How Can I Find A Partner If I’m…

And now it's time to ask the shrink. Hey, welcome to this bonus episode of Ask the Shrink. This one is a great question about dating and relationships and what's possible for you. It comes from Tasha, and she says, I read your book, the Solution to Social Anxiety, and I'm doing a social anxiety exposure hierarchy. Awesome. Well done, Tasha. It's working very well so far, and I'm very grateful that there are people like you that care about something so important and put really helpful information out there. Awesome. Thank you, Tasha. You are most welcome. My question is that I would like to find someone to get married to. And I think, what are the odds of someone who has been without social connections for a long time, has no relationship experience, doesn't have a lot of social connections, feels different, etc. How is someone with those odds not just finding someone compatible, but actually getting the best relationship? For me, like the ideal result? It's part doubt. And I also think it may be part intuition. A logistical question of, I'm here now. What is missing for me to get there? This dream is very important to me. It would be great to hear from you, and I am interested in what you might have to say. I would be very grateful for an answer. Thank you. Okay, there is a lot of good stuff here. Let's see if we can break it down and help you feel more. Well, I was going to say hopeful, which is good, but also we want to get you into more action because hopefulness is great, but it's also temporary because then it starts to, you know, has a short half life and it starts to bleed away. We gotta get action and we gotta get progress. Progress is good. Progress feels good and is sustainable. Hope is short term, but progress can feel hopeful. So as long as you're progressing, I think that's good. So let's see how we can help you start progressing. You say, I'm over here, which is not that many social connections, no relationship experience, and I want to be over here, which is married to the man of my dreams or a woman. I don't know, you didn't specify. But let's just assume it's a man. And if you're a man listening to the woman of my dreams, whatever your situation is, or a man who wants a man, the man of my dreams, whatever you'd like the person of your dreams. So our mind does this funny thing where it says, okay, I'm way back here and I want to be way over there. Man, that's far. That's so far. It's so far that it's probably not even possible. And then another part of your mind is like, yeah, it isn't possible. It probably never will be for you, especially because of X, Y and Z and your past. And you tried, and it didn't work. You know, it just is not possible. And it hypnotizes you. I just watched the Jungle Book, the new one with my little boy, Zaim. It was awesome. And there's a scene where there's a python that. Or anaconda or something. I don't know, big jungle snake that. From the moment he senses her, she's just constantly giving him these hypnotic suggestions. It's safe. I'm not here to hurt you. You're okay. You're safe. And she just keeps. It's pretty powerful. It's a very fascinating scene. But she just, like, totally hypnotizes him into peace and complacency as she surrounds him in her coils. And that's the same with these stories, Tasha, and same with all of our stories. They just kind of wrap around us and they feel warm and safe at first, but then we realize we're totally stuck and totally trapped. Here's the thing. Let's say you were in New York City and you wanted to get to Los Angeles. And then you looked at a map and you're like. And you're gonna drive there, for example, and you're like, holy shit, that's far. I gotta drive from New York to la. That's like five days. Ugh, Jesus. Never even gonna get there. What if I get lost? And then you stay in New York, and then a year goes by and you want to go to Los Angeles again. Summertime, perhaps every summer, you want to go to la. And then you look at the map and you're like, whoa, so far, have you gotten any closer to LA in that year? No. Right? So here's the thing. Everything we want, we just got to start taking action. We got to move in that direction. And the stories are weird, hypnosis. So the question would be, I love that you're creating an exposure hierarchy. Let's go out there and start connecting with people. How do you form social connections in your life? How can you do that? What if you said, look, I don't know how old you are, but it doesn't matter how old you are. Let's say you gave yourself plenty of space and time. I'm not even gonna meet a man for the next six months. That's not my focus. My focus is to work on myself and build My social capacity, my social life. Make friends, connect with people. Just get more comfortable in who I am. So maybe you focus on that for six months and you do your exposure work. You practice, you grow, you challenge stories, you be who you are, you know yourself, you accept yourself. You take action, you get progress. It's like driving. That's like getting in your car and just heading west towards la, building those social connections. Next might be dating and connecting and experimenting with that. And if there's a party that's like, no, no, no, no, no, I don't have time for that. I need it right now. Well, that desperation is actually going to slow everything way down. It always does. Anytime we are attached and think, I need something right now, or else we're going to drive that thing away. So relax, breathe. Find the place in your heart that knows I'm okay as I am. I don't need this right now. I just need progress. That's all I need. So what would be a small step that you can take? What is it that you can do right now to start building the life that you want, the social connections that you want, the interactions with men that you want. And as you build that, you transform how you see yourself. You transform your identity. You no longer become that person who is different and awkward and no one likes me and I don't have any friends and I'm a weirdo. That no longer becomes your reality in as little as six months or less, depending on how fast you take action. And then as you no longer identify with that, you become open to something totally new. So I hope that helps. I hope that helps you get into action, gives you some direction to go. Tasha, that's awesome. I know many people listening can relate to that. And I also want to mention right now that there's an even better, more powerful solution, which is to get the help that we need, which is the Unlimited Dating Confidence Bootcamp. And that is happening in Portland, October 14th through 16th. In October, October 14th through 16, in Portland, Oregon. And. And we're doing early Bird tickets. They're on sale right now for a few more days where they're 50% off of what they normally are, and then they go back up to the full price, and now is the time to do it. Because this stuff, you know, I've met people who've waited in New York, using that metaphor and example. They've been in New York for 15 or 20 years before they meet me. And then they have even more stories built up. Oh, I've been this way. I'm too old now. Still just more stories. Still not true. But that's what we believe. So if you're listening to this and you feel any inkling of, like, I want to change this now, I strongly encourage you to come join me for the weekend because that's how everything's going to transform. Everything's going to change. So we'll have a link below in the notes to get there. You can also go to 30 days to dating mastery.com 30 days to datingmastery.com event e v e n t 30 days to dating mastery.com event and get your tickets there while they're available. We have a relatively small room that I booked for that I have an agreement with for this year. That's where I'm doing my workshops, my live events. So it will sell out. We won't be able to fit everyone in this one. And then maybe next year we'll get a bigger room to fit everyone. But so if you want to come to this, now is the time to do it. And while they're cheaper and before they sell out. And Tasha, I don't know if this is for you or not. There are going to be women there. And this is. And even if you know, there's going to be guys who are my mastermind there who are married, because this is not just about getting laid. This is exactly about your question, Tasha, is how do we create the life that we want and attract the person that we want? And maybe you're just interested in, you know, if you're listening, you're just interested in casual dating, that's fine, too. But one of the biggest things is you got to be able to have a sense of abundance. Like, I can meet women anywhere. I can just go over and walk and talk and start conversations. And that is core. That's what we're going to build as well. So I would love to have you at the weekend and love to get a chance to go deeper. And until we speak, then may you have the courage to be who you are and to know on a deep level that you're awesome. I'll talk to you soon. Sam.