Speaker 1: This podcast should not be used as a substitute for
Speaker 1: medical or mental health advice. Individuals are advised to seek
Speaker 1: independent medical advice, counseling, and or therapy from a healthcare
Speaker 1: professional with respect to any medical condition, mental health issue,
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Speaker 1: The views and opinions expressed are solely those of the
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Speaker 1: not represent the opinions of Red Table Talk productions, iHeartMedia,
Speaker 1: or their employees. So if I can be curious, not
Speaker 1: that the next thing I'm going to do is the
Speaker 1: next best thing or that it's going to be the
Speaker 1: perfect thing, but if I can just be curious about
Speaker 1: way of living, that's don't mind. Curiosity is the gateway
Speaker 1: to a new belief, and it's much easier to flow
Speaker 1: with curiosity than it is to suddenly go I can
Speaker 1: believe something different. Can you figure out if you're dating
Speaker 1: a narcissist? That question comes up all the time, and
Speaker 1: you are about to find out that it's the wrong question.
Speaker 1: After the thousands of videos and content and social media
Speaker 1: posts that talk about the biggest red flags and the
Speaker 1: five signs that you're dating a narcissist. Turns out it
Speaker 1: may not be the right approach. Today, we are going
Speaker 1: to hear from one of the best dating and relationships
Speaker 1: experts in the business, Matthew Hussey. If you don't know Matthew,
Speaker 1: he is a New York Times best selling author and
Speaker 1: has the number one dating advice channel in the world.
Speaker 1: His YouTube videos have been viewed more than four hundred
Speaker 1: and seventy million times, and his on reaches more than
Speaker 1: ten million followers weekly. He is also the host of
Speaker 1: the podcast Love Life with Matthew Hussey. Today, we're going
Speaker 1: to hear his perspective and belief that by putting all
Speaker 1: of your effort into trying to avoid another toxic relationship,
Speaker 1: you may be missing what he believes is the real antidote,
Speaker 1: which is focusing on you giving yourself permission to hold
Speaker 1: standards for yourself and slowing way down. And we will
Speaker 1: also talk about why this is uniquely difficult for survivors
Speaker 1: of narcissistic relationships. Matthew's a good friend and it is
Speaker 1: a pleasure to welcome him here on navigating narcissism. We're
Speaker 1: here with Matthew Hussey. Matthew, welcome. It's so nice to
Speaker 1: have you here. What a great way to kick off
Speaker 1: this second season. And I'm so honored and happy to
Speaker 1: be here. I've done many many kind of podcasts in
Speaker 1: my life, but this is this is a special one
Speaker 1: for me to be able to team up with you. Well,
Speaker 1: it's so nice to have you. I thought, I when
Speaker 1: I woke up this morning, I thought, ah, I have
Speaker 1: a friend going on today. And these conversations we've had
Speaker 1: in sort of bits and pieces, we've had them, you know,
Speaker 1: to your community, but we've never had when that's I
Speaker 1: think all entirely focused on. You know, what I really
Speaker 1: consider is dating in the era of narcissism, where it
Speaker 1: seems to be so ubiquitous. We've talked a lot about
Speaker 1: the back end of these stories, what happens when relationships
Speaker 1: become toxic, what happens to people, But what we don't
Speaker 1: talk about is sort of the front end. And so
Speaker 1: that's what I'd love for us to talk about. To
Speaker 1: hear from you, a dating expert who's not only worked
Speaker 1: with thousands of women, and I know a lot of
Speaker 1: women have really been transformed by your advice but what's
Speaker 1: compelling to me is you've also worked with thousands of men.
Speaker 1: How are you helping them navigate these waters? There's toxic
Speaker 1: people there, so what do you think is what are
Speaker 1: you telling them is the most efficient way to pick
Speaker 1: out toxic patterns early on when they meet someone new.
Speaker 1: I would almost start with the first principle, which is
Speaker 1: that we have to stop trying to become these razor
Speaker 1: sharp experts all the time in immediately within minutes or
Speaker 1: hours of knowing someone what their nature is, and actually,
Speaker 1: to be honest, kind of maybe a little bit give
Speaker 1: up on that idea. The problem is the moment we
Speaker 1: get arrogant about how great we are at deciding how
Speaker 1: wonderful everyone else is. You know, we love saying about ourselves.
Speaker 1: I'm a wonderful judge of character. I think I'm a
Speaker 1: great judge of character, And man, have I got it
Speaker 1: wrong in my life. When I even take my business,
Speaker 1: I have made hires that I'm convinced are going to
Speaker 1: be so great. We you know, they in every way
Speaker 1: they seem to pass the checks. The interview is amazing,
Speaker 1: and you know, I'm convinced this is going to be great,
Speaker 1: and I sell the team on them, you know, And
Speaker 1: that's the hard part. I sell the team on them.
Speaker 1: This person is going to be great, and then they
Speaker 1: turn out not to be competent, or they turn out
Speaker 1: to have an issue. Once it gets hard, once it
Speaker 1: actually becomes difficult, once the reality of the job sets in,
Speaker 1: it's really humbling for me, how wrong I can be.
Speaker 1: I always remember those moments. I always remind myself that firstly,
Speaker 1: we don't know even by the way, you know, calling
Speaker 1: someone's references is a much better way than this to know.
Speaker 1: And it's always shocking to me still, how these days,
Speaker 1: how few of us actually do call people's references. But
Speaker 1: even when we call people's references, we rarely get the
Speaker 1: truth from those references. We rarely get the real difficult
Speaker 1: parts of that relationship and why that person may have
Speaker 1: been let go, or why the relationship didn't work out,
Speaker 1: why they're no longer working for that company. And in dating,
Speaker 1: we don't even get references. Can you imagine if we did, though?
Speaker 1: Can you imagine if you could call references when you
Speaker 1: were dating someone, Oh what a world. It would be
Speaker 1: extraordinary if you really got an insight. But we don't,
Speaker 1: And so we're relying on in the beginning, probably a
Speaker 1: dating profile for a lot of people these days, or
Speaker 1: a first meeting or a first date, and it really
Speaker 1: tells you very little about the relationship, tells you a
Speaker 1: lot about how fun someone is to spend an hour
Speaker 1: or two with, how charming they are, and even certain
Speaker 1: things that we might say are good indicators. You might say, well,
Speaker 1: this person is a great listener, you know, because I
Speaker 1: always think that one kind of caricatured way of look
Speaker 1: a narcissist on a date is that a narcissist is
Speaker 1: more worried about being impressive than they are being impressed
Speaker 1: by you. They they want to show you how great
Speaker 1: they are. I always say, narcissists will give you the
Speaker 1: date of your life. You know you you will have
Speaker 1: the most amazing time, and you'll come away screaming about
Speaker 1: how wonderful it was. But that's because they impressed you.
Speaker 1: Most likely it's because there's something about them and the
Speaker 1: show they put on that was really exciting. So you
Speaker 1: could say, okay, well, then you really have to say,
Speaker 1: who's impressed by me? Who's a good listener, who actually
Speaker 1: asks me questions? And that's certainly a tick. But it's
Speaker 1: also something that people can do when they know how
Speaker 1: to make you like them even more. You know, if
Speaker 1: I'm a good listener and if I ask you lots
Speaker 1: of questions about yourself and I'm engrossed, then I also
Speaker 1: know that that's going to have a big impact on you.
Speaker 1: So I think that I guess the punchline is that character,
Speaker 1: true character. The kind of character we're looking for is
Speaker 1: the right values over time, and time is what you
Speaker 1: do not have early on when you're making those judgments.
Speaker 1: And that's why I almost think we have to let
Speaker 1: go of this idea that we're so raise a sharp
Speaker 1: at judging people and instead say, I don't know. I
Speaker 1: haven't heard anyone say it quite that way. And I
Speaker 1: love that idea of We've got to get over this
Speaker 1: idea of us being this expert and great judge of
Speaker 1: character from the jump. For a couple of reasons, I
Speaker 1: can say, as recently as the last few months, the
Speaker 1: mistakes I've made people I let them if I don't know,
Speaker 1: and this is what I do. We aren't and there's
Speaker 1: there's a reason for that where I want to get
Speaker 1: to in a minute. But by putting this onus on
Speaker 1: people if you should be able to pick this up.
Speaker 1: Because I get that question all the time. Doctor Romany
Speaker 1: tell us five things to look for on the first team.
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, it's early, Like do they scream at
Speaker 1: the valet? I don't know, you know? And so but
Speaker 1: I think that what you've done, it's even lifted that
Speaker 1: pressure off of someone like me who's being asked an
Speaker 1: impossible question, because what it does is it lifts a
Speaker 1: shame from people who say, why didn't I pick up
Speaker 1: on all these red flags on the first date. Now,
Speaker 1: when you're back constructed one or two years in, they'll say, oh,
Speaker 1: some of the stuff right there on the first date.
Speaker 1: But again, we're really good at retrospectively putting pieces together.
Speaker 1: It's really hard in real time when you yourself are
Speaker 1: also in a state of sort of heightened like who
Speaker 1: is this person I'm learning about them? You can't be
Speaker 1: the expert. And I think that that's that's actually very
Speaker 1: freeing for people to hear that it is you cannot
Speaker 1: be sort of narcissism detective or toxic detective or anything
Speaker 1: like that on a first date. It's just it's it's
Speaker 1: a ridiculous ass and it also can turn us into
Speaker 1: a person we don't want to be. Right essentially just
Speaker 1: a detective for red flags. Yeah, that's not a version
Speaker 1: of us we want to be. It doesn't make us
Speaker 1: a compelling person to spend time with it as someone
Speaker 1: who's constantly kind of squinting and flinching and looking at
Speaker 1: everyone's move and trying to extrapolate that out. And I
Speaker 1: prefer to be a little less judgmental in a way,
Speaker 1: but also a little less quick to decide how wonderful
Speaker 1: someone is. Kind of almost almost have fun, be in
Speaker 1: the moment, enjoy the date. I'm not saying to someone
Speaker 1: be unromantic about the date itself. Have that great time,
Speaker 1: but we have to have ways of checking ourselves and
Speaker 1: kind of letting some of that pressure out afterwards, so
Speaker 1: that you know, it's almost like we blow off. We
Speaker 1: have to burn off a bit of that energy that's
Speaker 1: been created sometimes because it's a potent mix when we
Speaker 1: want to find love, adding some excitement at having met
Speaker 1: someone you have a connection with, adding a little insecurity,
Speaker 1: adding some scarcity that you haven't met anyone you liked
Speaker 1: in a while, and you have a very potent mix.
Speaker 1: You are no longer or a neutral judge of this situation,
Speaker 1: and so I think that people have to say it
Speaker 1: we'll see as a magical phrase. We'll see. You know,
Speaker 1: your friends will ask you how is the date, and
Speaker 1: you say, oh my god, it was such a great date.
Speaker 1: And he did this, and he did that, and they
Speaker 1: did this, and your friends will say, oh my god,
Speaker 1: and they'll amp you up even more. Your friends are
Speaker 1: dangerous because they then namp you up. Yeah, and there
Speaker 1: has to be to me, we'll see captures it perfectly.
Speaker 1: It doesn't say I'm pessimistic. It just says I don't
Speaker 1: know what I don't know. Could this become something? Maybe
Speaker 1: we'll see. Is this person as wonderful as I hope
Speaker 1: they are? Yeah, we'll see. Right. So it's pacing because
Speaker 1: you're talking now about something that I talk a lot
Speaker 1: about narcissistic relationships, which is discernment, right. So, and discernment
Speaker 1: is that part between not constantly looking for red flags
Speaker 1: but also not getting almost sort of drunk on the
Speaker 1: wonderfulness of it. It's finding that middle ground where you're saying, basically,
Speaker 1: slow your role a little bit like take it slow,
Speaker 1: take it in, enjoy the goodness. Don't feel like you
Speaker 1: have to be a detective, but also give yourself time
Speaker 1: to be discerning. But if we if we take our
Speaker 1: time with anything, we are going to learn a lot
Speaker 1: more about it. And there is a rush. I think
Speaker 1: people feel a rush to feel yes. And look, I've
Speaker 1: met friends in the last forty eight hours, new people
Speaker 1: that I really really like and impressed and am impressed with,
Speaker 1: and in some cases I'm a little kind of almost
Speaker 1: intimidated by it because they have done such wonderful things
Speaker 1: in their life and that, you know, I feel that
Speaker 1: urging me. I feel the teenage Matthew kind of rise
Speaker 1: up and go I want to be liked so badly
Speaker 1: by this person. I think they're great. I think I
Speaker 1: like who they are, they have a wonderful way about them.
Speaker 1: I want this person to like me. And I perpetrator
Speaker 1: as anyone of like putting out red flag videos because
Speaker 1: you know, in our world we do it. But I
Speaker 1: almost worry that sometimes we create so many red flags
Speaker 1: that we're in danger of labeling ourselves a red flag,
Speaker 1: because I'm like, why with all these different red flags
Speaker 1: I put out there, at some point I'm going to
Speaker 1: be accused of one of these things, and one of
Speaker 1: the ways that I almost sense that I become a
Speaker 1: red flag is like that moment where I get really
Speaker 1: excited about someone I know, I'm liable to text them
Speaker 1: and gush in ways that maybe aren't organic to how
Speaker 1: well we know each other yet or how much this
Speaker 1: person has actually done, you know, and in that moment,
Speaker 1: I speed up the relationship at an inorganic pace. And
Speaker 1: so I think what happens is we we sometimes can
Speaker 1: be as much a part of that dynamic as somebody else.
Speaker 1: You know. It's I know you talk a lot about
Speaker 1: love bombing. What about when we're doing a little love bomb,
Speaker 1: you know, like when we're the ones out of insecurity
Speaker 1: and liking someone so much that's so worried about getting
Speaker 1: someone to lie because that we overdo it and we
Speaker 1: try to speed the relationship up. I think one of
Speaker 1: the things that's really wonderful about what we're talking about here,
Speaker 1: which is the kind of we'll see approach, which is
Speaker 1: more measured, is that there are multiple wins you get
Speaker 1: out of it. One win is you don't steam head
Speaker 1: first into a relationship or a dynamic with someone that
Speaker 1: isn't earned that is going to make them possibly take
Speaker 1: advantage of you, or you be blindsided by qualities you
Speaker 1: didn't know were there. But the other win that you
Speaker 1: get from it is that it is actually more attractive
Speaker 1: because when someone recognizes that you are not someone who
Speaker 1: has immediately decided this person is the newest best friend
Speaker 1: you must have in your life, and that you'll say
Speaker 1: anything to get closer to them, which then really, in
Speaker 1: their eyes, lowers your value because they're like, oh, I
Speaker 1: don't have an equal here. I have a fan, right,
Speaker 1: so that's taking me though. Okay, so I don't have
Speaker 1: any well here, I don't have a fan. That works
Speaker 1: for some people. They like having a fan, They want
Speaker 1: a fan, They want to be in a relationship with
Speaker 1: a fan, right. So that's where it starts to get
Speaker 1: a little bit dicey. If you're with somebody who's saying
Speaker 1: I actually am looking for an equal, that's great because
Speaker 1: that relationship then if it gets chance to take root,
Speaker 1: it could really have some potential. But because more than
Speaker 1: a few people out there are looking for fans, you know,
Speaker 1: they're looking for a supply, they're looking for validation that
Speaker 1: early response, and what you're talking about in many ways
Speaker 1: sounds like something that's called the fawn response. It's actually
Speaker 1: a sympathetic nervous system response meant to foster attachment. Right.
Speaker 1: So Pete Walker and other people who sort of talk
Speaker 1: about trauma and attachment talk about the fawn, which is
Speaker 1: what you're saying, trying to win someone over. By winning
Speaker 1: someone over, a person then feels safe. It's all about
Speaker 1: safety seeking because that's the other thing I think we forget.
Speaker 1: I mean again, I often take things down to brass tacks,
Speaker 1: which is sort of trauma attachment safety. It's all about safety, right.
Speaker 1: So in that first date, in any number of ways,
Speaker 1: a person is seeking safety, which is where your distinction
Speaker 1: between being impressive and being impressed starts to get real
Speaker 1: tricky because for many people who are because we don't
Speaker 1: when we go on a date, the thing on our back,
Speaker 1: the accessory we forget we're wearing, is our entire life history.
Speaker 1: And for people who have had histories, even childhood histories
Speaker 1: of invalidation or being just minimized, mocked, criticized, dismissed, you
Speaker 1: go into that date and someone's trying to be impressive.
Speaker 1: That's something that is in the moment, feels so restorative
Speaker 1: because in that moment, when someone's trying to be impressive.
Speaker 1: You feel so seen even though you want them to
Speaker 1: be impressed by you. That's not even on the radar
Speaker 1: of somebody who grew up like that, right, So like,
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, this person did these things for me.
Speaker 1: The idea of someone doing for someone is remarkable. So
Speaker 1: then they feel seen. Now they're gushing, oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: I'm really into this person. I'm your fan. If you
Speaker 1: have a personality style where you're looking more for a
Speaker 1: fan than you are looking for equality, I'm starting to
Speaker 1: see how this boulder tumbles down the hill. Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: And that's so what we're bringing into that first date
Speaker 1: of what we need and how we need to be
Speaker 1: seen and how we need to feel safe is how
Speaker 1: do you think about that when you're guiding people through
Speaker 1: dating and understanding that we do have safety behaviors and
Speaker 1: we have holes for trying to fill because that's what
Speaker 1: we often try to do. How do you guide people
Speaker 1: through that? If I have an anxious attachment style, after
Speaker 1: the date, I want to text you and for you
Speaker 1: to text me back in ten seconds otherwise I'm going
Speaker 1: to be anxious. And if you don't text me back
Speaker 1: for an hour or two, I'm going to it's going
Speaker 1: to make me feel unsafe, and you don't like me,
Speaker 1: and I like you more than you like me, and song,
Speaker 1: And I think then what we do is we respond
Speaker 1: to that by doing more of that thing, by giving
Speaker 1: into that anxious style. So I want to text you
Speaker 1: more now and chase up on you and maybe even
Speaker 1: tell you that I think you're out of line for
Speaker 1: not text me back quickly or you're not doing enough.
Speaker 1: I think it's one thing that can help us. It's
Speaker 1: actually starting with the end in mind in terms of
Speaker 1: the kind of relationship we want. So if I was
Speaker 1: feeling secure in a relationship, what kind of relationship would
Speaker 1: I want to have? For example, there's a moment in
Speaker 1: the series The Office where Jim, he's actually not someone
Speaker 1: who gets jealous. Pam is off studying yes, and he
Speaker 1: sits at the bar with Pam's X, who is a
Speaker 1: kind of hot headed, jealous male controlling, And when he
Speaker 1: hears that Pam has been out till three am and
Speaker 1: left Jim a voice note on like late one night,
Speaker 1: he says to Jim, doesn't that concern you? That would
Speaker 1: concern me that she's out late in New York hanging
Speaker 1: out with new people, and it puts this thing in
Speaker 1: Jim's mind for the first time. He's not even like that,
Speaker 1: but it infects him with this idea. The next thing
Speaker 1: you know, Jim is in the car driving to New
Speaker 1: York late at night. He's like, I'm gonna go and
Speaker 1: find out what's going on, and you know, he gets
Speaker 1: a little way into his drive and all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: he says, you know what, and he turns the car
Speaker 1: around and he says no, because that is not me
Speaker 1: and that is not our relationship. And to me, that
Speaker 1: was such a powerful moment because what it did talking
Speaker 1: about almost putting the power back in our own hands,
Speaker 1: he took a countability for creating the kind of relationship
Speaker 1: he wanted to be in. In other words, his safety
Speaker 1: was not going to come from showing up and finding
Speaker 1: out that she wasn't doing anything right. His safety was
Speaker 1: going to come from being a leader in creating the
Speaker 1: kind of relationship he wanted. Now, if she didn't live
Speaker 1: up to that standard, that's a different thing if he
Speaker 1: later found out, But right now, he was going to
Speaker 1: be a leader in creating the kind of relationship that
Speaker 1: he wants. So if you project forward into the kind
Speaker 1: of relationship that is your ideal relationship, and it's not
Speaker 1: one where when your partner goes to the bathroom you're
Speaker 1: checking their phone. Don't check their phone. Now, if your
Speaker 1: ideal relationship is one where someone can actually go off
Speaker 1: the radar for five hours or ten hours or whatever,
Speaker 1: and you feel fine, You feel great because there's no
Speaker 1: anxiety there. You know they love you, you know they
Speaker 1: care about you, know they're loyal. You know I know
Speaker 1: if my partner and this isationship has been a beautiful
Speaker 1: one for me because my partner, if she disappeared for
Speaker 1: twenty four hours, as long as she sent me a
Speaker 1: tech saying I'm safe, I would not have jealous feelings,
Speaker 1: I would not have anxiety. I wouldn't wonder what she's
Speaker 1: up to. Right and now, if that's the relationship you
Speaker 1: want to be in, start with behaviors that build that
Speaker 1: kind of relationship, because that relationship is a representation of
Speaker 1: the kind of relationship where you actually feel safe. So
Speaker 1: that doesn't mean obviously start giving the amount of energy
Speaker 1: that you would if you were in a full blown
Speaker 1: relationship with this person. It means do the things in
Speaker 1: the beginning that imply you're going to have a healthy
Speaker 1: relationship with this person. If the cadence of what they do,
Speaker 1: if the standard they give you or the respect they
Speaker 1: give you quickly reveals itself to be one that isn't
Speaker 1: in line with that, that then becomes a conversation and
Speaker 1: we can talk all about this. But I think there's
Speaker 1: different ways of having the conversation depending on how early
Speaker 1: it is, because there's a way to wait into aggressively
Speaker 1: or in a way sometimes even too seriously when you
Speaker 1: don't know someone very well. But to me, rather than
Speaker 1: following your style, follow the moves that would create the
Speaker 1: kind of safe relationship you actually want to be in.
Speaker 1: Model the behavior of the relationship you want to be in.
Speaker 1: And that means, by the way, if you go if
Speaker 1: you date someone, if you've gone two dates with someone
Speaker 1: and you haven't heard from them in the last couple
Speaker 1: of days, reach out to them first and ask them
Speaker 1: how they're doing and how their day is. Model the
Speaker 1: kind of communication you want to see from them instead
Speaker 1: of just being led by what they're doing. Right there,
Speaker 1: you're nailing into something that I hear from clients I
Speaker 1: work with in therapy. So I'll work with young client
Speaker 1: not even always young clients. Sometimes clients supposed to worse
Speaker 1: their dating. I know I'm not supposed to text them,
Speaker 1: they should be texting me. How long should I wait
Speaker 1: before I text back? Yeah? I'm not a dating expert.
Speaker 1: I'm like, how long? I mean? And I'm saying what
Speaker 1: you're saying, like, if you want to communicate with them,
Speaker 1: communicate with them? No, no, no, Then I'm going to
Speaker 1: feel needy. Shouldn't they be chasing me? I said, why
Speaker 1: would they want? And I'll often be quite perplexed. And
Speaker 1: I'm I think from a more of a you know again,
Speaker 1: maintaining your identity and a healthy sense of self. I'm
Speaker 1: hitting it. But what you're saying, though, let's face it
Speaker 1: and tell me if I'm wrong, is isn't the prevailing
Speaker 1: wisdom you need to wait? If you text too soon,
Speaker 1: the whole thing's going to go away. Bringing it back
Speaker 1: to this narcissism topic, nobody plays the game better than
Speaker 1: narcissistic people because they're often setting the rules for the game,
Speaker 1: moving the goalposts all over the game. Effect they're changing
Speaker 1: the game. You think you're playing soccer, then it's ruged me,
Speaker 1: and then it's basketball, and so it's just shifting all
Speaker 1: the time, they get to be the shifter, and so
Speaker 1: you have someone who's coming in with the best of intention.
Speaker 1: I'm going to try to make this relationship be the
Speaker 1: way I want. I know what I wanted to do,
Speaker 1: but I wanted to be trusting. I wanted to be collaborative.
Speaker 1: I want it to feel safe and secure. And now
Speaker 1: someone is saying and now they text them, and then
Speaker 1: there's silence because for that other person, let's say, it's
Speaker 1: like it is a game for them, or they can't
Speaker 1: be bothered. They're just at that point they don't want
Speaker 1: to do this dance. I have a feeling I know
Speaker 1: your answer, but I'm hitting this from where I think
Speaker 1: a lot of people are saying. That's not been my experience.
Speaker 1: And I was told not to text back. So help
Speaker 1: us understand that, Matthew, because in a way, I'm thinking
Speaker 1: of every client who's arass me this question. Now I
Speaker 1: get to go back with the answer, So tell us.
Speaker 1: I feel like I have so many different ways of
Speaker 1: coming at this, so I'll maybe come at it from
Speaker 1: a couple of different angles. Firstly, the attraction is a dance,
Speaker 1: and you can't be the same person in the dance.
Speaker 1: You can't make the same step all the time. If
Speaker 1: in salsa you step backwards, the next thing is your
Speaker 1: turn to step forwards. It's not step backwards and then
Speaker 1: step backwards again. And then when they do something, step
Speaker 1: backwards again and just keep being slightly out of reach
Speaker 1: and just that's that's not a fun dance. Not for
Speaker 1: a confident person, an insecure man, or a man with
Speaker 1: problems that he needs to fix. He will keep pursuing
Speaker 1: you in that dance. But you're attracting a dance partner.
Speaker 1: You shouldn't be trying to attract. So if you step
Speaker 1: back last time, it's kind of your turn to step forwards.
Speaker 1: And if you step forward last time, it's kind of
Speaker 1: your turn to step back and create space and allow
Speaker 1: them to step forward now. But people don't do that
Speaker 1: in the dance. They do one or the other. They
Speaker 1: step backward, backward, backward. I'm going to just keep him chasing,
Speaker 1: keeping chasing, keep him chasing. Which, by the way, I've
Speaker 1: had dates in my life where I got to the
Speaker 1: end of the date and I truly had no idea
Speaker 1: if this person liked me, none other than that they
Speaker 1: said yes to a date. I had no idea. By
Speaker 1: the end of the day, I just left the date
Speaker 1: thinking they definitely aren't interested, and then somewhere along the
Speaker 1: way later on I'd find out they were disappointed I
Speaker 1: didn't ask them another date, and I'd be like, I
Speaker 1: had no indication of that whatsoever. So that's like an
Speaker 1: example of someone who's never stepping forward. But then there
Speaker 1: are people who say, under the guise of under the
Speaker 1: label of I'm proactive, they step forwards and the guy
Speaker 1: maybe text back, But then the next day they step
Speaker 1: forwards again and they text him, and the guy text
Speaker 1: back maybe, but then the next day they text against.
Speaker 1: They're the one keep they keep making the step. They go,
Speaker 1: why is it I always text him first? He never
Speaker 1: text me first? Yeah, Yeah, you're always stepping forward, got it?
Speaker 1: And you use there's no rhythm. There's no rhythm to this.
Speaker 1: So that's a big problem in that some of the
Speaker 1: work you've done, there's great videos about this, it's in
Speaker 1: your book. I find it so compelling and also so
Speaker 1: challenging and sort of the narcissism landscape, which is this
Speaker 1: idea of standards, which Matthew I think is some of
Speaker 1: the most important stuff you put out there, because what
Speaker 1: you say about standards isn't just about dating. It's about
Speaker 1: any human relationship. We enter into a friendship, in the workplace, everything.
Speaker 1: And that's where you're getting to with this, is there
Speaker 1: is a standard you set for yourself. You're not even
Speaker 1: saying that there's a uniform set of standards. You're saying
Speaker 1: there is a standard. In many ways, it's the standard
Speaker 1: you hold yourself to, the standard you'd hold others two
Speaker 1: And it's a standard you'd hold a relationship that you'd
Speaker 1: want to be in. And that seems to be what
Speaker 1: you're saying. If a person has had a backstory where
Speaker 1: they have felt chronically devalued for any number of reasons,
Speaker 1: how do they start developing that sense of standard? Because
Speaker 1: without that, Matthew, if you do not even with that
Speaker 1: sense of standard, it's hard to date in a world
Speaker 1: where there might be some invalidating toxic, antagonistic people even
Speaker 1: with those standards. Without them, it's a blood bath. So
Speaker 1: where do those standards come from? How are people supposed
Speaker 1: to cultivate them, especially, like I said, if they've had
Speaker 1: legacy issues, family of origin issues, trauma, other stuff that
Speaker 1: I know people listening to this podcast with saying my
Speaker 1: backstory doesn't set me up to sad standards. Whenever you
Speaker 1: talk about standards, self worth always comes into the mix
Speaker 1: as a conversation. Right, Oh, you don't love yourself enough,
Speaker 1: so you don't have standards, And there's always like that
Speaker 1: becomes kind of the central, the heart of the conversation.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that's false. I think that's absolutely true.
Speaker 1: You can attack the standards question from a confidence perspective,
Speaker 1: but you also have to attack it and understand it
Speaker 1: from the perspective of familiarity of what you know. There
Speaker 1: are things that we all learn early on that are
Speaker 1: as much to do with simply what we know as
Speaker 1: they are to do with comence. Confidence almost brings it
Speaker 1: into a more emotive world, as opposed to a world
Speaker 1: of just this is what I understand, this is what
Speaker 1: I've seen, this is what I've experienced in my life,
Speaker 1: so I don't know a different game. This is a
Speaker 1: good place to talk about trauma bonding. Trauma bonding is
Speaker 1: the conflation of chaos and love, of inconsistency with excitement,
Speaker 1: and of having to prove yourself and keep justifying another
Speaker 1: person's unhealthy or downright toxic behavior. A major originator of
Speaker 1: the trauma bond is familiarity. When something feels familiar, even
Speaker 1: if it is unhealthy, it can feel safe, comfortable, and
Speaker 1: just as we may have done in childhood, we may
Speaker 1: associate that unhealthy behavior with love. I've not experienced. It's
Speaker 1: a different set of rules. To me. This is how
Speaker 1: the world is. And I think that even when we
Speaker 1: logically can see that other people are having a different
Speaker 1: experience than we're having, or that their relationship seems to
Speaker 1: follow a different set of rules, when it comes to
Speaker 1: our own life, the emotional reality is what we have experienced.
Speaker 1: I see it like when someone comes out of a relationship,
Speaker 1: let's say, in with a narcissist. That person doesn't have
Speaker 1: reference points for what healthy looks like. For the fact
Speaker 1: that they can be a different way, and for the
Speaker 1: fact that if they are a different way, it will
Speaker 1: actually get a different result. That's all unmapped territory. So
Speaker 1: what we have to understand is that you know, if
Speaker 1: you've never stuck up for yourself and you've not been
Speaker 1: taught that, then that is such unknown territory that doing
Speaker 1: it is alien, and the idea that if you do it,
Speaker 1: it will actually produce a better result, either short term
Speaker 1: or long term, is you have no reference points for
Speaker 1: a belief to set there. So for me, a huge
Speaker 1: thing that I think there are two big solutions. One
Speaker 1: is to recognize that doing what we've been doing makes
Speaker 1: us not just miserable, but creates a kind of living
Speaker 1: hell for us. And one of the reasons that people
Speaker 1: get out finally is because that living hell has become
Speaker 1: too much. Their life has become so chaotic, they have
Speaker 1: lost so much, their life has been blown up to
Speaker 1: the point where this hell is no longer. I cannot
Speaker 1: stay here a day longer. And so this thing that
Speaker 1: I've been so terrified of doing, which is leaving, suddenly
Speaker 1: becomes the better option. My worst fear has finally become
Speaker 1: the better option. So when someone does that, I think
Speaker 1: one of the problems we have in upholding standards is
Speaker 1: that the hell that made us move in the first
Speaker 1: place starts to drift and we lose connection with the
Speaker 1: pain of it. And when we lose connection with the
Speaker 1: pain of it, we start to reconsider tolerating the very
Speaker 1: kinds of behavior with a new person that landed us
Speaker 1: in that hell in the first place. So I actually
Speaker 1: think that if people can find mechanisms for reconnecting to that,
Speaker 1: they don't actually need confidence. You don't need confidence. If
Speaker 1: your hand is in a flame, you just get your
Speaker 1: hand out of the flame, right, right, right, So there's
Speaker 1: connecting with the heat of the flame, so that you
Speaker 1: do something not because you feel so worthy, but because
Speaker 1: you go, I just know. And then we start to
Speaker 1: build confidence on top of that slowly by beginning to
Speaker 1: get someone to the point where they can take small
Speaker 1: actions that create little reference points for the fact that
Speaker 1: life can be different, and I think that is a
Speaker 1: magical and subtle place to be. Is just all you
Speaker 1: need is an opening in life, is to know that
Speaker 1: you just need a curiosity that my way of existing
Speaker 1: and how I've lived and what I've put up with
Speaker 1: is not the only way in the world, because everyone
Speaker 1: else doesn't just live like that. So if I can
Speaker 1: be curious, not that the next thing I'm going to
Speaker 1: do is the next best thing or that it's going
Speaker 1: to be the perfect thing, but if I can just
Speaker 1: be curious about a way of living that's not mine.
Speaker 1: But curiosity is the gateway to a new belief and
Speaker 1: it's much easier to flow with curiosity than it is
Speaker 1: to suddenly go I can believe something different. My session
Speaker 1: with Matthew will continue after this break. Being curious and
Speaker 1: holding space for the idea that it can be different
Speaker 1: is actually something that really does come out of not
Speaker 1: only the thinking on self compassion Kristin Neff's work in
Speaker 1: that area, but it even it's something we see in
Speaker 1: a model of therapy we call acceptance and commitment therapy,
Speaker 1: where it's this idea of the fancy derm bird's cognitive diffusion.
Speaker 1: It's splitting yourself away from your thoughts. We become our thoughts, okay,
Speaker 1: and people who have gone through narcissistic relationships do become
Speaker 1: their thoughts and becnfused to their thoughts. The diffusion becomes,
Speaker 1: You're not your thoughts and to be open that there
Speaker 1: can be a different one. I'm going to push you
Speaker 1: on the standards conversation because I'm gonna we're gonna talk
Speaker 1: about the doctor romany of it all. To say that
Speaker 1: I am a dating or have been a dating disaster
Speaker 1: would actually be a kind characterization of how I went
Speaker 1: through this. Whatever less than zero standards were is me.
Speaker 1: I would go into these relationships thinking that if I
Speaker 1: did not yield on everything. If I did not do
Speaker 1: everything on their schedule, on their time frame, I'm going
Speaker 1: to lose this person because why would they hang around?
Speaker 1: And I am replaceable now when I think about that,
Speaker 1: because even as you're talking, I'm like, girl, we're your
Speaker 1: absolute utter lack of standards. What I know where it
Speaker 1: came from. I had legacy issues around narcissism. Really, the
Speaker 1: sense was we don't we're not going to see you,
Speaker 1: we're not going to recognize you. You're not important. Okay.
Speaker 1: Part of that's cultural, Matthew, Okay. I grew up in
Speaker 1: a culture at a time when having a girl was
Speaker 1: a bad thing. When I was an infant presented to
Speaker 1: members of the family, they actually mocked my mother for
Speaker 1: having a daughter. So these are I truly believe that
Speaker 1: this early stuff gets wired. I was bad because I
Speaker 1: was a girl, and the real belief was who's really
Speaker 1: going to have you? I was a brown girl in
Speaker 1: this culture, which I believed. Again, it's a different time.
Speaker 1: I'm quite a bit older than you, so I wasn't attractive,
Speaker 1: so nobody was going to want me. People in my
Speaker 1: own culture weren't going to want me because I was
Speaker 1: getting too old. I was too weird, I was too overweight.
Speaker 1: Pick something. So if somebody gave me even a little
Speaker 1: bit of attention, I was going to do anything. Oh
Speaker 1: drive two hours, of course, I'll drive two hours. Wait
Speaker 1: three hours, of course, I'll wait throughout. Oh you're actually
Speaker 1: going to pay for dinner. Well, I better do anything
Speaker 1: you ask me to. Okay. Until the very relationship I'm in,
Speaker 1: I had no standards at the beginning. That relationship largely
Speaker 1: ended up working out. We're still together. I actually had
Speaker 1: I read your book recently to prepare for the podcast.
Speaker 1: I had an argument with him, like I didn't have
Speaker 1: standards with you, and he's like, what do you want
Speaker 1: me to do about it now? And you know and so,
Speaker 1: But here's my point is that I zero zero standards.
Speaker 1: Multiple narcissistic relationships that devastated me, that changed my emotion, DNA,
Speaker 1: I don't trust, I struggle in making new friends and
Speaker 1: all of that. And I know the people who listen
Speaker 1: to this podcast had very similar experiences. It wasn't one relationship.
Speaker 1: This is a lifetime of this where do we begin? So,
Speaker 1: you know, I understand that an idea that it could
Speaker 1: be different that was less of a even something to
Speaker 1: be open to rather than like a remote hope, could
Speaker 1: it be different? It was a question rather than a possibility.
Speaker 1: That's what I'd love to hear you unpack a little
Speaker 1: bit more of a gun again. That's why I'm putting
Speaker 1: myself out there, because this isn't an ephemeral question. Matthew.
Speaker 1: I lived this. I know. I still really don't have
Speaker 1: standards so much. So I happen to love the person
Speaker 1: I'm with very much. But if that thing blew up,
Speaker 1: and it could blow up, I mean, I think we
Speaker 1: have to hold we have to be aware that that could.
Speaker 1: I've committed to myself. I couldn't do it again because
Speaker 1: I feel like it's so wired in me to not
Speaker 1: have that and I'm lucky that anyone pays attention to me,
Speaker 1: So I don't trust myself. Are corrected, walk us through that.
Speaker 1: A good starting point is to redefine for ourselves what
Speaker 1: a win is. I made a video on my YouTube
Speaker 1: channel recently that was standards related, and there was a
Speaker 1: comment that really made me pause for a moment. This
Speaker 1: woman said, I have tried having standards, and all it's
Speaker 1: meant is me not finding anyone bigger. So I've settled
Speaker 1: for casual because I'm not getting any younger, and it
Speaker 1: means I get to have something instead of nothing, and
Speaker 1: I'd rather at least have something that I can enjoy. Okay,
Speaker 1: it sounds like my sore sister, I'm telling you like
Speaker 1: I feel that maybe I wrote that comment. Now you
Speaker 1: actually didn't, but I kind of wish I did, because
Speaker 1: it's that good that right there, which you're hearing. I'm
Speaker 1: hearing hundreds of times a day from the people who
Speaker 1: listen to what I put out there, which are I
Speaker 1: do want love, I want companionship. I don't want to
Speaker 1: be alone forever. But if the minute I actually put
Speaker 1: the line in the sand, as it were, and not
Speaker 1: even a line in the sand, but really expect engagement
Speaker 1: at a healthy level, it all goes away. So it's
Speaker 1: I'm just going to So it's either die alone, lady
Speaker 1: with cat, or it's you know. So, I'm so glad
Speaker 1: that person made that comment because I can that's exactly
Speaker 1: what I hear from people asking about these issues. And
Speaker 1: if you're ultimately, if anyone in a position of coaching
Speaker 1: is treating that comment flippantly, then they're not a thinking
Speaker 1: person because that is one of the great kind of
Speaker 1: existential dilemmas of life, I think, is that we're not
Speaker 1: going to be here forever. We have a limited amount
Speaker 1: of time. We're all trying to be happy, we're all
Speaker 1: trying to enjoy it. We're all trying to find some love,
Speaker 1: some version of love, some version of connection. And people's
Speaker 1: reality is feeling like, you know, yeah, I had standards
Speaker 1: because you kind of with some people. You know, yeah,
Speaker 1: you had a standard because you had a whole world
Speaker 1: of people waiting for you over here. You know, you
Speaker 1: had a standard because you felt like you had options.
Speaker 1: And we're having options makes you feel like you're gonna
Speaker 1: have a standard more easily than I didn't meet anyone
Speaker 1: I liked in the last five years, and now all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, someone came along and they liked me,
Speaker 1: and that like now becomes very compelling, and all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, we're not connecting with well, okay, but do
Speaker 1: we share the same values, do we have the same
Speaker 1: way of looking at life? Do we ever similar outlook?
Speaker 1: You know, is this person actually treating me well? It
Speaker 1: becomes enough that they like me because they're being liked,
Speaker 1: or someone coming along that I'm attracted to and they
Speaker 1: like me. It feels so rare that it now is
Speaker 1: like I got to hold onto this, and it's a
Speaker 1: holding on that makes me suddenly do things that I
Speaker 1: would never normally do, or put up with things that
Speaker 1: I would never normally put up with. I think that
Speaker 1: we have to redefine what the win is in all
Speaker 1: of this, and you can look at that a number
Speaker 1: of ways. If you redefine if winning the game is
Speaker 1: finding peace, then you look for the things that will
Speaker 1: create peace in your life. Whether it's single or in
Speaker 1: a relationship. It kind of doesn't matter if someone comes
Speaker 1: along and what they're doing robs you of your peace,
Speaker 1: and it's because not because of something you have to
Speaker 1: work on, but it's because of their behaviors. It's disrespectful.
Speaker 1: They absolutely make it unclear as to whether they really
Speaker 1: like you or not, or whether they're interested in moving
Speaker 1: things forward or progressing. You have a conversation with that
Speaker 1: person and you explain to them, this is not making
Speaker 1: me feel good, and because of that, I find myself
Speaker 1: wanting to give less and less energy to it. And
Speaker 1: you start to back away. I think you know that woman,
Speaker 1: I really her comments stop me in my tracks for
Speaker 1: a reason because she made a very compelling argument. But
Speaker 1: I also think she made an overly simplistic argument because
Speaker 1: I think that having standards it will absolutely push some
Speaker 1: people away, but having standards also is a magnet for
Speaker 1: people that you wouldn't attract without standards. It actually does
Speaker 1: pull certain people towards you. I mean my fiance Audrey.
Speaker 1: She did things. But I remember when I first I
Speaker 1: met her in London, and when I first went back
Speaker 1: to LA, I was not treating her seriously. I was
Speaker 1: not progressing the relationship. I went back to LA and
Speaker 1: you know, I was still being single and I was
Speaker 1: not I didn't want a long distance relationship. But I
Speaker 1: still texted her and I still I think one day
Speaker 1: I sent her a message that said like I miss
Speaker 1: you or I'm thinking of you. And in that moment
Speaker 1: she had a choice to make this person likes me.
Speaker 1: That she would have felt and there probably also would
Speaker 1: have been at least a little excitement that person that
Speaker 1: I like is reaching out to me. Now that excitement
Speaker 1: may have also been combined with frustration and resentment and
Speaker 1: anger that what the hell like I haven't heard from
Speaker 1: him in weeks and now I get this it's a
Speaker 1: cold thing together. But some people take all of those
Speaker 1: feelings and they go, I'm going to set them all
Speaker 1: to one side and just respond as if I'm fine, yes,
Speaker 1: because I don't ay, I don't even want to communicate
Speaker 1: to this person that they have any leverage over me emotionally,
Speaker 1: but be I kind of want to see where this goes,
Speaker 1: and so I'm just going to roll with it. Now
Speaker 1: that when someone does that, it sends a very clear
Speaker 1: message to the person on the other side, which is that,
Speaker 1: let's call it negligence of this relationship or dynamic whatever
Speaker 1: situationship goes unnoticed, yes, or at the very least it
Speaker 1: goes ignored, you're willing to ignore it, which concratizes the behavior.
Speaker 1: And she didn't do that. She didn't play cool. She
Speaker 1: also didn't just kind of respond to be flirtatious. And
Speaker 1: I'm well, now that I've got one text from him,
Speaker 1: I'm going to get him really attracted this time. What
Speaker 1: she said was, Hey, I hope you're well. To be honest,
Speaker 1: I haven't felt that close to you in a while,
Speaker 1: and rightly or wrongly, this message comes across like a
Speaker 1: bid for attention, oh, you know, to everyone knows I
Speaker 1: consider Audrey a friend, and I just went deeper into
Speaker 1: my friend love for her because that's good. That's so good.
Speaker 1: I can't I'm going to tell you my fifty seven
Speaker 1: year old self could not imagine having the confidence to
Speaker 1: say that, that's amazing, it's so I love that. And
Speaker 1: she will tell you that there was a time when
Speaker 1: she didn't have that confidence, and which, by the way,
Speaker 1: I think is really important that people understand. You can
Speaker 1: change at any time in your life. It doesn't matter
Speaker 1: you've been a certain way your whole life, you've always
Speaker 1: had a certain pattern. You can change. I don't care
Speaker 1: what age you are, what stage you are. You can
Speaker 1: change at any point in your life and create a
Speaker 1: new reference point that leads to a new belief. But
Speaker 1: you have to do something different to create a new
Speaker 1: reference point. Now, she sent me that message, and there's
Speaker 1: a couple of important things to note about that message.
Speaker 1: It wasn't in any way aggressive. It wasn't passive aggressive either.
Speaker 1: It was clear. She even said I hope you're well.
Speaker 1: You know it, It still had compassion. Hey, I hope
Speaker 1: you're well. I haven't felt that close to you in
Speaker 1: a while. Now that acknowledges that we haven't been close.
Speaker 1: And then it said and rightly or wrongly. The rightly
Speaker 1: or wrongly is really powerful phraseology because when you say
Speaker 1: rightly or wrongly, you're also removing ego from the situation.
Speaker 1: Because she's not saying I'm accusing you of this. She's
Speaker 1: saying I might be wrong. I might have completely misread
Speaker 1: this situation. But here's how it reads. This comes across
Speaker 1: like a bid for attention. Now she shone a light
Speaker 1: on that elephant in the room like that, there was
Speaker 1: no elephant in the room. After that, it was like oh,
Speaker 1: and I immediately I felt called out. I realized, oh,
Speaker 1: I can't do this here. This isn't And by the way,
Speaker 1: what I was doing wasn't even a conscious thing. What
Speaker 1: it is is I'm just trying to get mine. Yes,
Speaker 1: she called it right. I just want to I just
Speaker 1: I'm feeling lonely and I'm looking for something, you know,
Speaker 1: And we're very quick to kind of, you know, demonize
Speaker 1: people in different ways, but a lot of the time
Speaker 1: it's like just everyone's an addict in some way, everyone's
Speaker 1: got their thing. Right in that moment, I'm like, I
Speaker 1: need I need something I'm looking for something. I'm there's
Speaker 1: something I'm not getting in my life that is making
Speaker 1: me reach out in that way, but not in a
Speaker 1: way that's appropriate for the kind of investment she's looking
Speaker 1: for right now. Anyone out there hoping that that made
Speaker 1: me suddenly say, you know what I want a relationship
Speaker 1: would be wrong, and that's important to note because we're
Speaker 1: engaged now. But I didn't suddenly have an about turn
Speaker 1: that day, which is why A key thing is you
Speaker 1: are in love, you are either playing the short game
Speaker 1: or you are playing the long game, and real standards
Speaker 1: is about playing the long game. It's I am willing
Speaker 1: to turn this thing away and not say and don't
Speaker 1: ever come back. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, because that's ego. Instead,
Speaker 1: it's what you're offering is not what I'm buying. There's
Speaker 1: a door that you can walk through that's open to you,
Speaker 1: but you're never going to get through this wall that
Speaker 1: you're trying to get through here. If you want to
Speaker 1: come over here and walk through this door, that door
Speaker 1: was actually unlocked, and that or is one way you
Speaker 1: actually invest. It's consistent. You make me feel safe, but
Speaker 1: that's over here right now, you're over here. You're trying
Speaker 1: to bodge through a wall, and you're not going to
Speaker 1: get through that wall. I'm going to hold on this
Speaker 1: point to elaborate on it a little bit more. This
Speaker 1: distinction between the short game and the long game is
Speaker 1: a difficult one for survivors who, by definition, will be
Speaker 1: playing the short game. It's what people with histories of
Speaker 1: betrayal and trauma do. Short games leave us feeling safe
Speaker 1: in the moments, and healing and growth are about giving
Speaker 1: ourselves permission to play the long game. And it took time,
Speaker 1: but what I quickly realized about her was, oh, this,
Speaker 1: I'm never going to be able to come back to
Speaker 1: her with this dynamic. So when I do come back,
Speaker 1: it's going to have to be with a different dynamic.
Speaker 1: And by the way, someone may still try their like
Speaker 1: three months down the line, and you have to show
Speaker 1: then that that standard is not a tactic, it is
Speaker 1: a standard. Right, there's a difference. There is a difference, right,
Speaker 1: don't have tactics have standards. A standard is not a tactic.
Speaker 1: A tactic is I'm doing this so that you give
Speaker 1: me some short term result. I want. A tactic feels
Speaker 1: like a manipulation. Yeah, long game this is who I am.
Speaker 1: It doesn't even have to be. It's who I am
Speaker 1: because I'm so amazing and I deserve this and I
Speaker 1: deserve that, and no like that to me is still
Speaker 1: kind of just goes back to ego in a way.
Speaker 1: You know, it's like we I think we get lost
Speaker 1: in that logic in a way when that whole like um,
Speaker 1: who would want me? Or I'm replaceable or that's kind
Speaker 1: of still ego. And I think the same is true
Speaker 1: of standards, is that if I have those standards, those
Speaker 1: standards are actually something that starts to score to my value.
Speaker 1: We think that we have to deserve it before we
Speaker 1: have standards, But in a way, the standards are a
Speaker 1: poll in the sand. This right here, this is a
Speaker 1: good point to dive a little deeper. This languaging around
Speaker 1: what I deserve is tricky for many people who don't
Speaker 1: believe they deserve to be treated well and may actually
Speaker 1: believe everyone else deserves that, just not them. Basically, what
Speaker 1: I'm hearing from you is you're talking about egolists dating
Speaker 1: and dating as a whole person, and you can only
Speaker 1: do that if you do the whole person work, which
Speaker 1: is valuing yourself being authentic to yourself, knowing what you
Speaker 1: stand for. Our one thing you talked about earlier were values, right,
Speaker 1: I'm going to push back on that a little. I
Speaker 1: actually think that for a lot of the folks who
Speaker 1: have gone through really toxic relationships, the values aren't even
Speaker 1: as important as the behaviors, Like how is this person
Speaker 1: showing up? You know? The values are great, and I
Speaker 1: think they're higher order guiding mechanisms, but ultimately it's the
Speaker 1: how does this person respond to even the simplest inquiries
Speaker 1: in the house? Hey, do you mind just emptying the dishwashers?
Speaker 1: So I can? You know, so I can get the
Speaker 1: kitchen done? What disher? Like? How many? I mean that
Speaker 1: might seem farcical? Hundred times of that? You know, you're exhausted,
Speaker 1: you're sick, Like everything becomes the dishwasher conversation. And so
Speaker 1: it's about the behaviors. The behaviors to me are everything
Speaker 1: you know, and I think that we get so lost
Speaker 1: in thoughts and feelings. Ultimately, it's how a person shows up,
Speaker 1: even in narcissistic relationships. Matthew, I'm working on the book,
Speaker 1: and that it's one thing that's been really coming through
Speaker 1: my veins. Is where is this a narcissist? Aren't they this?
Speaker 1: It's then the trait. It comes down to how do
Speaker 1: they behave? How is this person acting behaving? What are
Speaker 1: they saying? What are they doing? Because that's all we've
Speaker 1: got to work with. That's all I got to work
Speaker 1: with as a shrink, And that's all a person can
Speaker 1: really talk about, because they're gonna gaslight you about everything else.
Speaker 1: They're probably gonna gaslight you about the behavior too, by
Speaker 1: the way, but all of this. The wholer you become,
Speaker 1: the more you can be that, the more you can
Speaker 1: send that Audrey text, the more you're able to say.
Speaker 1: Yet this, you know, this was a bid for attention.
Speaker 1: When I think about sending that text, why are the
Speaker 1: way I am? I still can't imagine doing that. I
Speaker 1: was helping a friend through a situation and the friend
Speaker 1: was actually going to have standards and how she was
Speaker 1: texting or emailing or something like that someone, and I
Speaker 1: felt a physiological reaction in me. I'm like, she sets
Speaker 1: that standard, she may end up being alone. And I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, we feel this in our bodies. So
Speaker 1: that's how this breaking out of this concept of standards.
Speaker 1: This goes beyond just even how you think this is
Speaker 1: in your body, because I am thinking like I still
Speaker 1: hold to like I'm lucky than anyone wants. Like you're
Speaker 1: sitting here across from me on this podcast, I really
Speaker 1: make if Matthew says no, I get that, you know,
Speaker 1: and I wouldn't even have been surprised or mad at you,
Speaker 1: because that's all I think I deserve. So when I
Speaker 1: see a friend trying to set a standard, I actually
Speaker 1: get anxious. So that's why I'm saying, is that wholeness,
Speaker 1: but I'm better? It's definitely become better. Is that concept
Speaker 1: of how do you get yourself to that place of
Speaker 1: healthy enough to date? In terms of where to start,
Speaker 1: I think that it is really important to get very
Speaker 1: clear on regardless of what we think we're worth. You know,
Speaker 1: when we talk about how do we make ourselves whole?
Speaker 1: I actually think the first distinctions we need to make
Speaker 1: is what never works? What never works? It never works
Speaker 1: if I betray myself and do things that I really
Speaker 1: don't want to do, never works. And I try to
Speaker 1: please people? What has it done for me my whole life?
Speaker 1: It has made people use me, It's made them take
Speaker 1: advantage of me, even sometimes when they're good people. It's
Speaker 1: made them take advantage because they just don't realize. It
Speaker 1: has made me resentful, it's made me bitter, it's made
Speaker 1: me unhappy, and it has not won people's respect. This
Speaker 1: has never worked, or this being in a relationship with
Speaker 1: a person like this has never worked. It's never made
Speaker 1: me happy, it's never brought me piece, it's never brought
Speaker 1: me the safety I so seek. If you start to
Speaker 1: define what never works, that alone can guide your behavior
Speaker 1: to somewhere new. You know, if, for example, as you said,
Speaker 1: playing it cool is an overcorrection, then what you can
Speaker 1: say is, Okay, I am going to just again curiosity
Speaker 1: amazing word. I'm going to get curious about different ways
Speaker 1: of behaving that aren't playing it cool. So the next
Speaker 1: time I get a little anxious or feeling like, oh,
Speaker 1: someone hasn't reached out in a week, you can maybe
Speaker 1: I'm going to try something new. I'm going to become
Speaker 1: a social experiment. Or in my own life, I'm going
Speaker 1: to say to someone, hey, it made me sad that
Speaker 1: you didn't taket me this week, and I'm just going
Speaker 1: to see where that goes. Because I may well be
Speaker 1: surprised by a new reality. I may get a reaction
Speaker 1: I never expected, and that creates a reference point. So
Speaker 1: curiosity very very important. Even if you don't know what
Speaker 1: to do. Even if you can't pick up the phone
Speaker 1: to Romany or Matthew Hussey, you can pick up you
Speaker 1: can say to yourself, what represents a new action from
Speaker 1: me than the one I always do? Yes? And one
Speaker 1: of the most practical things we can do to give
Speaker 1: us a more stable base from which to have standards
Speaker 1: is to add more legs under the table. Strengthen the
Speaker 1: legs under the table, and ask yourself, where have Because
Speaker 1: I poured so much into another person, what legs under
Speaker 1: the table disappeared for me? Yeah? What did I lose?
Speaker 1: That is making me feel irrationally weak, That is making
Speaker 1: me feel like I need this thing to breathe. Because
Speaker 1: if you can figure that out, Oh you know what
Speaker 1: I need to strengthen the family leg? Oh you know
Speaker 1: what I need to strengthen the purpose leg doesn't have
Speaker 1: to be work. You don't have to go and make
Speaker 1: a bunch of money. What gives you a sense of
Speaker 1: purpose or what hobby can you lose yourself in and
Speaker 1: fall in love with again? What friendships are going to
Speaker 1: give you great meaning in your life because you strengthen them.
Speaker 1: And these things aren't a magic pill. They don't solve
Speaker 1: all of your self worth issues, but they give you
Speaker 1: legs under the table. And when you have legs under
Speaker 1: the table, you feel more willing to take risks. And
Speaker 1: saying no to someone or saying I didn't like that
Speaker 1: behavior is represents a risk in our minds. But I
Speaker 1: can take a risk. If I know romeny I, before
Speaker 1: I went on live TV, I would get very nervous
Speaker 1: and I would call my brother right before going on
Speaker 1: live TV. I didn't tell him what I was about
Speaker 1: to do. In five minutes, I just called him and
Speaker 1: I just asked him how he was, and I just
Speaker 1: had a conversation with him about him and life. And
Speaker 1: and I finished that call and I went, I have
Speaker 1: a brother. I have a brother, and I love him,
Speaker 1: and that's so much more than this five minute segment
Speaker 1: I'm about to do on this TV show. And all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, it wasn't that it didn't the TV
Speaker 1: show didn't matter to me. It didn't eradicate one hundred
Speaker 1: percent of my nerves, but it gave me enough confidence
Speaker 1: to go and be dangerous. It gave me enough confidence
Speaker 1: to be who I really was in that situation. And
Speaker 1: you know how people talk about like, you know, like
Speaker 1: a I won't say the word, but fu money, Like
Speaker 1: that person has fu money. And what we're really referring
Speaker 1: to in that phase is they have enough money they
Speaker 1: can get a deal put in front of them that's
Speaker 1: not right, where the terms aren't good and they can go, no,
Speaker 1: I don't need this. If we could build few confidence,
Speaker 1: that's it, yeah, right, yeah, or few legs correct. Really,
Speaker 1: that's why I mean few legs on the lifestyle level. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a great place to stop. If you're saying, practically,
Speaker 1: how do I start to strengthen myself enough to where
Speaker 1: I can actually live by these standards that I almost
Speaker 1: don't quite feel ready for. I love that idea of
Speaker 1: the few legs under the table because I think that,
Speaker 1: I mean, again, what does that imply More than anything,
Speaker 1: it implies stability. There's no knock in this table down
Speaker 1: because they think a lot of survivors, people who've really
Speaker 1: been through it, feel like they're at best, at best,
Speaker 1: their table has two legs, and many feel like it's
Speaker 1: just a slab on the ground. Like there's just no
Speaker 1: table and so but most feels are incredibly unstable, and
Speaker 1: so that idea of the legs as places of stability,
Speaker 1: and they may be things as I have a friend,
Speaker 1: I like, I have a volunteer, something I do that
Speaker 1: I volunteer on, which is definitely something that in terms
Speaker 1: of surviving narcissistic relationships, and then saying there are these
Speaker 1: things that matter to me, Like I said, once I
Speaker 1: started feeling more autonomous professionally and loving, like not just
Speaker 1: showing up and getting a check, but loving what I
Speaker 1: was doing, it was almost like seven legs sprung because
Speaker 1: some of those other things I wasn't able to cultivate.
Speaker 1: We will be right back with this conversation with Matthew.
Speaker 1: There's a couple of things I don't want us to
Speaker 1: forget to get into one thing I wanted because this
Speaker 1: legs under the table thing is taking me to a
Speaker 1: place where I think a lot of people feel this
Speaker 1: tremendous pressure, which is time. Okay, by time, I mean
Speaker 1: there's two things. I mean there's the reality of time
Speaker 1: and there's even the biology of time. This came up
Speaker 1: when I spoke at your retreat in Florida and one
Speaker 1: of the questions that's stuck with me. Most people were
Speaker 1: very I mean very engaged in the conversation about sort
Speaker 1: of toxic relationships and dating. But one thing they came
Speaker 1: up with, sort of having children, the issue of biology,
Speaker 1: and it is something that comes up over and over again.
Speaker 1: I'm thirty five, I'm thirty seven, I'm thirty eight. I
Speaker 1: want to be a mother. Now listen, I'll tell you
Speaker 1: this reproductive technology has changed. I in a very short
Speaker 1: period of time have started counseling multiple people on deciding
Speaker 1: they're going to do it alone. These are women and
Speaker 1: they're going to do it alone. I now also know
Speaker 1: of men who've done it alone. And you know, gay
Speaker 1: men have been doing it because they've had to get you,
Speaker 1: get a starry, get you to carry a child. But
Speaker 1: these are men who are These are straight men saying
Speaker 1: I have been burned too many times, but I want
Speaker 1: to be a father. How do you help people navigate
Speaker 1: this space of dating, the risks and dating getting into
Speaker 1: unhealthy relationships because they feel a pressure of by society,
Speaker 1: by very biologically real time, our cultural religious pressure. How
Speaker 1: do you guide people through that? In my own life,
Speaker 1: I can relate to coming at everything from a place
Speaker 1: of worst case scenario and always going to that place,
Speaker 1: always catastrophizing. And you know, a long time ago I
Speaker 1: recognized that one of the great elephants in the room
Speaker 1: when it came to me helping women was that there
Speaker 1: was this ticking clock that applied by the way applies
Speaker 1: to men as well, which is important to point out,
Speaker 1: but applies to women on a different level in the
Speaker 1: way that they they have an age by which biologically
Speaker 1: it's typical that they will not be able to now
Speaker 1: fulfill a dream that they have perhaps always had or
Speaker 1: always been told to have, of having children biologically themselves.
Speaker 1: And if you're not talking about that, then you're not
Speaker 1: really covering dating, in my opinion, because it's all very
Speaker 1: well to say have standards and do this, and do that,
Speaker 1: and say no to this. But if you're never mentioning
Speaker 1: one of the key things that is behind that rush
Speaker 1: for people, and one of the key things, perhaps the
Speaker 1: key thing that is robbing people of their leverage and
Speaker 1: their power personally, then you really aren't understanding what's going on.
Speaker 1: And once I realized this, I didn't know whether to
Speaker 1: talk about it or not in truth, because I knew
Speaker 1: it would be a mindfield for me as a man,
Speaker 1: and I knew that there would be a kind of
Speaker 1: and perhaps rightly so, a sense of you don't fully
Speaker 1: understand or you can never understand. But at a certain
Speaker 1: point I stopped caring whether people criticized me for talking
Speaker 1: about it, because I realized, if I can at least
Speaker 1: start the conversation, then people are going to have the conversation.
Speaker 1: And what I deal with in droves is people who
Speaker 1: get to a point in their life when not having
Speaker 1: had the conversation, not just with someone else, with themselves,
Speaker 1: has deeply, deeply affected their life, and they are now
Speaker 1: grieving because they never had the conversation. Correct, So I'm
Speaker 1: now less worried about being clumsy and more worried about
Speaker 1: having the conversation. And I will say this, perhaps to
Speaker 1: reinforce your militant point. I find myself addressing this almost
Speaker 1: from the same place of strategy and control, but from
Speaker 1: the point of actually assessing, honestly, what are my options.
Speaker 1: Let me stop for a moment, Let me stop running,
Speaker 1: Let me stop racing to every date, Let me stop
Speaker 1: trying to make this relationship move really fast, because I
Speaker 1: think it has to happen. It has to happen with
Speaker 1: this person. If it doesn't, oh my god, what am
Speaker 1: I going to do? Let me stop for a moment
Speaker 1: and have a hard conversation with myself. What is it
Speaker 1: I want? Okay, maybe plan A is I meet someone
Speaker 1: amazing and we have children of our own, we're both fertile,
Speaker 1: we can both have that, and we do that. That
Speaker 1: may be plan A, But you better fall in love
Speaker 1: with plan B. Fall in love with plan B even
Speaker 1: while plan A is still a possibility. What's you have?
Speaker 1: It starts with saying what is plan B? What is
Speaker 1: plan B? If this doesn't happen, what's plan B? And
Speaker 1: it might be okay, Well, if I don't meet someone
Speaker 1: by this age, I'm going to do it myself. I'm
Speaker 1: going to decide that now. Because the moment I've truly
Speaker 1: decided that and fallen in love with it, that's a
Speaker 1: step further, I grant you. But if I can actually
Speaker 1: live there for a moment, even before, it has to
Speaker 1: be a reality and I can go, can I love that?
Speaker 1: You know what? I think I can? And by the way,
Speaker 1: if I can't love it, that's also a of closure.
Speaker 1: If I've realized that I don't want that. That's okay,
Speaker 1: no judgment. But when you make your peace with that,
Speaker 1: you know what, I want to do this as a
Speaker 1: traditional unit or not at all, that's closure. But if
Speaker 1: you know, oh, I will do this by myself. If
Speaker 1: it doesn't happen, that's closure. And I can even love that.
Speaker 1: And by the way, go find people who have done
Speaker 1: that and love it who have done that, and it's
Speaker 1: the greatest gift they gave themselves who have done that.
Speaker 1: And by the way, is plans adoption is go run
Speaker 1: the plans and at any time if you're willing to
Speaker 1: make Plan B the new Plan A. And I really
Speaker 1: believe in life the key to happiness is not just
Speaker 1: deferring to Plan B, but it's making plan be so
Speaker 1: beautiful that it is Plan A. Now that God, my god,
Speaker 1: I'm so glad Plan A didn't happen to me. That's
Speaker 1: happiness in life is when you can pivot in that way,
Speaker 1: and whether it's by and I did a whole podcast
Speaker 1: episode with two experts on freezing your eggs and it
Speaker 1: was an amazing episode and we got all the detail
Speaker 1: on it and the real process of what people have
Speaker 1: to go through when they do that and you can
Speaker 1: hear for yourself. That might buy me some time. It
Speaker 1: might at least be a pressure valve. Is super expensive.
Speaker 1: Many people can't do it, can't afford to do it,
Speaker 1: don't want to take the time off work. But if
Speaker 1: I want to do that, that may be another pressure valve.
Speaker 1: But let me actually assess this. And most of us,
Speaker 1: we not only are unwilling to have hard conversations with
Speaker 1: other people, but we are unwilling to have hard conversations
Speaker 1: with ourselves. When we have that hard conversation with ourselves,
Speaker 1: things change for people. There is a different power to them.
Speaker 1: And now, by the way, if I've decided you know
Speaker 1: what I want, I don't want to I actually do
Speaker 1: not want to casual date. I don't want connection more
Speaker 1: than I want an actual family. So the next time
Speaker 1: someone comes into my life and they like me and
Speaker 1: it feels fun and exciting, I'm actually not assessing it
Speaker 1: just through that lens anymore. I'm assessing it through the
Speaker 1: lens of is this a time waster? And if this
Speaker 1: person is kind of being like I hear from them
Speaker 1: one month and not the next, this is not someone
Speaker 1: who's consciously looking for a relationship. So I'm going to
Speaker 1: back off. And if you ask me why I'm backing off,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to be aggressive. If I'm going to say,
Speaker 1: to be honest with you, I know that what I
Speaker 1: have to offer is super valuable and super precious, and
Speaker 1: when I give it to someone, they're going to be
Speaker 1: super lucky. And I want to give it to someone
Speaker 1: who I feel is actually investing on the level I'm
Speaker 1: willing to invest. And I don't feel like you're in
Speaker 1: that space now. That can make someone come close, be
Speaker 1: closer to you, or it can drive someone away. Either way,
Speaker 1: you will find the right person faster if you say
Speaker 1: the no to the wrong person quicker. But you can
Speaker 1: only say no to the wrong people quicker. If you've
Speaker 1: defined wrong people right. Right person isn't person I have
Speaker 1: a connection with. Right person is person who's on the
Speaker 1: same path as me, who I have a connection with.
Speaker 1: And if you've actually defined that, because you've already had
Speaker 1: the hard conversation with yourself about what's most important right now,
Speaker 1: you know what to say no to. I think there
Speaker 1: are people everywhere right now who haven't actually figured out
Speaker 1: what it is they're saying no to, And so anything
Speaker 1: that's exciting that comes along. Okay, you have my time
Speaker 1: and my energy and my attention, and that you don't
Speaker 1: get that time back. I think that the falling in
Speaker 1: love with the plan not only has implications for how
Speaker 1: people find love meet people, but it's also how they
Speaker 1: get out of relationships because Plan B on the back
Speaker 1: end of a relationship is potentially having to date again
Speaker 1: someday or being alone or living alone for the first
Speaker 1: time in twenty thirty forty years for some people, right,
Speaker 1: and so they falling in love with that Plan B
Speaker 1: two is it's a whole different game because the front
Speaker 1: end of that hasn't been constructed in our lives, and
Speaker 1: it was that work of falling in love with the
Speaker 1: Plan B to me, has a lot of power for
Speaker 1: survivors because that falling in love with the Plan B
Speaker 1: could also be how you take yourself back after you've
Speaker 1: been hurt and allow yourself to reconstruct the standard not
Speaker 1: to meet someone else, but to actually make a new life.
Speaker 1: It's not just about meeting and falling in love. It's
Speaker 1: about loving life, loving your life, and to me, that
Speaker 1: that's still love. It's not just love of the other.
Speaker 1: Because if you do love your life it's going to
Speaker 1: come friends, future partner, anything like that. And a lot
Speaker 1: of that is intentionality. It's teaching people to look for
Speaker 1: those moments to love and again, holidays were primed for that.
Speaker 1: In the clients I was working with, I was like,
Speaker 1: let's talk about what Christmas was like without him, and
Speaker 1: they're like, oh, actually, I didn't even think about it
Speaker 1: was really fun this year, Like we didn't clean up
Speaker 1: the wrapping paper, where I was like, how was that?
Speaker 1: It was so fun? Likes the dogs were playing in it.
Speaker 1: They didn't notice those things. And then that intentional it
Speaker 1: really helps people realize that. So I think that that
Speaker 1: there's a power to what you're saying. Again, on both
Speaker 1: sides of this sandwich, you know, it's them that's just Yeah,
Speaker 1: what you just said is profoundly important. I think we're
Speaker 1: in three relationships, whether we like it or not. We're
Speaker 1: in a relationship with other people. Even if you're not
Speaker 1: in a romantic relationship, you are in a relationship with
Speaker 1: other people in life. You're in a relationship with yourself,
Speaker 1: and you're in a relationship with life. And you have
Speaker 1: to start seeing those things as real relationships. Right over Christmas,
Speaker 1: you know, over the holidays. I on Christmas Day, you know,
Speaker 1: everyone puts out Merry Christmas messages to everyone, And this Christmas,
Speaker 1: I thought to myself, you know what people don't necessarily
Speaker 1: say is who's having a complicated Christmas? And when you're
Speaker 1: having a complicated Christmas? And it could be any day
Speaker 1: of the year, but you feel it at a time
Speaker 1: when there's a blueprint for how it's supposed to look
Speaker 1: in our minds and life is like that, you think
Speaker 1: that you can't be happy because of the circumstances. And
Speaker 1: I am a big believer that there's a shift that
Speaker 1: we can make. There are times in life where life
Speaker 1: doesn't seem to be bringing us magic, and I truly
Speaker 1: believe that we've found our power again when we decide
Speaker 1: to make the pivot from being a seeker of magic
Speaker 1: to be an author of magic. If we can be
Speaker 1: on a tough day like that and go where I
Speaker 1: can lead, I can lead. Maybe I was protecting my
Speaker 1: family for the last twenty years and that family just
Speaker 1: blew up and that was not the life I wanted. Well, okay,
Speaker 1: now we have a different set of circumstances. But the
Speaker 1: game is, how can you be the author of magic?
Speaker 1: In those circumstances. And when you start thinking like that,
Speaker 1: I really believe life changes and all your power comes
Speaker 1: back to you, even in situations where you think you've
Speaker 1: lost it. I work with people on how to navigate
Speaker 1: really toxic relationships. It's grotesque guidance right there to change
Speaker 1: your expectations, Like, if you're going to stay in this,
Speaker 1: you're gonna have to disengage. They're not interested in you.
Speaker 1: They are not going to pay attention to you. They
Speaker 1: don't want to see all of you. So that means
Speaker 1: we're going to teach you that this is who they are.
Speaker 1: You're not going to be a surprise when they come
Speaker 1: in and they do the same thing. And it means
Speaker 1: you're also going to cultivate other spaces in your life.
Speaker 1: But what happens when the expectations get ratcheted to reality,
Speaker 1: it actually creates because all of human misery, to me,
Speaker 1: is the gap between what we want and what really is.
Speaker 1: The bigger that gap, the greater the misery. The more
Speaker 1: you can narrow some of that. And it may be
Speaker 1: that this is what I'm getting, and this is how
Speaker 1: I can narrow that gap. I may not be unhappy
Speaker 1: in this relationship. Then a person thinks, does that mean
Speaker 1: I have to live in lowered expectations and perpetuity? Not
Speaker 1: at all. Now is to say, if these are some
Speaker 1: of my expectations, I'm going to take these to other
Speaker 1: places in life. And that's none of this is easy.
Speaker 1: I think that if I've learned one thing through our
Speaker 1: conversation is that I think we want sort of like
Speaker 1: the five tips five tips to find the guy of
Speaker 1: my dreams or the gall of dreams, or my person
Speaker 1: of my dreams. There are no five tips. This is work.
Speaker 1: This is working on yourself. This is making yourself accountable
Speaker 1: to you. This is about giving yourself permission to individuate,
Speaker 1: to be autonomous, to honor yourself in any way you can.
Speaker 1: This is about building yourself out first before you put
Speaker 1: yourself in those situations, and then by building yourself out,
Speaker 1: you can hold those standards. This is a process. There
Speaker 1: is no pithy advice. There is no TikTok video that
Speaker 1: in a minute and a half is going to tell
Speaker 1: you how to find sustaining true love. But the reassuring
Speaker 1: thing is that there are more ways for you to
Speaker 1: be happy than the old you could ever have conceived of.
Speaker 1: I love that, Matthew. I want people to be able
Speaker 1: to find you. How can people find that magic? How
Speaker 1: can people find Matthew Hussey. I don't need to tell you.
Speaker 1: That means so much coming from you, So thank you. Instagram.
Speaker 1: The Matthew Hussey is a good place to just keep
Speaker 1: up with me if you just want to dip your
Speaker 1: toe in the water, and if you want a deeper
Speaker 1: journey with me. The thing that I have coming up
Speaker 1: that is genuinely transformative in the sense that it truly
Speaker 1: begins a new path for you. The virtual retreat that
Speaker 1: I have is something you can do from anywhere in
Speaker 1: the world. You don't have to fly anywhere. You can
Speaker 1: do it from home, romany. You've kindly come to be
Speaker 1: a guest speaker on that a couple of times, and
Speaker 1: it's the deepest work I do with people. So if
Speaker 1: you want to go through that process with me, MH.
Speaker 1: Virtual retreat dot Com is the link. Great. We'll have
Speaker 1: all of that in the notes. And Matthew has books.
Speaker 1: But I have spoken at his retreats and I have
Speaker 1: to say, having met your audience and everything, it is
Speaker 1: so engaged. People are so present, tremendous community and I've
Speaker 1: talked firsthand people in my life who didn't know we
Speaker 1: were connected. I said, wait a minute, you're on his
Speaker 1: And these are people who have said, you know, Matthew
Speaker 1: has changed my life, and I'm so glad to hear this.
Speaker 1: Someone I'm friends with that I care about has now
Speaker 1: connected with him. So you're making real change in the
Speaker 1: life of people I love dearly and who have some
Speaker 1: of them have ended up in beautiful love stories and
Speaker 1: some of them have just found ended up in beautiful places.
Speaker 1: So thank you on their behalf. And again, thank you
Speaker 1: for this conversation. I think it really has I love this.
Speaker 1: The energy it brings to this is that I think
Speaker 1: it gives hope to survivors. I think a lot of
Speaker 1: us believe that we lost our chance to have our
Speaker 1: love story when we went through a toxic relationship or relationships,
Speaker 1: and that it's a reminder that having been through these
Speaker 1: relationships not only doesn't steal your love story, it actually
Speaker 1: going to be a lot richer than you think. So
Speaker 1: there's hope for us. Thanks again, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: Thank you. Here are my takeaways from my conversation with Matthew. First,
Speaker 1: stop trying to be a red flag detector or a
Speaker 1: narcissism detective. Finding healthy love is more complicated than that.
Speaker 1: When you focus all of your energy on collecting red flags,
Speaker 1: you may miss the opportunity to be present, slow down,
Speaker 1: and pay attention to how you feel rather than focusing
Speaker 1: on their toxic quirks. This relates to a key element
Speaker 1: of maintaining a healthy relationship, which is discernment. So it's
Speaker 1: all about pacing. Matthew talks a lot about standards and
Speaker 1: starting from a point of having what you want for
Speaker 1: a relationship in mind, but a major issue for survivors
Speaker 1: of narcissistic relationships is that these standards are not easy
Speaker 1: to establish or even what a healthy relationship looks like.
Speaker 1: Getting into a healthy relationship isn't about the aha moment
Speaker 1: of figuring out that another person's behavior is narcissistic, but
Speaker 1: rather learning and living into what constitutes acceptable behavior and
Speaker 1: a healthy relationship. For this next takeaway, be open. This
Speaker 1: may be half of the challenge, not just in life,
Speaker 1: but also in relationships. Matthew talks about curiosity and openness
Speaker 1: that things can be different. This approach can actually be
Speaker 1: really useful for survivors of narcissistic relationships, and for people
Speaker 1: who keep finding themselves in unhealthy relationships, curiosity is a
Speaker 1: bit of a superpower. The willingness to consider doing things
Speaker 1: differently merely asks us to just consider that there are
Speaker 1: other ways out there. As Matthew suggests, once we recognize
Speaker 1: that what we are doing is making us miserable, a
Speaker 1: key to healing and moving forward is to also recognize
Speaker 1: that there may be a better option. And this relates
Speaker 1: to his guidance this idea of falling in love with
Speaker 1: your plan B. Being open to a plan B is
Speaker 1: also a stretch for survivors, but giving yourself permission to
Speaker 1: even consider one and then allow yourself to love it
Speaker 1: can give survivors their power back. In our next takeaway,
Speaker 1: there are standards and there are tactics. This is an
Speaker 1: important distinction that Matthew makes because so much of the
Speaker 1: content out there on dating and relationships focuses on tactics. Well,
Speaker 1: don't respond to a text right away or wait for
Speaker 1: them to contact you kind of thing. Standards represent deeper work,
Speaker 1: and for people who may have survived past toxic relationships,
Speaker 1: are not easy work. It means recognition of what is
Speaker 1: acceptable and making your choices accordingly, even if it feels uncomfortable.
Speaker 1: In this next takeaway, one thing that really struck me
Speaker 1: about this conversation, which is so important. Matthew emphasizes this
Speaker 1: idea that it is okay to be unhappy without a label,
Speaker 1: and this point is so important. In essence, he is saying,
Speaker 1: let's stop making this about he is a narcissist, and
Speaker 1: rather about this doesn't feel good, or I'm not enjoying this,
Speaker 1: or merely that I'm not happy in this. Instead of
Speaker 1: trying to validate an uncomfortable relationship by calling someone out
Speaker 1: as narcissistic, it may be more useful to simply acknowledge,
Speaker 1: give yourself permission to note that you aren't happy, and
Speaker 1: then proceed from there. And for our final takeaway, maybe
Speaker 1: the real work of dating is getting legs under the table,
Speaker 1: which is the idea of creating stability by having lives
Speaker 1: full of varied things that matter to us and strengthen
Speaker 1: us meaning purpose, people and activities that matter social support.
Speaker 1: More legs mean more stability, especially when we are trying
Speaker 1: to navigate dating and relationships. I like Matthew's metaphor and
Speaker 1: can see how the work of healing from narcissistic abuse
Speaker 1: and moving forward into new relationships of any kind can
Speaker 1: actually be the psychological carpentry of building those legs under
Speaker 1: our table, creating whole, full lives and identities.