Lily Collins & Jay Shetty ON How to Identify a Healthy Relationship

Are you happy with the relationships in your life? Don’t waste your time and energy with toxic relationships. Learn to spot the characteristics of a good relationship so you can surround yourself with the people who possess them.

Golden Globe-nominated actress, author, and philanthropist Lily Collins joined Jay Shetty in a candid interview to share her first-hand knowledge on distinguishing healthy and toxic relationships and overcoming fear in times of uncertainty.Looking back on her childhood in the United Kingdom, Lily Collins reminisced about ballet class, cooking dinners in the countryside, and school plays. At the age of six, the Collins family moved to Los Angeles where Lily’s peers made fun of her for her accent. Desperately wanting to fit in, she was thankful when her accent just naturally started to go away.This early experience was just the beginning of the trials and tribulations that helped shape Collins into the person she is today.“I'm grateful for the experiences that I had within myself,” Collins explained to Jay Shetty. “I'm not saying that I'm grateful for how I was treated, because there were moments I wish I never had to experience. But those moments that allowed me to distinguish enough is enough - at those moments, I felt like I was defining how I moved forward and the future that I was setting for myself. Now I know that there are specific ways in which a person acts that I will never tolerate; that no one should tolerate.”

Toxic Relationship

Collins found herself in an emotionally abusive relationship at a young age. Although she could not see it at the moment, there were times she felt something was not right. Deeply entangled in the relationship, she did not think she could leave it.“I felt very small, very quieted,” Collins shared with Jay Shetty. “I felt belittled, but at the same time, it was what I knew in that relationship. There was a part of me that thought he does love me, and there are these elements of kindness at moments. Even in moments when I tried to voice myself, I was silenced and called names. I was told not to have an opinion on things. I was a lesser version of myself.”Collins admitted to Shetty that it took family and friends’ intervention before seeing the negative impact the relationship was having on her. While the journey took her awhile to get through, she finally mustered the courage to walk away, taking the lessons she had learned with her.“It's about the journey,” Collins explained to Jay Shetty. “The lessons I learned about how I don't want to be treated, what I don't want from a partner. How can I become stronger and not shame myself for not leaving earlier? If we only look back on experiences with shame, regret and fear, we don't allow ourselves to embrace any learning through what we would have gone through. I tried my best to kind of keep an open mind, even when it was the hardest, because I knew that there would be a more positive outcome in the end.”

Self-Esteem

Collins’ self-esteem was reliant upon the toxic relationship that she had been in. Collins explained to Jay Shetty that she poured so much of her self-worth and self-esteem into how much the other person paid attention to her that she became wrapped up in that relationship and lost the connections with family and friends.Collins’ thinking became so warped that she questioned who she would be if she were no longer in that relationship.“How would I make decisions? Would I find someone else? What was that going to look like for me?” Collins explained to Shetty. “It was scary. I was young, trying to figure out who I was and what I wanted from a partner. Someone took advantage of that journey and that self-discovery in a way to make it work for them.”“I just got sucked into that,” she told Jay Shetty.Collins explained that her body started to show signs of the duress she was under. Her skin started to break out and she began to have panic attacks.“There was a night I remember where we had gotten into a disagreement on the phone,” she shared with Jay Shetty. “I was on the floor crying, hardly able to breathe. I'd never had those experiences before. My body was showing me signs that it was giving up in a lot of ways.”When Collins began to listen to the encouragement of those around her, she realized something needed to change. Having alienated her loved ones for so long, Collins was fearful she had lost those relationships.“I'm so fortunate that the people I had stopped talking to embraced me right back,” she told Jay Shetty. “They saw what I was going through and knew that I would find it within myself to move through it. I'm forever grateful to them. Now we can look back on it and say, ‘I remember when that happened.’”Healing was a process that Collins found through writing. Sharing the experiences that shaped her young life allowed Collins to connect with others who were going through or had shared the same experiences.“It was a way to try and make other people feel less alone,” she explained to Jay Shetty. “I feel less alone when people share their stories with me.”

Healthy or Toxic

There will always be ups and downs in your life relationships with friends, family, co-workers or spouses. Knowing the difference between a healthy and a toxic relationship is the key to knowing if you should terminate that relationship or not.When another person doesn’t encourage you to be the best version of yourself, you need to reassess your relationship with that person. When there is no mutual respect, your opinions don’t matter, and you’re made to feel less than your worth, walk away.There is no competition and belittlement in a healthy relationship. Civil conversations to solve disagreements, along with encouragement, respect, and understanding lend themselves to building a healthy relationship.“Look for red flags, things that imprison you and make you feel trapped,” Collins told Jay Shetty. “When you feel trapped by someone who is supposedly your biggest champion, that's a problem!”

Overcoming Fears

The lingering effects of a toxic relationship are something Collins still deals with in her current relationships. The anxiety creeps in, causing her heart to race.“I think it's essential to stop in those moments and internalize and think to myself, ‘This has nothing to do with right now,’” Collins shared with Shetty. “There's nothing in this situation that's the same as that past relationship. This conversation hasn't even happened before. But I'm still dealing with how that person treated me, and it takes a while. Sometimes you catch yourself. You realize that you're falling back into what that person was doing to you.”Thankful that Collins dared to stand up for herself, Jay Shetty encouraged others to find their courage and let their inner light shine too.“Everyone has that opportunity and potential inside of them to be the biggest version of themselves,” Jay Shetty shared. “But it's so easy to be made to feel small. It's not just romantic relationships. It can be parenting, work or it can be family.”

Dangers of Comparison

Affluence does not make you immune to the problems of the world. Collins told Jay Shetty that the stories she reads on social media and the messages she receives from people worldwide influenced her to write her book, Unfiltered: No Shame, No Regrets, Just Me.Realizing that people thought she could not relate to their stories due to her life position, she wanted to share her journey to squash the myths that some people are infallible.“No matter how much money or followers you have, we're all humans, and we all experience emotions,” Collins explained to Shetty. We all can be made to feel small or tiny or insignificant by anyone in our lives.”Everyone’s journey is different.“We all feel the same feelings,” Collins said to Jay Shetty. “They just may come from different situations and experiences. No one or the other is better, worse, more important, less important. It's all relative. And the important thing is just that the core emotions and where they come from, can be related too and it doesn't matter who you are, what you do, what industry you're in.”It is human nature to compare, but comparison can lead to more negativity and feelings of unworthiness.When you find the courage to stand up for yourself and find your voice, you can begin to chase away those fears and anxieties and find the light you lost in the negativity and darkness. Thankful for a current relationship that is nurturing and understanding, Collins expressed joy and hope that there is life after a toxic relationship.

More From Jay Shetty

Listen to the entire On Purpose with Jay Shetty podcast episode with Lily Collins ON “How to Identify a Healthy Relationship” now in the iTunes store or on Spotify. For more inspirational stories and messages like this, check out Jay’s website at jayshetty.me.