4 Step Approach To Stop Obsessing Over Someone

David. David, the girl I'm seeing, she's sitting over there right now.

How are you contacting me?

We're making a new video, remember?

Right, right.

Look, she's working right across from me. She hasn't texted me back since our last date. If I go over there, I don't want there to be this weird tension like I know she hasn't texted me back, which I obviously do.

Matt, you live together. That's Audrey. It's your wife.

Yes, I know. That's what makes it so awkward. If she doesn't end up being into me, we're gonna have to run into each other every day. I'm pretty sure she likes me. We had a child together. And she sends me all these signals. Last week she asked me to re-grout the roof. And she watches all of my Instagram stories.

Look, dude. It's all good. Like, you kinda got this locked in. Just play it cool.

I can't, Dave. This woman is the light that filters through the clouds of my tumultuous mind. Are you like me, anxiously obsessing over someone right now? Well, stay tuned because I promise you by the end of this video, both you and I will have exhaled, relaxed our shoulders, and regained a sense of calm. Just watch. I remember these feelings well. I'm having them right now. We just want to enjoy liking someone, but the nauseating reality for so many of us is that the moment we like someone, we begin to obsess. We decode every Every emoji, every text, every silence. Every second you're not talking to them is spent thinking about them, or when you'll see them next. And then if you feel them pulling away, you invest even harder. Very quickly, a potent mix of connection, attraction, and fear balls up in our stomach into a giant knot that slowly becomes the center of our existence. And none of this is voluntary. We didn't wake up one day and decide, "I like this person," and then add an item to our to-do list. Just start obsessing. It crept in through the back door and slowly took us over until we couldn't think about anything else. Which is why in this video I want to give you an actual conscious framework and 4 practical steps to stop obsessing, regain your sense of control and your peace. This is the kind of core work we do on my in-person retreat that I hold in Florida each year, because owning yourself and your emotions is over half the battle in dating and relationships. Today I'm gonna give you some insight into that work that we do, and how it can make you way happier in your love life. Give this video a little likey-like, a little subscribey-scribe, and let's get started. We need to start this whole thing from a place of realizing that we already had pre-existing fears prior to meeting this person that we are now obsessing over. We may have been afraid that we're gonna end up alone. That we're never going to meet anybody. Maybe we're afraid that we're not going to meet anyone in time to have a family. Maybe we're afraid we're not enough and we're never going to meet anybody because we're not good enough. When this person came along, the fears didn't start then with them. They activated fears that were already there, but they didn't just activate them, they became the solution to those fears. This is— this person is the solution to me ending up alone, the solution to me having a family, the solution to me finally feeling like I'm worthy. In other words, this is a very dangerous thing because all of a sudden we stop relating to them as an actual person we are assessing, and instead we start relating to what this person is going to save us from. And that is where the obsession really starts. So in our fear, someone shows up I call them the Bodyguard. Our Bodyguard learned a long time ago a certain set of techniques for managing their fear and controlling the situation. In other words, the Bodyguard has a very particular set of skills, a set of skills it's learned over a lifetime. They've not texted back. I'm scared. I know you are. Stay focused, Matthew. You have to hold it together. I can't. This next part is very important. They are going to leave you hanging. I need you to do something very important. 10 seconds. I want you to notice everything about their previous message. Emojis, commas, the tone of voice they had when they last spoke to you on the phone. Anything you see. Do you understand? Yes. They're still on their phone. I can sense them. The Bodyguard has many techniques. I'm gonna go out of my way to see this person whether or not it's convenient for us. The Bodyguard says our needs don't actually matter. The only thing that matters is that we get this person. The Bodyguard obsesses, over-invests, rushes, tries to impress, chase, secure. It says, "We need this person." So it says to us, "Do more. Get them. Don't lose this. Be whoever they need." You see The Bodyguard come out in really simple moments. Maybe you go on a couple of great dates with someone. You text them, and then they don't reply for a few hours. Suddenly there is a part of you thinking, "I'm not that important. They're losing interest. I'm about to be abandoned." That's the vulnerable part of us. Then the Bodyguard jumps in, checking your phone, rereading messages, trying to craft the perfect follow-up text so that you don't lose them. Or you meet someone impressive and you start thinking, "They're out of my league. I have to prove myself." And before you know it, the Bodyguard has you overagreeing, performing, prioritizing them over yourself. Yourself. In all of these situations, the pattern is the same. One part of you is scared— I'm not enough, I might lose this— and then the other part of you tries to solve it by securing this person. The Bodyguard is trying to solve that fear by controlling the situation, but in the process, it makes you lose yourself. Our job is to notice when the Bodyguard shows up and to realize that this is precisely the moment where the vulnerable part of us needs a wise parent to step in, and say what needs to be said. I have a 4-step method for doing this called the C.A.L.M. Method. I'm gonna walk you through it right now, so grab a pen and paper if you don't have one, because you're gonna be able to start applying this immediately. The C.A.L.M. Method is about 4 specific things. The first letter in our acronym is C. Connect. With yourself. So imagine the moment where the vulnerable part of you has realized that you like someone, and in that moment the bodyguard shows up and says, "You listen here, I'm going to find you, and when I do, I'm gonna do everything in my power to win you over." That is when the wise voice has to step in and say, "Whoa, no you won't, Liam Neeson." This wise voice, I think of them as the adult in the room puts an arm around that child and says, "What's happening, friend? What's going on?" Then listen to what they tell you. The most important part of this is that you're being compassionate to yourself. You're not asking questions with judgment or punishment. You're actually looking to understand where these obsessive feelings are coming from. And the best time to do this exercise is when it feels like it's the last thing in the world we want to do. The idea of that wiser voice coming along to repair us is being able to sit with that inner vulnerable child who is nervous, who is afraid, who has been abandoned, who has been taught that they won't be okay on their own, and tell them exactly what they need to hear. Imagine that in that moment, the Bodyguard is speaking really loudly about what you need to do. That is a loud voice, and it is telling our inner child that they are not capable. Your job is to seek out that child and show them that they are capable. You are the adult in the room. You can be a source of healing for yourself. This wiser voice might sound something like this: "Hey, you were okay before you met this person. You've survived being alone before. You've been hurt before, and you got through it. So why are we acting like this one person determines Everything. It is precisely when we delegate our protection to this very one-dimensional bodyguard with all of their naïve techniques for protecting us that we abandon our Inner Child. And when we abandon our Inner Child, we can struggle to find ourselves at the end of a relationship. Leave me a comment if you've ever got to the end of relationship realizing that you abandoned yourself so much that you barely even know what your needs are anymore. All you did was show up and be whoever you thought that person needed you to be. Our job is to notice when the Bodyguard is trying to take over and to teach ourselves that we are more than capable of handling this situation without the Bodyguard's methods. Okay, for the next letter— oh, sorry guys. Oh God, David, it's her! She's texted me back.

Oh, what did she say?

Oh boy. She said, "Hahaha, the other night when you thought my face cream was pudding and you took a bite, I almost threw up laughing." Do you think that means she wants me to ask her out again?

Yes, I do. And I think that she would say yes.

Oh yeah, but the ball is kind of in her court. I mean, I feel like it's her turn.

Well, then, you know, you—

Also, I do not want this to not end up being something real again that doesn't end up with the two of us in bed eating pizzookie together.

You do do that. I've walked in multiple times and you've been doing that in the living room.

Oh, God.

Matt, you are spiraling. Look, hey, man, you yourself made a video. It's called Dating with Results that helps people with exactly the problem that you're feeling right now. You could go there right now at datingwithresults.com.

Well, that must have cost thousands of dollars for people to watch. No, Matt, it's free. Free? This is the one where we talked about how to navigate the landscape of modern dating?

Yes.

The one where we said how to stop yourself from feeling invisible on the apps, get out of situationships, and actually make real progress in attracting the kind of person you want in this life. Yes. That's—

that's you right there.

Wait, that is— I did this?

Yes, that's you on the screen. You're looking at it.

Where did you say people could get this again?

This is at datingwithresults.com.

And you said it was free?

100% free.

And people can watch it right now.

You are doing that. Matt.

Yeah.

Matt, we're making a vlog.

Uh, yes.

The CALM Method.

The CALM Method. The next letter in the CALM Method is A. Anchoring your value in yourself. This is gonna sound a little off topic, but I am really into this idea of home. And how the real home that we live in is not the four walls of the structure that we go to bed in every night. It's us, you know, the walls of our body, the walls of our mind. That is the home that we take with us everywhere we go. And a key question you can ask yourself is, how safe do I feel in this home? When we meet someone and we like them and we start obsessing over them and thinking that they are the solution to our problems, we are looking for a sense of safety in them, not in ourselves. In other words, we have made them our home, and that is part of why we now feel so unstable and uncertain and anxious, because we're looking for that sense of safety on the outside. Home suddenly is something that can be taken away. But when we're able to step— stand down our bodyguard and talk to ourselves on a level and be compassionate with ourselves and sit with ourselves in the manner I'm talking about when I say connect with yourself. We're building a safer home within ourselves. And this is so important because we have to remember that everyone else is only ever rented. The, the home that we own and will always own is us. So while it's true that when we build a relationship with someone, we're, we're kind of building a sense of home with another person, We have to build a home within ourselves first. We are the asset, not the other person. The third letter in our acronym is L. L stands for loosen the story you have about them. The story is the thing we hold on to that says this person is so important. Our job is to de- personalize this feeling. How do we do that? Depersonalization means realizing that we have felt this about other people in the past. You may have had multiple situations in your life where you got too anxious or obsessed with somebody you like. If you're even watching this video knowing that obsession is a pattern in your life when you start to like somebody, you know this is true. And when you know that's true, Here's what you realize. The obsession is the common denominator, not this person. I can decouple this feeling from this person. It's not about this person. Therefore, they are not nearly as special as my mind has made them out to be. The feeling I have is real. I'm not minimizing that you feel anxious, obsessed, that you feel very much in like or love with this person. But the meaning your mind is attaching to this person may not be real at all. It's worth having a sense of humor about all of this. It's actually one of the great weapons you have against your Bodyguard. And your Bodyguard, by the way, is not your enemy. It's trying to be your friend. It's trying to protect you, but it's just doing it in a bad way. We can actually play with our Bodyguard more. Have a sense of humor with your Bodyguard, because with the Bodyguard, it's all very serious. The stakes are so impossibly high. Your bodyguard might be telling you, "We need to get this person. The stakes are impossibly high. If we lose them, we'll never meet anyone like them again." Our job as the wiser voice can be to mess with that person a little bit. "You're right. We'll never survive this if this person leaves us. Our life is effectively over. You know, this person who we only just met 3 weeks ago?" is now the centre of our universe. That seems to make sense. Yeah. And the last letter in our acronym, M for Matthew. Think about your old pal Matthew. What would old Matt say here? It's not Matthew, it's moving slowly. I have often said that choosing wrong is slower than going slow. If you move fast with the wrong person, it is slower than going slow. A lot is lost in love by going too fast. A lot is put in jeopardy by going too fast, mostly your heart, your feelings, your good judgment. Be present with the person in front of you. Let the story unfold organically so that you can actually measure the compatibility between you instead of trying to rush it or getting caught up in their pace or insecurely being so busy trying to get this person that you don't slow down enough to appreciate whether you should even want to get this person. Remind yourself, this person is someone I don't actually even necessarily know that well. This obsession I feel is a form of projection. And that is true even if you have been friends with this person for years. Some people will say to me, Matthew, I, I've known this person forever, I know how amazing they are. Yeah, but you probably never had a long-term relationship with them, so you don't know what that would be like with that person. So that is also part of the projection. Moving slowly is how you protect your heart without shutting it down. The CALM Method is a way that you can reconnect with yourself, show yourself that you are quite capable of moving through this world in a happy way without this person's help, and actually being present with the situation instead of letting your obsession rule the day. The CALM Method is not about suppressing your feelings. It is about not letting your feelings make your decisions for you. In other words, it's not anti-emotion, it's pro-agency. The goal is not to stop feeling, it's to stop losing ourselves when we feel. Everything I've said today is only a small part of the much more complete and meaningful work I do at my yearly Retreat. This year it's happening in October in Miami. If you want to find out more about that, the link is in the bio. And let me know how this video spoke to you in the comments below. I love reading your comments, and I will see you again next week.