"I'm Always Attracted to the WRONG People!"

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Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the love life podcast with me, Matthew Hussey, my brother, Stephen Hussey.

Hello there.

And Jameson Jordan.

I'm here as well.

We're so excited to be back with you today, everyone. This is. We're really enjoying the podcast right now, aren't we? We are.

And we're finally doing it together again, which is a special treat.

Yeah. Back. You're Stephen's in La, which is. Well, there have been many special treats in LA. We've been eating our way through this city because you're here.

Zanku chicken. We had Mexican food.

Sting's favorite chicken, apparently. Zanku.

A great chicken. We had Indian food. We've been crossing the globe all in the comfort of West Hollywood.

Yeah, it's been really lovely. I find it really hard to eat well when people are here because I know you do. They want to order from these great places, and I don't want to say no.

Just to note, Matthew's saying that, but he did try and get us to order cake to be delivered to the house last night. Birthday cake. Birthday cake.

It's no one's birthday, but...

Doesn't need to be. Let's just order birthday cake, 'cause it's Tuesday.

So you're saying I have to wait until my birthday to celebrate?

I'm not saying that.

You're saying I get to celebrate one day a year.

No, I just think you're making it sound like everyone's a bad influence on you, but it sounds... I think that's a misinterpretation.

The truth is Matt waits to go mental until everyone's here. Just a moment ago, we went to go buy you guys a coffee, and Matt's like, oh yeah, I should probably get a sandwich. Even though his fridge is full of.

All this excess food. He's got food in his fridge, and.

He still wants to buy some cheeky little snack.

You make me sound like Joey from Friends. That is exactly what I was going for, so.

And Jameson, are you or I Chandler?

Yeah, a lot of my high school friends say that I am the, I.

Am the, that's what everyone says. You sound a bit like Chandler.

Oh my God.

Everyone who thinks they're funny thinks they're Chandler.

Oh, that's a bit harsh.

He is funny. He doesn't just think he's funny, he is funny. Jameson, you're funny.

Thanks, guys.

Don't say guys. It was only me saying it.

I was just trying to include Steve.

Before we get into this episode, which is going to be a really great one today, because we're talking about a fascinating subject, which is when we instinctively are attracted to things that are bad for us, or more specifically to people who are bad for us. What happens when we are turned on by qualities in people that end up breaking our hearts, end up leaving a mess behind every single time. So we're going to be talking about that today because it's a really difficult one, isn't it? How do you break those patterns when those patterns don't even feel conscious? We don't decide who we're attracted to. We don't decide to get attracted to someone who's going to break our heart. We just feel it. And then we respond to it. How do you intercept that? So we're gonna be responding to a question actually from one of our Love Life Club members who wanted to know the answer to this question and we'll be reading that question and answering it today. Before we get into the show, I wanted to make sure everyone knows that the in-person retreat is coming up. It's from May the 30th until the 5th of June. If you want to be coached by me and Stephen and our team and spend six days with us by the beach in Florida, we are going to be doing that from May the 30th and this is the first time in two and a half years. So you can apply at mhretreat.com and also watch a video on it there and learn all about it. But this will be one of the final chances to do this because it is just around the corner. Now, I also want to let everyone know that we have a brand new website that a lot of you have not seen yet. It's how to get the guy.com. it's really lovely. We've spent a lot of time on it. We've spent a lot of time redesigning it and trying to make it more user friendly. And on the homepage of that site, there's now now a tool where you can input your problem or the thing that you're working on in your love life, and it will refer you to the best program that suits your situation. So it's a interactive tool that is really neat and we think that you're going to love it. So if you haven't gone and done that test on the homepage yet, go to howtogetttheguy.com and you can do that right now.

So Matt, we had an email review in from Jennifer who says, Thanks for starting off with calling everyone pickles. That's something we do on several episodes. I call our fans pickles. And then imparting wisdom about dating. It was enlightening to me because it reinforced my concern that I'm being too picky. I'll swipe right, aka yes, on like 5% of the guys and my criteria is pretty rigid. I've met many men that I truly liked and because of my lack of vulnerability, brackets whole other story, it didn't work out as planned. Anyway, it shined a flashlight on my habits and now I can take action to adjust and be more open. I thought that was very interesting, Matt. So someone saying they want to be more open to different kinds of people because they feel they've been too picky.

Can I ask a question?

Yeah, far away.

Are we married to pickles?

Right, that's the bit you're picking up on, is it?

Well, it's just she's obviously referring to the fact that the The beginning of every show, you sort of introduce you. Not every show, but yeah, I mean, I.

You say, you know, hello, pickles. Well, sometimes I call them pickles, peaches, puddings, plums and pears.

Matt.

But people very much pick up on the pickles part and. And people write in saying, you know.

That was very nice when you called us all pickles. When you say people write in, Jennifer has.

Has anyone else ever written in to say they like it? That many have. and one or two have said, why do you call people pickles?

And why do you?

That's not the important part here. It just sounds cute, doesn't it? It's an endearing term.

Now hold on. This is what I'm picking up on, is that, and what Jennifer, I think, is picking up on, maybe perhaps unconsciously, but when you call people pickles, are you doing that as a way to teach them to be more picky? with men.

Well, can I answer that, Jameson? He's not. There's no great meaning to it. It's not some. Some double entendre. It's just Stephen calling people pickles.

Right.

When you put it like that, that's true.

Right.

So do we. Can we put it. Can we put it on the table for discussion? Whether we continue with it.

It's a tough one, isn't it? Do you lose it while they're loving it? I mean, who's loving it? There's a way of going out on a high in a way you're right.

Yeah.

People mentioning it, people email in on iTunes, pickles all over that thing.

So that is what you're saying, Matt, is that you think it's so great that it should be retired like Jordan at 23. It's brilliant. Like the number 20. It's a brilliant strategy. Yeah, you come back, you can come back with something. It'll be number 45, but. you're going to end up going back to Pickles. But no, you're right.

It's genius.

It's a good narrative.

So just retire. So then on that base, if I agree to that logic, we'll agree to retire it.

Well, steady on.

Well, the same way Jordan retired 20.

We'll see what the people say.

I tell you what, if you don't like Pickles, email us podcast@matthewhussie.com.

It'S a leading question, isn't it?

If, if you do like Pickles, I'm getting there.

Any comments about, okay, us.

Tell us your preference, pickles on, or does pickles go or does it stay as a term of endearment for our listeners? Let us know, podcast@matthewhussy.com well, let's get into the episode, shall we?

Yes, please.

We had a question from, well this was actually from one of the members of our Love Life Club. For many of you, you don't know, we have an exclusive club called the Love Life Club with members who tune in every month to private sessions. This was a question from one of those sessions for members who says, I have had the tendency to go after emotionally unavailable men for most of my romantic life. I find somewhat withdrawn, slightly standoffish, Often creative men, super sexy, yet I know they don't generally make a good partner for me. You talked about the need to chase the right thing, but what if that thing doesn't get me going? Can you become attracted to something that's better for you? And that's from, well, I won't actually say this person's name because she's one of our members, so I will maintain her anonymity because it wasn't sent publicly.

Well, I have some questions for you on this.

Can we just define the chasing the right thing? Because some people might be new to that idea here on the podcast. And this is something we've been saying a lot in recent times, is this idea of chasing the right thing versus the wrong thing. My fiance, Audrey, was the one who originally would say this phrase to me over and over again, that happiness comes ultimately from chasing the right things. And that reliably, unhappiness will come from chasing the wrong things. And whether we learn it now or later, eventually, even if the wrong things create a thrill in our lives, even if the wrong things bring us a sense of pleasure or a high, Eventually, we will always end up on that same realization that the wrong things produce unhappiness consistently and reliably. And in this context, this member of ours is talking about the wrong things for her as being someone who represents a withdrawn, standoffish, kind of energy that she also describes as sort of being synonymous with creativity. And these men she finds sexy, but she's defined these qualities as the wrong thing because it makes her unhappy and it leads to pain for her.

Now, are we talking, I'm thinking archetypes in my head. Maybe not looks-wise getting a woman going, but Stanley Kubrick, a film director, an intense man, perhaps a genius, known for being very difficult. Standoffish, sure. Should have seen him and Jack Nicholson on the Shining, bloody at it like a couple of wolves. Is that the archetype?

So, I'm almost 100% sure this is not who was in her mind when you were...

I'm shocked that's where you went. Stanley Kubrick.

I just thought creative, withdrawn, standoffish.

You couldn't go for someone that is...

Like a younger, sexier director.

I don't know. I mean, any more obvious choice in the world... That's still alive, for one thing.

And... David Fincher.

Is that... Yeah, I mean... You only.

Go with, like, the top five directors ever living, as the archetype that women find attractive.

I mean, it's really... You may as well have said Albert Einstein.

Yeah, well, I don't know if he was standoffish, but I think... I'm thinking...

It's really odd. It's really a really weird example.

I'm just saying what comes to mind. We're thinking sexy, creative men who are difficult. That's the archetype.

I suppose. In her case, yes. I think we have to look at it as, I didn't, you know, if you take what's at the heart of a question like this, it's what happens when what turns us on seems to consistently result in heartbreak. What happens when what we get attracted to is bad for us.

Yeah, and this question of whether do some people, which I suspect a lot of people feel, have inherently a toxic radar or a bad filter? Like one thing just weighs too heavily. Like I am just find that something about the guy, something literally about the guy who is withdrawn and difficult but talented is really attractive. And it's that very quality even that I like. I think the question then becomes, is it that you are placing an emphasis on the wrong thing? You've just weighted that wrongly, or is it that there is something about a toxic trait that has a... It also has a great side that you're really attracted to?

Now hold on, I think you gotta close this loop. I need some archetypes, I need some sexy, artistic, Celebrities that you guys have in mind here. Who are the archetypes? Give me someone besides Stanley Kubrick.

I mean, you're literally talking to someone who my knowledge of celebrities out there that would be widely known is pretty bad. When you're asking me to go as Niche's creatives that are aloof and withdrawn. I mean, would you say, is that.

Do you think that's probably Leo? Do we get that impression from Leo? Is he not artistic enough? He's just too...

They wouldn't say Leo DiCaprio is standoffish. I wouldn't think that's what people's perception of him is, but he is quite withdrawn. You don't know much about him. Maybe.

How about like James Franco?

Bad example.

Okay. I guess that is a bad example. What about like Jake Gyllenhaal?

Jake Gyllenhaal. Michael Fassbender. he's like an intense man, isn't he? Sort of a handsome actor who's known for being a bit intense and difficult.

Robert Pattinson, probably like that.

Right.

Robert Pattinson. He seems funny, though, but lovable, but, you know. Yeah, I think, though, you know, there's. There's that person. Maybe musician might be a good one as well.

Is any kind of the struggling artist. persona, the person who's deeply involved in their work and hasn't got time for you or anything else. The, you know, there's a, it's that person who wears their struggle and their creativity nobly and doesn't have the emotional space, the emotional availability for a relationship.

Yeah.

And you could broaden it out. Some people might say they're attracted to successful people who are, you you know, killing it in all kinds of areas of their lives, but they're also barely available and they're like Mr. Adventure, but they're hardly around. And I find it really attractive that he's hard to pin down and get a hold of, right, to get any of his attention.

All these exciting, the exciting, you know, of any kind that, that person. I, but I. You know, when we're thinking of this kind of a quality, we have to ask ourselves, what's the thing that's attractive here? If we're saying creativity is attractive, if this person is saying, I'm attracted to creative people, and she's making that synonymous with being withdrawn or slightly standoffish, that's a limiting belief. And we can find all sorts of limiting beliefs when we think about, you know, oh, I like creatives, but creatives are always this. Well, no, they're not. You know, I have plenty of creative friends who are warm and kind and passionate and interested and curious and have time for people. and make great partners. So the idea that, you know, I.

Don'T know if I'd describe Jameson as passionate, but the others, sure.

I mean, Jameson's a great example. He's a lovely man and a great.

Husband.

And he's creative.

It's funny, I really have nothing to add to this. It's just good pod.

And modest.

And modest. But you, you know, that, that's.

Well, I do think it's an interesting, it's an interesting point because you say you have a lot of artistic friends or creative type friends in La. And I feel that way, too. I will say, though, that a lot of those friends may have gone through phases where they were certainly more selfish with their time or didn't quite have their life balanced, worked out, and so were a bit you know, could probably, yeah, be described a little bit more as difficult.

And that's when that, but that's the point where we have to say, I'm going to have a filter for anyone who initially is attractive but turns out to be not willing to invest, inconsistent with the way they show up in my life, not communicative, make me feel unsure of where I stand with them. I'm not that the bare minimum for me is going to be that I feel that they are there, that they are consistent, that they make me feel good. That's going to be the bare minimum. That's about having a standard that has nothing to do with your tastes. That's, yes, maybe I do want certain qualities in a person, but I'm not going to sacrifice my bare minimum standard of respect and being treated well and being made to feel safe for that quality. And if you've told yourself that you need to sacrifice your standard for a quality that you like in somebody, you will now start to only see people who come with the dark side. You won't see people who have the whole package. You'll begin to just focus on people because you've already made that concession before you start. And you'll go find people who are like that. And you'll never know if those people could be better because you won't actually ever have a standard with those people because you'll have already convinced yourself that you can't have one without the other. So when you feel the dark side, when you feel that person being withdrawn or aloof or inconsistent, not making you feel safe, instead of having a boundary around that and saying, Hey, if this doesn't get better, if I don't feel connected to you in the ways that I need, if I don't feel you show up in the ways that I need, I'm out. I don't care how creative you are. That, by the way, that conversation might make someone pull up their socks, but you'll never know if you've already decided that you have to make this concession to get what you want. And I suspect that for a lot of people, The reason they have come to believe, the reason they've come to kind of focus on these people that make them unhappy is not because they are attracted to the wrong things. It's because of a self-esteem issue. It's because the person who is creative and is a great individual and has a lot to offer as a partner. That person is really scary. That person is really challenging, you know, because that's overwhelming. It's easier to kind of oscillate between dating the boring nine to five pencil pushing, you know, the archetypal accountant, right? No offense to accountants. I don't, not here to slant on accountants at all. But that idea of someone who does the mundane and then not creative and they live a boring life and they're, you know, but they treat me well. You, this person is oscillating between that where they complain about how boring they are and then getting with someone who's super creative and aloof and treats them badly and then complaining about not being treated right, but being excited about the person and then going back to the boring account and, and then deciding that's too boring and going back to the creative, exciting person who treats them like crap. If you think about what both of those extremes have in common. It's that they represent a low standard.

Yeah.

They represent a safe, a kind of safety.

Right.

The safety is I'm going for someone that loves me, but I find not interesting.

Yeah.

Or I'm going for somebody who's a different kind of safety, which is. They're exciting, but they treat me poorly. But I kind of knew what I was getting all along, and I didn't expect a lot. And therefore it's sort of, yes, I can get my heart broken, but in a way, I'm sort of signing. I know what I'm signing up for, and there's a protection in that. I'm going for the devil I know. Yeah. But to find.

And then I get to. Later, almost I get to complain that they were a dick later. And that in people, I've heard this term that Pete Holmes has used, a comedian before, called existential kink. And it's like the way we can get almost subtly addicted to our, the thing we complain about the most, or the thing we say we hate, we have some weird little affinity for it. Like, I get to complain that they were a selfish asshole, or I get to be, you know, feel like, oh, I'm always with these creative, you know, brilliant men who are just jerks inside, and they're selfish, and it's. It's a weird, Twisted relationship we have with it. Like, someone might have, like, I love complaining about my mother, or I love getting angry at this situation at work. I create this really difficult situation, and then I get to complain how stressed I am and how busy I am because it's my, like, existential Kink.

Yeah, well, and there's a safety in it, right? I can feel righteous in it, or I can feel, you know, it's what I know. It's. Yeah, I. I like the idea of an existential Kink. I remember Christopher Hitchens being taped once being asked. if he could get rid of religion, would he? And he said no. And Richard Dawkins, for those that aren't aware of Christopher Hitchens, he was an avid atheist who would go out and rail against religion. And he was one of a group of four people who were very well known at the time. who were atheistic thinkers and philosophers. And Richard Dawkins, another well-known atheist, asked him if he would get rid of religion. And he said, no. And Dawkins was just absolutely astonished. He could not understand it. But it seemed to be that at the heart of it was that Hitchens actually liked complaining about religion. He actually enjoyed the debate of it.

I always think about this one quote I heard from Hitch too. I think about it strangely a lot, which is he was talking about like what motivates him and what gets him up in the morning. He's like, oh, a little bit of hate can really help you get up in the morning. He would just hate things and really be motivated quite positively about it because he's such a prolific writer and a journalist and I always think about like, you know, It's sort of the antithesis of the Sam Harris model, where it's like, okay, compartmentalize emotions, notice them arise, be into mindfulness, and like a knack for Buddhism and stuff. And Hitch was just like, no, hate's pretty good as a motivator. Always cracks me up.

Hey, everyone. Before we continue with this episode, I want to remind everyone that this particular question came from one of our Love Life Club members. And this came from a Love Life training session that I did with all of our members, which is a far more exclusive group than we have anywhere else. It's a fraction of the size of any of our audiences anywhere else. And it's a private group of people that I help every month on a path to finding love, becoming the most confident version of themselves, being the best they can be in a relationship, and loving life along the way. And it's where I really get to coach people. This question that we're doing the episode on today was only a small moment of a one and a half hour training session where I was answering member questions. And I do this every month in this club. Not only that, but I do master classes on various topics from attraction CPR, if someone has lost interest, to overcoming heartbreak, to spotting red flags, to meeting people. And those masterclasses typically run one to two hours in length and are really deep dives into the topics that matter to people most. And on top of that, inside the Love Life Club, we have experts. Our experts of late have been Dr. Ramani, the world leading expert on narcissism. We have had Emily Morse, the sex expert. We have had Guy Winch, one of the world leading therapists out there and also a dear friend. We have had Lewis Howes, Ramit Sethi. We've had amazing people come and join us in this Love Life Club for exclusive conversations just for our Love Life members. All of this could be available to you if you become a Love Life Club member. and the good news is you can literally join us for a free trial by going to askmh.com that's a s k m h.com askmh.com when you go there you'll get an opportunity to sign up for a 14-day free trial period where you can literally enjoy the videos in the members area see your exclusive members portal join our members Community on Facebook and meet other like-minded people all across the world on the same journey, get access to some of our exclusive conversations with experts, join a couple of live webinars, and be part of this amazing roadmap we have for finding love that goes beyond anything we do anywhere else. We love that you listen to the podcast. We will keep making the podcast, but if you want a journey that sets out a real path to finding love, to healing your own wounds, developing a better relationship with yourself and falling in love with your life, come join us in the Love Life Club. It's a whole different experience. Go to askmh.com to start your free trial. Now back to the episode. The problem is we get very used to certain kinds of people. And when we get used to certain kinds of people, we forget that there are other kinds of people around. In this person's case, this idea that the only person that would challenge her and that she would find sexy is the creative person who also happens to be aloof and standoffish. There's also, by the way, the creative person who is passionate and shows up for you, but at the same time has their own things going on, it doesn't put up with your shit, is a challenging thinker, and frankly is the person that if you don't bring your A game, you're gonna lose. and it has nothing to do with them not being available. It has to do with you. You're just with someone who's kind of a winner. You're with someone who's just got a lot of really great stuff to them, and therefore you feel challenged just by the fact that you need to be great to attract a person like this. That's a different kind of challenge. But if you think about it, it's a more It's actually a scarier kind of challenge. Because to attract the creative, sexy, aloof, standoffish person who treats you badly, you don't actually have to be great. You just have to be willing to tolerate bad behavior. But to attract someone who's challenging in more challenging ways, you actually have to rise up. And so I think it's an easy out when we say, oh, I'm always attracted to the people who, you know, have this sexy quality, but they treat me badly. It's kind of a way to say, I'm. I'm attracted to certain parts of this person that doesn't require me to be great. They just require me to be a doormat.

Yeah, like the jerk just requires you to tolerate, but someone great requires you to grow.

Exactly. Nicely said. Exactly. And the people that we're talking about here, those people with the dark side, those people that don't treat us well, the more we accept their bad behavior, the more we come to expect bad behavior. the more we come to just think that that's what's on offer for us. And I really do believe that we start to lose ourselves. I think that the more we train ourselves to only see a certain thing and to think that a certain thing is what we like, we no longer are aware that other things are available, that other behaviors are on the table. We forget how big the buffet is.

Yeah.

We forget how many different types of people there really are and just how wonderfully rich the assortment of personalities are that are available to us. And how many different ways people can be exciting. So I think that there's one danger that we just couple qualities together that don't have to belong together in this person's case, creativity with aloofness, disinterest. We can uncouple these things and find that same sexy creativity in people who don't have that. Now we have to address in any conversation about being attracted to the wrong things, the kind of attraction which attraction becomes a strange word for, but the kind of attraction that happens when we get attracted to the negative things that we grew up with, the negative things that we were that had modeled for us by our parents, the person whose parent was aloof and disinterested and withdrawn and the sense as an adult of trying to complete the story, trying to get closure on that. If I can just get this person to who is aloof and disinterested to want me, then I will have done what I couldn't do with my father or my father figure, which is a very, very, very common thing. that people do. That isn't about, you know, if we were to take this example, that wouldn't be, I'm just attracted to the creativity. And I have convinced myself that that only exists in standoffish, aloof people. It's no, no, no. I find myself in some way attracted to the aloofness. I find myself attracted to the disinterest and my. And we could say magnetized by it, right? Because people wouldn't necessarily consciously think of themselves as being attracted to it in a positive way, but they feel drawn to it. They feel sucked in by it, and they find themselves trying to overcome it. if I now I want to win this person's approval. It's much more interesting to win this person's approval than someone who more readily likes me.

I'm just, I'm actually really happy that you brought that up, which is what? I don't even know where to begin with advice like that. Like, do you just, is the advice just to notice? Because I guess it is sort of funny if you just notice that you seem to be attracted to this one thing and you can immediately relate that to your childhood, some unfulfilled promise from a parent figure. There is something kind of completely unsexy about that. That's like a biggest turn off. It's like oh wait, that's what my mom did. I guess you could just notice and hope that that noticing helps you kind of build a healthier pathway forward. But what do you do? I mean, that's like a really bad pattern that people get stuck in. And it is very, it's a very strange sort of curse of the human experience and condition that happens so consistently. Like those scars from the past just haunting your future.

Well, I have thought about this a lot, and I happen to think that the first step is becoming conscious of it, becoming conscious of that pattern. And if we can trace it back to where it came from and who in our lives we're trying to get closure with or complete the circle or prove that we were good enough for through the vehicle of this new person, is if we can get that level of awareness, that's amazing. But then what we have to do, I. I really believe that once we have that awareness, the breaking of the spell can come from realizing that the origin of it is the deification of some figure in our life that is. that has to be grown out of. You know, when we are a child and we have a parent or a parent figure or a role model that we're looking for something from and we're basing our entire worth on our ability to get that thing from that person. It happens at a time in our life where we are, our parents are God. We are kind of, we are deifying them. And they seem so important and all-knowing and all-powerful and everything they say seems, or we just take as truth. And the truth of our worth is at that time, it feels like is the truth of how much we are valued. by them or shown love by them.

And.

When we're an adult and we're still trying to get closure on that and we're still trying to prove something, if even if it's through new people, we're still trying to prove something to them. It's the. It's actually the continued deification of those people. It's never growing out of it. It's never coming to see that person. And I don't actually mean this in such a derogatory way as it's gonna sound, but it's coming to see that person for this sort of very human, even pathetic person that they really are. Because when you realize, oh my God, how much of me is based on a lack of approval from someone who's a kind of a moron or who didn't know what the hell they were doing, maybe still doesn't, who never even evolved to the place that I'm at today. Because, of course, many of us in life, even generationally, on some level have access to a kind of thinking or a kind of growth that that our parents didn't, not always, but a lot of the time, there's a kind of evolution of mindsets that our parents didn't have access to. It's one of the reasons why sometimes people struggle with their parents because they just realize they've grown up in a culture that has rewarded emotional intelligence or empathy or inclusiveness or that their parents never had. And so there's a kind of handicap that you have over your parents in that sense. But you come to realize that, oh, this person that I've deified, that I'm basing so many of my patterns around, it was, my God, just a frail and confused person making an awful lot of mistakes. But somewhere along the way, there's been a disconnect. There's been a disconnect where I've no doubt rebelled against the ways that my parents are in certain ways. I've rebelled. You know, we've rebelled against things we didn't like, and that's driven us in certain ways, certain directions in our lives. And we've maybe complained out loud about our parents, whatever, but. But the child in us may still be deifying a ghost. And that ghost is still having a profound impact on our lives today. And the choices we're making. And I believe that part of, to James and your point of how do you break that pattern? I do think part, after this first step of awareness, It's then to speak to the child in us and remind us, Hey, look who you're trying to impress still. Zoom out for a moment and.

You.

Have full context on your parents at this stage or on that person. Zoom out and look at the person that this child in you is unconsciously trying to impress. And when you can do that, and that ghost, that thing, that altar that you're praying to, starts to disintegrate and you realize there's nothing there. But this really, this huge figure that you've created that's imaginary. Once you do that, suddenly the person in front of you that you're trying to impress, the person you're dating right now, also starts to disintegrate. The scary part of them or the part of them that you're deifying, the part of them that you've made really big and powerful starts to disintegrate as well. And all that's left is, oh, there's nothing, there's actually nothing inherently sexy about this at all. It's just a construct. And what actually becomes really attractive is the simple things like kindness, the simple things like someone who cares, the simple things like teamwork, the simple things like someone being reliable or loyal. And I'm not discounting that there can still be sexy things about a person. I'm just saying that the sexiness no longer finds its home in dark features.

Yeah, and it goes from like fulfilling some abstract ideal you've constructed to how they treat you. I remember that phrase you said, you used to say, still do, which was like who likes you? And it always sounded absurdly simple. on the face of it, but actually there's great depth in that because when you can make the flip to not like who fulfills some part of you that feels like a hole in you you have to complete to be a full person, but like who actually treats you well, who actually seems like they've got qualities that are going to lead to happiness in the long term that, you know, makes you feel great and attractive. you kind of can't lose when you've got that radar. But it does take the work you're talking about to not be looking for external, this person will make me look successful, this person will make people jealous of me, this person will fulfill some rejection I felt like I had as an adolescent, and then when I finally win them, I'll feel that I've, you know, won the game.

But you know, when someone hears like, who likes you? what they hear is a kind of boring safety. Right. And that to me is the misnomer. That's where that's the place we have to catch ourselves because someone can like you and still be very, very challenging. You know, and the challenge can be not that they make you constantly question whether they like you. The challenge comes from knowing that you have an awesome person who would, if you fucked up, if you weren't treating them well, could find someone else tomorrow because they're great and you're lucky. You're lucky to be liked by them. You're lucky to be loved. by them. You know, to me, it's like, it's challenging if some guy hits on Audrey and I'm like reminded, oh yeah, oh yeah, like that's, of course she's awesome, of course she's hot, of course there's some, you know, other people notice something about her, she's great. that carries in itself a kind of challenge that you've got a great person or you've got someone with something about them, you've got something, someone with some allure. So that's a challenge without being made to feel like shit by Audrey.

To.

Say, like, I don't need that, that the part where I need to be treated poorly in order to feel challenged is a lack of self-esteem. If Audrey as a person didn't challenge me, that's a problem.

Yeah.

But we have to separate the two. Find someone who challenges you, but don't find someone who makes you question yourself.

I think what's so beautiful about the way you've, you painted that picture of just like the disintegration of the sort of toxic qualities that you're drawn to or even drawn to for toxic reasons. It's just such a powerful, powerful visual that I think, yeah, as you grow older and as you speak to that sort of inner child as you're talking about, that is something that I think if you can grasp onto that and if you can continue to grow past that. Yeah, it's really beautiful. It just leaves it. What it leaves there is just so pure. And that inherent challenge that you're talking about is it is, you know, I mean, you can really break the spell. I mean, I guess that's what we should leave people with.

I agree. And as a practical step for anyone out there, you know, It's obviously speaking to that inner child is one part of the practical side of this. And that can be done by yourself. It could be done in therapy. It can be done with us on our retreats or anything like that. But that's one side of it. The other side of it is take small steps of curiosity in different directions than the ones you've taken so far. Notice that you're in a groove and when you're in a groove, we just keep doing the same thing by default because it's what we know. There's a self-esteem element to why we've ended up there, but now there's just a pure tunnel vision comfort element to why now I just don't even see that there are other things. So there's not just a self-esteem element, it's a I'm so deep in this groove right now that when I turn left and right, all I see is the walls of this groove. I don't actually see anything else anymore. And one of the ways out of that is to just start being curious about what other types of experience other people in the world are having. What other types of people are other people meeting? Who else is out there? go on dates with people you might not normally go on dates with. If for no other reason than to experience a different kind of person or a different kind of treatment. You know, date someone who treats you really well for a change and just experience that. If for no other reason, then the next time someone doesn't treat you well, you have a barometer for how well you like to be treated. You remember, oh, yeah, people actually do sometimes treat each other well. I'm not gonna, I'm not okay with this. And then the interesting thing is you might come across someone who initially doesn't treat you too well, but because you have that new standard, you demand more of that person and that person rises to the occasion. Yeah. Or they don't and you discard them because you now have a baseline for what you will and won't accept. And you might even find yourself in a situation where you're shocked to realize that someone treats you well and you find them challenging in ways that allow them to be sexy to you and turn you on. So be curious. Step outside of that groove in small ways and see what different experiences that leads to. That's one of the great secrets, I think, to life, is that new beliefs are built on new experiences and new experiences are built on that simplest of things, which is curiosity of what experiences of life are available that we in our groove haven't been experiencing. But we can at least remain humble enough to know that what we've experienced is not what all 8 billion people on this earth are experiencing. And some of that might be available to us. if we were brave enough to just get a little curious. Well, thank you, everyone, for being with us today. It's. This has turned into a really interesting episode. We would love to know what you think of the episode. Please write us just some feedback on iTunes. It would mean a lot to us. And, you know, we We really would love to have you share your experience of this podcast with other people and with us. You don't even have to, you know, if you want to go and review the podcast, that's fine. But iTunes is also just a great place to let us know what a particular episode meant to you. And we're not such a big, big podcast right now that we can't read all of those reviews. The beauty of where we are right now is that we can actually read all of those reviews and do. So, please leave us a review on iTunes. I want to let everyone know that we have a free guide if you don't want to wait until the next episode of the podcast to continue your progress. We have a free guide that gives you three habits that you can apply to your love life that will put you on the track to more opportunities in your love life. More happiness and frankly just enjoying life more along the way while you're searching and that's at 3lovehabits.com so if you go to 3lovehabits.com you can literally download that guide in the next 20 seconds. Do that now while you remember because I know that a lot of people leave the scene of the podcast, say they're going to do it and then they forget. So go to 3lovehabits.com to get that And I do just want to remind everybody that our in-person retreat is coming up really, really quickly now. It's happening from the 30th of May until the 5th of June. That's happening in Florida. We are going to have an amazing time together for six days for anyone who's, as a result of this podcast, this episode, thinking this is exactly the kind of inner work that I need to do. You know, it's not just about learning tips for dating. I really need to do the inner work to break my patterns in my love life. The retreat is where we do that deep work. That's why it was originally created, is because we realized competence in our dating lives isn't worth anything if we don't have the confidence and the right wiring internally to back it up and to break our patterns. If you want to go and apply for that program while there's still time, barely, go to mhretreat.com that's MH, my initials, Matthew Hussey, mhretreat.com and when you're there, you can book an appointment with one of our retreat specialists. They will spend anywhere from 30 to 60 minutes with you on the phone talking about where you're at in your life, what you want to achieve over the next year in any part of your life, and how the retreat may help you. It's an invite only program, but if they think it's right for you where you are at in your life right now, they will extend you an invite and you could have the chance to come and spend six days with us being coached by me and Stephen and my team. in Florida for six days starting on May the 30th. This is our first one back in two and a half years.

Certainly is.

And we are unbelievably excited to be together in person for the Matthew Hussey retreat. So that's@mhretreat.com Now before we go Steve, would you like to read one of our iTunes reviews?

Yes, we got a lovely iTunes review from Parkassi who says, you know what I need to hear. She says, My boyfriend of seven years broke up with me last week and it has been a rough week. I was searching various self-improvement podcasts to help me benefit from my free time and distract from the painful thoughts in my head. I landed on this podcast based on content and reviews and holy cow, it's like he is speaking directly to me. It's bizarre how perfectly he captures the different aspects of various relationship dynamics. This has been unbelievably healing and supportive at a time I needed it the most. Highly recommend. Thank you so much, Parkassi. That's really, really what we love to hear.

Yeah, thank you Parkassi. That means a lot to me and so do all of your reviews. As evidenced by Parkassi, those reviews matter because they help someone make the decision to listen. So feel free to leave us a review on iTunes when you get the chance. Thank you so much, everyone. Thank you to Jamison and Stephen for being here with me. And thank you to all of you for listening. We will speak to you in the next episode of Love Life. Goodbye.

See you soon.

Bye, Pickles.