What is Love?

Summary

Podcast Summary: "What is Love?" – The Mindset Mentor with Rob Dial and Lauren Dial

Release Date: February 14, 2025
Host: Rob Dial
Guest: Lauren Dial

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Introduction

In this heartfelt episode of The Mindset Mentor, released on Valentine's Day 2025, host Rob Dial engages in a profound conversation with his wife, Lauren Dial, exploring the multifaceted concept of love. This episode delves deep into their personal definitions of love, the distinction between loving someone and being in love, the importance of self-love, vulnerability in relationships, and fostering growth within a partnership.

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Defining Love: Personal Perspectives

Lauren's Childhood Understanding of Love
Lauren begins by sharing a tender childhood ritual initiated by her father. Every night before bed, her dad would ask her, "What does love mean?" This daily practice helped Lauren develop a personal understanding of love grounded in simple, everyday actions.

[04:33] Lauren Dial: "Love means making breakfast with your family. Love means giving your friend a hug or whatever came to mind for me that day."

Rob's Contrasting Experience
Rob contrasts his upbringing, having a father who struggled with alcoholism and was less present. Despite these challenges, Rob never felt unloved but acknowledges the differing perspectives both he and Lauren brought into their relationship.

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Love vs. Being in Love

Rob and Lauren delve into distinguishing between loving someone and being in love with someone.

Lauren's Definition of Being in Love

[07:17] Lauren Dial: "Being in love is somebody that you can be completely vulnerable with and feel safe to be your full self around. You don't have to edit yourself in any way, and you want to have every experience of life with this person."

Rob's Expanded View

Rob adds that being in love involves recognizing and healing parts of oneself influenced by past experiences.

[09:10] Rob Dial: "When you're in love with somebody, there's an aspect of realizing that there are parts of myself from childhood... that you make me feel safe enough to work on those things with you."

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Self-Love Journeys and Personal Growth

Lauren's Struggle with Negative Self-Talk
Lauren opens up about her battle with negative self-talk and how it impacted her happiness and physical health.

[27:05] Lauren Dial: "I was horrible to myself. It was an endless cycle... I was doing everything skincare-wise and became obsessed."

Implementing Self-Love Practices
To combat this, Lauren adopted rituals to reprogram her self-talk, utilizing malas beads and self-love mantras.

[29:49] Lauren Dial: "I would have to switch whatever I said about myself to something nice. I sat with my mala beads and repeated self-love mantras daily."

Rob's Insights on Self-Improvement
Rob emphasizes that self-love is foundational to loving others, highlighting that one cannot give what they do not possess.

[33:40] Rob Dial: "If we truly learn to love and accept ourselves more for all aspects of who we are, we can love others genuinely."

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Vulnerability in Relationships

Rob and Lauren discuss the challenges and breakthroughs related to vulnerability within their relationship.

Overcoming Barriers to Vulnerability

[18:20] Rob Dial: "I'm curious your thoughts on being vulnerable... how it's progressed for you."

[18:46] Lauren Dial: "Once I realized I was withholding love, it was a huge shift because I could tell there was a wall building."

Therapeutic Intervention
They credit their relationship therapy sessions with John for helping them understand and navigate their vulnerabilities.

[20:14] Lauren Dial: "Therapy made me realize I was withholding love to align with what I thought Rob wanted."

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Acceptance and Empathy

Viewing Others Through a Compassionate Lens
Rob shares his perspective on perceiving others as wounded children, fostering greater empathy and acceptance.

[34:25] Rob Dial: "See people as a child in a grown-up's body... someone isn't truly an adult but a little child that's wounded."

Lauren on Empathy and Non-Judgment

[39:53] Lauren Dial: "When your perception is shaped from different experiences, it allows for more empathy because you don't have to understand why someone is acting a certain way."

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Practical Applications of Self-Love

Lauren's HeartMath Practice
Lauren highlights HeartMath—a technique combining breathing and focus—to connect with her emotions and reduce anxiety.

[33:55] Lauren Dial: "HeartMath helped me get out of my head and into my heart through breathing and connecting with my body."

Rob's Emphasis on Present Moment Awareness
Rob underscores the importance of being present, stating that presence anchors oneself against negative internal narratives.

[34:25] Rob Dial: "When you're in your head, you're almost never here, like physically. The only thing that's actually physically here is your body."

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Conclusion: Final Definitions of Love

Wrapping up their discussion, Rob and Lauren offer succinct definitions that encapsulate their understanding of love.

[40:43] Lauren Dial: "Love is when you can get down to the true version of yourself and show kindness and compassion and care for someone else and yourself."

[41:00] Rob Dial: "Love is the state that is natural for all of us when we can get past the judgment of ourselves and the judgment of others."

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Key Takeaways

• Self-Love is Foundational: Loving oneself is crucial before one can genuinely love others. Negative self-talk and lack of self-acceptance hinder the ability to form deep, meaningful relationships.

• Vulnerability Strengthens Bonds: Being open and vulnerable with a partner fosters trust and facilitates mutual growth and healing.

• Empathy and Non-Judgment Enhance Understanding: Viewing others with compassion, recognizing their struggles, and withholding judgment can lead to more harmonious and supportive relationships.

• Presence Over Perception: Focusing on the present moment and connecting with one’s emotions helps mitigate the negative impact of internal narratives and external judgments.

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Engage with Rob and Lauren

If you found this episode insightful, consider sharing it on your social media and tagging Rob Dial (@RobDialJr) and Lauren Dial. For personalized advice or questions about relationships, love, life, or personal development, visit askrobandlauren.com.

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*Make it your mission to make somebody else's day better. Thank you for tuning into The Mindset Mentor!

Transcript

[Sponsor Voice]

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[Rob Dial]

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[Rob Dial]

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[Rob Dial]

I'm your host Rob Dial.

[Sponsor Voice]

If you have not yet done so, hit that subscribe button so you never.

[Rob Dial]

Miss another episode of this podcast. This is a replay of an episode that I did with my wife just over a year ago where we actually talk about love. And seeing that it is Valentine's Day today when this comes out, I thought it'd be really good for us to talk about love.

[Sponsor Voice]

And my wife Lauren and I, we talk about, you know, our own personal definitions of what love is. We talk about in this episode the difference of what love is versus being in love. So like what it's like to love.

[Rob Dial]

Somebody versus being in love with somebody.

[Sponsor Voice]

We talk about the journey that we have both been on, especially Lauren and.

[Rob Dial]

Her self love journey where she used to have a really negative self talk.

[Sponsor Voice]

And how she learned to love herself more and accept herself more and how that changed many aspects of herself and her world. We also talk about vulnerability in a relationship, how to break down emotional walls, and also how to have empathy and understanding for other people and to be able to love other people, even people.

[Rob Dial]

That you're not in a romantic relationship with, and how to have empathy and.

[Sponsor Voice]

Understanding for other people as well, and how to love other people, even ones.

[Rob Dial]

That you're not in a romantic relationship with.

[Sponsor Voice]

And then last, we talk about how to encourage your partner to grow and to evolve and to become better so that you can both grow and evolve.

[Rob Dial]

In your relationship as well.

[Sponsor Voice]

So in this special Valentine's Day, this.

[Rob Dial]

Is the episode of what is love? With my wife, Lauren. Hope you enjoy it. I have a special guest with me back for round two. I have my wife, Lauren, who's gonna be with me today, and we're gonna be talking about what is love? This is gonna be a deep, deep conversation, and Lauren and I are gonna give our perspectives, which feel right for us, but doesn't mean that it's internationally right for every single person.

[Lauren Dial]

Yeah, it doesn't mean it is the answer. It's just ours from where we're currently standing.

[Rob Dial]

Sure. Yeah. And so, Lauren, welcome to the podcast again. Nice to see you.

[Lauren Dial]

Thanks.

[Rob Dial]

We're recording this on the same day, so we're in the same clothes. For those of you guys that are watching us on YouTube, we're wearing the same thing because it's the same day. But we're gonna talk about love. And this is a topic that I think is really good to dive into. And I can't talk. I mean, I could talk about it by myself, but it makes a lot more sense if I have my wife, who I've been with for over 10 years, who has helped me get better at discovering and figuring out what love is. I love love, and Lauren loves love. And so we entered into the relationship with. With completely different experiences of life. And so let's start off with you. When you think about love, I want you to share yours. And I know that your dad used to ask you a question. We used to go to bed every single night. So if you could share that with the audience and we could start off there.

[Lauren Dial]

Yeah. I think this is something so sweet and special that my dad started when I was. I mean, I couldn't even tell you how old I was, but it was just a ritual that started every single night before I went to bed, he would tuck me in, and he would say, what does love mean? And I would come up with whatever I thought love meant that day. Love means, you know, making breakfast with your family. Love means giving, you know, your friend a hug or whatever you know, came to mind for me that day. But it was really cute because every day, I mean, every night, that was the question he would ask me.

[Rob Dial]

Yeah. And so coming from that, when you first came into our relationship.

[Lauren Dial]

Yeah.

[Rob Dial]

What was your view on love? What did you think that it was? What is love, I feel, was love at that point in time for you?

[Lauren Dial]

Yeah. I feel like I have been really fortunate to come from a childhood and a background where love was very abundant. I mean, like, everybody gave and showed love very freely. My. My mom was a stay at home mom, and so I had her with me at all times and she was like my best friend growing up. I remember, like in high school, we went on a girls trip and my mom was the only mom that couldn't come. And I legitimately cried at the airport saying bye to my mom. And I was a teenage girl, you know, was probably like 16 or 17. Yeah. Like, just. I loved my parents, my parents loved me. I had two little sisters. We all just. I mean. Yeah, my experience of I was just. I'm super grateful and very blessed with how loving of a background I was brought up in.

[Rob Dial]

And so my perspective was definitely different with my dad not being around and my father being an alcoholic. And so I never felt like I wasn't loved. But I would say that, you know, it was definitely a different perspective that we both brought into relationship. And I want to talk about and share our perspectives now that we're in this relationship. And we had a conversation a couple months ago and we were talking about a friend in a relationship and you said, you know, oh, yeah, but she really loves him. And I said, yeah, but is she in love with him? And then we had this deep conversation about what's the difference between love, like loving somebody versus being in love with somebody. And so I gave you my definition. And I don't think you gave me your definition because I think we arrived at home and then we went on to something else. So I'll give my definition in a second. But what do you think from your perspective is the difference between loving somebody and being in love with somebody?

[Lauren Dial]

Yeah. So I feel like I have love for other people. You know, I really care about them. They mean a lot to me. I will genuinely love a lot of my friends, you know, pretty quickly. Like, I just appreciate and have gratitude for these people and I love them. To me, being in love is a little bit different because. And again, I think this is like where I stand right now because this is always evolving and changing. But as I was thinking about it, to me, it's somebody that you can be completely vulnerable with and feel safe to be your full self around. You don't have to edit yourself in any way, and you want to have every experience of life with this person. What I mean by that is, like, there's friends that I really like to go to, you know, to travel with, or there's friends that I like to do podcasts with, or there's friends that I want to just go shopping with. Right. Like, there's different people for different things, and I love them. But then there's also times where, like, I don't necessarily want to be around that person. Not because there's anything wrong with them, but it's. There's. There's just, you know, there's something there that, like, maybe I don't feel safe opening up to them about certain things or maybe doing certain things. But when you're in love with somebody, I feel like you're in such a state of being your true self that you want more from your experience with them, and you want to experience everything with them, not only just, like, being together and showing them love, but, like, passion and even whether it's, like, intimately or sexually. Like, you want that with them, too, right? Because I don't want that with everybody. But being in love with somebody that's such a beautiful part of the human experience is the intimacy. And that, I feel like is another added component of being in love with someone. That's something else you want to experience with them.

[Rob Dial]

Yeah, I would agree with you on a lot of that. And the thing that I had said to you that has, over the past couple months kind of matured in my mind, if I started to get deeper into it, is I think that there's definitely a lot of people that I love. But I think when you're in love with somebody, I think there's an aspect of realizing that there are parts of myself from childhood, from growing up, from other relationships and heartbreaks that has not been fully healed. And you make me feel safe enough to be able to work on those things with you. And I think that that's what I've come to realize, is that I think that. And we were in LA last week, and I was on Matthew Hussey's podcast, and he has a podcast called Love Life, and he is a dating coach and stuff. And we were talking about this, and I said, I think that one of the highest reasons for being in a relationship with somebody is I'm working on myself. I'm trying to love and accept myself even more and trying to become a more evolved version of myself. But I think that there's still some aspects of myself for most people where I can. Like when someone's working on self love, like, they can get, if they're working really hard, like, 95% there, but there's still about 5% where it's like, yeah, but if they only knew how whatever I am, then maybe they won't accept me. And so a lot of people don't get fully, truly vulnerable with somebody because they think if she only knew this about me, she wouldn't want to be with me if he only knew this about me. So they. They open up almost fully, but they don't fully open up. I think when you're like, truly, fully in love with somebody is when you can say, here's all of me, and I feel safe to be vulnerable, because vulnerable. If you look at the actual root word of the word vulnerable, it's vonorar, which means in Greek, to be injured. So, like, open to be injured in some sort of way. Yeah, I think it's about, like, even if you're somebody who's working hardcore on yourself of loving yourself to accepting yourself, you'll get like 95% there. And sometimes we need to see somebody else accept all of us and still love us for us to be able to go, yeah, maybe I can love that extra 5% of myself. And I think that sometimes just having that person reflect love for who we are and accept us and not try to change us, that person, and it's one of the highest senses of what we can be in a relationship for, is that person can help us heal ourselves by showing us what it looks like to accept and love ourselves.

[Lauren Dial]

What a relief it is when you can be that vulnerable and have it met with love by somebody that you really care about. Like, that feels so good. And I think that's where the healing starts to happen is because if, like, for me, when there's been times where I'm like, oh, this is the not cute, real part of me that, like, just hoping for the best, but, like, I'm gonna just go into this and be fully transparent, fully vulnerable, and you meet that with love, I. I really believe in everything that you have feedback on. Right. Like, I. I value your opinion. And so when you give me feedback that's in alignment with love for something that I was judging, it's like, oh, my God. It gives you just, like such a Different perspective. And then you can feel so much relief in that. And I think that's what gets you back to that state where you are more in alignment with your true self, which I think we're all love. I think the true version of all of ourselves is so much more in alignment with love. So then it puts you into that state of being in love.

[Rob Dial]

Yeah, I would agree with you. And I think that, you know, I think that I have come to realize that Hollywood has really screwed up a lot of things for a lot of people is because we think. I think that we confuse love with lust. Like, sweep me off my feet and I'm head. You have the head over heels. And like, you complete me. And I don't. I personally, this is my opinion, don't believe that any other person completes another person. I think that we have to complete ourselves.

[Lauren Dial]

Yeah.

[Rob Dial]

And then we try to bring. So I don't see it as like, I bring. I'm 50% me and Lauren's 50% her. And together we make 100% of a great relationship. The way I see it is like, I'm 100% working on myself and trying to get to 100% of potential of Rob and healed Rob.

[Lauren Dial]

Yeah.

[Rob Dial]

Lauren's working on herself to be 100% of heal Lauren, the best version of herself. And we both bring the best version of ourselves to the relationship. Because I think a lot of times people get into relationships looking for somebody to fill a void versus just saying, like, hey, I'm going to show up as the best version of myself and bring that to the relationship. It's almost like when you look at some people's attachment styles is they attach to somebody else because of the fact that they're looking for that person to complete a part of them that doesn't feel whole or feels like there's a void in some sort of way.

[Lauren Dial]

Yeah. And that, I mean, it just puts so much pressure and expectation on someone else to be something.

[Rob Dial]

Right.

[Lauren Dial]

Relationships are already hard enough.

[Rob Dial]

Yeah. And I think when you look at the phrase, like, in love, like, I've heard people. I heard a coach that I follow say this before, and he was saying, you know, someone asked him, like, hey, you know, how you been? And he's like, I'm in love. And they're like, oh, with who? And he's like, I'm not in love with anybody. I'm in a state of love. And so what I think it is is that when you're with somebody who you are in love with is they bring out a state of you that exists inside of you that's been there forever, that might just have been dormant for a very long time. And they make you realize that you don't have to have your walls up. You don't have to feel unsafe. You don't have to feel like there's something wrong with you. But we can be in a state of love together. And anybody, I think, can bring out love for you. And you can. You don't have to be like, I'm in love with you, but I can be in a state of love and try to bring that love to anyone that I go and I meet. But being with you and seeing you accept me, and me accepting myself through you accepting me too, makes me go, you know what, what if I'm just in a state of love more. And when I go and I, you know, the cashier asked me how my day's doing, I try to bring that state of love to try to impact him or her not. So I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm in love with him. But it's like I just want to bring a state of love to them which maybe impacts them and changes their day in some sort of way and they can bring it to another person. Yeah.

[Lauren Dial]

I mean, how. How amazing is that?

[Rob Dial]

Yeah, it's quite amazing.

[Lauren Dial]

Answers Sweet. Yeah.

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[Rob Dial]

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[Rob Dial]

I'm curious your thoughts on it, the thoughts on being vulnerable. Because this is something that we've worked on together where I had trouble with being vulnerable. You definitely had trouble with being vulnerable. But my even more trouble with being vulnerable made you have more trouble with being vulnerable. So I'm curious your thoughts on, you know, how it's progressed for you, how it's changed through our relationship with the aspect of just being able to be truly vulnerable with, with me.

[Lauren Dial]

It's interesting because I think, I mean, again, we talk about, like, coming back to, like our true selves and being in love and my natural self is much more open. And I think that because you were having a little bit of a hard time with fully opening up to the way I express love. When we first got together, I started pumping the brakes a little bit and I started to create an idea in my mind of how you wanted me to be. And of course I wanted to be in alignment with that. So I started to withhold love and that creates a lot of issues on two levels. Number one, I'm withholding love from this person that I care about, which is limiting your experience of me. And also, it's just not natural for me to be that way. And so when I realized that was happening, it was a huge shift for us in our relationship because I could tell there was like a wall building. But at that point in time, I didn't have like a whole lot of self awareness. I just felt like there was just something blocking us.

[Rob Dial]

Right.

[Lauren Dial]

And it's like we had gotten to this like, capacity, which I knew it was possible for there to be more. I knew there was more out there for us, but the level of vulnerability, it just wasn't there. So once that was brought to our attention, I think that that was actually. Was that through John, when we went and did the therapy?

[Rob Dial]

Yeah, I think so.

[Lauren Dial]

Yeah. That I actually became more conscious of the fact that I was actually withholding love.

[Rob Dial]

Right.

[Lauren Dial]

I thought that I was just being who you wanted me to be. And I also, I wasn't aware of how much I was actually holding back until that point in time.

[Rob Dial]

Yeah. And I remember him saying he was like. And for those of you guys that John was a therapist that we saw together about two and a half years into our relationship, and you, you know, me being. Having less capacity at that point in time to be vulnerable and not really knowing as much about what love was or feeling it as much, you kind of met me where I was versus being in your natural state.

[Lauren Dial]

Right.

[Rob Dial]

It was that you were actually meeting me where I was and you weren't giving more.

[Lauren Dial]

Yeah.

[Rob Dial]

And one of the things that he had said is, is, you know, it's Rob, it's, it's your job is to try to open up a little bit more in the relationship and to try to try to be more open, allow yourself to be more open. And Lauren, you need to teach him.

[Lauren Dial]

How that changed everything. He's like, you're actually the teacher. And I was like, oh, okay. And I had never seen it that way before. So it was. That was a huge eye opener and a really good perspective to understand what was going on.

[Rob Dial]

And how do you think that shifted things for you and then also shifted things in our relationship?

[Lauren Dial]

Oh, I mean, it was like, huge because I started to understand, obviously my understanding of everything got so much more clear. And I took my role very seriously because. Because I cared about you. And also I was able to. They had like a new window into why you were the way you were. It wasn't Just because initially, I think I probably had the perception, like, I'm not good enough for this. He's withholding something from me because I'm not enough.

[Sponsor Voice]

Right.

[Lauren Dial]

Was the initial story I kind of formulated from that. But then having the understanding of, okay, Rob is the way he is because of what he experienced, and it's not that he's withholding, he's just. He needs to learn. Like, he just doesn't have the context or the background to be where you are with love. And I was like, oh, my God. I just had never realized that. And so once I understood the assignment, I knew exactly what I needed to do. And I can't say I stepped into it right away. It took me a little bit of time to.

[Rob Dial]

Took you a while to feel safe, to give me more love.

[Lauren Dial]

Right.

[Rob Dial]

Like a while. It wasn't like a week or two. It was like, slowly over years, I.

[Lauren Dial]

Had a better understanding. But then it did take me some time to really feel safe to. I guess it was like I was still a little bit afraid that I wasn't going to. It wasn't going to be reciprocated.

[Rob Dial]

Yeah.

[Lauren Dial]

And for whatever reason, I. That that was important for me at that point.

[Rob Dial]

Yeah. And that's a really important part, which is that I want everyone to kind of know, is that if you're not conscious of the stories going on in your head, you're never really in a full relationship with somebody. You're in a relationship that the image of them you're in a relationship with the image that you've built of them in your head. And in fact, you're not even fully in a relationship with that image. You're in a relationship with the image of yourself that you've built in your head. And so that might not make any sense. And I'll give people context of exactly what I mean. So there might be something where it's like, we've all done this before. It's like, I want to say something. Right. But if I say this, she's going to say this back to me, and then I'm going to say this to her, and then it's going to turn into this thing, and we basically make an entire story in our head.

[Lauren Dial]

Yeah.

[Rob Dial]

And it's not that I am in relation with you. I'm making a image of me in my head of how I'm going to react. I'm making an image of you of how you're going to react, and I'm making a whole story of how those two images are Going to react versus actually just coming to you in being a certain way. And so you are thinking probably, and you can let me know if I'm incorrect is like, okay, consciously.

[Sponsor Voice]

Yes.

[Rob Dial]

I want to open myself up and I want to be. Show Rob more love. I want to be more vulnerable with him, but if I do well, he's probably not going to fully open up back to me. And if he isn't fully open back to me, then I'm going to be the one that's going to get hurt. And if I'm the one that's going to get hurt, then I'm going to act this way. And I might say this thing to him. And so literally, in reality, I'm still might be sitting there like, hey, I'm over here. And I might just be hanging out, working, doing whatever it is, but there's a whole story that's going on in your head that's actually getting in the way of us as two humans connecting.

[Lauren Dial]

Yeah. It was totally me going into protection mode because I wasn't allowing myself to be just, you know, my true self, which is so much more loving.

[Rob Dial]

I think another key part of that that's really important too, is, you know, I've heard people say, and we've talked about it many times, like, you know, I'm. I'm. I'm into working on myself. I'm in a personal vomit. And this person I'm in a relationship with is not. And one of the things I think I've really become, I've come to terms with the most as of recently, is someone doesn't have to have the same interests as you. But what the most important aspect is is that they are putting in the effort to. If there is a problem, they're putting in actual effort to try to overcome that problem together with you. And I think that that's one thing that shifted a lot for our relationship, is that whenever there was something that came up, I think we've both brought it up to each other. We've gotten better at communicating, of course.

[Lauren Dial]

Yeah.

[Rob Dial]

But also at the same time, as we both started working on each other, like we started working on ourselves.

[Lauren Dial]

Yeah.

[Rob Dial]

I feel like the relationship got a whole lot easier because we realized that it's almost never the other person's fault. It's usually our reaction to that person that ends up being their fault.

[Lauren Dial]

Yeah. It's highlighting something within you. Yeah. I think everything shifted once I started working on myself more. Cause you'd been working on yourself for some time before I really started to Dive deeper into my own growth. And it does change everything for the relationship because you can only really love someone to the extent that you're loving yourself.

[Rob Dial]

Yeah, sure. And I think that one of the things that's important too, and I love to hear your perspective on this, is when we're talking about building the image of somebody in your head and what's gonna happen and the whole thing. One of the things that I found with you that really shifted was you started working yourself to get out of your head so much and more into your heart. So you started actually like being like, well, I want to get into my heart, I want to get in my body, I want to start to feel things. And you years ago, used to, three, four years ago used to say like you were, you never told me how mean you were to yourself in your head. And then became real. You're like, I'm going to tell you. And you started telling me, I was like, damn, you suck in your head to yourself. Like you were just such an asshole. And then you started going on this, this journey of like self love.

[Lauren Dial]

Yep.

[Rob Dial]

And you started working on yourself. And I actually, now that we're speaking about it, I don't know if we've never actually spoken this. I think our relationship became better as you actually started working on loving yourself more.

[Lauren Dial]

Right.

[Rob Dial]

What did, what did that journey look like for you? For people who are out there that are struggling with self love or they are too negative to themselves in their heads?

[Lauren Dial]

Yeah. Well, I was just. I think what ended up kicking all of that off was one day you asked me, you were like, are you happy? And I was like, no. And it wasn't because of anything that was going on around me or within our relationship. It had everything to do with my self talk. And then I finally decided to say out loud all of the things that I was saying to myself in my head. And it started the moment I woke up. And I would just start my routine of just shit talking to myself. And yeah, of course I was not happy because the things I was saying were horrible. And so once I was like, what.

[Rob Dial]

Would you say to yourself?

[Lauren Dial]

Oh, I'd be like, okay, well here you are not getting up again on time because you're just so lazy and you have nothing to get up for anyway. So like, you know, you don't have any purpose. And of course you don't have any purpose because you're stupid. Right. And so it was like just this endless thing like, oh, well, of course you're running late because you can't get your shit together enough. And oh, look at you. Are you breaking out again because you're ugly and you're gross? Like, I mean, I was horrible to myself. It was like every single thing that I would say. And at that time, you know, I was physically manifesting all kinds of crazy stuff, right? Like I was breaking out so bad. So it's like everything that I was feeling on the inside, it's coming out, was coming out and stuff. Yeah, I had eczema. I had a whole. I mean, for me it showed up with a bunch of different skin issues and I was really struggling. And the more I started to like physically manifest all of these skin issues, of course, like the more gross I would feel. And then it would just. It was a cycle. And so, you know, I was doing everything skincare wise and I became obsessed and then some. One common thread whenever I was reading and reading and trying to figure out what to do for my skin was always like, remove stress, anxiety and you need to just care for yourself, you know, self care. And then that's like a combination of that. And then you also asking me if I was happy. I was like, you know, what's the emotional side of everything that I haven't tackled? Like, I'm just being such an asshole to myself. And so saying out loud what I was saying to myself in my head really made me more conscious of everything. And I was like, this is disgusting because I would never say those things to anybody else. So why the hell was I saying it to myself?

[Rob Dial]

Yeah.

[Lauren Dial]

And then from there I just was really consciously shifting the things that I would say.

[Rob Dial]

And what did that look like? So like for someone else who's like not good with self love, like what was the practice like when you would notice that pop up? Did you have something she would do?

[Lauren Dial]

I would have to switch it. Whatever I said about my, if I said something mean, I would have to say something nice. And I also worked really hard at reprogramming. So I got mala beads and I would pick, I would just google like what is a self love mantra. And I sat there with my mala beads and if I even for one bead felt like I became unconscious and was just going through the motions, I would go back and re say that mantra and be very present with every single bead. So that every day I was reprogramming what I was saying to myself. And that was my ritual in the morning, every single day. And then what ended up happening is I remember, I remember one day I was making the bed and I Was I randomly said something to. All I said to myself out of nowhere was, lauren, you're so awesome. And I was like, holy shit. Like, this is not something old Lauren would have said. And I didn't have, like, a real good reason for, like, feeling like I was super awesome. I mean, I was literally just making the bed. But it was then that I knew I had finally created a change in myself because I said something nice for no reason.

[Rob Dial]

That's awesome. Yeah. And I think it's. That's a big piece of, like, getting out of your head and getting into your heart, because I don't think your true self. There's like, our true self, which is who we come into this world as. And there's our conditioned self, which is who we've built ourself into being based off of all the programmings and patterns and what our parents want us to be and what society wants to be and what bullies say to us. And we reprogram ourselves and we accidentally program ourselves. And basically what it comes down to is you went. You were in your head so much, you're like, I'm gonna get into my heart. And your heart, if you ever get into your heart, is not gonna. Your heart's not an. Your head's the asshole, right?

[Lauren Dial]

Oh, for sure.

[Rob Dial]

It can be the. Depending on who you are and how you're raised. And you. You kind of got a little bit more into your heart. And. And I think that that actually shifted a lot of stuff for you, because I think that now that we're talking about it, I think that a lot of times, like, because of the fact that you were so mean to yourself, there was an. There wasn't like an underlying agitation that was always there.

[Lauren Dial]

Oh, for sure.

[Rob Dial]

And that would kind of show up in our relationship where it would be like, you'd be very short fused and you'd want to blow up about something or you would make a story about something. And so actually, I think that actually shifted a lot in our relationship when you started shifting at your internal story within yourself.

[Lauren Dial]

Right.

[Rob Dial]

And I think that it comes back to when you. We talk about love and we talk about acceptance is what I have found with most people is that what we're usually searching for in the external world is actually what we're searching for in ourself. And so if someone's sitting out there like, well, I want someone to love me or I want my husband to accept me or I want my girlfriend to accepts me more, sure, that's a piece of it. But there's also a difference of going, okay, what do I want from them? I want them to accept me more. Do I accept myself? Yeah, I accept myself. Okay, Do I accept all aspects of myself? Oh, shit, maybe I don't. Do I love myself? Oh, fuck, I don't know if I do. I think I do. Maybe I do. And so it's really about going, okay, if I can actually learn to love and accept myself more for all aspects of who I am, the good sides of me and the quote unquote bad sides of me, and I can go, I'm just gonna love and accept all of it. You don't even have to love all of it, just accept all of it. Because what I believe is that, is that we have built ourselves into being who we think we need to be in order to survive, in order to fit in, in order to be what we're supposed to be in society, whatever it might be. And in turn, what we do is we build ourself into a kind of a different person than we truly are. And I think that the problem with self love is that. And the reason why it's so hard is because we, our true self doesn't accept our conditioned self. And if you can't accept them to something, you can't truly love it. And I think that the true state of a human is love.

[Lauren Dial]

Oh yeah.

[Rob Dial]

But we get in our own way because there's aspects of ourself that we don't like and we don't accept. And so I think what's really important is if we truly do want to love somebody, then we truly actually need to figure out a way to love ourself because we can't give anything that we don't have.

[Lauren Dial]

Yeah. And I think it's also a process of just getting out of your head and into your heart with practices. I mean, I. A huge thing that helped me, even with like anxiety and everything just dealing, was getting out of my head through heartmath, which is just basically a combination of breathing and focus and connecting with your body and how you feel. And when you can do that, you're connecting with what's real instead of these thoughts and stories that have accumulated over time.

[Rob Dial]

Yeah, yeah. And you know, when you're in your head, you're almost never here, like physically.

[Lauren Dial]

Here, like not present.

[Rob Dial]

Right. You're not present. You're. You're in the future, you're in the past, you're in a story that you've made up. But the only thing that's actually physically here in this present moment is your body. And so if you ever want to come back and be present, you can always go back to the body. Another aspect that I think is important as far as love goes is I think that many people love their significant other the way that they were loved by their parents.

[Lauren Dial]

Yeah.

[Rob Dial]

And that's all good and dandy, except for I have found from coaching thousands of people that most people are unconsciously trained by their parents to be what they want the parent wants them to be by retracting love when they don't act the way that they want them to act. And so I think what happens with a lot of people is they get into a relationship with somebody and they want that person to be different, and they want to change that person into what they want them to be, versus saying, I accept you as you are, whatever it is that you want to be. And once again, we're not perfect any sort of way at all. But I think one thing that we have done really well in our relationship with is we've never actually really tried to change each other.

[Lauren Dial]

Yeah. No. And I think that that's also, like, kind of to. To what we're saying. It's a product of us not looking for what we need internally from each other, because we're both conscious that we need to provide that to ourselves. And so I don't need to make you anything but what you are, because I'm already giving myself everything that I need. Yeah, right. Like, that's what we're working towards anyway.

[Rob Dial]

Right? Yeah. And, you know, like, when I first started the podcast, I had the idea for the podcast in 2015, and I told you in Jason's Deli, like, I remember the exact moment, me. Do you? You wouldn't be like. You were like, okay, cool. And podcasts were like, nothing back then. Like, there were some podcasts, but it wasn't like it is now. Like, they weren't all over the place like, they. They are.

[Lauren Dial]

Right.

[Rob Dial]

And I was like, I'm gonna start a podcast. And you're like, cool. But I've been in relationships before where I'd be like, hey, I'm a start podcast. And be like, why? That's dumb. That's a waste of your time. That's a waste. You're not going to make any money. Like, and people immediately go to. To bashing that thing. And I think that's one thing that we've done really well. You have an interest for painting. So I've been like, you know what? I'm gonna. I'm Gonna buy her painting supplies and try to help her get better at painting. And so I think that's one really big piece of being in love with somebody, is seeing them as they are.

[Lauren Dial]

Right.

[Rob Dial]

As a human who, if they're an adult, they're really just a child that isn't fully healed from childhood and from traumas and saying they're just a child that's wounded, that needs some help, that needs some love, that needs some acceptance in an adult's body. And they have interests and they have things they want to do. And I'm going to try my best to accept them as they are and try to help them with whatever it is that needs to be healed by just holding them in a space of acceptance, no matter what.

[Lauren Dial]

Right. Something that somebody said once that really helped me with this is to fully understand that everybody's doing the best with what they have or doing the best. Is they doing the best they can?

[Rob Dial]

Yeah.

[Lauren Dial]

You know, so I think that that's also important because we can have really big expectations for what we think somebody should be doing. But that's, of course, from your perspective.

[Rob Dial]

Yeah.

[Lauren Dial]

And you're coming from a completely different background set of experiences than someone else. And so to expect that from somebody else is. It's not fair.

[Rob Dial]

Yeah.

[Lauren Dial]

And if you can truly lean into the loving side of yourself, you will believe that everybody is doing the best that they can. Why would anybody want to do anything less?

[Rob Dial]

Yeah. And also why would you want to judge people, too? You know, like.

[Lauren Dial]

Yeah. And who are you to judge in the same time?

[Rob Dial]

Exactly. Yeah. Like, none of us are perfect. Like, and the thing that I always try to do, and if. If you guys want to. To try to not judge people as much, because it's something I've worked on with myself. I know you've worked on as well.

[Lauren Dial]

Yeah.

[Rob Dial]

I want to love and accept people more. Is. Go back to the fact that, once again, Lauren just said is everybody is doing the best with what they have, even if it doesn't seem like they are. If they could do better, they would be doing better. And I think one of the important things to realize is that is going back to the whole thing of, like, I do, having worked with so many people over this time, try to look at everybody as just a child in a grownup's body and realize they are. Yeah, I realize, like, what happened, like, we were driving the other day and we were in LA and I saw a homeless lady that was, you know, definitely on drugs and, you know, leaned over and I was like, man, she was. She was 40 years old, 30 years old. I don't know how old she was. And I was like, man, what happened to that little girl? And if you can start to see people in that way versus not the adult that's in front of you, not the. I mean, when you see a very aggressive guy that's like an asshole, what you're seeing is a kid who's really scared. And something happened that made him so. He's just a little boy that's wounded and hasn't grown out of it. And some. He hasn't been accepted. He hasn't been able to figure out. He hasn't seen acceptance from other people. He hasn't seen acceptance to figure out how to accept himself and how to start loving himself. And I think if people just want to develop a deeper relationship with everyone around them, but also specifically someone that they're in a relationship with, it's like, hey, yeah, this is a little girl, a little boy that's still just trying their best because nobody in this world has it figured out. Everyone is just bumping into walls in the dark, trying to figure out what the hell they're supposed to do in this life. And the more that you can start to see people from that perspective.

[Lauren Dial]

Yeah.

[Rob Dial]

I think it makes it a whole lot easier to accept people. And when you can accept people, you can love people, Right?

[Lauren Dial]

Well, because your perception is your reality. And when your perception is. Is shaped from a completely different set of experiences, then you can start to understand why someone else's perception is everybody's gonna have a wildly different one. And that allows for more empathy for people, because you don't have to understand why someone's acting the way that they are, but you can be understanding and hold compassion for them, knowing that you truly just don't know what they're going through. And it's okay. You don't have to.

[Rob Dial]

Sure. You don't have to know everything that's going on. So then let's wrap it up with this. Let me ask you the question that we started off with in the title of this episode. Give me a short answer. What is love?

[Lauren Dial]

Oh, what is love? I feel like love is when you can get down to the true version of yourself and show kindness and compassion and care for someone else and yourself.

[Rob Dial]

I would agree with you. I would say love is the state that is natural for all of us when we can get past the judgment of ourselves and the judgment of others. Nice.

[Lauren Dial]

I like that. That's a good one.

[Rob Dial]

All right, all right, everybody. That's what we got for you for today. If you love this episode, please do me a favor. Share it on your Instagram stories. Tag me Robdial Jr R O B D I A L J R. You can tag Lauren in it, too. She is on Instagram. It is Lauren Pena. Dial. And if you guys want us to keep doing episodes like this, if you have any questions that you want us to answer, whether that be with relationships, love, life, dogs, dogs, spiritual development, any of those things. Lauren is also a coach and has been a coach now for four years and has her own clients and all of that as well. You can go to askrobandlauren.com and you could just put your questions there. And hopefully we can do more of these. And I just want to give you guys a different perspective. Perspective of instead of just me being the guy who's teaching directly to you all the time, I want to see if I can, you know, give you some other perspectives and kind of see behind the scenes of what's going on in my mind, what's going on in my life, what's going on in my relationships. And once again, it's. It's askrobinlauren.com and I'll just say this. The more detailed your question, the more thorough your question, the more thorough our answers can be. So if you can give us some more context, that would help, whatever it might be. So. So what we got for you for today? I'm gonna leave you the same way I leave you every single episode. Make it your mission. Make somebody else's day better. We appreciate you.

[Lauren Dial]

I appreciate you.

[Rob Dial]

We hope that you have an amazing day.

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