Subtitles section Play video
-
Do you want to live happily ever after?
-
My guess is that you do.
-
After seeing it on television and films, reading it in books for all these years,
-
it only makes sense that you would want to achieve the gold standard of love,
-
the highest possibility that one could possibly achieve.
-
Yet have you ever considered that the happily ever after story might actually
-
be damaging you and hurting your chances to be happy in love?
-
♪ [music] ♪
-
You know, the happily ever after myth, that gold standard to which
-
we're all aspiring to, was only created about 400 years ago,
-
when the lifespan was less than 40 years of age.
-
It was created in Venice, Italy, where at the time, most of the people were
-
born into utter poverty, with no hope of ever escaping.
-
Half the children were dying before they reached their 16th birthday.
-
Life conditions were harsh and dire.
-
People couldn't even break free of their chronic impoverishment
-
through marriage, because at the time, there was a law on the books
-
forbidding a noble person from marrying a commoner. Just think of it.
-
When we look at the happily ever after myth, we always see a commoner
-
marrying a noble person and coming into great wealth as a result.
-
So this myth, which was first created as an escapist fantasy to help people survive
-
at a very difficult time, has now somehow become the covert standard
-
to which we're holding ourselves and each other accountable to.
-
But it's important to question our cultural assumptions and myths, because
-
they might not actually be appropriate for us to be aspiring to.
-
I mean, are you really expecting to live less than 40 years of age?
-
Are you anticipating that half of your children, if you plan on having them,
-
are going to die before the age of 16?
-
Is your life just about surviving and somehow making it
-
through just another year? Of course not.
-
The context of our lives, thankfully, is completely different
-
from someone who lived 400 years ago.
-
The truth is, what's actually normal for us is serial monogamy.
-
Studies show that statistically, most of us will have two to three
-
significant relationships in our lifetime.
-
And in just the past 100 years, our lifespan has doubled, and continues
-
to grow by leaps and bounds, as have our expectations
-
of what we want from a romantic union.
-
We want so much more than our grandparents would ever dare have expected.
-
We want that person to be your best friend, our soulmate, our lover for life,
-
which, with the invention of viagra and hormone therapies
-
is now actually possible.
-
So given that more people are going to divorce this year than buy a new car or
-
eat grapefruit for breakfast, I think it's time that we begin to rethink
-
the goals of love to which we are aspiring and to stop feeling like such a failure
-
when our relationships end before someone dies.
-
Because many of us will indeed experience the pain of a breakup.
-
I mean, if we're going to have two to three significant relationships
-
in our lifetime, that implies one or two big breakups as well.
-
And inside of this happily ever after myth, we've never actually learned
-
how to transition out of our relationships well.
-
And most of us will slip into a sense of shame and despair
-
at the end of a relationship, as though we have completely failed.
-
♪ [music] ♪
-
So if you are up for it, I want to take you through a little values
-
assessment awareness exercise, just to give you a chance to see
-
for yourself which standards you're actually holding yourself
-
and others accountable to.
-
So just close your eyes for a moment and take a deep breath, and consider a breakup
-
you've had, maybe you're in the midst of one right now, maybe you're still
-
suffering with some unresolved grief from a past breakup, or anticipating a possible
-
breakup in the future, just noticing the judgments that you have
-
towards yourself or the other person as it relates to how you think this
-
was supposed to go, as opposed to how it actually did go.
-
See if you can identify the standards to which you've been
-
holding yourself and that other person accountable to.
-
Another way of saying this, "What standards have you
-
or that other person failed to live up to?"
-
Notice also what you're afraid that other people might judge you for.
-
Who are you imagining might judge you and for what,
-
even if they're not expressing it overtly?
-
Where does this land in your body, and then how do you respond?
-
Do you then try to hide? Are you not telling the whole story?
-
Are you having imaginary conversations where you're defending yourself
-
or are you beating yourself up?
-
Again, just asking yourself, "What standards am I failing to live up to?"
-
Notice the standards that you're holding yourself accountable to,
-
which might not even be yours.
-
Asking yourself, "Do I even actually agree with these standards?
-
Are they values that I share? Where did I even get them?
-
Are they congruent with what I'm here to create in my life
-
and in integrity with what I really believe?"
-
So you want to start to sort out the values that are true to who you are
-
and what you came here to create from those that you just inherited
-
from others, and which you're not really aligned with at the deepest level.
-
If you find that you're holding yourself accountable to standards
-
that you're not actually committed to, I invite you to just
-
start to let those go.
-
And when you're ready, you can open your eyes.
-
You might want to take out a journal and do some writing about this.
-
But here's the thing.
-
If you are living someone else's unexamined idea of love,
-
then you're in danger of setting yourself up to settle for less
-
or compromise your true life path.
-
The values we hold are influencing our choices and our actions every day.
-
And we want to make sure that the values that you are aspiring to are the ones that
-
are going to empower you to fully actualize the potentials that you hold
-
for happiness, health, fulfillment, and love on all levels.
-
Do you want to know more? Join me in my free Mindvalley masterclass.
-
And I look forward to seeing you there.
-
♪ [music] ♪
