Are You A Recovering "People Pleaser"?

I want to know who in my life is here because I always please them and who in my life is here because they love me. That's worth knowing. It takes guts to want to know that, but I want to know. Stephen, you get to see us tomorrow. How do you feel about that?

Oh, mixed feelings, I guess.

How are they mixed feelings?

Most of them.

You haven't seen us in three months. What mixed feelings could you possibly have?

Oh, you've hurt his feelings.

Let me finish. Most of them positive.

It's not getting better.

Well, what we're gonna do, you're. You're flying over. We're gonna have. Chinese, we're going to Chinese restaurant and we're gonna go see a show, aren't we?

Some comedy. We are. I don't know if it was a good idea for me to have booked us all a comedy show on the day that Audrey and I land. It was ambitious. But we are get that our jet lag is gonna be working in our favor 'cause we probably won't be able to sleep.

Audrey will confirm with me that is such a mat move as well to book a show on the day you're.

Arriving, isn't it, Audrey?

It's a bit of a mat move, yeah. But everyone's coming. We've got Audrey's sister and her husband. We've got about 12 of our family coming. I mean, we had to try finding a table for 14 people in Chinatown in London on a Saturday night. That is not easy. You have to, we're like the Sopranos showing up somewhere.

What's the show?

So Jamieson, you're like this, Britannic, who we went and saw in LA, are doing an extended run in the Soho Theatre in London after having just done the Edinburgh Fringe. And we get to see them.

You love Britannic.

You love Britannic, too.

We love Britannic.

We love Britannic. And I've been, every time we go, I'm sort of sad that beloved family members at home can't come out and see them. So, This time, it was just very, very lucky that the day we got home was their final show in London. So we're going out as a huge group.

Yeah.

There's sketch comedians and filmmakers that inspire you because they make you want to do what they do, and there's britanic, which makes you want to give up, because no one can do what they do, and they're just so much better. Right, right.

That's exactly right. They are.

Go and Google their video Boys Night In on YouTube. It's a classic, absolute classic sketch.

They've inspired some of our stuff, haven't they? They've really, there's been a note of Britannic in some of our videos as well. I sent them out MPI video Jameson. Did you know that? I sent Nick from Britannic our MPI video and he loved it.

When did you do that?

Well, I told him we were coming to the show and he I said, we enjoyed you in LA and we're coming in London with 14 of us. And he said, no way. He said, an army of Hussies. So, and then I said, this video is inspired by you guys in its comedic tone.

Again, that's a lie. It was not inspired because if it was inspired by them, I wouldn't have done anything. I wouldn't have tried to write anything.

Right, right, right. So it was best not to think about them when we were making it.

Absolutely.

Well, there we go. That's our night tomorrow, so I can't wait. Seeing family. We have a really interesting show today that is going to relate to so many people out there, because we're going to be talking about people pleasing as a phenomenon, and some of the worst ways it shows up in our lives, some of the insidious ways that it affects our lives for the worse, and what we can do about it. So, if you have ever fallen into the trap of people pleasing and you want to know what to do about it and you also just want to hear that you're not alone in that tendency, today's episode is going to be great. By the way, if you haven't already, head over to yourdatingsolution.com where you can get a tailored solution to what you're going through in your love life if you are struggling with finding dates, if you're struggling with meeting people, if you're struggling in getting to the second date, or maybe you're already seeing someone and struggling to get that commitment. Perhaps you've got a commitment and you're trying to figure out how to take it to the next level. Your love life is uniquely yours and not everything is going to be relevant to you. But if you go to YourDatingSolution.com, there is a tool there where you can input your specific love life challenge and it will recommend you the best solution that I've created over the years that matches your particular love life dilemma. Go to YourDatingSolution.com and the great news is by doing that you'll also be signing up to my newsletter and we have a brand new feature in the newsletter where every Friday we do Matthew's Weekly Digest where I give you some thoughts that I'm having, I get a little bit more personal than I do in other newsletters, I direct you towards some things that I'm enjoying right now and it's just really a bit of fun on your Friday to take you into your weekend. So come sign up and get your dating solution by going to yourdatingsolution.com. All right, Jams, let's do this. They are the gems.

Help where they can. Inspiration in life, in love, in confidence. They'll make you laugh. Sometimes you'll cry, and that is why.

Pickles, peaches, and spares, we love the jam. All right, let's talk about people pleasing. Audrey, what have you got for us?

Well, we put a post out on Instagram, actually, and we asked people, would you call yourself a people pleaser? And we asked them to leave a comment below and describe how that shows up in their lives. if they relate to that statement. And we had hundreds of responses of people saying that they did relate to it. So I've just pulled out a few different ones that I thought kind of were interesting. So I'm going to read them out to you guys and get your thoughts on them. How about that?

I love it.

Ali highly man says, absolutely. I relate to being a people pleaser. I think it's part of what makes me a good nurse. this is because I tend to the seen and unseen needs of my patients. However, this also transitions into my friendships and relationship. I always have to have the eyes cleared and try and fix tension if there is any.

I think it's interesting because my mom was a nurse, but I always thought what made my mom a good nurse was the fact that she can be quite disagreeable. Patients will come in and they'll just like, first of all, there'll be drug addicts that come in there and they're like, I'm in so much pain, blah, blah, blah. My mom has no trouble just calling those people out. If I stayed home from school sick, I was not allowed to watch TV. I had to be very sick to stay home and want to stay home. So it is interesting. So even, you know, I would just say this is an interesting example of like, people pleasing can become, a weakness very quickly in any context, even when it seems like a career like being a nurse, when empathy is obviously really important.

That almost comes back to that point that we made in a previous episode where the Stephen and Jamison you cited the book Against Empathy and how empathy can be a dangerous thing when it comes to people pleasing, right? Because if you have, if you're always if the emotion that you're riding on all the time for people is, say, sympathy, and that sympathy goes straight to wanting to just give that person whatever they want, you may not be giving that person what they need. But the sympathy is making you give them whatever they want, whatever's gonna salve you, whatever's gonna make you feel better right now in this very moment, as opposed to what's good for you. So I think there's something interesting in that, that sometimes the empathy that we feel that leads to people pleasing and the discomfort we have at other people's discomfort can lead us to enabling them in ways that don't actually help them. And also, by the way, when You do something that might be good for someone in the long term, but in the short term just adds to their discomfort. You can't expect thanks for it. They may thank you later, but they're not gonna thank you today. And if you're a people pleaser, you want the thanks today. So you're engineered in a way that gives them what they want today, not what they need. And obviously, what they want sometimes can not just be to their detriment, but can be to your detriment too. if it constantly means you're self sacrificing.

What's interesting about that, what you just said, which I think is so spot on, is this idea of being so uncomfortable at other people's discomfort. The reason that's interesting is because what she's speaking about in terms of relation to her patients is empathy. And it is this idea of actually trying to altruistically donate her energy and time to making these patients feel good and better and whatnot. But then there's a huge difference when it crosses over into this idea of trying to always clear the ice and fix tension if there is any, presumably at the detriment of, you know, setting boundaries and actually making sure that if people have wronged her, she lets them come to her to apologize. You know, she's always pacifying. To me, that's not empathy, that's fear. And I think that's what's interesting about people pleasing is it's usually disguised behind empathy, but it's actually an act of manipulation to make ourselves feel safe.

That's a beautiful point. The fear that makes us really uneasy with any kind of tension is, you know, let's take a moment to just look at what that's based on. Because I certainly relate to that in my life. The real visceral discomfort with the fact that there's There's something in the air. There's, you know, something we haven't fixed between us in general. I'm not talking with you, Audrey. Although I do feel it with you, but I feel it with everybody. Like, I'm, I don't like there to be something wrong. And because I have, and I'm, this is something I've worked on in my life. So I am careful not to over-identify with it, but because I've had a pattern of anxiety, in my life when there is tension that flares up that anxiety. And I do feel like I'm in, I'm almost too much in a rush to fix it. Because as you say, when you're in a rush to fix something, you start taking accountability for what other people have done wrong, and you start kind of, you start skipping over the things they've done wrong because you're just like, well, I just want to I just want to move on. I just want it to be okay. But the problem is when someone does something that's not okay, the relationship only gets better by a genuine acknowledgment of what just happened that wasn't okay. The same is true with parents and children, with staff, you know, bosses and employees, with friends between each other. What doesn't get acknowledged and corrected becomes accepted. And when we're so eager to make things right again, we tend to skip the part where we say, no, there has to be acknowledgement here for something that's happened. And that person then learns that whatever they did that was wrong, or that broke your boundaries is actually okay for them to continue doing. And I really want everyone to pay attention to this for a moment. I want to hear more from these responses, but I do want to just take this moment to say our tendency is to, if we're in this pattern ourselves, We literally set up the relationships we don't want by failing to create accountability in moments like this. We are literally teaching someone the lesson that it's okay to do this again. And I want you to hear the madness in this, that we continue with the hope that they won't do that again. after having literally just taught them that they can do that again. You see this, the complete opposite. I just taught you you can do it again because there are no consequences. It's not even. It's not even something I really bring up or acknowledge or hold you accountable for. But I'm continuing with this relationship predicated on the hope that you'll get better. I feel like they might change, they might get better, but we literally just taught them the opposite lesson. So, okay, with that in mind, let's just kind of create that as a marker in the sand as we keep going through these.

For sure, yeah, it's a great point. We also have another comment from somebody called Stephanie. Stephanie says, It sometimes shows up as being inauthentic with how I actually feel in order to make everyone around me feel comfortable and content. but it doesn't do any favors on my self-worth and inner connection. And somebody called Sarah made a very similar point, which I'm going to read out because I feel like, you know, we can answer both of them at the same time. Sarah says, It stops me from being honest and sharing my true thoughts and feelings due to the feeling that I will disappoint people or cause conflict.

Yeah, I can relate to both of those. I think I've had a tendency to, I'd rather just leave a situation than express a dissatisfaction with someone's behavior or with, like, I don't want to do this, or this isn't my choice, or I don't agree. I'd rather create distance than have a, almost part of me is like, I don't want to create a bad thing for everyone or create a problem or have someone think, oh no, Steve's upset, you know, because I think in a way it's like, I'll feel bad that I've made them feel bad.

Do you think that's people pleasing, though?

Yeah, I think there's a form of people pleasing where you don't want to express dissatisfaction because you think that will upset other people.

I think that's true. I, I suspect, though, that with you, you, the way that it manifests is that you create distance, which I think goes against this idea of pleasing because When you're creating a distance between yourself and that person who's wronged you or made you feel a certain way, you're also kind of teaching them not to do it. Whereas I think what Stephanie and Sarah are saying is that they'll become inauthentic and basically model onto what the person is asking them to be in order to keep the peace rather than taking a step back.

I think that's true.

I think those are two sides of the same coin. I think that, Stephen, if I could.

Paraphrase, sometimes it will be like acquiescing with the situation and just being quiet in it instead of actually expressing it. I'll be like, okay, I'll just kind of like, I'll just be water right now and just flow with it, even though I'm not loving the situation.

Well, both are a form of being water, right? It's sort of anything but honesty. I am either going to stay and contort myself to what you need me to be right now, or I'm going to remove myself from the situation so that I don't have to enter into conflict. And that obviously, neither of them educates someone on your needs or what you want from them or what you're not dissatisfied with. And. And neither of them increase connection. Being in the room with people and being something you're not doesn't create connection. And leaving the room just puts distance between us and another person physically. So you're either at emotional distance or physical and emotional distance. And a big part of that is that on one hand, I would argue, Stephen, correct me if I'm wrong, but I would argue that that's a, it's, I don't want to upset people because I don't like how it makes me feel when other people are upset. Right. Right. So then there's like a, it's worth almost assessing our relationship with other people being upset and where does it come from? Why, why does it upset me? Or why does it distress me when other people are upset? Is it because And I think the answers to those questions get really interesting because once you just follow them to their logical conclusions, I actually think you arrive in a much more empowering place. The problem is we don't follow them to their logical conclusions in the right way. So if you say, I'm afraid someone's going to be upset with me because they'll no longer love me, Then you can follow that to its logical conclusion and go, well, if me disagreeing with someone means they don't love me anymore, then that relationship isn't nearly as valuable as I think it is in the first place. And if it's not nearly as valuable as I think it is, then my upset is misplaced. Or we come to the conclusion that, oh no, this relationship is robust and this person can be upset with me, and we make up. In fact, they have been upset with me before and we make up. Or we could follow the logical conclusion that if they're upset, it's because they're learning a hard truth about themselves. But learning a hard truth about themselves actually is the thing that's going to allow them to improve. Any time I've ever had to learn a hard truth about myself, it's given me a genuine opportunity to grow and improve. But when people around me who love me deny me a hard truth about myself because they don't want to hurt my feelings, they're actually denying me the opportunity to grow. So, That conflict actually is a form of kindness in helping that other person to grow. I think what happens though is if we have learned at certain points in our lives that being around someone and pointing something out just does more harm than good, If we have learned that all it does is make our lives more difficult and that that person doesn't change and maybe just puts it back on us and nothing shifts, then we begin to think we don't have any power in the situation and that anything we do is only gonna make our lives worse, not better. And I think when we learn that lesson, around certain key people, then we develop that Instinct to either mold myself to the situation to keep the peace or just remove myself so that I can keep my peace while not having to stay in the situation, which makes it impossible for me to stay unruffled.

Yeah.

Or you think you're gonna just upset them or you, you know, they're going to be annoyed or upset. because you said you disagree or you think, you know, something you thought was wrong in their behavior.

But, but why would them being upset be such a bad thing? That's the key question.

Because I think you, you think they're going to feel bad about themselves, and then you think, oh, I don't want to make them feel bad about themselves for that.

Yes.

Yes.

And I, I, but I do think that it's, I, I almost think it's an interesting question to ask yourself, will I sometimes feel like age plays into this in a weird way. Like if your 94 year old grandmother does something that upsets you, I don't know that it feels worth the battle to make someone feel bad about themselves. But if your mother, who you have to deal with all the time, feels bad about herself, in relation to something that is always affecting your life, and you intend to have a relationship with her that's much more productive, then it's a battle worth having, right? Or you've either concluded already that it's not worth... At some point you either have to say, not for me, but for this person, I have some hope for their growth. So I'm gonna give them the benefit of honesty. that allows them to grow. They can choose to do what they want with it, but I'm not going to be an enabler in their life. I'm going to be someone who at least offers the possibility of growth for them through honest communication. Or you've written them off. You've written off the idea that they're ever going to grow, and therefore it's always easier to simply go to a place of radical acceptance about who they are and then limit your interaction with them to an acceptable level for you, knowing that they're always going to be that way anytime you do interact with them.

I think it's super important to know where people pleasing comes from for the most part. And I was in a session recently with somebody who really, really suffers from the fact that she's a people pleaser and as a result doesn't have a lot of boundaries, doesn't know how to say no and stand her ground and You know, it was really clear from speaking with her that it came from, it was a behavior learned from childhood that had kept her safe. And people pleasing tends to come from childhood, teenage years, traumatic events where we have learned that if we make sure that we are agreeable and pandering to people around us, we will feel safe and loved and accepted. And we learn it, it mutates into a sort of, I guess, a kind of a reactionary behavior to everything because we feel unsafe to express our needs in fear of being not having any power over the situation. being rejected, you know, being left, all of these different things. And I think we can feel resentful of people pleasing, but it's really important to remember that it is, for the most part, it tends to be a behavior that's, that's, you know, we've learned along the way to keep ourselves safe. So trying to unlearn it, we have to be a bit compassionate with ourselves for how difficult that is because it's really counter-intuitive to our survival when we're trying to do something like that. And the other point I think is really important to make about people pleasing is a lot of the time it's avoiding conflict, but it can also be trying to make ourselves indispensable to another human being. And that shows up, there's plenty of people who wrote in about that. And I think it's a really interesting way in which it shows up, where we will be so agreeable because we know that if we can make ourselves indispensable, we are safe within that relationship. And then we almost then give ourselves grace to mess up and we then give ourselves grace to kind of, you know, not be perfect. But we can't do that until we are absolutely sure that this person will not leave because we are totally indispensable to them. Again, it's a bid for control. and it's interesting because I just, I see that so much as relating back to trauma and, and our younger years and the things we learn. So I think that it's, it's really important to try and be better with it, but I think it's, it's important to remember where that comes from and, you know, cut ourselves a bit of slack with it.

I agree. I agree. I agree. I agree. I agree.

I said that.

I agree. I want everyone to know that I agree. And I think, Audrey, it's always important that, you know, you, you always come in with this preternatural, beautiful compassion that is the basis of self-acceptance and Grace and understanding why we are the way we are and. to not blame ourselves for that. It's really important because if you're coming, if you're starting anything from a place of incredible, of huge amounts of blame, then it's hard to even do the things that would lift you out of that situation because you're taking all of your energy and directing it at self-hatred and self-loathing instead of moving forward. So the That realization and that compassion for what may have contributed to you being this way in life is essential to the self-acceptance that provides the foundation for growth. I do, however.

Good way of saying but.

I do, however, feel it's extremely important. that, you know, in Jurassic Park, Dr. Hammond says, I don't blame people for their mistakes, but I do ask that they pay for them. Now, I always found that line really interesting because we don't and shouldn't have to sit here constantly blaming ourselves for things. It's not productive. But in a sense, we unfortunately, we do all have to pay the price for the things that we do, for the behaviours that we have. No one can argue that's not true. We all pay the price for the way that we are. If you're a people pleaser, regardless of whether it's you're, you were the original one to blame for why you're a people pleaser, you're the one who's paying the price. through all of the consequences in your life that you're experiencing right now. You're not getting promoted, you're not getting the recognition that you deserve, you're not getting treated the way that you should be in your relationship, you're not getting respect from people, people aren't changing around you in appropriate ways when they do things wrong, they're not apologizing. All of these things are the price that we pay for this behavior that we've at some point adopted. So if we're the ones paying the price, we better be the ones to take ownership for changing it. Because no one else is going to. Why would anyone else be motivated to own that problem for us? They're not paying the price for it. We are. So we have to own that problem for ourselves and own that responsibility for changing it. And And then the next question, obviously, is, well, how do I do that? I've been doing this for so long. This is a hardwired pattern for me that feels so ingrained and so reflexive that it's my go-to anytime. I mean, for many people in this situation, and I count myself among them, it's visceral. It's visceral. There's a feeling that you get when there's confrontation. There's a, it creeps into some part of your body. It's very recognizable. You know it when you feel it. It feels like an involuntary biological reaction to someone yelling or to something not being quite right in the room or sensing that someone's in need of something. And that's something that we have to break the cycle of. consistently for us to start making a new pathway. The trouble is, to make a new pathway like that requires a kind of leap in the first place. It requires us to do something outside of the well-worn groove that we've been doing over and over and over again our whole lives. I think that the phrase that keeps coming up in my mind for this is that you have to at some point decide to live dangerously. And living dangerously is all relative. If you're mad at me and that makes me deeply uncomfortable and I want to Fix it. Living dangerously is me not fixing it. That's living dangerously. Living dangerously is I'm going to take the risk that this relationship is going to be okay without me fixing this. Or that I'm going to be okay even if this relationship isn't okay. If I'm in a romantic relationship and I'm a people pleaser who's constantly trying to do everything for my partner, because I'm worried they won't love me if I don't do everything for them and I don't make myself indispensable with acts of service. Living dangerously is risking that you'll still love me if I don't do this for you this week. Now, logically, we may know that they'll still be there, but emotionally we don't. And there's a big difference. Emotionally, we don't believe that's true. Our trauma tells us that's not true. This person will disappear. Living dangerously is saying, I'm gonna take the risk anyway. I'm gonna risk that you not liking me right now will continue if I don't do this thing. I'm gonna take that leap of faith. And to me, that requires a jump off a ledge that we're not used to jumping off of. But I have found in my life that these kinds of daredevil experiments reap really interesting rewards and often unexpected rewards. Because when, by the way, you do this and you get the unexpected, someone stays or God forbid they actually give you more respect or you lose a relationship, and suddenly you feel more peaceful because you lost a relationship that was robbing you of your peace anyway. It starts to give you reference points, and those reference points start to actually encourage you to do more of that thing. It becomes this kind of, you almost start to get excited about it because you go, Whoa, there's this whole other world out there where I don't do this and other possibilities occur. And that I've found that it becomes an exciting addiction once you actually get used to living dangerously in that way. And when you live dangerously enough in that way, it actually starts to become a new form and a higher quality form of safety.

I totally agree. And I think there's a reason to go to our feature. We want to introduce sexy potatoes. There are so many movies that embody...

You might need to explain sexy potatoes. That's a good point.

It's a play on rotten tomatoes for Americans who say tomatoes. It is us talking about life lessons from films, sexy potatoes. It doesn't need to be explained.

We haven't done it. We should say we haven't done it.

Yet, but we are thinking about it for a future episode. But there is a reason so many films play, and they pump your adrenaline in this way. They play on the fact that someone break social convention and decides to finally start living dangerously. There is a film called Wanted with James McAvoy and it's like an action film. They curve bullets with a gun. Jay's laughing because he knows it. And at the beginning of that film, James McAvoy is like the ultimate like schlubby. He's passive. His girlfriend is basically cheating on him with Chris Pratt who works in his office and Chris Pratt's an obnoxious douche and James McAvoy is just taking all these punches life is throwing at him. And because of all these things that happen, including an encounter with Angelina Jolie, who's this badass assassin, he realizes he can be like this badass as well. And he like marches into the office and smacks like Chris Pratt with his keyboard just out of nowhere. And suddenly he's like completely empowered. He's like takes charge of everything in his life. and there's so many films that give you the adrenaline shot of that moment because we love the idea of, like, what if I just took control and started saying enough or started just living my pure, authentic truth or just saying those things I need to say? We. We are pumped up by that feeling, and it's for a reason. You could look at, like, the Matrix or there's so many films where someone, like, breaks out of their. Little box and convention that they've been put into.

You know what film I think of in this example, Steve, is, I think you talked about this too before, Matt, is the Mask.

Mm.

Yes.

Stanley Ipkiss.

Great film.

Yes.

I love the Mask.

It's actually aged pretty well. Jim Carrey's character is the quintessential nice guy, and so nice, that when he puts on the Mask, the alter ego just becomes the absolute opposite. Bold, obnoxious, but bold. And it's quite a redeeming quality and sort of honest to me. I guess I like what you're saying about this, Matt, where I want to be careful not to frame it too positively of, like, having too much compassion for yourself. I, like, I was listening to Bill Burr the other day, and he was talking about like, what it takes to go to the gym, and he was like, you would like this. He was like, Shame works! Matt knows he gives me crap because I always do some sarcastic shaming. Jameson's always shaming me.

But Bill Burr's like, I'll look in.

The mirror, and I'll be like, Look what you did.

And that'll get him to go to the gym.

He's sort of being honest with himself. And Jim Carrey's character, Stanley Ipkiss, he was a nice guy, but he wasn't honest. to anybody. And that's why he was getting walked all over. He was, people pleasing. And so I think it might be helpful, at least in my life, is helpful where it's like, if I'm not speaking up, I don't like, I just tell myself, like, dude, you're not being honest. You're not being a good guy right now. Like, what kind of person do you want to be? Do you want to be, a little bit wimpy? Do you want to just be walked all over? Or do you want to be honest and speak up and kind of live in integrity?

I love that. I think it's so true. I I really think people pleasing is actually deep down, regardless of where it comes from, it actually is an act of manipulation because we're doing it to, you know, get a result from the person that we're doing it to. We're trying to make them like us, Etc. I I love the point you made, Matt, about, you know, if you start standing up for yourself and being your true authentic self, you will attract, you will repel and sort of eliminate relationships in your life that are one-sided and probably a little bit toxic, actually. I know it's an overused word, but I think that's fair to say.

It's also just important to, to say that you'll also be surprised by the relationships that respond well.

Literally what I was going to say. I was going to say you also, the moment you do that, you become a magnet for people who actually respect your true self and respect that self and that person who stands up for themselves and go, oh, I really like this person. This person's got a bit of edge to them. They're not going to let me get away with things because it's human nature, you know, and I think it's such an important point to make, regardless of how much of an amazing person you are, we are all constantly pushing the boundaries with everyone in our lives all the time. Some people are more or less aware of this, but we're all doing it. And I think that by having strong boundaries, being true to yourself and calling people out or, you know, when they're doing something wrong or speaking up when you're not happy about something and not people pleasing, you do become a magnet for people who respect that authenticity and that truth. And I know that that's something that almost feels counterintuitive. You end up repelling people who just want to walk all over you and have a sort of slave master relationship. and an imbalance in your relationship, whether it be friendship or romantic. And you attract people who are looking for a relationship of equals. And I think that's one of the most powerful shifts you can make. But it is really difficult. So I have a lot of. You're gonna laugh, but I do have a lot of compassion for. For it.

Here's what I think. Don't you want to know? Don't you want to know which relationships in your life are founded on mutual respect and a sense of equality of effort versus the ones that are only using you and only interested in you for as long as you agree with them. Don't you want to know? I want to know. I want to know who in my life is here because I always please them and who in my life is here because they love me. that's worth knowing. It takes guts to want to know that, but I want to know. And the more the irony, the great irony is that the more you are the person who's willing to find out, the more people love you. So true. Because they just want to be around someone with that kind of integrity in life and that kind of courage and that kind of confidence.

And my final point is you become a leader and you lead people. People are looking for leaders. We're looking around always to see if somebody can lead us down the right path. And by being that person, you become a leader.

I'm so glad we did this. This is a really, really important subject. And you'll notice as we're talking about this, that this stuff runs so deep and we really do. have to rewire ourselves to start doing things differently and to consistent, to actually change in a way that sticks. It's about rewiring. You may be listening to this asking, well, how do I do that rewiring? What does that look like? Everything that we've said here is a start. If you want to actually go through a process with us, that creates real internal change at the deepest level, even for the things that we've been doing our whole lives. That is the depth of the work that we do on the virtual retreat. And this year, we only have one more of them. So if you want to come do it with us, we're going to be spending three days doing it together as a team. All of the JAMs crew are going to be there over a Friday, Saturday, and a Sunday. We're going to have people from all over the world doing it with us. And they're going to be, we have people signed up from Asia, we have people signed up from the States, from Europe, from Australia. There is no time zone that is not represented on the virtual retreat. And it's three days of immersive coaching in the things that if we change them, we'll change everything. in our lives. So come join us if you want a ticket by having an interview with one of our specialists. You can get it by going to mhvirtualretreat.com and you can look forward to speaking to one of only a team of three people that are our specialists for the retreat that have these phone calls. And the phone call itself is very clarifying. and it helps you figure out what your goals are and what you want out of the next chapter of your life. So even if you don't end up coming from this phone call, the phone call itself will be a great addition to your day.

You know, it always makes me sad when you talk about the virtual retreat because it's so good, but it's so hard to explain.

Impossible.

So it doesn't even remotely do it justice the way you explain it. I always just feel so frustrated because I'm like, But you need to explain about it. But there is no way of doing it. Impossible. And I always feel this.

Every time you talk about it, I feel this way. Unfortunately, no one can be told what the virtual retreat is.

They have to see it for themselves.

That's great.

That was Morpheus. Luckily, people who go on the virtual retreat end up evangelizing for us all over YouTube and Facebook.

And they say, oh my God, you don't get it. It's really great. That is true. But they have just as difficult a time explaining it to their family and friends as we do to everybody else. But if you do want to come find out for yourself, go to mhvirtualretreat.com It is that music. You know what time it is. It's time to send our wonderful Audrey down into the subterranean archives of programs past. to deliver onto us a secret scroll that could help us in either life or love. Here she goes now in the elevator. Level one, flirting. Level two, farting. Level two, interesting fart related joke content on YouTube. That's Stephen again. Hey, level three attraction. Level four life. Hey, she's gone all the way to level eight. Come back, never go to level eight. Do not let the doors open on level eight. Bring her back up.

How many levels does Steve have down there?

Good, level seven.

You've seen inception, okay? Don't go there.

Do not go to level eight. She's back on level seven. It looks like she's found something. There she is rummaging around. Squirreling through the labyrinth of content and scrolls, she's grabbed one. Here she comes. Back up the elevator. Back to us with the wisdom of the past.

Guys, guys, I was just down in the archives.

You were? Yes.

You don't say.

Wow.

Yeah.

Okay, what level? I feel like you guys- Better not have been level late.

No.

Hopefully not level two either.

We don't talk about that.

We don't need any of Stephen's fart videos.

There's no such videos.

Oh, now that is a lie and you know it. You've sent me many hilarious fart videos over the years.

When I was 14.

Not of you. I will say not of you. Not of you.

If you're done talking about farts, would you like me to tell you what I found in the archives?

Please.

Yes. I found a secret scroll from My favourite program. Do you know what it is? Guess, guess, guess. My secret, my favourite program.

Attraction to commitment.

Attraction to commitment.

Yeah, I've had a couple of those recently.

I know, I just love it. It's just so...

In your favourite spot in the archives.

I love it. This particular scroll is relating to the person who's in a scenario where they're with someone and they're treating them like a girlfriend, but there's no real progression. so you have no sense of where you actually are. I like to call this the girlfriend experience. So what do you say in that instance? You said, Matthew, to say this: I'm looking for something special and I see glimpses of that with you, but I still don't know what this is. And it's okay if it isn't a relationship to you. But if it's not, I think I need to separate myself from this and keep doing my thing, keep living. Because seeing you is getting in the way of finding that person. I think you're amazing and I'm having a great time with you. But nothing is going to be great enough for me to sacrifice something deeper that I want. The key line here is I'm looking for something real, exciting, that's going somewhere. and if you're not that person, that's totally fine. I think this is amazing because it gives him the freedom to walk away as you stand your ground. And it just communicates a boundary and a standard so effectively. And as you guys know, I love, love boundaries and standards. It's my favorite subject. So I love it so much, and I wanted to share it with you guys. that is what I found in the archive today.

That scroll, of course, taken from attraction to commitment. So if you want to go find more from that, go to getlastinglove.com. that was but one of hundreds of useful tips in that program.

Correct.

Very good. Well, we are going to have a voice note from one of our listeners. You, of course, have been sending your voice notes into podcast@matthewhussy.com. if you have a voice note you want to send us that's between 30 and 60 seconds, send it over. We would love to hear it.

Hi, Matthew. I'm a huge fan of your work and a long time follower, hoping you can answer a question on your love life podcast. In a long-term relationship, can you still grow and maintain a deep connection with a partner that has avoidant tendencies? and resistance to share, but instead internalizes what's going on in their world, mostly their stresses. Thank you.

Well, as the resident introvert, somewhat avoidant in the group, I guess I'll take a bit of this. I because I, I think there's a, a bit of a misconception that someone who doesn't speak their feelings a lot either. doesn't have them or is it doesn't always mean you have some bad relationship with expressing those. I think it's just that you need the scenario to be correct. And I think you never go head on with someone and say, what do you feel right now? Because it's just abstract, it's complicated, and someone just is like, I feel loads of things right now. I don't know. You more want to get them in a state where they feel comf, where they're most comfortable. maybe they're really good on a walk with you, and you just start chatting about something that you're, he, they're interested in, or get them on something they like to say, and then you can start to ladder on to, like, what you're, you know, what are you thinking about right now? What are you excited about? What's, you know, what's something you're up to at the moment? And then I go, oh, I got this thing. And, and you go, oh, is that difficult? Yeah, because blah, blah. You ladder into those things instead of like, I want a conversation about our feelings and I want to just ask you these abstract questions. I think that's always just really, really difficult. And then non-judgment. I think if you don't go, if you don't react really strongly to whatever they say and feel the need to either object or attack or say, oh, my God, I didn't know you thought that. Or anything like that is going to make someone close up again. So more being expansive in a state of, like, tell me more or what is that like? Or what else does that make you think about? Then you kind of get them on a chain of being more comfortable expressing those things. I I think avoidant people are just always ready. to feel they feel overwhelmed very easily. And if they feel like there's just a lot of pressure and expectation, then they're gonna close up.

I love that answer, Steve.

That's really nice.

And this is where we have a.

Resident avoidant note to everyone out there. If you are thinking of starting a podcast, always have a resident avoidant on stuff. well, before we do the wrap up, we have a email in here from creeper who says, hello, Matthew and team. I am a long time listener slash viewer of your podcast slash Channel all the way from Nepal. Hey, your podcast has contributed so much to my confidence, healing and optimism. And this is my favorite thing to listen to every morning as I sit down for my watercolor painting class in cat man do. I thought the image of a devoted listener from across the world might make you happy. It has made me happy.

I mean, it's so spot on. I knew when I read it that you would absolutely love it.

Could not read it.

Yeah.

When we're in, we're in, we're in Kathmandu. You think I'm not reading that? You're crazy. I actually discovered your YouTube channel in 2013, but had lost touch with it over the years and looked you up this year. That that one she looked up. That one British dating coach, the really attractive one. I typed this furiously into YouTube search bar for support in recovering from a recent heartbreak. And what a gem the podcast has turned out to be. Thank you for sending this in Creeper. It's so lovely to know that we have a listener in your part of the world. And we look forward to hearing from you again soon. It's that time again. We get to the end of an episode, always a sad time, but also just a mark of us all having spent some time together. And isn't that what life is all about? A bit of community, a bit of time spent in each other's company. We're glad that we get to accompany you, whether it's in the car, on the subway, on a train somewhere, somewhere, cleaning the house, whatever it is you choose to do while listening to us. We're just glad to be a part of the journey with you. We've talked about people pleasing and how it affects our lives, the fear of confrontation, the fear of losing someone, the fear of upsetting someone, and how we have to live dangerously in trying something new, taking a leap of faith to do something that is off of our normal script. knew that the relationships worth having are the ones that remain even in our moments of honesty. We've had Stephen talking about that incredible idea of laddering, the idea of leading someone softly and gently into a conversation you want to have with them. We've heard about Jameson's mother not letting him have a day off, the poor traumas that Jameson has experienced as a result that are responsible for so much of the Jameson we know today that's brutal to me and shames me relentlessly. We've been all the way to Kathmandu. We want more listeners from places like this across the world. If you come from a place in the world that we wouldn't normally have been or get to hear from, email us podcast@matthewhussy.com .com. we've not heard from Stephen with the infamous pickles, peaches and pears. Can I get one for everyone in the room? Stephen, hussy.

Pickles, peaches, puddings, plums, puddles, pickles and pears.

Thank you, Stephen. And we look forward to hearing more from all of you. Until next time, everyone, while you're looking for the love you want. Remember to love the life you already have. From me and Jameson and Audrey and Stephen. We'll see you next time.