It’s not them it’s you

Join Tamara and Sheena as they talk about when relationships fail it’s not them, it’s you – well, sort of. What we mean is that going into a relationship as a whole person is the best way to have a happy one.

Episode: 3 of 12 of the Relationship Season

In this episode:

• What it means to actually be a ‘whole person’
• Why it’s important to be a ‘whole person’ before getting into a relationship
• How do you know if you are a whole person
• How you can be whole and still be figuring yourself out
• How to become a whole person
• The four questions you can ask yourself to help you gain self awareness
• What you can physically do right now to become happier with yourself
• Why appreciation is vital

Listen to this episode here

Les Talk About It Series: Relationships

Relationships are important for humans. We need them to survive, never mind thrive. In this series we delve into relationships and break down some statistics and realities because, let’s face it, most us just muddle through and don’t necessarily have the skillset to rally make a relationship work.

Transcript

please note this transcript has not been edited and is automatically generated meaning certain words will be incorrect

welcome to les talk about it I’m Sheena and I’m Tamara and today we’re talking about something that’s more research so today we’re talking about being whole and how important it is to find yourself before getting into a relationship are we talking GPS navigation of emotional stuff here completely so get out your Apple Maps your Google Maps and get ready to find yourself is Apple Maps still a thing yes it’s what you use on your iPhone then use TomTom 99 look at all of them it’s Apple Maps I’m telling you I’m Tom go look at the thing it is TomTom on it maybe the Apple Maps ok this really doesn’t matter all right so we’re talking about this whole concept of being whole so I take it as this is you know when somebody says to you oh I feel unhappy because I’m not in a relationship I need somebody to complete me yes I want the only way I’m going to be happy if I find my perfect so sir yes yeah so all of this well everything you’ve just did fall into us really beautifully okay so there’s this thought that I am that some people have that when they’re looking for someone they’re looking for someone to complete them they’re looking for their better half the other half they want someone that’s they’re young to their young right right okay the truth is that another person shouldn’t complete you you should be a whole person the natural person should be a whole person and together you should complement each other you shouldn’t be looking for someone to complete you so if you have emotional work to do okay it’s not fair to expect somebody else to do that emotional work for you exactly so if you’re someone who knows that you get anxious a lot or depressed or whatever it is you need someone who is able to support you but you shouldn’t look for someone that’s going to carry all the weight in those areas in relationship you should be working on those things and not getting over them but like working to live within beta maybe okay and I can totally understand that I am of the belief that a relationship is more of two people getting together and complimenting each other is actually beautiful way of looking at because just think about it this way like if you are not able to be in a relationship with yourself if you’re not able to be in a good relationship with yourself specifically how do you speed someone else to be in relationship with you that’s all grand and dandy except for the fact that can anybody say that they’re actually like sorted out human beings no no I can say they’re sorted out human being I mean who has actually reached that level of enlightenment I think Fodor is the time you reach their level of enlightenment you die and that’s lifespan so it’s sort of what point then like how do you know that you’re ready for a relationship are we going to go into that yeah well then kind of go into it I mean I don’t think there’s a hard and fast rule that hey if you’re at 60% in relationship if you’re at 30 don’t because who knows what that is I mean there’s no hard and fast rules but if you find that you’re in go from relationship to relationship to relationship and you just can’t keep them for a period of time or that there’s always the same kind of stuff that in your relationship then it’s probably some self work that needs to be done I suppose a good simple sort of litmus test if you like would be can you be by yourself exactly if you can’t be by yourself then you’re not ready to be with someone else because some one answer shouldn’t be taking on that burden people are not there to solve your problem no they’re not your crutch they’re your supporter so may people – right and if you think about the impact of being in a relationship because you want to be whole or you want to be fixed or whatever it is imagine that you both have there see exactly how broken is that whole thing just doomed to me from the beginning I was chatting to someone and they were saying that their cousin is always she can’t find someone to be in a relationship with and outwardly she should be in a relationship she’s beautiful she’s highly successful she earns a lot of money she’s educated yet she can’t find a relationship but the problem with her in specific is that you’ve got a whole list of unreasonable things that this person means to meet to be in a relationship with her they mess up a certain way they must have a certain degree they must like there’s a whole list and the thing is if you need to have a list like that then there’s an issue they from what you’re saying it seems like the expectation on the partner to be some kind of superhero exactly is unreasonable it is and in any way whether it’s simple things like locks or jobs or if it’s more complicated things like you want someone to be your support system without giving back what can you bring to the table exactly a relationship is a partnership analogy whether you like it we don’t like that’s what it is it shouldn’t be one directional leave that to the boys and their music so let’s talk of them just briefly about what a healthy relationship should look like from two people’s perspectives right yeah so you would want to be in a relationship so that you can forge through life together yes partners as compasses you know that we engage so someone so people who are know successful relationships they know what they like for themselves but they’re also imperfecta kidnapped to know what the other likes so you don’t need to both like the exact same things if you if one much watching rugby on a Saturday the other one doesn’t have to like watching like B but the one who doesn’t like watching read we must understand that the rugby watching the person is going to watch rugby s and that’s something is fulfilling for the M&S; fill their bucket and the other person can use their time to either be with that person because they know that they enjoy the company and be okay with it all go do something that’s fulfilling to them okay and both people should be okay with that it shouldn’t be like oh my god you don’t support me abut what you wrote me with me so it’s not really a compromise but it’s understanding that you both have things that you like you’re both humans with distinct personalities and sometimes you will share those things sometimes you weren’t and sometimes you’ll support each other even with things that you don’t necessarily enjoy because you know it’ll make the other person happy but this also comes with being a whole human yes so you into a relationship and you like watching rugby you don’t expect the other person to follow you and always watch rugby but it’s nice when they do sometimes but also you don’t drop the fact that you love watching rope because the other person doesn’t exactly oh it’s not a thing of like okay so now for every Saturday for eternity we’re going to watch rugby or every time we do something we’re going to watch rugby and we’re going to go I don’t know camping and do cooking courses because this is what this one person likes and the other person liver is able to explore this stuff right but if you both come in with being whole yes and I say that you know as tall as you can be here right as happy as you can be with yourself as an individual you also come in knowing that you’re going to have differences of opinions or certain things but as long as you have a baseline that’s that is similar enough and I think ethics and Daniel and and values and general kind of outlook on life important things like how to raise children there are really important things to have in court yes you need to have commonalities and when you don’t have commonalities have enough each you to be able to support the other person even if it’s not something you see so you get people who have different religious belief systems get there in relationships right because despite that they’re able to like support that person and that belief system without having to be in at themselves and they’re not saying that that person is wrong and they’re not saying that they’re wrong they just were both different people with different points of view but that okay so it’s like you and I with this book yes a very fundamental belief system it is alright I spend a lot of my time doing stuff revolving around lesbian fiction mmm-hmm and promoting it and all that sort of stuff and you hardly read it yes and I support you in it and I will read some of it every now and then but it’s not my go-to when I’m looking for something to read I don’t need a lesbian element in a book to enjoy it and but I really do and that’s okay and so for me it’s a really important thing in my life but you give me enough support that I feel like you understand me and you’re willing to to you know compete listen to my discussions about it yeah then like you know I supported you in helping you to ice the lose on time maybe so it wasn’t like you know oh my god news Ben fiction is like boring to me why do you even like that yeah it was like you enjoy it let’s find a way for you to enjoy it more but this exactly is and I know that you prefer certain types of mainstream reads and so I absolutely support you in whatever you want to read this and I’ll discuss your books with you and I’ll even them get mainstream audiobooks that you can listen to you exactly so there’s a little bit of a commonality there but the way we enjoy it is different but we can still support each other in that but that’s also part of being the whole person because I’m not going to give up this book and you’re not going to give up and you know who try try to like just be a list forever it’s just yes okay so we’ve been discussing the theory of what nothing a whole person is but how do you know whether you’re a whole person or not that’s a good question what you need to remember is that it’s okay to still be figuring yourself out whether you’re a 16 or 60 it’s okay there’s no normal there’s no like oh my god if you haven’t got your life figured out by the time you’re 25 you should just like I don’t know get a bunch of cats and live in a cave I think I’ve done more figuring out of myself in the last four years than I did in the first city to use so it’s like an ongoing process and you’ll probably find that as you age you shift and who you were at 20 is definitely who you are at 32 to who you’re going to be at 40 years absolutely no it’s going to change but the thing the best you can do is try to figure out who you are in this moment so again and or who you want to be I mean I think that’s a very important thing to know as well because if you’re not happy with yourself right now and you can identify what it is you know what you want to work towards and it could be something as simple as a career in education but it could be internal stuff like you don’t feel comfortable in your own skin hmm well the thing is it’s okay to feel lost and it’s okay to feel incomplete and we need to get comfortable with those feelings because getting comfortable with that is what allows you to move forward and to actually discover yourself people who feel lost and incomplete and just rage against that’s those are the people that are looking for somebody to follow yes think about being a teenager teenagers are a great example of this you raise you just like Who am I and where am I going why doesn’t anyone understand me that can be a person in the twenties thirties forties where votes true but instead of actually sitting down and trying to move forward and through after you actually are and that the rest of the world isn’t the issue you’re just not happy with you it’s the same cycle over and over again so it’s almost like to be a whole person you need to be self-aware not necessarily fix peace exactly okay okay because no one’s going to be fixed ever because absolute that is where humans were not robots you know so how do you figure yourself out what do you do to find yourself okay so you can ask yourself a few questions so whether you’re long term and short term goals okay and this particularly comes important especially if in a relationship if you’re you know very self sure but think about goals when you’re with someone else and if you know align thee I mean that’s going to create a lot of conflict so if you know what your short-term goals are and your long-term goals are before you get into relationship or you kind of understand vaguely what they are it helps with being more stable relationship because you can find someone who shares that okay so for example if my short-term goal was to travel the world right and your short-term goal was to climb the corporate ladder those two are not something it works well together because you’re going to want to be focused you want to save money you want to be at work you know as many hours a day well I want to be sitting around this is so could be something like studying whether that long or short-term whatever it is with you so if you don’t understand your life goals whether it’s for now or for the future you’re not gonna be able to find a person that you’re compatible with so I mean you can see the third source of self-awareness know the other salute all of this is about self-awareness and I mean I think a lot of time people fight a fast that internal thing I mean sometimes I think you know deep inside what you weren’t and especially people who are LGBT I feel that they know but they fight against it so it’s true I spent a lot of time fighting against my sexual orientation so I mean if you’re constantly fighting who you are like how can you ever be happy because you’re listening blow the sense of self-loathing or something yeah yeah okay do you feel content with the most important areas in your life so whatever it’s important to use your health your career your training your family are you happy with those things like so you ask yourself this question because this is all about getting to know yourself okay and you guys should be honest okay I’m not happy with my family for example because they don’t reach out to me look at the different areas in your life and I mean there can be other things to this and these are just some examples once again it’s more about self awareness than anything else so you can be a whole person or a a self-aware person okay but not have the best relationship shot not be on track towards your life’s goals not be whatever but still be in a happy relationship but because you are self-aware that this is where you want to go yes again no one’s going to be perfect at everything in life all the time I mean things shift and change I mean people who do loving chaos basically come once you reach equilibrium something’s going to happen like that’s just the way life is and as you don’t have to beat equilibrium here it’s true but if you have a handle on what you want and what you need which i think is important you are more likely to have a general contentedness with yourself you can also be straight up front with your potential partners in if a last goldmine was moving to the coast because we turned ill of inland and we had just met that’s something which would affect you too yes it’s a big thing it is Rick or we’ve been a relationship for ten years and all the sudden you’re like actually I want to learn them on the coast I’m standing the house and I’m just like wait up flap what’s in the world right now this is where good communication comes in but we’ll discuss that I’m sure at some other point okay so and I think something to remember is that even if you know yourself and yourself away and you’re basically a whole person you can still feel unhappy sometimes in nothing or often but this is the difference the trick from what I can tell from what you’re saying is that you’re not relying on somebody else to fix your problem pretty much like you’re not going to be living the Disneyland life forever usually it’s gonna be absolutely downed but generally there’s happiness okay another thing to ask yourself is do you feel confident in yourself and your abilities okay so and I think this is such a major one especially for people who are not happy with themselves confidence and abilities are think huge things and if you’re in relationship and you feel that the other person is better at you and in different things it’s going to be difficult or if you’re lucky enough to be in a relationship with someone who’s contemptuous as we’ve discussed in the previous episode you won’t have the self-confidence to be able to leave being confident is important as well as knowing what your abilities are and also being able to identify okay I suck at cooking and I would love to be able to cook a three-course meal okay what are you doing about it the last one that you need to ask yourself is what makes you happy do you know I know if I’ve had points in my life where I don’t know what makes me happy mark I wouldn’t have been able to tell you and then there’s other times when I would be able to tell you so are you able to articulate with what makes you happy all of this is really just bad self-aware yes it’s about understanding your needs it’s about understanding of emotional space it’s about understanding where you want to go with your life and then from there you can articulate it to your partner you can go later yourself because I mean just imagine you’re not happy and you’re caught and you don’t know why you’re not happy but now you’re expecting someone else to make you happy but there’s all these things that need B and this other person is doing their own inner work and I think something important to address here is that if you’re not content in your life being in a relationship is not going to make it better it’s probably going to magnify the problem and if you’re ready in a relationship taking that relationship to a new level whether it’s moving in or getting married is going to again magnify the problems more it’s not going to make a better bringing children into a relationship is not gonna make a better all these things add complexity and they add their own problems so if you’re not happy and you don’t feel happy with yourself in particular don’t look at external things to make you happy you need to first be happy with yourself before other things can influence the way you feel so Cameron just quickly through those questions again just for people who’ve forgotten what they were okay so the questions that you need to ask yourself is just for its what are your long-term and short-term goals okay okay do you feel content in the most important areas in your life and this is going to change from person to person so it can be things like health career networking friends so on and the next question is do you feel confidence in yourself and your abilities okay and then what makes you happy okay you know those are a few things that are questions that can help you to learn more about yourself just build that self-awareness that you need in order to have that healthy relationship okay but what if I am the whole person and I have the self-awareness but I’m in a relationship with someone who does not okay well I think then you have to try help that person to actualize basically you need to helped them to find their happiness and look the things they need to be aware that that’s what’s something that they want to do because if they don’t defer the raging teenager they’re never going to want to guys with anything in life you have to have a won’t to be able to solve a problem so if you’re wanting to help someone or if you want to help yourself there are some key things that you can actually physically go do right now it’s Pinterest okay so it’s not just asking yourself questions there are things you can actually go do all right don’t get to it all right so the first thing is eating the right food okay okay so this comes in with the health aspect of it but it also comes in with body image and confidence if you’re eating well you’re going to feel better you’re also going to look better you’re gonna have more energy yes things like minerals will also affect hormone levels and they’re kind of a thing so eat well to feel well drink tons of water for go sugar orde-lees reduced sugar you don’t have to be completely militants’ about your food but make better choices so even if it’s small steps instead of having grateful three meals a day cut it down to one meal a day try for the five a day fries engage the local the good advice that we’ve been hearing since we were kids okay so the next one is exercise and stay active so this is there’s a few things to us so again it’s the body image but exercising actually helps release endorphins in your body which helps with happiness which helps with happiness the fitter you feel the more you move the better you feel also if you’re outside you’re going to be getting a lot more sunlight which helps with a whole bunch of stuff that makes you feel better physically but it also changes cholesterol into vitamin D in your body so again you’re a healthier person for us if you’re doing cardiovascular exercises that’s going to help with getting rid of cortisol in your body so if you’re feeling stressed it will help with that so exercise more okay another one is sleeping more okay so a lot of people just don’t get enough sleep people are sometimes ashamed to have an early bedtime people are like well I’d much rather be watching a movie playing video games whatever it is uh panteleyev nice and they’re not sleeping enough so if you find that you’re just unable to not be cranky basically try sleeping more and now and there are supplements and things that you can take to help this EPS there’s a whole lot of stuff I mean I struggle particularly much with sleeping not because I don’t want to sleep absolutely love sleeping I just can’t anticipate asleep um so practice with sleep hygiene so there’s a lot of resources out there on this but one thing is don’t have a television in your bedroom dial light sources any of these like plugs that you know have the lights on them or whatever it is don’t play on your phone or a tablet or if you do use the knife mode which is like like the blue light instead of the yellow light or whatever because it actually affects your brain mm-hmm and look at blackout curtains because even tiny bits of light your body can be given if you can’t see it sleep masks ESS lead mask is a good one use a white noise machine or a white noise app yeah we use one of those that’s very effective super effective it’s free and it helps to bridge those get gaps in your sleep cycle when you’re a little bit more service it helps you just stay as he yep so there’s neighborhood dog took up in the morning that always wakes you up will be drowned up but the consistent noise yes and you can continuously be yes okay so then another thing is to actually be creative so even if you feel like you’re not a creative person take time to engage in creative pursuits whether that writing singing painting know everything yes Lego building and playing Dungeons and Dragons whatever it is anything that engages an on work function and on TV function yes it helps you get rid of anger frustration sadness it helps you to engage your brain in different ways they’ve been you used to generally another thing you can go do is to deal with your past trauma and I’m talking trauma in terms of these are bad or even things which are not too bad but you need to actually deal with because unless you deal with these things they have happened in your past you’re never going to be able to move on or do you live with them in a way that’s healthy find a therapist a counselor psychiatrist absolutely and your counselor therapist whatever it is will also help you with their ease of your life where you feeling stuck yes sometimes you don’t know what questions to ask yourself sometimes you don’t know how to identify with your life goals or sometimes you don’t know how to start you know understanding what you actually went from the world or why you can’t like sometimes they can just help unlock that part of you yeah okay and then something else you can do is learn to quiet your mind so this is where meditation comes into it yoga yeah yoga stuff it helps you into a flow state so quieting your mind is not about being able to sit with no thoughts in your brain and a lot of people struggle with there so that is not what quieting your mind is about that’s not what meditation about it’s about being able to enter a state we you’re able to think thoughts but you’re able to also push them away and engage in concentrating on one certain thing so you might decide that I’m going to meditate and I want to meditate on feeling calm so calmness is the thing that you’re thinking about because you raise that into your thinking about commerce you can do it on any sort of thing so it’s not about having an empty brain because that’s impossible you’re going to have them in a monologue all the time but it’s learning to focus it’s learning to find a kind of stillness why is it important it helps you to identify what you’re feeling and how to focus on one thing sometimes it provides clarity on issues that you’re struggling with because you kind of get rid of the noise yes it can lead to a person use it can be basically like if I can let sit and think and be calm and I can say the foot I thought comes into my head which is anxiety I can decide okay I want to explore that anxiety okay what does it invite your bath which creating it what is made up of and I can think okay it’s fear its sadness and I can go okay what’s causing that sadness with causing that fear and I can go on this trail and I can go follow the trail of that thoughts okay versus oh I need to go pick up light bulbs and cheese and yes the dog needs to be fed you’re directing your mind and eating it be quiet and focusing on something it’s funnier often I’ll solve the problem that I’ve been struggling with when I’m like in the boss yes because because it’s quieting murmurs and some people into the state when they’re going on and right so I feel bit you know yes so it’s just you getting to a point we’re able to laser focus your mind but splitting the flow state okay all right something else that you can do when you have a negative emotion take hold of it and control that negative emotion okay so you’re not going Danny did my UPS that looks crap today or whatever it is now she you know gave me the slider when she saw my skirt and then you know there goes on to a god sunny such a car and on and on and on and on you’re like okay so nice I died me today I know she’s having issues with her mother who’s ill maybe she was thinking about something else catching your negative thoughts and Michael eating them go into a spiral of negativity because sometimes like something actually is negative but a lot of the time it’s mostly in our heads interestingly enough next episode I talked about emotional intelligence and we go into quite a little depth of how to be exactly there yeah so if you’re feeling a little lost right now no stress just listen next time and another thing with negative emotions is that that caused a lot of stress yes okay and that can actually physically impact your body it causes the release of cortisol which leads to things like Betty said so you know being able to actually manage your negative emotions are super important absolutely okay okay and then another thing that you can do is have fun when you’re not feeling great and you’re not getting great about yourself it’s easy to wallow it’s easy to choose to just stay in a rut and go to work go to sleep every first go to work and just bet your life you should feel like you don’t necessarily have to do the stuff that you need to do to break over I have yes and I mean it doesn’t have to be big things it can be but it doesn’t have to be it can be saying yes to your colleagues that were asking you to go to drink after work it can be saying used to go into a movie it can be saying yes to going skydiving whatever it is have fun you can switch off the TV and have a play a board game with your spouse or if you’re not in the relationship it could be like when you were a kid you loved doing crosswords go to a crossword okay second to last thing I want to talk about is appreciating what you have okay okay so it’s important to have gratitude for what you have because it allows you to reflect on the positives in your life and it helps to balance out the negative thoughts as well so it can be I don’t have a relationship or my relationship sucks but if you look at all the good things you’ll probably find that they’re mostly outweighs the bad thing there can also be small things fishy when you’re thinking about yourself as a person like and trying to like yourself it can be you know I have really great hair or my eyebrows are amazing you know I’m really good at kicking a soccer ball so whatever it is look at the stuff that you do have and that you’re good at and appreciate them not everyone has it there are tons of people wishing they had what you have it’s so funny cause I was having a conversation with someone today who is going on about how they’re not great at cooking so I said well what I did is I don’t you know what’s important to me to cook like potatoes I’m really good at cooking potatoes I can make mashed potatoes to die for I can make roast potatoes I can make chips I can make all sorts of potato dishes I rock it but I can’t necessarily make other stuff I noted really good sandwiches thank you I do I do make good sandwiches another Breyer I am good at Brian yeah so you know there we go a whole bunch of stuff that you’re good so there’s no point in me said that you can’t cook because you can is just you have specialities exactly okay all right I mean I get in last thing this is if you’re not in a relation particularly if you’re a single is looking back at your relationships and assessing the damage would be new damage so what happens in the relationship why did it in the way it does and this isn’t a bad negativity okay it feels like it is and it’s going to be hard it’s not going to be an easy one but it’s one of these things which is a really good exercise of being able to identify patterns basically officially if you’re someone is a serial Malaysia person but they just never lost you’ll be able to identify what’s happening and the thing is with all of this nobody is judging you you’re the only person that needs to do this work yes so be honest with yourself it’s the best thing you can do for yourself is to be honest with yourself because the thing is most of the time like you’re resisting something within yourself you know and and there’s something that you don’t like something that you don’t want to be true and often that thing is what’s preventing you from moving forward so if you can identify what that is I think it’s helpful towards being able to lacking yourself and to being able to be with another person and that’s the thing what you need to remember a relationship is made of more than one person sometimes there’s trouble sometimes there’s more than that I mean that okay but you’re never going to be in relationship with any other amount of people if you can’t be in a relationship with yourself so in some ways like this indicates why slightly all the people when they get to use likely all they have better more solid relationships because you’re still figuring out who you are in your 20 yeah and I think it’s also why so many relationships don’t work out you know it’s a sad side effect but there’s this thought in women a thought but there’s this thing in society when people think okay I need to get married by the time I’m 26 I need to have kids by the time I’m whatever and an end and like you know you can have kids well into your forties nowadays true if that’s a life goal of yours you can have this such relationship at any age there’s no time limits being self away is the key to life it is so this is where the whole thing of being whole comes from it’s not about being perfect it’s about just being self away probably the word hole is not a great word because it makes you feel like you have to be perfect yeah you’re this better than other people that person that’s not it is just knowing yourself nosce te ipsum know thyself does my school motto I think that’s all for this week yes so thanks for joining us and please talk about it if you enjoyed this podcast don’t forget to raise us especially on apple podcast because the more ratings we have the more fabulous reviews we have especially 5-star ones means that Apple podcasts will start recommending us to other people yes and we like more people to have better relationships right absolutely so yes a helped us grow by doing that and you can also come chat to us on the lesbian talk show discussion chat group on Facebook to loosen talk show chat group on Facebook on Facebook improve it if you really love what the Lisbon torture does consider becoming a patron one of the perks of being a patron is that you get a series of patreon only podcast so you get to hear content that no one else gets to hear we’re going to do a special episode of let’s talk about it where we talk through some of the comments that listeners have been sending us we’ve getting some really interesting ones and we’d love to add yours to that so he’s got avatar patreon it’s in the show notes yeah so patreon.com slash the lesbian talk show so simple the link will be in the show notes so thanks for listening go have a happy relationship and be happy with yourself well go ahead we have any relation to put your stop muffler and not like that oh well you know maybe I’ll actually gonna go [Laughter] bye-bye no one’s gonna be fixed is that because absolutely that we’re humans were not robots right well I am but I quantity for you I’ve been watching one wasteful hey Siri who am i whole bunch of phones just answered