Have We Got A Match For You Ep. 1- Being Okay Being Single

Hey everybody, welcome back. So I'm Jason Wasser, licensed marriage and family therapist. I'm hanging out with my colleague and good friend.

Hi, I'm Chava Shaulov, matchmaker for the singles around the world. Thank you, Jason. Thank you for having me on board again. Thanks a lot.

No problem. So really excited about this project that we're working on. So for those of you who are just jumping on, Chava and I are in the process of creating this podcast, which you're listening to and being part of the live stream that we're going to eventually convert into the audio format. And it's called Have We Got a Match for You? So if you want more information about that, and there's going to be other episodes that we're going to be doing there that are not going to be live streamed, please pull out your phone, go on Instagram and follow us there. Again, it's Have We Got a Match for you. And obviously, if there's anything that you would love to hear us talk about, um, questions, there's a way by hitting our bio link that you can actually leave a voice message for us. And if you're comfortable, uh, we'll actually give you a shout out on the show by playing your message, and all the directions are there. So, Chava, I know there was a, there was a, a comment or a conversation, uh, that someone wanted us to kind of tackle today. So what was that question?

So the question was, how do you manage being alone? How do you find peace with knowing that you're by yourself, handling the pressure from society, from the community, from family and friends to date, to get married? How do you handle being single? That's the question.

So what would you think? Because this whole idea of I have to date and I have to get married, right? There's so much pressure. There's so much frustration. —society pressure, religious pressure, cultural pressure, whatever way we want to look at it. And here I am sitting here as a licensed marriage and family therapist, and I see on the other side of the coin, right, the grass isn't always greener because, you know, there's no field of therapy called singles therapy, right? It's individual counseling or marriage and family, right? That's just the proverbial titles for it. But everybody thinks, like, all my problems are going to go away once I find the right one. And from my experience, and I'm sure with your experience as well, things only get amplified. Your stuff that you bring to the table only gets amplified once you're— Right, exactly.

So, I mean, I think the most important thing to focus on is while you're single, take the time to focus on what you want, what makes you happy. Stay positive in this timeframe, you know? Do things that you enjoy doing. Take a class in a different skill set that you've always wanted to do. Travel to a different travel. Not now, but like, not now. To a different borough, if you're in—

that's what you meant, right? I will do a different borough.

But Chava said you should travel. No, stop. Don't use my words against me. Not now. I mean, just, you know, go away with your, with your friends. Do something fun and spontaneous. You know, you have to also invest into yourself in this time frame. Like, don't get stuck in this pit. Don't get stuck in this very low vibration, very low energy. And to be real, if you do get stuck in this low low, like, energy level, you're going to make poor decisions. And poor, poor decisions in terms of dating other people. So you're not going to be in the right mindset to make that choice of who's a good fit for you in terms of dating, relationship, you know, having relationship, getting married, so on and so forth, right? So you have to be conscious of that as well, being positive and investing into yourself, knowing who you are, you know, making a list of your value system, your morals and your values. What do you expect in a relationship? What do you want to do in 5 years from now? 1, 2, 5 years from now, where do you see yourself? Set your goals, invest into yourself, take this time. You know, you can sit at home and pout and get upset and get desperate, get, you know, angry at the world. And just because your friend is dating does not mean you have to be forced to date either. You know, separate the two, focus on you. The right person will come along at some point, but in the meantime, invest into yourself. Right.

And the way I see it is that there should never ever be any force to do something in any level or any aspect of your life that you're not yet ready to do. And then the bigger question is, is how do you know when it's the right time, right? Whether it's your first dating experiences as an adult, whether it's post a breakup of a serious dating relationship, or post an engagement, or post a divorce, whatever it may be. But how do you know when that right time is? And we're going to get into that in a future episode about, you know, dating after significant breakups or significant loss or trauma. And you're going to hear a lot from us. Go to therapy, go work it out, go figure it out. But I have this major theory, and again, I'm seeing 800 to 1,000 client sessions a year since 2005, that the proof is in the numbers, that your stuff, again, like I was saying before, only gets amplified in a pressure cooker of what is a committed relationship. And realizing that every day when you wake up, you can't blame them for the stuff that annoy you because you chose them. And just because part of your brain, your reptilian brain, which is about survival and which is about reproduction, overpowered your rational brain, your neocortex, in the original dating stages, none of us would ever— the species, right, as humanity, would never evolve if that part of our brain didn't trick us down the road to make choices for selections, which is really at the biological level for mating. Reproduction, even though we think we're in love or we think we're connecting on a deep level. But the idea of being okay with being single is so powerful. And I think that our society, our leaders, our educators, right, the spiritual leaders, have put way too much pressure on it starting from a very early age. And I'm not saying that continuity of our community or your community or a religious group or an ethnic group is not important, but there is the psychology to take into consideration. And we all have our own stuff to deal with, and not everybody is equally equipped to be getting married at the same age. And I'm not saying don't wait for 50 years old. In fact, research shows— I just interviewed Dr. Stanley Scott, who is the author of the Sliding vs. Deciding article, an amazing blog. You can just Google Sliding vs. Deciding and find his blog. Tons of research on premarital habits before engagement, before marriage, of what will predict marital relationship happiness and success. And one of them is actually having too many dating relationships will actually inhibit. So the idea of like, well, I'm going to date 100 people so I can figure out what I want, and then I'll be serious, and then I'll start dating seriously, actually works counterintuitively. So be single, like Clavo was saying. Go figure out what you're passionate about. Go figure out what your values are. Go figure out what you want your hobbies to be. Go figure out what types of books you enjoy, what type of music you enjoy, what type of food you like, and then go and bring that into the dating world. And yes, dating experiences are binary experiences that are going to allow you to sift and sort through more of what you want and what you don't want. But the other side of the coin is that if you're not okay and confident and happy, not settling to be single, but content with being single, right? In other words, not like, oh, poor me, I'm just gonna sit down and twiddle my thumbs and no one's gonna want me, no one's gonna love me, so I'm just gonna accept being single. I'm not talking I'm talking about building a meaningful and productive life that you're really satisfied, that gives you pleasure. Not, I'm going to bed every night crying my eyes out, because that's— no one you're ever going to be with will ever solve that problem. No one will ever make you happy enough, fulfilled enough, joyful enough, be attracted enough to you, compliment you enough, uplift you enough, financially support you enough to solve that problem. And I really want to pound that in. Idea in. And Chava, I want you to talk a little bit more about that in the experiences you've had when you were working, you know, as people going through dating experiences.

Wow, that was, that was great, great concept. Thank you, Jason Wasser, for that. Um, so what happens is like this, you know, we do have singles who call us, text us, message us, please, I beg you, I plead with you, you know, send me a match, send me a date, I need just one date. But why are you, why are you pressuring yourself to find this date? You know, a date will come, a relationship will come, dating will come. In the meantime, just invest into you, you know. Invest in— like, the longest relationship you're going to have is going to be with yourself and nobody else. So invest into you, you know. Spend time with yourself. And, and again, when, when you get into this pit and you get— you're stuck in this mindset of this very low energy, who wants to date something like that? First of all, you have to understand also You are who you attract. The law of attraction applies very, very heavily in dating as well. You really think you're going to attract somebody on a high vibration, somebody who's motivated, a go-getter, a doer, an ambitious type of individual, someone who's, you know, stable emotionally, mentally, if you yourself are not on that level? You're not going to attract that. And there's not going to be an individual who's going to be okay with going out with somebody who's sad and depressed, I've been single for 5 years, 7 years.

No one wants to, no one wants to experience that on a date, or that's not taking care of themselves, but says that they want someone else who's taking care of themselves more than the level that they're taking care of their own self. And I'm talking about in the physical nature, nutrition, diet, all of those things, right? You have to— what you're saying is, it sounds to me like you're saying that you have to be in alignment with that which you want, right? Which we're talking about law of attraction. And for me, I'm a huge fan of the law of attraction, but I also understand from the neurological level of how that makes sense based on our neural pathways and the biochemistry and how that actually changes our physiology. But I do, again, I want people to know at a certain level as they get more and more used to us and seeing us and listening to us that they're going to know what we're going to say so they don't have to eventually listen to us to have the insight sitting in their head, which is do the work, do the work, Do the work. And while you're dating, do the work. And when you're getting engaged, do the work. And now do it together. And when you're married, do the work. Do the work. Do the work. Right. So when I was talking to Dr. Stanley, Dr. Scott Stanley, he has two first names, which makes it really difficult to remember which one it was. But when I talked to this professor, I said, Disney has really screwed us with this thing of what does it say at the end of every Disney movie? And they what?

I lived happily ever after. Right.

And I told them, I really think that Disney should say, and next week they went to couples counseling. Amazing. Because A, there's nothing wrong with it. B, you have the advantage because you're still always going to bring stuff to the table, unfinished business, intergenerational stuff that will only become active at a different developmental stage of your life or with different stressors. Or if it's a child that's coming into your life and there's stuff that's themes that have never been dealt with from you being a child and being parental stuff that you just won't know or realize will show up until you're in that scenario. But the more you can proactively tackle, the better it is to being okay with being single. Take this time to be selfish. Exactly right. And I want to actually strike that because I usually say it differently. If you think you're being selfish, throw that word in the garbage because this suffix -ish implies what? Jew-ish, right? You know, are you, are you, you know, are you a vegetarian? Eh, ish. You know, sometimes I eat meat, something, right? There's that ish is kind of like half in. So being selfish is being half into yourself. You're not. So you actually want to become self-full, not full of yourself, egotistical, but self-full. Because then you could become self-fulfilled. And you can only become truly fulfilled by letting go of this idea that by taking care of yourself and worrying about yourself in a healthy way, feeding what you need in a healthy way is selfish. You will never get to self-fulfillment as long as you think that, that taking care— and I have that tonight with one of my clients who's an amazing, amazing couple. I adore them. And everything has to do with that person's caretaking about everybody else's emotion. And asking for an individual session with me. When I said, we are doing this, no ifs, ands, or buts, we don't have to do it as a couple, she started crying. Wow. Because now I'm causing the family money, as opposed to it's a relationship thing and my partner is 50% responsible for it. Now the emotional burden was on her. Look, I'm costing you money to pay for these sessions. It must be my fault, right? That's not selfish. That's not— that's, that's there's no sense of, like, I have value and I'm worthy. So I really want people to hear this deeply, that you have to— I'm challenging you to become okay with being single. And Chava, I wonder, like, you know, you know that I'm very picky with my words and, like, I always call you out on, like, you know, certain things in our offline conversation. Like, why did you use that word? Right. The word we strive as young adults to find our individualism. Yes. But yet when it comes to dating, we're single. So there's a juxta— there's a major contradiction in our identity right here. And it's just kind of hitting me. Why aren't we individuals trying to find another individual who is like-minded with like-minded values and like-minded beliefs and hoping that they have the same goals and want the same meanings and the same dreams in the same community and the same type of stuff, right? Two individuals create a relationship. Two singles are just stuck in their own crap. Kind of, yes. I'm wondering if the wording alone that we're using might even be limiting.

Yes, individuals, you're right. Yeah, I think, I think by calling us ourselves singles, we put that extra added unnecessary pressure. By being called a single. So I think from now on, I challenge everyone to call themselves individuals. Thank you, Jason Wasser.

Yeah, right, right. And go out there, right, that you're an individual dating, you're not a single, right? All these singles chatbots, right? These singles retreats, these singles dating sites. Are you single? I'm an individual.

I have to edit all my posts now.

Moving forward, right? Moving forward. Can't fix the past all the time. I'm sorry. I said we can't fix the past all the time, but we can always do it moving forward.

Never spill milk. Moving forward, we're only calling ourselves JoJo's. Do you recommend like individuals to create a support system, like a group of like people who will like help them and guide them into a better lifestyle, a better way of thinking, and maybe perhaps also setting boundaries? And not allowing people to put this added pressure on them. What do you think?

Oh, that's huge, right? Boundary pressure and boundaries go hand in hand, right? So if you think about it kind of as like an air conditioning system, right, when the temperature goes up too high, right, gets too hot, you have it set at a certain temperature, and right in the summer, um, it's going to bring— turn the AC unit on. And if it gets too cold, it turns the heat on, right? That's called homeostasis. In the scientific— it's a feedback loop. And, and we have that in all relationships, in all parts of our life, right? And sometimes our homeostasis, our internal balance, is sometimes off because our homeostasis is, I don't want to cause someone else to be pissed off at me or disappointed at me or angry at me. And that's where we then get compelled to act or behave or believe certain things because it's a pressure reliever, it's an anxiety reliever, it's a stress reliever. And a lot of times someone in a system, whether it's in a dating system, you know, dating relationship dynamic, or a parent-child relationship, or friends, or whatever, or in family dynamics as a whole, or even in business, someone is always going to be the person who wants to relieve the pressure of that pressure cooker by flipping the switch. But things will never get solved, and eventually again, that, that will build up again completely. And that feedback loop is gonna happen over and over again, and that same person will always be the person who's taking upon themselves of that burden of fixing or solving or being responsible for the caretaking of everything. And I see that a lot in a dating pattern with a lot of people, the caretakers, the codependent dynamic. And we're going to get way into that. It's like, you know, I think the number one emotional, so to speak, disease, if I'm being very playful with that term, but put disease, hyphenate it, dis-ease. You're not at ease, right? Is that dance of interdependency and codependence. And I'm a huge fan of all Melody Beattie's works. No, you don't need to have someone in your family who's an alcoholic or a drug addict, but I think that there is this codependency that 2020, 2021 adults, individuals, are rapidly struggling with. And there— and we are trying to find that other person that by we— us contributing to them becoming better or feeling better, we're going to feel valued about ourselves and worthiness about ourselves. And if that dance happens all the time in all different parts of your life, it gets ugly later on in your life. That's when most midlife divorces happen, because you're done doing that for 30 years in a relationship.

Yes, I completely agree with you. And I think we have a lot of topics we have to tackle, and, you know, for the betterment, I think, for the community and the individuals at large to better ourselves and to get out of this rut and this unhealthy thinking. Absolutely.

If anybody out there is listening to this and you want to get some great books and some great resources, right off the bat, the first book I would definitely start with is Harville Hendrix's, anything that he has written on Imago therapy. There's one for individuals and there's one for couples. One's Keeping the Love You Find and the other one's called Getting the Love You Want. Again, one is for people already in relationships and one is is more for the individuals who are looking to create the healthy relationships. But it's all about unpackaging your unfinished business and being aware of what you're being unconsciously attracted to. Right? Like Clavo was saying before about the law of attraction, you can only attract to the extent of the work you've done on yourself and to the level of your own self-awareness. Now, everybody's like, oh, I'm so self-aware. I'm so self-aware. Yeah, only to the point in which you can see it until you have that aha moment. I have a client I'm working with, I've been working with the wife and I finally started seeing the husband. Now we're bringing them back into couples therapy and I literally saw his brain shatter after our conversation in a good way. Like, I never— 39 years of life and I never saw it from that perspective. And within one week, how much his relationship dynamic has changed about that, because we carry these things so intensely and we play them out in our relationships. Relationships, hoping someone will fix them for us, but it's up to us to fix that. So anything by Harville Hendrix and his Imago Theory, Imago Therapy, there's tons of great videos on YouTube. And then again, like all of the Melody Beattie, B-E-A-T-T-I-E, all of her work, The New Codependency, Codependent No More, doesn't matter. People like, which one should I start with? I don't know, whatever one's on sale right now, and then work your way to the next one and then work your way to the next one, right? It doesn't mean you have to have a family background of addiction. Or domestic violence or anything like that. I think this is just an intergenerational theme that has just grown significantly in the last 15, 20 years. And how many people— and it's boundaries, you know, going back to boundaries and caretaking. Yes. So, so I would definitely start there. Obviously reach out to us on— again, for those who are not yet following us and you want to keep track of what's going on as we eventually release the podcast, but also other stuff that we're going to be sharing, future events future, you know, other things that are going on in our circles, please go on Instagram, take out your phone and follow @HaveWeGotAMatchForYou. If you want to follow more about what I'm doing in my world, my other podcast called You Winning Life, my therapy, my coaching, you can find me on Jason Wasser LMFT and Chava. Your social media?

Yeah, my social media platform is Chava Shitvulov on Facebook. I do have an Instagram account as well under Chava Shitvulov. You're welcome to follow me, Facebook me, and, you know, send me messages or any type of questions you would like for us to answer. You know, on our podcast. Looking forward to all your questions and suggestions.

Yeah. And again, everything is in the bio link. So if you have questions for us, you can either reach out to us on social media directly, or if you want to be the really brave one and you want to be part of the podcast experience, like I said, you can call. There's an app like directly on your computer or on your phone where you can actually leave us a digital voicemail. And if you— by doing that, you're giving us permission to say, hi, my name is Jason Wasser. Here's my question., and we'll take that clip and we'll use it as part of the audio experience. So you can have, you know, we'll give you your 13 seconds of fame and help you contribute to the community. So, and if there, again, if there's anything in this video or in any other audios that you hear from us that you think would be beneficial to someone else, please share it with them, please. Because we want to just provide really awesome resources and help. And obviously we would love to hear what topics and things we'd love, you'd love for us to tackle in the future. So with that, Chava, thanks again.

I know we're going to try to do this as frequently as possible. Thank you so much. Thank you. This was awesome. This is an amazing session. Wow. Thank you so much, Jason Wasser.

Of course. And then again, everybody else, have a great night. And we look forward to connecting with you again next time.

Bye, everybody. Good night.