The Obvious Red Flag You Should Never Ignore When Dating | Rewind

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If you don't protect yourself from that person, no one else can protect you and you'll be harming yourself. And when you harm yourself like that, you diminish your ability to give love to other people. Welcome everybody to the Love Life Podcast. I am Matthew Hussey and this is a clip from the archives that I think is really going to help you today. Check it out and I'll speak to you at the end of the episode. Steve, there is a quite well-known Maya Angelou quote that struck me as being extraordinarily important when it comes to relationships. She was once famously speaking to Oprah and she said, When people show you who they are, believe them. They know themselves much better than you do. And she was referring to those moments where people say, I'm a selfish person. I'm not a kind person. I don't think of other people a lot. you know, when people, I'm a mean person, when people say those things and we shrug them off.

I've had that on first dates. I've had people go like, I'm just really mean. I can be just so, I can just be so nasty.

Yeah. And that's a moment where you should believe someone. It's not when your brother or your sister or your son or your daughter says that to you, your job is to see the best in them. Your job is to see what they can be. Your job is to encourage them to be their best. That is what you do for family or for people you love. You see the generous thing you can do for someone you love is to see the best in them even when they do not see it in themselves so that they can be better through your love. Sometimes with family, it's not always an equal exchange. With family, we do things for family because we love them, and we're not trying to get anything. We just want to love them. That's the job, right? And if a family member is toxic or is truly detrimental or dangerous for your life, that's a different story. And you have to decide how close you can keep that person. But that aside, You can love a family member without expectation, without wanting something in return. The same is not true of romantic love. If you love someone without expectation, that's unrequited. That's a recipe for unrequited love, where you can just love someone who's not good for your life or is ignoring you or is not investing back. That's a disaster. misappropriated generosity. And when someone tells us, I'm a mean person, I'm selfish, I'm unkind, I don't think of other people, I'm not looking for something. When we ignore that, it's at our own peril. Because they're telling us something about themselves. and we have to assume they have no reason to lie to me right now. Yeah, right.

So if someone says they're jealous, they don't surprise you by never being jealous. You know, oh, you said you were jealous, but you're never jealous.

They know themselves much better than you do.

So when people say things like that, what's going on that we don't heed their warning? Why don't we Take that at face value.

It's this idea that our job, when we feel something intensely for somebody, is to just keep loving them. But you don't just have one job in life. Loving someone or showing love, giving love in life is only one of our jobs. The other job is to protect ourselves. In a boxing ring, what does the ref say at the beginning of every fight? There's the same line that gets said from every boxing referee in every fight that ever happens. Looks at both boxes and says, Protect yourself at all times. When at a certain point in a fight, A referee determines that one of the fighters is no longer capable of protecting themselves because they're punch drunk, they're not putting their arms up anymore, they're not guarding punches, they are just taking a beating that's putting them in genuine peril, genuine danger, and could be causing serious long-term harm. That referee stops the fight. Protect yourself at all times. And when the fighter can no longer protect themselves, they stop the fight. The problem in love is that there is no referee that comes along and stops the fight if you're no longer protecting yourself. Your job is to be that referee. Your job is to be both the fighter and the referee. in that fight. And if you get to a point where you can no longer protect yourself, if you get to a point where you realize, I'm just taking a beating emotionally, I'm spiritually, my soul is taking a beating in this relationship. Your job is to stop the fight and remove yourself from the ring. But too many people ignore what they know about someone, ignore how someone makes them feel, and keep in the ring with that person taking that punishment. They forget that they have two jobs, not just one. One job is to go out and love in the world. The other one is to protect yourself at all times. Why? because that's a form of self-love. That's a form of self-care. That's a form of self-preservation. Because if you don't protect yourself from someone who means you harm, whether it directly means you harm or just causes you harm because of what they do unconsciously, they're an unconscious person who's being driven by selfish desires, egoic desires. If you don't protect yourself from that person, no one else can protect you and you'll be harming yourself. And when you harm yourself like that, you diminish your ability to give love to other people.

So what is it then that gives you that ability to be your own referee, to be the person who's frozen the towel and calls the fight and says, that's enough, I'm done, I'm out. Is it wisdom? Is it a particular kind of courage?

It's taking responsibility for looking after yourself, for your own wellbeing. Instead of just seeing it as your responsibility to love somebody because, oh my God, no, when you really get to know them, they're wonderful. Oh, but you don't understand, we have such great chemistry, we have such a great connection. That's all seeing your job as being to love them. But that's not your only job. That's not your only responsibility. It's to take care of you. And when you say your only job is to be loving towards someone else, your abdicating responsibility for loving yourself. Your job is not to mindlessly take punishment. It is to protect yourself because protecting yourself means more love for everyone else and everything else in your life. It means your soul, your love, what you have to give is not diminished by the person in front of you. And for anyone, by the way, who is ready right now to start taking better care of themselves. Who is ready to start loving themselves on a different level and building a different level of confidence with themselves, have a different relationship with themselves. Our virtual retreat is coming up and it is going to be three days of coaching immersion that is going to change the way you relate to yourself forever. And when you change the way you relate to yourself, you change your results in life, you change how happy you are, you change how at peace you are, and you change how much you rely on any person to make you feel good enough. And when your strength comes from within, you make all sorts of wonderful choices that a previous you would not have made. And that's when your life begins to change because you start making different choices. So if you want to sign up to that, if you want to find out more, it is upon us. If you this is the last chance to be a part of this. It is a mhvirtualretreat.com We'll see you there.

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