How To LET GO, MOVE ON & Leave Your PAST IN THE PAST! Sarah Jakes Roberts & Lewis Howes

I don't know if I fully believe it myself, but I'm going to pretend that I am not random and my life has purpose, and I'm going to see how I show up in the world as a result of that. And I started loving the person who I was becoming when I believed that I was more than what just happened to me.

I'm curious, what is the biggest insecurity you've had to overcome, especially being raised in the church and and with a father who's a preacher, a big personality, what's the biggest insecurity you've had to overcome growing up with all that?

No, I love that. I think the biggest insecurity is also the thing that has become my greatest strength, but it's ultimately that I didn't fit where I thought I was supposed to fit. Growing up with TD Jakes as my dad, I didn't always feel like I fit in church. Not too long ago, I did a DMX tribute episode on my podcast, so that gives you an idea of the type of gospel music I prefer. So I didn't feel like I really fit in church, but obviously I'm not a thug fully, you know, in my heart. I am one a little bit. But so I really didn't feel like there was a space for me anywhere. And so, you know, now you fast forward and I feel that way actually is why I kind of created a space for different women who were like me.

You just feel like you didn't belong in the space that there was. Yeah. And so then you said, I'm going to create a space and then people came into it.

Yeah.

What is that space called?

Women Evolve is what I branded it. But, you know, I feel like it's a safe space where women can bring all of themselves and see what they need to eliminate and what they need to multiply so that they can become the best version of themselves.

What is the biggest challenge that women face with today that you see?

Self-worth. Self-worth. I think even women who you would think have succeeded so much that they should find value in where they are in life still struggle to receive the life that they live. And certainly women who've had challenges like I have, I wonder if there is any way that they can have worth with the broken pieces they have left.

When did you feel the most broken?

Okay. Do you want the full story?

Full story, yeah.

Okay. So I was married before and when I was 19 when I got married and 23 when I got divorced. So at a point in that marriage, there was some infidelity and okay, so here we go. This is the school of hard knocks.

On which side?

On his side. Okay. Okay. On his side there was infidelity.

Oh, she's getting real.

I'm not telling you the whole story now. So there was infidelity on his side and there There was this moment where something happened. I won't go into the full details, but they called the police on me because your girl lost it. Okay?

A little?

Lost it. All right.

Lost it in terms of the screaming, fighting, punching.

I did take my car and ram another car repeatedly. Here we go, the School of Greatness. Wow.

How old are you?

22. Wow.

Okay.

22. Let's go forward, reverse. Forward again, reversed over and over again. They called the police on me because I wasn't stopping.

Wow.

Problem is, I have two children, okay? So they weren't in the car. It was like 11 o'clock at night. This was in our driveway because the girl was at our house. And here we go. You weren't even ready for it, but yet here we are. And so they called the police on me. And the officer asked me, like, what happened? And I was like, well, you know, my husband brought his girlfriend to our house, and I didn't know how to process that.

Yeah.

And, you know, it's funny in retrospect, but I was in the DMV. I didn't have any family. I felt so vulnerable. I didn't have where I could just pick up and take my kids somewhere. And I felt this violation. I had to go see CPS after this. The officer didn't arrest me. CPS is Child Protective Services. And so I was leaving Child Protective Services where they're basically asking about my routines with the kids and, you know, what I enjoy about them. They're interviewing me to determine whether or not I'm a good mother. Oh, wow.

Okay. Now that night or like weeks later?

Weeks later, I had to schedule or I would have had to go to court. Now you're talking about someone who got pregnant at 13. Now interview being interviewed almost 10 years later about whether or not she's a good mother. This is my biggest fear right in front of my face. Am I going to be a good mother? And I'm talking to this CPS officer, you know, representative, I don't know what you call them. And I was leaving the CPS office and they're like, okay, we'll be in touch and follow up if necessary. They didn't end up following up. But when I walked out of that office, that's when I felt the most broken I'd ever felt. That is the moment where I was like, I can't keep on living like this outside of the marriage. Living as a woman who doesn't know who she is, who doesn't have any limits, who doesn't have any boundaries, whose only emotion is anger. I felt nothing else but anger. And that's when I wanted to start doing some work on myself.

I can relate to the fact of feeling anger a lot and not knowing, like, what's the purpose? Why am I here? Like, I can't live like this anymore. And being in a state of reaction a lot. It's not fun.

It's not. It's-- it's like-- I have a smile about it now because I know how the story ends. But in that moment, there's nothing fun about it.

I mean, you're 23, you've got two kids and you see that your husband's cheating on you and the girl is there. If I'm 23 and that happened to me, I don't know how to react either. You probably react the way you think to react. I'm going to be angry, I'm going to fight, I'm going to scream. That's a normal response that you might see. So how does someone learn to develop tools emotional skills to go beyond that.

Okay, so what I learned is that I wasn't just upset about the incident. I was upset that every time I was trying to create this image of my life, it kept being ripped to shreds.

What image?

This image of not a girl who got pregnant at 13. Like, whoever you think that girl is, that's not who I am. Like, look, I went to school. Look, I finally got married. I was trying to this image of myself. And so emotional tools for me came down to realizing that the marriage and even the pregnancy was the fruit, but it was not the root. It was the fruit of my insecurities. It was the fruit of my fear. It was the fruit of feeling like I didn't belong, but it wasn't the root. What's the root? The root was that feeling like I didn't belong and needing someone to tell me, you, belong here. Whether that was as a teenager or even as an adult woman, I want you, this is where you belong, this is where you're supposed to be. And I kept hoping someone would answer that question for me, where do I belong?

What if no one ever answers that for you? What if no one ever says you belong here?

So for me, I found the answer in my faith. Because the whole premise of our faith for me as a Christian is that you belong here because God created you and placed you in this earth. and yet it's difficult to understand, like, they're okay, well, there are millions and billions of people around me. Like, so why does that make me special? Why does anyone care? And still surrendering to it as truth and asking myself, well, if I decided, if I just chose to try and believe this one day is truth, what would my life look like? What decisions would I make? How would I show up in the world? And it was really like me just trying it on, right? Like, I'm just going to try on this truth.

See how it feels.

Just see.

Just see who I be. You know, like, and that, to me, is what happens in faith in general. It's like, I'm trying it on. Like, I don't know if I fully believe it myself, but I'm going to step into a faith that I don't fully understand and see how it can fit in my life. So I'm going to pretend that I'm fearfully and wonderfully made, and I'm going to make decisions from this heart posture. I'm going to pretend that I am not random, and my life has and I'm going to see how I show up in the world as a result of that. And I started loving the person who I was becoming when I believed that I was more than what just happened to me.

How do we love the image of a past that we're not proud of? How do we make that our fruit and not a pain?

Yeah. Okay. This is, you're right up my alley with this. Because a lot of times when we, like, when I looked back at my teenage pregnancy, I cringed, you know? And yet I'm cringing about a part of my identity. Like, this is truth. You know, this is who I am. I spent so long trying to not be the girl who got pregnant at 13, but I am the girl who got pregnant at 13. That's my story.

You tried to hide it.

You tried to-- In my mind, emotionally, I felt like I want to separate from this idea that that's who I am.

But it's a part of you.

It is a part of me. And so I was living divided. And forgiveness for me came from not judging that girl who got pregnant at 13, It came from embracing her.

Yeah.

Embracing her.

Was it harder for you to forgive yourself or your husband? Not yourself or ramming the car.

No, I didn't feel anything. I didn't feel nothing about that.

But yourself for the 13 year old pregnancy.

Myself for the 13 year old pregnancy.

It was harder.

Oh, yeah.

Why is it harder to forgive ourselves in general than someone else?

Because once again, like, and not for nothing, like, this was not a good marriage on either side. You know what I mean? It wasn't right. It wasn't a good marriage. The most beautiful thing that came out of it is a little girl. But it wasn't a good man. I wasn't good to him. He wasn't good to me. Like, I would talk so crazy to him. Things I would never say on the School of Greatness, things I would never say now, understanding how delicate a person is. And so it was toxic in general, but I carried my own poison into it. and I take ownership for that. And when I've written about it, talked about in the past, I take ownership for that. And so it was easier to forgive that because I just realized that that was a byproduct of me having not forgiven myself from that original situation.

Right. And I'm curious, like, I don't have kids yet. You have six. How do you I mean, your father, I want to talk about your father. It's not about him, but how did.

You.

Grow up in a community where your father is preaching certain things that maybe you felt like you weren't living up to? And then how do you, now that you're speaking this similar language that he is, how do you raise kids to live into that and not kind of make mistakes on their own? I don't know. How do you do that?

Well, I think it's like expecting a dentist child to never have a cavity.

They're gonna want to eat some ice cream.

You know what I mean? So I think the removal of the pressure of you have to do this. I mean, the idea that Christianity in general is about doing everything perfect, I think is why a lot of people struggle. Because everyone knows. It's too much pressure. And the whole premise of this is that we cannot live up to this expectation. So we need someone to come and help save us from this idea that we can live perfectly. Like we are never going to do it perfectly. So then it's like, how do I live with this thorn in my side? How do I strive to become better? How do I make peace with the fact that I am a work in progress? And I think somewhere lost in the translation of religion is this idea that you're never going to mess up. And that's where we end up losing a lot of people. So I don't have pressure for them to not mess up. I have pressure on them to learn how to get back on track when they've strayed away.

Yeah, I think the judgment of needing to be perfect from people is the thing that pushes people away.

Because, like, who has time for that? Right? And life is too hard, and I have too many complications, and in some cases, too much trauma to think that I'm going to come into this space and do everything the right way. Jesus said, Turn the other cheek. You know, that's not really-- that's not.

You all the time.

That's not really my jam.

What is the greatest trauma that you're still dealing with the most? that you maybe started the healing process and you've improved, but you're like, that still triggers me. Maybe I'm not slamming cars into someone, but it's still like, that doesn't feel good.

You know, I don't know that I have a certain incident that triggers me, but I think the residue of not.

Being able to defend myself Emotionally, spiritually, physically.

First of all, you better ask these questions. Um.

I'm trying to get clarity there.

I think emotionally, because I think that the residue of that shows up in my life and I have to advocate for my feelings. Because when I got pregnant, I felt like I did something wrong, okay? And this is not just something wrong in church, right? Because if you do something wrong in church, there's another community that will embrace you. When you're a teen mom, there's not another community of you that's like, oh, we love team mom. You know what I mean? Like, oh, we please have another baby. We love this, you know? And so I didn't have anywhere to go in the world that wouldn't judge me or in the church that wouldn't judge me. And because this was something I willfully did, no one took advantage of me. I felt like, well, I can't be hurt over this. I can't be broken over this. I have to let everyone else grieve, and I just have to sit here with my feelings. But I was hurt. I was sad. I was disappointed. and so now even as a woman, I have to learn to advocate for my right to have feelings, even if I've done something wrong.

Yeah.

And even if it was your decision.

Yeah, right, right.

And it's hard at 13 to develop the emotional capacity to express and feel in a healthy way. Yeah, they don't have those tools.

And then you have to stop, right? Because when you're now a parent, you're not able, like, because I assume, I don't know, I've never been 13 and not had a child, but I assume somewhere between 13 And adulthood, you learn how to get those tools. I feel like I emotionally shut down at 13 and have had to work to open up again.

You feel like you're a lot more open now?

I am.

My heart is open. I love that.

I love that.

I think about it though. The other day I had to break up, I have a feelings wheel, you know? A feelings wheel.

Wheel.

Mm-. It's a wheel and it's got like, happy, sad, angry, and then once you pick one, it shows you all of these different, 'cause of my emotional voice, vocabulary is pretty limited. And so like the other day, I felt happy, but I didn't know like why or what. And then I had to follow my will and then the will to happy led me to like valued and respected, which were very foreign for me, like to have words that I feel valued, especially after struggling with my worth was like really interesting. My initial reaction was like, I don't want to feel that. And then I was like, you don't.

Want to feel valued.

That's that was my fear based initial response, which I think is the residue of trauma throwing the wall up. But then I had to work to say, no, this is your life. This is your truth a lot. Like, I'm still coaching myself emotionally.

So when you felt valued, it felt foreign.

Yeah, for sure. Not that I have never felt valued before, but I've never been able to connect what I was feeling with the idea of being valued.

When do you feel the most valued?

When my husband talks to me. Yes.

When he talks to you about anything.

When he just looks at me, when he just talks to me, when he this is whatever to me.

And how have you learned to develop your own self-worth regardless of what he does or your kids do or your parent, you know, how have you done that yourself?

So in between. So I got divorced and I moved back home with my parents.

You didn't kill him?

No.

Okay.

No, no, no, no.

No.

Everything worked out fine. I didn't go to prison. Oh, everything. Yeah.

So I kept your kids.

I kept my children, you know? I moved back home with my parents and I started rebuilding from there, really from the inside out. And then, you know, I fell in love with myself. Like, I've, because I think I was so, so just uninterested in who I've become that when I finally got out of that marriage, I started confronting my own poison. And I was so in love with myself and with my life and with my children. And we, I was able to get a house by myself. And so, I ended up getting to that place I wanted to be where I was like a good mom and taking care of my children, and I was happy with myself, and I was taking care of my health and my body. And so I felt so valued by myself then that when my husband came in, he really just echoed what I was already saying about myself. And so I think that me coming to that place on my own had a lot to do with self forgiveness and then beginning to work towards a life that felt true to my potential and my dreams.

How did you get the poison out?

I think the first thing is acknowledging that it was there.

Because you weren't really acknowledging like this is what happened.

Right.

Blocking it and disassociating.

Exactly.

So now what did that process look like? Okay, I've lived this life up until now. What is the conversation that you had with yourself? Did you Do some journaling? Were you just praying and connecting to God? Were you talking to your parents? Like, what was happening?

I did a lot of journaling. I started blogging. I let the poison speak.

Isn't it interesting when we hold our shame in, the poison just grows and expands? It's like the moment we share our shame, whether it be to ourselves, written down to a friend or whatever, we release it.

That's exactly what happened. I gave the poison a voice.

What was the voice?

Okay, so it said, you're worthless. You're nasty. You're never going to have purpose. No one will ever want you. No one will ever be proud of you. I let the poison speak. These were my thoughts 24/7. These were my thoughts 24/7. From 13 to 23, that's 10 years of poison.

You kept saying to yourself, I'm worthless.

No one's ever gonna love me. No one's gonna love me. I remember this idea of like, oh, I'm proud of you. Like, I never had thoughts that were positive towards myself. Really? Never. My dad would say, you,'re smart, and I would instantly reject it, 'cause I'm like, Smart girls don't get pregnant.

Mm.

You know, like-- if I'm smart, why'd I do this?

Exactly.

So when I finally started letting it speak, I came to this place where I had to ask myself, like, how long are we going to receive this as truth? And then I would blog it. I would put those words out. Like, no one knew that I was pregnant, but I would like-- or that I'd gotten pregnant at the time. Of course, people know now, but I would just, like, write all of these things. And then at the end of this blog, I would kind of, like, talk to myself as if a friend was talking to me. And it was through that process that I had something to say back to the poor and then it went from whispering it back to the poison to raising my voice and raising my voice until the poison had to shut up because Faith was speaking.

Wait a minute. So for 10 years, your self-talk was a poison based. The foundation was not good enough. You don't matter. You're not valued. You're not smart. All these things. How important is self-talk for you now in order to develop and increase self-worth?

Well, okay, so, you know, in scripture, it talks about being transformed by the renewing of your mind.

Yes.

The renewing of your mind is what took place in that moment. And so, as my mind has been renewed, I have been transformed. And in that transformation, it's why the other day, when I felt like valued and I initially rejected, I let my renewed mind say, Instead, receive this allow it to penetrate the parts of your life that have never heard this before or wasn't aware enough to receive it. And so Mary J. Blige says once that, you know, she doesn't have children because she needed to parent herself. And I feel like in many ways, the way that I feel like I'm talking to myself in some instances is me parenting myself.

It's so funny, I don't have my phone on me, but on my phone, I've been working with a coach and a spiritual therapist right now who's been telling me to have a photo of my childhood self on my phone, like six or seven years old. So I've got a photo on my phone. I'll show you afterwards. And it's for me, whenever I feel that trigger coming in to, like, reparent myself.

Yeah.

And reconnect and be like, hey, you're safe. It's okay. Like, you don't have to be afraid of this. You don't have to react. You can let that go. I got your back, you know, these things. And I think we. We haven't learned these tools on how to reparent ourselves.

Yeah.

It's challenging. And I can only imagine having kids and not having the tools to parent ourselves and then trying to parent someone else.

For sure.

Triggers must just be coming up all day long.

And I feel like, I mean, I will, I have two things. I don't know that previous generations had the tools at all.

At all.

At all.

Like, all trigger reaction, anger.

For sure.

Fear.

Yeah. And I think because of, you know, whether you've got toxic masculinity or the rise of women in the corporate environment, like there are so many, we had so many different things to worry about that, like how you feel, like child, please. We'll talk about that later. Exactly. And so, you know, that didn't happen for the previous generations. But what I will say is this, I do think no matter how great you've had parenting in your life, that there's an ache inside of all of us. Now, it could be something minor, like a headache, or it could be a missing leg, depending on what you've gone through in life.

Emotionally.

Yeah.

In some way. And so I think to come to terms with the fact that there is going to be a part of me, and even for me as a parent, there's going to be a part of my children that I just don't see, that I just don't see. I'm going to give this 100. But there's still going to be moments. Life is still going to have to suck them in. And in the process of doing that, they may come out wounded. And this is part of what I thought, even when I was a single mother, is like, so my job is not to protect them from harm. I'm going to do the best that I can, but I realize that they are going to have some harm, right? They're going to school, they're going to be around people and peers and who knows what will happen in that environment. My role is to show them how to recover from harm.

That's so true. That's so true. I feel like no matter how much we create safety for our kids, again, I'm acting like I'm a father, but I'm not in general. No matter how much we create safety, There's gonna be some trigger, some wound, some pain they feel from peers or school or sports or music. Whatever they're in, they're gonna have something that hurts them. We can't always protect our kids, but what you just said, teaching them the tools on how to recover, how to emotionally navigate those feelings, how to express it in a healthier way, is I think our responsibility. As parents or as humans, right?

Yeah, I think I get on my kids' nerves 'cause I'm like, let's look.

At the feelings here.

Let's talk about these feelings.

Write down. Tell me how you're feeling.

Processes in a healthy way. I think it's better than screaming and raging. I think there's a time for feeling the full range of emotions and being angry, but in general, that's a poison.

Yeah, I agree.

In general.

I will tell you one of the things that I noticed immediately about my husband, Taree, who I've been married to now for seven years. When we first got married, so we're blended family with six children. So he had two. He had three, I had two, and we have one together. So that's how we got our six. But, you know, when he was parenting his children, if he had a bad day and was like maybe too sharp or too rough, he would apologize to them. And I was like, oh, no, we don't apologize to children. We don't do that. We just let them get over it. We take them for ice cream. And he was like, no, like, it's okay to apologize to your children. You know, I cannot remember a time When my parents like apologize, this is the way.

You do what I say. You go to your room, and this is the law.

Absolutely, and even if I'm wrong, suck it up. I'm right most of the time.

You know?

And so my husband taught me the power of apologizing to your children. And so even when you have those moments where maybe you fly off the handle, you react too soon, or don't react from the best version of yourself, don't underestimate the ability to go back and fix it through an apology.

What have you learned about yourself as a parent now from what you witnessed as a kid with someone in a high profile? Now you're in a high profile. Is there things that you want to make sure you really do to support the evolution of your kids? To not have to live up to the greatness of mom and the pressure of the attention that mom gets, but allowing them to be themselves in their best way. Is there something you've learned from that to where you're at now and how you're passing that down?

Yeah, I want to answer your question. I'm gonna take the long way, though. Yeah, give it to me. So when I was seven, we moved from West Virginia to Dallas. And in West Virginia, there were like 50 families that were a part of our church community. It wasn't very large. Our first Sunday in Dallas, 1,500 people joined the church. 1,500 people the very first Sunday.

They joined, or it was already a church with 1,500 people.

It was like, this is our first Sunday. Anyone who wants to come can come.

And 1,500 how do they hear about it?

That radio.

Okay.

A building.

Was your father already pretty well known?

And then he, I mean, he was on TVN, which is like, you know, Christian television. And so between that and radio, people knew who he was. So, you know, mega church get mega churches get a lot of slack because there are so many people there and it's such a big building. But, like, when 1500 people join on a Sunday, it's like my dad can preach eight services or we can try and get a building that's big enough for everyone.

To come.

So you got 50,000 in one time.

Yeah, you know, and so, and I know that, you know, whatever, but anyways, 1500 people joined. And what I learned or what I thought in that moment was like this instant separation from them.

From parents.

Yeah, for sure. Because even in West Virginia, like I would sit by my mom in church in Dallas, they set up on a platform and we sat down like in the pews. And so this instant separation I felt now, you know, this was their first time ever doing it. They're trying to survive. So we've gotten to learn from them. So one of the things that I have learned is to keep my children close to me. So as our ministry and platform grows, you know, we go on tour. Our four oldest children go with us. Our two youngest are now old enough to come with us, but I try to keep them close. Like when we're at church, they're sitting with me. I want them to feel a part of it, not a piece of it.

In it.

Not separate. Interesting.

Yeah.

That's smart. That's wisdom.

Yeah, I'm trying. I'm trying.

What do you think is your biggest, the biggest mistakes you make currently that you're aware of?

Yeah, I don't know that I'm aware of them.

Maybe she's like, I know what this is. Your husband would be like, texting me.

I know this, this, this. Yeah, I don't know that I am aware of them. I will tell, okay, because me and my husband were talking about this the other day. I am not confrontational at all. And so...

I'm just imagining the car rattling in the background. My confrontation.

Now, me, this version of me, is not confrontational. Well, I will say when it comes to communication, right? So I am not... And I don't mean confrontational even like in with anger, because there's good confrontation.

Right?

So I don't have healthy confrontation skills.

What do you have?

I'm either silent or I'm flipping this table over.

Wow, yeah. You're either frustrated or avoiding.

I'm learning or avoiding. My feelings wheel, right? Right. So it's, I'm, you know, zero to 60. And so with the children, if they do something that I know isn't necessarily right, like, I don't confront them about it. And so I feel like an area where I'm learning and growing right now is to be more confrontational in a healthy way when I see them doing something. You know, like if I see my daughter go upstairs with like some chips and she's not supposed to have food, you know, like I may take the chips out of her hand, but I don't sit down and talk to her about like, why would you willfully break one of our rules? And you know, what does this like, I don't do that. I just take the chips. Just like, you don't got time for that.

Girl, please. Yeah, you got six kids in business. You're like, I don't have time.

I don't have time. I'm for it.

Yeah.

But that's not good because I need to like call them out so that like you know that I know that you out here not doing the right thing.

Yeah, yeah, breaking the rules.

Exactly. I feel like I've given you so much to work with that you don't.

Know where to start.

I'm excited. I want to go back to self-worth because I think women, this is the thing that you said that women need the most support with. Self-worth. Developing self-worth.

Yeah.

Or one of the main things.

For sure. And I will say that our society plays a big role in that when we don't have equal people pay. So that already says that my worth is not as valuable as the worth of my counterparts. When we have to work twice as hard to just get the bare base of a salary, I think that that communicates something when our worth comes down to our body image and, and what size we are and what does our skin look like and our hair look like. There are a lot of things that automatically say, this is how I determine your worth. And so don't add any other emotional toxic issues that you may have because from there, where do I fit at all?

How do we step out of that emotional feeling where we're feeling overwhelmed or disrespected or hurt or sad or like their relationship didn't meet an expectation or communication was off and we're in it and we're communicating and we're both frustrated. How do you step out and look at it from a different point of view so that you just don't keep repeating that conversation over and over?

I mean, don't hurt it further. Yeah, I think we have to have a really healthy combination of always questioning ourselves and saying, where is this coming from for me? And would it really hurt me to compromise on this standard? Would it be the more loving thing to do to understand this about my partner? But in order to, that needs to be combined with a simultaneous respect for ourselves. and what we need. And to, I think, go to a situation and say, okay, I want to be the most understanding, compassionate, loving partner I can be who doesn't inhibit or limit my partner, who supports them, wants them to do great. But I also need to recognize that it's not. What was I saying? I lost my train of thought. I need to be the person that.

Can.

Be understanding, what was I saying? The understanding of my partner.

You want to be the most understanding of someone else. But you also have to know your own needs.

The understanding of someone else, but oh, that's right. I need to be the person that is understanding of the needs of my partner and what they want. But at the same time, love, what was it? Love's my I need to be understanding of my partner's needs. Ah, that is it. I need to be understanding of my partner's needs, but the context of me being super compassionate and understanding needs to be that I am, that this is happening in a loving environment where my partner wants to be my teammate. If we're in a situation where our partner isn't showing empathy for us and isn't like, if you feel they're not trying to, that we're always coming to that side. That's a problem.

That's tough.

That's a problem.

There should be seeing, I see where you're coming from as well, type of energy and communication.

Exactly.

Not just, I'm not getting what I want. You did this wrong.

You need to feel you have a teammate. Yeah. And a lot of people feel like they're constantly being understanding, that they don't have a teammate on the other side. I'm constantly trying to grow and understand your position, but I don't feel the same from your side. That then becomes a problem.

How do you have a conversation? so that it switches or becomes more of a equal partnership and teammate. If you feel like you're the only one being on the team, how do you get the other person?

I think we need to communicate a lot about what about the spirit of the relationship. You know what I mean?

Like not keeping score.

Yeah, like pride is a very hard thing to give up in a relationship because we become competitive often very quickly when we feel threatened. When we feel vulnerable, when we feel our partner's done something to hurt us, now how do I score a point? Or how do I? And that's just once you get into that cycle, it spirals. It has to, one person has to be prepared to break that cycle. I'm not gonna do that game. And I do believe that we have to love the way we want to be loved. And we have to constantly educate our partner on what it is to love. Not from an arrogant place, but we're all, in a sense, both partners are always educating each other. By you do something I don't like, and if I have a loving, compassionate response to that, I'm also showing you what I want this to be in reverse. When I do something you don't like, here's the response I want.

I'm not attacking you.

Not a game playing response, not a, you know, like if you see a partner, you're in the early stages of relationship and you feel your partner was really flirting with someone over there, having a conversation about something that made you feel uncomfortable, but from a loving place and from a kind place and from a place of that made me feel, you know, It hurt me to see that and not I'm gonna blame you and I'm gonna do this I'm gonna get angry but that you know that made me feel uncomfortable Bringing an energy like that most people aren't used to that in a relationship We're not used to that standard of communication We're used to doing something and then someone attacks us and reacting. Yeah, exactly so I think it's educate we're constantly educating what's it gonna take.

For us to not react to a situation where we feel hurt or like we, our expectation wasn't met from our partner and come from that place.

God, this is so difficult.

Because why do we react so much?

Sometimes it's just space. I need to take a moment to process something so that I can say, I can have a more evolved response.

And not react. It's funny, I've been, you know, the relationship I've been in, which is newer in the last five months, I want to talk about something right away and address it. She doesn't want to talk. She wants to have space so she doesn't react.

Yeah.

So she's. And she'll say, like, I don't want to get angry at you. I don't want to yell at you. That's not the type of person I want to be. So I'd rather just not talk. And then I'm in limbo, and I'm like, I just wanna. I just want to, like, get to resolve this thing. Let's at least communicate, and then we.

Can move on as opposed to holding on to something. Yeah. For half a day or a few hours.

Yeah.

Here's the thing, space is easy when you get a text you don't like, or when you see something you don't like from afar and you're not going to see that person for a few hours or till tomorrow. Now you have space to go through, I'm angry, I'm really, really angry, I'm upset, I'm sad, I'm hurt, I feel rejected, I don't feel enough, you can kind of cycle through those and then have a couple of sensible conversations with people whose opinions you respect. You and I have done this.

Yeah, we're like, it's not that big a deal. You take a break.

Okay, this thing, I'm feeling this and I'm hurt and I'm this and I'm that and I'm that. And you have a couple of smart voices either that come from in here, which is hard to do, which is very hard to get that objectivity and. Or that come, you know, from just one or two people. whose opinions you really respect, who aren't going to tell you what you want to hear. Who aren't going to tell you, you're so right to feel that way.

Get angry.

You're someone who is brave enough and close enough to you and smart enough sometimes to recognize, I'm concerned that you're overreacting to this. And that this reaction is not going to serve you. And that I think you need to bring this energy to the conversation. that is extremely valuable. What's hard is when you get information in real time and you're with the person and you're in the same room and now you're dealing with trying to process and create that, you know, okay, I need to. I'm trying to get to a more positive place here.

Yeah.

While being asked to communicate in real time. Well, real time elicits reflex responses, and reflex responses are often very harmful to a. relationship. It's the reflex responses are often based on instinct. And instinct is very dangerous.

False instinct.

Yeah.

So often told, you know, trust your instincts. And that's just not often great advice.

If you're not emotionally intelligent and you're having, if you're jealous all the time, then having a jealous instinct isn't necessarily the best thing.

But some of these instincts are kind of hardwired. Right, what we're doing with a lot of our better nature is overcoming certain programming that we have. You know, in a riptide, you get pulled out to sea. Your instinct tells you in that moment to swim back to shore against the current. Ignore the riptide. I just need to get back to shore. Which is stronger?

You?

Or the current.

Current.

And it will drown you. You will exhaust and drown before you get back.

True. So, until it washes you to shore, just like that. Right.

So in that moment, fighting harder won't save you. Thinking clearer will. And thinking more clearly means I need to swim sideways. I need to swim parallel. Let it take me out, swim further or swim parallel. Because I'm actually giving myself a longer journey. But then when I'm out of the current, then I can swim back to shore. Now that's not, instinct won't get you to do that because that requires thinking clearly. Instinct will drown you in that moment. And in a relationship, in dating, your instincts will get you killed. That's true. You know, your instinct says, a woman goes on a date with a guy and has a great time and says, your instinct says, clear the calendar for the next three months. We found him. Right. We did it guys.

We had an amazing night.

Clear the schedule.

We were connected on every level.

He's awesome. We have a great connection. Clear the calendar. This is what we're doing now.

Wow.

Even if, I'm not even saying someone who hates the rest of their life. You can like your job and still be so caught up in the chemical rush of this was amazing that this is all you want to do now.

Right?

Well, this isn't good for what you want to happen here. What do you want to happen? Well, you want to get to know this person better, spend more time with them. Invest at an organic pace based on the level of investment that's going on, right? Thing I've said for years, don't invest in someone based on how much you like them. Invest on that based on how much they invest in you. People don't do that. People invest on instinct. I really like them. And my investment is proportionate to how much I like them, not how much I'm seeing there's a mutual investment. Can I tell you about the castle?

More castle.

All right.

This is, you're gonna like this. So I was thinking about this whole idea of investing.

Like buying a castle?

Well, that's the thing. You can't buy a castle for a relationship. I see, to me, the relationship is the castle. When you meet someone you have a connection. 'Cacausee I'm always you know me, I do seminars all over the world, where thousands of women come and join us, and the thing that there's always someone who puts their hand up and says It starts the story with Matt. I have this incredible connection with this guy.

So they're already in the realge?

No?

No, no this isn't offten not.. Now I know we have a problem, when someone's justifying whatever they're about to say next, with what an incredible connection they have with someone. An incredible connection is like you meet someone, you connect and you have a great plot of land. This plot of land could be great because it's in the middle of a forest, could be great because it's on the cliffs overlooking the ocean. It's a beautiful place to build.

That's the connection.

Still just a connection, but it's still just a plot of land. All right, see it for what it is, its potential. Still just a plot of land. Now what you need is two builders, two people who are going to build something here. And that requires two people who show up each day and lay brick after brick after brick after brick and slowly but surely create a castle. most people have the experience of someone who joins them on that plot of land and they both look at it and they're like, isn't this great? Look at the ocean. This is great. Look at the view we have here. Look at the trees. Look at it. This is amazing. And they get real excited. Now, one of them might be willing to build. One of them might be a builder. The other one might just really like the potential of this plot of land. and then you have someone who's there building every day. They're doing the investment. I have the woman come to me who's building and a guy who's left the construction site. I don't know where he is. He's at home. He's binge watching his favorite show. He's out on another. He's looking at another plot of land, you know? And then three weeks later, he calls in and says he, you know, he sends a text to her after three weeks of ghostinger or just disappearing or just patchy communication. and says, thinking of you, that's a builder who started building, then left the building site for three weeks and called him from home and went, how's the castle going? Meanwhile, she's over there building the castle on her own. You can't build on your own. And the problem we have right now is there are too many people who value the connection instead of the castle. Castle. is where it's at. And if you don't have a true builder who over time is going to build, that's what a relationship is. A castle. This is why love at first sight is bullshit to me.

It doesn't work.

It takes time. It's infatuation. She's hot. He's hot. You know, there's some connection there that's based on the fact you like this and I like this. Oh my God, we're supposed to be together. This is only part of the equation. A castle becomes a castle because two people work on it and it becomes unique and ornate and there are secret passageways only the two of you know about and there's an argument that knocks down a wall and then you build it up and fortify that wall and it makes it even stronger and you know the weather over time weathers the stone on the castle in a unique way that makes it your castle. There's other castles in the world but this one is uniquely yours. It's been built by the two of you. It's been hard one, you know? That's a relationship. That's why, you know, a 20-year relationship or marriage or 30-year relationship or marriage is special. It's because two people have had to go through shit together. They've done things together. This isn't fantasy. This isn't building a castle in the sky. The idea of love. the idea of what we could be. The one day wager, I call it the one day wager. One day, I'm making a wager that one day you'll be what I want you to be. One day you'll invest in me the way I want you to. One day you'll change. The one day wager is the most dangerous wager you can possibly make in your love life. The real is what's going on now. Is someone trying? Do they want to be here? Are they focused on the little Not just the big s***. Because anyone can go and have a, like, people say, but when it's great, it's great.

Amazing, yeah.

When we go, like, we go, we've been on some amazing dates, or we did that vacation, we had the best time. It was amazing. Of course, you were on f***ing vacation. Anyone can go to Disney World and have a great time. It's Disney World, right? That's the job of the place, is to make sure you have a great time no matter who you're with.

I'm curious, for all the women who come to your retreats who are suffering, they deeply want this love, this connection, this compatibility, commitment. They want all these things that we're talking about. And they feel like they've been struggling for years. They've done the dating apps, they've gone on hundreds of dates. For all the people at your retreats or the women who are watching or listening at home that just want to find their match, their partner, what's the first step they can take to start getting out of the weeds of like failure after failure and start seeing some progress to greater potential matches or a couple of things.

I mean, firstly, there's a guy called John K. who wrote a book called obliquity. And the whole idea of the book was obliquity is when you reach goals through indirect means. So if you take building a business, you're far more like if you're if your goal is to make money, instead of focusing on making money, focus on all the things that provide value to people. Because the making money part will be the byproduct. If you focus on, I need to get rich, I need to get rich, I need to get rich, you're probably not going to do the things that are going to get you rich. Because what makes you financially wealthy, the relationships you take time to build, often for a long time, You don't ask for anything, you don't even care to, you're just building. The products that you create for no reason, then you just think that they're great or that you think they have value or whatever the service that you provide people, it's not what's the quickest way for me to make money. Most people like that don't get rich. In a relationship, there's all these things that build a relationship that really have nothing to, that don't feel like they have anything to do with a relationship. Like who would say, knowing what you would do with the next 10 hours of your life if it was free is actually going to be a huge determinant of the health of your relationship. Like one's over here and one's over here. Shouldn't we be talking about how to have better sex? Shouldn't we be talking about how to communicate well with my partner? No, we're talking about you being an independently attractive, purpose driven, independent person who is attractive just to watch from afar because of the life you lead. That's going to lead to a much better By the way, even that will lead to better sex. Because your partner looks at you and it's like, this person is more attractive. This is a person. This isn't just an extension of me. This is a person. So it's the indirect things that contribute. And so let's now take that to the single place. I'm single. What do I do next? Understand and study. And this is a big part of what I do in my work. So, I'd encourage people to come check that out. Study the things that contribute to getting you a relationship that often have nothing to do with getting a relationship. The things you do with your spare time. Do I, you know, do I do... If I want to learn yoga, do I do it on my own at home with a YouTube video? Learning yoga, by the way, on its own could be a good thing just because it makes you more interesting. You have more to talk about. feel confident in yourself, all of that. But okay, now let me do a more sociable version of that. Let me go into a class where I might actually have the chance of meeting other people. Maybe they're not men, maybe they're other single women, but other single women are useful too. Another indirect variable, because you have more single friends or more fun friends, more charismatic friends, friends who come knocking at your door going, Hey, we're going out. Get out of your goddamn pajamas. We're going out.

Right?

That person is going to be great for your love life.

It makes you more desirable, have more.

Value, and makes you leave the house.

Yeah.

Instead of staying in every weekend, makes you leave and go to places where people are. You know, the books you read, who would say the books you read have anything to do with your relationship? But they do on a date when you have to talk about.

Absolutely.

Right. So there's all these factors now, the reason I'm saying that, because of course there are direct factors, but that my programs in my My company, which by the way, people could go to howtgetttheguide.com to go and find all of these. But the programs I have there are about very direct things like how to flirt, strategies, how to meet someone, how to do this, how to do that. But that's one piece of it. I encourage people to do all those indirect things. And then someone can't say, I'm just sick of going out. I give up. On what? On what? Like someone said that to me in a seminar and said, I just feel like giving up. Tell me what.

On yourself, on life.

What are you giving up on? I want to hear this. Tell me, what are you giving up on? Well, I don't... Meeting people? Meeting people? Would you not meet people? If someone said you can never find the love of your life, that's off the table. Would you really stop meeting people? Your need for a human interaction, disappear? I don't think so. You'd stop flirting with people. That's part of your character. Being flirtatious is a part of who we are at times. So why would we lose that? Being sexual? Would you really lose that? You're going to stop being sexual just because the end result isn't coming? I don't buy it. You stop doing hobbies. You'd stop getting out there. All the things that you have to get rid of to say I'm done with relationships are things that would absolutely erode your life. Even if you take the relationship out of the equation. So I think people have to, I understand, I know there is a terrific level of dating burnout right now. And if you're out there feeling that right now, I urge you to think about this differently and to say, I don't have to constantly have it in my mind. I'm trying to meet someone. I'm trying to meet someone. I'm trying to meet someone. That game gets boring. And now when you go on a date and it doesn't go anywhere, you're a failure.

You're exhausted, yeah.

I'm done. See it as life. This isn't dating, it's life. It's meeting people. It's experiencing a great conversation. Having a fun moment of interaction, of flirtation. Doing things you want to do anyway, doing hobbies you want to do anyway. Because they enrich your experience of life. All of those things are really important. You don't have to call it dating. Just go live.

It's kind of like the analogy you said about running a business. If you're focused on I need the relationship, whereas like I need to make a certain amount of money is getting the relationship as opposed to why don't I add value to the world and I'll attract the customers that will pay me and I'll make some money.

Because I need to make money focuses on things that make the short-term economics work. And those things are generally not good for A business. That's it. Same in life.

You talk about rewriting your story from the past and I believe that we hold on to our stories and we probably continue to write them in a more powerful way that keeps us trapped or traumatized. Is that fair to say that something happens in our past, we hold on to the story daily or whenever we're triggered, And it amplifies the story in our minds.

Well, it does. And the problem is that often whatever that version of the story is, we carry with us and we never revise it. And so you create a story when you're younger, for example, about something that happened in your life. And then as an adult, you've never looked at that story through the adult lens. You're still looking at it through the childhood lens. And so that's why I say that when people come in that we're all unreliable. reliable narrators.

Yes.

That we all tell a story through, you know, this lens. And the thing is, these are usually faulty narratives. So there's a broader version of the story that people haven't looked at. And so I feel like in a lot of ways what I do as a therapist is I act as an editor. And I have, of course, a writing background. And so I help people to revise their stories because the reason they can't move forward in the story, the reason they can't get to the next chapter is because of something is wrong with the story. They are stuck. And so it's almost like I'm helping them with writer's block.

I mean, for me, life is an interpretation.

Yes.

Right? There's an instance that happens and we can interpret it as good or bad, or we can interpret it as this is a neutral event and I'm going to make the most of this. Is that fair to say?

Yeah, absolutely. And also how we attribute other people's parts of the story, right? So who are the villains and the heroes in the story? I talk in the book about the difference between idiot compassion and wise compassion. And idiot compassion is what our friends do. They back up our story no matter what. We say, this happened. This happened with my boss. This happened with my partner. This happened with my parent. This happened with my best friend. And we say, yeah, that was terrible. Screw them. They're a jerk. That's awful. You're right. They're wrong. Don't let anyone treat you that way. That's what we do. And if you've listened to your friends stories, you start to realize over time that even though the situation and the names might be different, the kind of story they're telling is similar. It's kind of like if a fight breaks out in every bar you're going to, maybe it's you.

Yeah, exactly.

We don't say that. That's idiot compassion.

Idiot compassion is where we as friends say, yeah, you're the best person in the world. This person's horrible. Leave them or let them go. Forget about them. They're so bad at what they did. there's always two sides to every story.

Well, right. And so the value of therapy is that we offer wise compassion. We hold up a mirror to you and help you to see yourself in a way that maybe you haven't been willing or able to do. And that's where the other version of the story comes in.

So how do we have wise compassion for our friends when they're like, she cheated on me, he left me, they had an affair, whatever.

Yeah.

How do we change our story and also show compassion that we're there for our friend, not making, when they're in a vulnerable place, not making the other person right or wrong, but being there for them and also kind of giving them some tough love, I guess.

I wouldn't call it tough love. I would just call it reality. Love. It's love. It's much more loving to be truthful in a compassionate way. So I sometimes call them compassionate truth bombs because we need to hear them. But how do we do it? It has to do with timing and dosage. So the timing is when they're really raw, when something just happened. Now's not the time to say, you know, this has happened with your last three boyfriends.

Maybe you're the problem here.

Have you noticed that going through people's phones is not working well for you? We are not gonna say that maybe in that moment. So that's timing. And then the dosage is how much are you going to say in a particular moment and in a particular conversation? It doesn't all have to happen in one conversation. so I think that that has to do with being a good listener. And a lot of us don't know how to listen. And I think it's really helpful. I see a lot of couples in my practice, too. And if you can say to the person, when they come to you with something, how can I be helpful in this conversation right now? I know you're really hurting. Do you want to just vent? Do you want a hug? Do you want me to help problem solve with you? Do you want, do you want my honest opinion? Or do you want me to hold off and we can have that conversation another time? Let them tell you what they want so you can give them something that is helpful to them in that moment. And then in another conversation, you might be able to offer them something more.

When they're not completely raw or broken and hurt. So what is that specific question when anyone's coming to you with a challenge or a complaint or hurt? What's the question you should ask them?

How can I be helpful to you right now? I know you're really hurting.

What does that do for the person who's hurting when they hear that?

It helps them to reflect on, oh wait, what do I need? Right? Am I just gonna download all of this stuff and then I'm not gonna feel any different at the end? or is there something else that I want right now? And maybe downloading it will make them feel different, just make them feel seen and understood and heard, which is important, or maybe they want something else, but let them tell you. And I think the other thing is these three words that are really helpful when they're talking to you are tell me more. So instead of saying, you know, when they say like, oh, here's what's going on, and we say, oh, well, we try to cheer them up. Here's what you can do. We try to fix it. We try to cheer them up. We try to make it seem like it's not so bad. Whatever we do, instead just say, Tell me more. We do this with our kids. I can say as a parent, we do this all the time. So, your kid comes to you and says, I'm really sad about this. I'm really worried about this. We say, oh, don't worry. No, it's not a problem. We say, oh, don't be sad. Go have ice cream. That's a little ride. Exactly, but the thing is that then you get the message as a kid that like, oh wait, I'm not supposed to feel this. And really what it is is we get uncomfortable as parents with our kids' feelings. Why is that? Because we can't, we are uncomfortable with feelings. We grew up in a way where feelings were messy, feelings were uncomfortable, feelings were something that, you know, they were gonna be trouble.

Yeah.

As opposed to feelings. Stop crying, stop crying as a kid. Yes, as opposed to just, you know, let's, feelings are actually a great thing. People say, oh there are these negative feelings like sadness, anxiety, anger, whatever. Even envy. I always say feelings are like a compass. They tell us what direction to go in. So, with envy for example, I say follow your envy. It tells you what you want. If you are feeling envy, that's great because it says, what do I desire? It puts you in touch with your desire. What is it that I desire? And what steps can I take to get something like that in my own life? If you're feeling sad, if you're feeling anxious, what is not working right now? that you can look at if you stuff down that feeling, if you pretend it's not there. It just gets bigger and here's what happens. It doesn't go away. It comes out in too much food, alcohol, drugs, insomnia, a short temperedness, inability to function, distractibility, that mindless scrolling we all do through the internet. A colleague of mine said that the internet was like the most effective short term non-prescription pain killer out there. Wow. Right? And so what happens is your feelings are still there, but you're not dealing with them.

What happens when we never deal with our emotions or feelings?

Well, you, first of all, get sick. Physically sick, emotionally sick, mentally sick. Everything, everything, right? So we have, just like we have a physical immune system, we have a psychological immune system. And we have to take care of our psychological immune system. So it's just like, you know, what do you do to keep healthy with your body? Like you're going to eat right, you're going to exercise, you know, you're going to do all the things that you want to do to take care of yourself. You're going to get enough sleep. Those things also help your psychological immune system. They're not totally separate. The mind-body connection is profound. But at the same time, you know, are you going to be around people who don't nourish you? That's going to hurt your psychological immune system. That's going to make you sick. Are you going to stuff down your feelings? That's going to make you sick. And so how do we take care of ourselves? And part of it is, instead of trying to numb out your feelings, because numbness Numbness isn't the absence of feelings. Numbness is a state of being overwhelmed by too many feelings. Wow. And then not only do you not experience the feelings that you don't want to experience, but you don't experience the other feelings. You mute one feeling, you mute the others. You mute the pain, you mute the joy. So you're living in this state where you don't actually get to feel the range of feelings that make us human.

What is that state called?

I was gonna say dead. I mean, I feel like you can be alive but not living. And that's what happens to people is that they're alive. They're going through the motions. They wake up every day, but they're not really living their lives.

What's an assessment we could take for ourselves if someone's listening or watching to ask themselves how alive or how dead they are and if the people in their life closest are actually good for them or are hurting their psychological states? Is there a questionnaire we could take like just off the cuff? Is there an assessment? Is there a few things we could ask ourselves?

Yeah.

I mean, I think that it has to do with a sense of vitality, right? Which of course, like vitality, the word life is right in there. When you wake up in the morning, are you excited about what you're doing? Is there meaning in what you're doing? Do you feel connected to how you're spending your days? Because at the end of your life, are you going to look back and say, what did I do that was meaningful? You know, and maybe you should talk to someone in my book. There's a woman that I treat, she's this young woman who goes on her honeymoon, she's newly married, she comes back, and she has cancer. And she says to me at one point, she says, why do we need a terminal diagnosis? Yeah.

To have a wake-up call.

Why do we need a terminal diagnosis to live our lives with intention? Why do we need that to really pay attention? And I think that if we can keep the awareness of death sitting on one shoulder, and I don't mean in a morbid way or in a creepy way, it's not depressing. It's actually, again, going back to vitality, it helps us feel alive. Life has 100% mortality rate and that's not for other people. We like to believe that. Right? And so the thing is that if we know that we have a limited time here, I think we would pay more attention to what we're actually doing every day.

Why is it so hard for people to pay attention and care? But they feel like they're stuck sometimes for years. It's like I stay stuck in a relationship that I know is not right for me for years. I stay in a depressed state for years. I stay in a job that I hate for years. It's all based on fear?

Julie Coraccio well, I think it is fear. I think it's fear of uncertainty. This is going to sound strange, but change is really hard because we cling to something that's familiar to us. So even though we may know, oh, this would help me. This would be a good change for me. We don't do it because it's unfamiliar. And so if you grew up with a lot of chaos, if you grew up feeling sad all the time or anxious all the time, that feels like home to you, even if it's unpleasant or even miserable. She'll keep finding chaotic environments. Right.

And recreating it.

Yeah. And so, you know, it was funny, 'cause my own therapist gave me this great analogy. He said to me, he said, you remind me of this cartoon, and it's of a prisoner shaking the bars, desperately trying to get out. But on the right and the left, it's open, right? No bars. So basically, the prisoner is not in jail. And that's what so many of us are like. We're not in jail. We're trapped. We're not in jail. We can change, we can just walk around the bars. But why don't we? Because with freedom, the freedom to walk around the bars, comes responsibility. And if we're responsible for our own lives, that scares us. We feel like, oh, I don't know if I can do that. I don't know if I'm competent enough to do that. Or now I'm to blame if things don't go right.

I can't blame it on everything else. Is this one of the reasons why inmates after a long time being in prison who get out go back into prison because they feel like they need to be back in that environment? Or are there other reasons?

I think there are other reasons. I think we don't give people the support when they come out. You know, they, the mental health issues that they needed to be treated for were never, you know, they never got that support. Then they come out and they're back in the same situation where they don't have that community support.

Why is it so hard for us to take responsibility for our own happiness?

I think that if you grew up in a household where you were seen and heard and understood those are the people who do take responsibility for their own happiness. I think for people who felt like they were ripped off in their childhoods, there's a part of them that's still in a fight. There's a part of them that still wants that redo. And so it's kind of like they're not aware of this, but what they're saying is basically, I will not change mom and dad until you give me the things that I did not get in childhood.

So they'll go find a partner that emulates their environment for mom and dad and try to change them so they well, right.

This is the irony of relationship, right, for those people who have not sort of worked through it. This is so common. And I think all of us have this piece in us, right, because nobody had a perfect childhood. So what happens is people say, okay, when I'm an adult, I'm going to pick a partner who really makes me feel nourished, who really gives me all those things that I did not get growing up. But what they don't realize is unconsciously they have this radar for the people who look very different from their parents on the surface. But then once they get into that relationship, it's kind of like, oh, this feels familiar. And so what they did was their unconscious said when they were picking their partner, Hey, you look familiar. Come closer. Even though unconsciously they thought, oh, you're totally different from my parents. This is gonna work out great. But no, they have radar for that if they haven't worked out the stuff that's sort of their unfinished business. There's this saying, we marry our unfinished business. We actually do marry our unfinished business. So that is why it is so important as an adult to take responsibility and say, you know what? I am going to have to grieve this loss of what I didn't get. And I'm going to have to work through this and assess where I am as an adult so that I pick people and surround myself with people who are healthy for me.

What if you've chosen someone that you love deeply, but it's unconsciously your unfinished business? Is that the wrong person for you once you realize, oh, they're never going to change, or is that a point for us to reflect back and say, actually, I need to heal the past, accept this person for who they are, and be willing to flow within this relationship?

Well, what happens is, so you married your unfinished business, but so did they. And so, if you can both recognize that, if you realize, Hey, wait, we have a lot of conflict in our relationship, or we're really avoidant in our relationship, or we don't feel connected in the way we want to feel connected, that's a great opportunity for both of you to work out your unfinished business.

To heal together.

To heal together, right.

And so, that relationship could thrive.

If you both are willing to look in the mirror at yourselves and do the work, yes, that could be a really beautiful relationship. And it can be very healing for both of you, in fact.

It could potentially be the strongest bond ever if you both were able to go through that. Yeah. But if you're unwilling to go through that, then what? You're going to be in- Both people.

Have to be willing. Right. Well, both people have to be willing. I mean, that's the thing. So it's like you may wake up one day and say, oh, wait a minute. I have all this unfinished business. And then your partner says, yeah, it's all you. You're the problem in the relationship. You know, it's kind of like in couples therapy so often, something like someone else saying, you never listened to me. And I'll say, How well do you listen to them?

Right.

It's always like-- if you're just yelling.

At someone all day, are they gonna.

Wanna listen to you? Right. Right. So, you know, there's this dance that we do in relationship. And what happens is people are doing these dance steps. And people become very, they become very ingrained. It's like, oh, here we go. You can script out people's arguments.

You know exactly what they're gonna look like.

It starts with one thing, and then it goes back into many different Things are like, oh, and you know exactly how it's gonna go and who's gonna feel what and who's gonna accuse the other person of what. And that's the dance. And so if one person changes their dance steps, the other person either is going to fall flat on the dance floor or they're gonna have to change their steps too if they wanna keep dancing. And usually, so we always say you can't change another person, but you can influence another person. How? By changing your dance steps. So for example, we like to say insight is the booby prize of therapy. Meaning people will come and they'll be like, oh, now I understand why I keep getting into that argument with my my partner. And so then they go home and they come back the next week and I'll say, well, did you do something different when you got in that argument? Well, no, but I understand why I didn't. So you have to be both vulnerable and accountable when you come to therapy.

How do we fight better when we are in constant repeat pattern every month or every week? It becomes an argument around something for whatever reason. Yeah. It's a pattern.

Yeah.

Couples start to notice it. How does one person or both people recognize and say, okay, I'm gonna change my dance steps and I'm gonna or dance better?

Yeah.

The first thing is to notice sort of what do you own in this? What is your reaction? So we have a choice every time someone presents us with something. There's a great quote in the book, it's a Victor Frankl quote, where he says, Between stimulus and response, there is a space. And in that space lies our freedom to choose.

Between stimulus and response, so between an action happening and your response to the action.

So your partner says something.

Window of opportunity.

Yes, there's that space. Usually that space for us will look like a breath. The breath is everything. The breath, really.

If you don't breathe, you're screwed.

If you need to take the breath or you will just respond, it's sort of like we have these neural pathways that are wired, right? And someone says something and you react not just to what that person in front of you is saying, but it goes back to something that reminds you of something from a long time ago. People who aren't even in the room are in that moment with you. And so that's that neural pathway. And so what you need to do is you need to take a breath. It's like a big stop sign on that road that's your neural pathway. So hold up the stop sign. You can even picture a stop sign in your mind. Stop. Breathe. Now you get to choose. How do I want to respond to this? Do I want to respond in the way I responded the last gazillion times? Which has not worked out well? Or do I want to try something different? So, that's part one. Part two is perspective taking. A lot of people who are in really highly conflictual relationships have trouble with perspective taking. They can't imagine that the other person has a valid perspective. Now, you might not agree with every piece of how they view this, but there's some overlap between how this person views it and how you view it, but you are not willing to see that. And so, I have this new podcast called Dear Therapist. And on the podcast, so much of what we do is we help people to take the perspective of the other person. There's something that you are not seeing right now.

Why is that so hard for people to see someone else's perspective?

Well, two things. One is because, you know, that unreliable narrator thing that we think that we are right and we don't want to be told. And so, what we hear when we say there's another perspective, we're not saying you're wrong. We're saying there's more to the story. So there's a difference between their perspective is valid as well, is not saying your version is wrong. We're saying there's more. So people hear it though as you are wrong. And the other part of it is that there's a lot of shame. That people are sticking to a certain story because if they allow that other part of the story to come in, the part that they're responsible for will probably come up and they feel a lot of shame. So when I see individuals in therapy, they come in and they tell me a story and they leave out the parts that they are embarrassed about. The parts that they feel like that was not my finest moment.

Like what? Give me an example. Like, well, I screamed back or I did this.

Yeah, like, you know, here's what happened or here's, this is the situation and my partner did this or my mother did this or my child did this or my boss did this, whatever. And they don't tell you these other details and they sort of trickle out later on. And they're very relevant to the story. But that's shame, right? And so, you know, that's why the therapeutic relationship is so important because you get to a point where you really trust the therapist and you're able to be really honest about what happened.

How much does shame shape our stories?

Oh, so much. I think that, you know, as humans, we want to belong. And what shame is about is, I'm not going to belong. I'm not going to be loved. The greatest human need is How can we love and be loved? And when you feel like there's something I did that people will look upon badly, they might not like me if I tell them this. That's just wired into us.

It's like the ego death to us. It's like the emotional death. If someone knew this about us, they would not love me and I would emotionally die.

-And I would be alone.

-I'Ll be alone, yeah.

-Yeah. And we need other people.

I felt like this way for many years where I opened up about sexual abuse about seven years ago and for 25 years, no one knew because I was so ashamed. And I felt like if anyone knew, how could they possibly love me or accept me? Or how would anyone want to date me or my family? How would they not disown me? These were the stories that I was writing. I was a bad editor. How does someone who's done something that they're not proud of in the past who's had something done to them that they're not proud of, whatever, they've been in a situation that they feel shame around. How does someone start to process that shame to heal so that it doesn't continue to run their life and keep them imprisoned?

Yeah. Well, I think they do what you did, which is you started talking about it. And I think you have to choose your audience, which is really important, especially as you're just starting out. So you wanna make sure that-- Don't.

Tell your abuser who's the toxic relationship.

Well, you know, I think you have to really choose someone who's safe. And if you don't have those people, you know, I think a therapist is a really good place to start. But I do think that it's harder for men to talk about anything, whether it's sexual abuse or even, you know, just sort of like anything they feel vulnerable about. And so men will come into my office and they will say to me at some point, you know, I've never told anyone this before.

And then-- do women say that?

Yes. So here's the thing. Women will say that. They'll say, I've never told anyone this before except for my mother, my sister, and my best friend.

You're the only one who don't know.

The only one, right. Well, I haven't told this. I told my book club. I told, you know, whatever it is. They've told like a few people, but they feel like, because women, it's acceptable for women to talk about these things. And so they feel like they haven't told anyone because they still feel like there's some degree of privacy around it. Men literally, I haven't told. Have been told. No one has.

No one.

And even if they have like a great partner and they have close friends They have close friends, they have a great family, whatever it is, they feel like I cannot tell anyone because vulnerability for men in our culture is not okay. Even though we say that, so this is the thing.

Even though women say, I wish he would open up, I wish he would cry and be more sensitive, but then when they are, they're like, I need you to be strong right now.

Right, so this is exactly what happens in couples therapy. So I'll have two people sitting on the couch and I have a couple. and say it's a heterosexual couple and the woman says to the man, like, I really wanna get to know you. I feel like we would connect so much more if we would just open up to me. I wanna know what's going on inside there, right? And he does. And let's say he tears up. Let's say he actually starts crying in a way where like his body is convulsing, right? She looks at me like deer in headlights.

Like, what?

She's so profoundly uncomfortable. And this is the thing that she was asking for. So what she'll say is, I don't feel safe when you don't open up to me. And I don't feel safe when you're vulnerable with me. This is the problem. There's like, it's like Goldilocks. It's like, not too much, not too little, but right in the middle. That's how vulnerable you can be with me.

I've been saying this for a long time that I feel like this is one of the main things that hurts all intimate relationships.

Yes.

When a person doesn't feel safe to share their emotions to the person that says they love them the most and actually makes them wrong for it or makes them less than or retracts their love when they're vulnerable. So, I don't know the solution for this besides saying this all the time and besides saying ladies, if you want a vulnerable man who's emotional, you have to accept him when he's emotional.

Well, not just accept but embrace. Encourage. Encourage.

Because it's so much harder for a man in general in our society to be vulnerable based on what we've grown up with and based on what we see, that if you're not encouraging it consistently and celebrating almost, why would you expect them to keep opening up when they have something they want to share if you're going to make them wrong for it? Before we continue this video, make sure to subscribe below and turn on the notification bell right now so you don't miss out on these great videos. every single day. What would, what advice would you give to people that are feeling really lonely because they just went through a breakup, whether it be the end of the year or months ago, or maybe, you know, they just went through a breakup this week and they're needing that kind of quick connection again. They're needing, they might go back to the person because they're feeling weak and they miss that feeling of connection or love or intimacy. But they know it's not the right fit for them long term. They know, but this is in a heightened state of vulnerability for them that they go back quicker. What advice do you have to someone like that? Very hard. Very hard.

I have so much. Firstly, a breakup even under normal circumstances is a tremendously difficult thing. True, I shouldn't say a breakup, 'cause there are many joyous breakups we go through. But I truly, when you experience true heartbreak, it is one of the most devastating feelings in the world.

Devastating.

You're a zombie.

You're dead inside.

It's worse than you're dead inside. You act dead to everybody else inside. You feel like you're dying. On loop all day.

You can't get out of it, yeah. Yeah.

In a breakup, and this is as true now, now is no different. People need to recognize that now is just a difficult breakup on steroids. If you're going through heartbreak right now, you're just doing it on steroids. But it's just the same emotions. So don't fret that, oh my God, why did it have to happen now when this was going on? You're giving it a big story. It's still just the same emotions of heartbreak. You're just experiencing them in a very, in a heightened way.

And you don't have the ability to rebound physically with that person or a new person.

Which we could see as a gift.

Right.

Why is that a gift?

Because there are plenty of things, as my brother Stephen Hussey, a wonderful writer for our website, As he says, in a breakup, there are two methods of recovery. There's the athlete recovery method and there's the hangover recovery method. You're gonna like this, Louis.

Tell me.

I love it. You haven't heard it before, but you're gonna love it because the analogy is perfect for you.

I love it.

The hangover recovery method, you think about how do people deal with a hangover? They wake up, they eat greasy foods because they're like, oh, I just need something to make me feel better.

Better.

They watch crap TV, they lay on the sofa, they just wake up at.

2 p.m. yeah, cut all the blinds.

Don't let any light in, eat ice cream. Essentially they do all of these things that are temporary kind of pleasure and comfort but ultimately are not nutritional and are not the things that are needed to get, you know, what's needed. Massive amounts of hydration.

Water.

Go take a walk.

Unshine.

Right.

Exercise.

Yeah, get metabolism moving again, get that like crap out of your system, like that's all the stuff that's needed in that moment. But it can feel harder to do the things that are actually going to get you out of it. Now look at the way an athlete recovers in an injury, right? You know better than anybody. You don't firstly, you still train whatever you can train. You don't ignore everything simply because your shoulder's injured, you do what you can.

You do some abs, you do some legs, you do something else.

Right, let me keep a hand.

Swimming.

Yeah, exactly. You eat well, you get tons of rest, as much rest as you possibly can. You do rehab when necessary, but you don't do so much that it injures what you're doing.

Yeah, you reset your vision, you visualize what you want and start mentally rehearsing the reps, the repetition, the action steps, you mental rehearse, you know, all those things, right?

So now if you apply that to a break-up, The hangover recovery method is let's go and sleep with other people quickly just to get my fix, just to feel connected, just to feel like I'm worth something, just to feel like I'm still sexy. Let me go out and drink, party, let me eat ice cream, bad food, keep going to the club.

Get on Tinder and all the apps.

Or not, or just hide away under the covers, don't engage, lie, life don't. It could be either or, but they're all hangover recovery methods because they don't make you feel better long term. They're just short-term pleasure. The athlete recovery method in a breakup is you do the same as an athlete. You say, okay, my heart might be injured right now, right? My heart's offline, so to speak, but I still have everything else. So let me make sure the rest of my life is firing on all cylinders right now. Let me do every. Let me be kind to myself. Let's maybe, like, put dating aside for the moment or put that. But let me go and make platonic connections. Let me go and build my relationships with my friends and family. Let me eat well, let me sleep well, let me train, let me go and do all of these things that. That train every other muscle in my life so that when my heart comes back online, every other part of me is ready to go. So you've got one problem right now. You're. You're in pain, right? But if that pain causes you to let every other part of your life go down spiral, now you've got six problems.

So.

That'S the part we want to avoid.

And only have one problem, not six.

And, you know, look, it's all of this is easy to say. And when you're heartbroken, you just feel like you feel so bad and so sick in your stomach and so nauseated all the time that Even hearing this sounds like a lot of work. And what I would say to people is a really manageable step is, you know, there's that quote, Emotions are weather. Let them come and go.

Right?

And that's true. Emotions are weather. I used to think that emotions were really important. A friend of mine, Jameson Jordan, who you know, who shoots my videos, he would always tell me, whenever I would be in a real funk, a bad place, whatever, he I would talk to him about it. He was one of the closest people to me. And I always remember he used to say to me, I just think you think your emotions are more important than I feel like mine are.

You put more emphasis on yours.

Yeah, you think they're really important.

You think your emotions are you?

Yeah, he would be like, you just seem to give more weight to your feelings than I do. and I, at the time, I didn't quite hear that. And over time, I've come to understand what that means. And of course, a lot of this is taught in mindfulness, training, meditation, so on. But that idea that just because you have a thought, just because you have an emotion, it doesn't make it important. And in a heartbreak, just because you miss your partner, that doesn't actually make that feeling that important. Just because you feel hurt and you feel like, oh, my God, I'll never find anyone like that again. That's just a thought and an emotion that's attached to that thought, and it doesn't make it that important. And so when I was going through terrible times, when I've gone through heartbreak, one of the key lessons I learned was, okay, there's really cloudy skies right now. That's the weather, right? And it feels like that weather will never pass. But what I would begin to pay attention to is I would. that I would realize, oh, for the last 20 minutes, I didn't think about my breakup.

Small wins.

I'd be like, yeah, and often you only notice it after the fact. Because when you're in it, it could be that you're in a flow state with your work and that's taken you out of it. It could be that you're having a funny moment with a friend. It could be that you lost yourself in a movie. It could be you just had a conversation with your brother, your mother, who Whoever.

A workout, yeah.

For a few minutes, even if it's just five, for five minutes you noticed I felt better. I felt, maybe I didn't feel amazing, but I just, for five minutes, I didn't feel like I was dying.

I didn't feel suffering.

And when that happens, here's what I would say to myself. I'd be like, well, that's interesting. Notice those things as interesting. And this applies not just to heartbreak, but to depression, to anxiety, to all sorts of different emotions that are undesirable. When you notice that for five minutes of your day, you didn't feel that thing. Because here's what happens. We have our, like, whatever is our home, whether it's depression, heartbreak, anxiety, sadness, we have our home that we go to 90% of our day. And when we feel that, we focus on it so intensely. that it becomes very difficult to get out of it because we are focused on that 90% the whole time. And what we don't acknowledge is this interesting window in the day where we didn't feel that. And that window has some clues, has some, there's some truth often in that window, that 5% of the day where you felt all right. There's some truth there that's waiting to be discovered enlarged, held under a microscope. and what I would do is when I would feel better for five minutes, I'd go, well, okay, so what did that, if nothing else, what did that prove? It proved that it's possible for me to feel better. I had a reference point for the fact that I could feel better. And then you go, well, if I felt better for five minutes, if I even felt better for a minute, let's make more of those. What was happening? How did I do it? I might not be able to get my day to the point where I even feel good for quarter of the day right now, right? That might be an unrealistic goal. But if I had one good minute or one good hour, let me make the new goal not to be great or to be happy or to get over this. Just make more of those.

Yeah.

And multiply those moments. Multiply those minutes into five and 10 and 20 minutes.

It's a manageable task. Suddenly getting over your heartbreak. You need to get over it, dude. You know, blah, blah. this isn't practical advice for someone who's going through hell. But for someone who realizes that just for five minutes, the clouds parted, they go, oh, my God.

It's like one of my favorite movies, Swingers, where Mikey is always thinking about his ex and who he left, and then now she won't come back to him six months ago or whatever, and he's constantly talking about it, obsessing about it, suffering in pain. And then he finally learns to just put his attention somewhere else for a few minutes and then put it for an hour. And then he goes on a date with someone. And then he thought about her for a day. And he was like, wow, I didn't talk about her all today, you know?

And his was so important about that because there's a, what's really interesting about that movie is he begins to do things that slowly start to create more moments of good weather in his day.

He goes salsa dancing. He does this. He does activities. Yeah.

Right.

But what we have to be aware of, you have to respect whatever is the drug, whether it's your ex, whether it's genuinely a drug or booze or whether it's a situation that makes you feel bad or whatever. Often when we start to create more good weather, weather, we start to take for granted that the bad weather can't appear now. It's like, oh, I'm past it. Yeah.

It could come back. A storm could come raging through again.

Someone, your, your ex could text you, and if you text back and start engaging, knowing, knowing what happens that you're, when you start in a conversation with that person again, you're going to spiral. You're not respecting the you got. You might have been clean for months or years, but you gotta respect the drug. Because it's what you don't is when you. When you get cocky and you don't remember that there are rituals and routines and practices daily that got you to this good state, you are liable to fall back into that trap because you're. Because you're blind. Don't be blind. Don't be afraid. It's not about fit. You're not. you're not worried because you know if I got if I didn't die at the height of my breakups pain if I didn't die on day two, I'm not gonna die on day 22 or day 52 or day 1002. If I could deal with this at the height of its pain, I'm not gonna die now. So I'm not gonna be afraid of this, but I'm also gonna respect it and know that there are certain things that make me feel better in my day and I have to consciously put them into my day because the moment I take for granted that I just feel better better. That's when that thing starts creeping.

Yeah, exactly. I'm laughing so hard because we, we have a mutual friend that we've been helping. I won't say his name, but we've been helping navigate certain things in their, you know, in their relationship. And, you know, it just reminded me of that, of replying to people when they text you, when you think you're good. Hey, don't go back into that. Make sure you stay true to what you want, what you're committed to. by the athlete mindset of envisioning something that you want for your future, envisioning the right relationship or the better match or how you want to be feeling and all those things.

And by the way, and just remember, and this is true not just for people going through heartbreak right now, but people going through solitude right now, because there's a lot of people who right now are just in solitude. They're not necessarily heartbroken, but they are experiencing a deep kind of existential loneliness. this. And when we're on our own for long periods of time, many people, not everyone, but many people, and perhaps even most, have more of a tendency to go to dark places with their thoughts. Yeah. And there's a lot of people that are there that are listening to us right now that certainly can't. That, you know, the I, you know, some people might be in a hell with someone in the house, but these people in Solitude are looking at that guy and, I'll take that right now over the hell I'm in of being constantly on my own and going out of my mind. I would say to people that, you know, the same weather rule applies that, you know, you might feel really kind of dark and lonely at points in your day, but there are other points in your day where you don't notice the good weather and pay attention to the good weather and what made you feel good. Did you just have a conversation with one of your siblings? Did you have a little group chat with a bunch of friends? Did you watch a life affirming movie? Did you read a book that made you feel connected to an author from some period in time? maybe who was also alone and writing about it. And by reading that author, you go, oh, my God, I feel, you know, someone else is having the same experience as me. I think that's really important, is if you're in solitude right now on your own, you connect to other people who have experienced that because some of the greatest figures of all time have spent inordinate amounts of time alone, have experienced the darkness that you're experiencing. and you're in good company. You may feel you're alone and oh man, we have this solipsistic attitude that we're the only one who's alone. We know it's not rationally true, we know it's not logically true, but we feel it on an emotional level. Those are moments where you have to remind yourself, I'm in good company, not just today, but throughout time. Key figures, brilliant people, people that are far more brilliant than most will ever be. have experienced the deepest, darkest, existential loneliness. And in a way, there is something slightly romantic about that. I always love when I read an author and I hear that author who's brilliant and who I love. And I was just reading Bertrand Russell and then you hear about something that someone suffers with or something that they've gone through and you go, oh, thank God. This person that I love also, you know, suffered. Also, You know, there's that element of it that's really, really powerful. And so I think that you can adopt, yes, accept that it's difficult. It is difficult. Don't look at other people and think they're handling it so well. It is difficult. I'd call my dad at times when business is hard and business was messy and like chaotic and I screwed up or I'd lost money or I'd done something. I'd call my dad and I'd be like, you know, my dad's one of my big mentors. And I'd call him and say, Dad, like, I'm just so stressed. I'm so overwhelmed. This is happening. This is going wrong. I've got 10 people asking me for this, whatever. And he'd say, Matt, part of the problem is you don't think that other people's businesses are just as messy. It's almost like you think that you're struggling with all these things and other people aren't. He said, Matt, I've been in business for 40 years. Business is messy. That is the nature of it. It is messy. It is chaotic. There are always things going wrong as well as things going Right. That's the nature, that's how it is supposed to be. And when he would say that to me, it didn't take my problems away. But what it made me realize is, oh, it's all right. It's not, this is normal. I'm on top of my problems. I'm beating myself up and taking it personally that I'm doing a horrible job.

Yeah. It's kind of like your dad and Jameson are saying the same thing. Your feelings are more important, your mess.

Is more important, I don't give it so much power and B, and don't give your feelings and emotions so much power. Not every emotion is a cue to do something. Yeah. At the same time, except that this is your view that in the Road Less Traveled, M. Scott Peck talked about, I think one of the first line of his book is life is hard. And one of the things that makes life more difficult for us is that we expect it to be easy. Well, that's true of relationships, it's true of business, it's true of everything. And when we have someone close to us who says, you're all right. You're at home on your own right now and you feel like it's dark and lonely and you're having these kind of existential thoughts and you're welcome. That's normal. Of course you do. You're living at home on your own in isolation right now. Of course you're feeling these things. You're not a screw up. You're not weak. You're not handling it terribly because you're having these thoughts. That is absolutely normal. that's what makes it heroic. You're having all these thoughts and you're having all these feelings, but you're in the company of wonderful people throughout history who have experienced this, who have had just as bad a time, who were dealing with it no better than you. But in that company, you can kind of then assume your hero's journey and.

Go, yeah, well, come on.

My personal hell right now, I'm gonna keep going anyway.

We need these adversities to teach us things too. You know, we don't learn about how to be the best version of ourselves and grow through everything being easy and all the success coming to us. We learn through challenge, through adversity. And I'm not saying you need to suffer in the adversity and challenge. It's already going to be hard. A breakup is already hard, but you don't need to add to the suffering like you said and multiply the amount of pain. I want to ask a personal question that you probably only talk about at your retreats. So I want to give people a taste of Matthew Hussey that you probably share to only a select few women who invest and show up to your retreats where they really get to dive in and ask you the juicy questions.

I'm curious. I'm curious.

And I'm not you can't no one can come to your retreats right now. now but later in the year I think you'll have more Retreats and they can go to matthewhuston.com and learn about your Retreats because I hear they're mind-blowing for women so if you want to learn how to master relationships as a woman go to these Retreats go to matthewhuston.com and sign up for them on.

A wait list actually go to matthewhuston.com that's the best place for people to.

Do how to get the guy.com for.

Everything else and I'll also let people know something they can do right now as well because Cool. I know people are stuck at home and they'll want something that they can do.

Perfect, perfect. Okay, here's the personal question. What is the biggest challenge that Matthew Hussey faces single and the biggest challenge you face being in a relationship that you still that you still need to you know you need to overcome and improve or maybe you're not as I wish I wasn't that way. I'm not proud of myself in these times when I do this what is the personal thing that Matt Hussie has to do or needs to do to improve when single and when in relationship?

I think, look, I'm someone who has always, I've always craved real connection for as long as, you know, I've liked girls, you know, 12 years old. yeah, I've always liked it. And it's not that I don't go through the same things other people do where you wonder when you're with someone, am I with the right person? Is this the right thing? Do I need, you know, all of that. But I've always really liked connection. And sometimes that connection, you know, I know in my past that desire for connection has led me to relationships that Weren't right for me, you know, weren't relationships I should have been in, but they were wonderful people. They were lovely and they were, they.

Were great moments and great connection.

Yeah, and we, and, and, and they treated me wonderfully. And, you know, and that led me to kind of go, well, maybe this is the thing, you know, but without necessarily seeing if it was what I needed, whether it was really the relationship that was going to continue to grow in. and develop myself and whether it was truly kind of, I guess, meeting all my needs and whether I was meeting all of their needs. So I think that over time, I. I settled for some relationships that I shouldn't have, where I was just valuing the connection over what my long-term needs were going. to be. And I knew that it worked today or this year, but if I really thought about it in 10 years or 20 years, it wasn't going to be the relationship that was right for me long term. So there was that. And that has so within a relationship, some of the struggles I've had in the past have been too much question, too much time questioning. whether it's the worst feeling, man. So exhausting.

The worst. When you think I've had this in my past relationships where every day I would think and question myself for 30 minutes, am I supposed to be in this? Is this the right thing? Should I end it? How am I going to end it? Ah, but this is good. But this is that just debate. The internal debate is exhausting, like you said.

That's right. And So that sapped a lot of energy from me. A lot of times when I would have liked to have actually had more energy to pour into either the right relationship or my business or friends or whatever, but it was being sapped by me constantly waking up every day and going, Is this the right thing? Should I be here? Should I not? And you're just fighting yourself constantly. definitely. So I, I think there were things that I allowed to go on too long that I, I should have, I should have seen things sooner or rather, perhaps more accurately paid attention to what I had said.

Because you saw them.

Yeah, I saw them.

They were there. You were aware. You just weren't right. Actively paying attention and taking action on the attention.

That's right. And, and so much of what I've been able to, to teach people and share with people has not been coming from a righteous place. I've been experiencing things intensely. I'm a very sensitive person and I'm someone who emotionally feels a lot. The reason I can relate to a lot of people is because I feel things very intensely, for better or worse. Sometimes I wish I didn't, sometimes I see it as a gift. It depends on the day you ask me. But that I think has been a big thing for me in the past. And actually I think I'm much better now at saying I won't allow myself to slip into something that's the wrong thing.

Society has brainwashed us to believe that love and identifying it takes time. That's a lie. In most situations when it takes months. You have not fallen in love, you've learned to tolerate them. You've grown a tolerance. Wow. All right.