Love Life with Matthew Hussey - 234: How To Have Honest Conversations About What We Want In Love

Episode Date: April 3, 2024

Ever felt like you're scared of expressing your honest feelings when dating or in a relationship? It can often feel scary to put ourselves on the line. Or to open up. Or to even admit to ourselves that we want to find love.  In this episode, Matt and Audrey sit down to talk about why we act aloof in dating, fear of rejection, how we put up barriers that stop us truly connecting, and how to be honest about what we really want in love. ►► Pre-Order My New Book, "Love Life" at → http://www.LoveLifeBook.com   ►► Join a Community of People Learning to Transform Their Impact with People, Their Happiness in Life and Their Love for Themselves. Subscribe to my Weekly Newsletter, The 3 Relationships at. . . → http://www.The3Relationships.com

This fire hose of honey, I'm just going to point it at someone and turn it on all the way because I really want to find love. That's not authenticity, that's having no standards. Let me ask you all something. Where are you on May the 4th, 2024? I will tell you where I'm going to be at our event that is called Find Your Person, which is going to be a coaching extravaganza for people virtually all over the world. Audrey Hussey is going to be there as well, taking the stage. And we're going to be helping everybody who knows that in the next year, they want to significantly up their chances of finding their person. The good news for you,

my friend, dear listener of the Love Life podcast, is that you can join us absolutely free so long as you've pre-ordered a copy of the Love Life book. Did you know that I have a new book out? It's called Love Life, how to raise your standards, find your person and live happily no matter what. And every single person who gets a copy of this book is going to be getting a free ticket to this event. Find Your Person on May the 4th. We are going to take all of the ideas from the book and bring them to life through real coaching and helping you create a plan for your next year if finding your person is something you deeply, deeply want. You can do this at lovelifebook.com. You can both order the book there and use your receipt to get a ticket to that free event. Not only that, but right now we are just beginning a process of doing a giant giveaway that everyone who gets a copy of the book is going to be included in, where we are going to be giving

away some on the house places to our live retreat in Florida, where we spend six days with you in person, working on your patterns, your healing, your confidence, your relationship with yourself and helping you move towards the goals that are really important to you in life. So this is an event I've been running for 17 years of my life now and never before have we done a giveaway where we're literally giving away places on the retreat. So when you get a copy of the book, you'll be entered into this giveaway. We're also giving away a select number of one-to-one private coaching sessions with me. And we're giving away some other really exciting goodies like Love Life sweatshirts. Many of you have seen me donning the

Love Life, the now famous Love Life sweater that so many people have asked us where they can buy it. They are not for sale, but given how popular they have been, we have decided to add a bunch of those into the giveaway as well. And there are also some other prizes too that we're going to give away to even more people. So when you buy a book, you'll be entered into the giveaway, but you'll also automatically get a ticket to the live event on May 4th, Find Your Person, and a couple of other really cool bonuses, all of which you will see on the page when you go to lovelifebook.com. Grab your copy now. I can't wait for you to read this. It will be delivered to you on April the 23rd. But in the meantime, all of these other exciting things will be set in motion for you. Well, hello, everyone. I hope you're having a lovely day

out there. I hope everyone's happy and if you're not happy and if you're struggling then I am at least grateful that you are here with us. So welcome. Audrey you brought a topic today that you thought would be great for everyone out there and I think when you told it to me I was like oh I think everyone's going to be grateful that we're talking about this so what did you want to talk about today yeah so I wanted to talk about this phenomenon that a lot of people are coming to us with when it comes to finding love and dating in 2024 and that is the phenomenon and the feeling that nobody wants to commit. And that leading to a chronic fear of coming on too strong in dating, not knowing how to calibrate our interests, being self-conscious about expressing our feelings and how we feel about

people. And, you know, generally that feeling that so many people have, and I know that like I had it when I was single, all my girlfriends who are still single now or when they were single also had experiences of this so this feeling I think is just such a such a common one which is kind of like you know a lot of the advice that sometimes we share is almost speaking to having these very honest conversations very upfront you know um kind of like hard conversations where we express our standards where we encourage people to open up and to be more vulnerable and all of these things but how do we even get people there because that whole bit before somebody is even willing to

commit to us or open up or you know even have enough of a dialogue and a back and forth with us that we feel like we're part of their lives in a meaningful way. That kind of that part in the beginning is the really, really hard part for so many people. And I just want to talk to you about it, because I think that you're going to have so many great insights. And what happens, which is another side of it, which I also want to talk about what ends up happening for people is that they then are paralyzed in the way that they approach people in dating and they go if I put myself forward if I show my interests if I kind of express that I'm into someone if I don't play it cool and don't constantly act like I'm not bothered and aloof then I will come on too strong and I will lose my power in

dating and of course what happens with that is that people then never really end up getting there with someone right because then they're not really showing themselves and the other thing that happens which I also want to talk about is it makes you pray to avoidant people it makes you the perfect target for avoidant people so it's a big subject I'm kind of brain dumping it onto you but I just I really want your thoughts on how to combat that fear of coming across too strong how to calibrate who you are in early dating so that you can even get to a place where having the conversation of what are we or feeling close to someone as possible if we want to attract an authentic healthy relationship then we have to be

an authentic version of ourselves which means bringing forward our actual wants and desires not hiding them because when we're not when we don't want to be vulnerable or when we don't want to make ourselves vulnerable we hide the things we want or the things we desire because if we want something and we make it known then we can get rejected yeah that's exactly it it's the fear of rejection yeah it's exact that's exactly it. It's the fear of rejection. Yeah. It's exact. That's exactly how people feel. It's, it's this feeling of like, I'm not even going to be open about the fact that I want love. I'm not even going to admit that I'm looking for a relationship that I'm looking for love because my value will go down. I will be perceived as desperate and I will be rejected by the people I want. Instead, I'm going to play a game. I'm going to be cool.

I'm going to pretend I have no needs. You've talked about this for a while now, this idea of people feeling shame around their wants and their needs in their love life. The shame that so many people feel even in wanting to find love. And, you know, I had a coaching session with someone recently where they were asking me for help on their love life, but simultaneously talking about how they don't want to do what their friends are doing. Their friends are all on dating apps and they're like playing the numbers game and they're getting out there and doing this and dating and this and she was kind of basically saying like none of that's for her but when I asked her what she really wants it boiled down

to it didn't it wasn't the first answer but when we really boiled it down what she wants is to find love but there was a kind of inherent not that it was in any way done in an intentional or malicious way but there was an inherent kind of shaming of her friends about them going out there and putting themselves out there because going on a dating app is it's not I'm not an evangelist for the dating apps by any stretch. Anyone who follows us knows that. But putting yourself on a dating app is a brave act. It's vulnerable. And I don't think anyone should be shamed for going on any platform or medium to go and find love.

Because at the core of it is just a very human thing of we want to find love like that we we get so caught up in talking about dating and dating itself is like a I don't know it's there's something about that word that is almost can carry just a negative connotation on its own because a lot, maybe even most of the people who really want to find love, aren't that excited about dating. You know, it's like being excited about being healthy, but then hearing the word gym. And the interesting thing is you don't, there are, you know, a hundred different ways to be healthy, right? There are a hundred different activities you could do,

different ways you can move your body, different ways you can eat well. And it, they all lead to health, but health is the thing that we really want. It's not like we crave going to the gym, right? Some people might. More often than not, I don't. And I think it's the same in our dating lives, is that we want to, we really, all of us, who doesn't want to find love? We all want to find love, whatever that means to us. I want to just pause there,

because what you've just said is, I think, potentially the most important thing that we could be saying on this subject, which is everyone wants to find love. Even people who are playing around, sleeping around, doing all these things, the seemingly emotionally unavailable people of this world, deep down what they're seeking is a connection,

a validation, a need to feel at home and at peace and connected to someone. They may not, they may be not far along in the development to realize that's what they're searching for, but that is what they're searching for. And I'm not saying that you can only find inner peace through a relationship because I know that's not true I believe friendships and family relationships and you know relationships we can create within ourselves can be just as powerful but and there is a but what you just said that intrinsic very human very normal and natural need and desire to find love and companionship it's in all of us it's in all of us in some way shape or form and like you say the idea of shaming ourselves or feeling shamed for wanting that it's ludicrous it's like being shamed for being hungry it really is like being shamed for wanting water and food and sunlight and air.

And it's love and connection and acceptance is just as rudimental and fundamental in terms of our human needs as those things when you're saying i want a long-term relationship especially when what you want is a really healthy long-term relationship it's shaming yourself for that is like shaming yourself for wanting to eat healthily it's not just shaming yourself for being hungry it's shaming yourself for setting your sights on a healthy diet yeah instead of like you're like shaming yourself because you're not you don't want ice cream or you don't want cheeseburgers or while everyone else is like because they're because again we're all trying to eat right that's the the the sustenance equivalent of looking for love we're all trying to eat or trying to survive by eating something and some people are eating ice cream and others are eating cheeseburgers and

others are you know eating steamed fish and others like we're all and and that's not me you know me i'm not having a go at ice cream or cheeseburgers for that matter but you can't live on ice cream unfortunately you can't i would hate to be described as steamed a steamed fish version of dating i knew when i said i knew when i said steamed fish it was the wrong example because it wouldn't excite you yeah i don't think it excites many people when you when you peg it against ice cream but continue yeah it's true you always have to you'd have when you peg it against ice cream, but continue. Yeah, that's true. You'd have to have steamed fish before ice cream. Yeah.

You can't ever follow ice cream with steamed fish. That would have to be like first partner. Everyone out there who's hooking up, playing around in short-term flings or whatever, that's just their version of, as you say, seeking some form of connection. Why shame yourself for seeking what is a really profound form of connection if you're looking for a long-term relationship

and healthy love? And it was interesting when I was coaching this person because she was kind of in, in, I think unconsciously and without meaning to shaming her friends for the way they were going about finding love, which is the same as the thing she wanted when it came down to it. Cause when I really pushed her for an answer, she said, well, yeah, it was interesting. Even in her answer, she was like, well, yeah, I guess I must be looking for love. Right. Even that was hard to say.

And what's clear is that her shaming of her friends is really a shaming of herself. Right. It's she was shaming herself for her desire to find that thing. And what does that shame come from? Do you think for people do you think it's because society shames us and we're trying to almost keep with the current of what we think is gonna make us the most desirable and accepted and whatever or do you think it's something else well i think it's a couple of things yeah i think society you know is really good at pointing out perceived desperation you know we don't look at someone who is feeling scared that they're not going to find love or in that the anguish of feeling lonely and unpartnered, we don't look at them and go,

wow, there's a real, a core need in their life that's not being met. Society says, oh, they're so desperate. I know, why is that? I think that's so interesting. Why is that? If you operate on the basis, which I think most people listening would agree,

that desiring love, is that if you operate on the basis which i think most people listening would agree that desiring love and like i say just connect connection and and kind of acceptance is just a very normal thing and it's it's like one it's like being hungry it's like you know why is it changed so much why is it so different i don't maybe there's uh some historical element to that that do you know what i think to be to be uh it was a you were an outcast in society if you hadn't met someone by a certain point or if you are getting divorced and you're now you know there was a point in time where you were very much you know an outcast of society if you if you either didn't never got married or if you got divorced so maybe there's a hangover to that idea of you being an outsider to the norm or to

what you should have been and therefore there's something wrong with you it also might come from just a lack of empathy that societally we apply to people a lack of compassion in just judging the behaviors of a person not seeing that there's something behind those behaviors you know someone sends us four messages in a row and we show our friends and we're like oh god can you believe this they've sent me four messages in a row and we judge the behavior that's desperate behavior but we don't look behind it and go wow some what this person is feeling really unsafe right now like they're behind this these four texts in a row is someone who feels really unsafe and you know there's there's a real unmet need there that they're trying to get from me. That is a need they're not able to meet themselves or have never learned to be able to meet for themselves. And

they're in pain. And that's why I'm getting four messages. That takes a lot of EQ for society as a whole to arrive at, to not judge another person simply on their behaviors, but to understand what pain, what unmet need is behind those behaviors. And then I think on top of that, there's a bit of like a projection. There's a kind of, we don't wanna be the shame shameful or the desperate one because we,

we judge ourselves in those ways. And so it's easy to point the finger and look at you and go, oh my God, look at, I, you know, I thought what I did yesterday was bad, but look what they're doing over there. They're really desperate. I just, you know, I did this, but it's not as bad as what they're doing. God, they're, they're is that there's a there's that kind of jerry springer effect of what watching the tv and going look how awful their lives are um mine's you know i just think there's a little bit of of that going on because especially because that empathy you talk about, I think is more, you find it more in people who have found love where they're like,

oh, I really want my friend to find love. And more like when you're single, you're like, my friend is so desperate to find love. And we hate that most people have contempt for that quality in themselves. So when they see it in other people, we really judge harshly things in other people that we have contempt for in ourselves. people i when i know in my life when i come across guys who contain some element of something that i've tried to suppress in myself or something that i don't like in myself that those are the

those tend to be the times where i have particular disdain for those people so i think that we would anytime we're hating on other people's desperation or their the way they go about dating there's also a bit of an element of how we the thing we're afraid of ever being ourselves because we haven't ever integrated that part of ourselves that needs and wants and really really wants to find love all of this is to, you know, when we come from this place of thinking that it's ugly to have a need in this area, it shuts us down and it stops us from really being vulnerable because the last thing we want is to be perceived as desperate, to see ourselves as desperate, to be rejected, to put ourselves out there and to then be rejected and feel even more

desperate and unworthy, to be made a fool of. You know, some people's greatest fear is that I'm going to be made a fool of here. I'm going to embarrass myself. I'm going to put myself out there and learn that they don't feel the same. And I realized looking back on my life, what is really clear to me is how my approach to finding love throughout my life really lacked vulnerability. It's almost like I would wait for like massive confirmation that someone liked me before really putting myself out there because the worst thing was to try harder than someone else I relate relate to that. Yeah. And, and I can, I can look at a lot of times in business. Most, I think most of my life I've operated the same way in business when it comes to

partnering with other people or when it comes to like making social connections in business and so on. I think that I led a very introverted life for a long time because it was always safe for me to make a connection when I learned someone already liked my work yeah and was a fan and then I would connect with them but I would never put myself in situations where I was the one doing the reaching out and I was the one who was putting myself forward because it ran the risk of someone going, who are you? I don't care.

I think there is a very brittle construct of the self that we have. And it's almost like the foundation from which we operate right the way we perceive ourselves our identity we build it around these it's a bit of a house of cards we're like i am this kind of person and i am this kind of person and we as long as we protect that identity and we protect it from the outside world essentially we get to exist in this world where we believe we are all those things so for you for instance I bet that introversion in business and in love came with a massive confidence a quiet confidence of like I'm amazing but also deep down of fear that you're not actually because if someone was to say no actually i don't want to

work with you it would throw into question this entire identity you've created for yourself yes it's actually very brittle very brittle it is perceived as almost almost egoic and almost overconfident and people really relate to this they'll go i don't understand because i i literally swing from feeling a deep sense of unworthiness to thinking i'm the best thing in the world people feel that all the time it's really common and that's because i think there is a construct that's been something that's been created within ourselves that serves as a protection and a defense mechanism and if we're not careful it can actually dictate our lives and it can it can direct where we do or don't take risks and what we do with our ourselves because if we can just stay in those parameters we're safe yeah we feel

like we're safe i don't think it's as simple as like a lack of bravery, a lack of confidence, a lack of self-esteem. I think oftentimes it's baked into, and this doesn't have to be like, you know, deep childhood abuse or anything like that, but it will be baked into a belief system about ourselves that predates what's going on right now that's basically you're unworthy you're not good enough you're going to get found out for not being good enough or no one is going to like you if you're truly yourself and so we build this castle of cards around ourselves to protect what is at the core of very, very vulnerable view of ourselves. If you are enjoying this episode, and why wouldn't you? I think it's a great episode.

You will also enjoy the one hour training that I have got for you called Dating With Results. We have had over half a million people now take this free training and you can too. So go over to datingwithresults.com and schedule a time to watch it today. If you are taking love seriously and you want to find your person, this is a foundational hour that you cannot miss. Go to datingwithresults.com and watch it today. And now let's get back to the episode. There's something inherently flawed about the idea of trying to be good enough in the first place, right? Because it takes our intentionality away from the desire to just connect with another human being and turns it onto needing another human being to validate how good we are.

And if we need another human being to validate how good we are or how special we are, then we're deathly afraid of a human being coming along and telling us otherwise, because that house of cards will fall down. People think that these are the issues of people who are struggling. It's also the people who struggle with options, but it actually is a condition that everyone faces. You can have the people that have built their image around being the best looking people are often the people the most afraid to image around being the best looking people are often the people

the most afraid to take risks a hundred percent because their whole thing their whole identity their value is built around this idea that i am incredibly desirable so if you've built your self-esteem on the idea that you're incredibly desirable and then you go and approach someone and get rejected it's it's like an existential problem yeah of course so you and i have both been in rooms where there is like the most famous person in the room where everyone else is like just fairly regular human being. And then there'll be like a person in the room who's the most famous person. And sometimes by a long way.

And it's amazing to see that so often the most famous person in the room is the person hanging back the most letting everyone waiting for everyone to come to them there's like you know i've watched them isolate themselves in like a little circle of people where they don't interact with the room in a normal way and part of that that's not that this isn't like, because they're famous and it's hard for them to talk to is no, because this is a room where they're safe. This is not like just in the middle of a mall somewhere. They're in a room where they're,

it's just a safe social setting and they could just behave like a normal person, but they're, they're choosing to be very invulnerable and very guarded where they don't talk to people. And so much of that for so many of them is because their image is built around, their self-worth is built protecting their status by not just going over to people and introducing themselves in the way that everyone else is yeah that's so true and it's like no no my status needs people to come to me i can't go over to other people you know especially if that other person then doesn't recognize me or doesn't care who I am, that invalidates the status I've built for myself. So it's, no one gets off scot-free here. What's the answer to this?

Well, I think that we have to look at what's the source of our power? Because if the go and my power is my ability to reach out or my ability to connect then we go looking for connection we don't go looking for validation wow I even think about that now with this this new book because anytime i feel anxious it's because i've stepped into a realm where i need to know it all and i need everyone to validate that you know how great the ideas are or so on but if i'm if i go if that's if the source of my power is how much i know well then if i met with a stronger presence in terms of what someone else knows then my confidence disintegrates but if the source of my power is this excitement I have to begin a conversation. You know,

if this book is a way to begin a conversation about something that really matters to me and I'm open to where that conversation goes, all of a sudden there's kind of no, that's a fearless place to be because I'm like, Oh, I'm just beginning a conversation. And I'm excited to see where that conversation takes me and for us to build on it together. What is the source when you are looking for love? What is the source of your power?

Is it never being rejected and showing that like having that as a badge of honor that no one ever rejects you is it how cool and indifferent you are is it how attractive you are to everyone or is the source of your power the intent that you have to form meaningful connections in the world wherever you find them. You will do very different things depending on where the source of your power is coming from. And I think so many people either hold back or get their confidence obliterated by trying because they've rooted the source of their power in something that ultimately either limits them makes them incredibly guarded and unable to be vulnerable or makes them incredibly fragile when any form of rejection appears i love everything you just said so much i want to like we need to somehow like bottle what you just set up because

that was amazing there's two things I want to say and two things I want to ask you about the first one is you know I think what people might be feeling when we're talking about this is that's fine because I used to be like the cool and indifferent person that used to be me and it came from a place of not wanting to be rejected. And also from a place of the more cool and indifferent I was, the more people seemed to chase me because I was cool and indifferent. Do you remember the night we met, I made a comment to you? I can't remember. I can't remember if it affected you at the time or it affected you later.

But do you remember, you made a comment to comment to me oh the skin in the game comment I do remember this no it affected me at the time I told you I was like wow what was it you said this was like so this was like three out two hours into me and Audrey meeting we were having a conversation and you were a little cool like not like too cool but you were a little like you were able to be very chill and I can't remember what you said but you were like I don't really mind blah blah blah something I can't remember what I said and I was like I think I said that's because you have no skin in the game right now. Yeah.

But that's, that was, that was me all over all the time. And that's, yeah, I remember that. And I think that for me, that came from, it came from a lack of trust within myself. That if I actually opened myself up, I wouldn't trust myself to be in control of how I came across and who I was and then they would just see this mush and then they would go yuck and then I would disintegrate my household cards would fall down because the core of me would have got rejected so I think that's where it came from for me which is really funny I can't yeah I'd forgotten about that um like I did find that the cooler I was the more people chased me that is what happened because the economics of value would happen right people would go oh my god she's so cool and aloof

and I'm so great she must have something amazing about her. That's what people think. So it worked in a sense. It worked. I mean, I think it just attracts avoidant people. But it worked in terms of the very, the immediate thing you're trying to do. And so if you're dating in an unconscious way, in a way where you're just trying to satiate your ego and just trying to make yourself feel validated it works right but what people will say is you know especially women they'll say yes but if i really put myself out there if i'm open and candid about my feelings and blah blah that's going to drive people away and they're not wrong they're not wrong you know i think there is this perception of as a woman you have to really calibrate

how you're coming across and men get to love bomb and tell you they love you on the second day and we're like it's so romantic women did that it would be like you're crazy I'm blocking her she's insane so there is an imbalance and I just just wonder, in your opinion, like, I agree with everything you've said. And I agree, you have to, in order to attract a healthy kind of love, you have to be a healthy person who does not approach things in any kind of, you know, just brings themselves to the table in an authentic way. You have to. Otherwise, how do you, like, how do you expect to attract an authentic connection? But that's really, really hard in practice out there. And you will turn people off doing that. So what do you say to people in terms of like, they'll go, okay, I'm ready.

This conversation has really pumped me up. I'm going to get out there. I'm going to do that. But wait, it's not working. I'm getting, you know, like, yeah. What do you say to that? Well, the calibration of it comes in how much you turn on or off the tap. It doesn't come, it doesn't.

Oh, I'm so excited for this. Sorry, this is, yeah. The calibration isn't changing what comes out of the tap imagine a honey tap okay a tap that just anytime you turn it on just this incredible delicious honey comes out you don't change what comes out of the tap. You know, it doesn't, you don't turn like what comes out of the tap into this bitter, horrible tasting thing that's undrinkable or bland.

You turn on the tap, honey comes out. It's delicious. Who doesn't want honey? A ridiculous person. But you control the tap and that's how you control your energy. That's how you have boundaries depending on what someone is giving you. That's how you respond to what someone is, the level of investment someone's giving you. It's also, just on a less negative note, it's also just how you control what is appropriate to

give someone at what time it's not appropriate in the first week of knowing someone to just have the tap turned on all the way like a fire hydrant or like a fire hose you know it's not you don't you don't go i really want to find love so i'm gonna point this honey hose oh this is really going somewhere this like this fire hose of honey i'm just gonna point it at someone and turn it on all the way because i really want to find love that's not authenticity that's having no standards that's saying i'm gonna give someone what they don't deserve yet and what they haven't proven themselves even necessarily like i can trust them enough to give them this much of my life my my energy, my time, my feelings, my, you know, I'm just doing that without discrimination because I am really in need of this. That's where the problems start. So you have to control the tap based on the stage

you're at with someone. Have you known them for five minutes or five months the level of investment on their part the extent to which trust is being built and consistency is being felt in the relationship and and so you start to turn it on more often or more consistently in response is that tap is responsive it's not just on and that's also how you stop your you know your source being taken advantage of that honey well oh god there's this honey metaphor is going and it's really going deep now making me hungry honey well honey tap honey hose but like imagine that that's a well and that well is something you have to protect because it's you know it's not endless at any given time in your life it's why these bees are working hard to create that honey exactly you know a lot of bees working very hard yeah You can't just have someone come and like, just run the sauce dry just because you really

want love or just because they are really good at taking. That's why you control that tap. And I think if you understand that, it does a couple of things. It allows you to manage your energy. The reason people get burnt out is usually because they did not, they were indiscriminate with the way they left that tap on. It was not responsive or the tap was responsive to their desire to find love. It wasn't responsive to what someone was giving them. And so they just had it turned on.

And then six months or a year later, they're like, I'm never dating again. Because I got so taken advantage of. But the reason someone can take advantage of us to the extent that we feel afraid. Anyone can take advantage of you for a week. Anyone can take advantage of you for a month or a couple of months but for someone to consistently take advantage of us we have to have an unresponsive tap yeah we have to be letting them yeah the taps just turned on no matter what because i really want to find love not because i'm paying attention to what's in front of me yeah so the

reason people burn out in dating is because they are not managing the tap and then when people burn out in dating or when they get hurt so badly that they become afraid and close up when they do turn the tap on it's like tinged with something bitter it's tinged with something that doesn't taste good it's like honey made out of stevia fake honey oh that's good yeah and then people people don't really get your true essence anymore what people are tasting at that point is not really you. It's some diluted watered down, slightly bitter version of you that you're doling out going when someone proves themselves safe completely and utterly and gives and gives and gives to me. And I feel like I'm completely in the driver's seat. Then they'll, I'll start to really give

them the good stuff. But no one wants to work that hard and it's no one's job to work that hard. So you can't say three months in you'll get the good stuff. You kind of have to say on date one, you get the good stuff, but you get an amount of it that is appropriate for a first date. So the stuff that comes out of the tap is always golden, but you decide how much to give. And that I truly believe that changes the game because the the essence of this is this we are terrified of being hurt or being taken advantage of or of someone breaking

our trust because first we don't trust other people with our feelings, with our desires, with our heart. And sometimes, by the way, we're right about that, right? We're not always wrong about that. Sometimes we don't trust people and we shouldn't trust those people, because not everyone out there in life is trustworthy. But we don't trust other people. But most importantly, we don't trust ourselves. We don't trust ourselves to be okay if someone betrays us or if they withdraw love. We don't trust ourselves to get out once we're too far in because what we've learned in the past is that if someone gets under our skin, we'll let them take everything.

And so the goal becomes, don't let them get under my skin because I can't trust myself when someone gets under my skin. So now everything we do in our lives, in our love lives is always skin deep because i can't trust me once you get there to that level so what this this idea of turning of being in control of the tap is really important because it teaches us that we have agency, that no one can take advantage of us for very long.

By the way, to also understand that it's okay early on if you get it wrong and someone takes more than they give, that that's like a cost of doing business. It's like a generosity tax tax it's like a healthy love tax it's like a healthy connection tax that if you want to make authentic friends and generate true friendships let's take it outside the love life realm for a moment if you want to generate true friendships you have to go into relationships as a giver you can't go in as a taker no one will be your friend.

The most genuine people won't even see you because you won't have the energy that attracts them in the first place. So if you want genuine friendships, you have to go in as a giver. And the cost of doing business on that level, the tax on finding genuine friends is that you will leak some energy to people who don't turn out to be genuine friends, but you'll never leak enough for it to be fatal to you or for you to even really notice over the longterm because you're in control of the tap. And when you find out, when you discover that you're in control of the tap and And when you find out, when you discover that you're in control of the tap and you use that agency, then you start to build your self-trust again.

Because when you turn the tap off intentionally and go, oh, actually, this isn't such a good place to give this energy. This isn't a great person to keep giving this warmth, this kindness, this playfulness. This person does not deserve my honey. No. When you realize that and you turn off the tap,

you go, oh, I could do that. I had the power to turn off the tap. I don't need to worry about what I just gave or that it's going to end badly. I control the tap. And when you actually turn off the tap or give someone less, you're showing yourself that you have that agency and then self-trust comes back. And when self-trust comes back, you self-trust comes back you don't need to worry about obsessing over whether you can trust other people as anymore on the same level it actually doesn't matter you don't need to no longer do you have to try to control things that you cannot control yeah because you're controlling the only thing you need to control which is the extent to which you turn on that tap

and who you turn it on for i love all of that so so so much i think it's so useful just to add a very small thing to it what i'm hearing correct me if i'm wrong but what I'm hearing is you also have to value what you're giving and see it as a premium that something isn't worthy of instead of seeing it as the thing that's valuable is their attention and their response. The thing that's actually valuable is what you're giving. You to be really really connected to how valuable your honey is but it's true right because that's the source that's the antidote to not being afraid of rejection is going you can't reject me because I know what I'm giving is fantastic. I know I'm a wonderful person. I know I'd be a great partner.

I know you're not going to get this easily somewhere else. So if you choose that you don't want that, that's very unfortunate for you. Someone will. Because I know it's really valuable. Yes, that's exactly right. But what can feel like a bit of a paradox to manage, but it's really valuable. Yes, that's exactly right. And the kind of what can feel like a bit of a paradox to manage, but it's not really a paradox, is that you also can't be the person who's so proud about that,

that no one ever tastes what you're like on your best day, because then there's no leverage. Yeah. There's no, Jeremy, I know you'll understand this reference. You're in a mall. You go to the food court. There's. I'm with you.

There's the Asian counter. Panda Express. Right. It could be Panda Express. There's a couple of others as well. I feel like that you know like i'm you're in the middle of america there's a mall there's an asian food place and there's someone standing outside and they have got like that like the best chicken

they like the teriyaki chicken or the honey walnut or they've got some little chicken that they've got on toothpicks like a taster and they hand it out and you try it and it's incredible and they don't they're not putting out samples of bad stuff they're taking their tastiest chicken and they're like here try this how many people is like you're never the thing they choose because you never put your best sample out there you're so protective over it now look the you know that that asian kitchen is not putting out an amount of teriyaki chicken that will bankrupt it they're always putting out an amount they can afford to lose.

They give away their best stuff, but not an amount that they can't afford to lose. That's the cost of doing business. And the cost of doing business is that sometimes in your love life, you're going to go and give your best self to someone for an hour. With all of your warmth and your kindness and your joy and your zest for life and your authentic energy and they're just going to be someone who wanted a little bit free chicken and that's okay because you're not going to feed them for the next month

i love it. Let us know what you think of this episode, podcast at matthewhussie.com. We want to hear from you. We want to hear from you on future topics. And we also want to make sure that you grab a copy of the new book and get yourself on the list for those potential giveaways, a ticket to the retreat. That's a huge thing to give away. And you might be the winner of that. A one-on-one with me, a Love Life sweater, and lots of other smaller prizes as well. Skimmed over the one-on-one with you. That's like amazing.

You don't even do those. Well, I don't want to say you get a one-on-one with me. That's amazing. Well, I'll say it. That's amazing. So we've got all sorts of things that I just will never be available at any other time of year, all for grabbing a copy of the book, which is win-win because you're going to want the book anyway, if you're a listener of the Love Life podcast, how to raise your standards,

find your person and live happily no matter what. That is what this book shows you how to do. Grab your copy at lovelifebook.com. And even if you don't win one of the prizes, you still get a ticket to the event on May 4th called Find Your Person, where we're going to take all of the content from the book and give it real world application for you to find your person. And you also get a couple of other bonuses that are listed on that page. It's a, this is, someone said to me the other day, the best time to go and get someone's stuff is when they're releasing a book. Cause when someone's releasing a book and they've been working on it for years, they are so excited to get it out there that they will just do things

they never normally do and this is a pretty good representation of that because this is all just hundreds of dollars of value for the sake of for the price of a 30 book that you're going to want anyway so go to lovelifebook.com grab your copy grab one for a friend grab one for a family member i promise you for anyone out there, whether they are looking for love, whether they're trying to recover or heal from lost love, whether they are trying to find their happiness in some difficult times in their life or rediscover their confidence, there is something in here for everyone at every stage of life.

And it will make a really great gift for someone. So order a copy for someone if you've got a birthday or something coming up that you can treat someone and we will see you next time. Thank you so much for listening as always. Thank you, Audrey, for your wonderful contributions and for the wonderful episode idea today, which I think has gone really well. I can't wait to hear from people on this. Be well and love life. We will see you next time. Bye everybody. Bye.