Jada Pinkett Smith sits down with Iyanla Vanzant for 'The R Word' podcast on the Shondaland Network to discuss her new book, 'Worthy.'
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00:00 as a married woman,
00:02 how, what tips would you give women
00:06 who need to heal in the midst of having a relationship
00:11 with their partner?
00:12 With a man.
00:13 How does a woman heal her little girl,
00:16 her teenage girl,
00:19 while she's trying to be a big grown woman with a man?
00:22 - Let me tell you something,
00:23 now you and I both know this right here.
00:28 Like you said in the book,
00:29 this is getting ready to get real, okay?
00:32 - Yes, okay, because that is probably,
00:37 that's probably has been one of my biggest challenges,
00:41 you know, and it is a process.
00:46 I would tell women,
00:49 make sure the partner that you're with
00:56 is the proper partner for your curriculum, right?
01:00 Because not all partners, right?
01:04 Are the right ones.
01:08 And it doesn't mean, and let me tell you,
01:09 it doesn't mean just because it's difficult and challenging
01:12 that that person is not the right one, right?
01:16 Okay, because really I had to start looking at,
01:24 I had to come to terms with,
01:26 I didn't know what I was doing.
01:28 (laughing)
01:30 - On any level, right?
01:33 - On any level, okay?
01:36 I had to come to terms with that.
01:37 Like, yeah, I didn't know what I was doing, okay?
01:41 And I had to come to terms with,
01:45 I came into this relationship with a whole lot of stuff
01:50 that didn't have nothing to do with Will.
01:53 - Yeah.
01:54 - And I had to stop blaming him
01:58 for my stuff coming up in our stuff.
02:03 - The stuff he triggered, the stuff he triggered.
02:05 - The stuff he triggered.
02:08 And I had to start looking at him as a mirror.
02:12 - Beautiful.
02:15 That's what relationships do.
02:17 They put it right up in front of you.
02:18 - That's what it is.
02:19 - That's it, that's it.
02:21 And I had to stop looking towards my relationship
02:25 and looking towards Will to be something for me
02:28 that I was not willing to be for myself.
02:31 - Right there, that's the hallelujah truth.
02:33 Say it again, say it again, Ms. Jada.
02:36 - Yeah, I had to stop looking to this relationship
02:39 and to Will, you know, to be for me
02:42 what I was not willing to be for myself.
02:44 And let me tell you something,
02:47 that was probably, that is one of the most difficult
02:52 detoxifications psychologically, okay?
02:59 - And spiritually.
03:01 - Of what we never did.
03:02 Yeah.
03:03 - Yeah, yeah, yeah.
03:05 So when you stop looking at him to be something for you
03:10 that you're not being for yourself,
03:13 when you become willing to be that thing for yourself,
03:17 what happens to your relationship with him?
03:20 - Oh man, it just transformed.
03:22 It becomes something totally different.
03:26 Totally different.
03:28 You know, it's what I call that,
03:31 when I started coming into my emotional independence,
03:35 my emotional and psychological independence,
03:39 and I could see, I could start,
03:42 I could start seeing where I had
03:46 the most unreasonable expectations of him,
03:50 and how unkind and unloving that was.
03:55 - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
03:58 That's where a lot of us go off,
04:00 I sense in relationships that when we come into it,
04:05 instead of saying I had unreasonable expectations,
04:10 we make him or her wrong.
04:13 - Yeah.
04:14 - And we walk away.
04:16 - Yeah, we walk away.
04:17 And Lord knows, listen, they were-
04:20 - You've been blacked a couple of times.
04:22 (laughs)
04:25 Had your little bag.
04:26 - Yeah, had my little bag, like, you know,
04:29 and, you know, and really, but that's part of it too.
04:34 - Yes.
04:37 - That's part of it too.
04:39 What made you say?
04:40 - Because he's the perfect damn mirror.
04:44 - Okay, good.