When one thinks of ITALY? They can't help, but think of the fashion, the culture, the food, the storied history and, of course, the shopping. There is enough Italian lingerie brand, who recently partnered up with jennifer lopez that is made with gorgeous fabrics, colorful, silks and delicate lace, but the name can be a bit challenging to pronounce intimacy entered into her missy in to mississippi it's infamy to me, the art of italian lingerie go to intimacy, mi dot com, slash jail out from the new york times. This is modern love. I'm Anna Martin, now into our lot stronger than anything and I love you more than today, we haven't- about being yourself when you're dating which is so hard to not show off just to show up as you.

The usa is written by relationship expert J shady and this guy it's kind of having a moment to the late show jay shetty will smith is a big fan. I know Oprah is a big big big fan of your amazing jay shetty jay shitty shit he's the go to life coach for over Fifty million followers he's written books is a world tour, and this is huge for me. He officiated the wedding of J low and been athletic on his podcast. Third question is from a long and thank you for your question. He answers burning, love, question. I've been ghost and recently for the first time I feel like I did something wrong: woe right is such a common one for so many people now. Why do we need closer His advisers tailored for the internet, was at its rooted in hindu philosophize. Something J was a monk in india for three years and is twenties, and that time

given insights, into the way that anyone can be more loving and more complete. Can it and more monk like even if you ve, never been to an hour from today, We have jeez modern mother, say about dealing like a monk and how- led him to the love of his life. J studied so excited to have you on the show, welcome to modern love. Ah, thank you. What for having me, I'm so grateful to be here today, you became a monk right after you graduated university, which is not the traditional postgrad plan. How did you make the choice to dedicate yourself to this way of life, so the first one guy I ever met was at a college event. I used to go and hear speakers and athletes musicians and

what leaders speak all the time. I went there expecting very little and thinking I didn't need anything that he was going to share, but I walked out of there with a new found direction. He was talking about how the greatest gift in life or the greatest purpose, is to use our skills, in the service of others. Now, when I look back, I realise that when I was eighteen, I met people who a beautiful. I met people who are rich, but I dont think I anyone who is truly content, truly self aware, and he was all of those things, and so I thought I want those things. Those things seem to be worthy of pursuit of. You know for the next three to four

years I still had relationships. I was still going now are still doing anything that any person does it college, but I would spend my summer and christmas vacations often visiting his monastery in india, oh wow, I came and spend the other half in turning out financial com, Incorporations in london was thinking that that's what I was going to do for work and every time I'd come back from the monastery. I'd be full of joy and enthusiasm. Energy and everytime. I finish my internship. I think I don't think that's what I meant to be doing so I allowed myself to live to supper lives because I was just trying to learn and understand. I was I was very young. I even skipped my group gration. Sarah maces, because I was already in the monastery and the idol was everyone in your life. How did they react to that choice? So a lot of my friends were really confused. They were just like what are you doing like you know, everyone was getting fancy jobs and

my extended family and community was actually quite negative. They were saying things like you're wasting your life. You never going to get a job again, you joining a called How would you tell them was so important about this way of life that you needed to go dedicate your existence to it. What would a two day that I saw the monks in those summer and christmas vacations, one they dedicated their life to was self mastery and service. At like myself, mastery I mean standing ego, understanding, envy understanding what our emotions are trying to tell us how to respond to them and the other half. service that they were living their life, trying to build sustainable villages or food distribution programmes to help the poor or disadvantage

children, and I saw them living their life in a way trying to positively impact others, and I thought that's what I want to dedicate. My life too, is figuring out what's going on inside of me and then help people for ground. What's going on outside, you became a monk in your twenties, when most people are going out and flirting and gonna dates and your modern love S, a kind of begins with you listing out what your priorities were when you were a monk, can you read that if your essay for me- yes, absolutely so so famously celebrate bets. Embassy doesn't just mean you're not having sex. It means you're, not interacting with other people in a way that could be considered romantic. The sun word for among brahma sharia means the right. Use of energy. Its

romance in sexual energy are wrong, but my practice tee cheese that we will have a limited amount of energy which can be directed in multiple directions or one and when energy scattered it's difficult to create momentum or impact you mentioned that these months, that you saw who you so admired him were learning from had this method of self mastery? Can you tell me you learned about that method of soup we the ego over those three years, yeah so from a more general standpoint. I'd say

when you living with a group of men in an hour from every single person, is a mirror for your ego, because you're having so many interactions daily that trigger you ha. What do you mean triggered like you know? You have a difficult conversations or something yeah good. It could be If a good conversation, it could be that someone didn't safe food for you and you are late to lunch or branches, try, it can be done. You weren't selected to give a class. This morning and someone else was- and you start noticing very worldly responses to a spiritual tasks- and you realize that just being in an ash from doesn't remove your ego right. So I'd say that some of the practices that really helped word the practices of recognising that everyone- was a teacher and a student at the same time- and this is something that was one of my. ever moments. Actually, I was with my monk teacher and easily

Sixtys and seventys at the time- and I am a young new monk and every morning- I would now down to him, which was our custom, and he would bow down again back to me and I would always think how special that was, because there was this mutual respect, and I think that practice was really beautiful, because you realize that you are never at the top and you are never at the bottom. What I want to talk about your decision to leave the ashram two or three years. How did you make that call? So it was the most difficult decision I'd made at the time. Communal living was really tough on my body. It tells them my health. I would get sick more often in the short term, and are you living in rooms from sometimes thirty two hundred people, and so there is a physical health component, and then there was this deeper realization

dad I loved what I was learning, but all I dreamt about and thought about was how could I share this with other people, because I know so many of my friends of dealing with this, but they're not going to come here. I really feel the desire to share it with them, and I want to do that, and so there were these two self awareness she's, which led me to realize. I wasn't a monk and I think that's almost like realizing that you told someone you loved them, but now you are falling out of love. damn or you realize you're, not in love of any more like that's how it fell. Did you talk to teach us it all. When you were thinking about making this hard decision to leave the ashram did. I did, and I was even scared to talk to them about it because I didn't want to feel judge oh you know you're almost dropping out- and you think what are your teachers gonna say may and my teacher said to me when I told him that I think I should leave, he said to me that some people go to college and some of them

professors and he said some of them leave after their degree. And they become entrepreneurs they work and accompany any said, which ones better the people who become professes or the people who leave- and I said I neither I mean whatever is right for the person He said. Well, that's the same here. He said some people come and a graduate to become monks, and they stay here for many years and some take their training like you did and leave and go on to do wonderful things, and he said I think you will be very happy if your sharing, what you ve learned, and so you should do that, and so there was this really light on this totally open view of no. Maybe it's not right for you any more. It was right for you, then, and not anymore, and there's nothing wrong with even in europe. Vision to leave them. They had compassion for you, which is really beautiful exactly that time was extremely tough for me- and there wasn't even the decision, and it was even more depressing because when I came back, everyone was like all we told you. So all

you came back. Oh you failed being a monk and and then arrives lying for jobs in forty companies rejected without an interview- and I was thinking or cause, you're resume had ashram for three years on it and nothing hearts exactly exactly it's like what are you transferable skills sitting, star silent and being still like? No one wants, then their company, and so it was it was just almost like. Maybe everyone is right, and maybe I did just wait three years, you re really do no time when you came back to london. You know like in a science fiction movie or something when people are are frozen in those little pods, and then they get released after thousands of years and their like. What is a cell phone? Was it like that for you, when you came back to london to do not recognise anything around you. The hardest part is having to do small talk when you've done no small talk for three years right. You've not had a conversation about the latest tv show or the latest movie like. Have you heard about self mastery and they'd be like why yeah that's

ugly. That must have been really awkward as you started, to get back into dating to what was that part of it like building a social life dating again. I didn't really think about Ding overall is I kind of. I guess I was a bit scared, but I didn't even think about it that way, but I definitely like forgotten how to fly it. But when I started talking to my now wife, because, She was really good friends in my sister and should be over at our place and I'd be. in her right. I only really knew how to have really thoughtful vulnerable. Deep canvassing said. I do remember that she was always very inquisitive, and so that was kind of helpful for me to just totally be my

self they're gonna made it easy for me to be around her. I guess, because it wasn't someone that I had to be someone I wasn't around after the break J shed. He goes on a date after leaving the ashram and it does I'd go well, that's next. When one thinks of ITALY, they can't help but think of the fashion, the culture, the food distort history and, of course, the shopping there is enough.

Italian lingerie brand, who recently partnered up with jennifer lopez that is made with gorgeous fabrics, colorful, silks and delicate lace, but the name can be a bit challenging to pronounce intimacy entered into her missy into mississippi. It's infamy to me, the art of italian lingerie, go to intimacy me calm, slash jail out. Are you familiar with the parable of the moral frog? I must then hide in the home of the run up from the new york times. I believe. I would ask for six years I've had a hard time getting establishment republicans to say publicly what they all said privately about donald trump. Then then, I'm sabbath, so you can put a frog in boiling water, no jump out right, but if you put a frog in nepal,

water and then turn up the heat hill, eventually cooked it. Without jumping right. So we became that fraud for the past months. We been reporting from inside the political establishment as they try to figure out their path forward behind closed doors. This season we go behind those doors you can find new episodes of the run up on thursdays wherever you get your pockets a synergy left, the ashram, your back living in london. Trying to- return to a normal life, you're working you're, starting to date and eventual

go on a date with roddy who is now your wife? Can you read the part of your essay or you talk about your first date with her? Absolutely the night was going to cost me nearly a week's income, and I wanted it to be perfect. We were at locanda locatelli, one of the best restaurants in london, when we slid into a battery leather booth, I winced She was vague in and weakens, are known to appreciate leather boots. the lights were low. The ambience, beautiful and I was hoping to hear how impression was: do you think they are? anything vague and on the menu she said sounding more worried that excited their famous for their fresh past. I said trying to sound optimistic, but I had signed up for a special tasting menu. and I didn't know how much choice she would have fresh

they usually has eggs, she said, but we'll see, this area is amazing right. I said she smiled politely, but she wasn't even much. after dinner. I drove a home and dropped her off outside your apartment to me and waved a friendly goodbye, the evening had fallen flat, clearly I had no idea what I was doing feeling for you J in this moment? Oh guys, what do you think it was so easy for you to slip back into this if, on monk, like mode of trying to impress roddy like what is it about dating someone that made you slip back to the old one

life. I think we're so unaware, and we underestimate how strongly our conditioning and wiring leads our life. Since I was young, I saw the dates that movies had in wrong comes. I done those dates with partners in my teens in college life, and you assume that I just I have to keep repeating this cycle until it goes wrong and I think we don't realize how how many cycles and how many patterns we live in until we start to break them and It was only later that I figured out that my wife's favorite thing to do. She said to me. My ideal date would be going to test, goes and walking down the bread, I'll test causes england's whole foods and- and I think that she was speaking more from a kind of

funny tongue in cheek in terms of hey, I'm simple: I just want to walk down an aisle at a grocery store and pick something up to eat. We don't need to go to a fancy restaurant then I thought that that was refreshing and beautiful, because it showed me that she didn't value those things. How long did it take you to sort of relax into help with roddy in what did it take to do that? Well, I think it was. I give the credit to her because she was so good at not trying to impress someone back- and I don't know roddy, just especially human, be it's like she's, so different and weird in a good way. I dedicate my first book to her and I wrote the dedication to be to my wife, whose more monk then I'll ever be. I just think that a lot of the qualities I learned during my time as a monk rather had them. Quite naturally,

look for among qualities in everyone I meet and I believe everyone whether they ve been among, cannot have them, but among life really helps us consciously train them and build them and develop them as well. I am struck by when you said that she was even out with him bit of a joke like I just wanna, walked on the bread I'll. That sort of simple, pure way of connecting does feel very monk. Like of her, I mean it sounds like you were picking up on these sort of money. Qualities in her even early on. I think that as well, but I think- Another thing I just came to mind is rightly would always say. Oh, I want you to come and spend time with my family. My family's really important to me. I remember when I first started hanging out at her house, her family would often look at and below. Are you really going to wear that when he comes over because she just being sweats or whatever and she'd, be like yeah, that

What I'm aware, because that's what I would wear if I was at tat, has totally, and so she had this really like honest, vulnerable, open way of being from the beginning, and I think that was definitely monk like his well did. You say this is why I am in this is how we'll be- and it's part of you practice now too, try to develop or even honed those monk qualities in other people, cracked, that's your books in your podcast. It sort of about two have training folks haven't spent years in ashraf to exhibit these qualities in their own life. Yeah yeah. Definitely the villagers

I studied during my time as among greeley, laid out the four stages of life almost as for classrooms of love, and so the four stages of life are considered in our life in solitude or monk lie for single life. The second stage is relationship lie for married life, that the third stage of life is almost reflecting and thinking about what you gonna do next and then the fourth stage of life is loving the world and the monks believe that the most important love story is the love story you have with anyone and everyone and with the world. I think so often, we've built up this idea in society that the most important love story is your romantic love story. So many people either go through life single and think that they're unworthy of love because they don't have a romantic.

Nah he or someone loses their romantic partner and then they feel like they don't have any love in their life, but the love of a brother or sister or mother or father, like all of these loves count like we can't say that romantic love is above or below any of these e J of those four steps. What stage do you think you're in yeah, I would say it that I probably have a bit of a glimpse into all of them: wow, okay, uh huh, probably a step to practicing to love my wife and the people around me, but I have a glimpse into step. Three and four because step three requires a lot of healing love within yourself and then stage four it's where I want to live every day, which is I wanna, love everyone, and I want to share love with everyone on the planet and I want to may be able to spread love across the world. While you are on a world tour, so I'd say you're pretty you're pretty far on your way to step four, I guess I I think I'm definitely that's what I meant. That's what I said.

Says, because when I'm with my teachers, I see how they live in that space, and I just have a little peak and that's good enough to prove to me it's real, and so I feel great That is more to learn, though I'm not I'm not upset, I'm not there and I'm happy I know where I have to go all I'm gonna give me please I don't want anyone to feel shame or guilt for how they currently live. I want you to feel clarity and curiosity about where you still have to go J shaggy. Thank you so much for coming on the show. Thank you for having me so grateful in oppression. the time and energy. modern love- is produced by Julia botero. Christina Josiah enhance hans did they sarah sarazen, give producer- is Jen plant this episode mixed by marian lozano on show shores, report,

By Madame S, yellow the modern left, Music is maintained. Powell original music in this episode by Mary lazard, oh papa, cosgrove and ruin me Mister digital, action by the human body and now locally special today should ease team nicole burg in any gold The modern love column is edited by Daniel jones meal, He is the editor of modern love projects. I mean a martin. thanks for listening.