of your own. That is winning. That's what I call winning. And it takes two to tango from that exact point of view, that you did something to attract a toxic person and if you don't take care of that, if you don't improve from those signals you were sending out or the lack of boundaries that you brought to the relationship that allowed this person to treat you that way, well, you're going to fall into that same exact pattern of chasing that same childhood trauma, attracting that same partner, and of course, continue to lose in the quality of the relationships that you're attracting in your life. Thousand percent. That's why I have such focus on the self-esteem, on confidence, on rebuilding yourself, on understanding that you may be broken right now, but you're never going to break like this again. And you need to know that because you've got to take responsibility too for your actions and what you did to attract this and why you were attracted to this. I think that's very, very important. It is not about vilifying your ex just so you can feel really great for a few seconds and continue on with your own dysfunction. Yeah, there's personal responsibility that it takes to win in losing that toxicity from your life. If you don't take that personal responsibility, you haven't won anything. You've stayed exactly the same. Definitely. When it comes to taking account of those behaviors and actions and the toxicity in the relationship, what are some recommendations you have as you go through that breakup process to start to really understand who you are and start to rebuild that confidence that your partner may have taken from you? You have to understand like attracts like. I used to be very attracted and I still am to a certain extent to people who are narcissistic. Narcissists are really fun. They can be the life of the party. They're really fun until you're in an intimate relationship with them. What I say in the book is whether you're dealing with someone who's emotionally unavailable, narcissistic, sociopathic, whatever it may be, the common denominator is toxicity. It's not good for you. It's not good for your mental health. But like does attract like. I would find myself attracted to people who are very selfish and made everything about them. I wasn't doing that, but what I was doing is I was making their all about them behavior all about how I was not enough. However you slice that, however you dice that, that's making something all about you. You see what I'm saying? So it's about taking a really detailed inventory of that and then also understanding that you are most likely dating a hologram of a parent, a parental figure, or someone that hurts you and traumatized you in your past, wounded you. And this is your solution to try to invalidate the pain of the past, even though you know subconsciously you're just repeating it so that you can get more of that self-fulfilling prophecy of I'm not enough. I'm not enough. And oftentimes that's what's comfortable to us. That's what we know. So that hologram is something we recognize exactly. For narcissists, they get all of their validation through other people. So they have to be charismatic. They have to be able to draw people in and they spend all of their time figuring out the ways to bring people in. And I think to the detriment of learning how to validate themselves. Oh, of course. People that rely on the external to get a sense of worth, it's a hole that's never going to be totally filled, you know, because they're constantly banking on the unpredictable to predict, so to speak, what their value is. And then the people they're in intimate relationships with, there's this love hate thing because they can see that the emperor is not clothed, so to speak. One of the things I was thinking about bringing up, but I'm going to do it anyway, because we can have a little bit of fun with it. Right now, that Johnny Depp, Amber Heard, court cases going on, and it's managed to drag everybody's attention to it. And I hate celebrity gossip, but even I had to want what's going on, poke in and see what it's all about. And I was laughing because I lived in LA for 10 years. I have put together episodes we've discussed on dating where that's all I did for like a couple months just on dating apps and going through all of this. And when I started hearing the details of their relationship and some of the things that were going on, I couldn't help but laugh. I'm like, for people outside of Los Angeles, they're seeing this and they're like, this is insane. These people are crazy. How is this even going on? Celebrity lives are nuts. And I'm sitting going, this is one of the mill typical Hollywood Los Angeles relationships. I'm not hearing anything here that is blowing my mind. I'm like, yeah, that's a Friday night in the land of narcissism. Part of being a professional in the land of make believe is holding on to views and values that wouldn't be normal to most people who aren't actors and actresses and channeling different characters and having the ability to draw people in on the screen. Of course, it's going to lead to behaviors and actions in a relationship that a normal bystander would be completely aghast at. And I think what we're seeing play out is both sides of them being toxic to each other, to past lovers. We're hearing all of this history that many of us would never feel comfortable airing that level of dirty laundry. Could you imagine in some of your past relationships being hauled up on the witness stand to explain why you threw a wine bottle across the room when you were completely drunk? Yeah, allegedly, allegedly air quotes there. But exactly what we were saying earlier, it takes two to be in this relationship. So no matter what you thought about whose side you're on in that relationship, they were both participating. They were both drawing this behavior out of one another, harming one another, physical harm, slinging verbal insults, and everyone around them saw this going on. And I think that's what's also really important when it comes to breakup advice is doing that soul searching around, well, what does a healthy relationship look like for me? Because if all you've had is unhealthy relationships and all you've dated is past childhood trauma, now that you've gone through this breakup, you actually have an opportunity to really sit and think, well, what am I truly looking for in the next relationship? And what I found from so many of clients that we've worked with is they just end up running into the next relationship because they have to fill that hole. And there's this desire to fill the attention, the validation that they were getting out of this toxic person out of, especially a narcissist knows how to play at those heartstrings to keep you strong along, to giving them the attention that they're looking for. So in the situation where we're in this breakup, everything now we're realizing was toxic for us, how do we start to determine who is the right next person for us? What are the signs that we should be looking for? I try to stay away from signs and formulas and stuff like that because ultimately, we all want to be with someone who's honest. We all want to be with someone who's emotionally available. But I like to turn it in a little bit more and say, if you are looking for someone to see in you what you cannot see in yourself, you will not have a healthy relationship. The right people will not be attracted to you. The wrong people will use you and you will wind up on the hamster wheel that you will never get off. Even if you're looking for a healthy relationship, I could give you so many different signs. This is what you need to look for. But if you are wanting someone to see things in you that you truly cannot see in yourself, it won't matter. So number one, that's what I wanted to say. Number two, when you're around this person, if you've struggled with self-esteem in the past and you've met someone who is healthy and available and they've got a good relationship with themselves, you will most likely not feel attracted to them at first. They will bore you. You will classify them as boring because it's not this romantic love, up, down, yes, no, hot, cold, Jekyll hide. It's not that. And you're very bored not being on a roller coaster that your emotional body is really not meant for you to ride. The number one thing for me, and I know this is super, you know, not conventional, but you'll feel bored. You'll classify them as, oh, they're just too nice. But really, that's you spending years of equating passion with inconsistency. Passion is not inconsistent. And intimacy is the most consistent thing. And so when you have consistency, you won't know what to do with it, because you're so used to the roller coaster. And of course, you know, if there's no attraction at all in the beginning, I'm not, I'm not, there's always exceptions, holes can be poked and everything. But if you feel like, oh, you know, I'm a little bored, they're too nice, give it a chance. It's unbelievable how beautiful someone can become when you get to know them and you get to see them and their beauty in ways that time can never mess with. I think that's an important message to get out there and get people to wrap their heads around and get comfortable with. Because right now, the culture is so focused on the hot and heavy in the idea of limerence, which is the idea and the feeling of falling in love. And that that should be always there because that means that you're constantly in love. That limerence is based on the oxytocin that you're that you're getting flooded with. I mean, drugs wear off for a reason and so will limerence, but what is there afterwards is learning about somebody and falling into a deeper love with them. And the idea of limerence, we see it all around us. I mean, it wasn't very long ago that every billboard in LA was about swipe life and why settle down when you can just ride that emotional train? Definitely. And you know, when you meet the right person, especially if you spent your whole life trying to prove who you are, get approval from other people, you were primed as a child to perform instead of asked, you know, what do you like? What don't you like? Why did you do this? Not you did this because or, you know, you are bad because what's going to happen is when you meet a great person, they're going to bore you at first. You're not going to feel the attraction because you have been primed by yourself, by the cynical audience in your own head to believe that it's not valuable if you don't have to work for it, that it's not valuable if it's not in limited supply. And that may be true for a Rolls Royce or whatever. But if it's basic relational necessities like love, respect, honesty, communication, that's not any more valuable because you have to work for it. And I see a lot too. Right off the bat, you'll know if you're in the presence of someone who is toxic to your mental health. If you feel as though you're always having to compete for their time, their attention, their communication, they triangulate, you know, it's never you and them, you're always in a threesome. It's you, them and their family, you, them, their job, you, them, their dog, whatever it may be. And the thing that that'll mess a lot of people up is that other point of the triangle may be something super admirable. It may be, you know, I'm reinventing the wheel. I'm rescuing puppies and curing cancer. And that's an amazing thing. But if you feel as though you have to compete to get basic relational necessities, get out. That's a very clear warning sign. But many of us like the competition, as you said, because we've been trained from childhood to expect it. That's just how relationships work. We may be seen it in our parents. And in the way that they interacted with us, we were competing between their job and their significant other to win that attention. So it's easy to fall into that pattern. But exactly as you said, if you have self respect, competing for intimacy, competing for communication, competing for honesty, those are not things that need to be competed for. Those should be available to you in all high quality relationships. Absolutely. And you know, the moment you choose yourself, that's the moment everyone else wants you to choose them and breakups. I in this book, I tap into our innate desire to win. It's okay to want to win. You know, it's okay to say, I want to win this. And breakups are the only game that you can win by giving up. They're won through resignation. They're won through withdrawal. And you bring up a phrase in the book, stay on your white horse. What do you mean by that? What is the white horse? We love a good metaphor here on the show. My mom actually came up with it. And whenever you hear fairy tales or whatever it may be, there's this knight in shining armor on the white horse, and they're so focused, and they come to save the damsel in distress. And it's about being your own knight in shining armor. It's about our white horse is emotional intelligence. It's about staying above the grain of mediocrity and drama and all that BS and not reacting because the food that toxic people feed on is your reactivity. Non reactivity is a truly, it's a superpower. So remind yourself, stay on your white horse. Do not react, respond. Responding is rooted in action. Reactivity is rooted in triggers. When you've made enough progress, you'll become more protective of that progress. And you're going to be scratching the mosquito bite of your triggers. We get off our white horse and breakups. That's normal. You know, we see something, we react and no one can just stay on and say, you know, that's it. I rode off into the sunset on my own. We get off it at times, but use the shame that you feel and that generates to motivate you to stay on because that is what is going to burn your ex. That's what turns them into a launching pad. And I always say, you know, if I'm with someone that was going through a breakup, if we were in a movie theater right now watching what's going on in your life, what would you be rooting yourself on to do? Would you be throwing popcorn at the screen saying, no, you better react to that, you know, send him a tit pick, go contact the new girlfriend, tell her, you know, he's terrible. Absolutely not. Leonardo DiCaprio is one of my favorite actors, right? It didn't matter what dialect the guy did a role in. It didn't matter anything. I mean, these roles were unbelievable. He couldn't win an Oscar to save his life. He finally wins an Oscar in the one role. He shuts up and it's pure action. Think of the revenant, you know, dynamic characters are incredible to watch because they are, they take action, they take action, they take ownership and they don't just get, you know, knocked to the ground left for dead and say, oh, well, you know, I want everyone to win and I guess I'm just a loser and this is just it for me. Now, they get up in a way that no one expected and they obliterate their opponent without doing it in ways in cheap ways that everyone else could do. You know, this isn't about hurting anyone. Every day I wake up, I try to be a better person. I'm very honest, but I'm kind in my honesty. I'm not brutal, but it's about getting to a point where you can no longer be messed with. It's about getting to a point where you say, okay, all the stuff that I was on the receiving end of, I'm going to use that and show you how, you know, fertile of a ground your dysfunction created for me to soar. To heights you're never going to be able to. Taking action is the most important first step after a breakup and that action has to be directed towards your values. And one of the clearest exercises we do in all of our coaching programs is identifying what those core values are so that the action could have a positive impact on your life. If any of us in relationships, we tend to stray from our core values, we give up a large part of ourselves, especially in a toxic relationship to try to win that attention, that approval, that acceptance from our partner. And of course, in a toxic relationship, well, they're using that against us to turn us around, to get us to lose sight of who we are, to get us to stay in their lives. And one question that comes up all the time in our audience is what exactly do I do after the breakup to create that distance and space that I need to feel good to take the action to take that first step? Is it deleting them from social media? Is it completely removing all items from my house? How do I start to detox from this toxic relationship that I have this gnawing feeling, this compelling feeling to go back to that safety and comfort? Well, I mean, deleting them from social media, getting rid of all their items, you know, all this kind of stuff, it's in my opinion, why restrictive diets fail. Because you're focusing so much on the lack that you're going to just attract more of the lack, if that makes sense, you know, so that's why the first chapter of my book is without death, there are no ashes to rise from how to remember who the fuck you are, because you have to remember who the fuck you are. And you can't do that without ceremoniously. And I mean this, killing off what is no longer serving you. Breakups have left me suicidal, physically suicidal, spiritually suicidal, emotionally suicidal. And it wasn't until I realized that killing myself would accomplish nothing. It was a lot of other things that I needed to kill off, the people pleasing, the insecurity, the internalizing of other people's behavior, stuff like that. You know, I didn't want to just say, well, kill it off. Well, love yourself. You know, do this. I point out exactly how you go about doing that. Write out everything that it is that you are no longer willing to tolerate. Forget another people in yourself and use that as fuel. Sometimes it's the only way to get through to people in that position. And you have to smack them around for them to start looking at things in another way and to give up on the pity party that they're having with themselves, looking to dull the pain that is going on. And we want to help people, but they need to be able to lift themselves up. Or they're going to continue that relationship in another form with somebody else. Or worse, how they were treated, they might end up treating their next relationship, the next person they're with in that manner as a sort of revenge, thinking that they're getting better with themselves. To make those changes where they can be a better person and then finally be in relationships that are healthy, change is going to need to be made and growth needs to happen. And I just got a big dose over the weekend of just how people fear change. I had two friends over the over the weekend that I was hanging out with who both complained of the same thing. We're now all getting older. I'm 48. So they're complaining about how they feel in the morning, not thinking clearly and not being as productive. And both of them, I know don't have good diet. So I mentioned, Hey, have you ever thought about taking sugar from your diet, maybe giving up the soda, the pushback that I had gotten over just that I didn't tell them to reconfigure their diet and hit the gym. And I was like, if you take sugar out of your diet, I will guarantee you will feel better. You'll look better and you'll think clearly. And that was too much of a change in a task. They both looked at me as if I was out of my mind and then cast me off is a health nut. Well, you have to be a health nut because that's the only way they can continue on with a habit that they know deep down is not really great. And the thing is, is when you're not happy in your own life, you're going to hold on to any little crumb of satiation. And I talk about this in the book. These are people, whether it's relationally or it's in their diet, they're focusing more on the high of satiation than the shame of starvation. If we all went out into the desert and didn't eat for four days and someone gave us a piece of moldy bread, I guarantee you that bread would bring us back to life. And we wouldn't believe anyone that said it was moldy. We'd say, there's no way mold could make me feel this good. We're focusing more on the high of satiation than, oh my gosh, how starving did I have to be for that piece of moldy bread to bring me back to life? Life is messy. It's complicated. And the one thing that I always try to be, especially in my line of work, I see so many people and they're like, I got it all figured out. I went through a bad breakup. I lost all my money. I Uber drove. And now I'm doing a TED talk. And you should listen to me. It's not about that. Not only do they set themselves up for never being able to make a mistake, because then they get crucified when they do, because inevitably we all will, we're human. They're not on the journey with their people, with their community. And so they're creating a dependency. It's like they're creating almost like a cult or a religion. They want people to be dependent on them. They want people to follow them, so to speak. I still get insecure. I still get very defensive when someone says, Natasha, put down the ice cream sandwich because I love it. I still get very scared and have times where I feel like I don't feel like I could carry on. But the difference between me now and when I was highly toxic myself is that those very normal human emotions no longer permeate to the point of paralysis. That's where you need to get. And I can take criticism, whether it's constructive criticism or it's just fueled and hate or whatever it may be. And I can take compliments too and understand that this isn't about me. This is actually a gift into looking into a window of the relationship someone has with themselves. So when people get defensive about sugar, they're giving you the gift of what's going on between the relationship that they have with themselves. And no one is going to be in a relationship with anyone who treats them any worse than they are already consistently treating themselves. What you said earlier around tolerating in others what you are tolerating yourself goes back to this exact point that if you find yourself in this toxic relationship, if you find yourself like Johnny's friends vilifying someone who suggests something healthy, that just means you're vilifying yourself. Like the amount of shame that they're carrying around drinking the sugary drinks feeling bad about themselves and then directing that outwards is exactly what you're going to attract in the relationship. It's just a reflection of what's going on internally. And that's why what I love about this idea of winning your break up, finishing up, not down, is taking real account. And I look back at all of my failed relationships and every single one of them, I learned something deep about myself, the way that I showed up in the relationship, the way that I perpetrated that communication style, the way that I allowed this person who may have been toxic for me to treat me in that manner. And I used it as an opportunity to strengthen those weak areas and to really reflect on, well, what do I want to bring into the next relationship? And what do I want to leave behind? And if you're being tolerant of people treating you in a certain way, you're also being tolerant of yourself, not standing up, not speaking your truth, not being present with what you're really feeling and thinking, you might be numbing it with sugar. You might be numbing it with things in the moment that feel good. But ultimately, it's going to lead you to exactly the same place you were. And I think that's why a big part of us starting the show in the beginning was to win in dating. Well, to win in dating in my mind is to actually find a quality person. We've talked a lot about the lack of quality people, the lack of people who are doing real work on themselves, who are trying to improve who they are and recognize these qualities that they're bringing into a relationship. Unfortunately, many of the people that we bring into our lives, they're not listening to these shows, they're not working on themselves, they're not that clear on what it is that they want, which makes it even more important that you do the work. You can't expect someone else to do the work. You can't expect someone else to show up in a relationship, fix you, make things better, turn you into a loving, caring, amazing, healthy person. That doesn't work. And why we're so big on identifying those core values is because that's universal. That doesn't matter if you're single. It doesn't matter if you're in a great relationship or not so great relationship, the more in tune you are with your core values, you can at least start moving in the right direction for you personally versus taking the abuse, taking what others are giving you and allowing someone to really take advantage of you in a relationship. And that play on words of break up, really exiting this in a manner that moves you forward and upward instead of wallowing in what's going on in their social media. How do I get back at them? How do I steer other people away from this person? How do I impact them? All that's just wasted energy in a life that isn't very long to begin with that is only yours and you got to take advantage of. A lot of people, especially people who are in breakups, going through breakups with a toxic ex, I'll talk to them and they'll say, well, my gosh, I am recognizing my own toxicity so much now and I'm changing and I'm so worried about them changing. And I always say, you know, don't worry about your ex changing. If your ex was toxic and they've moved on to someone else, they're not in a better relationship with a more amazing person and they're not a more amazing person. They've taken no time to heal and deal and yet you may have your own toxicity for sure. But the thing that separates you from your ex is self-awareness. You have the self-awareness to be hungry to get better. They don't think there's anything wrong with the way they are and the way they operate. I've been an incredibly selfish, terrible person in my life. I really have. And when I was at odds with myself, you know, I hear from a lot of people, I only got a text back. I'm not even worth the phone call. Okay. When I was toxic, I never thought, well, gee, I'm not going to call Johnny or AJ back because they're only worth a text. I didn't act in terrible ways to educate good people on their lack of worth. I acted in terrible ways because I felt worthless and was a toxic asshole. And I was selfish. So I try to make that as clear as possible. Do not internalize their behavior. It has nothing to do with you. Yes, you may have acted in crazy, immature ways that provided a lubricant for them to behave a certain way. But the capacity to carry out relational murder, so to speak, was theirs and theirs alone. You can't take ownership of someone's capacities. So don't worry about your ex changing and don't get so focused in on your own toxicity that you think this great person just saved up all of this unconscionable behavior for you because you're somehow not enough. That's not how life works. Such a profound point there in thinking about your ex changing again is breaking down. It's not allowing you to get to a place where you're fully growing. It's effort and energy being expended on someone that you identified or they identified is not a good fit for you. That's why you broke up in the first place. A breakup is a decision by one or both parties that this is not working, this is not a good fit. And of course, Hollywood dramatizes people coming back together in this change and reuniting. But that usually is not how life works. And if you hold out hope for these fantasies, you're not doing the real work on yourself that you need to win that breakup to move on in a positive way. Well, also, I don't find it that romantic if I just had a baby. And I wouldn't find it that romantic if when she grows up she asks, well, how did you meet dad? Tell me all about it. And I say, well, he acted like a complete sociopathic POS in the beginning. But he met me and realized that he needed to change and stop disrespecting me. And we lived happily ever after. I don't get my kicks off of schooling people. I don't get my kicks off of parenting grown adults or changing anyone. I don't want to change anyone. I don't want anyone to love me without conditions. I want the love to feel unconditional because those conditions are always met and not tested. But there needs to be healthy boundaries. And it's not that romantic when you put up with really straight up inhumanity. And your undying, you know, dedication to the person gets them to change. No, you know, not in the presence of things like abuse, manipulation, gaslighting, disrespect, if you're on the receiving end of any of that, don't stay just because you think your love will get them to change. That kind of stuff is disgusting enough for you to just leave. If they change in the future, so be it. You know, we are all capable of change. But the fact that you know that they are capable of relational murder, that's enough to know it's not good for you. It's like saying, you know, it's like I met someone and they told me I have a past of abusing animals. Okay. I believe in rehabilitation. I think rehabilitation is possible. I think that's incredible that you've changed and you no longer abuse animals. I just don't want to be with anyone that ever in their life had the capacity to do that. And I have every right to say that. Again, waiting around for the change, hoping for the change, you're fantasizing and that's exactly what got you into this predicament in the first place. You weren't seeing reality clear, and you were putting up intolerant of bad behavior that came to a head and ended up in a breakup in a very toxic manner with a toxic person. This idea of holding out hope that at some point you're going to change and they're going to change and paths are going to collide again and oh, they're going to see you in this new place and that's going to provoke them. All of that is just holding on to the past that does not need to be held on to any longer. The only thing you have control of is the actions and steps you personally are going to take moving forward, moving on. Yeah. And talk about control. You know, instead of trying to control other people in a life that we really have nothing that we can control, not much of anything, take complete ownership over the stuff you can control, how much you move your body, what you put into your body. And you know, we can't really control what we feel, like our emotions, but we can control how we react to those emotions. And when you employ the discipline it takes to do that, you start building self-respect that no one can take away. And you start becoming what I call an emotional entrepreneur instead of, you know, being in this world of, you know, just wanting to employ people or seek employment, so to speak, in your relationships. What do you mean by emotional entrepreneur? I love that phrase. Let's break that down. Not everyone wants to be an entrepreneur in the professional world, but I think entrepreneurs are respected. I think entrepreneurism requires, as one of my favorite quotes says, living your life a few years like most people won't so you can spend the rest of it like most people can. And the same goes for your relational life. Emotional entrepreneurism. Not everyone wants to be an emotional entrepreneur. Some people, you know, it's not for them, that's okay. But they all want a piece of that pie when an emotional entrepreneur is around them. They want to be like that person. They want a part of that person. That person has that X factor because they don't need anything external to validate them. They are self validated and part of that comes with not giving a fuck what other people think. And when you can get there and do this in a way where you still retain your softness, your empathy, because I see it's really black or white in a lot of cases. It's like you're either in this emotional drill sergeantry mode or you're just too kumbaya and it's like very soft and you know, no, you can be somebody who is extremely compassionate and empathetic and that communicates and doesn't have to be so hard about it. But you can also have hard limits. And you can also say, you know what, that's your opinion. That's awesome. But it's not going to dictate the way I feel about what I am worth. And how do you get there? You get there by owning everything you have done in your own life. You know, like I said, I've done a lot of terrible things in my life and anyone could take anything I have done and shine a spotlight on it and I will own it and not in a gratuitous kind of like, oh, I own it. Yes, I own everything kind of way and absolutely not. I'll explain why I did it without excuses. I'll say, you know, this was going on in my life, no excuses, but this is what was going on. This is I think why I did it. But this is how I learned from it and how I used that toxic behavior, as I say to use your toxic X as a launchpad to launch me into evolving as opposed to devolving. And this is how I became better as a result of it. And this is how I gave my own pain and pain I've caused other people a purpose. And when you can do that, no one can fuck with you because you are willing to hold your head high in the pool of your own shame and embarrassments. And you also realize everyone else has messed up too. We've all made mistakes. We've all done embarrassing things. And the people that are the quickest to spotlight and finger point and be the gotcha police, those are the ones that have the most, you know, stuff in their closet, in my opinion. Usually the most toxic. Oh, God, yeah. You know, and that's how you become someone who isn't so preoccupied with the opinions of others. Of course, you know, I care that you guys think I'm a great guest. You know, it's been a dream of mine to be on this podcast, but I'm not so preoccupied with it that I'm going to fumble my words and be foaming at the mouth and not feel good about myself if I feel as though you guys don't think I did my best. If you guys don't think I did my best, that's your opinion and that's okay. Yeah, I think it's important to understand that empathy is understanding how someone could feel that way without taking it to heart, taking it personal and making it something that shifts you from the direction or the course that you're on. I mean, if we stopped podcasting at every negative review we had, we wouldn't be sitting here 15 years later. And every single endeavor in your life, there's going to be haters. There's going to be people who much like we talk about in our programs are outside of the arena, who are not putting in the reps, who are not turning on the microphone, who are not putting down the sugary drink, who are not getting early up in the morning to go on that run, who are going to have a word or two to say about it. And if you're shaken by them, then you're going to be drawn into plenty of toxic relationships, toxic relationship with yourself and toxic relationships romantically and socially. So being a stronger figure attracts other strong figures and brings a healthy relationship into the fold in your life. And that is one of the reasons we want to have you on because we don't talk very much about breakups on the show. But one thing that we agree on wholeheartedly is that is the best opportunity that you have to do the work on yourself, to not sit there pining about what could have been, to not sit there wondering about is this person in my life changing? Can I somehow win them back? How do I chase all of that affection that I'm now missing out on? Those are not steps to success after a breakup. And we firmly agree with all the points you made in the book. Johnny and I love asking every guest what their X factor is. I have a feeling I know what yours is. But what do you think makes you unique and extraordinary, Natasha? That I don't outsource my empathy. Someone once told me, dear friends, they said, Natasha, you're the most empathetic person I've ever met. And you're also the most unempathetic person I've ever met. It made me laugh. And like you said in the arena analogy, anyone can throw fruit at the arena. Not everyone can get in and get fruit thrown on them. As far as my empathy goes, I've just realized I'm not going to beat myself up for not wanting to empathize with everyone. There are some people in this world that do things that are so heinous. I don't want to put myself in their shoes. And because I don't outsource my empathy, I'm less likely to internalize the behavior of other people. I'm more likely to have some self compassion. And because of that, I can empathize on a much deeper level with people who are deserving of empathy. And we can all decide who is deserving of our empathy and who is not. That's up to the individual. But I think that would be my X factor. And that's come with making a lot of mistakes and a lot of embarrassments and all kinds of stuff like that. And also realizing that it's not all about me. I wake up every morning and I live to give what I wish I would have had. I can't tell you how many friends I have. And they're like, Natasha, you just had a baby and you don't have the light ring with you today and this and that. And it's like, it doesn't matter how I look on this thing. What matters, what makes someone beautiful is how interesting they are and the value that they provide for other people because they have been in their shoes. And even if they haven't, it's just about saying, I'm here. You're not alone. And this terrible point in your life, it could be the best thing that ever happened to you. This is your turning point. This is your pivot. They were your launching pad. They were your tailwind, not your headwind. Thank you for sharing that perspective with our audience. We're so thrilled to have you on here. Great show as always. Thank you, Natasha. Yes, thank you. Thanks, guys.