#490: It Starts with YOU: Nine Lessons to Change Your Life with Jillian Turecki, Coach & Author...

What this episode is about

Jillian Turecki, a seasoned relationship coach and author, shares her insights on transforming personal and romantic relationships by starting with self-discovery and understanding. Drawing from her own experiences and extensive professional background, she offers nine key lessons designed to help individuals overcome struggles and thrive in their connections with themselves and others.

Key takeaways

• A turbulent family past fuels Jillian's empathy—proof not all heroes wear capes; some wield coaching skills.
• The art of relationships: Learning from those who've danced in life's ditches, not mere observers.
• Relationship struggles transcend generations; seen in Jillian's tale of love, family, and resilience.
• Jillian's journey: From chaos to connection, transforming personal scars into professional superpowers.
• Not every romance ends in disaster; even in heartbreak, the lessons in love remain timeless.

What is discussed, and when

1. 0:00 – 5:00: Emotional abuse, Jillian on Love, Jillian on Love
2. 5:00 – 10:00: The Nine Hard Truths About Love
3. 15:00 – 20:00: Shopify
4. 30:00 – 35:00: Netsuite
5. 50:00 – 53:29: Jillian on Love, Jillian on Love, The Conscious Woman, The Nine Hard Truths About Love

Notable quotes from "#490: It Starts with YOU: Nine Lessons to Change Your Life with Jillian Turecki, Coach & Author..."

• Today so get ready for it Jillian tki is a renowned relationship coach teacher author and host of the podcast Jillian on love fueled by an insatiable curiosity about what makes…

  about Jillian on Love · at 0:06

• They definitely did not have any relationship skills and there was a lot of emotional abuse and a little and a little bit of violence and a lot of codependency and you know my father also struggled at this was when I was.

  about Emotional abuse · at 3:25

• Book well the book is incredible and it's actually the nine truths the nine hard truths the nine hard truths about love you mentioned something about avoidant and anxious is…

  about The Nine Hard Truths About Love · at 8:13

• Limitations can I live with and what can I not live with that's the sound of another sale on Shopify and the moment another business dream becomes a reality your reality…

  about Shopify · at 17:07

• You consistently excellent performance absolutely free at nets.com Monahan that's netsuite.com Monahan to get your kpi checklist now netsuite.com monan I don't know if this is…

  about Netsuite · at 33:18

• Active on Instagram and I have a membership a relationship school for women called the conscious woman and a bunch of courses so you can just find that on my site Jillian…

  about The Conscious Woman · at 52:46

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

• Jillian Turecki — Person · 16 mentions

Books & papers

• It Begins with You: The 9 Hard Truths About Love That Will Change Your Life — Book · 5 mentions
• Jillian on Love — Book · 2 mentions · first at 0:12
• The Nine Hard Truths About Love — Book · 2 mentions · first at 8:18

Companies & orgs

• The Conscious Woman — Company · 1 mention · first at 52:52

Products & tech

• Jillian on Love — Product · 2 mentions · first at 0:12
  Today so get ready for it Jillian tki is a renowned relationship coach teacher author and host of the podcast Jillian on love fueled by an insatiable curiosity about what makes…

Concepts & topics

• Emotional abuse — Concept · 1 mention · first at 3:29

Sponsors

• Shopify — Sponsor · 5 mentions · first at 17:12
• Netsuite — Sponsor · 1 mention · first at 33:23

Full transcript with timestamps

0:00 hi and welcome back I'm so glad you're back with me this week okay you are GNA love our guest and our conversation today so get ready for it Jillian tki is a renowned relationship coach teacher author and host of the podcast Jillian on love fueled by an insatiable curiosity about what makes a relationship Thrive Jillian has helped thousands over the last 20 years through her teachings courses and writings to revolutionize their relationship with themselves so that they transform their romantic Rel relationships Jillian is sought out for her compassionate direct and very authentic style of coaching teaching and writing Jillian thank you so much for being here today oh thank you so much for having me okay so let's get right to it I have lots of people on the show that I'm not necessarily familiar with or a fan of however I am a fan of your Social like a maniac and now your new book and you speak so directly

0:56 to me and obviously millions of others but I am definitely a person who has struggled with relationships her whole entire life and there's something about the way you approach things I don't know what it is but you've got to hear this from so many different people what is it what is your secret sauce I don't know I I think well I I think I just really understand the mind of people and a lot of women as especially who um are really a great people but struggle in relationships I think I just understand that psychology because I've been that person before so maybe that's it and I think I just I draw a lot from my own experience as well as my professional experience and I just try to really just say the truth so maybe that is it I don't know well that's that's it it's definitely working and I agree with you I always say to people I want advice on how to get out of a ditch from somebody who's been in the ditch and

2:07 found a way to successfully get out not someone who was on the sidelines watching the whole thing go down so I appreciate been there well one of the things that was surprising for me reading your new book was learning about your childhood and your father I had no idea can you give a little bit about your backstory and how you got started into all this work yeah so I mean I grew up my parents were immigrants uh my father originally from Poland my mom originally from South Africa but then they met in South Africa and my parents had a terrible marriage um my father at the time was I undiagnosed bipolar disorder he was extremely narcissistic and but extremely uh intelligent to the point of a genius and very good at what he does and um and my mom was you know this young South African model who was like had a baby when she was really young with another guy and you know here she found this man who was my father who

3:13 was like this Jewish doctor and so that's what you were supposed to do was get married to the person who was good on paper and I don't think that they were ever really in love I don't think she was ever really in love with him and they definitely did not have any relationship skills and there was a lot of emotional abuse and a little and a little bit of violence and um and a lot of codependency and uh you know my father also struggled at this was when I was young with addiction but mostly like self-prescribed stuff and so I grew up in a very very tense household between two people with two parents who um did not get along and there was just a lot of toxicity so I was not modeled healthy relationships and my father was a very complicated man and I was born into a very sensitive Constitution I was just very sensitive and so he scared me he never he never physically abused me in any way shape or form but he was highly

4:22 manipulative and there was some emotional I guess you would call it abuse um but I I found him to be very very very scary so I grew up terrified of him and very attached to my mom and so that created some Dynamics you know for me later in life and you know I was the child where and I grew up with siblings but I was a child where when my parents announced that they were separating I felt this tremendous weight off my shoulders I thought thank God he's leaving so um a big part of my life has been understanding how my relationship with him and also my relationship with my mom my relationship with my childhood has impacted my life specifically romantic relationships and I've actually had some beautiful romantic relationships so it's I I I don't want to misrepresent myself saying that like every relationship I've ever had has been hard I've actually had good ones but I think that that's also what's

5:30 so nuanced about the conversation relationships you can go through a stage of life where you have a great relationship and then you go and then you're later in life then everything goes to help because there's so much context around it and so a large part of my life is was learning how to uh forgive him how to forgive how to forgive him came later was more like how do I be around this person without feeling like um I'm terrified and feeling so deeply uncomfortable and so it's my relationship with my father in many ways to find my life and so learning how to deal with that was huge and I and I would say that my marriage which ended which was really the thing that got me into all this I taught yoga for many years almost 20 years and then I went through a relationship that was the most significant relationship of my life and we got married and then it ended in two years and so having I really wanted to

6:35 understand I know I became obsessed with trying to understand what happened between me and my ex-husband and I had and that was really the time where I I had to I was forced to reckon with my relationship with my father and how I could not because I was very avoidant of my father I in the relationship between me and my father I was the avoidant in the relationship between me and certain men I was the I was the anxious one so I had to I couldn't avoid it anymore I had to face it directly and so that's a large part of what has influenced this book is learning how to heal learning how to have your own back learning to raise your self-esteem and also to take responsibility for what it is that goes on in a relationship and I wanted to figure out years ago like what actually makes a relationship work but work really well and I wanted to distill it into very tangible truths and lessons and I spent years trying to distill it you

7:51 know like what if I were to come up with like 10 truths or nine truths or seven truths like what what is it like what is the Legacy that I would want to leave behind like what do I feel people must understand about themselves and about themselves relationally and about love and that's that's what I birthed in this book well the book is incredible and it's actually the nine truths the nine hard truths the nine hard truths about love you mentioned something about um avoidant and anxious is that necessarily every relationship I'm I'm so curious about that now that you brought that up um meaning is every in every relationship is there someone avoidant there someone anxious no um I think that I I think in a lot of relationships you might find someone who is more wired for togetherness and values more togetherness and then you might find someone who is um has been wired towards more autonomy but there are also a lot of

8:58 relationships where there's alignment in that so I think that it's not just anxious that the lens through which that that we see relationship shouldn't just be about attachment Theory attachment theory is a very important layer it is not the only layer um it's just about how were you raised like were you raised to just like go out into the world and be free and you know uh kind of be be left to your own devices well if so then you were raised to become a very independent person or were you raised maybe were people a little bit more protective of you or were you raised around more togetherness and connection well then you are going to probably more wired to towards dependence in relationship so I think that um everyone brings their different things to the table you of a relationship how they were raised everyone has limitations and it's it's really about two people being able to work within the constructs of how

10:05 they were raised if they can if they can't but no it's not that in every relationship there's someone who's anxious and there's someone who's avoidant um it's it's so much more than that in every relationship there's someone who believes that over communicating is better and then there is someone who was raised to believe that it's best to to just sweep it under the rug there are some people who are raised to raise their voices when they're upset because that's how you show that you care and there's passion and then there's another person who was raised to believe that no you keep your voices quiet and anytime you raise your voice that's almost an Declaration of violence so we all have unique histories and conditioning and beliefs and uh we all have our different lenses through through which we see the world and sometimes you know often we forget that when we get into a relationship with

11:05 someone we're getting into a relationship with a very unique individual who has their own unique ways of growing up and part of creating a healthy relationship is understanding that talking about that seeing if you can find a middle ground in the in the areas where there's a little bit of conflict or Discord and that's what it is it's not just anxious or avoid there's so many layers to it my gosh it's it seems very complicated but one thing that you just made very clear is a lot is around how we communicate and and and in our commun inter relational communication one of the things that you mentioned when you were talking about your father and you've made it clear in the book as well as in your content your show the importance of healing our past and healing our relationships with our parents you mentioned forgiveness with your father what role does forgiving our parents play in our romantic

12:01 relationships well oh what role does does forgiving or parents play yeah you know so first what I want to preface this is with is this if you were sexually abuse you were there was violence I I'm not in any way suggesting nor would I ever ask someone to forgive their parent who did that to them I I think some I think some things don't really weren't forgiveness it's more making peace with your past so that your story about your parent with whom you have struggled you start to change the story a little bit and the story does not have such a control over you and so my story particularly with my father was like here's this person who's like this and I'm this person who's like that and I was very scared of him but as you get older and as I got older I started to realize yes that is all true but there are other things that are true too like it's also true that he grew up in a generation and in a culture where

13:15 you know you f men weren't emotionally available it is also true that um he did the best that he could with the tools that he had it is also Al true that he had certain gifts that I happen to have as well so the Apple doesn't far to fall too far from the tree and sometimes the things that you that you adopt or that you inherit from your parents even even the crappy parent is great so you have to start to see it differently and it challenges us to become the wiser person in the room and if you're in the room with the parent that you struggle with like how do you transcend your ego and all of that to kind of see things differently and that's the challenge and it's not overnight and you know it's it's about looking at your trauma differently and seeing it through a different lens um a more objective lens so it's making peace and I think that that's very important because when we really struggle and sometimes like I

14:30 said if it's strong abuse maybe it's making peace with whatever happened with a lot of distance right so everyone has a different path but the most dangerous person to be in a relationship with other than the person who's the loow hanging fruit dangerous which is violent manipulative narcissist we know that that's dangerous so let's just say let's let's table that let's sh that kind of dangerous person the next Danger dangerous person to be in a relationship with is the person who is unaware of how their childhood has affected the way that they show up in a relationship who literally just just does not know who does not have that awareness and who isn't able to admit it and to talk about it with their partner so we have to be able to do that and that's that's very important from a percentage standpoint I feel like that's most people like it's so that people are really doing all of the work I Me Maybe

15:32 not as much in the world that we live in today but it still seems like the default is kind of hey you grew up this way make the best of it and move on wouldn't you agree that most people aren't really diving into that most people are not diving into it and there is some value to saying look I grew up this way you got to make the best of it and move on and I realized that like because Mom was like this or you know Dad wasn't always present sometimes I do this like you know most people you are right are not aware of their imperfections but it it takes a lot of confidence you just have to know the ways in which you are actually difficult in a relationship and have a little sense of humor about it and love yourself anyway and then and then say you know I'm G to work on this that's really what it's all about and then we also have to be be very mindful of the fact that every single person has limitations now some

16:34 people have huge limitations but we're all limited so you have to when choosing a partner for example to expect a unicorn to expect this person who's just not going to have any limitations is is very very very silly like you cannot do that and so but what you can expect of yourself and of another person is someone who's aware of their limitations and then what you have to be able to say to yourself is what limitations can I live with and what can I not live with that's the sound of another sale on Shopify and the moment another business dream becomes a reality your reality Shopify is a Commerce platform revolutionizing millions of businesses worldwide including mine whether you're selling your Mastermind your courses whether you're selling your books Shopify simplify selling online and in person so you can focus on successfully growing your business and doing what you're great at creating

17:38 whether it's fashion Home and Garden Health Beauty Shopify covers it all Shopify covers every sales channel from an in-person POS system to an all-in-one e-commerce platform it even lets you sell across social media marketplaces like Tik Tok Facebook and Instagram packed with industry-leading tools ready to ignite your growth Shopify gives you complete control over your business and your brand without having to learn any new skills in design or code and let me tell you I have no idea about design or code so thank you Shopify for making it so easy and thanks to 247 help and an extensive Business course Library Shopify is there to support your success every step of the way what's incredible to me about Shopify is how no matter how big you want to grow no matter how big you currently are or how small all you are Shopify is there to empower you with the confidence and control to revolutionize your business take your

18:34 business to that next level constantly adding on new products services and ideas now it's your turn to get serious about selling and try Shopify now this is possibility powered by Shopify sign up for a $1 per month trial at shopify.com Monahan all lowercase m o n a an all lowercase sign up for a $1 per month trial period at shopify.com Monahan all lowercase go to shopify.com Monahan to take your business to the next level today join me shopify.com Monahan you can thank me later seems so simple hearing you say that however when we get in these routines it becomes so much more complex or maybe not so much more complex but so much more difficult I just recently was talking to one of my best friends who's been in this cycle with her husband where she keeps blaming and pointing a finger at him so much so that she's not noticing she's doing it I'm sure that you see people going through this and and I'm speaking to her

19:40 and and they love each other they have a good marriage but they're just in one of these Cycles right now when I I mentioned it to her I said you just keep talking about everything he does wrong but you're not saying that you ever do anything wrong or saying anything that he does right and it it was almost shocking to her to hear that how do people break Cycles when they get into these routines well first of all I just want to say that that was very good advice that you gave her and I hope that it woke her up a little bit um that's honestly a large part of what the book is about is you need to be able to see the role that you're playing in the dynamic and even more this is how you can change it because awareness is the first step but then changing the behavior is the next step and change is where people is where we all struggle the most to be honest but yeah I mean if you love someone and

20:36 you're in a relationship with them and something's not working out with them and you're going through a hard time it's not to say that when there's a problem in a relationship I am not suggesting that it's a 5050 split meaning like you're responsible for half of it and you're responsible for the other half no it could very well be that one person is a is is more of a problem their behavior is more of a problem than the other but more times than not it really does take two to tangle Tango and so you don't want to um the constant finger pointing without being able to say to yourself okay what am I doing that's contributing to whatever it is that's not working in my relationship ship the moment you can ask yourself that is the moment that you you transform yourself you are transformed in that moment with just that question and it's very very important so when I work with people and when I worked a lot with couples I was Mo nine

21:47 times out of 10 you know I'm helping people see their role and their role could be their perspective their role could be how they're just not uh considering the other person's side most people when they go on to like a couple's therapy couch they're thinking fix the other person and you know oftentimes we change the dynamic between us and another person by changing ourselves not always but often that's one of the things I love so much about your book is the emphasis on it begins with you your first truth and that radical accountability because that is the one thing that we can all control okay so I'll use myself as an example because I feel like of course for me this is more of a gray area it's obvious when I'm looking at my friends right simple to say oh no that you shouldn't just point a finger at somebody else all the time that's not the right thing to do that's clear to me however in my

22:44 situation I'll use um a past relationship that I had and it's similar to the prior one I'll get into relationship everything is great it's amazing things are going well and then slowly things will start to change in my mind I'll think oh give this person the benefit of the doubt um you know this is a gray area I don't want to be a pain I'm sure it's you know what whatever but that person is in in this situation you know making a commitment to make me a priority to come see me whatever it may be and then I'm slowly seeing the actions not line up with the words and then suddenly you're having the conversation wait a minute we've talked about this why are we back at this again and then for me I want to blow up and walk away my friends will see to me you can't keep doing you know you can't keep doing that that's not working for you but when you're in it it's so hard to say okay what is it that I'm doing wrong

23:38 it's very hard to see oftentimes when you're knee deep in it yeah it's very I mean it's it is very hard I mean mindfulness is is a practice you know mindfulness is a practice uh you know and and the the example that you gave I mean that could be so many different things like it could be that you're you're choosing the wrong men right that could be one thing it could also be that um a lot of women will have will because we value safety so much we have a habit of always trying to find what's wrong because in another person because we're looking for the we're looking for danger so that we can protect ourselves from danger so often times um you know is it actions not matching up with words or is there Communication Breakdown you know is it the way that you're asking for things or is it actually them not being in Integrity there's so many different ways to to look at the scenario that you shared mindfulness as a practice is

24:52 okay if I want to be in a relationship with this person are our values aligned do we get along do I feel good around this person if I were to have a child would I want them to grow up to be like this person okay and then let's say you're like okay yes I think so I'm I'm discovering so but and but we're having these issues okay how am I communicating am I only think thinking about my needs my insecurity my frustration or am I taking the time to ask them about their experience of the same situation that's really powerful okay I could have used that when I was 20 when I Mayan yeah you and me both but at least you're dropping it on us now so thank you for that J yeah so when you were explaining that and thank you for explaining that the one thing that popped into my mind was red flags and I know you talk a lot about this yeah we start seeing the red flags when is the time to say wait a minute this is

26:10 the wrong person versus I should keep going and see if there's more there yeah so the biggest mistake that people make like the reason most times more times than not the reason why people find themselves in uh toxic Dynamics unhealthy Dynamics is because of ignoring red flags basically ignoring their intuition it's just it's just basically that people there's a paradox and there's many paradoxes in relationships one is people tell you who they are pretty early on and the other one is at the same time it does take time to discover who a person really is and their character red flag there are certain red flags that might just be like give you some pause and it's worth explorating ation so it's not just like oh I'm not sure if that's a red flag you know let me just bottle up inside and then like pull away or or walk away let me ask the person about it you know like let's just say they're talking a lot about their ex

27:14 and they're talking about their ex a lot and they're feeling like you you start to get the feeling that maybe they're not entirely over this person what you would say is you know I notice that you talk about your ex a lot and I'm getting the sense that maybe there's still some emotional charge there or maybe you just had a bad day around it or like I'd love to I'd love to understand more but this is what I'm observing and then you see what they say you never know their ex could be their ex spouse and they could say you know what really sorry we co-parent today was a bad day with them so they're tough of mine but I'm going to be more mindful of that or they might just like you know keeps talking about how their ex is terrible which is a really that's a red flag because you want someone to be able to first of all not badmouth their ex and instead just be like I learned a lot from that experience this is what I

28:11 learned because then you get the the idea that they actually processed but a lot of times people don't listen to their bodies like when something happens and it feels like an immediate like punch in your gut or shutdown in your system and something really doesn't feel good they don't listen they don't say hey that did not feel good they did they don't take it seriously they think well I'm really attracted to this person or I've just spent the last five months really trying to get to know them I don't want this to end and there happens to be this whole inner dialogue that happens about why it can't end and these are the things that that I really try to empower a lot of people to pay attention to because those really unhealthy Dynamics are ones in which people are ignoring their intuition I love that idea of really checking in with your intuition seeing how you feel physically mentally emotionally when things come up however

29:08 this is what gets confusing to me so I so look to your advice on this yes what's the difference between that that like inner knowing versus just being simply triggered by something from a past relationship which believe me I've got many many triggers and I'm the older I'm getting I'm trying to say oh you're getting triggered right now don't react you know try to breathe try to calm down how can you differentiate from the two a couple different ways one is you check in with yourself and you ask yourself what is it that I'm feeling right now and how much does this actually have to do with this person or am I looking at this person and seeing mom dad and my ex or am I actually seeing this person as the pure person who they are um or am I looking at this person and seeing an idealized version of who I want want them to be versus who they really are so you check in with yourself you really have to check in with

30:02 yourself and if you can't if you still can't decipher because maybe you've had a lot of troubled relationship history and you're having trouble trusting yourself and you're starting to now feel really anxious about it speak to someone who you trust who knows you who's grounded who can give you some outside perspective so that you get out of your head about it and you speak to someone about it and I think that that's very helpful whether it's a very close friend a family member or a therapist what it doesn't whoever it is someone who you trust and you could be like hey this is what happened and I just don't know like is this something that I should pay attention to or is this is this me just being a walking trigger you know and that's another thing I think that you know when we get into a relationship we really have to what I want to part of what inspires me to teach people is assess how triggerable you

31:01 are like have you actually like do you are you still being controlled by past relationships or have you looked at yourself and your role in it and the things that you can control and have you kind of changed the story around it or are you still stuck in the story of just constantly blaming your ex and feeling victimized by your ex and so now it's like you have this you're just a walking trigger so these are some of the things and again it's just you don't have to get it perfect it's just really honestly what it boils down to is self-reflection your business gets to a certain size and the cracks start to emerge things you used to do in a day are taking a week you have too many manual processes you don't have one source of truth if this is you you should know these three numbers 37,000 25 1 37,000 that's the number of businesses which have upgraded to Nets Suite by Oracle net Suite is the number one Cloud

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33:23 Monahan that's netsuite.com Monahan to get your kpi checklist now netsuite.com monan I don't know if this is a female thing I think it is because I see it with so many women myself included this you could be in a short relationship and you're you romanticize that this is going to be it and everything's going to be amazing and then when you end that relationship for whatever reason you know it doesn't work out and then you constantly obsess and ruminate and think about that great relation and again romanticize it how do you get people to stop doing that so so like you said they can separate that past relationship to go whole into a new one well first of all men obsess quite a bit as well yeah they can they can you know not everyone obsesses but they can obsess quite a bit as well the obsessing usually happens when we are the ones who are being rejected so it's the rejection is what stimulates all the obsessing because

34:22 then we're like we're not good enough should I tried harder all of that um so you know the obsessing breakup obsessing is part of the breakup process and it's part of the rejection process and you start to um ruminate is really what it is and you're and you're and you're going back in time and you're replaying certain conversations and you're seeing it played out differently and what you could have done differently there's different ways to to put a little bit of an end to that one is to talk to someone another is to journal exercise distract yourself with work a little bit um you're you're you are very right that what women will do is obsess over the person who they barely know who they started dating does he like me does she like me are they into me when are they going to call this or that because women we are very conditioned to have this sort of choose me mentality pick me choose me

35:47 and women and men will get into this as well it's not just women but yes more often than not women will get into this this Wormhole basically of this person who they barely know that they have made the central character of their lives before that person has even gotten remotely close to earning that role and it is the obsession with being enough and being chosen when when in reality you are the Chooser and that is the most important thing and we get caught up and a lot of women and it depends on their stage of Life they'll get caught up because maybe they want to have a family they want to get married they want to have the ring on their finger they're stting they have all this anxiety and social and societal and familial pressure that's on their shoulders and so they meet someone who they're attracted to who maybe looks good on paper and they become totally obsessed with being good enough for them

36:53 and actually that's exactly what turns the the person off particularly turns off a man when really you have to think do I even want you are you good enough for me are our values aligned hey this is what I need from you because a lot of women and men again will do this too but a lot lot more women will silence what their needs are let me try to be cool let me go with the flow let me be a pleaser let me be a nurturer because everything is like I want you to choose me I want you to pursue me I want to be be like that fairy tale and nothing could be further from the truth of what reality is and that is you have to be the one who is direct and forward about what it is that you want you are to be the one who is also choosing and you are going to become much more attractive to many more people when you actually assume that role and you will scare some people away and those are the right people to scare away that confuses me in

37:55 this whole dynamic of of femininity masculinity and this world that we live in today where you know I've always been told I'm very masculine very aggressive um very direct and that you know stems from work my childhood whatever um but people will always offer me that feedback you shouldn't bring that into your romantic relationships hea so I've been working so hard in later years to not try to control everything direct everything and take charge of everything in my romantic relationships and try to leave that somewhat at work but then to your point what you're saying is you know be direct how can you balance that in what role does femininity versus masculinity play so being direct is not the same thing as being antagonistic or being controlling it's about being forward and vulnerable there's a there's tremendous vulnerability in exposing yourself to another person and saying this is what I need from you

38:57 because most of us are too busy unconsciously manipulating others to get our needs met and we are trying to control the narrative and we're trying to get we're trying to control the way other people perceive us so we're doing all this strategy it's actually very vulnerable to say I care enough about me and you and what we can build together for me to say this is what I need from you and tone and Cadence and your body language and your eyes all of that while you're saying that can be very soft while at the same time being very direct and you can also be very intense if you have to be I don't see that as masculine at all you know when we talk about the role of femininity and masculinity you know most people have it very wrong honestly like this is you're not in your feminine if you're doing this I think that um many if you're comfortable if you prefer to be pursued let the person pursue you but

40:13 that doesn't mean that you play hard to get it just means that you're busy living your best life and you let there be the dance that is is so fun in dating of there being a little bit of courting now inside of a relationship no one wants to be controlled all the time and there's some value in just receiving love like allowing yourself to receive care from another person allowing yourself to receive love so I like I prefer to see it as more of a receptive energy rather than having to control everything around you but being direct and forward about what it is that you need from someone is actually very vulnerable that's really powerful and that gave me a lot of clarity so I'm sure gave everybody listen a lot of clarity so thank you saying that that makes a lot of sense now okay so when you were just talking you remind me of one of the stories from your book when you just said be out there living your

41:27 best life and I remember um in the book you sharing about one of the people a woman that you work with who had been in a series of dysfunctional relationships and was getting back into another one and you were encouraging her to go spend time on her own starting to live her own best life starting to love herself and when she was finally able to do that she ended the the unhappy relationship she was in went out and was single for a while and that's when she attracted that relationship the the right relationship to her how often do you see that being the issue for people that they're just not happy with themselves yeah well a few things I mean she didn't just attract the relationship she chose the right relationship too right so that's very important um I think it's i h you can be sad and you can even be depressed and you can find love what's going to feed the relationship is you getting help for

42:40 that depression and not expecting someone to heal your depression having meaning in life having sources of connection that isn't just one person I think is very important and that might mean that someone has to look at their life holistically and say okay I don't have enough meaningful connection in my life I'm making it all about finding that romantic partner that is going to become stressful for my relationship cu no one one person could ever be everything for me so what do I need to do to get more connection and it might be hard it might mean pushing yourself past your comfort zone building Community somewhere joining a certain group of some sort where you can meet like-minded people you know that's why they call it in our work because sometimes we have to learn how to meet our needs in ways that we are not accustomed to meeting our needs so that we don't do that thing that we usually do in a

44:05 relationship that doesn't work anymore so often times like this person who you were referring to I believe it was the one who kept on dating cheaters and um she had developed this belief that all men cheat which is of course it's not true in in fact more women statistically than men uh cheat on their spouses so but she had a pattern of choosing these men that were um had really really big Character defects and she would Overlook it because she just wanted the relationship so when she learned to kind of challenge those beliefs and also realize that like she put all this stock on a romantic relationship and totally forgot about the things that actually bring her joy and a sense of peace and a sense of calm and a sense of contentment and when she started to nurture that in herself and remove some of the the the dire necessity of a romantic relationship right now then she was able to date with fewer expectations more

45:27 open mindedness and a lot more discernment so it does play a really big role well it sure ended up working out for her it sounded like it did yeah they're engaged to be married yeah I'm so I'm so happy for so the good news there for me and in these stories that you share in the book is change is possible and it's readily available when we start looking at ourselves first absolutely absolutely I think a lot is possible look I think human we human beings have a tremendous capacity to change we don't change we usually don't change a lot of people don't change because change is scary but we have the capacity to change and I think that you know when someone is unhappy in their relationship or they find themselves chronically single and they've just gotten to to the point where I got to at one point in my life is like okay I need to figure this out that's why I wrote the book one of the things that you talk

46:36 about in the book is the importance of self-worth and some of the strategies around how to create some some worthiness in yourself what are some of the things that you can share with listeners to give them a glimpse of what they'll find in the book yeah so one is learn how learn how to meet your needs and challenge yourself you know we think that self-esteem you know there there is Great Value in learning how to talk to yourself in a way that's respectful and that's very very important because we tend to talk to ourselves pretty terribly so that's very important but there's an element to building yourself worth that's not talked about enough which I talk about in the book which is do the hard thing challenge yourself to overcome a fear or to try that new project or to communicate when you were you're not used to communicating this is actually how we raise our self-esteem we actually have to do some

47:44 hard things and then we're proud of ourselves and then we see that like wow I just overcame an obstacle and then we can start to look back at all the miles that we've walked and the things that we've had to face and we excuse me we start to see the resilience inside ourselves and that starts to increase our self-esteem you bring up great point that changes so hard but when you start in celebrating when you've gone through it it makes you feel that much more empowered and that much better about yourself and that much better about what's possible in your life absolutely it's all about empowerment for sure so learning how to meet your needs in like your needs for connection your needs for fun your needs for adventure your needs for fulfillment like really understanding like what it is that you need in life like what's what's missing and how can I start to fill in that gap for myself so you can think of um what's

48:43 missing is a void right we talk a lot about sort of in the Zid like these voids that we have to fill part of it is that you want to be able to fill some of those voids for yourself and the way that you can is by asking yourself a very simple question like what exactly is missing from my life and then someone might say well it's a loving relationship okay fine valid you can't control the timing of things you can control how much you can you can you can date like it's your job or you can try to fill yourself up with love in other ways and that's important it's so important it's so it's so powerful and so true so it begins with you who did you write this book for

49:43 H you know initially I was thinking I wrote the book for that person who can't seem I mean honestly I wrote the book for the person who can't seem to figure out why they have it all together in many areas of their life but they can't figure out the relationship part whether they're in a relationship or single or heartbroken and I wrote for the person who's in a lot of pain about that and and they are confused and sort of perplexed and sad about it and maybe they're the person who everyone says like you're a cat you're smart you're beautiful you're handsome whatever like there's so many things that You' have going on but you can't like this area you can't seem to figure it out or you know my I'm in this relationship and I can't make it better so I wanted it to be sort of a personal empowerment book for people who have maybe tolerated less than they they than they deserve I also wanted it to be sort

51:04 of like a surrogate therapy couch for couples who are just don't know how to find their way out so yeah it's for people who feel saddened and confused and determined to figure out this area of their life which is relationships romantic relationships in particular well I mean this has been your life's work and the amount of expertise experienced the thousands of people you've worked with the the content creation I mean Jillian obviously you're an expert at this it begins with you the nine hard truths about love that will change your life the book is gold where can people get it I mean anywhere it's available for I mean I don't even know if I say available for pre-order but you can get it literally anywhere your local bookstore Amazon on you can get it on Audible so honestly you just go to I think you'll put link it out and there's lots of different places where you can get the book from did you record the

52:08 audio version I am going to be well there by the time this comes out yes yes I love that I love when the author does the actual audio you oh yeah I I'm doing the actual one for sure so if you are someone who would prefer to listen to my voice or you're someone who likes to listen to books while you're on the go then we'll have that and where can everybody follow you I happen to follow you on Instagram and love your feet oh thank you so much so yes follow me on Instagram at Jillian tki I'm also on Tik Tok and threads and whatnot but I'm the most active and N X but I'm the most active on um on Instagram and I have a membership a relationship school for women called the conscious woman and a bunch of courses so you can just find that on my site Jillian chi.com and of course my book and my podcast Jillian on love well Jillian thank you so much for the work you're doing I wish I could have met you 20 years ago but I'm so

53:07 grateful to have known you now and thank you so much for the book it begins with you go get it now thank you for all that you're doing Jillian oh thank you so much for having me I really appreciate it all right guys go get the book it begins with you you will not regret it you are welcome in advance until next week keep creating your confidence you know I will wa

Questions about this episode

What is "#490: It Starts with YOU: Nine Lessons to Change Your Life with Jillian Turecki, Coach & Author..." about?

Jillian Turecki, a seasoned relationship coach and author, shares her insights on transforming personal and romantic relationships by starting with self-discovery and understanding. Drawing from her own experiences and extensive professional background, she offers nine key lessons designed to help individuals overcome struggles and thrive in their connections with themselves and others.

What is mentioned in this Heather Monahan episode?

9 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Jillian Turecki, It Begins with You: The 9 Hard Truths About Love That Will Change Your Life, Jillian on Love, Jillian on Love, The Nine Hard Truths About Love, Emotional abuse. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "#490: It Starts with YOU: Nine Lessons to Change Your Life with Jillian Turecki, Coach & Author..."?

The episode runs 53 min; the transcript is about 8,452 words in 49 timestamped sections.

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