Can Being Flawed Be Sexy? The Truth About Your Insecurities...

How do you wear your insecurity? Do you wear it lightly? Can you laugh about it? Think about that. Ask yourself that question because if you can't, there is there a clue that you're wearing your insecurity in too heavy a way. Ask yourself, can I laugh?

Hello there, podcast listeners, and welcome back to the Love Life podcast. I am your host, Stephen Hussey, and I'm not gonna keep you at all today because I'm gonna jump into an Instagram live Matthew recorded recently where he talked about insecurity and whether insecurity is something you have to hide or get over before you can really be Someone who's attractive and great for a relationship or whether actually insecurity is something that we all live with and that we just have to change our relationship with it. And looking at the line between being vulnerable and honest, like upfront about our flaws and where the line is between that and just showing an unattractive level of self-loathing. So yes, without further ado, over to Matt.

I wanted this to be more than a random live for those of you that are joining right now. I thought let's make this an impactful little session. So if you've got 10 minutes right now or if you can carve 10 minutes out of your morning, your evening or your afternoon, wherever you are, to just spend a few minutes learning about a few distinctions on vulnerability and how it relates to our lives and attraction. I think that you're going to find this really worthwhile. And by the end of this, and specifically at the end of this, I'm going to be giving what I believe is the most crucial distinction about vulnerability and how we should be working on ourselves, because I think a lot of people have the wrong impression about this. So we're often taught, and my God, sad to say, but I might even have somehow contributed to this inadvertently over time, that vulnerability is unattractive, the insecurity, I should say, is unattractive, that the most attractive people are the most confident. And this is a kind of archetype, right? There's the archetypal person who is the most bold and fierce and comfortable in their own skin, smooth person who knows what they're doing at all times. And we often think of this as like the kind of archetype for someone who's attractive, someone who doesn't have those flaws, doesn't have insecurities about their looks, doesn't have insecurities about their capabilities. They're the kind of person that walks into a room and says, step aside, I'll handle this. I am sort of fascinated by this because someone recently said to me, you know, I just want someone, you know, I can't stand people coming to me with insecurities. And I thought, there's an oversimplification in that. At worst, it sounds somewhat fascist. But even at best, it can sort of lack humanity because we all know in ourselves that we have insecurities, that we have these flaws, that we all have parts of ourselves that we don't like. We have that part of our face or our hair or our body that we don't like in ourselves. Or maybe it's mental. There's something about the way our mind functions that we don't like. We don't think we're witty enough. We don't think we're as clever as the next person. We don't think we're as good in conversation. We don't feel like we tell a great story or we can hold people's attention at a dinner party. We don't feel like we're in any way the life and soul of the party when we walk into a room. And we worry, of course, part of the insecurity is that these things, these flaws make me less attractive. That people are going to see these flaws and when they see them, they're going to see that I am not worthy of them. I am not worthy of love. I am not sexy. I am not someone to be treasured in that way. I'm not someone that someone else is going to fall for. I think that the key distinction is whether our insecurities, which in their best form can be vulnerabilities, right? People like Brené Brown have talked about this for a long time and studied it at length and at depth that we can have an insecurity and a vulnerability and by talking about it and revealing our humanity, that can actually make us far more attractive. But we also know that there is a point at which revealing those things about ourselves appears to be unattractive. And what's the line there? What is the distinction? For me, I'm a big believer in the idea of, you know, there's the empowered mindset and then there's the victim mindset. You know, I wrote down that insecurity is sexy. when it's on a confident person. You know, if we're a confident person, but we can admit that there are certain things that we don't like about ourselves, or that there are things we don't like about ourselves all the time, or there is a feature on us that we don't love, that we, you know, that makes us a bit shy or insecure sometimes, that insecurity can be a good look on a confident person. Insecurity is endearing when it doesn't define you. So if your insecurity is the only thing you talk about, if that is your story, then that's going to become unattractive. People are going to get tired of that. And it becomes you. You are that insecurity. Instead of that being part of the mosaic of who you are, it is you. And then that becomes unattractive. Insecurity adds color when it's not the only narrative. about you. And a couple of differences in language. I want to read these out to you because I want you to see the difference in how these feel. You know, let's say you've got a scar or something on your body or something that bothers you. You saying, this scar makes me a little insecure sometimes is very different from saying early on to someone in the dating process, I was really surprised you're attracted to me. One of them says, There's this thing, doesn't define me. It's not everything I am, but sometimes this scar or this part of my body, sometimes I get a little insecure about it. Saying to someone, why are you attracted to me? Like, or I don't know why you're attracted to me. That puts you immediately in a victim mode. It makes your, it turns us insecurity into heavy baggage and gives it to that person and says, your job is to make me feel better. Your job is to make me enough. I am now burdening you with this thing that I feel. And in a sense, if you think about it, one is, you know, this scar makes me insecure sometimes. and the other is a form of catastrophic thinking. Why would you be attracted to me? You've now the scar and you are the same thing. I have this thing I'm working on. You know, that's another. That's another empowered way to talk about insecurity, is I have this thing that I'm working on. You know, I get a little down sometimes. You know, I'm not. I. Sometimes I wish I was better at being upbeat. Sometimes I wish I was better at, you know, I feel like I don't always handle life very well. That's very different from just telling someone, you know, I just, I don't know. I just, I just feel like I suck at life. You see that? Like one of them says, I'm working on something. Like, I don't, you know, I really admire your positivity. the positivity in you is beautiful and actually that's something I'm working on for myself because I feel like you seem to be really natural at that. I get a little down sometimes, you know, I can get a little melancholy and that's something I'm working on because it affects me sometimes and I, you know, I don't want to, I don't want to feel that way. So there's something I'm working on versus you see like even the difference in body language. I just, I don't know. I just suck at life. I'm just not happy. You know, I'm not, you know, that then again, is a, there's a hopelessness to that that turns us from an empowered person working on something into a victim that somebody else is now gonna have to take care of. And that in dating becomes unattractive. I actually don't think that the vulnerability is unattractive. I think it can add color. It becomes part of our interesting story. It can even make us more relatable. It can make us more human. It can make someone go, oh, God, thank God, because, you know, they look like they had it together. I love the fact that there's something that's normal about them, something that's, you know, that they struggle with. I think that's a beautiful thing that unites us. We don't want to get rid of every single flaw we have. Why, you know, we're a work in progress, and that's what makes us interesting. We have scars, we have bruises, but how do we wear them? Very, very important. So I wrote, how do you wear your insecurity? Do you wear it lightly? Can you laugh about it? Think about that. Ask yourself that question because if you can't, there is there a clue that you're wearing your insecurity in too heavy a way. Ask yourself, can I laugh? about my insecurity? Is this something I can smile about? Is this something I can joke about? That's a good sign if you can. And even sometimes when we can laugh about an insecurity, we don't even always need to eliminate it. Sometimes we get obsessed with eliminating insecurities. Sometimes we just need to be better at laughing at our own insecurities and not giving, not attaching so much power to them. I also wrote down, do you have other areas where you kill it? Do you have other areas where you just, you're great, where you dominate, where you attack life, where you really value yourself? That's very, very important because the areas where you do great in life, the areas where you really feel like you bring value to the table, that's what offsets, that's what offsets those areas of insecurity and creates a more balanced picture. So I'm talking about going from I'm talking about the difference between being vulnerable and being a victim. Between being human and being a burden. These are very different things. So, look, here's some solutions, all right? And if you have a pen and paper right now, I want you to write these down. Some really important solutions here. We have to go when we have something that's bothering us, something that is sort of consuming us, an insecurity that is really like pervasive in our thoughts. Instead of the unattractive behavior is complaining about those things. Attractive behavior is working on those things. So write this down. I want to go from victim mode to empowered, from complaining to working on. And that's something that is very attractive in dating. It's very attractive in a relationship. It's very attractive in all of life. you can be on a date and say, you know, I sometimes feel this way, but I'm working on it. You know, I realize, you know, that's one of the things I have to work on. That's beautiful. There's nothing wrong with that. That's vulnerable. That makes you a three-dimensional character. So that's the first one. Go from hopeless victim to I'm working on it. The second one is to go from a mindset of this is all I am to there are many areas where I shine. And this is just part of the mosaic of who I am. Okay? So number two, go from the mindset of this is all I am, this defines me, to this is one of my colors. I have many colors. This is one of them, right? So it defines me, it's part of me. And lastly, and by the way, you'll notice that when you have that mindset of this is all I am, What happens, and this is what I see happening on dates a lot. I've been part of many TV shows over the years. I've had the kind of unique position of not just coaching people in dating, but also essentially being on the dates with people. Because I'm often on a show, and I have a show on Netflix right now called the Single Wives, which you can go and check out. But I'm often the guy on the show who has an earpiece and is watching someone on camera and watching the things that they do on a date. in a setting where I'm really seeing how do people always tell me, here's how I am on a date. I don't have a clue how they are on a date until I watch them on a date and then I'll see a completely different set of behaviors. When an insecurity defines us, we tend to speak about it quickly because we think everyone else is seeing it too. We think everybody else is noticing that thing about us, right? Everyone can see it. I know they can. That thing I don't like on my face. Everyone can see it, everyone's thinking about it, that part of my body that I don't like, everyone's saying that stupid joke I made, I'm not funny, everyone's noticing I'm not funny. We start to, this becomes so all-encompassing for us that we mention it out of that fear that other people are seeing it anyway, so I may as well mention it. I should probably mention it. There's a great line from Catch Me if youf Can where Leonardo DiCaprio's character, Frank Abagnale, He says to the detective who's trying to find him, he says, People only know what you tell them. It's a fantastic line. People only know what you tell them. And we assume people know so much about us. We assume that they see so much. We assume that they have such good vision that they can see all of these thoughts we're having, all of this insecurity, all of these internal scars that we have, and they can't. People only know what you tell them. When we put something on someone's radar very quickly, it's because we're nervous. We think, oh, God, it's there. I might as well mention it. So mentioning it becomes this signal to somebody else that this is really important to you. It's not just a part of you. It's really important to you. You wear it very heavily, and that becomes a problem. So if you mention it, quickly. And if you mention it often and you dwell on it and you keep relating things back to that and you talk about it in a heavy way, those are all signs that it is you instead of being framed as part of you. What we have to do is when we have. Don't, don't, like, just wear things lightly. If something bothers you. Yeah, that bothers me. Something. Yeah, sometimes I feel that, you know, sometimes I get a little insecure. Sometimes that makes me a little shy, you know? You just, you wear it in a certain way. I've never really liked this part of my body that much, but not, you know, not everyone in my life agrees. I have people who tell me I'm crazy. Whatever, like just laugh about it, but don't then dwell on that thing. Move on to the next thing. So look, this isn't about getting rid of insecurities. This is about taking the insecurities we have and wearing them more likely, learning to put less emphasis on them and proactively, I want you to write this down, proactively developing and investing in areas of strength, not just old areas where you've been historically strong, but also building new areas, building, building new areas of Our Lives, building new Pathways, doing new things gives us more confidence. It gives us this sense of being a more rounded person, and that's extremely powerful. What that means is, look, I think about it this way. Sometimes you have this insecurity that becomes such a big part of you because you're not making your life big enough. You're not making your life important. You know what? Sometimes, like, if I get insecure about my body or if I get insecure. hear about something about me. We all have those things, right? You have those little things that you're like, oh, I don't like that thing. Oh, I don't. And sometimes as we get older, we develop things and we go, oh, I'm not so sure about this. Whenever I'm focused on one of those things for myself, I'm like, what the am I not doing right now? That is. That is putting my focus on this. What? What? Like, I'm. Clearly, I'm not making a life-changing video for anyone right now. I clearly am not doing anything to like change the world. I'm not doing anything to reach out to my friends. I'm not doing anything to connect with my family. I'm not doing anything to get better as a skill that I have or to learn a skill that I don't know right now. Clearly I'm not doing anything very important right now for me to be focusing on this. Because the fact that I've got so much time and energy to focus on this might be a sign that my life has contracted too much. that I'm not investing enough in my life in new areas, in new things. So I, and by the way, here's what's interesting. We sometimes our insecurities become too big a part of our lives. And other times we come to rely on too few areas for our confidence. And we develop areas of strength that we come to over rely on. This is kind of a A connected point, but slightly off to a tangent. You also have to be wary of the areas where you put too much stock in for your confidence. Because sometimes it's, you know, when you do get insecure about your looks, it's because you put too much stock in your looks. Sometimes when we do get insecure about our job, it's because we put too much stock in our job and how important that thing is and how important the status we get from our job is. It sort of becomes a paradoxical thing, doesn't it? Because you could be, don't misunderstand that insecurity doesn't always come from areas where we think we suck. Sometimes insecurity comes from areas where we think we're great. You know, you could get insecure in your job because you associate with being great at your job and you associate with being high powered and you associate with getting a lot of credibility in your life. A lot of people think you're important because of what you do. That's dangerous too. Right? Because now, anytime anything goes wrong with that little thing, it fundamentally affects the way you feel about yourself because you've got too much stock in that. So what we have to do is start to almost diversify, right? Put stock in different areas, new areas, build our lives up. So this is about not only taking our insecurities more lightly, but not allowing our strengths to become our vulnerabilities, which is a very dangerous place to be. So, look, this isn't about becoming less human or even less flawed humans. I hope you stay flawed. I want to meet. I like flawed people. I like people with scars. I like people with stories to tell. Those are the people I want to spend time with, not. people who know it or not perfect people. But it is about becoming a stronger human. We all want, you know, when we think about the people we want in our lives, we don't want perfect people in our lives. We just want strong people in our lives, people that are resilient for themselves. But because that's also a sign that they're going to be resilient for us. And I think about that in the context of of, you know, jobs. You know, we like someone, when someone comes in and we learn that we don't care that someone comes into our company with no flaws, we don't trust that person. But we do want someone who's resilient. In a relationship, we don't want someone to come in with no flaws. That would make us feel terrible all the time. We'd be dating a God. We want someone with flaws, but we want someone who's resilient because we know if they're resilient for them, then they're not going to be a burden to us. because we're gonna be able to support them without being made responsible for all of their pain and making them feel good. We're also gonna know that one day when we're feeling weak, they're gonna be able to be resilient for us. So I see Sins says, I'm resilient and flawed. That's a beautiful way to be resilient and flawed. I love that. That might be a new phrase we coin, you know, flawed and resilient. I love it. But listen, I'm gonna tell you about something right now because so many of you over the last two, three months while we've been at home, I had to cancel my retreat in May. It was a very sad day for me and my team when we had to do that. But the positive side of it is that there are so many people who had never even considered the retreat because it was live and they were all over the world. They couldn't necessarily get the time off to come or the passport to come to the states to do it, or they were looking after their kids, or they're a teacher. Our dates are always terrible for teaching. and they were never able to make the live retreat. And we've had so many, like in much greater numbers in the last three months, we've had people do the at home retreat. For many of you know, we now have an at home version of the retreat where you can literally take the entire retreat. It's done for you. It's professionally shot. I am your partner, whereas in the room on the live retreat, I would be partnering you up with people in the room. I'm your partner for the exercises as I walk you through the retreat on the at home version. And it's just the best thing I've ever made. I mean, I don't say that lightly. It's the greatest thing I've ever made. And I say that because it deals with the deeper issues. You know, I have dating programs that deal with what to say and where you can go and what you can do. And there's a strategy element to that. But on the retreat, we deal with the deepest issues, the kind of content that we're doing right now. about what holds people back in life, the inner conflicts that stop them from getting what they want. Because, you know, we take ourselves and our insecurities and our personalities, our Hang-Ups we take it to every situation in life. This is the number one asset. If we build this asset, everything else follows. And, you know, speaking about everything I've just been talking about for the last, I don't know how long it's been, 10-15 minutes, what I do on the retreat is. I build your confidence both inside and outside with you by developing new areas of joy in your life, new areas of strength, building a bigger life with you, one that will make you not only not care as much about that insecurity or maybe even lose it altogether, but one that makes you realize, oh my God, this is a tiny part of my giant, beautiful life that I'm building. What the hell have I been doing by focusing on this? if anything, this year has made us realize, you know, just how much life fluctuates. We sit there with our own insecurities all day, but life is going to do crazy to us anyway, whoever you are. And it's made, I think, as many of us, it's made us realize that just how short life is, you know, how many things have we been putting off? How many things have we stored in, in our lives? How many ways are we coasting? and the retreat is the antidote to that because it, it really is like, it's such a beautiful program. It's not about success, success, success. It's not about, like, high achievement. It's about living a beautiful life. We get this. I mean, my opinion is we get this one life. I don't want to waste it. And I'm sure you don't either. And if you want to make this year beautiful in spite of the circumstances, and if you want to make the next five to ten years beautiful and you're ready to move on to another chapter in your life. The retreat is a beautiful way to do that. And it's the best way I know how. So I hope you agree. There are. I mean, people email me to tell me they agree with that all the time from the actual program itself. I'd love for you to try it. So I'll leave a link here. It's. God, what is the link?

Okay listeners, I'll be honest with you at this point there was a lot of shuffling around and umming and ahhing while Matt tried valiantly to try and locate the link for his own retreat program. So rather than subject you to that, I'm gonna tell you the link right now. So if you do want to go and grab that at home retreat program, go to mhretreatathome.com. .com so that's mhretreat@home.com and you can learn all about the program there. All right, I'll pop back in now to Matt to say his goodbye. All right, see you soon.

Somebody put that into their browser and let me know. So mhretreat@home.com is the link. And I appreciate you watching and spending a few minutes with me right now. All right. Thanks, guys.