Let’s Talk Love Podcast Season 2 Episode #7 with Jillian Turecki | Transcript
22.10.27
This transcript is from the Let’s Talk Love Podcast, available in our Podcast Feed.
Robin Ducharme | Hello, everyone. Welcome to this episode of Let's Talk Love. I'm Robin Ducharme, your host and today I had the most amazing discussion with Jillian Turecki. Jillian is a certified relationship coach, writer and teacher, who for 20 years has taught others how to transform their relationships with themselves. Today we dive into what Jillian coaches, training ourselves to become more self aware, to become more conscious, and to become more emotionally fit. Jillian shares ways to raise, reclaim, and rebuild our self-worth because ultimately, by improving the relationships we have with ourselves, we can transform our relationship with others. I hope this conversation inspires you to do just that. Enjoy. Welcome to the let's talk love podcast where we flip the script on outdated narratives and cliches about love and relationships. I'm your host, Robin Ducharme, founder of Real Love Ready. This podcast is for anyone who wants to be better at love regardless of relationship status. We'll talk about the intimate connections in our lives. And the challenges and complexities inherent in those partnerships. Through our no holds barred interviews with global experts will gain insight about ourselves and learn new skills to improve our relationships. Because when we learn to love better, we make the world a better place. Are you ready for open and honest conversations about love? Let's get started. Hello, everyone, and welcome to Let's Talk Love. Today I am so excited to welcome our guest, Jillian Turecki. Jillian, thank you so much for coming on our show today!
Jillian Turecki | Thank you for having me.
Robin Ducharme | It's our first time meeting over zoom or Riverside but I've been, I feel like I know you because I have been following you for a while, our team has. And I took your course, I took one of your courses, and I'm planning on taking more. And I just I think you know, you're an excellent teacher. And you have so much to share. And it's very practical. So I'm just, I'm excited for our conversation.
Jillian Turecki | Oh good, yay. Thank you. Thank you so much. I'm excited too. Let's roll.
Robin | So the first thing that I always ask our guests is a personal question. And it is what in your life right now is giving you the most joy? And what is one of your greatest challenges you're facing right now in your life?
Jillian | Okay, so my greatest joy right now actually is my work. Things are just, I have been working so hard. I never thought that I would be an entrepreneur. Like that's the last thing that I thought my life would end up being. I just never thought I had it in me. And I had to work hard to kind of step into that. And I just love the way that I've set up my work. I have this new podcast coming out Jillian on Love, and I'm writing my book proposal for a book and I have just I work with the most beautiful, amazing people. So my biggest drive right now is my work. Which I really never thought years ago that I would ever say. My biggest challenge right now is I'm sort of adjusting to this post pandemic world. And what I mean by that is, I think for so many people, it's changed the way that they want to live. And it's certainly changed the way that I want to live. I'm a New York City girl born and raised in Manhattan, live here. I definitely spent, I've spent the last two winters in Florida because you know, I just wanted to get away. That was a dream that I've always had to kind of live in different places. And so my biggest challenge right now is to is to figure out where I really want to buy a home and settle. So yeah, that's my biggest challenge right now honestly
Robin | Wow.
Jillian | Yeah, it's not it's not a bad thing. It's not a bad thing but it's definitely where I feel unclear.
Robin | Yes, something that my my I think what my cousin when I think of what we just said my cousin and I talked about this it's like I don't know who in part of this wisdom on me. I wish I could remember but it's like when you don't know where to go next or what decision to make don't do anything. Right? I feel like our decisions sometimes are made for us, through us but it's like if you don't know yet is like the answer will come to you but you just have to spend some time right
Jillian | I just posted something on Instagram literally last night saying the exact same thing.
Robin | Did you?! Oh great.
Jillian | Yeah. When you don't know what to do you just have to wait for it to come to a quiet and you know come to you in a quiet moment. And that's and that's basically what I'm doing it's just it's just the one place where there's. It's a place where I'm in transition. So it's certainly nothing compared to the challenges that I've faced in the past. So I'm grateful for that.
Robin | Yeah, it's not a bad challenge to have.
Jillian | Yeah, no.
Robin | So Jillian, in order to get ready for this podcast, I was like, you know what, because I've been following you. But I'm just like, I'm going to take some of your courses. So. So I took your self worth course. Which, so your website, Julian. Yes. Your workshop? I'm sorry. Yes, workshop. And at the at the end, you say, you know, I really do feel like it was like a mini Master's in self worth. I mean, there's a lot of material. It's not, it doesn't take a long time to go through. But I think when it comes down to it, there is a there's a lot to digest. And so that's what I thought we would dive into today all about self worth. And something you were reinforcing over and over in the workshop, and in your work period, because, you know, this is what your life's work is about right now. Right? Well, it is. It's about helping empower people to love themselves and have a great relationship with themselves, so that we can have better relationships with others.
Jillian | Yes.
Robin | Is that it? Was that accurate?
Jillian | Yeah. And it's an include self love, but also like loving yourself enough to change where you need to change.
Robin | Yes.
Jillian | Right and yeah, absolutely. That that is that's ultimately, that's what my message is for sure.
Robin | Yep. So something that you, I have got quotes throughout our talk today, and one of your quotes, I love your, I love what you say. But one of your quotes is tending to our own self worth, is like cleaning your own house. And I love this analogy. Because it gets like this, and you talk about how this, like our self worth is not just something that we like we were born with, we're born with a, we're born pure love, and we have inherent worth, we all do. But it's like, it's important to maintain and grow our self worth and like, like cleaning your house, okay, you're doing your dishes, of course, make your bed, if you've got a leaky tap, you got to fix it, if you've got, you know, your doorknobs wobbly, you've got to get that fixed, because otherwise it's going to break down. And I think that this is a great way of saying it's like your self worth, when you notice something is off, or needs to be tended to like the word tending. You've got to get on that.
Jillian | Yeah, absolutely. To be alive is to struggle with our value, you know, on some level, like there's always going to be parts of ourselves that we are going to grapple with, you know, but it's how can we actually love ourselves in spite of the fact that we don't like everything about ourselves? And, and that's just the truth. I mean, we we all have a dark side, and some sides are some of us have darker sides and others but we all we all we you know, like, I used to say like if I was judged on my thoughts alone, could you imagine?
Robin | That would be very bad. Very, very bad.
Jillian | Could you imagine?
Robin | No, no, that would be awful.
Jillian | That would be really bad. But we're doing that to ourselves all the time. We're judging ourselves on the thoughts .
Robin | On our thoughts.
Jillian | We're judging ourselves on the mistakes that we've made, because we've messed up there's things , there have been times where we've messed up, there have been times where we've been in a relationship, and we've manipulated or we've lied, or we've, you know, maybe cheated or done all sorts of things. So we are very flawed. And we're judging ourselves on every single flaw instead of or in addition to at least appreciating everything that we've done, and everything that we've overcome and everything that we do, you know, and we just don't appreciate ourselves enough. And funny enough, the less we appreciate ourselves, the more likely we are to be in a relationship and stop appreciating the person we're in a relationship with. So, the more we started to appreciate ourselves, the more judgmental, we are of ourselves, the more we struggle to actually appreciate ourselves, that just gets transferred to other people and it gets transferred the fastest to the person and we're in a relationship with you because it's a habit to you know, be mean to ourselves and it's and we can easily just be that way to a partner. So there's always going to be situations where we are confronted with the parts of ourselves, where there's Where we see that there's deficits in our self worth in our esteem for ourselves, and a really romantic relationship is going to show that like, very loud and clear, because when we love someone, we don't want them to leave us, we don't want, we want them to love us back. Sometimes we want them to love us more than we even love them, because we are insecure that way. So when we're in a relationship with someone romantically, we're going to be confronted with, with the ways in which we don't feel enough, and that's gonna happen to the best of us. But, so self worth is not something that, you know, some people have more self worth, because of just how they were raised. Honestly, they were just raised to be more confident, to believe in themselves more. And other of us, you know, no fault of our parents necessarily, it just, it's just not it's we just weren't or some of us, we feel really confident in certain areas of our lives. And we feel really not confident other areas of our lives. Sometimes, sometimes we're not living up to our potential, and we know it. And, and we know it, and it's very hard to have healthy self esteem, when we're not doing the things that we know we should be doing. So there's that tending to the different areas of our house, like inside of ourselves, is just taking stock of when we are doing things or not doing things or experiencing relationships in such a way that we realize, Oh, my God, I'm not loving myself, or my self worth isn't really where it needs to be. And that could be just, you know, the really obvious example of that is people who are dating or in relationships where they're being treated less than what they deserve. Or they're not asking for what it is that they want, because they don't believe that they are worthy of getting what it is that they want. So you want to know where your level of self love is, and self worth is get into a romantic relationship and you will know very quickly.
Robin | Yes, yes. So can you define for us, very simply, it's not simple. But yes. What is self worth? Because it's different than self esteem.
Jillian | Yeah, you know, people well people like to put in all these different categories. And psychologists do that all the time. I think that self worth is measured by how much or how little you love yourself. And to be clear, to love yourself doesn't mean that you love everything about yourself, it doesn't mean that you like everything about yourself, it means you love yourself anyway, despite the fact that you are flawed. Despite the fact that you have mean thoughts, despite the fact you, you love yourself, anyway, which means that you appreciate yourself, it means that you want the best for yourself, it means that you want to see yourself win not lose in life. It means that you want it means that when when you're in pain, you listen to yourself, you pay attention, you take care of your body, you take care of your emotions, you show yourself respect. You practice boundaries, in the best way that you can and you recondition yourself to understand what boundaries are so that you can care for yourself in the way that you would care for anyone outside of yourself who you love.
Robin | Yes. And so you have, you tell a personal story about yourself because and I really resonated with this Jillian, because I would consider myself I consider that I have pretty high self worth, like I love myself, but I definitely beat myself up. So maybe that's just like, that's maybe not so high. That's not high self worth. I just have high standards for myself and others. So, but you talk about how there was a turning point in your life because you you said that, you know you had quite a balanced healthy understanding about yourself and you thought you had good high self worth. But then you went through a traumatic experience in your life. And you realized actually, I have to this is actually a place in my life where I'm not as strong as I thought I was.
Jillian | Yes. So in my late 20s I was in an abusive relationship. So I think that was like the first time that I really I mean, I have had like lovely relationships and then I was like definitely like when I was a teenager in a relationship with like a bad boy. And it's like if I had great self esteem and self worth, like, I wouldn't have been in that relationship. But I think, you know, you kind of look back and you're like, Oh, we all have to have one of those in our lives. But in my late 20s, I was in a relationship where I was treated horribly. And the thing about abusive relationships is that very rarely, is it a scenario where you're just like, in the corner, like a helpless puppy, while someone is verbally or physically beating on you, I mean, those things happen. But more commonly, it's this dynamic, where you're, you're treated really poorly. But instead of walking away and ending the relationship, the worst in you comes out. So you fight with them. And you get nasty with them, too, because you want to defend yourself. So that was a very complicated relationship. But yeah, I was treated horribly. And finally it ended. And, yeah, so I had this perception of myself that I was this strong, confident, you know, young, New York City born and bred woman. And that, I think, is how people saw me. That's what I projected out into the world. And I think it represented a part of me. But there's no way that you loving yourself and tolerating abuse, they don't live in the same room like that does not they cannot coexist. They just don't. And are and loving yourself, and just tolerating someone who might be actually a lovely person, but they're just not that into you. And then you're chasing them to try to get them to be into you, like self love, and that does not coexist. So I always tell people, your, we all are hungry, to be loved, and that's part of life. But if your hunger for love is stronger than your self love, you will do things like portray yourself, like, lose your dignity, like chase others just to get someone else's love. And that's when you actually get into a lot of trouble. Because if your hunger for love is so strong, if it's stronger than your love for yourself, you will end up with people who don't care that much about you, or who treat you poorly, who are just aloof, or who use you. So yeah, so that was a really big turning point. Because when that ended, I was like, wow, I gotta look in the mirror and be like, what, how, how the hell did I accept that, it was really a very humbling experience. And I never, ever, ever got close to anything like that ever again. Thankfully, that was not a pattern. That didn't become a pattern. But it's a very humbling experience. And I just want to encourage everyone, whether it's abuse or something totally different. Accept the challenge, accept the challenge of trying to figure yourself out and love yourself and figure out your pattern and figure out where that comes from. Don't just sit in the pain and the story of you not being treated well. Figure out why you're in this situation, get out of the situation, then figure out why you were in it to begin with.
Robin | So you don't repeat it, because it can become a pattern. If you don't identify the reason.
Jillian | Yeah. Because if you're well, I mean, you know, if you're in something that clearly is not right, whether it's on the one end of the spectrum abuse, which is a very extreme, it's very extreme. Most cases are just like you're just not, you know, maybe you're chasing the wrong person, or you're just in something that's not very, you know, reciprocal or whatever, like, whatever it is. If you're in these types of situations, something is wrong. Something is wrong, and you need to address it. And it's coming from something within, from someplace within.
Robin | Yeah. So you talk about shame and guilt. So, you say shame and guilt are common feelings that initiate low self worth to manifest and of course, because those are low frequency, feelings, emotions and states to be in,
Jillian | To stay in.
Robin | To stay in, sorry to stay in. We all have feelings of shame and guilt in some way.
Jillian | And it's appropriate to be and we should feel shame sometimes and we should feel guilty sometimes. Absolutely. If we dont we're sociopathic.
Robin | Yes, it's to stay in. So this was was something that I was interested in, is that women are 10 times more likely to feel guilt than men.
Jillian | Yes.
Robin | And what was the what is the reason for this? This was this. I was like, wow, I didn't actually think about it and I'm like, actually, I, I know women, and I'm like, Yeah, we feel way more guilty.
Jillian | Yeah we feel guilty all the time. Because we feel responsible for everyone. We feel responsible, nurturers. You know, even if we're, even if we're all not like the biggest nurturer, we're nurturers. We're, we feel responsible for every one. I think part of that is biological, like hormonal. I think part of that is conditioning. But we feel like we're responsible for everyone's happiness, we feel like we have to do a lot to to make people love us. And you know, it's like the mother archetype and all of us. It's like, we're not doing enough for the child. Even if we don't have enough child, we're not doing enough for our plant. We're not doing enough for our parents. We're not doing enough for our pet. It's just, it's just a way in which women are very, very hard on themselves. And it's Yeah, it sucks. It's super unproductive.
Robin | Yeah. So the difference between guilt and shame is like guilt is like I did something wrong. I recognize that I feel like crap about it. Right? Where as shame is I am wrong.
Jillian | I am wrong. I am the problem.
Robin | I am wrong. I'm unlovable.
Jillian | Yes.
Robin | Oh, that's, that's where that like that is the very core of that, that feeling.
Jillian | That's the very core of that. And I think that healthy shame is it's like you do something and let's say you do something that you really are ashamed of. It means I think, I think that we experience you know, guilt, when it's really strong become shame, and we experience shame whenever we do something that goes against our values. At a very deep level, you're like, I don't know who that was. That goes against everything that I believe in. It's like someone who really believes in commitment and loyalty, like, like their highest value's loyalty, and they find themselves having an affair. And so they're like, in this Oh, my God, I cannot believe I did that. You know, that's, that's not me. And so you feel this intense shame, because you go against your values. And it's important, because that's when you really are questioning yourself and questioning your identity. But you have to be able to forgive yourself. You have to be able to forgive yourself, because if you stay in shame too long, which is like I am bad, I am the problem. Well, number one, unintentionally you become narcissistic. Because everything then it's like all you're focusing on is you, you become self obsessed. Everything is about you. Right. So if we're constantly feeling ashamed, who are we constantly thinking about?
Both | Ourselves.
Robin | I've ever thought of that. How like if you're, right, wow, yeah.
Jillian | Yeah. You're just, you're obsessing over yourself. And so the fastest way really the fastest way to increase your self worth to get out of shame. All of that is to give to someone or others outside of yourself. It's to contribute in some way. It's to help someone who's in a worse off position than you, it's to do. I don't care if it's walking dogs into shelter or helping people it's to get out of your head so you're not constantly obsessing about yourself, which we're all guilty of, you know, we can get into those into those trances.
Robin | Yes. I really and that is one of, I know in the workshop I took there's 11 ways for us to increase, to grow our self worth and that is the one of the most important ones right I really believe that it's like you have to step outside yourself in order and give in order to receive, grow and I mean giving from like from just your heart.
Jillian | Yeah!
Robin | Because yes, generosity begets like, it's like the more you give, the more you receive and that is just a true a truism of life.
Jillian | Exactly and giving from a place of I'm not trying to get something back.
Robin | Oh, no, of course. No, right. Yeah, it has to be authentic giving.
Jillian | It has to be authentic. It has to be like you're doing something.
Robin | Unconditional.
Jillian | Yeah, unconditional and something outside of yourself, you're, you're like contributing to something outside yourself. I mean, I'll never forget when I was going through a divorce and I was it was just a really, really, really hard time in my life. And I was teaching yoga at the time. And it was even though I would have so many moments where it's like, oh my god, I cannot drag myself to this class and give like I am just to, to in it. But I always felt better afterwards because I couldn't think about me. I couldn't think about my situation, I couldn't think about my pain, I had to completely focus on others for that hour and a half. And that was the freedom that was an hour, that was 90 minutes of freedom that I would have in the other 20, you know, 22 and a half hours of day where I was in pain.
Robin | Yes. Wow, Jillian, you know what I when I think about when I think I just love how we, like, this is what I like so many things I learned, I learned from you, but I love it how you explain. There's so many paradoxes in life and that is a paradox. Because you think, Okay, I can't do this again. And there's people like I like it as to like, one hour of exercise, you cannot do it, you can't go it's just like, everything and you're saying I'm so, I'm just too tired. I've got this to do, make all these excuses. But you do that you're giving yourself that love. And you step out, you step out of your brain and your head, you get into your body, and then you're able to feel like 100 really, really well. Really good afterwards.
And more productive.
That is a great analogy. More productive,
Jillian | Yeah but it is more productive. Exactly. It is. It's like you think you're, you're going to be losing that hour. But actually, you become more productive in the hours that follow, so you make more use of your time, that is a paradox.
Robin | So being in a rut, this was good, because I think that this is another way that we can, like self sabotage ourselves, right? And our self worth. If we're in a rut, we're not honoring where we need to go next. Right? So you talk about one of the effects of self worth, being in a rut. Okay, how can you explain what being a rut really is, and how that shows up in someone's life?
Jillian | Okay, so being stuck in a rut is basically feeling stuck in life. And it's extremely painful. Because even when life is hard, we are designed as human beings to feel much better as long as there's momentum, as long as we're progressing, as long as we're moving. Right? So to be stuck in a rut is like, is, is extremely painful. When we get stuck in a rut, usually there's an internal conflict that's happening. And the internal conflict is preventing us from changing and expanding. Now, I have found that our lives, the quality of our lives is much better, the more the less resistant we are to change. Now, I'm someone who never was like great with change. I'm not. I'm someone who was never that great with change and as a result, I used to suffer more than the average person. Because because I just didn't really like change. And it only is when you start to embrace change, because nothing stays the same. That life is change, right? It's the only thing consistent life is change. So you will find yourself stuck less often. And not for as long when you embrace your own evolution and change. Part of what prevents us other than a fear of expansion as change is there's an inner conflict that has some sort of chokehold on us. The inner conflict usually has something to do with this is what I want to be doing versus this is what I think I should be doing. And the should is often rooted in, you know, our conditioning what mom and dad wants for us. What, what, who, how we identify, like, how we think of ourselves as it's like, you know, if someone is a lawyer, and they've always practiced law, that becomes part of their identity. But what if they actually don't want to practice law anymore? They don't but So, okay, so let me just make this a little bit clearer. I don't know where the practicing law analogy came from. But this is what I'm rolling with. Let's say you have someone who's a lawyer has been a lawyer for many years. And she no longer wants to be a lawyer. But her identity is so wrapped up in being a lawyer. It's what she's good at. It's what she knows is what she's been doing for so long. It's how people know her. It's how she was conditioned by her parents to do, it's like she's wrapped up In the achievement of that, she's wrapped up in the identity of that. But she knows that's not what she wants. But she can't make the leap out of the rut to change because to do that means she has to divorce an identity that she is very attached to. So that's the internal conflict that's keeping her stuck. Yeah, sorry what were you gonna say?
Robin | I was going to say. The Other thing you say is like, which I think a lot of people find themselves in it's like, even though you're really uncomfortable internally, you're comfortable in the rut too.
Jillian | Oh absolutley.
Robin | There's a paradox in the rut as well.
Jillian | That's the other thing Yeah, well, that's the change. It's like, I don't want to be where I'm at. But the unknown is scarier. So I'm going to stay but this is totally unconscious, I'm going to stay miserable, addicted to the certainty that and the comfort that this situation is giving me but deep down in my soul, in my bones, in my gut, whatever you believe in, you know that this is not what you want. But there might be too many in your mind. Or in for real, like too many consequences. Like maybe the consequences of moving on means a pay cut, maybe the consequences of moving on is an identity is redefining yourself, and this is what a midlife crisis really is. That's what a midlife crisis is. I was just discussing this with friends yesterday. This is what a midlife crisis is. It's like, I don't know who I am. I want to redefine myself, but that's too scary. Like, you know, like, what we all go through midlife crisis, just not everyone's reacting to the midlife crisis by you know, buying, like the sports car, it's like, you know, buy the sports car, or having like the young wife or a young man, like, you know, how it's portrayed in movies. But we all go through this sort of identity crisis of is this who I still want to be? But if we think that there's too many consequences of taking that leap, right, maybe maybe the consequence is, we have to outgrow a relationship. Maybe the consequence is, you know, you can change jobs. Yeah, all of it. So, sometimes the consequences feel so daunting that we don't take the leap, and yet we're still unhappy where we are. That's the rut. Yes, and sometimes it's shallow, and sometimes it's a full on ditch, but it's all because of an internal conflict.
Robin | Yes, yeah. So two things came to mind when you brought up this idea about a lawyer. So first of all, I have a, I love doing peloton workouts. [laughs I could sell those things for a living. I love peloton. Anyways, one of my favorite instructors is Robin Arzaan. She is like this top athlete and so what so she's she was a lawyer. And now she is like the chief of athletic. She's a chief athletic director of peloton like the whole company. She's a total Rockstar, and she talks about on how she was totally in that place in her life where she's like, I'm gonna have to literally leave my career as a lawyer in order to pursue my dream. And how scary is that? It's freaking terrifying, terrifying, you know, but like you, like you say, and like we all know, the people in life that we admire. And you and this was a practice that you encourage people to do in your workshop is to reflect on the people that that you admire, and that have done great things in life. And guess what, everybody failed, everybody had to take a chance. We have to step out of our comfort zone, get out of that rut in order to build the life that we really want. I fully believe that. Yeah. One other thing I wanted to say about this, because Mark groves made a post on this yesterday.
Jillian | I saw that post!
Robin | I love that. Because yeah, you said because he talks about how he was he was a businessman and everything before he keeps you being a writer and everything he's doing in his life. He was like, and I had to change my whole perspective on the job I was in. He was like, I know, I need to leave this career. However, he was thinking of it as like, Oh, I've got to get up. I've got to go to my job again that I don't like. And he's like, once I changed my perspective that it was financing my dream. Yeah, like, I'm not gonna quit my job in order to pursue my dream. I'm gonna stay in my job so that I can pursue my dream, like, financing my dream. So it became a vehicle rather than a detriment.
Jillian | Absolutely. And it's smart because you shouldn't quit your day job. Right away.
Robin | No!
Jillian | No you should not. Bad, bad idea. So that mindset shift is huge.
Robin | Yeah, so I really liked that. So yeah, let's get into how people have levels of standards, like low standards. We needed to find what our standards Are and this is where you we just you just talked about that on like getting to know yourself on this understanding your values? And can we talk about how low standards show up in people's lives? Like, what does that translate to?
Jillian | Yeah, so I'll speak to it just like in the context of within dating, because I think that this is a big one, okay. So low standards will look like allowing someone to just not treat you with a lot of respect. So that's like, obvious, right. So just letting someone allowing someone to treat you with disrespect. Not so obvious is just being with someone who isn't at all right for you, like you don't share the same values. You don't, you're not really compatible. But you are really attracted to the person that in a big way that people don't understand is actually lowering your standards. Because you're basically, you're basically ignoring that which is so important to you that you need in a relationship, you're lowering your standards, just so that you can be with someone who, who gives you some attention and you're attracted to. So that's lowering your standards. Lowering your standards is just accepting, like crumbs like crumbs of attention and whatnot. Lowering your standards is also being with someone who, like if you really have your, we all have problems, there's no perfect life. But if you generally have your life in order, like you have things in order, and then you're gonna date someone whose life is a mess, like they don't have their life in order at all. That is also lowering your standards it's like why we all go through stuff. But why would you be with someone who is, whose life is complete chaos? When you hold yourself to a very particular standard? Why would you then lower your standard for a partner? So that would be also another way that it shows up? It's basically tolerating less then you need then and then you deserve.
Robin | Yes, then you need. That's actually and that that's another thing I was thinking about is like we use the word. Yes. Deserve is, is is a good word. But I think more than that, when you identify your true values, it's like, that's different than a belief because, you know, beliefs change, and our values can change too but I think our values when it comes down to it is like, I would identify most of my values as like, a need right now in my life. My values might change, but it was like my values 10 years ago, are different than they are now. Some are the same. But it's like those are now like a need.
Jillian | Yes, yes. And you just and you need to know what it is that you need, like non negotiable, you know? Yeah. So you lower your standard every time you just you say, Okay, I'm going to be in a relationship with someone who can't meet your needs, that's lowering your standards, too. And it's not about having such a high standard that you go for perfection in another human being. That's, you know, because no one's perfect. But anyone ever you and you never eat, the person you end up with is rarely ever, like who you actually think you're gonna end up with. Yes, but you know, like, you want to be in a certain type of relationship. You want there to be communication, you're doing the work to show up, someone else is just not doing the work or just certainly just does not even isn't even investing in you in any way. But yet you keep accepting it, that's lowering your standards. And it looks like in money too. Accepting salaries that are that are completely below what it is that you know, you you have earned in the past and what you what you're worth, what your value is. So a lot of people lower their standards around love and money.
Robin | Mm hmm. Yep. So you have so you have in your workshop, which I think it's important for everybody to take this workshop, it's worth it. And but I'm not, we have we definitely don't have time to go through all the steps but I think if we can go through a few of them about how you can raise your self worth. So number one, we already talked about the importance of how like in our one of our human needs is momentum and I totally like I feel that in myself. If I'm not moving forward in life in ways that I I feel like I'm doing I'm not just doing all the time.
Jillian | It's not just achieving it's about growing.
Robin | No, no no, not about achieving. Yeah, it's growing. I need to grow. That's what it is. If I don't feel like I'm growing, that's I think a more clear when you say it. Then I'm like, Alright, I need to do something about this, my momentum is in in stall mode right now. And it's okay to have moments of pause, a lot of moments of pause.
Jillian | Oh yeah, we go through seasons. So sometimes it's like, but it's like that's the it should be a conscious choice. Like I'm taking, you know, for example, like you could say, I'm taking the summer and this is like, this is the summer of no momentum. This is the summer of chill. Right. But it's intentional.
Robin | Yes. Okay. So one of the first things you talk about, is the importance of action, taking action, proactivity in your life, right. So can you can you just talk a little bit more about that? It's like your nature's greatest drug? I thought, what is that? I've never heard of that before.
Jillian | What did I say? I don't even remember what I said.
Robin | Action is nature's greatest drug.
Jillian | Oh, my God, the things that came out back then, I don't even remember. [laughs]
Robin | You talk about dopamine, right? And how? So there's biological, of course, there's a lot of biology behind this.
Jillian | Yeah. So um, look, we can't just we can't take action just for the sake of taking action. But but sometimes we can, it's like, it depends on the situation, if you're in a rut, taking some sort of action is actually going to get you out of the rut, it is the thing that's going to cure the rut, you know, like you being in the rut. It's very important, I think it's very important to take action, even if it's small action, just to to know that you're actually doing something. Whatever that is, to create, the hour that you want, the minute that you want, the day that you want the life that you want. And I really believe that because what is depression? No one's taking action when they're depressed. And yeah, the lack of the the lack of action, it's like a snowball creates even more depression. And then the more depressed you are, the less you take action. That's why sometimes anger is temporarily a good antidote to depression, because then in that state, we're like, we want to make some decisions and take action. So I think that is actually really what I meant. It's important to be proactive, like you don't like something in your life, like you're not happy with how your love life is. Be proactive, figure it out, like what's going like, what is actually going on? Why don't you like it? What's happening. So we can't just stand, sit back and just passively wait for life to become that what we want it to become. We have to be a participant in our lives and make things happen. It's just the only way. And I understand I know what it's like to not want to do that. Look, this is why people hire coaches, too, because they're like, I want to take action, but I don't know how to take the action. But yeah, just being proactive. Hiring that therapist, hiring that coach making that phone call sending that email, whatever it is. It's what makes us feel good about ourselves.
Robin | Yeah. And something that I would say just the last while it's like there's so much more momentum and talk now about the importance of our emotional health. Right? Because our society has just been so for the longest time, stuck on physical health, how we look, you know, go into the gym, all right, get your Botox. Like on the outside, we're looking at pretty good. Everybody's like really spending a lot of money. [laughs]
Jillian | Thousands of dollars. Yes.
Robin | So but where is the money spent or the investment spent on our emotional fitness? That is, that really is so important, and it's such, it needs to be a regular daily focus in our in all of our lives is our emotional well being. We're spending way too much focus on our physical, it's our emotional, it's, yeah.
Jillian | Absolutely. People will drop $1,200 on a pair of boots. But then if it's like a coach to coaching, they're like, Oh, that's too expensive. Like, they'll be like, That's too expensive. It's like really? How how do you figure that?
Robin | Yeah. Yeah.
Jillian | So I'm a big believer, I've always invested so much in my growth and my emotional health. So I it's, it's so very, very important. But forget about the money spent. It's just about moving your body every day or doing the things that you need to do to stay grounded.
Robin | Yes. Right. So one of the things you also talk about is doing in order to help our with our self worth is doing what makes you feel alive. Right? So the more you feed your spirit, the more your self worth will increase.
Jillian | Absolutley.
Robin | It seems like a no brainer. But I think we, I kind of laughed at something you said it's like, okay, if you only feel alive on a holiday, you have a big problem, right? It's a temporary fix like that. Yeah, two weeks or one week off from the weekend off on your little fun holiday. That's the only time you feel alive and you come back to your life and you're like, Oh, this is really not okay, I'm not okay with this. Well, then you to be doing way more in your regular life, to feel alive.
Jillian | When we feel alive, we feel closest to ourselves, we are more we are we are actually being ourselves. We're not when we feel alive, we're not stressed. We're not worried. We're not projecting into the future. We're not living in the past. When we feel alive, we're not struggling with our self worth. We feel really connected. Yeah, we just don't, we're not we feel connected. We, you know, to feel live in my life, the way that I see it is to feel totally, like not to feel separate, but to feel connected to everything and everyone. And that's when we're not all wrapped up in our self concern in those moments. And it's hard, you know, the the real rut is knowing what actually makes us feel good, but not feeling motivated to do that. And yes, that could be part of depression, but it could also be all the other stuff that we talked about so far with inner conflict and whatnot. It's like giving yourself permission to have fun. Right? To do things that really, really light you up. We get comfortable, we get lazy we get complacent. And yet if we're actually doing things that makes us feel more alive, like we do. Number one, another paradox. It's an act of self love to do that for yourself. But then you actually get so much in return and your return on the investment of actually doing the things that light you up and make you happy is so astronomical. And so sometimes I just work with people trying to helping them to figure out what is it that makes them actually feel alive? Because it doesn't have to be some huge thing. It could just be little things. That makes you feel just like, like you feel the blood. Sometimes it's just exercise like you want to feel heart pumping. You want to feel it. You want to feel your skin tingle.
Robin | Yes. Something I realized about myself this year, it was I didn't I knew it was important to me, but I really, now I know. It's like a true value. Is that makes me feel alive. Like I first of all, I value, joy and laughter and fun. And it's nice. It's not a want. It's a need. Like life. You know, we all have so much, in life there's just going to be ups and downs. And the downs can be really hard, right? And yeah for me like, if I don't have that balance with the heart I'm completely off kilter. Whereas some people can be like, I'm steady Eddy. I'm like, oh, no, no, no, I need the lightness to counteract the dark. And I know that about myself, right?
Jillian | Yes. What do you do to get that?
Robin | Well, like I spend time with, like, my friends and my close family that I've just like, we have so much fun, we laugh. Watch a comedy with my husband. Like just getting outside and exercising. Those are things that give me joy. And of course, spending time with my kids and that just like just laughing I just like if I could find saying, oh, yeah, I need it. I need it. Right. It's good medicine.
Jillian | Oh gosh. A good laugh is medicine. It's I think that's like a proven thing. It's medicine. Yes.
Robin | Yeah. So anyways, I just realized that I need it in my life. So I'm like, now what is your talk value? One of them is definitely joy and laughter and fun, all in one. Anyway, you need to know that about yourself, right?
Jillian | Yeah, you need to know that about yourself. Like we all crave release. So it's like release comes in the form of an amazing laugh, amazing cry, an amazing poop, ann amazing orgasm. Like it's all of it. We like release because we, especially in this culture, we have a lot we put a lot of pressure on ourselves and we have a lot of pressure. So anything that just helps you let go we love.
Robin | Yeah. Oh, yeah, definitely. Okay, we only have a little bit time left. But I wanted to talk about courage. And you said something that I just I wanted to create a little I'm going to do this. I'm going to ask Maia, who works with us to create this like Instagram picture of like, a muscle, your arm, like getting really strong. Because courage is a muscle, and I use it. I'm like, I know, I've said this a million times, but I just haven't done a little picture on it yet. But it's like, courage is a muscle and you have to use it just like every other muscle. Otherwise, it just kind of just goes flat. Right?
Jillian | Atrophies, yeah.
Robin | You can build it up, you build it up. Yeah. So the paradox of self worth is that low self worth will keep you in fear. But facing fear is what raises it. Yes. So this is what you are, you're coaching people with all day long, right?
Jillian | In some capacity,
Robin | And then building your courage.
Jillian | Yeah, I mean, because I mean, I coach people in relationships, like that's really what it is. But, but even though I will, I don't even have to use the word courage. But yeah, basically, what I'm doing is, is in a nutshell, like you said, coaching people on courage.
Robin | Yeah. Can you talk about that? Before we go?
Jillian | Yeah, um, we have a lot of fears. And we have a lot of fears in relationship. And it takes a lot of courage to ask for what you need, it takes a lot of courage to address the elephant in the room, if you're in a relationship or marriage. It takes a lot of courage to walk away from the wrong person, it takes a lot of courage to put your needs aside sometimes and focus just on your partner and what they need, you know, it takes all of that takes a lot of courage, it's very scary to be vulnerable. It's very scary to face not being loved back or not being enough. And some people are facing fears that we can't even imagine, like phobias and stuff like that. So every time we do something, you know, if we have no fear, there's no courage. But every time we do something, in spite of the fact that we are afraid. We, it is huge. For our sense of self worth, it's like, we feel so powerful in those moments, we feel so proud of ourselves in those moments. And the reality is, is that if you want to be in a relationship, like you have to be brave, if you're going to be dating, you have to be brave because you have to be authentic. And you might be really attracted to someone and everything in your system is saying, you know, impress this person, get this person to like you, but you have to be like, sorry, you said you don't want kids, I want kids, nice meeting you, you know, whatever it is like some people are, they don't, they're so scared to be who they are on a date. Because they're afraid of rejection. So it takes a lot of courage to face possible rejection. And, and consistently facing our fears is just, it's huge for self worth, because none of us feel good. When we allow fear to stop our lives, when we allow fear to rob us of our authenticity, or rob us of the standards that we want to uphold for ourselves and for others or rob us from doing the things that are in alignment with our values, like we know when fear has overcome us. And it feels terrible. But it feels really good when you can just do that one small thing, even if it's just one small thing that you are terrified of. It's huge.
Robin | Yes. Yeah, it is. Wow, I so loved our conversation, Jillian. It went by so fast.
Jillian | So fast, too fast.
Robin | So tell me where we can continue to learn and grow with you. I know your website is jillianturecki.com.
Jillian | Yeah. So it's jillianturecki.com and then on Instagram @jillianturecki I have a tik tok account too but you know, on September 7, my new podcast, Jillian On Love is coming out.
Robin | That's my birthday!
Jillian | No way. Happy birthday!
Robin | We'll promote it for you!
Jillian | Thank you. Yeah. This is sort of unexpected. Someone, a company came to me and said we want to produce and I was like, okay, and there's gonna be a lot of solo episodes where I basically I'm going to go very for 45 minutes to an hour deep on the things that I cover on Instagram as well as I have some really special guests. So I've recorded about 10 already that launches September 7. And so that's really the big news right now and more stuff coming down the pipeline.
Robin | Wonderful. Well, we will continue to follow you and learn from you and definitely listen to your podcast, Jillian On Love and so much love to you. You're doing amazing work in the world, that's for sure.
Jillian | Thank you. I really appreciate it.
Robin | Please visit realloveready.com to become a member of our community. Submit your relationship questions for our podcast experts. At reallovereadypodcast@gmail.com We read everything you send. Be sure to rate and review this podcast. Your feedback helps us get you the relationship advice and guidance you need. The Real Love Ready Podcast is recorded and edited by Maia Anstey. Transcriptions by otter.ai and edited by Maia Anstey. We at Real Love Ready, acknowledge and express gratitude for the Coast Salish people, the stewards of the land on which we work and play, and encourage everyone listening to take a moment to acknowledge and express gratitude for those that have stewarded and continue to steward the land that you live on as well.
Transcription by https://otter.ai & edited by Maia Anstey