Speaker 1: Today. It's great to chat with Amy Chan on the podcast.
Speaker 1: Amy is the founder of a new Breakup boot Camp,
Speaker 1: a retreat that takes a scientific and spiritual approach to
Speaker 1: healing the heart. She's also the editor in chief of
Speaker 1: Heart Hackers Club, an online magazine that focuses on the
Speaker 1: psychology behind love, lust and desire. The Observer calls her
Speaker 1: quote a relationship expert whose work is like that of
Speaker 1: a scientific Carrie Bradshaw and our Company has been featured
Speaker 1: across national media, including Good Morning America, Vogue, Glamour, Nightline,
Speaker 1: and the front page of The New York Times. Her
Speaker 1: latest book is called Breakup boot Camp, The Science of
Speaker 1: Rewiring Your Heart. Amy, thanks so much for talking to
Speaker 1: me today. This is a very long awaited interview for me. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm so excited to be here. I'm excited that you're
Speaker 1: here very much. So. I've been really enjoying listening to
Speaker 1: you talk across various platforms, you know, not just your book,
Speaker 1: but like on Instagram, on Clubhouse, you know, in various
Speaker 1: other podcast interviews. So now I get Now it's my turn,
Speaker 1: I get to talk to you. I feel so lucky.
Speaker 1: So can you let's just start with this you know,
Speaker 1: basic question of like the heartbreak that eventually led to
Speaker 1: you writing Breakup boot Camp. Yeah. So I've been a
Speaker 1: relationship columnist for over a decade and I just was
Speaker 1: never able to figure out love. And then I found
Speaker 1: myself in a relationship where I was like, Okay, I've
Speaker 1: got it. I'm living the dream. And back then, to me,
Speaker 1: living the dream was date, get married, and you know,
Speaker 1: live happily forever after. And I thought my happily forever
Speaker 1: after was set in stone. And after you know, two
Speaker 1: years of being together and living together, that relationship fell
Speaker 1: apart due to infidelity, and I fell apart. I had
Speaker 1: put so much of my identity in him and us
Speaker 1: that without the relationship, I didn't know who I was.
Speaker 1: And not only was I mourning my best friend and
Speaker 1: this person I thought I knew, I was now mourning
Speaker 1: the future that would never be actualized. And I didn't
Speaker 1: know what to do with myself, and I spiraled into depression.
Speaker 1: I had thoughts of suicide. Oh no, itels dark, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I said, really went dark? Yeah, yeah, oh my god.
Speaker 1: It's amazing. No matter how old we are, like, we
Speaker 1: still have that, you know, Like I had that when
Speaker 1: I was like sixteen and I still have that when
Speaker 1: when a break what relationship is over, you know, it's
Speaker 1: like we don't grow out of it, do we? Yeah,
Speaker 1: the pain doesn't go away. I think that when you
Speaker 1: when you do open your heart and you are vulnerable
Speaker 1: and you show all sides of yourself. Yes, there's a
Speaker 1: risk to that, and when it doesn't work out according
Speaker 1: to plan, it hurts, but I think that's also evidence
Speaker 1: that you opened up your heart and that's also really beautiful.
Speaker 1: And I do think though learning some tools does make
Speaker 1: this make the suffering minimize. And this is where you
Speaker 1: come in. So you used I love how you use
Speaker 1: this your own personal pain as if I can phrase
Speaker 1: it this way as a bridge to self actualization, because
Speaker 1: this is a topic of both of our you know,
Speaker 1: self actualization. We both are really interested in that, and
Speaker 1: so I love that you took that personal experience and
Speaker 1: use that as a bridge. Can you talk a little
Speaker 1: bit more, Well, just tell me how how it is
Speaker 1: a bridge, you know, and and and how you you
Speaker 1: kind of have people not try to eradicate that feeling
Speaker 1: or or sweep it under the rug, but how they
Speaker 1: actually it can even be a launch pad to self actualization. Yeah,
Speaker 1: great question. One of the things I learned after my
Speaker 1: breakup and healing from that was that it was a
Speaker 1: band aid that got ripped off and I had to
Speaker 1: deal with all of the unresolved trauma heartbreaks, starting with
Speaker 1: the heartbreak with my father, who was completely unavailable when
Speaker 1: I was young, and at the time I didn't know it.
Speaker 1: When I was in the midst of the heartbreak, I
Speaker 1: just vilified my ex and everything was his fault. But
Speaker 1: after I got some clarity, I recognized that this was
Speaker 1: an opportunity for me to really look into those open
Speaker 1: wounds that I had, and that's really when I started
Speaker 1: to look at the patterns and ask myself why the
Speaker 1: same emotional experience kept repeating, just with different people. And
Speaker 1: so that's what I think breakups can do. A breakup
Speaker 1: can be the shakeup you need to redirect your life.
Speaker 1: And I don't look at a breakup as something so
Speaker 1: horrible to feel sorry for someone. When someone tells me
Speaker 1: they're in a breakup, I'm actually excited for them. I
Speaker 1: empathized of how they're feeling, but I know where this
Speaker 1: open door can take them. And I think that if
Speaker 1: we can take off the hat of being the villain
Speaker 1: the victim and put on the hat of being a
Speaker 1: scientist and use that past relationship or the past relationships
Speaker 1: to uncover the patterns. They're teaching you things about yourself.
Speaker 1: You can really grow and create the type of love
Speaker 1: and life that you really want. Well, I couldn't agree
Speaker 1: more with that. I couldn't agree more with that. You know,
Speaker 1: you said it's never just about the X. You know,
Speaker 1: can you kind of unpack what you mean by that? Yeah.
Speaker 1: I say this often because the people who come through
Speaker 1: a new breakup boot camp, they're completely focused on their
Speaker 1: ex and try to cycle analyze the X or vilify
Speaker 1: the X, and what they all recognize by the time
Speaker 1: they leave is it's never just about the ex. It's
Speaker 1: recycled pain and our patterns. They follow us wherever they go.
Speaker 1: The pain that we don't deal with doesn't magically disappear
Speaker 1: because you've hopped into another relationship or you've gone on
Speaker 1: dating apps. That's the baggage, that's a compound trauma, and
Speaker 1: it's just following you. And you might be able to
Speaker 1: get really good at suppressing those emotions, distracting yourself from
Speaker 1: the pain, but the pain needs oxygen to breathe, and
Speaker 1: it's eventually going to seep out either in your reactions,
Speaker 1: in your current relationship and your regrets. And so you
Speaker 1: have to ask yourself, do I want to do the
Speaker 1: work up front and deal with it now or do
Speaker 1: I want to, you know, deal with a harder thing
Speaker 1: because it's just going to grow and it's going to
Speaker 1: compound later on. The choice is yours. That's good to
Speaker 1: know you have that choice. Does everyone have that choice?
Speaker 1: What we do? Now? You you you just just a
Speaker 1: double on something you just said you talked about how
Speaker 1: you know you notice there are these patterns that keep
Speaker 1: kept coming up and cropping up in your Are there
Speaker 1: different kinds of patterns that you've identified after talking to
Speaker 1: enough people, you know, getting a sens of this, Are
Speaker 1: there Like have you like, you know my systematizing nerdy
Speaker 1: brain is like, have you done the factor analysis on
Speaker 1: that one? Yes? The thing is like the same path.
Speaker 1: There's a handful of patterns. I'd say, there's a handful
Speaker 1: of buckets, and they all go down to a couple
Speaker 1: of core beliefs. And so even though the outcome might
Speaker 1: look really different or their situation might look really different,
Speaker 1: if you peel back the layers, we're usually dealing with
Speaker 1: a lot of the same challenges. And you know what
Speaker 1: I see often is people have what's called the broken
Speaker 1: chemistry compass. It's something I coined in my book. And
Speaker 1: a chemistry compass is what I call your internal GPS
Speaker 1: that points you into the direction of who you're drawn
Speaker 1: to and who you're a repulse by. And when you
Speaker 1: don't have a healthy model of what love looks like
Speaker 1: and feels like growing up, you develop a chemistry compass
Speaker 1: that might be a bit broken, because, as you know,
Speaker 1: human beings were drawn to what's familiar. Mine is very broken.
Speaker 1: Mine is very broken. We can work on that. And
Speaker 1: so you know, if chaos or unavailability was what you
Speaker 1: grew up with and that's what you're familiar with, that's
Speaker 1: your homeostasis. Then when you meet someone who can wound
Speaker 1: you in a very similar way, you can subconsciously feel like,
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, I'm attracted. There's so much chemistry, but
Speaker 1: you're not recognizing like, oh wait, this is familiarity, this
Speaker 1: isn't love. And so that's something that keeps happening. People
Speaker 1: are choosing partners that are not the right fit, and
Speaker 1: then they blame themselves that something must be wrong with them.
Speaker 1: I hear that all the time, What's wrong with me?
Speaker 1: And then the second main pattern that I see is
Speaker 1: I would say about seventy five percent of the people
Speaker 1: who come to renew have an anxious attachment style. And
Speaker 1: as you know, these are people who fundamentally are afraid
Speaker 1: of abandonment or rejection, and they're very sensitive to the
Speaker 1: cues that their bond or their connection might be threatened.
Speaker 1: And when they sense that it is, they start to panic.
Speaker 1: Their nervous systems activated, and then they can react in
Speaker 1: a way that could sabotage the relationship. You know. What
Speaker 1: I've been very interested in is the avoidant attachment style,
Speaker 1: when the person has avoidant but they don't have it anxious.
Speaker 1: It actually can be correlated with high life satisfaction. I've
Speaker 1: been talking to my colleague Peter mcgral about that. We're
Speaker 1: like some people just just like just don't care about
Speaker 1: romantic relationships. But doesn't mean that like we need a psycho,
Speaker 1: we need to like pathologize that, you know. But I
Speaker 1: think the anxious one is the real you know, that's
Speaker 1: the one that they can really hold you ba from growth.
Speaker 1: You know, in a big way, uh, you know, because
Speaker 1: you're well, there's a constant insecurity there, you know, and
Speaker 1: that's that's no way to there's no way to live, yeah,
Speaker 1: in your relationships or in your life. I mean, I'm
Speaker 1: I'm a neurotic jew, you know, like I I got,
Speaker 1: I got you know, anxious attachment style to the world.
Speaker 1: You know, I say, you know what I mean, Like,
Speaker 1: so that's no way to live. So I've been trying
Speaker 1: to practice that through meditation, you know, through I've come
Speaker 1: a long way, you know, and uh, I think that
Speaker 1: uh yeah, there's a lot of hope right to people
Speaker 1: that even if if they have that in their in
Speaker 1: their relationships, they that they can really work on those
Speaker 1: patterns for sure. And one of the things, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: you mentioned it right there, meditation, mindfulness. This is a
Speaker 1: hard work up front, that's the stuff you got to do.
Speaker 1: And you build those reserves, you build those muscles that
Speaker 1: really help. And also looking at your entire tribe, who's
Speaker 1: the village you're surrounded with, because the people that you
Speaker 1: are exposed to on a regular basis, they're wiring you.
Speaker 1: I mean, you've talked about this in your book, and
Speaker 1: it's you know, like, if you are surrounded by low
Speaker 1: safety relationships where you constantly feel judged that love is conditional.
Speaker 1: It's only given if you're perfect, or you act a
Speaker 1: certain way, if you're helpful. If you're constantly surrounded by that,
Speaker 1: you don't have those necessary neural pathways for healthy connection
Speaker 1: and trust. Right, you're always in a state of alarm
Speaker 1: because you don't feel safe. And so when I work
Speaker 1: with people on the relationships, it's not just looking at
Speaker 1: your romantic relationship, it's looking at how are all of
Speaker 1: your relationships and increasing your exposure to high safety relationships
Speaker 1: and decreasing your exposure to low safety relationships. That's also
Speaker 1: super important. Low safety being mean, dangerous, harmful, yeah, emotionally
Speaker 1: dangerous yeah, or even physically dangerous, right yeah? Yeah? But
Speaker 1: why why do I Why am I attracted to danger
Speaker 1: in women? I love dangerous women. I mean, I be
Speaker 1: I I believe in being vulnerable and honest. You know,
Speaker 1: so I'm being honest with you. I find dangerous women
Speaker 1: hot as hell? What's the matter with me? How does
Speaker 1: dangerous women show up? Though? What is it that's dangerous?
Speaker 1: Is it edgy, adventurous? Well, some of it we can't
Speaker 1: talk about on this podcast, but the parts we can
Speaker 1: talk about, you know, just like, yeah, I really like
Speaker 1: I like, you know what, I like a strong woman,
Speaker 1: you know, I like a woman like a badass, you know. Like,
Speaker 1: but yeah, like some of them can be really seductive
Speaker 1: too though, and uh uh and uh and you know
Speaker 1: I can get like in too fast, you know, like
Speaker 1: like kind of gets sucked into a relationship too fast
Speaker 1: that there's a kind of danger there, you know, if
Speaker 1: that makes sense where it's like I want to be
Speaker 1: more mindful about what I'm doing. Yeah, does that make sense?
Speaker 1: Yeah for sure. Yeah. So when we when we rush
Speaker 1: into something so fast, right because we feel that chemistry,
Speaker 1: that passion, we want to just chase it. We're like,
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, it feels so good. I want more
Speaker 1: and want more. And if we have a pattern of
Speaker 1: doing that and that has created an outcome where we're
Speaker 1: choosing people who ultimately aren't the right match or ends
Speaker 1: up being toxic, then we know, Okay, I've got a
Speaker 1: pattern and I've got to be more mindful and tensable
Speaker 1: about slowing it down. Even if the feeling of the
Speaker 1: moment is rush into it, and as you start to
Speaker 1: practice that, it becomes a little bit less hard and
Speaker 1: having a little bit more discipline in that for a
Speaker 1: better a different outcome. See my uh cush in meditation. No, No,
Speaker 1: you're absolutely right. Look, you're abstu right. And I've never
Speaker 1: I've I've never admitted some of this stuff on them
Speaker 1: on the Psychology podcast and the seven years I've done this, So, uh,
Speaker 1: you know you're bringing you're bringing some some vulnerability out
Speaker 1: of me. Thank you, thank you. I mean I can't
Speaker 1: be alone in this, So hopefully this advice is helpful
Speaker 1: to uh, to thousands of our listeners. You know, so,
Speaker 1: what what does a day at your renewed breakup boot
Speaker 1: camp look like? What is a typical day? If there
Speaker 1: if there is even if there is such a thing
Speaker 1: as a typical day. Yeah, there's a complete system in
Speaker 1: how the entire experience is designed. So when the people
Speaker 1: come in on a Friday, their heads are usually hanging
Speaker 1: low and if you look at their eyes, there's like
Speaker 1: a glaze. And we start off by setting some house rules,
Speaker 1: and the number one rule is do not vilify your X.
Speaker 1: We're not there to go in a rabbit hole of
Speaker 1: blaming and shaming what the X is or is not,
Speaker 1: and we encourage everyone to put on their scientists hat,
Speaker 1: because the whole weekend is about learning about the data
Speaker 1: and the pattern so that we can make better choices
Speaker 1: in the future. We also encourage everyone to either put
Speaker 1: their phone in a bucket that we provide or to
Speaker 1: turn it off so that they're not wondering if their
Speaker 1: ex is contacting them. Oh yeah, happy, yeah. And so
Speaker 1: after that we tell them also, no giving advice. They're
Speaker 1: in the hands of experts. There's thirteen experts, and a
Speaker 1: lot of times people aren't equipped to give advice, especially
Speaker 1: around heartbreak. I know when I went through mine, the
Speaker 1: amount of times people said to me, be strong, get
Speaker 1: over it. It happened for a reason, and I felt
Speaker 1: so much shame when I heard those things. So after that,
Speaker 1: everyone shares their story. But then we teach them how
Speaker 1: to share their story without re traumatizing themselves. And we
Speaker 1: teach them about cognitive distortions. And so they come in
Speaker 1: with one story, and through exercise, we actually get them
Speaker 1: to reevaluate their story, circle all of the cognitive distortions,
Speaker 1: the assumptions, interpretations, and write a new story, an updated
Speaker 1: one with just the facts. And then they tell that
Speaker 1: story and they look at the difference between how both
Speaker 1: of them feel, and the whole entire weekend is really
Speaker 1: about reframing that story bit by bit, and then we
Speaker 1: bring in an anxiety expert, We bring in a love
Speaker 1: addiction expert, and then on the Saturday, we bring in
Speaker 1: a psychologist, a behavior a behavioral scientist who specializes in
Speaker 1: cognitive behavioral therapy and DBT. I talk about attachment theory
Speaker 1: and why we choose people who are unhealthy for us.
Speaker 1: Then we pair the you know, the heady stuff with
Speaker 1: body stuff, and we bring in a doctor who teaches
Speaker 1: breath work and takes them through a session to help
Speaker 1: them kind of move emotion and trauma through the body.
Speaker 1: And then on Sunday we bring in a sex educator
Speaker 1: as well as a dominatrix who has a PhD from
Speaker 1: Berkeley who teaches on the psychology of power dynamics. Sunday's fun.
Speaker 1: Sunday is a really fun day, but you see the
Speaker 1: women completely transform. And then at the end of Sunday
Speaker 1: we actually bring in a professional photographer as well as
Speaker 1: a comedian, and the women get their new photos taken
Speaker 1: of their two point zero version, and they just look different.
Speaker 1: Their eyes are sparkling again, they're excited, they're laughing, they're
Speaker 1: standing up tall. You physically see a difference in them.
Speaker 1: And that is the most rewarding part, which reminds me
Speaker 1: all the time. Oh, this is why I do what
Speaker 1: I do. This is why I went through so many heartbreaks.
Speaker 1: The pain was worth it. Yeah, I mean, you're you're
Speaker 1: paying it forward so much. Yeah, it's so important. There's
Speaker 1: no you're there's no rule book we get you know.
Speaker 1: I mean, can you help teenagers too, Like, have you
Speaker 1: ever thought about that having a boot camp for broken
Speaker 1: hearted teens? Yeah, I mean that would be incredible, And
Speaker 1: that's why I'm doing online programs and courses to make
Speaker 1: it more accessible for those who can't wait for a weekend. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because it really hurts as a kid, Yeah for sure.
Speaker 1: I mean, what you're doing, no idea. I still don't
Speaker 1: know what I'm doing. But but but when I was,
Speaker 1: like when I was, when I was, you know, in
Speaker 1: a teenager, you know, high school, just it's like I
Speaker 1: can't live without you. I can't live Sorry, I don't
Speaker 1: know what just happened there, but anyway, Yeah, but it
Speaker 1: is it's so dramatic, you know. Yeah, so dramatic. Well,
Speaker 1: you're doing such a great service. So what are the
Speaker 1: different I think there are six stages of separation that
Speaker 1: you talk about in your book. Yeah, so there's typically six,
Speaker 1: and I've actually observed there's an extra stage I'll talk
Speaker 1: about that. It first starts off with shock, and this
Speaker 1: is your body and mind has not adjusted to the
Speaker 1: new reality without your partner. Then comes denial, which is
Speaker 1: actually your body protecting you because otherwise the new reality
Speaker 1: is still too overwhelming. And this is when you're still
Speaker 1: rejecting reality. Once you pass through denial, you get into depression.
Speaker 1: This is when you might feel numb, you can't get
Speaker 1: out of bed, you're crying all the time, and this
Speaker 1: is when people have a tendency to isolate. Now, it's
Speaker 1: really important during the stage that you don't listen to
Speaker 1: the cues of your body like you normally would, because
Speaker 1: your body is going to tell you to stay at home,
Speaker 1: cry and fetal position and not eat. Also, what we've
Speaker 1: seen is after during the stage is your your blood
Speaker 1: flow is going to like major muscles that prepare you
Speaker 1: for a flight, fight, or freeze. So your appetite becomes
Speaker 1: like seventh on the priority list. That's why some people
Speaker 1: don't have any appetite, so you have to actually not
Speaker 1: listen to your body during this time. The next is anger.
Speaker 1: This is when you start to think life is unjust.
Speaker 1: You might blame your X or you blame yourself. Now
Speaker 1: this is actually a positive assign because it shows that
Speaker 1: energy is moving and it can motivate you to start
Speaker 1: making changes. You then get into a stage called bargaining,
Speaker 1: which is very similar to denial, and you might even
Speaker 1: relapse and get back together with your ex. This is
Speaker 1: when you think about how you could fix the relationship
Speaker 1: and you, you know, the withdrawal really sets in and
Speaker 1: you might do this, you know, back and forth a
Speaker 1: few times until you're like, okay, the same outcome is
Speaker 1: going to keep happening, which brings you to this new
Speaker 1: stage that I've observed, which is accountability. And this is
Speaker 1: when you start to accept reality and look at your
Speaker 1: part of the relationship the upsite downs and even the ending,
Speaker 1: and not that you're responsible for everything that happened, but
Speaker 1: you start evaluating and reflecting on how you might have
Speaker 1: been complicit to some of the things that happened, which
Speaker 1: then leads you into acceptance. And this is when the
Speaker 1: focal point stops becoming centered around your ex and pathologizing
Speaker 1: them or trying to psychoanalyze them, but that energy and
Speaker 1: focus moves towards yourself, what you can learn and what
Speaker 1: you can do. You can be in a stage of acceptance,
Speaker 1: and that doesn't mean that you don't still feel some
Speaker 1: residual pain or emotions, but it means that your energy
Speaker 1: is now about you moving forward to create this next
Speaker 1: two point zero version of your identity of life without
Speaker 1: your ex. And now healing is not linear, and you
Speaker 1: might jump back and forth, but those are the different stages.
Speaker 1: And the more you resist a certain stage by blaming
Speaker 1: yourself or shaming yourself or denying that you're in it,
Speaker 1: the longer you stay in it. So it's important that
Speaker 1: you just allow yourself to move through and process all
Speaker 1: of these stages and the different emotions that come instead
Speaker 1: of labeling them as good or bad, and just be
Speaker 1: kind and gentle with yourself, as if you just broke
Speaker 1: your leg, I mean you just broke your heart. It
Speaker 1: takes time, self compassion. Yeah, a lot of what you're
Speaker 1: describing sound like behaviors that one does to wean themselves
Speaker 1: off an addiction. Now there's a phrase that I've seen
Speaker 1: and know in the past couple of years. I'm sure
Speaker 1: it existed before him, but I've only started seeing it
Speaker 1: called a love addiction, you know, because you know, I've
Speaker 1: heard about sex addiction, you know, for a long time,
Speaker 1: but love addiction is something that I find very interesting.
Speaker 1: Could you explain what that is? And have you encountered
Speaker 1: that in some of the people that have come to
Speaker 1: your your book camp. Yeah, definitely, so yeah, so love addiction.
Speaker 1: We bring in a love addiction expert to talk about
Speaker 1: this because a lot of the women are actually experiencing
Speaker 1: love addiction. And when we look at some of the
Speaker 1: women and how they're so fixated on their ex and
Speaker 1: getting this attention or validation from their ex. But we
Speaker 1: look at the relationship, we recognize like sometimes they don't
Speaker 1: even like the person that they're in a relationship with,
Speaker 1: but they almost need this rush. They need the rush
Speaker 1: of intensity, of the up and down of the unpredictable
Speaker 1: rewards which keeps them hooked right just that dopamine and
Speaker 1: as you know, when you don't know when the reward's
Speaker 1: going to come, that intermit and reinforcement, it gets you hooked, attached, addicted,
Speaker 1: and it happens to the best of us. It's not
Speaker 1: that you're weak or you're stupid or you're broken. It's
Speaker 1: just the psychological tendency. And it happens to rats, and
Speaker 1: it happens to gamblers, and it happens to us. And
Speaker 1: so a lot of the women are dating people who
Speaker 1: are hot and cold, who are available unavailable, who give
Speaker 1: love sometimes and then might be abusive, you know, other times,
Speaker 1: and so they're caught in this cycle. And so it's
Speaker 1: almost like you're in a spell. And it's when they
Speaker 1: start to understand like, oh wait, this actually wasn't love.
Speaker 1: I don't love this person who's been abusive to me.
Speaker 1: I'm just caught in this cycle. It really helps them
Speaker 1: have perspective and make some different decisions. Yeah, how does
Speaker 1: what you're saying right now? How does that relate to
Speaker 1: people who get attached to a sacred relationship plan? Oh?
Speaker 1: I feel like, are they're related in right? Yeah? For sure?
Speaker 1: I know for myself, I've had this plan, which was date,
Speaker 1: get married, have kids, live happily forever after. And this
Speaker 1: relationship plan is one that you see starting from when
Speaker 1: you're reading fairy tales to movies, to watching Sex and
Speaker 1: City or Bridgerton. Uh, it's this idea of what successful
Speaker 1: love and relationships are and it's completely messing up society
Speaker 1: because that's not love. You know. The Romeo and Juliette
Speaker 1: story is not love. That is intensity and love, addiction
Speaker 1: and lust. And you called it, you called it. But
Speaker 1: we base, you know, our ideas of what love is
Speaker 1: on these on what we see in the media, and
Speaker 1: then also the sidle pressures. And so sometimes we have
Speaker 1: this plan and if we don't meet it, we don't
Speaker 1: get married by this age, we don't have kids by
Speaker 1: this age, whatever it is, and we we we feel
Speaker 1: like we're on our way. And then when that plan pivots,
Speaker 1: you just don't know what to do with yourself anymore.
Speaker 1: You've been so attached that plan that you can almost
Speaker 1: fit anyone into that plan. And that's when people do
Speaker 1: something what's called conquesting. When they're actually dating, not because
Speaker 1: not in a way where they're engaging human to human.
Speaker 1: That person is now an object right to be like,
Speaker 1: oh you fit here. I wanted someone who meets these
Speaker 1: check marks by this time. Okay you fit okay you
Speaker 1: And then they go in with everything. So yeah, part
Speaker 1: of I think learning the skill of life is knowing
Speaker 1: that the plan can and will change. And if you
Speaker 1: don't have buoyancy and flexibility in making pivots, you're going
Speaker 1: to be completely destroyed. And this is like, this is
Speaker 1: building your muscle of resilience. So it's so important to
Speaker 1: note that. Just taking this to a neurological level, I know,
Speaker 1: Helen Fisher has shown that the brain on love approximates
Speaker 1: the brain on cocaine. That's interesting totally, and that's why
Speaker 1: after a breakup you so many people feel like they're
Speaker 1: going crazy and they're literally in withdrawal. Right, Like in
Speaker 1: Helen Fisher studies, they've shown that the part of the
Speaker 1: brain lighting up is to say, part as a drug
Speaker 1: user feeding for their next fix. So I tell people
Speaker 1: when they're in a breakup, think of your ex like
Speaker 1: they're your drug dealer, you know, cut off contact, don't
Speaker 1: look at their social media, create systems so that you're
Speaker 1: not constantly triggered by these reminders, because you're going to
Speaker 1: be craving the dopamine, the feel good chemicals from your partner,
Speaker 1: and when you don't get it, it's your the motivational
Speaker 1: drive is going to cause you to do whatever it
Speaker 1: takes to get that attention validation. Even if it's like
Speaker 1: going to be calling them up and having a fight,
Speaker 1: you're still getting that rush. So yeah, after a breakup,
Speaker 1: you need time and space to recalibrate, to let those
Speaker 1: old normal pathways print a way, and to focus on
Speaker 1: healing and your own self care. Yes, your own self care,
Speaker 1: not the one hundred percent in the self care of
Speaker 1: the other person. Because you talk about how some people
Speaker 1: show up to your boot camp chronic caretakers. Now that
Speaker 1: can cause a codependency, and so I guess you're helping
Speaker 1: people as well with the codependency issues, Is that right? Yeah,
Speaker 1: so you're doing a lot. You're helping people with a
Speaker 1: lot of issues over there. There's some that go hand
Speaker 1: in hand with anxious attachment and codependency and overgiving. When
Speaker 1: we do this exercise where we ask who is you
Speaker 1: know an overgiver, pretty much every single person in the
Speaker 1: room raises their hand except for maybe one or two,
Speaker 1: and we look at the reasons why people overgive. On
Speaker 1: the outside, they'll be like, oh, because I want to
Speaker 1: be nice, because I love this person. But when we
Speaker 1: really peel back the layers. We see that. Sometimes people
Speaker 1: overgive as a way to control, as a way of like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm just going to prove that I'm indispensable so that
Speaker 1: you can never re leave me. It's a way of
Speaker 1: avoiding intimacy because if you're constantly giving and you're not receiving,
Speaker 1: you're not in relation. For you to be relational, there
Speaker 1: needs to be a flow of giving and receiving. So
Speaker 1: it's like jamming a stick in a wheel. You're not
Speaker 1: allowing that wheel to go. And so sometimes we do
Speaker 1: that because it allows us to keep an emotional distance
Speaker 1: from people. We do this subconsciously because intimacy is vulnerable,
Speaker 1: and vulnerability is scary because it can really touch your heart.
Speaker 1: So other times people overgive as they're addicted to resentment.
Speaker 1: They have become so used to feeling resentful that it's
Speaker 1: part of their homeostasis. They're comfortable there, it's familiar, and
Speaker 1: so what happens is when they get a compliment, they deflect.
Speaker 1: When someone tries to do a favor for them, they
Speaker 1: outdo their favor and you're going to give me a gift. No, no,
Speaker 1: I'm going to give you a gift two times better.
Speaker 1: They're constantly creating situations where they're in the deficit, and
Speaker 1: that allows them to be comfortable with that feeling of
Speaker 1: being resentful. And I have to say, I am overcoming
Speaker 1: my habits of being an overgiver. And even now when
Speaker 1: I feel the resentment coming up, I ask myself like, wait,
Speaker 1: am I actually communicating my needs? Am I actually stating
Speaker 1: a boundary? Am I actually opening up to receive? Or
Speaker 1: am I being addicted to resentment? I'm like, I know
Speaker 1: exactly what I'm doing right now. You go grow you
Speaker 1: be addicted to resentment? No, this is great. This is
Speaker 1: great that you're like becoming aware of all this because
Speaker 1: and you're helping people become aware of this stuff because
Speaker 1: we don't If we don't have the language for we
Speaker 1: may never be able to comprehend what we're doing or
Speaker 1: what you know, what's happening. What's the difference between feeling
Speaker 1: and feeding emotions? Great question, I'm asking good questions. Question. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So feeling your emotions is allowing yourself to feel the emotion,
Speaker 1: pinpointing where it might feel you're feeling it in the body,
Speaker 1: knowing that it's going to pass like a way, and
Speaker 1: feeding your emotion is when you it's almost like emotional
Speaker 1: cutting when you keep doing things to make that motion
Speaker 1: bigger and stick around longer. So, for example, maybe you're
Speaker 1: feeling sad and instead of doing the opposite action, which
Speaker 1: what would be Okay, I'm going to connect with a friend,
Speaker 1: I'm going to go, you know, jog, I'm going to
Speaker 1: exercise and you know, get the endorphins, you instead put
Speaker 1: on Coldplay on repeat. You might want much love actually
Speaker 1: and these sad romantic movies that have unattainable ideals and
Speaker 1: feel really bad about yourself. You might with your body posture,
Speaker 1: hunch over and be in fetal position and stay there.
Speaker 1: You do these things and you know it's going to
Speaker 1: make you feel worse and worse, but it's almost you
Speaker 1: can't help it. It's emotional cutting. I just need more.
Speaker 1: That's feeding the emotion, and I call it feeding the
Speaker 1: emotional monster. So I think it's important to recognize this,
Speaker 1: whether you're going through a breakup or you're just going
Speaker 1: through the ups and downs of life. When you're feeling
Speaker 1: the sadness or the anger or whatever it is, are
Speaker 1: you judging yourself or feeling it or are you allowing
Speaker 1: yourself to Okay, I feel it it's going to pass
Speaker 1: or are you feeding it? Just putting gasoline into the
Speaker 1: fire and choose what's going to serve you. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: also another technique you talking about in your book is
Speaker 1: the importance of redirecting your thoughts in order to avoid
Speaker 1: excessive rumination. I feel like that's related. I mean, can
Speaker 1: be feeding our emotions, but we can also be feeding
Speaker 1: our thoughts, right. I never quite put it that way before,
Speaker 1: but it felt it felt right, It felt right. So
Speaker 1: can you help people with these techniques if they have
Speaker 1: this excessive rumination and there's like stop, I want to
Speaker 1: stop already. Yeah. So training your brain is it's a skill, right,
Speaker 1: And like I mentioned earlier, when you've showed me your
Speaker 1: meditation pillow, that is a hard work up front, Right,
Speaker 1: it's doing those daily practices that are going to help
Speaker 1: you that when it comes to game time and you
Speaker 1: know you're about to go on a rumination roller coaster,
Speaker 1: because you've kind of trained your brain and you've done
Speaker 1: mindfulness and self compassion, you're able to kind of pause
Speaker 1: and not react. Right. But then a tool that could
Speaker 1: help you in the moment is I love the stop
Speaker 1: sign exercise and so when you noticed yourself either ruminating
Speaker 1: about the past or fantasizing about the future, either way,
Speaker 1: you're not being present. The stop sign exercise is when
Speaker 1: you close your eyes, you imagine a big red stop sign,
Speaker 1: you say the word out loud. Stop. Then you open
Speaker 1: your eyes and you start just looking around and listing
Speaker 1: everything you're grateful for and why, like, oh, the trees,
Speaker 1: I'm so grateful because it's beautiful. Oh you know that
Speaker 1: I have this glass of water. You just keep going
Speaker 1: and you keep listening it off until eventually you lose
Speaker 1: your original train of thought and then you go off
Speaker 1: onto this other, you know, direction, And the first few
Speaker 1: times you may be like, oh, this doesn't work, but again,
Speaker 1: it's like trading yourself. And the more you do it,
Speaker 1: the easier it becomes, and you learn how to be ale,
Speaker 1: to be masterful at redirecting your thoughts so that you
Speaker 1: just don't get caught up in this rumination roller coaster. Oh,
Speaker 1: rubination roller coaster. I love that. Yeah, oh that's so good.
Speaker 1: So what are those some of the thing traps we
Speaker 1: fall into when we're feeling unsafe in an intimate relationship. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so sinking traps are you know, are our way of
Speaker 1: making interpretations that are not true. They're not based in fact,
Speaker 1: and they actually add anxiety and stress. And we were
Speaker 1: all privy to doing these thinking traps. And I think
Speaker 1: a common one is all or nothing thinking. So when
Speaker 1: you catch yourself saying things like I always meet you know,
Speaker 1: people who treat me like crap, this never happens to me.
Speaker 1: Just catch yourself, is it really true? Always like every
Speaker 1: single person in your life? What if it is true?
Speaker 1: Then you might need to dig a bit deeper. Then
Speaker 1: you got you got worse issues than so all or
Speaker 1: nothing thinking is one catastrophizing when you take one thing
Speaker 1: and then you turn into this huge, huge problem that's
Speaker 1: never going to go away, getting caught up in shoulds.
Speaker 1: So I should have done that, he should have done that,
Speaker 1: she should have done that. Right, you're not based in reality.
Speaker 1: You can't change the past, and that causes a lot
Speaker 1: more stress and often a lot of self blame or
Speaker 1: blame onto another or even shaming yourself. And I think
Speaker 1: another huge one that happens is making assumptions. Right, maybe
Speaker 1: you didn't hear back on a text right away, and
Speaker 1: perhaps you had a few experiences in your past that
Speaker 1: made you associate not hearing back equals you know, a
Speaker 1: threat of someone's going to drop you or reject you,
Speaker 1: and so you personalize that. You make an assumption and
Speaker 1: you're like, oh, this person must not be into me,
Speaker 1: this person must be taking advantage of me. And a
Speaker 1: really great thing to do when you find yourself doing
Speaker 1: that is actually just great writing down a list of
Speaker 1: possible scenarios with a passionate lens. And this also if
Speaker 1: you're kind of in a panic state and your amygdala
Speaker 1: has kind of taken over and you're like in fight
Speaker 1: or flight, this can actually help your prefrontal cortex come
Speaker 1: back online, right, your rational logical part of your brain.
Speaker 1: Just by listing it out and reviewing that that can
Speaker 1: help calm you down. So those are some of the
Speaker 1: common thinking traps that I see all often. So this
Speaker 1: is so helpful. So let's say that, like, the person
Speaker 1: really isn't into you, and so that's one of the
Speaker 1: possible scenarios that you just rationally think through. Okay, like
Speaker 1: what if the worst case scenario is true? You know
Speaker 1: what if it's not, this ain't happening, Scotty, then how
Speaker 1: can you still show that your self compassion in that situation. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think first thing is don't fall into the next
Speaker 1: thinking trap, which is personalization. I'm a loser, yeah yeah, right,
Speaker 1: Like someone doesn't drive with you, they don't want to
Speaker 1: continue dating. It doesn't mean that you're flawed as a
Speaker 1: human being totally. And so often people go straight there
Speaker 1: like something's wrong with me and nothing is wrong with you,
Speaker 1: and you haven't met your fit yet. I mean, that's
Speaker 1: what dating is. It's a filtering process. And not everyone
Speaker 1: you meet is going to be your fit. It shouldn't
Speaker 1: be that. Of course, it's not gonna be that way.
Speaker 1: And so don't turn into personalization as an attack on yourself.
Speaker 1: And if you have the thought, you you can't control
Speaker 1: that thought from coming in your brain, but you don't
Speaker 1: need to feed it. And even just don't even say
Speaker 1: it out loud or maybe okay, you have the thought,
Speaker 1: and then pair it with a positive affirmation, something that's
Speaker 1: a little bit more true, a little bit more helpful.
Speaker 1: If you go straight to I'm such a loser, don't
Speaker 1: go all the way to opposite of I'm such a winner.
Speaker 1: Your brain will reject what it here inherently doesn't believe
Speaker 1: is true. When you said the opposite. I thought it
Speaker 1: was going to be she's a loser, right, But don't
Speaker 1: go straight to the opposite because it's not gonna be helpful.
Speaker 1: But you want to find soften it up, find something
Speaker 1: a little bit more true, a little bit more helpful,
Speaker 1: and say that out loud. So I think that could
Speaker 1: be helpful, and yeah, this is so good. What are
Speaker 1: some ways we can express anger in a healthy way
Speaker 1: if we feel that bubbling up to the surface. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So I've noticed with women particularly that they tend in
Speaker 1: my boot camps, they tend to actually not feel anger.
Speaker 1: And it's not that they don't feel it, it's that
Speaker 1: they don't process it as anger because they've been so
Speaker 1: used to feeling anger and turning it into something more
Speaker 1: socially acceptable, which is sadness. And so we really try
Speaker 1: to help with the women get in touch with feeling
Speaker 1: their anger and not feeling ashamed for feeling that emotion.
Speaker 1: One helpful thing, so exercise is great. High intensity interval
Speaker 1: training has been shown to be really helpful with releasing
Speaker 1: anger in a healthy way and releasing emotions in a
Speaker 1: healthy way. So anything that really gets your body moving.
Speaker 1: But what I found of really effective is actually pairing
Speaker 1: it with using your voice. So this might mean you grunt,
Speaker 1: you scream, you yell, and you know it might not
Speaker 1: be socially acceptable because you know you don't want people
Speaker 1: to hear you. But if you can find a way
Speaker 1: to get in an environment where you can feel safe
Speaker 1: and comfortable to just let it out. Sometimes we also
Speaker 1: don't speak her truth, and there's this blockage in our throat,
Speaker 1: so actually being able to make noises can be very cathartic.
Speaker 1: And then another thing is actually just journaling, free flow writing.
Speaker 1: Set your timer for it, maybe ten minutes or so,
Speaker 1: and just just write, you know the anger I feel,
Speaker 1: and just go from there and don't take your pen
Speaker 1: off of the paper and let some of it's like debugging,
Speaker 1: I find, and you're kind of letting the stuff that's
Speaker 1: like floating around in your subconscious come. And I think
Speaker 1: that's a really helpful way of releasing. This stuff is
Speaker 1: obviously stuff that's going to apply to not just relationships,
Speaker 1: but anything one does in one's life. I mean, you're
Speaker 1: this is like, this is such good therapy, a good
Speaker 1: therapy session for any for anything that one's dealing with
Speaker 1: in one's life. So let's let me end with this question, then,
Speaker 1: how do you propose that we redefine love itself? I
Speaker 1: love this question. I think we need to look at
Speaker 1: our current definition of what love is and what a
Speaker 1: successful relationship is and ask if that model is helping
Speaker 1: you in creating the type of life and love that
Speaker 1: you want now. Because so often we have a definition
Speaker 1: that's based on society, on the movies, we watch the song,
Speaker 1: we listen to our parents' ideas, and we've all almost
Speaker 1: absorbed these ideas as if they are our own and
Speaker 1: we don't question them. And so, you know, what is
Speaker 1: success in a relationship? So many people think that, oh,
Speaker 1: as long as you've been together for a very long time,
Speaker 1: and that's successful. I definitely do not think that's true.
Speaker 1: If you were in an abusive relationship for twenty thirty years,
Speaker 1: I don't think that you deserve a trophy. Right if
Speaker 1: you recognize that you're in a dead end relationship where
Speaker 1: it's killing your soul and you get out of it,
Speaker 1: and that lasted only a year, but you learn so
Speaker 1: much and that help you in the next relationship, for
Speaker 1: you to get really aligned with your values and if
Speaker 1: who you are and who you're choosing. My God, that
Speaker 1: was a successful relationship. So so question these ideas that
Speaker 1: you have that you might have just absorbed that might
Speaker 1: not even be yours. Question the plan that you think
Speaker 1: you need to have, and you know, ask yourself, if
Speaker 1: you were to have a blank canvas and you were
Speaker 1: to start right now, how would you paint that? And
Speaker 1: see what actions you can take to start, you know,
Speaker 1: creating that and making that a reality. Well, let's let's
Speaker 1: end it there so we can we can all get
Speaker 1: going already with that blank canvas, filling out that blank canvas. Hey, Amy,
Speaker 1: it is just such a delight talking to you. I
Speaker 1: love what you're up to in this world, and let
Speaker 1: me know how I can support it in any way.
Speaker 1: Thank you. This was so fun, so much fun. Thanks
Speaker 1: for listening to this episode of The Psychology Podcast. If
Speaker 1: you'd like to react in some way to something you heard,
Speaker 1: I encourage you to join in the discussion at the
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