 Why are breakups so painful? And how can we heal from breakups? Well, we're gonna dive into that for a moment. I think the reason why breakups can be painful, especially when you're in the receiving end of a breakup, for many people, they've given their power away to the other person. Let me repeat that. They've given their power away to the other person. What does that mean to give your power away? That means you make your happiness predicated on whether or not they are loving you, whether they are giving you attention, whether they're giving you a validation. When you make your happiness predicated by another person, you are literally giving your power away. So I wanna dive into this conversation. I wrote some notes that I wanted to share with you all. I think it's critically important. And that is, first off, hold your head up high if someone ends a relationship with you. If one person doesn't want all in, it's not the right relationship for you. Relationships end because they weren't in love with you or they fell out of love with you. Either way, it's not your job to convince the person otherwise. Let me repeat, it's not your job to convince the person to want to stay. Whenever one person ends a relationship, for whatever reason, the other person tends to look at themselves and ask, what did I do wrong? Why don't they see my value? And then they start bargaining with the other person to change their mind. We feel crushed because most people look inward and say, I'm a failure. And then they crucify themselves, which is why it feels so painful. Not to mention the attachment we have towards other people and going from an us back to a me is uncomfortable. It feels like there's a hole inside of you. You might feel like it's a hole's been ripped out of your chest. I want you to know something. When a man ends a relationship with you, he did nothing to you. And please be careful not to become a victim because most people act like victims because they've given their power away. All right, so those are my notes that I wanted to share with you all. I said something a moment ago that I want to dive into this for a moment. They either didn't love you or they fell out of love with you. See, I think these days when relationships end in the early stages, the first three or four months, they just never fell in love with you. They just never fell in love with you. They might appreciate the benefits of companionship. They might appreciate the benefits of connection. They might appreciate the benefits of sex. They might even care for you slightly because you're giving them companionship connection and sex. Most likely they didn't fall in love with you. Now, those are the ones that tend to end in the first few months. What about those that end about the year mark? Most likely they genuinely cared for you, but for whatever reason, they couldn't dive deeper into the relationship. Maybe they had some childhood wounds and traumas and adult traumas that made it difficult for them to actually lean into an all-in fully committed relationship. Maybe they had contentious issue with their ex-spouse. Maybe they have issues going on at work. Maybe they've got health issues. Maybe they've got a contentious relationship with their children. For whatever reason, the ground underneath them doesn't feel solid so they couldn't fall in love with you because when a man's life doesn't feel solid or a woman's life doesn't feel solid, it's difficult to fully give yourself to another human being. And so these are the primary reasons why they don't fall in love with you when just sometimes two good people can get together but you still, for whatever reason, they're not in love with you. Why does this happen? Because many of us are suffering, as I said earlier, from childhood wounds and it doesn't feel like love if it wasn't chaotic like in their childhood. This happens to avoidant attachment styles. This happens to anxious attachment styles. If you're not familiar with love attachment, I highly recommend checking out the books, checking out two books attached by Amir Levine and Rachel Heller and also the book Getting the Love You Want by Harbell Hendricks and Helen Hunt. By the way, all the books I recommend are in the description below. Why I'm talking about this and this is so critically important, understand why they couldn't fall in love with you is for some people, when they're in a healthy relationship, when they're in a secure relationship with someone, if it doesn't feel chaotic like what they were raised with in their childhood, if it wasn't either complete abandonment or there wasn't abuse or whatnot, then it doesn't feel like love when they're in a secure relationship and this means these people need some deeper healing in their life to actually be able to love someone. Now, what about those folks that fall out of love with someone? I do believe that happens. I think two people can grow apart because what so few couples do is enter into the process of dating from a conscious perspective, from an intentional perspective. See, dating today is just, and I've said this a hundred times, it's not a thousand times, dating is just a strung out version of friends with benefits. It's mostly based on the entertainment for two people. So they might, now, keep in mind, a man might think they fall in love with you because they're experiencing lust or limerence, but they never really did fall in love with you. That's just pseudo-artificial belief of love. But when someone falls out of love is because two people just didn't intentionally co-create something along the way. They weren't intentional in the process. I see this habitually with couples. They're unable to go deeper because they haven't really, now, what does it mean to co-create? This means having regular conversations about the relationship. Now, sadly, many of you ladies have duct tape over your mouth. You're afraid to speak your truth to a man. If you're not familiar with my book, what the heck is self-love anyway, a journey of personal development, self-help, and spiritual work? By the way, link below to get my book. Why I'm bringing this up is because chapter one says, speak your truth, deal with kindness. Ladies, so many of you think you're good communicators and yet you're terrible at communicating your needs and what happens is you're not actually in a co-creative relationship with another human being because I just want you to remember this. I want you to remember this, chapter nine in my book. If it's sincere and from the heart, you can't really say the wrong thing to the right person. So how do we heal from a relationship that's ended? Well, there's a bit of irony right now because I am going through this experience with you. If you didn't get a chance to watch my video yesterday, I shared publicly that my relationship with Marie has ended. She, I'll just be candid with you, she ended the relationship, it wasn't my choice. We had a very conscious uncoupling between the two of us. We practiced what my friend, Catherine Woodward talks about in her book, conscious uncoupling, five steps to living happily even after. I highly recommend getting Catherine's book. We had a very conscious uncoupling. Now, I shared in a little more detail what had happened, but I said earlier, when a person has childhood wounds and traumas and adult traumas, and they've gone unhealed in many cases, it's difficult for them to fully immerse themselves in another relationship. And when they're with a secure partner, that can actually feel suffocating to the other person. And for a variety of reasons, after a mutual conversation over this, we agreed that it was best to move on. Again, if you'd like to find out more about it, watch my video I posted yesterday in my live stream. So how have I healed from this? Or how am I healing from this? And this has happened in the last 30 days, everyone give or take. It's been about the last 30 days, three weeks. Well, one of the things I did, and I'm inviting everyone to do, is seek people that you care about for support and help. I reached out to all my friends, I reached out to my family members, and I reached out to my coach. I work with a coach. And in fact, I brought her on a few weeks ago in a video, Sabrina Rising. I'll bring her out on a video again, talking about this in a little bit more detail. But we worked, I worked through my issues, particularly in giving my power away. Now, thankfully in my relationship with Marie, I never gave my power away. And while I was attached to her, and I still am attached to her, and what I mean is, I genuinely care about her, I really wish her all the best, okay? But I never made my happiness fully predicated on whether or not she was loving on me, okay? And she didn't do the same. I think that's a healthy way of approaching relationship. It's almost a Buddhist way of approaching things. Now, I'm not suggesting being non-attached to a person. I think it's important to develop healthy attachments with people, but I didn't make my happiness predicated on whether or not she loved me. I think part of that was because I did a deep dive into loving myself well before I met her. Why did I write a book about self-love? Because this was an area in my own life that needed healing. And I'm gonna address some of the questions being posted in a moment. Everyone listed there. But so one is I sought the help of friends and a professional, first and foremost, okay? Certainly doing kind things for myself, self-care things is really important. Now, one of the challenges happens when we're in our head and we're ruminating over the other person. In other words, what could I have done differently? Why weren't they different? What could I have done differently? Why weren't they different? What could I have done differently? Why weren't they different? What could I have done differently? Why weren't they different? See, all those loops are just useless, useless tapes in our head. And what I mean by useless is all it does is predicate or not predicate. What's the word I'm thinking of? Cause more emotional tension within us. Now, sometimes you might need to do emotional release work. That might mean you just go to a pillow and start beating the crap out of the pillow just to release the energy. For some people, that's exercise. For some people, that's yoga to release the energy. That's a good start as well. Now, what I did immediately after we had a chance to uncouple with love, and I'm choosing to grieve this relationship with love instead of ruminating through suffering. Let me repeat that. I'm choosing to grieve this relationship with love instead of ruminate through suffering. Now, four important questions to ask yourself when a relationship ends. First, what positive things about myself did I learn in this experience? And let me just say, the year together was probably the best year of my life. I have no regrets. I'm so happy for all the things we did. She's really an amazing human being. And so am I. I'm an amazing human being too. I recognize that within myself. And just because she wasn't ready to go all in, okay? And as I shared before, she has really valid reasons why she can't go all in. And I talked about it more in the previous video. I'm here to say that she's a good person. I'm a good person. I invite you to look at the other person as a good person who did the best they could. And I know in our case, we did the best we could. So first, what positive things did I learn about myself? Number two, how have I healed from this relationship? How have you healed from this relationship? What healing has this relationship provided for you? Now, let me be clear. If you've been in a relationship of abuse, if you've been in a relationship of verbal or physical abuse, that's a completely different story. If you have to call a doctor, an attorney, or a policeman, that's a completely different necessity for healing that needs true professional help. I am not talking about those cases. I'm talking about garden variety endings of relationships. And certainly the longer you've been with someone, remember I said those early stages or the first year. The real tough part is when you've been with someone for three, five, 10, 15 years. See my suspicion for those relationships where it's been three, five or 15 years, I suspect that you might find that 80% of that time you haven't been happy. I want you to think about this for a moment. I see this so habitually and frequently. Person ends a relationship, they've been unhappy. Okay, so the party that's been ended upon, not the party you ended, the person that was the receiving end of the ending is angry and yet they weren't happy for a significant percentage of the relationship. Does that make sense to you? I mean, really? Does that make sense that you've been miserable for all these years and all of a sudden because they chose to move on, all of a sudden you want to fight for a relationship you're not happy about? So I invite yourself, how have you healed from this relationship? What healing has been offered for you? Now the next two questions you ask yourself are the same side of the coin. What was good about each relationship and what are you most grateful for? See, if you want to move past it, it's time to lean into gratitude because gratitude is a powerful force of love. Remember I said earlier, you can grieve through the rumination which creates suffering or you can grieve with love. And I'm here to invite grieving through love, grieving through love. What does that love look like? First and foremost, it's loving yourself. Now this doesn't mean manicures and pedicures, that's self-care and that's a form of self-love is taking good care of yourself and your physical sense. I'm talking about self-love in the emotional sense. And if you've ever crucified yourself making yourself out to be wrong, feeling shame, feeling anger, feeling resentment, all that does is create unnecessary suffering. You have the power within you. We all have the power within us to change our thoughts which will change our feelings. And lastly, if you genuinely love the other person then you want to wish them well. I genuinely love Marie, I want to wish her well. I know she needs to do this part of her life on her own. She couldn't do what she needed to do to heal herself in the container of a relationship. Not everybody can do that. Not everybody can do that. I had some more notes. So I just want to share with everyone now that I've dropped a bombshell for those of you that didn't see the video yesterday. By the way, if you did like what I shared so far please hit that like button. Please share this video. Please subscribe to my channel. I know I just dropped a bombshell. There were a lot of comments that came out of yesterday's video. I put together a list of comments because I know many of you have questions. And I think through the answering of these questions you might experience a sense of healing from all of this. My hope is that if you can look at how I'm processing this experience maybe I can be a bit of a role model for you or at least give you some backdrop, some context maybe even be a barometer to your own experiences. And I'm going to share that for a moment. And I want to share with you something. It was very, I was afraid of telling you all of this. You know, if a dating coach can't make his relationship work what I heard someone say what chance do I have? And it feels almost like an embarrassment. You know, I think of the surgeon who cuts out tumors and malignant tumors and cancers and does brain surgery and that sort of thing. You know, it takes a lot of experience to be a good surgeon. Takes a lot of experience to be a good surgeon. But you know what makes that surgeon a special surgeon is when they've experienced cancer for themselves. When they've gone through the experience of knowing the pain and the agony and the chemotherapy and all the requirements to know what their patients go through. I think that makes them a better doctor. Why I'm sharing this with you is I'm not here to suggest I'm the expert. I'm not here to suggest I'm the most evolved person in the life, believe me. I'm a mess. I've got my issues. I certainly, I'm grateful that I'm introspective and allows me to see my issues, but believe me, I have my issues. I've gone through a divorce. I had a significant relationship after my divorce. I've been in the dating marketplace. I've gone on what feels like thousands of meet and greets. It isn't that number, but it feels like that. I've been a player. I've been a serial dator. I've been a jackass. I've been unconscious. It's one of the reasons why I know men so well because I've been the guy many of you have dated and it wasn't until I had my own breakthrough and awakening that allowed me on a journey of personal development, self-help and spiritual work. And then I lost a child and all of this. Talk about breaking that open. I think because I lost Connor, and there's a picture of him right there with his brother, Colin, I think when you lose someone really special in your life that isn't a parent and you've experienced loss and you've gone through it, you've come out at the other end. I think that prepares you for most any loss. And I'm not suggesting I want to be tested, believe me, but I certainly believe that has helped me, especially since I immersed myself in the work of self-love. And then experiencing this relationship with Murray, I realize now that there was more lessons I needed in my own life to truly prepare me to genuinely partner with another human being. And I'm gonna talk about that in a few minutes as well. As much as I thought I was ready before I met her and I'd done all this work, there was still more individual work that needs to be done. And many of you are in the same boat. You've had multiple relationships. Some of you have had multiple relationships that have lasted over a year. And each experience has been a building block for you to either choose to love yourself in this process or sadly for many of you, it's taking you down the path of self-doubt, of loneliness and worse, despair. Sadly, many of you are swimming in a sea of despair. You're swimming in a sea of loneliness and you're swimming in a sea of self-doubt. And that has to be a miserable place to be. And I want to encourage everyone that you can dig out of the pit of despair. I was in it in 2005, lasting for five years. I was at a point in my life where I went to bed wishing I didn't wake up. And my divorce was a part of it. I lost my identity, all of those things. But you can dig your way out of the pit of despair. And if you need some support with that, reach out to me, schedule a discovery call to see if working with the coach is right for you. There's a link below. All right, I'm gonna take questions now. If you have a question for me, write the word question or post the question there after. Or you can purchase a Super Sticker Super Chat. All the monies from the Super Sticker Super Chat goes to a scholarship fund in the name of my son Connor Asley, when I shared with you before who passed away. In his honor, I donate to causes like the Hoffman Process Insight Institute and Seeds of Love. Also, if you'd like to join me on camera, I put the link there and I am gonna get to your questions about my breakup in a few minutes with everyone. So it looks like Jeanette's in the house. Let's see what she has to say. Jeanette. Hello. Is there a back? Hi. Hi. Is there an echo? No, there's no echo. Super. So my bottom line question for you, Mr. Asley. First of all, thank you. Can you speak up? Can you talk louder? Is this better? Yes, that's better. So my bottom line question, and thank you so much for your life work because we've all benefited from you. We appreciate your rawness. You're, you know, showing up for us. Okay. But could you possibly teach us how to become emotionally intimate without physical intimacy? How to become emotionally intimate. Okay, first and foremost, great questions, Jeanette. So first, you have to understand what emotional intimacy is before you can actually become emotionally intimate with someone. I continually recommend two books. One is called Emotional Intimacy by Robert Masters, okay? And then another book is The Language of Emotions. Understanding our emotions, what your feelings are trying to tell you. You know, it fascinates me because women believe that they hold the card, you know, the calling card to emotions. And while they tend to be a little bit more expressive emotionally, I find most human beings, men and women alike, don't even understand their basic emotions. They don't understand their basic feelings, sadness, joy, you know, the variety of different emotions. I mean, there's hundreds of different feelings, you know, centered around sadness and happiness that very few people really know how to tap into. So first, to become emotionally intimate, you have to know what your feelings are, okay? Now, how to do, build that in relationship? You start asking feeling questions. You start asking your partner about how they feel about things. You see, it's, now I know a lot of the coaches will tell you men are logical and they only operate from their logic centers and their thinking, but you know, men are emotional creatures too, and they just need to be invited in. And if you're met with resistance from a man to talk about emotions, that's a sign that they might be emotionally constipated, might be a sign that they're emotionally unavailable, it might be the sign that they're emotionally stunted, they might be emotionally blocked. But it is through the asking of feeling questions, can you begin to build some intimacy? Now, also intimacy is built through vulnerability. Brené Brown talks about vulnerability is takes a sense of courage. It requires being vulnerable with your partner and talking about things that might be a bit scary. And I highly recommend checking out these two books along with two other books. First off is learning nonviolent communication by Marshall Rosenberg, learning how to communicate compassionately. But then this is a great book called, I hear you, the surprisingly simple skills around extraordinary relationships. These are great tools to help build emotional intimacy with a partner. Thank you. Did that help, Jeanette? What I would love to see you do is to emulate for us how to go through a relation, you know, how to nail down a relationship without physical intimacy beforehand. Because as you can see- Well, I just shared with you, start with talking, start with asking questions, find out, you know, how did it feel growing up where you grew up? What was your childhood like? How did that feel? It's always ask a question, follow up with a feeling, ask a question, following up with a feeling question. That's how you build emotional intimacy. Is there a part of that you don't get? Oh, but it looks like you're stalled there. You there? Nope. It looks like you've stalled out. You know, Jeanette, thank you so much for your question. We really appreciate it. Looks like your camera got stalled. So I want to offer others to join in. If you have a question and you want to talk to me live, just hit this link, join me on camera. Let's see what we're at right now. And I hope everyone I answered Jeanette's question, folks, if you want to build emotional intimacy, it requires having deeper conversations, talking about someone's childhood, talking about their past experiences in relationship. Talk about how they feel about their professional life. Dig deeper with asking questions centered around feelings. That's how you build emotional intimacy with someone. So Jeanette, thank you so much for that. Linda says, Jonathan, so you're available. Marie just lost a great guy. How long do you plan to heal before meeting someone? You know, it's interesting. I'm going to share this publicly. So when we agreed that we weren't going to move forward that our relationship, for lack of a better word, ran its course, I did something that was so typical. And that was, I went on Bumble, the dating app. And I just started to look at the profiles and I started swiping for a little bit. And I realized this was like a desperate need for some attention, some validation. I didn't swipe on, I didn't swipe right on anyone. I had no intention of swiping right. But I realized that there is this almost drug-like effect to immediately when a relationship ends, to immediately go fill that whole, metaphorically speaking, with somebody else. I had that desperate need to do that. And the minute I was on the dating app, I felt repulsed. I was grossed out by it. So it occurs to me that when the logistics of our relationships are complete, which is gonna take a few months to unravel the logistics part of our relationship, I don't think I'm going to actively be dating. I don't think I'm going to try to date someone. I'd like to think that I'm going to use the law of attraction to manifest someone in my life. That's the way I kind of envisioned that happening and allowing the organics to put the right person in front of me. And I'm fortunate, I happen to have a public platform. I communicate with women all day long. So I'm in a position, unlike the average person that sits and works at home, I'm actually in a platform where I could connect with people and I'm gonna make every intent to go to events, particularly personal development, self-help and spiritual events on a more frequent basis so I can be seen by a single eligible person. But I will share with you, I mean, it was just so fascinating how quickly that desperate little kid inside of me wanted to go and immediately meet someone, because you wanna fill this space. And yet at the same time, I was repulsed by it. So it was just an interesting duality I was experiencing, Linda. So great question, thank you so much for that question. All right, if anyone wants to join me live, hit this link right here that I've just posted in the chat box. Let's see. Steph says, Jonathan, I like the way you remain very positive about the whole situation. You know, folks, you know, I think the reason why a person feels crushed is because they take it personally as if there's something wrong with you. There's nothing wrong with you, there's nothing wrong with me. Now, does that mean we don't have opportunities to grow past our limitations? Apps are fucking loopy. But the minute we make ourselves out to be wrong, we're shaming ourselves and shame is a very self-doubt creates loneliness and loneliness creates despair. And that's not a way to live. One of the things I began doing was I got, okay, I'll be candid with you. During my relationship with Mary, I got out of my regular practice of personal development, self-help and spiritual work. I had a daily practice before I met her and I kind of got caught up in the whole honeymoon phase of the relationship. And I abandoned my regular practice. The first thing I did when we agreed to move on was I got back into my practice of early morning meditation, of evening meditation, you know, reciting I am statements, I am grateful, I am blessed, I am handsome, you know, I am courageous, all of these I am statements, I am powerful, I experience abundance, you know, I'm doing these things to help reinforce the self-love that little kid inside of me that is scared and wishes, you know, there's a little kid inside of me that wants her back, but at the same time, the adult to me knows, you know what? This was a beautiful relationship, we got a lot out of it. And as much as I thought we were gonna go the distance and I was, you know, listen, I'm folks, I am proud of myself for something because so many of you ladies are experiencing men unwilling to go all in for really the first time in my life, I decided to go all in with someone and I think it's because I had a fear of taking care of someone. I really had a fear prior to meeting Marie of taking care of someone, what it meant. In my marriage, I took care of her, but it was in that, you know, that brainwash provider protector narrative and it was the biological narrative, but I didn't feel it in my bones and by my second significant relationship I was so wounded by that time I couldn't even take care of myself. And for the last half decade, I've been working on really shoring up my ability to take care of myself. And I, someone wrote that that's a narcissistic thing. I'm like, are you fucking crazy? There's no narcissism in that. And if there is, I'd like to hear that from a professional, but that desire to put someone else's needs at an equal level of your own. I didn't get there until I met Marie. That's one of the gifts I got from this experience. It's one of the things I learned about myself. It's one of those places I heal. In addition, I heal the dependency I have. I gotta tell you something. I'm a hopeful romantic, okay? And I think in that, I love the idea of love first and foremost. But secondly, like many of you, I was suckling on the nipple of I need someone to love me for me to feel good about myself. If I'm being really honest with you all, even prior to meeting her and as much work as I've done, I still had a propensity to give my power away to someone. And even though I'll be candid with you, I put her up on a little bit of a pedestal, not much. I would sometimes knock her off the pedestal on a regular basis to help keep me regulated. But I did put her a little bit up on a pedestal. What I meant to say, you know what that means, putting up on someone on a pedestal? I gave her all the love I could give that I've ever given to someone for the first time in my life, I did that. And I'm really proud of myself. I'm really proud of myself. You know, very few people get to really dive in and be a true giver. And I learned that for the first time in my life, what it meant to give as much as I could possibly give to another human being. And I'm so grateful for that. So why did I bring that up? It got me on a track there. I forgot what someone wrote. But anyway, I just wanted to share that with you. Some of the other, by the way, if you have a question, post a question or purchase a super sticker, super chat. Okay, Laura says, besides living together, what does all in mean? Great question. I've been really pondering this. You know, what some people said, did the two of you move in together too quickly? Okay, first and foremost folks, if you remember, this was a long distance dynamic. Okay, I'm against long distance relationships for a variety of reasons. And actually one of the reasons that ended our relationship is one of the reasons I'm against long distance relationship. She had no real sense of tribe or community here. And it put all the pressure on me being her tribe and community. And I couldn't fulfill that. You see, the problem is in today's society, we expect one person to fulfill all our needs, particularly of tribe and community. And when she realized that she has a real longing to go back to her roots, to Columbia and be with her significant family in Florida, she couldn't do that in the confines of the container of our committed relationship. And the only reason why I don't move to Florida folks is because my tribe and community is here. And that puts all the pressure on me, on her to fulfill my needs. And that's not gonna work folks. This is why I'm typically against long distance relationships. But you know what we said, if we're gonna do a long distance relationship, then we have proximity past, proximity creates continuity. And we agreed about, look at folks, we liked each other, we wanted to explore long-term relationship and we were having sex together. So now, if you're going, if you have those things, you like each other, you want to explore a deeper commitment and you're having sex together, then what's the big deal moving in together? Well, there's a lot of logistic big deals, okay? That's true. But guess what? You really don't know another human being until you live with them. And that's certainly a significant commitment. But it occurs to me, all in means putting your money where your mouth is, putting your money where your mouth is. You know, I was thinking about this morning about Pete Davidson and Ariana Grande. Do you guys remember him? I'm about four years, three or four years ago where he was in relationship with her and they got engaged right away. And everybody thought that was ridiculous. I loved it. Do you know why I loved it? An engagement says we are committed to exploring the idea of getting married together. You see, most people, they get engaged and they spend all their time planning a wedding. But the engagement is really the real test is are we really suitable partners with one another? Living together is another form of test to see if you're really suitable long-term partners with one another. But I think ultimately, just like when I had Rabbi Manus Friedman on, to me, all in is some strong agreement between two people that they're committed to supporting one another financially, emotionally and physically with one another. And it's an agreement. And maybe it has to be in front of a God. Maybe it has to be in front of your peers. Maybe it has to be in front of a just the peace, whatever that is for you. But that really illustrates all in. Because like Manus Friedman said, Rabbi Friedman said, anything less than marriage is a casual relationship. Think about this, folks. Most think, I don't know who's in a relationship right now, but if you don't have a commitment that's under the covenant of an agreement of long-term, if you're in a casual relationship, if you're in a casual relationship, a person can cheat and they're entitled to cheat. They're entitled to do data to other people because you're in a relationship that doesn't have the all-in components. And I guess the greatest all-in or the most significant all-in is marriage. At least that's just a perception. All right, thank you so much. Listen, Weijin is in the house. How are you doing, sweetheart? I'm doing well. Thank you for asking. How are you doing today? Good, thank you. Good to see you. I'm so happy to see you. Thank you so much for your inspiration and being so open and honest, sharing with us your latest news. I'm here because, one, I wanna send you a big giant bear hug. Thank you. A lot of loves. And then second of all, I am here for a question. So my question is that how would you suggest to me to find a delicate, healthy balance between my routine because I think a while ago, I shared with you that I got married. Yes, I know. By the way, who was your coach? You. How do I tell everyone who is your coach and what happened? You got married? Yes, yes, you're my coach. I studied with you 24 seven every day and my higher power is my coach. And last week, I also had a free consultation with Sabrina, who is your coach. Yeah, I'm happy to hear that. Yeah, so this is how committed I am to myself for many years, for the last couple of years. And... So now what was your question you started to say and I interrupted you? Oh, yes. You were talking about your routine. Yes, my routine. So my routine is, I meditate every day and I have been doing this for years and I'm such a morning person and I go to the meeting, I read books. I'm just a big learner for personal and spiritual development. That's just me. My question is, how can I balance, find that delicate and healthy balance between spending time with my partner, doing the things that he wants and to take care of myself at the same time? I know that in the beginning of our marriage and the dating stage, I do, I can see and then recognize that I do have that a temptation that I want to abandon my ritual, my self-development, the things that I've been doing it because of, as you said, the chemistry, the dopamine, those kind of things. It's very exciting. And so I wanna know that, do you have any suggestions? How can I find that balance between... Well, okay, so let me jump in. So I think first and foremost is identifying what your personal development practice is, what your self-help practice, your spiritual practice. First, identify what that is to you. For me, it's an hour in the morning, meditation, it's listening to spiritual podcasts, that sort of thing. So that's one part of my ritual. The other part is in the evening, I spend about 15 minutes listening to a meditation before I go to bed, okay? So those are two things I do. Now, I'll be candid with you. I abandoned that in my relationship. I'm not proud of myself, but I was in such la-la land and this is a very typical thing. It's called the honeymoon period for a reason. And so first is identifying it. Next, sharing with your partner what is your practice, okay? And sharing with them how this is important to you and how this time is really important to you, okay? And make a request that I'm gonna take a carve out a little bit of time throughout the day or the week, whatever that is. I think in addition, I think it's really healthy to adopt a mutual practice with your partner. Right. Now, I am guilty of not doing what I'm about to share, but I believe that there's a value to going to church. Now, I don't mean literal religious church. What I mean to suggest is actually taking one day out of the week for one hour and mutually listening to some sort of personal development, self-help spiritual work. Roughly what I'm saying is you might wanna listen to a podcast together. That could be anywhere from 15 to 30 minutes and then mutually discuss what it meant to each other. See, this to me is what church is. You have a sermon where a preacher, a pastor shares some wisdom and then later in the afternoon, ideally you're going out with your community, your tribe and you're talking about the wisdom that was just shared. And I would offer incorporating church for the two of you once a week. Now in the case of Marie and I, we did this once a month. We did something called camping where we explored our relationship every month, but it wasn't enough. And I'm be candid with you now as I look back. It was certainly a great experience but I really want to encourage everyone to begin a week to have their daily practice for themselves but also a weekly practice with their partner. Now the question becomes, what if your partner resists this, right? For some listening, I'd love to do this with my partner. I think it's important to express how important it is for your wellbeing that you do this church together and you make a request. Now if your partner is giving you, and I know this isn't the case for you, Weijin, but if your partner is giving you resistance, you have to ask yourself, is this person going to be someone you can really grow with? Because if someone is resistant for a co-creative experience, it makes it difficult to dive into deeper intimacy with that person. Right. Does that help? Yes, that's very helpful. I follow each steps that you taught us. I gave out my dating vow and he followed me from here to Asia and I request to read eight days while we were dating and, you know, until, you know, still at the stage after we got married, we read eight days once a week during our leave walk, during, you know, every Sunday we go out for a walk and then we will read eight days. One chapter. By the way, the next book you should get is the Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work by John Gottman. Yes, and we see, you know, couple of therapists together just to have a boost. But I would say that, you know, I do have my own issues too. I'm a recovered codependent and I still have a lot of childhood traumas that I'm still working on myself. Yeah, so, you know, I'm not, I don't say that. Did my suggestion, did my suggestion help for you? Yes, absolutely. I just wanna, you know, yeah, I just wanna clarify, you know, how can I find that nice balance because dating and then coupling and the marriage, these are still different two things. And, you know, I'm, you know, I'm married. Well, again, so to find balance in your life requires first, you know, asking yourself, you know, what does balance look like for me first and foremost? And as I said, getting clarity on what your needs are, and sharing it with your partner because this might be, you know, it might impinge upon his time with you. So it, you know, it's important to have this conversation. And then if there's mutual agreement, then you go about your practice and you're getting your practice, you're getting your needs met with your partner. Yeah. I think it's also important to have, you know, some alone time. You know, my parents who were married 66 years before my mother passed away, they had their own alone time. And I think that's critically important as well. I would probably say one of the deficiencies in my relationship was we had too much a meshment. That probably in retrospect, because I was in the honeymoon phase, I didn't see that too much a meshment isn't healthy either. So it's important. And it's part of the reason why she felt suffocated because she needs to be with her tribe to feel her, that was important for her to be with her tribe with her culture, with her community that she couldn't find here. And so relationships are just simply in your case, relationships are a portal for healing in many cases. And then there's those of you that go, I'm gonna get married, I'm all in, we're gonna see where this takes us as a we. And not everybody reaches there. But to find that balance for yourself, first ask yourself, what do you I need? And then bring it up with my partner. Is that okay, Weijin? Yes, absolutely, this has been very helpful. Thank you so much for being on, can I give you, and by the way, congratulations everybody, my client, she got married, my work does work. If you need some support, there's a link to a discovery call to see if working with the coach is right for you. Weijin, sending you off with a big gigantic chocolate and bear hug. Likewise, thank you so much. Thanks so much, I receive it, bye now. By the way, I wanna give props to Weijin, but I also wanna thank Paige. She says, thank you so much for having shared your relationship and speaking so gracefully about your breakup. You've always been so respectful of Marie from start to end and I appreciate that. Folks, I will most likely invite Marie on towards the end of this month to share her perspective on all this, if that's something you would like me to do. So please let me know. All right, if you'd like to jump on like Weijin just did, hit that link right there. Let's see what else we've got here. Sylvia says, Jonathan, please don't be embarrassed. You are human, dating coach or not, we all hurt the same. I do believe this is actually making me a better coach. This allows me to, Sharon wants to thank, congratulate Weijin. I really do believe this has given me an opportunity to really get a better sense of what my clients go through. Not that I haven't been here before, but I think what I can teach is from that place of loving yourself, how to heal after a significant relationship end. And just like my client, Weijin, how to attract a marriage proposal around the corner. Robin says, sorry to hear about your breakup with Marie. She is so beautiful. You two seem so happy. I can't believe it's over. You know, I wanna criticize somebody who made a comment that I was only interested in her because of her looks. And that is rather insulting. That really is insulting. And it's insulting for a couple of reasons because, you know, women who are attractive, there's this perception of them that they have no value, that their value is based on their looks. So they are less than because they're attractive. Then there's this other perception that because someone is attractive, we overvalue people with looks as if they are someone to be revered. And I think we all know what happened to Johnny Depp and Amber Heard, you know? Poor Amber Heard. She gets thrown under the bus, but I think it's partly her own doing. But with that said, I'm really insulted that someone would suggest that I was only interested in her by looks. Certainly I'm a red-blooded guy, okay? Yeah, she's hot. And I complimented her immensely because I'm very attracted to her. I was grateful, you know? But it wasn't because of her looks that caused me, listen, I've dated former supermodels in my lifetime. I've dated actresses. I've dated a lot of different, what is perceived to be beautiful women. And most of them couldn't hold a candle to the quality of a human being that Marie has. So I find it very insulting for anyone to suggest that I was only in with her for looks. Anyway, hey Sharon, thank you so much for the big hug and the $13.99 Super Sticker. I really appreciate that. Let's see what else we've got here. Sandra wants to say, I definitely support your decision not to pursue dating per se. Take time to process this chapter in your life. Breathe, relax. I promise you'll discover love again and you're surrounded by love. Thank you so much. I appreciate that. Let's keep going. Page rights, question. In my mid-40s, never been married, no child. My job, school and traveling have been my priority. Men ask me why I've not been married. How do I answer them without sounding desperate? You know what? Why are you asking the question? Might be a question you're asking. Why are you asking? You know, the person might say, well, you seem really attractive, you got it all together. Just say marriage is a significant commitment with another human being. And while I've dated multiple different men in my life, very few men, very few men were, some men I was into and they weren't into me, some men were into me and I weren't into them. But none of them did I feel the desire to go all in with them because I had a propensity of choosing men who were not capable of all in commitment. So that's the reason why. Are you suggesting something's wrong with me? That would be, I would just be curious to offer that as a question. And by the way, you've been married, so you asked the person who's divorced, you've been married before. What makes you so qualified to being good at a relationship? See, folks, everybody's been divorced. Our failures, I'm sorry to say. Okay, now I don't believe they're failures but they're no better at commitment. So why is that revered over the person who's never been married? That's just my way of looking at it paid. So I hope that helps. Thanks so much. Jane says, I'm ready to go raid the nursing home of widowed men. Yes, there are plenty of widowed men at nursing homes. Let's keep going here. Crystal says, Ouijaan, if you feel uncomfortable taking time for yourself, that is growth for someone with abandonment trauma. Maybe instead of looking for balance, how to look to give yourself grace for those needs. Very good point. That's a very good point. As I said earlier, you have to find what enriches your soul most importantly and give yourself that. See, that's the, I don't know if it's about balance. I think in relationship, I understand the question because you wanna balance your need for growth in the container of a relationship. And that's why I suggest bringing it up with your partner. But I think Crystal makes a great point. Hey, I wanna thank Nancy for the $3 super sticker. I really appreciate that. And then Sharon's $13.99 super sticker. Hey folks, I would love to donate $100 today to one of those charities. If you could purchase a super sticker, super chat, let's get a fun going. Listen, this is, and for every dollar that's collected, I'm gonna match it. If you'd give me some grace because I've gone through a breakup, I'll ask Marie to match it as well. Let's see if she's willing to offer to contribute as well to show our appreciation, our love and support for you. I'm still in contact with Marie. I told her all about yesterday's video. I shared with her about today. So she's still a part of this process until we completely unravel the tapestry of our relationship. Hey, we just gave us a $2 super stickers. Thank you so much. You know, folks, here's some questions that came up. I'm gonna spare the, share the last 10 minutes bringing up some of the questions that came up regarding the breakup. Let's see if this resonates with you. One of the gifts I got in this relationship was the gift of authenticity. Our relationship created a space to be the, I was really the closest thing to my true self with my partner. I wasn't wearing a mask. I mean, there were some parts of me I was holding back but I'm so grateful that this container of a relationship allowed me to be as authentic as I've ever been in my life. That's a gift. Next, I mentioned before I put her up on a pedestal. I merely loved her in the most sincere sense without giving my power away. If that's putting someone on a pedestal, so be it. And I think she loved me the best she could. I really do believe she loved me the best she could. I think prior to meet her, you know, COVID, I was coming, we're all coming off of COVID. I was feeling lonely. I was still feeling a lack of self-worth. I was feeling a lack of self-worth. And I think there was a part of me that still wanted to be rescued. So the fact that Marie wanted to be with me, my little kid felt a little rescued and I have to own that piece. And as I reflect back, that was certainly a part of what was going on in the beginning stage of our relationship. I wanna thank Natty for the $20 Super Sticker. Thank you so much, folks. So let's get up to $100 today. We're already at $35, okay? Someone asked, did you see it coming? You know what? I don't mean to throw Marie under the bus, but this is something critically important I wanna share with everyone. She was reluctant to get remarried. That's a red flag. As I reflect back now, now she had valid reasons which I support. But now that I think about it for all of you that are out there dating, I really do believe, unless someone really wants to get remarried or married, I think we're rolling the dice with that person because we have to get to the root of why. And quite frankly, I don't think there's a valid why. I think there's a lot of fear behind the why. There's a lot of fear behind the why. But that fear, you can't overcome that person's fear for them. So I'm gonna say, and I shared with her, I was gonna talk about this with everyone. By the way, I've spoken to her about what I've talked about. I have her permission to talk about this, but that was something I know that I wanna get remarried. Why is this critically important? I'm here to say one of the first questions to ask someone, do you wanna get remarried or married? And do you love the institution of marriage? Do you love the institution of partnership? And what does that look like for you? By the way, I wanna thank Crystal for the $5 Super Sticker and Ether Esther for the $7 Super Sticker. I really appreciate that. All right, but did I see this coming? No, but it, you know what? But when she brought it up, I also accepted it. I accepted it because I knew in deep down in my soul that there was something missing in our relationship. Some of you commented that you saw it in our videos, but there was something missing. There was a lot of good in our relationship. There was a lot of good, but there was also something missing at the core. That's why it was easier for me to accept this because I'm not holding out on some fantasy. I'm holding out on some fantasy that many people do when they're attached to someone because they've given their power away. Thank you, Shannon, for that. Do you regret or believe sharing your relationship journey publicly? Do you regret as that a mistake? No, I felt like it's kind of part of my personality. A lot of you criticize that, but I had permission with Marie to share it publicly. I didn't twist her arm to be on videos. I had her permission to do this. We jointly did it together. We had a lot of Sean fun sharing the videos together. So I have no regrets for that. Not because I wanted to be a role model per se. I just wanted to offer some perspective. That's all I do. Folks, I merely offer perspective on how to approach this thing called dating, mating, or relating. I'm not here to say I'm right or wrong. I mean, I'm grateful that my clients are getting married like we Jen or I just got a text. I got so many texts from clients when they heard the news about Marie and they're all in happy relationships. So I'm really excited about that. I really am blessed to get to do what I do for a living and part of that is I share my life publicly, not all the deepest darkest secrets with you guys. You guys don't know my deepest darkest secrets. I just share with you what I feel might be a benefit to the masses. Alexa says, I love the institution of marriage, exactly big hugs. What would you have done differently? You know what? I wouldn't do anything differently because it was such a great year. If I did something differently, I probably never would have got as far as it did but I'm okay with that because I don't take this personally. Why don't you move to Florida? I shared with you folks earlier. I'd be leaving my tribe and then putting all the pressure on her to support all my needs and that I wouldn't wanna do to her. Why did I go on the dating apps? I shared with you because I was feeling lonely. I was feeling this whole inside of myself and I'm not proud of it but you know what? I'm being honest with you. Yeah, I'm not ready to date. I have no interest in dating anyone. Would I love to meet someone organically and build something organically? Apps of fucking Lutely. When is that gonna happen? When God universe spirit feels like it's the right time. God universe spirit. You know exactly what's in store for me and I'm just grateful and I'm just allowing myself to be totally open to all the possibilities that happen to just simply be open. What are the questions? Was moving in together a mistake or done too early? No. The only way we were gonna make this relationship work given the distance was to move in together. You mentioned a fear of caring for someone in dependency. Can you elaborate on that? I shared with you earlier. You know after my divorce, that really, I had a real, we had a very unamicable parting between the two of us. We are very amicable with each other right now. But I was really angry for a long period of time and I was really angry at women because I felt unappreciated. I felt in the dating process, assume this is how I felt. I'm not saying this is a truth. I'm just saying this how I felt. I felt so unappreciated even just taking a girl out to dinner because it was expected of me. I really do resent the expectation. It takes away from the generosity and I love being generous but if it's expected of me, it's rather, and then because it was expected of me and I had significantly, I got wiped out in the market crash of 2008, I really didn't feel like I could take care of someone. And I've spent the last decade rebuilding myself and a lot of men find themselves in this position either after COVID or prior to COVID like what happened to me. So I believe in partnership and co-creating both mutually and financially together. So anyway, that's just something I wanna share with you. I did prior to meeting Marie, I did feel like probably I needed to be rescued. I think I still was subscribing to I need someone to love me to feel good about myself and I healed that through my relationship with Marie and I do wanna share something. I've read hundreds and hundreds of comments over the past six months, thanking me for including Marie and they stated how her contribution helped while Marie originally felt a little uncomfortable after a few videos, she truly enjoyed participating and let me add her wisdom was invaluable. I am so grateful that I included her in my videos because she was a real asset to everyone and I hope you feel the same way. Some people, oh, I already talked about the looks thing. So those were just some of the comments that came through the post or through the video that I posted yesterday. Rose, thank you for the $10 super sticker. We're almost halfway there now. Kim has a question. How or what did she say to bring up the decision to part ways? Well, some of that is personal. I brought it up because I could tell after her last trip to Columbia, I said, you're not happy living here. And that opened the door to having the conversation that she really is missing tribe, she's missing community and she really misses her culture. And that's something that she needs to fulfill for herself right now in her life is to connect with her tribe, her community and her culture. And she couldn't do it here in Los Angeles and she couldn't do it in the container of a romantic relationship because it wouldn't be fair to me for her to be in that space. So, so that's a question. Ah, let's see what else we've got. Let's see. One of our Facebook group menders, my group called Midlife Love Mastery, there's a link below. I appreciate Marie's insight and wisdom. I did too. Let's see. Let's see, there's a conversation. Oh, here's a question from Jono. Do you think someone who's in midlife and has never been married and has no children can be successful with someone who has been married and has children? Yeah, I actually have a dear friend of mine. She met her husband a decade ago when she was in her late 40s. He was in his, no. She was in her early 40s. He was in his early 50s. She had three children. He had never been married and no children and they eventually fell in love and they got married. So yes, I believe that's possible. Are there challenges? Absolutely. You have to be prepared to recognize there might be some challenges with those folks. Can they really accept someone else's children? It takes a rare man to accept someone else's children. So, and somebody who has to make their children a priority. So that's a great question, Jono. I really appreciate it. Abbas says, I never saw it coming. We went to dinner dancing with friends, told me to get passport, taking me to Europe, had lunch the next day, got fitted for a bike and then poof. I would have to believe that there were clues and signs and someone who does it that abruptly, I would be shocked that there wasn't some clues and signs along the way. I'd be shocked, but that's not improbable. Sometimes a person sometimes snaps and they make a rash decision because they're not really ready to fully commit with someone. Even though they act like it, they butt up against their higher limit and then they have to, they literally, when someone does that quickly, it's because they feel trapped and they have to escape. My suspicion is that's what was possibly going on for him in that case, Abbas. So thank you so much for that question. Here's a question. Why would a man leave a woman after 30 years or living with her 30 years and now he's getting married to somebody else? Sadly, people fall out of love. Relationships become complacent and stale. I talked to a dear friend of mine, she was married for 15 years. She said the last 10 years of her marriage got stale and she asked for a divorce. Sometimes people just Netflix and binge and they stop, they stop the romance that kept the flames going at cease and they become good friends. And sometimes people feel like they need to go elsewhere to find that excitement. So sorry about that, Julie. Esther wants to say, I felt Marie came across very authentic, beautiful and wise, you know, Marie and I had our differences, okay? And certainly she felt sometimes uncomfortable because I'm the person that this is my profession. But at the same time, she had her own wisdom and I would appreciate Esther that you recognize that. So thank you so much. And Grace agrees with you, so thank you so much. Margaret says, I feel Marie was a real assist on your videos, I think you meant assets. So thank you so much. McCoy says, I have guys who have kids my age or younger. There are a lot out there, there too without kids. My new guy friend has never been married and no kids. See, there are plenty of guys like that out there. Folks, did this video today have value to you? Was I able to share a bit about my healing process and my suggestions on how to heal when someone wants to move on and you feel crushed? Let me just say this. Learning how not to take things personally is probably one of the hardest things to do and at the same time. The most important thing to do. The most important work you do in your life is to love yourself and when we can learn not to give our power away to another human being and just merely look at it as an experience, be grateful for the experience and recognize that this thing called life is just a lot of experiences. Because at the end of the day, even the couples have been married the longest, someone dies and the other person might live years or decades. And so just remember, no very few relationships end or die, very few couples die at the very same moment, okay? All right, I hope you found value in this. Maria says, very authentic and generous that you do a live chat. Well, thank you so much. I appreciate that. I'm wishing Marie blessings. I will send that message to her. Ardly says, Jonathan, my goodness, you are awesome, Jonathan, that's amazing. Thanks for sharing your wisdom. I'm glad that you're using your platform to help us heal as well as heal yourself. Thank you so much. Cece wants to add. Yes, definitely thanks for sharing your wisdom. I appreciate that. Well folks, I think this will be a great place to wrap up today. I'm gonna wrap up as I always do. First off, give myself a big gigantic Jonathan Merrick of self love. I'm gonna reach into the camera and give you a hug of love if that's okay. I'm gonna ask you to turn to someone, a pet, a teddy bear pillow, and give Iter them a hug of love because hugs are a great source of love. And let's face it, we could all use more love in our lives. I wanna thank Holly Z and Jane and Evelyn and Leslie and Heidi and Cece and McCoy and Robin and Ardly and Jane O and Sherry and Esther and Maria and Mara Entertainment and AvisGirl and Paige and Rose. Everyone, thank you so much. Wishing you a fab day. Be well, bye now.