Love Lives - Dr Michaela Dunbar on transforming your love life with the help of psychology

Episode Date: April 28, 2022

Millennial Love is back! Season four sees Olivia Petter delving even deeper into discussions around love, dating and relationships. And now you can watch as well as listen on Independent TV and @Millennial_Love on Instagram and TikTok.https://www.independent.co.uk/tv/lifestyle/millennial-love-dr-michaela-podcast-b2068241.htmlFor our first episode of the season, we’re joined by clinical psychologist Dr Michaela Dunbar, the founder of My Easy Therapy and author of You’ve Got This: Seven Steps to A Life You Love. In this conversation, Olivia and Dr Michaela discuss how understanding basic psychology can transform your love life, covering imposter syndrome, attachment theory, overthinking, anxiety and so much more. Enjoy the show!Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/millenniallove. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Acast powers the world's best podcasts. Here's a show that we recommend. will not die hosting the Hills after show. I get thirsty for the hot wiggle. I didn't even know a thirsty man until there was all these headlines. And I get schooled by a tween. Facebook is like, and now that's what my grandma's on. Thank God phone a friend with Jesse Crookshank is not available on Facebook. It's out now wherever you get your podcasts. Acast helps creators launch, grow, and monetize their podcasts everywhere. Acast helps creators launch, grow and monetize their podcasts everywhere. Acast.com Hello and welcome back to Millennial Love,

a podcast from The Independent on everything to do with love, sexuality, identity and more. I am so happy that we are back. Not only that, we are back as a video series as well as a podcast. So as well as listening to us on all the regular platforms, you can now watch us too on independent TV. So for our very first episode of the season, I am thrilled to be joined by clinical psychologist Dr. Michaela Dunbar. She is the founder of MyEasyTherapy and the author of a brilliant book called You've Got This, Seven Steps to a Life You Love. Today we are going to talk about all sorts of hurdles that can stop you from having the relationship and the love life that you want. Hi Michaela, how are you doing doing I am very well thank you thank you for having me thank you for coming

um so tell us a little bit about what it is that you do and how your platform my easy therapy led to the book okay so I am a clinical psychologist and I basically support all kinds of people at different ages with difficulties with their mental health, their psychological and emotional well-being and I do this through talking therapy, so talking with people back and forward and kind of I call myself a problem solver because people come to me with their problems, I kind of dissect them, figure out what's going on for them and give them the steps to be able to transform their lives and their mental health in the direction that they want to. So I started off in the NHS,

as all clinical psychologists in this country do anyway. And I realised that I was repeating a lot of the same conversations with all of the people I worked with, regardless of the age. And I always thought to myself, and you probably hear a lot of therapists say this, but why don't they teach this stuff in schools?

We get taught a lot of good stuff in school, but actually we don't get taught about, I'm going to call this human survival. We don't get taught about how to manage our emotions. We are born with emotions and they keep us alive. But unfortunately, sometimes struggles with emotions and they keep us alive but unfortunately sometimes struggles with emotions can actually end up killing us but again this is not something that's talked about so I'm in the NHS and as I said I'm repeating these things and I'm like okay how do I get this out this information out to as many people as possible but make it as easily accessible as possible

remember in this country in the UK there is still a stigma around mental health not necessarily so much in different countries overseas but here we don't want to talk about it we have the stiff upper lip we just get on with it and it kills us so I didn't want to keep this information just for the people that could wait on the NHS waiting list or had the money to spend thousands on a therapist so then the Instagram page came about I literally didn't even have social media before I started this no but I was just like okay I don't particularly love social media because of the comparisonitis you know all that kind of stuff that happens but I know that a lot of people are on social media all across the world and that's

how my easy therapy came about and the platform it just grew and I think because of the topic people are like so I would write stuff about feeling anxious when you wake up in the morning or you know always I did used to post about you know always being in unsuccessful relationships and where that comes from and actually is it always the other person are we choosing people because of how we regulate our emotions because of trauma because of attachment difficulties and people were reaching out and they were saying you get it like reading your posts that just seemed I'm reading every one and I'm like that's me that's me that's me so I knew I was on to something and then the page people share and then the Instagram page just blew up from there basically it's amazing I mean it's

it's it's brilliant because like you said it makes all of this advice so accessible and you know therapy is really inaccessible in this country for a lot of people like you said there are huge waiting lists and if you don't go through the NHS it's very expensive and so when you went about writing the book how did you go through the process of choosing which things to include and how much of that was influenced by your audience I suppose and the the queries that they come to you with because I'm sure you get plenty of DMs from your followers asking you for help absolutely my DMs are out of control at this point um so the book actually is 50 50 is is half of what I went through and I

talk about that through the book, my experience with all of these things, all of these topics in here, imposter syndrome, anxiety, people pleasing, all that kind of stuff, that was me. But not only was it me, it was also a lot of the women that I was working with, this is in the NHS and also once I left the NHS as well because I left only a couple of years ago to go into private practice full-time and that's the same time as the page so I've got people I've got myself my own experience then I've got the clients I work with one-to-one saying the same things to me about imposter syndrome they're doing really really well and there's always this air of shame

around it like why do I feel like this I've got a really good job. I've got enough money coming in. You know, my life is, objectively, it feels great, but I don't feel great. And I feel even worse about the fact that I've got all of this stuff and I don't feel great about it.

Those conversations in the one-to-one therapy sessions were also happening in the DMs too, in the comments of the posts I used to make and it was a lot of I'm here but I doubt myself a lot I don't trust myself to make decisions I feel anxious going up to even just waking up in the morning knowing that I've got a full day ahead I don't know how to say no I feel like if I say no to opportunities at work even relationships if I say

no if I set a boundary then the opportunity might not come up again or people might see me as like a weak like I can't handle things I need to just and I'm not supposed this is the imposter syndrome piece I'm not supposed to be here anyway I just got this job or I just got with this person because you know I slipped through they don't really know who I am so if I start to turn things down and say no and not be perfect then people are going to really see who I am and then I'll get rejected or abandoned or fired so these are the conversations I'm having constantly and I thought you know what this needs to go into a book this needs to go into people need to understand that there are so many people

and I say women but there's a lot of men too in my comments I think because of the the way my page is set up is pink it's girly like it attracts women but there's a lot of men also that experience the same things I chose women because I am a woman and I really get it you know because I've been there yeah yeah well I'm the same I mean I always say the same with this podcast like it's for everyone but fundamentally there is something in me that you know I want to help women and you know people of minority genders and non-binary people and trans women because to me they need the most help but that's not to say that men don't need help too they do but it's just that that's my kind of view of it I guess um so I'm interested

in what you said about imposter syndrome because I think that is a term that we typically apply to the workplace and while that definitely has value and you talk about that in the book it's interesting to contextualize with it that within relationships isn't it because we wouldn't normally think about how that affects the choices that we make in our romantic lives. So how do you think that operates and how do we get out of that system you know because especially as women we are conditioned to to have imposter syndrome which is why it makes sense to talk about it like that yeah um so yeah

tell me what you think um that's all about i think it's just this underlying feeling that some of us have of just not being good enough and if you don't feel good enough as a person that is going to apply to every area of your life whether you're in a job or not whether you're in a relationship or not when you have children if these things are always going to come up if that's your core belief about yourself and unfortunately lots of us have different difficult experiences growing up and our environment unfortunately gives us the impression or we interpret it as we're not good enough and we hold on to these subconscious core beliefs not knowing that we have these subconscious core beliefs but then we lead with them in

conversation we lead with them when we're dating an example is you know you go you meet somebody on i don't know the latest whatever it is now you go for a date you're like oh my gosh they're out of my league automatically you're not there now on the pedestal because you don't feel good enough you don't know anything about this person you don't just know that they look cute like so so then this is the imposter syndrome and you could have imposter syndrome you could think that you could think oh gosh this person's out of my league but you can still show up as a confident you know intelligent whatever it is person that good stuff that you've got you could still show up in that way but we don't usually do that we usually act in line with our negative core beliefs unless we're aware of them of our negative core beliefs we usually show up in that

way those I see core beliefs as like the glasses that you wear this is how everybody's got different glasses on but if your core belief is I'm not good enough then you're going to have those glasses on all the time and you're going to approach all situations with those glasses on which might mean that you misinterpret certain things that people say to you or certain actions or you give the impression to other people to the person that you're dating the person you're going to date with that you don't feel good enough about yourself and sometimes people can subconsciously as well use that to their advantage and start to treat you badly based off of how you talk about yourself and how you treat yourself and then you end up sometimes attracting situations where you know the person might not be the best for you

they might be a little a little bit narcissistic or you know just not just not the person that you deserve and that you you know you might be happy with long term but you stick with them because we always want approval especially if you've got that not good enough core belief you always want approval from the person that's not giving it to you yeah so you you have all the other people around you that really like you but you're like oh i don't like him it's a bit boring there's always something that's what's interesting about it isn't it because it's like if you have that mentality that you're not good enough you're then going to seek out relationships with people who will never make you feel good enough it's cruel it's a cruel cycle but

you have this is how it goes unless you're aware of it this is how it goes and yeah and so how do you think you become aware of it and how how do you overcome it like does it come from a deeper rooted place than just you know social conditioning is it is it about our relationships with our parents sometimes absolutely so people think of trauma as like the big car accident where you think you're going to die. But it can be growing up in an invalidating environment. You know, parents that don't necessarily give you praise when you've done well.

They just give you praise when you've done super well. So now you feel like I have to be perfect in order to be good enough. It might be getting bullied at school so you don't feel good enough because in year three you were the person that was always left out or you're in that friendship triangle where there was always two friends and then the third one and you was always the third one who's trying to get in there. So you've got the messages early on.

Remember that from when we're born to like seven, we're really looking around we're like sponges we're learning how to do life from the experiences we have so if you're in a household where people are constantly criticizing you and not necessarily because your parents are bad people remember there's no playbook to how to be a parent it's hard and they've got their own stuff going on too so they're dealing with their emotions and you're coming up with your you know you've made a nice drawing or something like that you're like let me look and they're like oh yeah fine you're like oh okay this is not good enough little things like that which again people do because if you don't know then you don't know really

so these things stick with us and it's obviously even worse if you've got people who are actually physically or emotionally abusive but it doesn't necessarily need to be that far it can just be not getting the validation or if you know you might cry in some families being sad and crying is not tolerated it's too uncomfortable so it's what are you crying for is there anything to cry for do you want something to cry for like what this? So all these kind of things that people do not knowing the damage it can do. Sorry, when the person's older, can have an impact and it's done subconsciously. So we hold on to that. Then we replace scenarios over and over again. We want to make it right this time.

When I was younger, people didn't like me or they didn't love me. These are core beliefs, which aren't necessarily true, by the way. They don't like me or they didn't love me these are core beliefs which aren't necessarily true by the way they don't like me they don't love me but this time you know i'm gonna this person they feel familiar which usually feels familiar because maybe you've grown the difficult situation you've grown up you know it growing up in sorry you know it so you get move on to a person and they maybe a little bit colder towards you or don't give you the validation like it's okay something goes off actually an alarm you get that chemistry it's the opposite like you literally like oh I like them but you like them because it's triggering something

that you want to fix this time that I'll be validated this time it'll be okay um god it makes so much sense doesn't it when you put it that way about why we make bad choices in our relationships over and over again because it is that sense of like you don't realize you're doing it yourself it's it's a form of self-destruction um is it is it about noticing that there are patterns in the people that you are having relationships with yeah yeah everybody always but there's i can't find the pattern I'm like there's a pattern there is let's just find it there's a pattern somewhere it could be some oh I like really really funny I don't everybody I like is just really funny and really confident okay cool that's not an issue that's not a red flag there's something else underneath that did

they text you back when they said they were going to text you back no but they text me back the next day and i'm like okay did they um did they actually turn up for the date did they compliment you did they let you speak all of these kind of things that when you go on social media you'll have people saying um you know these rules have to happen and people saying these rules have to happen and you're going to go in and be like well she did this or he did this but they didn't do that some people are going to say have very clear boundaries about what they want they're going to know themselves they're going to know red flags and they're not going to care about what social media or their friends that aren't our uncles say about it and say this is not acceptable to me that's a solid person because it's hard to do that if you've got a person who is just desperate for approval,

they're going to see all these things. And we know, we know, we know, we know when a person's not being consistent and they're dipping in and out and we don't feel like that. But if we are desperate for approval or maybe we're just getting a bit older and we're worried, fear-based dating is really dangerous as well. We might let things slide so the key is as you said to to look for the patterns what was the commonality in all of these people that you were dating and it's not about what they look like or even what they sound

like their actions pay attention to what they were actually how did they show up is this something that you'll be comfortable with for the rest of your life remember when you're dating everybody's putting their best foot forward this is the best bits are you comfortable with the best bits if not then it's hard but we have to take a step back and so in the book you talk about this kind of five-part model that you developed explain to us what that is and how it works and I guess how you could apply it in a scenario like the one we've just been talking about yeah so the the five-part model is actually a really commonly used model within the clinical psychology community I would say and it just helps we use it in what we call formulation it just helps us to piece together the cycle that somebody could

be stuck in so we can find our exit points so we have our thoughts our feelings our physical symptoms our behavior and of course our environment or the thing that triggered whatever particular thing that we do or don't like so we have a situation it could be let's say you're going to do an interview and maybe you've never done an interview before so you're going to have a little bit of anxiety that's absolutely fine anxiety can sometimes motivate you to work a bit harder but maybe you had an experience way back where you did some public speaking could have been at school and people laughed at you or you didn't feel comfortable that stuck with you remember there's there's a really good book actually well it's an old book

it's called the body uh keeps the score yeah yeah i know that book and they talk about how trauma actually gets trapped in the body so we hold on to a lot of stuff that we don't even know subconsciously so we are approaching this interview now and we are interpreting this interview as a threat. We don't know why, but it's like it's a threat. We're really, really anxious. Then we might have the negative thoughts come in. Negative thoughts are going to be based off of our core beliefs. If our core beliefs are, I'm amazing, people love me, then you're going to go in, you're going to have a nice time. people love me then you're gonna go in you can have a nice time if your core beliefs are i'm not good enough i'm unlikable i'm unlovable then the thoughts that are going to come up with your approach is i'm going to mess this up people are going to laugh at me this is going to why did i

decide to do this what's going to happen when our thoughts start going our body reacts our threat response is very very automatic it doesn't got time to figure out what's a real threat or a fake threat if you say going into this interview is a real threat then your body's going to be like okay cool what do we need to do to keep you safe so your heart's going to start beating fast um and maybe your stomach starts churning so these are the physical symptoms that come from the anxiety so that's the third thing as well. Sorry, so we've got thoughts, we've got physical symptoms, we've got the feeling, which is the anxiety, the depression,

the low mood, sadness, whatever it is. Because we are interpreting the interview as a threat, the feeling is usually going to be anxiety or fear. Our body is going to react to that. So those are three parts. And then the fourth part, the fifth part, should I say, is the behaviour. This is part should i say is the behavior this is key the behavior is key so what we usually do when we're really scared of something is our anxiety goes right up right and when it gets to the point where we feel like we can't deal with the anxiety anymore we leave we're like

i'm calling sick today or oh no i've got. I can't go. And then when you avoid the situation that you're scared of, your anxiety goes right down. And that feels really, really good. You get that feeling of relief. But that that feeling of relief is quite bad because it just reinforces avoidance. Had you stayed in that situation, your anxiety would have naturally gone down anyway because adrenaline doesn't last that long in our body but also whilst you're in the interview you're going to see that there's no threat it's absolutely fine and then there's less evidence to keep your threat response going and now the next time you go to interview if you stay in the interview you're not going to automatically be like that's it I'm done am confident. This is my day job now.

But you're going to be less anxious than the last time. And you do it again and you're less anxious again. However, if you avoid it and you don't do it, you just reduce any opportunity to see that it's OK. And to see that even if it's not OK, you can handle it. We massively overestimate threat, like day to day stuff. Texts. You send a risky text. I haven't texted back. back ah what they're gonna say I said something wrong and you're also underestimating your ability to cope with whatever comes we can you most people especially if they're anxious in

relationships or work or whatever it is they spend a long time that way they've done a lot of hard things but they forget that. Automatically, it's, I can't do this. I can't do this. I can't do this. This episode is brought to you by Google Pixel. I'm Jessi Crookshank. I host the number one comedy podcast

called Phone a Friend. I also have three kids. I need help making every day easier. So I switched to Google Pixel. It's a phone powered by Gemini, your personal AI assistant. Gemini can help you summarize your unread emails, suggest what to make with the food in your fridge, and it helped me achieve a family photo where everyone is smiling at the camera. I didn't think it was possible, but it is with Google Pixel 9. Learn more at store.google.com. to strengthen who you are. So no matter your era, make it your best with Peloton. Find your push. Find your power. Peloton. Visit Peloton at onepeloton.ca.

I think, and I'm very much like this, I make my life a lot worse for myself than it needs to be just because of the way that my brain works and you know I'm constantly worst case scenario getting anxious about things that haven't happened yet might not happen and you know these are all things that you talk about in the book I guess let's go back to anxiety specifically because I'm really interested in how this affects our relationships, mostly because it's ruined a lot of mine. But I guess I want to know from you, you know, how can it affect the way we behave? And also how it's different from an anxious attachment type? And why it's important

to kind of clarify those two things? Because I think they are different but just general anxiety I guess let's start with that you know how do we overcome how does that affect us and how do we overcome that do you think? So like I mentioned before the key thing is behaviour avoidance is like fuel to the flame big fuel to the flame if we want to overcome anything we're anxious about even if it's like a mouse if you're scared of mice you need to start working towards holding that that mouse that person's going to be like what absolutely not but you start small so if you're in a relationship and let's say that you're really anxious about and this is the thing when it comes to anxious attachment as well

they are distinct but anxiety as a whole it works the same way it's just a fear of something right if you have if you're in a relationship sometimes you have a fear of losing somebody that is based on your own stuff completely your own stuff that person is a lovely secure reassuring person but it's your stuff that you automatically go into failure mode to I'm going to lose this person mode or I'm going to mess it up now that could be because of attachment trauma with you know your primary caregiver you've developed an anxious attachment because maybe they were I guess too attached to you as a baby if that's a thing it is a thing to attach to you or not attached enough and they didn't meet your needs so I guess it yeah so it could be because of that or it could be because of that or it could be

because of you've had recently had a you were fine but you've recently had a really bad situation and now that's stuck with you so then you've got that trauma so and i would separate that from an anxious attachment because your attachment style usually develops much earlier on although it can be changed in a secure relationship so that's good sometimes though especially if it is an attachment issue it can be both as well it can also be the person that you're with because for some reason anxious attached people seem to always get with avoidantly attached people and they do this constantly doing this dance of back and forward and sometimes it is actually like the person is

not creating the anxiety but maintaining the anxiety with the way that they deal with you within the relationship across both though um whether it's just you or it's you and the person you're dating with the things that you do as a result of feeling anxious those behaviors we really need to hone in on those figure out what they are and then we need to see whether or not it's an appropriate response given whatever you know given the threat or whatever it is little things like um let's say that you got dressed up to go out with your friends and your boyfriend or girlfriend comes down and they don't compliment you because now you're like oh they think i'm i knew i could never get it right like i don't look nice and now you've gone

out of the evening because, you know, your partner didn't make a song and dance about what you look like. When you come home and you start asking for lots of reassurance, or didn't you see what I look like today? I got dressed up. You didn't say anything about it. Like, do you not fancy me? Whatever it is, your partner's like, what are you talking about?

Like, sorry, I was busy. I didn't even notice. And they were genuinely busy. But we're asking that constant reassurance and actually if you're a person who is invested in a relationship and you've got somebody else always doubting your investment in the relationship and your commitment to the relationship because of their own stuff then they're naturally going to get a little bit if if you're not having the conversations with them about how you struggle in relationships sometimes and they're just you know thinking what's going on then they're going to get a little bit if if you're not having the conversations with them about how you struggle

in relationships sometimes and they're just you know thinking what's going on then they're going to struggle with the constant need for reassurance some people say that you know your partner should always be willing to give you the reassurance and whilst that is helpful and that is so lovely in terms of the kind of psychological way it works the reassurance is almost like the avoidance of it restarts it again like you're never going to stop needing reassurance unless you're able to get it from yourself sit with the uncomfortable feeling of maybe this person doesn't think i look good do you think you look good you don't need to ask anybody about anything that you're doing because first and foremost, you understand that you've got this.

And if you don't, you'll figure it out. You're already good enough. That's your core. I'm already good enough. But again, when we don't have that strong, solid core about who we are and what we bring to the table, we're always going to want somebody else to tell us if we're doing good or not and it can get quite taxing for the other person in the relationship to have to always um experience that and that's on a low level asking for reassurance you might have other people

that you know he um they didn't text me back and maybe you're not official at this point they didn't text me back that's it done with the whole thing now um because you're anxious and you're like this person's gonna leave me let me leave them first yeah all of these reactions sometimes it's helpful to do that but we just need to make sure that everything that we're doing in in relationships at the beginning middle end wherever it is is coming from a place of security in us if we can say i didn't do this because i didn't feel good enough then we can actually say that's a them thing. Yeah. So it's interesting because I think we all have that in us somewhere, don't we? That kind of self-belief and self-confidence. But it's about getting to a place where, like you said, you're overcoming childhood trauma and previous damaging relationships and trying to, I guess, make that little voice louder than the other

voice that's telling you that you're not good enough. So aside from, you know, recognising all of these things and recognising these patterns, how do we get to that point? And there's no, I guess there's no quick fix, is there? Because it's going to take, it's going to take a while and it's about self-development. But how, do we get there because it sounds too good to be true it's definitely a thing and it's a it's an ongoing thing I would say and what keeps me personally focused and acting in a way that I want to is just defining how I want to act how do I want to show up what kind of person do I want to be in a relationship and make get really granular with it I want to be kind I want to be compassionate I want to be confident I don't necessarily need to feel these things I don't

need to think that I can actually do these things I can just be aspiring to be these things but I just need to have the intention and try to do it our emotions are going to come and try and throw us off track as with our thoughts because our brain is designed to look for problems and solve them to keep you safe so if it thinks there's a red flag based off of this looks similar to what happened the last time it's going to try and do all this stuff to tell you to back off and you're going to feel it in your body and all of this is going to feel really uncomfortable but if you have clear direction that's your compass point that's single track mind that's what I'm doing I'm in the middle of a really wild argument or it's about to get into a wild argument

but my values are to be kind and respectful how do I still argue but still stay kind and respectful that's just an example so when you have these in mind you learn to not let your emotions and that might be a little piece of work in itself and that's sometimes where therapy or the book can be really helpful but you learn to not let the emotions dictate how you show up because the behavior is how you sow the seeds and you need to be really really careful about what seeds you're planting in your mind and other people's mind if you don't want to be seen as this really insecure chaotic person because you know that that's just not how you want to show up but you know that people sometimes people will say things like that just to be mean but if you think there's some truth in it actually okay cool how do i want to be seen and be very as i said get granular be very clear about it

write it down have a word of the day I love having a word of the day if I'm gonna have a really busy day there's a lot of stuff to go wrong I know that when a lot of stuff go wrong goes wrong I'm gonna start my negative voice is gonna start up really really loud so then my word of the day will be self-compassion that's what I'm focusing on and it's this it's not about anyone else but it's just me self-compassion so then my internal voice gets really soothing and now i'm like okay cool i've got this so in a relationship your word of the day can be anything but you just need to be very clear that whatever you're choosing to focus on is the thing that's going to get you towards what you want so if you want a successful relationship write down what

that looks like then write down the qualities that you want a successful relationship write down what that looks like then write down the qualities that you need not the other person the qualities that you need to have in order to get to that and then take it from there what does it look like what does a a kind person do yeah do that if you're constantly outsourcing your own care to your partners you'll just completely you know when that relationship ends you're gonna be completely at sea absolutely and it can go the other way as well if you have fears of abandonment and maybe you can be even more avoidant so you're like Miss independent you can't do anything

for me and the person this ends up feeling useless so definitely need to understand which is hard to do if you don't have a manual, you know, but understand where does your behaviour come from? Where does your thought process come from? What voice do I need to listen to? Just because a thought is in our mind doesn't mean we need to listen to it. We have 10,000, how many thousands of thoughts every day? Usually we choose the ones that we think are going to get, we the ones that have the biggest emotional impact but we don't need to choose any of them we can literally just put one foot in front of the other and keep a blank mind mindfulness is amazing as long as you're doing what you need to do it doesn't matter if your

thoughts say go girl well don't do it you can still put one foot in front of the other same thing with your emotions you can feel anything and still do what you need tootions are really powerful because they need to be because they keep us alive. And if they weren't, we would die. We wouldn't pay attention to them. But actually, we don't need to. Sometimes our threat system is too sensitive. So we can't always listen to it. Let's go back to overthinking, because I think that's also incredibly interesting when it comes to relationships. overthinking because I think that's also incredibly interesting when it comes to relationships and you know recognizing like I said earlier the damage that we're doing to ourselves by kind of indulging in thoughts that are not helpful to us yeah um what advice would you give to someone

who is and this is a very selfish question because this is all about me that's my podcast so I can ask whatever um how do I stop overthinking everything okay so that's this is a million dollar question yeah and i'm going to say something really annoying it might not be annoying because some people love mindfulness but i know it's really difficult for me mindfulness mindfulness is amazing it is just attention training if we are over thinkers then we are giving our attention to every thought in our brain that does not need our attention and we need to train the muscle in our brain let's just say that to keep it easy to be able to sit still but without training it training it specifically training it just like we go to the gym it is not going to be able to do that it's going to be very

very weak in fact we're creating we're making the pathway that overthinks stronger every time we start overthinking things mindfulness which could be you know sitting down and listening to an audio on youtube or whatever it is or it could just be when you're washing the dishes pay attention to how i mean i have a dishwasher but you know how things the soap suds feel in your hands um the sounds of the water the warmth or whatever it is and just really focusing in and every time you're distracted by a thought which you're gonna be you just bring your attention back that's the win that's it noticing when you're distracted and bring your attention back people say oh I can't do mindfulness so boring yeah I think it's I think it's been branded badly because when

you say the word mindfulness you just think of like the woo-woo wellness industry exactly and actually when you break it down it's really helpful exactly it's not it's I hate woo-woo if you would have said to me 10 years ago you're gonna be 10 years ago how old was I I don't know maybe 15 now um I'm gonna be doing mindfulness all the time and talking to people about it I'd have been like no way um but actually no it's a workout it's attention training it's learning how to much more quickly notice when you've been distracted that's half of the problem with overthinking you are overthinking about something for five ten minutes before you realize that you're overthinking it so it's noticing much more quickly when you're distracted and being able to bring

your attention back to whatever is actually meaningful important much more quickly as well that doesn't mean that at the beginning you're not still going to be an overthinker i think the most helpful thing i would say to do and the details around how to do is in the book as well but is to time box time box your thought time box your thinking process if you're always thinking about a million things throughout the day you're wasting a lot of time you're wasting a lot of time being present with the person that you want to that the person you're dating with your friends or your family your job just in your head stuck in your head all the time you're not experiencing life and people can notice that as well so actually when the thoughts come up and maybe they are important sometimes the

thoughts that we're thinking about do need a little bit more exploration sometimes they are problems that need to be solved but just not at that time so you can just make a little note every time you've got like an idea or overthinking or a what if make a note of it whatever it is make a quick note in the notes app on your phone and save it for later when you've got half an hour don't make it too long but you've got your time to overthink worry whatever it is save it for then and when you get to your time your worry time now you've got this list of all the things that you didn't get to think of earlier in the day but I think what helps in setting the time is that early in the day when you're overthinking you can say to yourself okay this feels important I don't know if it is yet but I'm going to give this my consideration later I'm not going to miss it I'm not going to forget

it it's still going to get explored but just later on so you give yourself that permission to not think about it now but also that reassurance that you're not going to miss it because sometimes you know it's like if i don't think about it right now something bad might happen so when you come to your overthinking time usually most of the stuff on your list you're like this was never a problem i don't even need to think about this or talk about this or problem solve some of the things are going to be real issues that need to be problem solved so you problem solve it overthinking is not problem solving you problem solve it for and against all the solutions that you can create solutions and then you fix whatever it is that is taking up space in your mind yeah that is very

helpful no to all of that thank you um going back to the things you get asked about by your followers what are some of the most common things that people want help with usually people just want to feel better i feel it's anxiety i would say and it could just be because of the things i post on my page to the people that follow me. So it might be a bit biased, but people have a lot of anxiety. A lot of people have low mood as well. But anxiety is a really, really big one. And anxiety in relationships, not necessarily when they've broken up, but just how to hold on to a relationship and worried about it going anxious in the morning.

Some I have younger people who have got exams they're really anxious about their exams the physical symptoms of anxiety as well people always struggle with um what their friends family how to support other people so maybe they've come across my page or a post and they're like this is this person but i don't know how to talk to them about it like what should I say can you can you help them so it's about giving them that language to support them I would say that's the main things anxiety physical symptoms of anxiety how to support other people and again my page is gearing more towards um I guess working age women as well so

there's a lot of job dissatisfaction, especially after pandemic as well, that comes up. Yeah. And going back to breakups, when people do come to you with that, either it's, you know, they're having anxiety about an impending breakup, or they're not sure about whether or not to end things with their partner, or they're just reeling from the aftermath of a breakup what kind of things do you advise to people and I suppose what because I think when we talk about overcoming heartbreak there's a lot of generic platitudes that people go to and resort to that are just really really unhelpful okay so pain is not something that we should try to escape. A lot of the problems that we have is trying to escape pain. So if we are having a heartbreak

and we then go off all the time with our mates and get drunk all the time, then that's just avoiding the pain. Do it sometimes. You'll have fun, isn't it? But we don't want to avoid that pain. We have to move through it in order to heal it. So I would say,

create a project out of this breakup. This is going to be annoying to hear. and you have to move through it in order to heal it. So I would say, use this as a, create a project out of this breakup. This is gonna be annoying to hear. What did you learn from it? And I can't say it any other way. I wanna make it sound profound, but I can't. Like, we wanna make sure that we don't make the same mistakes again.

We wanna understand, how did we get into this situation? What did it look like when we first started? What did it look like when we were getting rocky? And what did it look like when we first started what did it look like when we were getting rocky and what did it look like at the end now you've got a well it's an anecdotal blueprint but it's your personal blueprint maybe you've got a history so you can put them all together and this is your project now what do I need to do for me to make sure that I am not showing up in the same way that I did then because I do not want the same results again people are basically the same like we're all just nervous systems walking around through the motions

so we're all going to experience pain and want it and want to rush away from it without doing the work so I would say use that time when it's just you if you are if you've already broken up now you've got time for you and it's not just you know focus on yourself yeah focus on yourself but what do you do when you're focusing on yourself so what I want to see is as I said the reflection the exploration the curiosity about how you got here you're going to need to be able to experience discomfort whilst you're doing this because it's not going to be easy sometimes you're going to need to be able to experience discomfort whilst you're doing this because it's not going to be easy sometimes you're going to get a wake-up call that you you didn't want and

it might make you a little bit fearful but it's necessary because now you need to navigate that whatever it is maybe it was you that caused it and it's not just this person that you've been um you know talking badly about to your friends on WhatsApp. Actually, you had a part to play in that. But once you realise that, that's good because now I don't have to do that again. So I can take that particular problem that could be caused off of the table. Yeah. You have to do the work. I mean, in fear of sounding like Kim Kardashian, like, you know, not enough people want to work. Just get your ass up and work. You have to.

Like particularly in the breakup, like you said, like it's an opportunity for growth. Absolutely. I guess. And that's what we need to kind of reframe it as. Yeah. Yeah. It's not that we start catastrophizing all the time.

It's a human thing. We catastrophize because we can plan for the worst case scenario. Right. But, okay, fine. Plan for the worst case scenario if you want to. But if it's making you unhappy thinking about it, then why waste your time? Focus on the facts. You had a partner, you'll have another one. There's how many billions of people in the world? I know people don't want to hear this after a breakup, but this is the truth. This person that you was with for even 15,

20 years, you have a lot of material there. You have a lot of material to make sure that your next relationship if you want one if you want one you don't have to if you want one you've got a lot of material to make sure that you don't at least have this experience again do not underestimate yourself as a human being an ability to and your ability to to heal you will heal. It just happens. All you need is time for that. But if you keep what you don't want to do in the healing process is to create more things that you need to heal from. Start dating all these idiots now. Sorry, idiots. Start dating all these unhealthy people that you kind of know are unhealthy, but your friends are just like, just go on, it's fine, let your hair down, you've been through a lot.

Cool, let your hair down, but just through a lot cool let your hair down but just make sure you're not causing more trauma yeah um so i would say that and yeah just focus inwards what do you need in this moment lots of hugs for yourself you know the walks are nice the food is the not you know emotional eating is never great but you know looking after yourself treating yourself because you are fragile in this period but also make sure you're doing the work too because you don't want to have you don't want it to be in a situation again thank you so much that's really really helpful advice i'm sure a lot of listeners are going to really appreciate that um it is time for our lessons in love segment so this is the part of the show where i ask every guest to share

something they have learned about relationships. So Michaela, what was your lesson in love for us for you today? So when you are in a relationship with a person that you feel comfortable around, you kind of get the inkling that this might be the right person for you. But the fear comes up. Focus your attention on the thoughts that tell you that you can create any kind of relationship that you want, that you have the power to be able to do that, that you can show up in any way you want and make sure that your behaviour is in line with the kind of relationship that you want. If you want a secure relationship, then you need to be a very trustworthy person. If you want a secure relationship then you need to be a very trustworthy person if you want a kind relationship you need to be a very kind person

so model the kind of values that you want to see within your relationship and you can create that situation for yourself so it's it's interesting what you said about kindness and trust so do you think it's about I guess projecting the things that you want from your partner onto them almost yeah it's like it's modeling isn't it it's leading by example yeah I can't control what anyone else does in a relationship but I can control how I show up and it doesn't mean it's a hundred percent gonna you know always be a win but at least you know that you've done everything that you could to create the relationship that is going to be the best for you and the other person if you want a person that you know you can trust then you kind of have to be a person that they

can trust as well again as i said kindness with empathy all of that kind of thing if the person is really resistant have the conversation around it this is a really important value of mine maybe get some shared values this is also a really good thing that i do my clients as well shared values when they come in relationship values as a whole you both know what these are so you're both working towards them so for both people in the relationship you can show up in any way you want. And how you show up will dictate the quality of your relationship. Your emotions are going to come and they're going to be hard and they're going to throw you off track sometimes.

That's OK. Get back on the horse. Still be that person that you want to be. And you will see the results of doing things in that way. A hundred percent. Thank you so much, Michaela. It's been such a pleasure to chat to you. That's all we've got time for today. Thank you so much, Michaela. It's been such a pleasure to chat to you. That's all we've got time for for today. Thank you so much for listening. If you have enjoyed this episode of Millennial Love, please do subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Acast or anywhere else. And you can now watch us on independent TV if you haven't already been doing so. You can also keep up to date with everything to do with the show on Instagram. Just search Millennial Love. I will see you soon. Bye bye. ACAST powers the world's best podcasts. Here's a show that we recommend.

I'm Jessie Cruikshank, and on my podcast, Phone a Friend, I break down the biggest stories in pop culture. But when I have questions, I get to phone a friend. I phone my old friend, Dan Levy. You will not die hosting The Hills after show. I get thirsty for the hot wiggle. I didn't even know a thirsty man until there was all these headlines. And I get schooled by a tween.

Facebook is like a no. That's what my grandma's on. Thank God Phone a Friend with Jesse Crookshank is not available on Facebook. It's out now wherever you get your podcasts. Acast helps creators launch, grow, and monetize their podcasts everywhere. Acast.com.