#110 Swipe Left On Victim Mindset, Right On Radical Honesty

We look at how self-love turns adversity into fuel for authentic connection, and why heart-centered honesty is the antidote to dating fatigue. Jonathan Aslay shares practical tools for midlife relationships, slow-burn chemistry, and redefining rejection as misalignment.

• divorce, job loss, identity collapse and recovery through therapy and spirituality
• choosing love over fear as a daily practice
• self-love as boundaries, truth with kindness and inner child care
• reframing rejection as misalignment and sovereignty in dating
• intuition, early red flags and avoiding victim mindset
• midlife challenges of blending lives beyond the parenting blueprint
• radical honesty, pre-qualifying compatibility and better questions
• slow-burn chemistry versus instant spark and app-driven impatience
• coaching programs, YouTube and the What Would Love Do? podcast

If you love this episode, be sure to tell your friends about it and rate it as well

Chapters

• 0:00 Opening And Guest Introduction
• 0:41 Divorce, Loss, And Identity Crisis
• 2:07 Turning To Self-Work And Spirituality
• 2:52 Grief, Course In Miracles, And Writing
• 4:10 Self-Love Principles And Oxygen Mask
• 5:34 Rejection, Misalignment, And Sovereignty
• 6:45 Intuition And Early Red Flags
• 8:09 Desire Versus Fear In Relationships
• 9:43 Midlife Dating And Blending Lives
• 11:31 Anger, Gender Narratives, And Commitment
• 13:25 Radical Honesty And Better Questions
• 14:48 Chemistry Myths And A Slow-Burn Love Story
• 16:23 Coaching Offers And Heart-Centered Dating
• 17:26 Closing Reflections And Call To Action

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Welcome to the Straight from the Source's Mouth Podcast. Frank talk about sex and dating. Hello, Tamra here. Welcome to the show. Today's guest is Jonathan Aslay. He's the author of What the Heck is Self-Love, and we'll be talking about overcoming adversity and personal empowerment in love. Thanks for joining me, Jonathan.

SPEAKER_01: 0:19

Tamra, thanks for having me on. I'm excited to be chatting with you.

SPEAKER_00: 0:23

Yes, I think a lot of people could use some knowledge about overcoming adversity and personal empowerment, and I would imagine accountability is part of that as well. But what led you to this book?

SPEAKER_01: 0:36

I'm sure plenty of things have happened, but gosh, I mean, how many hours do we have to go through this? So for me, it happened, you know, after turning 40 and going through a divorce uh 20 years ago, uh, I found myself both in the dating marketplace for one thing. Um, but at the same time, I was going through divorce, I lost my high-end corporate job, and the market crash of 2008 wiped me out financially. So you have divorce, losing your job, and then getting wiped out financially. And I had a major identity crisis at that time. But what was also interesting at that time, I'll be candid with you, I got addicted to online dating. I got addicted to talking to people. And I'm using the term addicted intentionally because I found it as a way to um navigate the pain, but really avoid the pain through having attention elsewhere, having validation elsewhere. And for a good five years, I was in the pit of despair. In fact, I reached a point in my life where I went to bed wishing I didn't take up because my identity was pummeled. And men tend to identify themselves with their professional life, not to suggest women don't do the same, but men probably hyperdo that more so than women. And certainly from their financial status, I mean, we're talking about real deep pain I was experiencing. And around that time, the movie The Secret came out. And the reason why I'm pointing it out, because I remember watching it and I'm like, God, this feels so familiar to me. And probably, I think it was about 10 years earlier, I briefly got into what was known as metaphysics, you know, which now is coined more new age spirituality and that sort of thing. And it began my path of personal development, self-help, and spiritual work. And along the way, I got into, when I say personal development, self-help, spiritual work, and therapy, to rebuild my identity, to rebuild who am I, um, really ask who am I? But more importantly, why am I here? What's this all for? Fast forward to 2018, uh, my 19-year-old son Connor passed away in an accident. And in my deep grief, um, and and I was really right before he passed away, I had been reading the Course in Miracles. And what's interesting, because we were reading about death just month, a few weeks before he passed away. And I'll I'll give you a simplistic, you know, um take on the Course in Miracles. The miracle is choosing love. I mean, that's the real miracle. When we can choose love over fear, when we can choose love over ego, when we can choose forgiveness, compassion, generosity over those things that bring us despair. And at a two months after he passed away, I just started writing this book because I was blogging about what is self-love as a dating and relationship coach, and I can tell you more about how that began. Um, but then nine months later, I birthed the book uh, you know, on Amazon and now that sort of thing.

SPEAKER_00: 3:56

Okay. Yeah, I mean, that's definitely a lot to go through. And I've I I I've definitely heard that before about more men are affected by that kind of stuff. Like we have a women have a support network usually. We can tell all our friends about it and vents and like just, you know, and then men generally keep quiet about that kind of stuff and just deal internally.

SPEAKER_01: 4:15

So yeah, that is so true. I mean, that is beginning to change. I think men are opening up more and more. I mean, you know, as a society, we're accepting therapy more than more. We're accepting personal development, self-help. Men tend to choose personal development, self-personal development, self-help, um, more so from building a business perspective, the Tony Robbins of the world, you know, because they want to build their wealth. But we're really talking about building that inner confidence within ourselves, that self-worth, self-esteem, self-confidence, self-reliance, self-discipline. And that's all wrapped up in the heart of love. So when we say all those things, we're really the reason why my book is self-love is because it contemplates self-worth, self-esteem, self-confidence, self-reliance, all those juicy self-words.

unknown: 5:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 5:05

And is the book like a how-to or just kind of your story, and then the the lessons come from your story or you know, it's it's very, it's it's similar to the way the untethered soul is written, but I will tell you it's a very junior version of that. It's a very simplistic version of some principles. There's roughly 30 principles. For example, you know, uh, principle number one is speak your truth, do it with kindness. You know, in other words, we all have our truth. Doesn't mean it's the truth, but we we feel though it's the truth. But if you're gonna speak your truth to someone, do it with kindness. There's another chapter called, If it's sincere and from the heart, you can't say the wrong thing to the right person. And they're just little, you know, small little uh three or four page um principles to kind of overhaul your life. And, you know, people look at self-love and sometimes as a downer. And you've and I'm sure you've heard in the dating realm, you can't love another until you love yourself. I think of self-love as um, well, I write this in the book, you know, when you're traveling on an airplane and the flight attendant says, in case a cabin pressure change, you know, oxygen masks will be dropped from the ceiling. And if you're traveling with the small child, put the mask on yourself first. Self-love is putting the mask on yourself first, you know, because if you can't nourish your own soul, it's going to be different, difficult to nourish someone else. But the small child on the plane is your is your emotional child. We all have a inner, well, for us adults, you know, we have an inner six-year-old, an emotional six-year-old that oftentimes doesn't really know how to navigate the adult world. And so the self-love piece is loving that inner six-year-old inside of us to nurture it instead of what do we do? We humans beat ourselves up emotionally. We crucify ourselves, we flog ourselves. We can be our own worst enemy. And self-love is saying, hey, you don't need to do that. Why don't you love that little part of you that feels fear and insecurity and doubt and anxiety and judgments of others and all those things that bring us down emotionally? The idea is putting the oxygen mask on yourself.

SPEAKER_00: 7:24

Yeah, that definitely makes a lot of sense. And then would you, I'm assuming you would use this for like rejection during dating as well.

SPEAKER_01: 7:32

Or is that oh my gosh. Well, you know, in our environment today, we are most likely going to have a lot more, you know, experiences that don't go your way than than you wished it would. So, you know, there's a there is a saying, rejection is God's protection. Uh and I don't believe just because a person doesn't choose you, whether it's after a first date or even years in and they choose to move on, you know, we view that as rejection, but honestly, it's a misalignment. And if it's not right for one, it's not right for the other. So when someone ends a relationship with you and you don't have to feel rejected, you can simply look at it and say, hey, we weren't lying for each other. If it's not right for them, it's not right for me. Now, while I don't use the book isn't about dating per se, but it's about standing in your sovereignty. So when you are dating, you're coming from more of an empowerment, sovereign place than the victim consciousness. And sadly, Tamara, we are swimming in a sea of victim content, we're suckling on the nipple of victim consciousness here in the United States. Um, and it's about being empowered in victor consciousness versus victim consciousness.

SPEAKER_00: 8:50

Yeah. And uh this kind of relates to how would you you talk about early signs you're in the wrong relationship, like if yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 9:00

Yeah, you know what? It's the this is okay. Here's the tricky part. Our intuition is speaking to us all the time. And it's speaking to us through our body. When something doesn't feel right, it usually isn't right. Now, right means just misalignment. Now, are you gonna meet somebody who's perfectly aligned and you can just do this with your fingers? No, that's that's a very that's a very rare thing. But one of the first signs is something doesn't feel right. Now, it could mean that you're not in a good place to be in a relationship, quite frankly. We have a we have a population of walking wounded, and this is true for men and women alike. So for the ladies listening that think they're always pointing the finger at men, let me tell you something. Men are doing the same thing to women. You know, we are pointing the finger at the opposite sex instead of pointing the finger at ourselves, going, and I don't, I mean looking in the mirror and going, maybe I'm the common denominator of all my disappointment in life, and what can I do to shift that? That's an empowered place to be instead of a victim place to be.

SPEAKER_00: 10:25

Yeah. And I know you say that relationships are the best path to self-love. And why would you say that?

SPEAKER_01: 10:32

You know, I mean, there is an argument to me that I believe that a significant amount of individual work outside of a relationship would behoove a person. And what I mean to say is to really look at their past experiences and evaluate it from an objective point of view and to forgive, you know, your past relationships, to forgive yourself. I think doing that, so to be prepared, because here's the problem if you enter into a relationship feeling fear, still hurt from your past relationships, or still living in fantasy, which so many people do, it's going to be difficult to see this possibly beautiful human soul right in front of you. Okay. So, and and so the capacity to be in a relationship requires not, we all have fear. That's okay to have fear. We still have residue from past relationships, and we boy, do we have egos that can fantasize the Cinderella story, if you will. But your desire, your capacity, and your vision for a relationship must exceed the fear, the past hurts, and the fantasy. If that, if you can't reach that point, if the fear, past hurts, and fantasy exceeds the desire, capacity, and vision, then it doesn't matter. That new relation, that that new relationship isn't going to help you grow because it's, you know, you're still stuck. Now, if you desire, capacity, and vision, and you meet somebody who's also in that space of desiring growth from an emotional point of view. When two people say, I want to grow, they come from a place of curiosity, then you have a capacity to grow beyond your limit, beyond where you're at today. And here's the thing: some people just don't want to grow, they just want to live life from a very surface level, from a performative level, from an, you know, many people are dating today to for attraction, entertainment, romance, and physical connection without any real building with someone else. Now, Tamara, I say this because for those, I I I um coach to a population of midlife folks, and I say midlife is after baby making years and before retirement. When you're in your 20s and 30s and you want to make baby and raise a family, you're going to build a life with somebody. It gets really tricky after 45. What does building a life with another human being look like? Like we we know the blueprint of make babies and raise a family, but we don't know how to blend lives. Many people don't know how to blend lives in midlife. Not to say all don't, but most don't. Because the Brady Bunch TV show screwed it up for us. It made it look so easy. You could just take, you know, uh Carol and Mike, you know, Carol and Mike, and they each had three children, somehow it's all going to magically form together. That doesn't happen in the real world. So you have to want to build a life with someone else. And sadly, Tamara, we don't have a blueprint of what that might look like. We're it's like like raising a baby. Most of us didn't have a blueprint know how to raise a baby. So so many people are winging it. And what happens is the minute the road gets bumpy, they go next. The minute it gets icky, next. The minute it gets a little challenging, next. Because we have this online dating service that can just serve up another person. And so those are just some of the few things that make it challenging to bond with someone at midlife.

SPEAKER_00: 14:17

Yeah. Yeah, I've never thought of it that way, but like you said, there's no setway once you're you don't need to have kids together. No. So you're like, all right, how are we doing this?

SPEAKER_01: 14:27

Yeah, I've never exactly.

unknown: 14:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 14:30

And then I mean, I was in a few Facebook groups um uh with older older people, and they're and they're just uh yeah, like you're saying, they're pretty clueless.

SPEAKER_01: 14:39

I'll just say were you in the date my uh who did you date group or burn the haystack or I was in the haystack one yeah, I got kicked out for for promoting my own um podcast, but well, you know, it's funny because my girlfriend was in that and she said, most people are so angry at men in that group. I'm like, and I was thinking about this. If you come at it from a place of anger towards the opposite sex and you're you're being fed that anger over and over and over again, how can you come from a place of love? It's my it's my question. I'm not saying it is a statement of fact, but if there's so much, and I I don't know, I've never been in the group, but if there's so much anger, how can you see the beauty in a person? That's the question I have.

SPEAKER_00: 15:22

Yeah, I mean, I've definitely saw that too. And I've I've I misspoke. I got kicked out for pointing that out. You know, I was like, you're never gonna find anyone if you're acting like this.

SPEAKER_01: 15:30

Like, oh, so you said that in the group.

SPEAKER_00: 15:32

Yeah, and that's why I got kicked out. Like they they want only yes people in there that are you know a lot think along the same lines. Yeah, and they're just yeah, they're which is nothing wrong with being a feminist, and they you know they just subscribe to the you know, women can do it all too. And I personally think it's best when men lead and you have to respect them and it works, but you know, when you find someone that you respect, you're it's easier to lead or let them lead.

SPEAKER_01: 15:59

You know, here's so let's lean into that for a second because I'm all for women's empowerment. Let me just say this because when two empowered individuals get together, I think that's where real juice and magic and and flow can occur. Um, to some degree, men are conditioned to chase sex, but they don't necessarily chase commitment, okay? You know, this is where the narrative, men are the leaders of the relationship, and men are the hunters, and men are the chasers. Well, I I want to caution women when you hear that, what are we chasing in the very, very beginning? We're not we're not going around, I want a relationship, I want a relationship. Most men don't do that. They're like, I want your physical body.

unknown: 16:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 16:45

So if you're, you know, then there's a little game playing that occurs to achieve that. But once you've had physical intimacy, the real question is, does this man want long-term commitment? And if he is not committed to commitment, this is the trick, coming back to your question, how do you spot something? If he's not committed to commitment, like when I was in my 20s, I wanted the mother of my children. So I'm searching for the mother of my children. Men in their 40s, 50s, and 60s, they don't know what that tangible is because they don't want the mother of their children anymore. So they have to decide what is commitment mean to them. And a lot of men today, sadly, just have no clue. I mean, I'm I will agree to some degree that if a man isn't committed to commitment, then you, as a woman, you should be, I'm gonna use the word cautious or at least mindful of this. This is why in my private coaching, I teach something called radical honesty, pre-qualifying your prospect. And that is getting crystal clear on who is compatible with you. Now, Tamara, women come to me all the time for private coaching, going, Jonathan, I know what I want. I know what I want, I know what I want in relationship. And I I did that intentionally dramatic because they go through my propriety or coaching program. And can you guess what they say every single time afterwards?

SPEAKER_00: 18:10

It wasn't anything, but I thought it was.

SPEAKER_01: 18:13

Exactly. I wish they taught me this in school. I wish my parents taught me this. You made me think, because what happens is we've been so conditioned because of the dating apps, to focus on the surface level things, height, you know, body type, uh, profession, all of those things that we see first. But we don't, we don't honestly look into the inward capacity of a person and asking the deeper questions because remember I said earlier we have a wounded population? We have a wounded population of men and women who have been hurt by their past relationships and have done little or no healing from their past relationships. So I encourage women to now I encourage them to interrogate men. Now, I'm saying this tongue in cheek, okay? What does interrogation mean? It means to get to the truth, okay? Now, every dating coach will tell you, you should never interview a man on a date. It will make him run away. I'm the opposite. You should interrogate them. Now, how do you do that? You do it in a fun, flirty way. You ask provocative questions that are designed to spur conversation. So, and and this is about being placed from a curiosity. Now, again, I said it tongue in cheek, but it's about getting to the truth. Are you, is your mindset? Do I want to get to the truth of this person? Like, and do you know what I mean by the truth? I'm talking about who this person is outside of the performative nature of this person, outside of the ego. Who is this person really? The only way we can get there, Tamara, is we ask juicy, delicious questions to find out about a person. So instead of being fearful and being afraid someone will run away, the person who is committed to commitment is going, oh my God, I love talking about this stuff because I'm committed to it. And the ones who are not committed to it makes it much, they'll run away, they'll run, you know. And remember, they're chasing sex. So you want to build a bit of friendship before you become physical.

SPEAKER_00: 20:20

Yeah, definitely. And when you're talking about the questions, I read on, of course, Instagram always has, you know, eight quotes of this and that. But one of the questions was like, Well, how do you normally spend a weekend? And, you know, they just answer freely, but it it'll tell you a lot about their lifestyle and if they mesh, you know, stuff like that. So I don't know.

SPEAKER_01: 20:36

Well, I think the most important question is tell me about your past relationships or what does commitment mean to you, or what does a relationship look like for you? Like, think about that. What does a relationship look like for you? Like, I I mean, I'm inviting everyone to pull up a calendar and go, hey, show me what it looks like for you Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. Well, I could do it the the Godfather way, Monday, Wednesday, Thursday. I'm just being silly here for a second. Um, but like what how do you envision it looks like for you? Have an idea of if does someone really envision what it looks like, other than oh, well, we see each other, you know, like from a from a clueless perspective, or are you envisioning your life with somebody else? That's the invitation.

SPEAKER_00: 21:24

Yeah, yeah, great questions. And yeah. So do you want to talk about how to people can work with you? Or are you still a coach?

SPEAKER_01: 21:35

Are you what were a coach or you know it's funny you say that. Um, you know, to some degree, I've spent most of my time with my YouTube channel because I just love my my podcast and my YouTube channel because I love uh and I do live streams where we have QA. That's where I spend most of my time. And yet at the same time, I do have private coaching clients, whether clients that are single looking for love and they want some help in that capacity, or they're in a relationship. And I have a program called Get Inside a Guy's Head, where a client fills out an extensive questionnaire about the man that they're in relationship with. And I literally exchange his head with my head, get inside his body, and I talk on his behalf, like I'm based on an extensive questionnaire. We're talking about 50 different questions about this person, and I can give insight to a woman, and I mostly work with women, I do work with men sometimes as well, but I give them insight into the capacity and viability of a relationship. And and you know, it's funny, Tamara. Women will come to me ready to break up with someone. I'm like, and I'm gonna inside his head, and I'm like, no, this guy's a great guy, you shouldn't do it. And the ones that they want to like salvage the relationship, I'm like, run, Forrest, run, you know. Um, yeah, and and certainly um I have a um a group program called Midlife Love Mastery, where it's an inexpensive membership where you can have access uh to me through a uh Facebook group and I shoot videos there, private videos as well. Um coaching, you know, I'm here to I think 2025 is a shift. I think is gonna is the year to shift how we approach relationships. And what I mean to say is the dating apps for the last 20 years has been a great, has been a portal to meet people you wouldn't otherwise meet. And I'm still a big proponent of it. I think it's now time to get radically intentional, no longer date from the physical entertainment, romance um attraction perspective, but really date from a heart-centered perspective and have some real genuine heart-centered conversations with someone a few times, meet them quickly, and then have more heart-centered conversations to see if this has viability from a romant long-term romantic perspective. I think people um are so, you know what's interesting? I think we become so in the habit of needing immediate data, immediate data. We are so in the habit, like there needs to be instant chemistry right from the very get-go. And if there isn't, then there's never going to be another date. It's interesting. I'm in a significant relationship right now. We'll most likely move to get in together in a short period of time. And I'm bringing this up because our first meeting, we didn't have chemistry. And now it wasn't that we were unattracted to each other. There was just no pull towards each other. And then two days after, I'll call it a meeting instead of a date, even though, you know, I mean, technically it was a date, but it was a meeting. We got on the phone and we're like, hey, how's it going? And, you know, she asked me, What do you think, Jonathan? I said, Hey, I think you're wonderful, but I'm neutral. And she goes, I'm neutral. And we spent the next five hours unpacking that on the phone. Like we were like in shock. Like, we have mutual friends, we have so much in common. We have this, this, this, and this. Why are we feeling neutrality? And then the next day we got on the phone, we were talking about dating, you know, we're talking about our dating profiles, and we spent another five hours talking on the phone as two friends. And she's retired. I work like I'm semi-retired, and we were just talking as friends. We're talking about our past relationships, we were talking about our experiences because we weren't attached to an outcome. We shared freely stuff that we might not share to somebody we were dating. And by the 10th day, I'm like, I'm digging this person. Like, I called her up. I said, Hey, do you mind if we get, or she had suggested getting together for a drink. The next day I called her up and said, I've been thinking about you so much. Like, I mean, you're on my mind beyond friendship. And we met, you know, on our second time and we kissed, and all of a sudden there was a spark. And it occurs to me, Tamara, how many people miss out on what could I tell you, I'm in the best relationship I ever had in my life. And I'm thinking, how many people missed out because there wasn't that instant chemistry? There wasn't that immediate, I need data to move forward. We we oftentimes dismiss people so quickly that could be, and by the way, she and I are so ridiculously aligned. I mean, we finish each other's sentences, we get movie references, we laugh habitually with each other. We are constantly laughing. And I'm like, I said, you're my mirror. Like, I never thought I'd meet a clone of me. And I'm saying this both tongue in cheek and and sincerely. We wouldn't have missed out if that new because we had that neutrality on the first meeting.

SPEAKER_00: 26:49

Yeah. Well, I'm I'm also in the best relationship ever. And it's yeah, it's on the core values. You know, that's where we bonded on. And like you said, self-improvement and growth and just wanting to make a difference and help people.

SPEAKER_01: 27:03

Yay, happy for you.

SPEAKER_00: 27:05

Thank you. Yeah. Well, and you mentioned that you do coach. So how what are your the what's your pod the name of your podcast? And what how can they like what's your website or what?

SPEAKER_01: 27:15

Sure, sure. So um right, my my name's listed here, Jonathan Asley. So you can you know uh cut and paste that, put that into Google. My YouTube channel will be the first thing that comes up, my website will be the next thing. My podcast on Apple Spotify is called What Would Love Do? And they're basically the recordings for my YouTube video, so you can go to either one of them. And the idea is to look at this from a place of the eyes of love instead of fear, anxiety, doubt, you know, um, and you know, and as we talked about earlier, a lot of anger. The question is, how can we return to love in for ourselves and come from a heart-centered place? Um, a lot of what I teach is almost it mirrors what the Buddha, if if you read the book, if the Buddha dated, which is really throwing out the gender rhetoric. If we throw out the gender expectations and say, how can two people connect at a heart-centered level? That's my message for everyone. How can we, how can I show up from my heart? Hopefully someone else shows up from their heart, and how can those two hearts connect outside the performative, egoic way of dating? That's my invitation for everybody.

SPEAKER_00: 28:29

Yeah, I normally ask like final thoughts, but that sounded exactly like what I was gonna ask.

SPEAKER_01: 28:33

So yeah, it kind of fits the final thoughts.

SPEAKER_00: 28:36

Yeah, thank you. Unless you have more to add, I think I will leave it there.

SPEAKER_01: 28:40

No, I appreciate this. You're a good interviewer, so I appreciate the opportunity to expand upon something that I'm passionate about, both uh overcoming adversity, um, which I'm very grateful that my life, you know, I went to bed wishing I didn't wake up for years, and now I can't get wait to get up in the morning and and see what kind of adventure unfolds. But also at the same time, I believe the quality of our life is predicated on the quality of our relationships, you know. So when particularly our primary romantic relationship. And so I'm here to encourage my my hope is by encouraging uh healthy human pair bonding, you know, people live a more fulfilled life because of it.

SPEAKER_00: 29:23

Yeah, awesome sentiment, and I agree.

SPEAKER_01: 29:26

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00: 29:26

All right, well, thank you very much. And if you love this episode, be sure to tell your friends about it and rate it as well. And thank you again for being on, Jonathan.

SPEAKER_01: 29:35

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00: 29:36

All right, thanks everyone. Bye.

SPEAKER_01: 29:39

Frank Talk! Frank Talk Sex and Danning Educates.