Love Life with Matthew Hussey - 309: Stop Overthinking: How to Beat Anxiety in Dating

Episode Date: August 13, 2025

Anxiety has a sneaky way of showing up in our love lives . . . whether it’s overthinking a text or worrying about someone’s shifting energy. But what if you could stop anxiety before it takes over?   In this episode, Matthew, Audrey, and Stephen get personal as they unpack how anxiety sabotages relationships, from early dating to long-term connections. They explore the roots of anxious attachment, share practical tools for calming your mind, and discuss how to stop catastrophizing when things feel uncertain.   If you’ve ever felt tortured by your thoughts or struggled to stay grounded when dating, this episode will help you find clarity, confidence, and peace.   Links:   ►►  🌎 Get an exclusive 15% discount on your first Saily data plans! Use code LOVELIFE at checkout. Download the Saily app or go to saily.com/lovelife. ⛵   ►►  Watch Matthew’s free session on Emotional Buttons: InsideTheRetreat.com   ►►  Try Matthew AI (and ask any relationship question for free): AskMH.com    

Welcome everybody to another episode of Love Life. I'm here with Stephen and Audrey right now and we have a great episode for you today. Today's episode is about anxiety and the way that it shows up in our lives, especially in early dating and in relationships. But actually, we end up getting into the way anxiety sabotages our relationships in general. how abandonment wounds can create anxious attachment styles. Me and Audrey get pretty personal in this episode in a way that has left me feeling incredibly naked. So enjoy listening to this to the end and knowing more about us.

We talk about the ways that we can overcome some of our anxiety when we're not getting texted back, when someone's subtly shifted in their energy or, or what seems to be their level of interest or their consistency. Stephen offers up an incredibly practical model for moving through anxiety. We talk about one of my favorite concepts from my retreat program in terms of redirecting negative emotions towards positive ones. So if you are in a situation right now that is making you anxious, if you feel like you are struggling or even tortured by your anxiety right now,

You are in the right place. I believe that this episode is going to be an enormous pressure valve for your anxiety and one that you keep coming back to over and over again. Also coming up for all of our Love Life members. We have some amazing new courses inside Love Life. Stephen just did a great one called The Flame Method, which is for anyone who's struggling to meet people. Audrey did an amazing one on navigating mixed signals for anyone who feels like they're

with someone who's blowing hot and cold or is inconsistent. We have Love Life, London, coming up on the 21st of August. That is now sold out, so I can't wait to see you all there. We also have a member meetup happening in Miami on October the 20th for anyone who wants to come out and meet other Love Life members there. All of that is inside Love Life. If you're not a member right now, you can become one at joinlovelife.com. Welcome back to the Love Life podcast, everybody.

Matt has a kinked neck. It's very sad. I thought you were just going to say Matt has a kink. But no, a kinked neck. He's hanging by a for him. Yeah, I slept funny. I tried to go to jiu-jitsu this morning. morning you told me not to it was 545 a.m. and you said don't go and I was like no this is

Audrey breeding weakness in me Matt is such the guy you're such the guy to go to the gym even when you're injured you just won't rest it will you I said to him I was like you're literally going to make yourself worse and then you're not going to be able to work out all week and also jiu-jitsu is just about the worst thing you could possibly do with a kinked neck and he was like no no I'm going to go I'm going to go and then if I don't feel well I'll come back and then what happened I came back I went for for about 15 minutes I was sort of rolling around and then I was like I can't do this so that I my my trainers said you can you know stay and watch and I went I think I've got too much to do I don't I think for now I'll draw the line sitting and

watching other people because I just yeah so I came I drove back got you a little matcher on the way so it turned out well for you yeah it did work out well yeah you were happy Alfred matcher sat in bed with your little matcher Alfred matcher pretty good not as good as good as blue bottle matcher but you know pretty good I thought Alfred matcher she you were going to tell a story of like the history of matcher I was like did it come from a man named Alfred matcher I doubt very much she lived it comes from Kyoto yeah that would have been weird I'm very a Japanese. Well, we have a really interesting subject today.

Anxiety. I have a little bit right now. I'm flying in two days, and I can feel the onset of pre-flight anxiety. Why are you? In what sense? You know, before a flight, you just feel like I'm not going to be here now for a while. I have to sort out everything here before I leave. And I know when it's coming on.

and it's about 48 hours before the flight yeah i get that too like the packing am i going to pack everything right like do i need to order things before i go do i have all the things i need um yeah like yeah i agree would you say anxiety is your dominant sort of negative emotion when you have them that is a good question i think it's probably the one i've done the most work on in my life i think in terms of just ones that have affected my general well-being on a day-to-day basis. Same with you? Oh, 100%.

Yeah. But I feel I've gotten a lot better at it, a lot better. I think I was very anxious as a 20-year-old. But I bet you didn't call it anxiety back then. No, I just thought I was a worrier. I guess I called it a warrior. Yeah. O overthinker.

Yeah, I didn't start associating with, having anxiety until my 30s and then I realized I've always had anxiety like it didn't come on in my 30s I think it became quite pronounced in my 30s which was you know I started to realize like it had become very heightened but I I I realized oh I've always had some form of anxiety oh yeah i was an anxious teenager as well and i think at that age you don't realize it's not normal for everyone you don't realize there are more people who don't worry as much as you do don't fret about everything yeah yeah well one of the areas of course that anxiety afflicts all of us is when we really want something whether it's a job whether it's

a deal to come off, whether it's a relationship to work, and we start getting anxiety about the fact that it's not working or it's slipping through our fingers. And of course, for so many people, there's nothing they want more than to find love. So anxiety shows up very prominently for people who get anxious in early dating. It shows up as well in, I think, in all stages of relationships. It starts in early dating, but if you're prone to anxiety, it can kind of follow you and haunt you into a long-term relationship. I have a question for you guys.

I wrote this down. How do you stop anxiety from convincing you that every little thing the other person does is a sign that they're not into you or that they're losing interest. I am a big believer in labeling these things because if you can label it, you've already kind of won half the battle. 100%.

Anxiety doesn't want, it's almost like if you imagine anxiety as a being, it doesn't want you to look at it. it wants you to look at the thing that it's anxious about. Because if you assume anxiety's job is to keep you safe, you know, let's say it was born in a time in your life where you realized that you needed to worry a lot in order to stay safe or that you weren't safe and that the way to be safe

was to control everything or to become hypervigilant so that you never missed anything. we all have our response systems that we've developed to stay safe, to stay alive, to survive, whether physically or emotionally. And so if you imagine that this being's entire reason for existing is to try to keep you safe, then it doesn't want you to focus on it. it wants to get you to focus on the things that it's decided represent danger

and I imagine that a bit like a like a grabbing hand or like like the grabber in a you know the claw in a grabbing machine what do you call those what do you what do they call those in America and we call them grabbers I guess but I don't know what do you call the claw machines claw machines claw machines oh who'd have thought yeah so i imagine anxiety like that claw that is constantly like going through your life seeking things to be worried about seeking things to be anxious about and it's it grabs onto something and when it grabs onto something it's saying look at this, this is a problem. This is danger. This is scary. We need to focus non-stop on this thing until it gets resolved. And then, by the way, when it does get resolved, it's worth noticing

what that claw does. The claw of anxiety immediately starts looking for the next thing. It's like a child who's now not interested in that toy, but instantly starts looking for another one. And it grabs onto that one. And it says, now look at this thing and obsess over it and don't think about anything else. And the trap we fall into is that we take it, we take the claw very, very seriously. And it's like, that's like the, you know, that's the gospel. It's like, I should be worried about this. My anxiety is focused on this. I should be worried about this. but very rarely do we turn our attention to the hand itself, to the claw itself, to the thing that's grabbing, that's always grabbing, that will grab again and again and

again and is never not grabbing. And I think the moment we're able to bring awareness to that mechanism, to that claw, all of a sudden it gives us the ability to take everything that we get anxious about in any given day a lot less at face value at the very least so that to me is like that's my starting point is if we are people who get anxious because it's less likely that you're someone who never gets anxious and then all of a sudden you start dating someone and now you're filled with anxiety it could happen but it's less likely it's more likely that anxiety is a pattern that we experience and we didn't just experience it with this person we experienced it the last time we really liked someone and the time before that

and so when you notice that and you're able to see oh like let me put my focus on the claw not on the thing the claw has latched onto now we get a little bit of space between us and the thing that we're worried about. That would be my starting point. I'm curious as to what you two think, but that's my beginning point, is label it for what it is. So when the anxiety feels like it could be legitimate,

how do you get rid of it then? Even, so firstly, I still think it's important to say, if I wasn't getting anxious about this, I might just be getting anxious about something else. So it's still like, there's this space for some for me to be anxious about something and this is what's occupying that space right now. So firstly, let's not convince ourselves that if I didn't have this anxiety, my anxiety wouldn't just find another placeholder. But secondly, even what you're saying is,

if someone's not texting you back, it may very well be that they're losing interest. And how do we mitigate for that? That we might be right. Our anxiety might be right. They might not be into us. I've had plenty of times where my hypervigilance, because I'm hypervigilant, where that has made me sense an energy shift in someone. And people around me are like, no, they're fine. Oh, you're overthinking it or whatever. And I'm like, no, no, no. I've sensed an energy shift in that person. And then it turns out I'm right. Not just romantically. I'm saying business, friendships, all sorts of things. Like I am much better than the average person because of my anxiety at sensing when something has changed or when someone's tone of voice is giving away that they're a little bit off with me or mad at me in a way that other people wouldn't notice. But the anxiety, it goes one step further than picking up sometimes rightly on changes in queues.

it's what it is the conclusions it comes to about that so the anxiety will not just say this I feel like this person is like slightly off with me right now it will say and there's nothing you can do to turn that around and I'll never hear from them again and I'll never hear from them again and I'll never hear from them again or the whole thing's going to fall through. Like, that's the secondary anxious thought. The anxiety doesn't just say this person's losing interest. It says, and I'll never meet anyone that great again. Yes, and I actually delivered a course recently in our Love Life coaching group on this topic of

anxiety, and I stress the importance at the beginning of building a mental map of what is going on under the hood. Explain that to me. Well, because if you just have generalized feeling of anxiety, it's like it doesn't know where to go. You have some trigger response, obsessive scrolling their social media, checking all their texts, doing some bad food, drink, whatever your numbing activity is. But if you build a mental map, you can at least see what was the trigger that set

me off, what was the thing, and what is the fear underneath it that is prompting the anxiety response. As you said, is that fear, if they, if I reveal too much, they're going to suddenly not like me now. If they don't respond, that means they're not attracted anymore. Or I can't trust anyone. If your response every time they go disappear for six hours, I don't know who they're with, I don't know what they're doing. So their response is if I let someone on the leash, off the leash too much, they're going to betray me. So you kind of want to get under the hood and see what the anxiety is. And then one thing you can do to soothe it is just what they call a reality check where you can just start to list out what are the facts of this situation. The facts might

be our last conversation was really positive and we made plans for after they get back from their trip. They text me the other day to say they were going to be quite busy. I have not been given a reason not to trust this person yet. They haven't done anything to indicate their feelings of change. Or even just, it's 12 p.m. and it's a different time where they are. So they might be out to dinner. They might be busy. They can all just be different facts of the situation. And at least that then gives you a sober look at, like, what's the reality? Have I actually got an indication that they've suddenly changed their mind? And oh, actually, after our first day, I really don't like you now. So at least then you have what's the story I'm replaying on loop so I understand it

and what are the facts of this situation? That should be one of your first steps so you don't spiral out of control. I really like that. I think it's important the combination of doing a reality check on those facts with a kind of acceptance of. oh even if the facts didn't swing my way or even if I laid out all the facts and it turned out I was wrong and this person is mad at me or this person isn't interested anymore or they are losing interest pairing that reality check with an understanding of the ways that we are

catastrophizing about the results of this if they don't go our way is a very powerful because that what you just said can lower the temperature on and and give you some objectivity but realizing that you're catastrophizing about how bad it would be even if it didn't swing your way is really really important yeah that's right is it really true I'll never meet anyone again is it really true I'll never feel this way again is it really have I been the luckiest person in the world to meet an awesome person or Is it the case that actually people do meet awesome people in this lifetime? And by the way, is it true that I'll never survive on my own?

Because I've been surviving on my own until now. Realizing that it's called a cognitive distortion, catastrophizing is a cognitive distortion. And it's a really, really lethal one because it tells us that if this doesn't swing our way, we'll never survive, we'll never recover, we'll never be okay. again and that is a very very important thing to the same way we label anxiety as anxiety when we have a cognitive distortion we have to step back from it and label it a cognitive distortion yeah and what you're doing there is you're challenging the story someone is telling themselves the story is this will be so terrible if this is true or this rejection means something really fundamental that i'm not lovable. Like if you have a feeling of inferiority or low self-esteem, you can take any rejection

as further evidence of a story you're unlovable. And you want to challenge that story as much as you can. Like even looking at past evidence, here's all the people who do think I'm lovable. Here's all the kind words people have said to me. When I procrastinate, I used to catastrophize. And even a therapist told me once, like, you have such a dramatic thing going on in your mind that doesn't cohere with the actual thing that's happening in front of you, like, I'm procrastinating on this. That means I'll never be able to do this. That means I'll never be successful. That means I can never, I'm hopeless. And it'd be like, but there's loads of evidence you have finished things. There's loads of times you did get through that. There's loads of times

you worried about something and you managed to actually complete that. And people gave you praise for it but we have this recency bias that looks at the latest thing and just says see this is evidence i'm not lovable and you forget all the other scope of experiences you've had we actually put a poll up about this subject on instagram we asked do you think anxiety has interfered with your inability to find a partner and an incredible 86% of people said yes. Wow. 86%.

That is wild. 14% said no. Jealous of those 14% who were just like, nah. Those 14% are making the rest of our lives hell. Yeah. I mean... They're the ones going around breaking all of our hearts. We asked a follow-up question.

We said, if you answered yes, how. And the options were I shut down and left. It interfered with my confidence. I'm too nervous to even date. or I drove them away by over-communicating. And I was going to ask you what you guys thought, but you've already been looking at the results, so I will just tell you them.

Well, you didn't cover them up very well. You're supposed to have them here, like a set of cards. So 13% of people said, I shut down and left. 41% of people said it interfered with my confidence. 16% said, I'm too nervous to even date. And 30% said I drove them away by over-communicating. And I suppose what's interesting to me about this

is all of the stuff you're sharing is so powerful, but it's quite advanced. And I think what I'm reading in this is that I drove them away by over-communicating and it interfered with my confidence. They're almost very kind of reactive responses that people have when they feel anxious. It's like a defense mechanism,

like, you know, checking, like, is everything okay? are you mad at me? Do you still love me? Are we okay? I feel this way like you did this wrong. You know, that would be over-communicating. And to fit with my confidence is like you're not actually able to be yourself. You're not able to relax. You're not able to like be a kind of attractive and good version of yourself because you're so afraid you're almost like coming at it with like, you know, like just like squinting ready to get hit. And you know, I think that's really interesting. because those are not necessarily behaviours that people can help. They're very kind of reactive, unconscious, protective,

which is what anxiety does, right? It's trying to protect you from an outcome that you perceive to be a threat, to your point earlier, something that you perceive to be really, really bad. And in dating, I think we may logically know that something isn't the end of the world if it doesn't work out. We may know, like, yeah, of course I'm many other people. Of course there's been other people who,

who have liked me before, but what do you do when emotionally you just can't get yourself there? So the logic doesn't actually, you know, emotion comes before logic a lot of the time. And so I'm just curious what you guys think about that. Like how do you get your emotional self brought into this idea that you will be okay and you just need to breathe and everything's going to be fine? Hey guys, I know it's the summer holidays and so many of you are going to be booking trips, travel and holidays. So we wanted to bring to you what is one of our favorite travel hacks when we go away and that is to get an e-sim. I don't know if you guys have had this experience before, but either one

of two things happens when you go away. Either you come home after a week, two week long trip to a phone bill that makes your eyes water and you cannot believe you spent so much money. Or you make a commitment like I have done many times in the past not to use your data, you turn all of your data settings off and you end up spending the entirety of your trip trying to chase down wifi and dodgy internet cafes and restaurants which is no fun this is why when matt and i travel now we always use an electronic sim and a company that is really really great to use because of how user friendly they are is saley we are using saley for our trip that's coming up to london we're going to be there for four weeks so we don't want to face the charges for roaming that we would have

over a month in London with our American Sims. So instead we're using Saly. It's super affordable. We literally just downloaded the app, bought our plan, and then from the moment we land in London, it activates. And actually, there's even a security feature you can turn on inside the app that blocks the malicious ads that we get when we're abroad and also creates a safer browsing experience. You can get this too for your next trip. If you just go to your app store for either Android or I.O. and download the Saly app, spelt S-A-I-L-Y. You can download the app, and when you get to checkout, use the discount code, Love Life, for a 15% discount on your first purchase.

If you're anything like me, you forget this stuff, so try to do it now while you remember before your next trip, and that way when you're there, you have peace of mind that you're not being charged a fortune for being abroad. Go to the app store, download Saly, use the discount code, Love Life for 50%. 15% off. Well, you know I am a big fan of the concept of emotional buttons, which we talk about on the retreat. They are kind of triggers for the act as a kind of way of redirecting our emotions to somewhere

we want to go. So for example, the emotional response you just talked about was that of. I feel like in some way I've screwed it up with this person and now they're not going to be into me. And I, and my emotional, you know, despite the idea that there's plenty more fish in the sea and blah, blah, blah, my emotional experience is, yeah, but I really like this one. And I haven't met anyone in a long time. And this feels like it felt special and I don't want to blow this. I really want it to work. And now I'm hating on myself that I did something that maybe.

be as pushed them away an emotional button would be like a trigger that you could insert there that would instantly give you a different feeling and therefore allow you to act differently more importantly yeah because it changes your whole temperature it changes the the emotional environment that you're operating in so for example an emotional button for this could be you don't have to get a perfect score when it's the right person your anxiety the the emotion is feeding on this idea that you screwed it up the emotional button can be actually when it's the right person you don't need to get a perfect score not needing to get a perfect score might actually be much more of an indicator that you're with the right person than

attracting someone because you got a perfect score on all of your behavior and didn't do anything wrong and didn't put a single foot out of line and never said anything stupid or never, you know, pushed it a little bit too hard in an area that your person is someone you don't need to have a perfect score with. So that, even just that thought, which is an interrupting thought, can be an emotional button for realizing that actually some messiness along the way can be part of you realizing you're with the right person

because the right person will make space for you, for who you actually are. And if you're wondering, you're like, yeah, that wouldn't work for me. That thought wouldn't work for me, which I think a lot of people would be thinking. Like, yeah, but that's like you're just placating yourself. It's like it wouldn't actually make me feel better. You have a whole mechanism on how to actually make it stick, right?

to actually make it something that you're not just abstractly thinking and telling yourself. Like, it's not just some affirmation you don't believe in. The whole point of emotional buttons is that you find something that is real to you. So what works for me as an emotional button might not work for you. You create them based on what really speaks to you. Like, I have emotional buttons that make me go to the gym. They may not work to get you to. the gym. So when we're doing these exercises to create these, it's some, it's intensely specific for

each person. But the point I'm making for our purposes right now is simply that you can fight emotion with emotion. You don't always have to fight emotion with logic. There can be an equally powerful emotional concept or core that you use to interrupt the anxiety that you're feeling right now. I often find changing even the emotion I'm associating with the behavior they're showing is really powerful for me as well, where someone giving you one word answers and being flaky. If you can change that emotion to that's boring, that doesn't make, that means this person is wrong for me. That means we're not very compatible or connected to your needs.

I need consistency I can't be in a relationship where I have to do the perfect move every time like that's not going to work if you can do that you don't fear it so much you actually just take it as information yeah I totally agree

yeah and I suppose for anyone listening who feels like they're not connected to their needs and you know because there's a bunch of people who will be like but I just just need them to like me. I don't forget about me. Forget about what I want. Forget about what makes me. I just need them to like me because if they like me, I can just at least relax, exhale,

feel safe and then I can decide whether I actually want to be with them. But like until I feel safe and I feel like they actually like me, I can't relax. I think for people who are feeling that way. It's really important as well to remember that you have probably overcome a lot of hardship in your life that you also didn't think you could get over. You know, it's like when you're going through a breakup, you've probably been through heartbreak before. You've probably been through a lot of very, very painful emotions where you said to yourself, I'll never get over this. This is the worst I'm ever going to feel and here you are today not caring about that thing back then but caring so deeply about this thing today and so there's something interesting about that our anxiety makes

us think it's very centralizing and it really makes us think like there is nothing more important and more terrible than this thing that we're focusing on you know it's very like yeah anxiety narrows your focus and that's the danger of it and you want things that make you more expansive it's like if you have one failure in a part of your career one the you know one of the mindset shifts you can just have is just take a much more expansive view of what your opportunity set is like this is just one point in the big circle of all the possibilities there's tons of points of things you could do in your career right now options things you could create people you could reach out to if you can start expanding your focus to what other things are possible right now what could I be curious about what are three other opportunities I could pursue if this doesn't work out you start to just give yourself that exhale like yeah I might be sad if this goes like acknowledge it it's okay I might be sad if this person decides I'm not right for them but it's also not the end there's also a whole next three four five chapters of the story and a whole new set of things

I can do right now. Scarcity and anxiety are like best friends. Yes. And then, you know, like abundance and feeling relaxed and in flow and kind of accepting of life also they go really nicely together. So it's almost like trying to pick one camp. And if you feel like you're always in the kind of anxious camp, it's like, you know, how do I get myself over to the other side of it a little bit?

I think we put this to the test a little bit. You know, I've been in your home watching for the last couple months as, you know, you guys are working, but also, you know, are about to become parents. And I thought, you know, that's probably, if I were in your shoes, I'd have some anxiety about that. Have you guys developed any strategies, anything, like, or used strategies that you already have mentioned in this episode to help curb some of those anxieties? I'm curious if anything comes up. Hmm. I'm trying. So, okay, let me think.

What are my anxieties about having a child on the way? I really like my routines. And my routines are part of what kind of keep me sane and keep my mental health in check. So I think that there is a, I probably have an anxiety. around, you know, losing routine or feeling like, you know, there's going to be just something that's just incredibly disruptive and is going to throw me off that track.

And if I get thrown off, that catastrophic thought is if I get thrown off that track, my mental health is going to suffer and then work's going to suffer. And then so there's probably that's an anxiety. We were with friends the other day and one of, they had had a child a year ago. and one of the pieces of advice they gave us was like you have like three or four big things that you do in your life that are really important to you and the advice that no one ever gave us that I think is really good advice is like figure out now which one is going to take a backseat like which one are you going to drop for a while and the guy was talking to us and he was like for me

it was working out like work remained really important because I'm in the middle of starting a company, our relationship remained really important, baby was really important, but working out went out the window to me. And the whole time he was speaking, I just went, I don't know, there's none I want to drop. There's not, there's not an area I can think of right now that I'm like, yeah, that one takes a back seat. So a part of how I mitigate that right now is that because we have months ahead of that. I'm like, okay, let's like, let's start to ask these questions. And let's also put some real strategies in place.

Like, what do we need to do in order to actually prepare ourselves for this so that it doesn't just sneak up on us? And we've done a lot of that. Like, we've done a lot of thinking about it, a lot of strategizing. So we're not going in blind to that. I think what I'm trying to think where else my head goes that relaxes me and takes me away from anxiety. I think that I have role models in my life that are extremely busy people who some of them are like the most positive people I've ever met when it comes to having kids. So I choose to focus on them.

like there's no shortage of people who immediately get negative when they start when you ask them about kids it's crazy like it's such a form of like I think cathartic venting for people that they want to be seen for how hard it's been it's a coping mechanism so you ask them about kids and they're like oh get ready get ready enjoy your time now And you're like, this is so not, I get why people do it. I do. But it's absolutely the opposite of what I need to hear for any of my own anxieties about it. So I proactively, like, I spotlight the stories.

I'm like, you know, what's like a show? I'm like 60 minutes in my own life for the people that talk about it beautiful. I'm like, you're my comp, you're my case study, like, you're who I'm focusing on. And when I do that, I'm like, okay, yeah, it's going to be, of course it's going to be messy. And of course we're not going to have it all figured out. And we're not going to be ready in every way. And we can't strategize for every part of it. But there's an everyone, like all these people I admire who talk about it have such,

they look at it as this expansive thing. Like, it expanded them, expanded their world. and and I focus on that and I'm like well whatever happens this is going to be a really expansive experience and whatever structure I lose I'm going to gain in my ability to expand and my ability to pour that back into also my creativity and how we help people and all of that so I think that's where I reorient my focus I choose different people to focus on I choose my stories very carefully for who i'm looking at i get i i i i really don't listen a lot to the people who predict doom and we're also doing work to strategize ahead of time i think that's how i mitigate it's

really good what about you oh god i have to follow that um i probably stole a lot of your answers um what am i anxious about um i my main anxiety is i'm not going to like it it, which is crazy because, like, I wanted to have a child. And if I couldn't, I would be sad that I wasn't doing it. So it's not like this was unplanned and like a surprise. But now it's happening. It's like, it's happening. You know, like you just have this extra thing that's just going on and you can't really control it. And you're then going to be responsible for their happiness forevermore and make sure that they're okay. And that's really exciting to me. But I get anxious that what if I don't like it and then I can't like go back which um apparently is a normal

fear to have um and and I think for me I mitigate that by just reminding myself that I really wanted this and also like I think so much of life is what you choose it to be like I think if you go into it going this is going to be amazing if every moment that is amazing you recognize, appreciate, are grateful for how amazing it is. For the hard moments, you just recognize that it's hard, but everything is a phase. You know, whether it's in your, you know, with you being single right now and struggling with being single, it's a phase. Like, you're not always going to be single.

You're going to date people. You're going to be in relationships. Those relationships may last day, may end. Everything ebbs and flows. Everything's impermanent. And having a child is kind of the same thing, right? It's like maybe there's, whether it's new. or two or whatever there's like harder moments than others but they're all phases and I kind of feel like

if I don't like it in a moment it doesn't mean I'm not going to like it forever and I think yeah I just think it's going to be what I make of it and if I think it's going to be great and I appreciate it for all of the goodness that it brings me and you know more love and all of those things then I it helps it helps with that thought i always love when you say that everything's a phase i think that's a really encouraging and empowering thought yeah and it's really applicable to everything in life you know our suffering makes us feel that we will always feel like this like it's kind of what we were saying about this anxiety it ties back perfectly it's you know someone's not texting you back you're sat there looking at your phone and you're going i will not be okay because this person hasn't

text me and i will never hear from them again and therefore i will never find love and i cannot get back out there and face another person, another day, another disappointment in love. But like, everything's a phase and you felt that before and you also felt really happy before and you will feel happy again and you will feel excited about someone and you will be in love and you will maybe fall out of love or maybe not. Like, it's just, everything is just going to change. Like, that is the one thing you can guarantee in life is that it all changes. and at the end of your life you're kind of on your own

so it's sort of like everything that happens in your life and comes into it whether it's a child whether it's a disappointment in love whether it's a great love whether it's a great job or whatever like what you can know for sure is that that will eventually

end whether you die they die it ends because it ends you retire they leave you you leave them whatever like there's everything will have an end and in the end you're just going to look at your life and be like did i have a good life did i have a lot of love in my life a lot of great relationships in my life and i don't know i know it's like a very easy thing to say because when

you're stuck in your anxiety i appreciate that that's not really helpful but i just i do think that that everything is a phase and and we can't get too attached either way to the good and the bad because it's it's not sticking around yeah sometimes i do tap into and that was beautiful thank you um sometimes i do tap into that thought of just even looking back and being like do i want to look at my whole life and realize i spent so much of it just just not enjoying those parts like do i want to look at so many days that i spent in thinking about the future such a good point and just as simple as that it's just sometimes i'm just like i let's just make this day a day that i don't feel bad about I don't feel that and worry.

Like I actually just embrace it and enjoy it. Because one day I'll think, oh my God, when I was in my 30s, that was the best. Yeah. I really relate to that. I spent so much of my 20s being so, my 20s were really, really tumultuous and they were really difficult years for me. And like I had a lot of anxiety, a lot of, you know, I experienced depression, a lot of different things like that. And I look back at my 20s with almost like, a bit of grief because I feel like, oh, if I knew then what I know now about happiness

and chasing the wrong things and, you know, like, in some cases, like self-medicating with different things in my life, just to make myself feel better, I would have had such a nicer experience of being 20-something, but my 20s was so rough and, like, I just look at my life now in my 30s and I'm like I just really wish I could like give myself those lessons and so I don't want to to your point like do the same thing when I'm 40 and look at my 30s and be like look at how much I worried about this and I it's a work in progress because I definitely am very anxious still today about various different things but I think that's such a good point Stephen so guys we have been talking about the emotions that take us over in

the case of this episode, we've been talking specifically about anxiety. But if you're anything like me, your brain is not one that is naturally just calm. You get triggered. Life, if you're not careful, can turn into a bit of an emotional roller coaster. And especially when you get sucked into an emotion like anxiety, if you're not careful, it can be very hard to get out of it again. And then we become reactive. We make mistakes. We do things we wish we hadn't done. Not to mention, we just find that life is a lot less enjoyable. We feel tortured. We feel unable to enjoy our day or be present. I've had that feeling so many times in my life where I'm not able to really enjoy the moment in what I'm doing because I'm just spiraling emotionally.

it's because of this that I created a concept I call emotional buttons. And this is more than a concept. It's a set of tools that I use in my life every single day. I spoke about it earlier in this episode. I couldn't be more passionate about this particular subject because it's one of the tools that I found most useful in my life for controlling my emotions and for being able to put an, end to negative emotions when I feel them and bring about really positive, beautiful states.

I'm saying this because over the last 17 years, I have been teaching a session on my retreat program all about emotional buttons as a tool and how to use it. And so many of you have DM'd me over the years saying that you struggle with anxiety, many struggle with depression, many struggle with self-doubt. and don't know how to get out of those states. So I wanted to do something for a limited amount of time where I took my session from the retreat on emotional buttons and shared part of it with you free of charge so that you can just experience this toll for yourself.

Whether or not you get to a retreat, I want you to be able to experience this tool. Of course, my hope is that you come and join me on the retreat because it's truly a life-changing program and this is one of many tools I give you. But at the very least, I actually want you as a listener of this podcast to be able to access this tool and start using it. And if this episode is resonating with you, then I know this tool is going to be life-changing for you. People fly from all over the world to experience it. And you can experience part of that literally right now by going to inside the retreat.com.

which is where I have put this session temporarily for you to go and experience it. So maybe you're in an emotion like that right now and you want to change it, then perfect. The timing is amazing. Or maybe you just know you have a pattern of being on these emotional cycles in your life. And you know you're going to need it again an hour from now and tomorrow and the next day, in which case you can watch it multiple times before it disappears. No matter what, go watch it while it's there. it's at inside the retreat.com and you'll see what I mean when I say that this toll has changed

the lives of thousands of people who have been to a retreat who are now out there using it in their daily lives go check it out I'll see you there and now back to the episode well we have a love life line here from Levern who says I just watched your YouTube video about being anxious when dating and this is exactly what I am dealing with. I have been dating this guy for only a few weeks and I am going through severe anxiousness about him going out with the guys. The first time it was to a hockey game and renting a motel room. I would have been okay with the hockey game but the motel room triggered me. Why did he need to rent a motel room when he lives in the burbs of the city and close enough to go home after

the game. I can understand a few beers with the guys afterwards, but the mention of the motel room brought my anxiety through the roof. I obviously have trust issues around dating. I cut him off for a bit, then once I felt okay, reestablished contact again. Now he is out of town for work and when we talked earlier in the day, I told him I was falling in love. Later in the evening, I text him and he was short and in a hurry. And he tells me that he is going to the pub to eat and he will message me later. No problem. But once it gets close to midnight and I realize his later meant not after he ate, but some other time not in that same day, I freaked again. I don't know him enough to know if he is a huge flirt or a serial cheetah and he obviously meant he was having a night

out at the pub, not just a meal. It's too much anxiety for me and I just don't know if I can do this relationship. I don't feel secure and I am so scared of getting cheated on and not cared about enough. Help. I would feel, I would feel the same way as Levan. So you feel what she's worried about actually is legitimate. Well, I don't know if it's legitimate. I don't know if he's actually, you know, going off and doing a bunch of untoward things. But I would feel exactly the same way, Levan. So just I want to validate your emotions. So someone said they're going to a game, but they're getting a motel room afterwards even though they'd live not that far away i could see how that would trigger me in like an early dating situation with someone i don't know who i really like um especially if they were

like because it sounds almost like that wasn't premeditated it sounds like it just happened so i get it i would i would find that to be a little bit uncomfortable and it's and he said he's out of town for work and she's then said to him i'm falling in love and then he sort of it sounds like a bit short in that same day and in a hurry and goes to the pub to eat and doesn't even message her back that same day yeah i just my my principle here which i think is really important is like your intuition here is telling you you said it you spelled it out levin i don't feel safe in this relationship and I don't think the person who is right for you makes you feel this unsafe this early on and even if he just has a different communication style he is just someone who enjoys going

out of his friends doing whatever he likes to do and there's nothing to do with other women and he's not going to cheat and whatever he may still just not be the right person for you so it's not necessarily that he's doing something wrong although he could be but who knows even if he's not you're saying it's a compatibility issue yeah i had a boyfriend when i was in my 20s i was with him for a few years and he was very much like loved going out loved being with his friends loved partying loved all of that stuff and we were 20 something so fine but it just always made me anxious it always made me anxious because i wouldn't hear from him i wouldn't know where he were all of those things like and when i was with you when you and i were dating one of the things i really

appreciated about you and I'm sure you appreciate it about me kind of like you're not that person and I'm not that person and I think that was really that made us very compatible because then it wasn't like I feel massively unsafe because every other weekend you're going out staying out I don't hear from you and I just have to trust that like there's nothing untoward happening and if if my trauma and my triggers mean that I struggled to believe that I'm just constantly living in a state of feeling anxious, and I just don't want to. Thank you so much, Leuven, for that question. Really, really great question.

If you want to email us your question, email podcast at Matthewhussey.com. Tell us your opinions on the episode, your thoughts, any stories, any questions you have. Not too long, because if you write a thousand words, we probably won't be able to read it on the show. If you can keep your emails to like 200 to 300 words, that's the optimal length. for us to read them out and answer your questions. Podcast at Matthew Hussie.com. We had some comments on some recent episodes, episode 305 subtle flirting signs that actually work. Someone emailed in to podcast at Matthew Hussie.com. Thanks for your podcast on flirting. Something that kept coming up for me was that I resist flirting at times because I'm afraid that if I open that door, because at that time I'm

feeling confident, willing to take a risk, or feeling silly, and end up not being interested in the person, I'll have trapped myself in a situation where I now have to let them down. I relate to that. Is this something you can speak to? Well, Audrey, is someone who relates to that. I relate to that. What would you say to this person? That feels a bit avoidant, right?

Yeah, no, it is a bit. Yeah, I relate to that. I don't know how to combat it other than just like, I think you just have to pick your regrets right it's like are you going to go the rest of your life not actually putting yourself out there and therefore not having opportunities with people you do like or are you going to sometimes get it wrong and you know attract someone that you decide you don't like and it's okay like people can take a rejection we're all you know we all have broad shoulders and I think if you just flirt with somebody and you end up deciding you no longer feel that way you can

definitely kind of go back to being far more friendly and making that clear so just don't overthink it and don't let that mindset block you but I do relate to it even the loveliest people in the world have to reject people and be the villain to some people that's just the way it is our chowder said about the same episode episode 305 on flirting the soft crab comments made me laugh so much you guys are cute I can't what was the soft crab comment I said soft crab instead of soft child crowds I also got a lot of DMs on Instagram regarding a lot of people message me about what were they saying like it's okay?

No, they were just laughing and saying they liked it. Someone sent me a meme. I like the person who sent this comment. It's called Chowder. Yes, I was going to say that thing. Do you think they set up that account specifically for crab comments? No, I think they're called Chowder and they heard crab everyone like, well, I think, this is my domain.

Hello. Chowder doesn't usually involve crab, so it's like, it's nice to see the downfall of a, you know, not used ingredient. Yeah, yeah, fair enough. Well, Chowder, Chowder, thank you for that comment. These were about that episode on YouTube. Share a Sale 648O said I quite enjoyed stock talk flirtation edition. Please play it again.

I love, I just, the fact that you talked about it as an addition of a game that had never been done before. What are you talking about? I mean, you didn't just call it stock talk. And I think you... For anyone who wants to know, this is where we basically, Stephen held up a bunch of stock photos that had been found by David. and we had to explain what we had to give examples of how you'd flirt in that particular situation some of these stock photos were absolutely bizarre i don't know what you'd be using this is a classic game we've played it a hundred times in the podcast and name me one other

edition we've ever done of stock talk there's uh um texting edition never happened workplace edition hasn't been done gaslighting matt right now i there's gas there's exactly there's gaslighting edition gaslighting edition I do think Matt called it our worst one, or the one that he thought was like this. And by the way, it's got the most comments. Rolo Lil Red on YouTube says, OMG, please play that game again. Alias Sirisha says this was my first episode of the podcast and Steve Sleeves had me dying. Great episode all around.

Cheers. Soup son said, can I say I'm about to pee my pants from laughing so hard. with the cactus picture in Stock Talk Flirtation Edition. Someone said, I feel like that tree guy is my soulmate. You're going to have to go back and watch this episode, everyone. I love the game at the end of the episode. It was so funny. Thank you.

So clearly, a lot of love for Stock Talk flirtation edition. People apparently loved that edition of it, David. The only edition that's ever existed. This was an email sent in on episode 257. which was about how you shouldn't let your anxiety sabotage your relationship. So if you want a great pairing with this episode, go back and listen to episode 257. This came in from Alexa. She said, hi, Matthew and Audrey, I just listened to your podcast and it really struck a chord with me.

The thing that really helped me and will guide me in approaching those moments of anxiety differently is this analogy. Awareness, sitting with the feeling, letting it pass, and laughing at it. Versus taking the wheel and continuing to drive. I think I often try to jump to feelings of safety and comfort, so I spiral and create stories in my head to justify why things appear the way they do. This is me continuing to drive, but it's not safe driving. I'm going to practice pulling over, letting the feeling pass, and then getting back on the road again after a good laugh.

I appreciate you for everything you do, Alexa. That again came into podcast at Matthew Hussie.com, which anyone listening can email. Thank you all for those wonderful comments. I look forward to the comments on this episode. Few things have helped my anxiety more than talking to the right person at the right time. That is why I created Matthew. you AI so that people could talk to me and ask me a question any time they wanted when they

were in an anxious state. So if you have something on your mind right now, maybe you're trying to craft the perfect response to someone and you're overthinking it. Maybe their behavior is confusing you and you need my help decoding what it means. Or maybe you're just in such a triggered state right now that you're in danger of acting in an extremely reactive way that runs the risk of sabotaging it altogether. Matthew A.I. can help you with your response, help you decode behavior, and help you get out of the state you're in so that you can react with calm and confidence. And you can try it for free by going to askmh.com. So think of the one thing you'd love to ask me right now and go ask me at askmh.com.

come to that time, it is time for Steve's sleeves. And, you know, I'm curious because the note, the prevailing note from our last rendition of the Steve's sleeves, title music, we'll call it title music, was that it was a little low beat. I'm actually, I'm curious from folks watching, do they think that? We'll recompose. I mean, we have the talent. And I'm not bitter about this at all.

But this isn't coming from like a spiteful place. This is purely for the knowledge and for the comfort of the viewers. Marker research. We'll play it again. We'll play it again. And you tell us, let's let the people vote, do you want a more upbeat, sassy version of the Steve's Sleeves theme song? Sassy.

Or, you know, do you want something a bit cheekier? Yeah. No, I like sassy. You like sassy. Okay, well, you know. I don't know what it means. I don't know like how that manifests. Just something, do you want something a little, with a little bit more of a upbeat kind of feel?

Or do you like the soothing tones of the current Steve's sleeves song? And I appreciate that you've kind of added a leading question in that that might signal what your desire is. No, no. But I'm actually very much 50. I wouldn't have even thought this. I'm just, it got brought up. and I'm just giving people a fair chance to vote. So let us know, email podcast at Matthew Hussie.com

and tell us, stick with the sleeves. Or a new pair of garments. Exactly. Or the same pair of garments just dressed up. Just dressed up. Style's a little better. Yeah, let us know. I don't know.

I like a boss and over sort of vibe we had. Well, let's see. Again, email a subject line, same sleeves. if you want to, if you want to keep it. And sassy sleeves if you want to change it. I love it. And with that, with that, this is Steve's sleeves.

Don't be bereaved. You know that we can't live without another episode of Steve's sleeves. All right, so go on then. What is it today? okay well this isn't as wacky as the last one actually it's more somber it's not somber either it's about you two and your anxieties so we are actually gonna do and it can't be about having a child so I want you to look at one of your historic anxieties and we're gonna do the three-part

reality check with you I want to hear your trigger your story and some facts slash challenging it with evidence. This is an ambush. There's Steve's Steve's sleeves is an ambush. It always is. Three column reality check. It always is. Story, facts.

I'll track along with you guys. And so the facts can just be raw facts about what's true, or you can challenge with past evidence. So is this like an anxiety we've had in the past or one we have now? It can be in the past, one you've faced a lot in your life, one that you've learned how to deal with. And I want to know, like, what sets it off and what's the story you tell yourself when that anxiety happens? That makes it worse.

Yeah, and your answer can't be Steve Sleeves itself. That gives me anxiety sometimes. Yeah, it gives me anxiety, too. I, okay, a common trigger in my life has been having said something that, um will come off the wrong way like oh yeah i know this about you like i wish i hadn't said it that way you know if it in a one-on-one situation there's like two versions of it right in a one-on-one situation it would be um how vulnerable shall i get as vulnerable as you want that's not an answer how vulnerable do you want me to be it's the rule of the sleeves it's all truth here yeah well okay

so look one would be in a personal situation having said to like something to a friend or someone i know like a personal criticism of them or something very direct that you feel has no no like it could be something i i've said in a message to them or whatever that i think has like come off the wrong way being misconstrued. Yeah, and then maybe I don't get a text back for a few hours and I think, oh, no, I'm right. It did come across badly or it did, you know, I shouldn't have said it that way or whatever. And now I'm sort of, if I'm not careful, I get in my head and spin out. And what's the story you tell yourself? Probably, I think the deep, the surface level story is that they're mad at me or that they are, you know, um, what's, what's, Either that they're mad at me or that they're turned off in some way.

And is there a fear? Or that I've come across maybe a bit desperate, you know? Right. Something like that. And a bit, you know, like a bit needy or a bit something. I've, you know, I've not come across very confident. And I think the deepest story, the story, the surface level kind of thing is like, oh, they're mad at me or they've come across badly or whatever. But I think the even deeper story is I've been found out.

You know, like I've been discovered. I'm not as confident or I'm not as nice or I'm not as, you know, lovable or I'm not, you know, whatever it may be. There's like I've been, oh, no, like they've seen me for who I really am. You know, and that obviously comes from a deep sense of being a deep fear. I've worked on this by the way I've got much better at this you have got much better do you have some fear you're not a good person

do you have some fear you're like actually a needy person is that I've definitely had the fear a lot in my life that I'm not good person right like that's been like a which is crazy like I don't want anyone listening to think that you're saying that because you somehow

because I'm an evil genius because you're like an evil person who does bad things I don't think that person worries about that best person I know and so it's crazy oh it's true thank you that's coming from the fuzzy duck Audrey's wearing a top makes it look like a fuzzy duck audio listen even even though you do the the the air pod thing to me uh you're a very good person thank you David yeah so what do you do what what are some facts I don't do the airport what are some what are some facts or challenging

with evidence you can do in that moment to help yeah um i i remind myself of the i remind myself of all the moments that i am extremely highing i mean i'm extremely high in conscientiousness in general which is why i worry like it's one of the reasons that i worry so much you worry about people's feelings and reactions a lot a lot a lot and i don't think a bad person spends this much time worrying about people's feelings um i so i the idea that i've hurt someone is like the worst you know that's terrible to me um i i remind myself of all of the ways that i've shown up for people in my life i remind myself of a story that there was a story that really encapsulated this for me actually when i was at school i

there was a kid in my class this was like preschool this was like not even teenage school we would have been what year was like prep school was that like seven yeah like age seven i think i was like yeah i was seven that's right because it was in the first year so i was seven years old and there was a a guy that i was friends with over time but i found basically i found out that he had been like taking my my like food every day with like he like he'd been this stephen it wasn't it wasn't step it wasn't step he found out pretty quick i had like my snacks for the day and stuff but every day they would just disappear from my bag and then i found out that he had been doing that and i was and i and i and i never stopped feeling back because i also felt a bit of glee in telling on him or

remember that feeling and then I felt so much shame for years not only at having told on him but having felt a sense of like glee about it like almost making fun of it like that I was going to get him in trouble and that's really like stuck with me and as a terrible human being but as an adult I bumped into him and he we said hi in that and he said I was like he he said to me I always remember you at school because when I started you I was on my own in the lunch hall and I would sit on my own every day and you saw me sitting on my own and you came over to me and said no one should have to sit on their own he he said to me like you don't have to sit with me it's okay and i said no one should have to sit alone during lunch and the funny thing is i have no recollection of that

whatsoever i don't remember it happening i don't remember saying it but he remembers like that was what he in my head i'm like he'll he would never have forgotten the fact that i got him in trouble Maybe he doesn't know you've rented him out. He was probably nervous because he had all your snacks in his bag. So, so, so, so, so for the fact I wrote, I felt bad for ratting on my friend when he stole my snacks. I then sat with him when he was alone during lunch. Cool guy move. Right. I think I spelled during wrong too. Is it two hours? No, one a one hour. Um, so I guess what I'm saying is that was like epitomized that what I do to myself in general.

which is remember like take stock of all of the things I've done that I feel a lot of shame over and you know not connect to moments where I've shown up and disprove that idea that I'm not a good person but I say this having done an immense amount of work in this area Audrey will tell you this has been like a journey for me but that's definitely like trigger is said something that came off the wrong way story is you know they're mad at me or i've been discovered now they know or you know a version of that could be i'm a bad person and they've seen it and then the the facts is i spend time connecting with all of the evidence that that is just simply not the story um which i've found immensely helpful so it's very validating for your what you're

What do you call this? This is the three-column reality check. Right. It's very validating for the three-column reality check. Just to give yourself new evidence and reference points. Audrey, do you have one? Do I have one? I feel intensely vulnerable having done that, by the way.

I feel very naked right now. I hope you don't. I was, now I feel anxiety for coming off the wrong way by saying ratting. I was trying to be playful and now that you're vulnerable. stoked that i feel bad i'm gonna triggering that phrase i'm i'm gonna i'm gonna i'm gonna i'm gonna turn turn it to um i feel i feel yeah the way you phrased it in the fact i it didn't i felt bad writing on my i i wanted a reaction friends in caps or i don't think i went to afar enough and so now it's in this spot of i i i feel like an asshole so i'm redacting that i'm gonna

I'm going to redact it. I think people will like this a lot. I thought that was really, really lovely. Yeah, I agree. It was honest. I know Audrey's got one. What would be a, so can you go up since trigger, story, fact? Okay.

Oh, okay, yeah. I think if I'm being like honest, you were honest. So I'm going to be honest too. As in like, not that I wasn't going to be honest, but I'm going to be like vulnerable. I think I have a trigger. A trigger might be like, you know, we're really busy with work. And this actually happened recently.

I didn't get back to a friend. And I assumed we'd locked in plans because to me we'd locked in plans and I was just like kind of firing off messages and, you know. But then in the meantime, that friend had sent me a voice note to basically ask about the plans and, you know, lock something in. I didn't listen to the voice note because I was busy. Comes the day, I text her going, you know, let's, what do you want to do tonight, blah, blah, blah. And she sort of was like, well, I didn't think it was happening because you never got back to me.

And then there was this sort of like moment where I felt like she was mad at me and that I had kind of like somehow been like just selfish and inconsiderate and whatever. so a trigger like that would then make me feel like almost like this person's not going to want to be my friend or I'm going to be left and I'm only using that as an example because it's like the most recent one that happened this happened yesterday and the trigger will always be like something like that or it might be you and I have an argument or something and you are a bit mad at me and I go oh my god this argument means that he's going to leave me and never speak to me again. It's like very like dramatic, jumping to very dramatic conclusions over very little things. So the story will be like, they're going to leave me. They're not going to want to be my friend or they're not going to like me anymore or they're going to leave me or like whatever. And the, what was the last bit? The fact.

The facts. Well, what I tell myself is like, the real people in my life who love me won't leave me because of miscommunications or small fights or you know me getting something a little bit wrong even if I do make a mistake and I also tell myself like I always take every bit of accountability for everything sometimes when even it's not fully my fault because I all my instinct is to be like oh my god I'm so sorry I completely messed up and I'm like well hang on a minute I didn't really mess up it was a bit of a miscommunication in the example of my friend um yeah the fear makes you over over do the

apology or take too much accountability or yeah you then go too extreme with it I relate to too far the other way yeah and so then that's also a bit of a kind of like thing that I tell myself which is like don't do that thing where then you go too far the other way and then you're like you know two days later you're like wait a minute I didn't really do anything wrong here and I've just ended up kind of like just from that response of like that fear tried to yeah tried to kind of like make it better but yeah being left and anxiety about being left and people I love like not being in my life anymore do you do you also not have evidence like you have loads of friends like you're way more than me and Steve yeah you have more friends than most of us who you spend

a lot of time with but yeah but then I just I think I just I always feel like my friends Like, that's the thing. It's really interesting, right? I think there's like a thing, an anxiety in my friendships, not all of my friendships, but in some of my friendships that like maybe someone won't like me or like I'll do something that will make them no longer want to be my friend. So I don't really like get a lot of comfort from that because I don't feel like necessarily. Does that sound weird? That you think like there's a, the fear in you says they're precarious. Yeah. Like most things. are precarious. It took me a very long time to not feel like things were precarious in our relationship. I do and now I feel very much like we fight and I'm a bit like whatever it's fine. Like it's I don't need it to be resolved right now like right away. I we resolve it so quickly anyway as well which is kind of like something we've learned to do but like I just

don't I don't feel like that and that anxiety that used to feel but it took me years. I also think that the I over time I've developed an association that the friendship that really matter are the ones that can weather storms and you can you can someone can be upset with you and you can have that conversation and you can have done wrong or you can have like ignored them but you have that conversation and you come out the other side of it and that's kind of the you know the robustness of the relationship speaks to the depth of the relationship and those are the relationships that that remain and you know I want to just add one last thing to that, which is, you know, in the context of everything we've been talking about in this massively

long episode today, you know, when we're anxious in early dating, when we're, in early stages of a relationship, what we're afraid of is like, I'm going to make a wrong move and then everything's going to go away. And it really does kind of, it speaks quite a lot to what our anxieties are here, really, which is like, you know, everything is very precarious. But, you know, the right people in your life to your point they won't expect you to score a perfect score all the time and actually forming an authentic connection isn't about being perfect it's about being yourself and that particular version of you being the kind of person that somebody else is looking for and that works and fits with them it's not you know people who are actually being intentional about

looking for love they're not looking for a perfect person they're just looking for a match for them What about you, Stephen? Can we do your view? Well, we're out of time. We're out of time, everyone. I also want to call out that we said it before, but this was part of your course in the Love Life Club. And this was a really one of my favorite portions of the course. And I thought it was a really cool, very simple way to reframe anxiety. It kind of lays it out in a way that even just looking at it makes it a little less scary. I'm excited to see this course.

I know you just shot it. So for anyone who does want to see it, it's going to be included inside the Love Life Coaching Program for all of our members. So members be on the lookout for Stephen's new course on anxiety in dating. And as always, thanks for playing Steve's sleeves.

I'm sure I wanted to play this Steve's sleeves. I feel like I've been terrified. I think I preferred stock talk flirtation. edition a lot of people do a lot of people do thank you so much for listening everybody and don't forget if you are struggling with the things that we have talked about in this episode whether it's anxiety or being down on yourself or self-doubt or whatever your particular go-to emotion is and when you get there you don't know how to get out of it the session that I'm sharing with you on emotional buttons is one of the great master keys to overcoming that. The tool that I give

you in this session is something that I use every single day of my life. I cannot stress that enough and it has helped so many people that I've taught it to. You can get it by going to inside the retreat.com which is where I'm sharing this session. So make sure to go and get it now while it's there inside the retreat.com is the link. Thank you. and we'll see you next.