Love Life with Matthew Hussey - 31: How to Overcome Negative Self-Talk (Especially After a Breakup)

Episode Date: June 17, 2020

“How do you avoid negative self-talk after a breakup? My ex was extremely critical and I want him out of my head.” I say “we,” because I’m not alone in this one. I’m joined by a very special friend of mine, Jeannie Mai (@thejeanniemai)– Emmy Award-winning co-host of “The Real,” and host of the podcast “Listen Hunnay.” Jeannie is wonderfully entertaining to listen to, and has a first rate mind on these things, as you’ll her from the podcast. And, what makes this “extra” special is that it's taken from a 90-minute interview I did just for my Love.Life members, so you’ll get a taste of what goes on behind the curtain of my private membership. If you are struggling with negative self-talk, this podcast is literally a precise prescription for what to do next. It’s 7 minutes of listening that will make your life better today, I promise. P.S. If you find this video as valuable as I know you will, and would like to watch the full 90-minute interview, you can access it right now with a free 14-day trial to our Love.Life Membership. Claim your trial at http://www.AskMH.com.

And women, we do this to ourselves. For some reason, we bash ourselves. We think about the woulda, coulda, shoulda. You're sitting there loofah-ing your body and you're like, damn, I should have said this. Should we have broken up? Did I end it too soon? Because that feeling of loneliness is scary.

It is scary. So you wonder, maybe I should just say this. This week, I invited my charismatic, funny, and razor-sharp friend, Jeannie Mai, to come and join me and my Love Life members for a special exclusive session. This is so cool. Hi, Sally. Hi, Mickey Ray. Hi, Andrea. Hi, Leslie. Hi, Jazzy.

Where we talked about so many things from dating, confidence, getting back into dating again, how to show vulnerability in a relationship, how to stick up for yourself. One of our best sessions ever. I feel like I'm on a QVC chat. It's so live and exciting.

It's like very energetic. I love this. And I wanted to bring you a piece of this because so many people out there are struggling with negative thinking right now. They're struggling with anxiety. They're struggling with insecurity. They're struggling with uncertainty.

And this particular thing that I'm going to show you, this part of the session was about a woman who was trying to get over the negative thoughts that had been planted in her mind by an ex. Now, whether you're going through that from an ex or whether you're just dealing with negative thinking right now, whether you're dealing with internal struggles, this video is going to help so, so much. So check it out. And if you watch this and you love it and you want to see the full interview at the end of this video, I'll let you know how you can do that. Um, Harry, if we could send Ginny that link to the top questions as well, but the top question right now is how do you avoid

negative self-talk after a breakup? Uh, my ex was extremely critical and I want him out of my head. That's really going to F you up that you've got to get rid of that poison in that stain that that person left with you. And I'm glad you got out of that relationship, by the way, because it sounds like you're now trying to figure out how to move on forward. So I always say this, my whole career today, I'm an Emmy award winning television personality and humanitarian because of a major breakup. So I wasn't engaged when I was 23, no, 23, 22 guys. And it was a celebrity and, and, and, and thank God we didn't have social media there because it was something, you know, that was just in my life, but that relationship became very toxic for me. And after, I think it was three or four years, we were together, maybe, maybe going

on four, I decided I got to cut ties here and I've got to, I've got to get out of this. So I moved all my things out and I couldn't stay in my area of San Jose because too many people knew us. So I moved to LA and I was like, I'm pretty special. I'm going to make something out of myself. I don't know what it is, but I'm going to figure out what it is. And I knew I had some skills. Like you knew I was a makeup artist. I knew how I had the gift of gab. I knew how to speak. I knew very well how to style women. And so that's a whole journey on how I became what I became. But my tip to you is I made a long list. Like there was maybe about 600 and 600 and so things on it of categories from career to personal to weight and body of things I want to do, things I want to do for myself. And it started from work

out, you know, three times a week, figure out all the best hikes in LA. That was like the personal side. And then I'm very introverted and I have a little bit of anxiety to be really honest with you. So I made a list of like social, go out to one mixer a week, make one new friend from every party and learn something genuine about them

and get their number if you want to keep in touch. Like they were little things that were very easy to do. It wasn't like go get a better body or go work out. It was like very specific things. And every time I thought about that mofo, every single time I thought about him. And remember, he was famous. So I was seeing him in OK Magazine. I was seeing him in things all the time. Every time I thought about him, I went to that list and I did one thing and crossed it off. And I had so many options that if I only had an hour, I could easily go bang out a quick

self-workout or I could easily give myself a makeover or I could go call one of my friends that I met at a mixer, whatever it was. This list kept me so busy, you guys. I had no time and I began to really like working on myself and I built my career off of that pain. So I just want you to know, once you get that habit of being efficient and being at the peak of your self-care when you need it most it is the best reward and you come out flossing ladies every time i love that idea of using you know when you were reminded of him you can't eliminate all reminders of a person because even if you get rid of all of the the pictures in your house and blah blah blah you're still going to find triggers for that person i love the idea that those triggers become

a proactive trigger for every time you think of them every time you go to that negative place you use it as a trigger to do something positive for yourself i think that's a that's amazing new programming or productive right positive or. Like something career-wise. Like for you, it might be brainstorm a new list of jobs that you might want because we can always find a list of things, by the way, of things we want to do but we haven't done for ourselves. So it might be you want a new job because you're not happy where you are. You might want to get into a new workout regimen.

You might want to learn a new recipe. You might want to be that nice friend that actually reaches out to friends and calls them and asks them how they're doing instead of just calling them when you need them. I became that a-hole. I was that person that only called people when they need them. So I had a list of friends that were like,

do not talk about your boyfriend. It's not about that. Don't talk about your ex. But I'm calling you to just say, how are you doing? Tell me a fun story about your kids. What's going on with you this week? And it was so cool. You know what happens

i liked myself better i liked genie my better when you get when you break up with someone or you get dumped or you leave whatever it is you always feel shitty you always look back in your and women we do this to ourselves for some reason we bash ourselves we think about the what it could have shoulda you're sitting there loofahing your body and you're like, damn, I should have said this. Should we have broken up? Did I end it too soon? Because that feeling of loneliness is scary.

It is scary. So you wonder, maybe I should just say this. Oh, he keeps texting me because sometimes they'll keep texting you because they're afraid of that loneliness too and they'll kind of make you feel like they want to see if your toe is still in his pond. No, I'm just kidding. But you feel like they want to see if your toe is still in his pond no i'm just kidding but you just you want to you want to start you start beating yourself up and you start questioning you're kind of flimsy you're um not as confident you start picking

apart your looks if they move on you start comparing yourself the worst that is why this list of either personal or productive things for yourself, you get shinier and stronger and better every day as you tackle this list. You'll notice the things that you think about that person will start to dissipate because you are flourishing and you're busy. And you've got friends to call and you've got anecdotes to think about and you've got goals now and you've got maybe a new challenge because you just made a new call for a new job interview and you got to go get ready for that. Your life becomes life and that person just becomes so small to speck in your past. You know, it's so good. One thing that's really important is that those things that are productive activities, we don't confuse them with always being pleasurable in the moment. Because very often we do something productive as a response system and we still find ourselves feeling like shit and we're still thinking about that person and we go, it's not working.

But the point of those things is not just for what they may give you in the moment, which is a bonus, but it's for what they're going to give you tomorrow, that you are building a life today that will exist tomorrow, that will be more full, more rich, full of anecdotes, experiences, pride in your health if you're getting healthier, pride in the new stories you can tell because you went to that social function. Like not everything will be pleasurable in the moment that you do it. And it won't always feel like it's working. But, you know, I have something on my board in there in my office that just says every, I literally, no matter where I am, I keep this phrase just

because it's so obvious, but it reminds me is every little bit of effort counts. And the reason I say that to myself is because so often when we're like, when we've got a big project and we do a little bit of work on it, that doesn't even make a dent. It feels like, what was the, even the point? It's like, I'm not, I've barely made any progress. When you go to the gym and it's like, that's the first of a thousand visits I'm going to need to do. When like, none of these things feel like much in the moment, but they actually all count. And even when you feel like you're not moving forward, those things are still moving you forward. You may not feel it right now, but they are moving

you forward. And that's why it's so important to do them, whether it feels good or not. How amazing is Jeannie? She's one of my favorite people. She gives such great advice. And by the way, if you saw that seven minutes and you're like i got so much value out of that imagine how valuable the full 90 minutes was if you want to watch that whole thing you still have the chance of doing that you can become a member i have a 14-day trial so you can even just try it for 14 days if you want to see what it's all about and watch the rest of that interview to do that all you need to do is go to askmh.com. I'll leave a link here. Super easy to sign up. And regardless, I will see you in next week's video.