Love Life with Matthew Hussey - 257: Don't Let Your Anxiety Sabotage Your Relationships (What To Do Instead!)

Episode Date: August 15, 2024

There are many ways anxiety can show up in our relationships. When we like someone and worry about them losing interest. When we're waiting for a text back. When we overthink in a relationship.  In this episode, Matt and Audrey talk about the fears that activate anxious behavior in relationships, how to become more aware of your triggers, and simple ways to get more emotional control and calm your anxiety.  ►► Transform Your Relationship with Life in 6 Magical Days... Learn More About My Live Retreat at → http://www.MHRetreat.com   ►► Sign up Now For My Free Weekly Newsletter, The 3 Relationships at ... → http://www.The3Relationships.com

have you signed up to my friday email that i send out every single week this is me doing just what i did with my new book love life taking time out to really put thought into writing something that I think could help you every single week. It's free. People have been really enjoying it. And it covers not just how you can have a better love life, but how we can create better lives for ourselves by having a better relationship with ourselves and a better relationship with life itself. You can sign up for free at the3relationships.com. And once you do, you will get my next Friday email direct to your inbox this Friday. So today we are talking about the anxiety

that so often comes up for us when we're in our love lives, when we're dating, when we like someone, when someone isn't texting us back, when it's not going our way, when we're worried someone likes us less than we like them. That anxiety can take us over. It can at best turn any enjoyable experience in dating into a tumultuous one full of turmoil for us. At worst, it has us sabotaging the whole thing with how we behave and the things we say so we wanted to do an episode that dug a little deeper into the idea of anxiety and what it does to us and how we might start to approach our anxiety in a different way than we have in the past that can actually bring us a lot more peace in our love lives and also in the process have us being a much better version of ourselves with somebody else all right welcome back everyone we are talking today about anxiety and dating well this is a big subject and where we thought would be a useful place for us to begin is to talk about where the anxiety originates from.

And I thought we could anchor it into an example because we've talked about lots of different instances, right, where anxious thinking takes over. And there are more instances than we have time to count. But if we, you know, return to what this person who reached out to us in our love life community said about the anxious attachment, and I think in particular, he was referring to his over investing emotionally in people that he had met in early days of dating and getting really upset and affected when he wasn't hearing from them on time. And, you you know they weren't texting him back and things like that which is very very common so for the purpose of this episode to try and simplify it because it's such a big subject we should maybe anchor it into that example so can you speak a little bit Matt to

kind of where all of this stuff comes from for people where it originates and why that's important to understand well i think the most important thing is to understand that it our anxiety wants us to think that it's about whatever is in front of us like it's about how great this person is who isn't texting us back it's about how great this person is who isn't texting us back. It's about how amazing this connection is. Or just simply it's about this text right now. That's what the anxiety is about. You know, this is a really important thing that they're not texting me back.

And that's why I'm feeling so bad. And if they just texted me back, I wouldn't feel so bad. And the truth is this anxiety is coming from somewhere else. It's coming from another place and time. And that's a really important concept. You don't have to know exactly where it comes from, exactly what the root is. That could be interesting to explore. But knowing that it's not born out of how important this very specific situation is. It's born out of some history in our life. Something that in the past has made us feel anxious or, you know, psychologically or emotionally unsafe, something that's made us fear legitimately abandonment,

fear not being loved, fear losing love, fear not being enough. And something about this situation is reactivating that just that knowledge is something that can give us space because we suddenly realize that there is a part of us it's almost like you can imagine that there's a part of you that is really scared right now. And that part of you, it looks for any situation in which you could be unsafe. Or could get hurt. Or could get abandoned in a way that is like how we got abandoned before, you know, or lost love in a way that's like how we lost love before. And that part of you has become activated because that part of you will always get activated

any time there is an instance where you could get hurt. You could be revealed to be, quote, not good enough. Anytime you could be abandoned by someone. Anytime you could lose love. And so it's found to warn us against a danger. Correct? Yeah. It's trying to kind of raise the alarm.

Why are you not paying attention to this? This is clearly the end of the world and you're just, you know, out there shopping with your friend. What are you doing? Stop enjoying yourself and focus on me and my pain and what i'm going through yeah because i'm scared you're right it comes out to protect you in some way if i can just be vigilant to any form of of danger it's not physical danger in this case but it's emotional danger if i can be vigilant to any form of that maybe I can control the situation in some way it puts us in this state where you know we for some of us we

freeze others among us want to run away you know so you get people who run away in early dating like well if they're not going to text me back, then screw them. You know, I'm over them. And that's a kind of, that's a form of running away, right? I just shut them off and move on. Some people, you know, further attach themselves to somebody, send more messages. That would be like a fawn response. People have different responses to this, but that anxiety is saying, we better do something. You're not safe right now. You sent a message, you sent something

that was a little bit gushy and they haven't texted you back for three hours. Oh my God, you're an idiot. You should never have said that. That was too much. We knew that was too much. We knew that we shouldn't have said that thing. We should have kept playing it cool. You've overplayed your hand. You've showed you like them more than they like you. You should, you know, like all of this, these, all of these thoughts, they turn into obsessive thoughts. So recognizing, okay, I'm really anxious right now now but that anxiety is coming from somewhere else something about this doesn't feel safe and you know the thing you and i have talked about at length is this idea that actually it's very useful to see that part of you that is responsible for all of that anxiety as a,

almost like its own being that you can talk to. What a lot of us do, well, what a lot of us do first is we don't see it as this part of us we just see it as us yeah we are the feeling i am anxious yeah right and that's that we almost need to step out of that and go there's a part of me that's anxious you know the the pete holmes talks about it in his book as like pete's anxious even just using his name helps him to stand back from himself and realize that he doesn't have to completely embody the thought yeah he can almost step outside of himself and look at himself and go, oh, look, Pete's really anxious today. In meditation, because ultimately at the core of this, which we won't talk about today, but at the core of this is an awareness that you bring to your thoughts so instead of your thoughts taking over i think

therefore i am it is i'm not feeling good right now interesting i'm going to observe that where does that come from yeah and even even that very very small act of just separating yourself it makes all the difference changes everything yeah and and to be able to see that as okay there's a so there's a part of me that's really scared where is that what is that what are they scared of what's What's the big fear here? Oh, they're scared that they're going to get themselves into a situation or already have got themselves into a situation where we really like someone, but they don't feel the same way. And maybe you can look back in your life.

Like you might have the perspective to be able to draw a line between that fear and some time in your life, maybe a time in school where, you know, you really liked someone and you expressed it and they made fun of you or it went really badly for you and you got embarrassed and you got your heart broken by someone and so that became this fear oh i don't want to overexpress i don't want to show too much because i could get really hurt when that happens

and so when you see that part of you and what it's scared of, it's almost like you could ask it, like, what are you scared of? What's the thing that's really scaring you right now? And once you realize what that part of you is afraid of, you can actually start to have a conversation with that part of you instead of just dismissing it or trying to put a lid on it, which is what so many of us do, is we shame ourselves for feeling that. No, I'm really glad you said that

because I think it's important to follow the pattern through and you know put it under a magnifying glass a little bit right because what happens is trigger happens someone doesn't text us back anxiety kicks in we go oh my god they're not texting me back I I'm going to lose them. They don't like me anymore. I'll never hear from them again. Like I will not be okay if that happens. I can't get rejected. That would be the worst thing. So that's that voice you're talking about. That's that part of you that's basically just freaking out, going help. Oh my God, I'm so scared. Like if you can sort of see it as its own entity,

it is just almost like this little toddler that's like having a tantrum, you know, that's scared, that's upset, that's having some big feelings and emotions about something. And what a lot of us do is we let it completely take over and then we shame ourselves, like you said. We shame ourselves because we let it completely take over and then we shame ourselves like you said we shame ourselves because we let it take over we did something destructive we numbed ourselves or we sent too

many texts or we just had a really horrible time feel terrible they eventually text us and we go what's wrong with me i'm broken either way we hate that part of ourselves because that part of ourselves makes us miserable but what's interesting about what you're saying is what if there was a different reaction you could have when you felt this way and that different reaction was okay they haven't texted me anxiety comes it's happening I'm freaking out I'm scared oh my god I'm gonna lose them forever they're never gonna text me they're gonna reject me I'm gonna die this is all happening I feel it I feel I feel it you create that space that we talked about that awareness you go oh there you are There is that part of me. They have arrived.

And they're trying to tell me something. They're feeling all of this. Almost like you're the adult in the room. Yeah, exactly. And there's a child at the back of the car having a tantrum. So you pull over on the side of the road and you're like, it's okay. What's wrong? You get out.

You open your front door. You open the back door. You sit next to them. And you give them a your front door, you open the back door, you sit next to them and you give them a cuddle and you look them in the eye and you stroke their head as they're crying and there's snot everywhere and they're just having this big emotional reaction and you comfort them. Maybe you distract them, maybe you show them a movie on your phone or maybe you give them their favorite cuddly toy, or whatever it might be. But you're there for it, you sit with them,

and with that feeling, and you let it pass, because it will eventually pass. But what you don't do is, which is what we were doing before, when we were just letting it take over, you don't go, oh, you're clearly very upset, why don't you take the wheel and just drive the car and go wherever you want to go i'll just sit in the back and make myself as small as possible why you just go and drive on the freeway you don't do that because that

would be crazy and it's no different that part of us needs love and compassion and it needs reassurance and it needs to be seen. But we have to be the adult in the room and not let it take over. And I think that our ability to do that really does make all the difference to our experience when we experience anxious attachment, when we're really afraid in those ways.

Because what we're learning to do essentially is we're learning to meet our own needs. Yeah, to soothe that part of ourselves. This part of us isn't connected to the fact that we have actually dealt with situations like this before. And miraculously, we've ended up being okay. It's like it exists in its own world where the only thing it knows is this fear

and these consequences that it's afraid of. But the adult in the room that you speak about knows that we've been here before, knows that we've been here before knows that we've been okay knows that maybe the context of this situation there's nothing actually dangerous about it and what i really like about this whole kind of way of framing it is that it's two things exist one is the compassion for that part of ourselves to acknowledge that there's there's something this part of us is feeling is scared of and that part of us doesn't know any better yeah you wouldn't scream at the toddlers for having a tantrum. Yeah. You wouldn't say you're so stupid.

How fucking stupid are you for crying? There's nothing to be upset about. You're ruining my trip. Shut up. You wouldn't do that because the toddler doesn't know any better. You would treat it with love and compassion. Yeah, and it wouldn't be effective. Like that part of us wants to be heard.

Yeah, that's true. It would only have more of a reaction if you did that. The baby would cry harder, right? Yeah, that part of us wants to be heard, but we're the adult in the room. And so we get to look at the child that's kicking and screaming and say it's okay like this person feels really important but they're they're just a person and by the way we didn't know them a month ago or three weeks ago i like what you said of like this is a know, this is a 30 year old problem.

This is not a month ago problem when this wonderful, perfect being apparently walked into your life. Yeah. This predates that person. I know that because like, look, the thing I've struggled with, I would say the most in my life is anxiety in terms of emotional patterns.

And there are days where I notice that it is just looking. I can feel it because I can feel an anxious kind of rumbling. And even though there's nothing for it to focus on right now, I can literally feel it looking to grab at something. It's almost like a hand that is like stretching out, like looking for what's the closest thing I can grab onto to get anxious about. And sometimes I try to remind myself that when that hand grabs something

The thing is holding It feels like the source of my pain and That's where all of my attention goes is the thing that it's holding and Where I learned to direct my attention is on the hand. That's so powerful. Because the problem isn't the thing it's holding. The problem is the hand that's grabbing. It keeps reaching out.

It keeps grabbing for something. And for as long as that is a pattern in my life i'm always going to feel anxiety and it's going to want me to think that the thing it's holding right now is the center of the universe and that idea really helped me because it's not that the hand never grabs anymore it's that i i can sometimes literally see i can see i felt it the other day i was like i can literally i can feel the hand right now reaching around trying to find something and it's got nothing i can see that it's got nothing right now but it's go it's trying and i know it's going to find something if i don't get really aware of this

right now and almost laugh at it like i've learned to kind of laugh at it like oh my god it's doing it's literally i could see you i can see because that because that's like before identification right identification is when the hands already grabbed something and now you're looking at it and you're like, oh my God, look at this problem. Look at this scary thing. You're already there. You don't even realize there is a hand. You're just now, oh my God, I have this problem in my life. But seeing it grabbing and not finding anything is really valuable to me because then I just see the mechanism.

I'm like, oh my God, it doesn't have anything. But look at it. It's trying. It's trying because that's what that hand does. So what do you do? How do you like slap it on the wrist? When it happened the other day, I laughed. I like laughed at it.

I was like, i see you like nothing's wrong i can see you trying to find something and by the way what i know is that it will find something sooner or later and if i if i allow it to if i go with the thought if i go with it and i'm like okay well let's see what you can find. I know it will find something because my brain is so capable of being imaginative about what can go wrong in life. And by the way, there, there are always many things that could go wrong in life. So it's not, it's not just imagination. There are all's always something so you know yeah that something could go wrong financially yes there could be a problem you know someone could get upset with you

in the next seven days you know like yes there could be a health scare in a year there's all of those things are possible and at some point are probable. So I learned that all those, those things, those rocks are always there to grab, but that's true of any life. That's never not true in life. So any,

so those aren't me things. Those are just things that happen when you're alive so that helps because it allows me to depersonalize it i'm like oh yeah of course there are all these things i could grab that in any life there are all these things you could grab but you don't have to grab them and and so i laugh I kind of get playful with it and I laugh at the hand that's trying to grab. And then I recognize like, oh, all of my peace is going to come from focusing on this mechanism and what it does, which is when I move on from one thing,

it goes to grab the next thing. And every next thing feels like the most important thing because that's what it does but to me there's something incredibly useful about recognizing the the farce of like i luckily i can remember it's worth remembering the last time when you thought that thing was really important and the time before that when you thought that thing was really important and so on because the more of those things you can remember the more you realize it can't be the case that your life has been a series of scary things that have been one-upping each other in importance which would be a strange coincidence if every problem was genuinely bigger than the last so instead what it is is just that this mechanism is telling you that whatever is the most current thing

is no no no i know last time we said pay attention to that that was a hoax but this one this one is really important that's what you know it's it's funny because just to bring it back to this idea of anxious attachment and how we feel in early dating when we haven't heard from that person or we don't feel safe yet in a situation with someone that's exactly how it feels right it's almost like you look back at all the times where everything turned out fine and you're like yeah yeah yeah yeah but but now this is a an emergency we actually have a fire all of those others were fire drills. And I recognize that now. And yes, I was stupid. And if I could go back, I would take it back.

But this one, this one's serious. This one's actually, they're actually the love of my life. And they're actually not texting me back. And I've really never felt this about anyone before. And I'm never going to hear from them again. And I will never recover. Period. Yeah.

Meanwhile, you have friends that remember you saying the exact same thing the last time around yeah who might even say it to you that you always do this but you don't understand this one is different and I just I just wanted to bring it back to that for everyone listening because well first of all I hope it makes you feel less alone if you uh if you feel like that. But I think that it's the same mechanism that happens. It's just an anxious thought. It's just an anxious thought attaching onto a person.

It doesn't reflect the importance of that person. The idea of being able to watch that part of ourselves that is one idea is the idea of like the hand that's just looking to grab something because that's what that hand does you know the what we talked about earlier was a different way of looking at it like it's a part of us right it's uh and those two are not mutually exclusive you could see it as the part of us the whether it's you think about it as a childlike part of you or just a scared part of you that exists from the past that's still present today and hasn't evolved you know that, that could, you could still see that as that part of you having, you know, grabbing things and doing what it does.

But what I really hope people connect to is the separation is one of the most valuable things. It's the ability to not just be that part of us, but to separate from that part of us and watch it. And in watching it, we get to see what it does, what the effect that that thing has, how it goes crazy, how it flares uplares up how it gets scared the kinds of thoughts that part of us says like i i was talking about this earlier today you know one of the questions that i this came from a recent event we did with our Club 320 program, which for anyone who doesn't know, we have a very tiny group of, it's the smallest group of people we work with,

that we work with year round. And we had taken them on a trip to Zion National Park. And we were all sat in a circle and everyone got to ask a question and have us all focus on giving them an answer. And one person really bravely asked, what do you think? She was asking me specifically like, Matthew, what do you think is my biggest weakness that's holding me back? She said, you've coached me now for eight months. What do you think is my biggest weakness that's holding me back? And I thought it was such a brave question.

And she was so brave in sitting and listening to my very raw and honest answer to her. That it inspired me to think, well, what I, you know what? I want to ask that of a couple of key people in my life you're one of them audrey i have a list should we do it live as an episode let's not do that um but you know another one of them is dan you know our CEO, who I very much trust and have great affection for and who knows me very well at this stage. You know, there's a couple of people that I want to ask, what's my biggest weakness?

Now, the reason I'm saying this is because, and I said this to you earlier, I think one of the things that will be said by someone, maybe Dan, is that I rush in you know when something goes wrong or not to plan or i don't like something i see i can be very reactive to it in that moment. And because I'm reactive to it, well, first I can blow it out of proportion and make it into too big of a deal. When in the grand scheme of things, it's not that big of a deal. And secondly, because I blow it out of proportion in my mind, I then get very reactive to it and usually act too hastily and you know I'll do something that inevitably causes some kind of tension or I'll say something

that I then later on in the day go oh that was overkill for the situation or i'll set in motion something that suddenly creates a kind of mini form of chaos among people and i think he'll say that that's one of my weaknesses to which i would agree and when i think about that i've already made massive progress in this area and i'm continuing to make progress in this area. But the reason I'm making progress in that area is because I've come to understand a lot more about that part of me. Because it's not me. It's not like Matthew is overreactive in every way. And, you know, when something goes wrong, he is in pain. You know, he rushes into throwing a grenade into the situation because he's trying to fix it too quickly and blows it out of proportion.

It's that there is a part of me that when that happens gets scared and that's historic that goes back to you know me not monitoring things and then them going wrong and them having really significant consequences. And so me feeling like I have to monitor everything. It's like when I make you overnight oats. You don't have to say that. You don't have to say this story. Okay.

But now everyone wants to know the story. So are you really going to deprive them of the story? No, no, no. You've started it now. Oh, no. no just you know like when when i make you overnight oats and which is every evening and maybe once a week you'll come over to me every week not on the same day you know you do mix it up and you say are you um are you using just like the half a cup measure? Yeah, babe.

But are you doing it like to the line, not like, you know, you're not like letting it stack higher than the line? No, babe, I'm doing it as a flat line. A flat line. Yeah. Okay, good. And then with the protein, are you doing the same thing? Are you doing a flat scoop?

Yeah, babe. Okay, cool. See you next week. I love that part of you. Which is good for you. For you. I see now you're revealing what a difficult person I am to have a relationship with. You're wonderful

is that the same is that the same part do you think curious well completely off topic guys sorry a little bit probably yeah i think they're connected i think they're probably connected like the control like needing to kind of monitor control make sure everything's done because you're like you're like something's not going to be done right or finding it hard to trust and and and also finding it hard to trust in the knowledge that even if something's not done right it'll be okay 99.9 of the time if i don't make you apart from in the case of the oats sorry i am able to see that part of me that you know when something didn't get done on time when someone messes up when i mess up i now immediate, like, rush of blood to the head. And I'm like, oh, my God, that didn't get done

or that didn't go the way that I wanted it to go. We didn't, you know, I needed that done in this way and it's been done in the other way. That immediate instinct to then kind of panic, I have become very aware of that part of me and helped by the way by people around me who have been honest like i'm not just speculating that dan would say that he has said some version of that to me in the past and it's brought awareness to it for me like oh that's a thing i do in other words it's not just to it for me. Like, Oh, that's a thing I do. In other words, it's not

just that every thing that goes wrong is a really big deal. Yeah. It's that it's been noticed that I can make too big of a thing of it. And that's really valuable information because there's clearly there's a part of me that is doing that and so i get to then observe that part of me and go oh my god it's doing it right now something just happened i know i want to rush in and react but this i i don't that impulse hurts me. Yeah. So what's really going on here? This part of me is afraid right now. It's afraid because a lot has rested on my shoulders in the past. I have felt a lot of responsibility.

The stakes have been very high. And that part of me is terrified that if something slips, then it's all going to come tumbling down. And when I'm able to see that as a historic thing, not as a present day thing. And bring compassion to it. Well, that's what allows me to bring compassion to it. Yeah.

It actually allows me to because I'm like, oh my God, this is. Of course you feel like that. I understand. There's been a lot that's contributed to you feeling this way. In other words, I don't just then look at myself and go, what is wrong with me that I overreact to everything? It's, oh my God, like this part of me has been through so much. Like you say, of course it's reacting in this way but in doing that i get to then create space and i get to be the adult in the room

and say but you know what actually time has shown experience has shown that these things aren't actually nearly as big of a deal as this part of me is making them that they do always find a way to correct themselves or with enough time i correct them and and we and we get through them so i don't need to you know i might need to have a conversation with someone or i might need to fix something it doesn't mean i can't you know say hey and it doesn't mean i can't call someone say hey and it doesn't mean i can't call someone out for something in the right way or that i can't try and make it better but it just means that that panicked response of oh my god it's all going wrong that's the wounded part that's

the traumatized part that's the part of me that that needs a compassion and B, strong parenting. And that is exactly the same when we're dating. And when someone isn't texting us back and we think it's the end of the world, there is some part of us that is hurting. There is some part of us that is scared. There is some part of us that is trying to protect us. Recognize that part of you give it

compassion try to understand a little bit about where that comes from and the history of what has made that thing that thing that part of you that part of you and then combine that compassion with some really beautiful and strong parenting and i hope everybody listening has found this episode helpful it's such a big subject and in many ways it's difficult not to sound esoteric when speaking about it but it's also so important because we all have our own versions of that yeah and i think it can make a real difference if we can start to bring awareness to those parts of ourselves this is such a big and messy topic and it does sound quite esoteric when you get into the weeds of this kind of stuff. But it actually ends up being highly practical.

So email us, podcast at matthewhussey.com. Let us know what this brought up for you. What should the subject line be for this one if they're reaching out about this episode? Overnight oats. Overnight oats. Overnight oats is the subject my overnight oats story that's too long okay just overnight overnight oats yeah that's like the name of the that can be the name of their story okay i like it but i i think it's more important that we have these conversations in a kind of

messy clumsy way then we try to approach it perfectly because we can have lots of them here on the podcast so you know email us let us know what this brought up for you prod and poke in areas where you're like oh but what about this or how does that work with it you know like let's just let's just get into the mud together and try and figure it out because it's not these are all just models that can help and if if we say something in one way that helps or that allows you to kind of conceptualize your anxiety differently or approach the moment when you get anxious differently then it will have been worth it.

Don't forget to sign up to my weekly private email if you haven't already. The3relationships.com is the domain to go to. This episode is about one of those three relationships, our relationship with ourself, right? That's what this whole episode has been about. Well, this email I send out every week is always about one of the big three relationships, whether it's our relationship with ourself, our relationship with life, or our relationship with other people. So sign up at the3relationships.com and you'll get my next one this Friday. Oh, and don't forget, coming up in September is our live retreat, the one and only retreat of the year. That's from the

9th to the 15th. If you haven't got your ticket yet, they are extremely limited at this stage. So go check it out at mhretreat.com. We will all be there. Audrey will be there. My mom will be there. My brother, Stephen Hussey, will be there. The whole gang. And it's going to be an amazing six days together of immersive coaching. That's from the 9th to the 16th of September, the Matthew Hussey Retreat. Go to mhretreat.com to learn more. And we'll speak to you in the next episode of Love Life.

Be well, friends, and love life.