Love Lives - Toxic relationships, narcissistic abuse, and attachment types, with Toni Tone

Episode Date: October 22, 2021

Support Millennial Love with a donation today: https://supporter.acast.com/millennialloveThis week we’re joined by author and writer Toni Tone to discuss her new book: I Wish I Knew This Earlier: Lessons On Love, which focuses on all the things Toni wishes she knew about relationships in her 20s.In this episode we talk about the importance of looking for green flags when you start dating someone, the difference between compromise and settling, and what narcissistic abuse actually means.We also discuss attachment types and toxic relationships.Follow the show on Instagram at @millennial_loveSupport 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.com. Hello and welcome to Millennial Love, a podcast from the independent on everything to do with love, sexuality, identity and more. This week, I'm thrilled to be joined by author and writer Toni Tone to discuss her new

book, I Wish I Knew This Earlier, Lessons on Love. It's an apt title to be discussing on this podcast for obvious reasons and focuses on all the things Toni wishes she knew about relationships in her 20s. In this episode we talk about the importance of looking for green flags when you start dating someone, the difference between compromise and settling, and what phrases like narcissistic abuse and a toxic relationship actually mean. Enjoy the show! Hello! Welcome! Thank you so much for joining me today. Thank you for having me. For those who aren't familiar with your writing, can you start us off by telling the listeners a bit about your wonderful new book, what inspired it and what it was like to write because so much of what you write is so personal and having written

a very personal book myself, I know that that's not always the easiest experience. Yeah, of course. So for those who don't know me, my name is Toni Tone. My debut book, I Wish I Knew This Earlier, is all about lessons on love. So suits this podcast nicely. And it was inspired by all the things that I wish I knew in my teens and 20s about love that I now know now in my 30s and what triggered the book was a breakup so I was in my longest relationship was on and off for almost seven years and when that ended it was like okay wow where do I go from here what do I do like I thought that was it I thought that was the person I was going to spend my life with and I had so many thoughts running through my head and I was replaying so much about what I did right what I did wrong what I could have done differently and then I was replaying previous relationships and I thought to myself you know what there's a lot that you probably would have changed if you did everything

again and I started just jotting everything down and I'd already written quite a bit about things like this on Twitter and it was a case of me just collecting everything I'd written on Twitter and just turning it into this book. And do you mind me asking how old you were when you went through that breakup because I think so many people I talk to you on this show and just outside of it they go through that kind of big breakup in their late 20s early 30s and a lot of people talk about the Saturn return and how that triggers a lot of bigger lifestyle changes so do you think that was what it was for you well how old was I I was I was 29 yeah when I went through that breakup I was 29 and it was yeah it was a life-changing moment for me and going into my 30s it almost

felt like a bit of a rebirth so I would say that that was a bit of what it was for me. Yeah I'm really fascinated by that particularly because I'm 27 so I'm still waiting nervously to see what's going to happen to me in the next few years um so let's talk about dating because the book is kind of split into three chapters and you start off by talking about dating and you one of the things that you advise readers is to look out for green flags as much as red ones can you tell us a bit what you mean by that and what you think is an example of a green flag sure I think think a lot of us enter dating and we're immediately very on edge and that's largely based on previous experiences and not so pleasant experiences and I think what a lot of people tend to do especially in adulthood is look out for the red flag so i.e. the bad signs the signs that

someone will be terrible for you the signs that someone will be terrible for you the signs that someone will not be a good partner and sometimes we could be so on edge and we're looking out for these negative signs so much that we fail to actually appreciate the positive aspects of a person and so in the book i i wrote about the importance of of looking out for green flags because we can easily miss out on good people when we fail to appreciate good characteristics and we're only looking for bad ones. And ironically, when we're only looking for bad ones, that's an easy way to attract us to what is bad because we're trying to spot the bad all the time. And for me, green flags would be something like someone who listens to understand and allows you to be vulnerable and be open. Someone who is very supportive, but is also and what you want to get out of love and isn't just

centering themselves and what they want out of relationships so it's looking out for people who actually care who show you they respect you who show you that they appreciate you and not just looking out for the signs that someone is going to be this awful partner do you think it's possible to spot those things at the kind of really early stages of dating someone? Because I think it's very easy to spot the red flags in the early stages of dating, isn't it? Like little things where someone's, I don't know, the example that always seems to come up when people talk about this is someone who's rude to waiters at a restaurant, you know, or that kind of thing. But do you think there are kind of comparable green flags to that that are like instantly like, OK, this is a good person. This is someone who will treat me well. I think that what I think they're the opposite of the the red flags you would immediately see. So like use the example of waiters. If you go on a date and someone is very polite, very understanding, very patient.

There's an error on the bill or something goes horribly wrong. And rather than them flip out, they're like, you know what, it's cool. It's fine. These things happen. And the way they just speak to people generally when you're around them, I think that is quite a good indicator. And the way they communicate, I think, is quite a good indicator as well. Like when you're talking to someone, you're getting to know them. I think quite early on, we can spot red flags quite easily. We're talking to a new guy and he asks, what are you wearing, for example? No, that's not a good sign in my book. But for example, like early stages of dating, someone who's asking as many questions as answering them. And they're asking questions about who you are as a person in your core.

questions is answering them and they're asking questions about who you are as a person in your core so I think like whatever you would deem to be like an immediate red flag I think the opposite is is an immediate green flag and you can see quite quite green flags early on in dating if you actually actively look out for them yeah I think you're right about having that balance of conversation because you know I've been on dates before particularly I think straight women going on dates with men and the men just got to talk at them constantly without asking them anything I think that's quite a quite a common experience and it's quite quite a big red flag um I love what you say about uh always appearing needy to someone who isn't giving you enough about uh always appearing needy to someone who isn't giving you enough uh it really reminds me of that meme I think it's something like where it's it's like the only dating advice you need

to know is if they like you you'll know and if they don't you'll be confused all you need to know and I just think it's so good isn't it because so often when we're when we're being strung along with someone or we're not sure how someone feels about us, I do think sometimes it is just as simple as, well, if you're not sure or they don't like you, and if you're being made to feel needy, then that person just isn't giving you what you want. So talk to me a bit about that and where that kind of came from for you. For me, that came from not not just experience but also observing friends and relationships and um being able to see kind of relationship dynamics amongst friends firsthand

and noticed that sometimes they would be in my opinion mislabeled as needy when in fact they weren't needy at all and what they were asking from, from who they were seeing at the time, in my book, is the bare minimum. But because the person was very emotionally unavailable, and very unwilling, and very scared of commitment, anything that was considered more than the very, very, very, very bottom barrel basic thing in a relationship was considered to be too much and too needy and I thought I really wanted to address that in this book because I think there are a lot of women in particular and while my book everyone could read my book um I did write it with uh women in mind young women in mind I think it's very important for for women to know this because I think a lot of women um are labeled as needy when in fact they're just

with people who aren't meeting their needs and I previously read a book called Attached about attachment theory and when I was reading that it really resonated because I thought to myself you know what yeah sometimes you're with a partner and there are things you want to do, whether it's hold their hand, spend time with them. And you might hold back because you think, oh, I don't want to appear as needy when in actuality, like human companionship is such a natural thing. It's a natural thing to want to be with someone, to spend time with someone, to love someone and to touch someone it is very very natural and unfortunately a lot of single people are do have a very avoidant attachment style and and and they tend to be the single people because they're avoiding relationships so they're perpetually single and that's not true for everyone because you have people who are quite anxious or people who are quite secure and single

but the majority of people do have an avoidant attachment style when you look at the pool of single people and so what happens is you meet someone who may not be avoidant and dismissive and they get with someone who is and all of a sudden they start to analyze their own behavior as abnormal and they start to believe that oh my god I'm this clingy needy person when actually no a lot of people just aren't willing to be vulnerable and aren't willing to give more than the bare minimum. And, yeah, I wrote that because I don't want people to hold back and to stop the very basic and normal things that we should be doing in relationships. It's so tricky, though, isn't it? Because obviously your relationship is an intimate thing, usually between two people. isn't it because obviously your relationship is an intimate thing usually between two people right so when your partner tells you back off you're being needy I think it's really hard to have the

external validation to think oh no I'm not being needy I just I just want more than this person's willing to give me like it makes sense when you say it but I think when you're in that situation the default is to just think is to shame yourself and to just because it's so hard to see past that because obviously you're gonna trust the person you love and are infatuated with and fancy and if they say that you're gonna be like oh god yeah they're right it's but it's so empowering once you do have that realization but it's really hard to have when you're in that I will say like every single lesson in my book and every lesson every single lesson I've learned about love mirrors that perfectly. When you are in the eye of the storm, it is always a million times harder.

Because equally, I've read my book so many times over. I was recording the audio book and I remember reading certain lessons and being like, damn. If only I remembered that six months ago. If only I did that six months ago if only I did that two weeks ago and when you are in the eye of the storm it can be so tricky because your emotions are involved and you're so invested and everything is just super super intense but I always say that when it comes to anything it's always nice to just remind yourself and you will not get it perfect all the time and you're going to make mistakes and I I'm still making mistakes like I will I've accepted the fact that I will forever be learning like I'm 32 now and

I'll be learning into my 40s into my 50s and beyond um but it just helps to remind yourself because in those moments of silence when you uh retreat from this chaotic situation or you're away from the conflict in those periods of downtime that's when you can reflect and be like okay actually actually maybe I should have done this or actually maybe this person isn't good for me because of this reason and xyz but yeah no I definitely agree it's always tough when you're in the midst of it yeah I think the um because I mean I'm also you know obviously I write and talk about this stuff all the time and I'm not perfect I make all of the same mistakes and then I you know my mum read my book and she was like why don't you just listen to your own advice Libby it is your own book that sounds familiar

yeah all the time says that to me but yeah I think the best advice that I always get from friends when you're in the midst of something like that and you know that something's not right but you can't quite identify it because of all the reasons you just said because you are emotionally invested and everything I think sometimes the best advice that I've heard anyway is to just just ride it out and just trust the process and just know that you'll get there but really that's all you can do in that moment isn't it yeah no I agree I think that's really good advice you you I think trusting yourself and paying attention to your gut and your innate inclinations is very important. You wrote a piece recently about being attracted to chaos and toxic relationships. I'm so interested

in this subject because I think, you know, societally we have, we overuse the term toxic relationships today a lot, you know, as we do with ause the term toxic relationships today a lot you know as we do with a lot of terms to do with relationships so I want to know from you what what constitutes a toxic relationship and and what do you do if you're in one and why do you think personally you were attracted to them because I think a lot of people would resonate with that as well yeah I think for me a toxic relationship is a relationship that diminishes your well-being in some way, whether that's or changes your well-being in some way, whether that's emotional, mental or physical. So if you are in a verbally, verbally abusive relationship, that is a toxic relationship, a physically abusive relationship, that is an emotionally abusive relationship, that is a toxic relationship because it is a toxic environment and situation that you are in.

And I agree with you that the term is overused because sometimes I'll go on Twitter and people will be like, my toxic trait is, and it will just be like a basic negative trait and it's not like this highly toxic trait. Or, oh my God, this is so toxic. And it's like, no, actually, no, this is an error a lot of people make in relationships, but I wouldn't define it as toxic. So I definitely agree with that. But yeah, I think people who find themselves in relationships like that, sometimes it can just be like a case of

being manipulated. You meet, like you said, sometimes you meet someone and the green flags seem really green and you realize actually this person is a complete narcissist who narcissist who completely manipulated me and I fell in love with one person and they're another person and other times we could even find ourselves maybe drawn to them because of experiences and that's what I wrote about in my book um because when I look back at some of the boyfriends I've had in the relationships I've been, I say some, but there's one key one, or one and a half that stand out. And I considered things that I had been through as a child. I had considered what I had defined as normal on the basis of what I was exposed to growing up.

on the basis of what I was exposed to growing up. And when I started dating, I realized that things that other people would deem as completely unacceptable, I would easily justify because it was my normal. It was my normal, it was my normal to hear frequent arguments, to be in chaotic environments, to deal with someone who had intense mood swings. One minute they loved you and treated you like you were the best thing since sliced bread. Next minute they said horrible, horrible things that you'd never forget. And I went into a particular relationship thinking, okay, yeah, this is what happens. Like sometimes guys talk like this.

You just accept it and it's fine and this is normal and what would happen then is if I would meet someone who was calm collected respectful um arguments were infrequent I would think there's there's something wrong what's the catch what's the issue this was uncomfortable this feels weird he's too. And I had to unlearn a lot of that. And I realized that some of what I was drawn to was tied into me believing that chaos was normal and calm was weird. And that came from my childhood experiences. I think I think you're really not alone in that experience at all but I think even if you haven't had those childhood experiences and I do often say this I think popular culture conditions us to sometimes seek out toxic relationships it does that bad boy be that ride or die chick Bonnie and

Clyde I agree I wrote about that too yeah it does it's it's a problem because it's like you romanticise all of these things where there are all of these hurdles to get over and there's a man who treats a woman like crap, but it's down to the women to change the man. Eventually she will and, you know, it completely negates the fact that she's essentially been emotionally abused. And also I've been really interested by narcissistic abuse recently. It's been something I've been reading about quite a lot.

And some of the things that you were mentioning there, I think, fall into that pattern. Because it's like this idea of seeing those really green flags, like you said, and being what is termed as love-bombed. You know, where you are kind of being put on a pedestal by a partner. And then all of a sudden torn down and made to feel incredibly small. And because of the way that the cycle of narcissistic abuse works, you then find yourself in those low moments, then craving those high moments again. And then that's what keeps you in that toxic relationship, I suppose. I suppose that's a really kind of heightened example of what a toxic relationship looks like, right? Yeah, yeah, definitely. And I address that in my book also.

I talked about intensity, valuing intimacy over intensity because I did the same thing. I remember being in that toxic relationship I was in when things were great. They were amazing when things were terrible. They were so bad because they were so amazing when they were amazing. I thought, OK, this is this is passionate this is amazing I'm so drawn and I'm so attached to this person and bonded to this person when actually it was because I was going through this roller coaster of emotions that I felt that I was bonded to this person and but it wasn't an intimate relationship where I felt safe and vulnerable it was an intense relationship for the wrong reasons and yeah I do agree I've been through the love bombing they do something horrible next thing you know

they do something amazing and you think this person adores me when in reality it's part of their manipulation tactic and it's a really difficult thing to confront because obviously I don't think it's it's behavior that the narcissist or the abuser does consciously obviously so it's then a really hard thing to deal with so how do you think you you overcome something like that because I think addressing it with your partner probably isn't the best thing to do um it's sort of about just kind of recognizing it right and just trying to get out if you can yeah I know I agree with you I think it's about recognizing it right and just trying to get out if you can yeah I know I agree with you I think it's about recognizing it and um assessing it from your own lens I think sometimes

we can look to uh garner advice from everyone around us and uh we don't always trust ourselves and our own instincts so really assessing things from your own lens assessing how you feel assessing your safety assessing everything and um just making note of these behaviors because if someone is uh demonstrating these narcissistic personality traits it's not something that it's just going to switch off it i'm going to have a discussion with him then he's going to change or she's going to change and it's all going to be fine and communication is key communication saves relationships no it's especially if they're not aware that they're doing it and they're doing it because of their own generational experiences so it's something that you have to definitely assess and and and try your very best to escape from and and I say that with a pinch of salt because some people are married to people who

have these personality traits and it's not as easy as just escaping and some people have accepted that you know what my partner has this fault and I deal with it in xyz in this way and that's why I try not to judge people if they choose to stay with someone who has certain qualities and that's why the assessing it from your own lens is very important because if you feel like okay I'm with this person and this person has this manipulative quality I've talked to them about it they're obviously not changing overnight but I don't feel like my safety is being compromised and I'm married to this person they're going through therapy like the context always matters but yeah it's it's very much um a personal thing that you really need to assess for yourself

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a cast helps creators launch grow and monetize their podcasts everywhere a cast.com And just turning that on its head a little bit, because, you know, whenever I talk about this or read about it, it is always, you know, quite rightly from the victim's perspective and how to recognize if you're with someone who is a narcissistic abuser or emotionally abusing you or whatever. But I think maybe we need to talk more about how to recognize if you are the abusive one I agree right because like this is what I mean like I just said to you earlier like you know you can't have that conversation with a partner so how can we talk to those people and how because I think we also you know we need to address that as well and how do you recognize if you are the one that has the problematic behavior because so much of the dialogue around relationships is about absolving

yourself of responsibility and putting it on to someone else but obviously if there are all these people feeling these things there are people making them feel like that yeah. And I think it's a bit of a tricky situation because the people that are the perpetrators, where they may not want to take accountability or they may not be entirely aware that they are doing it, the people who end up writing about it and talking about it are often the victims. And they're often the victims because there's not that I mean conflict of interest is the wrong word but there's not that that conflict doesn't exist so it's often a lot of writing comes from a experience standpoint and very rarely you find someone willing to take about accountability and accept the fact they behaved in this way and they're willing to talk about it freely um but what thing one thing i think is great and i i think um when it comes to understanding whether you are that person a lot of people that do end up writing about it are professionals so professionals who possess the skills needed to accurately assess someone with narcissistic personality for example and someone who is qualified to someone who is qualified to accurately

diagnose it and so I think a lot of that writing is happening. But what you find is that the writing that is shared is the writing, the emotive writing from the standpoint of the victim, because more people can relate to being a victim of this kind of behavior than being a perpetrator. So I think one thing that I think is really important, if you are someone that has a platform, if you are someone that has reach, is to share both sides of the coin. So while you may not be qualified to diagnose and while you may not be qualified to say this is how you spot one and the only qualification you have is to talk from your personal experience, which is what I did did you can definitely still highlight the work of other people who are doing that necessary work to say you know what like it's not just about us as victims talking about our experience like some of you need to know that you are perpetrators and this is how you spot your behaviors and one website that I really love is psychology today and I follow them on twitter and I always see lots of various articles about spotting signs of abusers, for example, from lots of different qualified doctors.

And I always try and share them because I think, OK, this is someone who knows what they're talking about. And this is someone, if you do come across it and you recognize that you display these behaviors, you are more likely to not listen, but you are more likely to pay attention to someone who can accurately diagnose than someone who is talking from the perspective of being a victim. Yeah, and I think it's so important that we do keep having those conversations because, you know, it's still a big problem, I think, culturally that people say the word abuse abusive relationship and they think physical violence and obviously we know that that is not the only form of an abusive relationship and I think because because they can the signs can be subtle and hard to to spot it is it is more important never that we talk about it um and also I you know I

wrote about this in my book about uh Love Island and um how you know obviously that show has all sorts of problems but one of the things that I did think was really beneficial was that you could see these kind of emotionally abusive situations play out between the people on the show and you see it play out in a way that is relatable and you can understand it because you're just seeing two people talking to each other and obviously it would be better if those weren't real people going through that situation but I think because they are real people as opposed to a show like a fictional show it's easier to relate to and to identify with. Yes, yeah, no, I completely agree. Completely agree. In the book, you write about the importance of controlling your ego in a relationship.

What do you mean by that? And why do you think that is so important? Okay, so I wrote that because when I looked back at my own experiences, I reflected on the fact that there are things that I could have handled differently and admittedly better but I didn't because I centered my emotions so much in this situation and so when I wrote about controlling ego it was about removing yourself from a situation to a certain degree and assessing it from the lens of someone who acknowledges that we are all individuals and we all make our own choices and sometimes a person's choice is not a reflection of you and you are not the center of every bad thing they do or every

good decision they make and sometimes it's literally down to them and um for me it was about thinking of the times that I have been like oh woe is me and it was not a woe is me situation in hindsight um but because I let my sense of pride get the better of me I handled that situation much worse than I probably should have yeah I think that's interesting and how is that just about having a better sense of self-awareness to to overcome that and how do you even because you know we live in a world where people are notoriously lacking in self-awareness so um how do you think you get to a point where you can recognize that your ego is getting out of control in a relationship I think um self-awareness definitely and I think that's

tied into asking yourself key questions and for me like when I'm in intense situations now I generally try to ask myself like is this about me like am I and I I take a lot personally I do I take so much personally something that is totally unrelated to me I can take it personally I will find a way to take it personally and I've learned to to really ask myself like is this about me is this about me or is this about them and I think that's one way to help yourself through the process of challenging your ego and and not centering yourself on situations. But again, when you're in the eye of the storm, it's very hard, especially if someone hurts you. You think, oh, my God, no, I'm just not good enough. I'm this or it's because of me or this person doesn't love me or me, me, me, me, me, me.

When it's like, no, sometimes it just has nothing to do with you and it is all about them. to do with you and it is all about them um and it's it can be very hard to separate what is related to you and what is related to to them but it is about self-awareness and and also being willing to have uncomfortable conversations I think um so as an example recently I went through something with someone and they did something I didn't like and I and I asked them why did you do that with the awareness that they could say I did that because you did xyz or I did that for another reason and I was really scared to ask them like why did you make this choice and then they came back to say I made this choice because of this reason and it was totally unrelated to to me and unrelated to what I thought it would the decision was based on um but I think willing to have that uncomfortable situation ask myself

is this about me you know what let me find out if this is actually about me I'm going to have this uncomfortable conversation with this person and realizing no it's not and then that reaffirms that sometimes people do things because they want to do them and there's a reason beyond you and you are literally not the core of all their choices yeah god that is really good advice it's really good to remember um you write about the distinction between compromise and settling I think this is quite a hard thing to navigate because obviously you know you want to put yourself and your own needs first. But at some point you have to learn when it's time to put your own needs to one side and put your partner's needs first.

So how do you think we work around that? Because I think everyone has different answers to this. And, you know, how do you think you know when the balance has tipped over too much one way? Because either way is bad. Yeah, yeah, of course. I think it's just about personal fulfillment. When you feel personally fulfilled, when you feel emotionally fulfilled, when you feel mentally and physically fulfilled,

and you can have these feelings of fulfillment with someone who is not 6'3", and someone who is 5'9". So I think it's about understanding when you are happy and I think sometimes we can have feelings of happiness but because we're comparing ourselves to our friends or other people we end up chasing more we could feel very content in a relationship then we see oh my friend's just got a new boyfriend and he's loaded and he drives this car and I was very fulfilled before and all of a sudden now I'm looking at my boyfriend thinking, aren't you rich? So it's about trying to understand like

how you really truly feel without those external comparisons. And I think that when you are settling, you are reducing your sense of fulfillment and you understand there is something within you that knows that you are not being fulfilled whether that is emotionally whether that that is mentally or even or even physically because I mentioned that in the book I didn't want to write that chapter and for people to think that oh so if it's all about someone who respects you and love you loves you and if the person is terrible in bed and you're sexually unsatisfied, you should be with them anyway. You need to feel fulfilled in all aspects of a relationship.

And I think that's one way that people can make that distinction. I think that's a really good point, feeling fulfilled, because it's very easy to lie in bed at night and thinking, oh, well, because I just don't think that's a question you really ask yourself very much like am I feeling fulfilled right now and I think a lot of people when they do ask themselves that will probably realize that they don't I did that once upon a time I was in a relationship and like on paper, on the surface, yeah, everything was fine. And then I asked myself, am I feeling fulfilled? And then I realized when I truly asked myself, am I happy? And I realized, no, actually, no, this isn't what I want for myself.

And this person is lovely. They're great. But at this time, at this point in my life, I do not want to be in a relationship. And I'm not feeling fulfilled because it's not what I desire and it's a hard conversation to have with yourself and sometimes you can feel like am I self-sabotaging because I've asked myself am I fulfilled and the answer is no like am I self-sabotaging um but again it's it's trying to be as self-aware as possible and trying to understand why if the answer is no why it is no and in the final section of the book you talk about

the healing stage um and about breakups one of the things you say is you know it's really important to implement boundaries during a breakup what kind of things do you mean by that do you mean boundaries with yourself or boundaries with your ex in terms of like don't communicate with me or you know i'm gonna block you on social media don't try and email me or whatever it is I think both are equally as important I think it's very important to put boundaries in place with people you're still emotionally attached to and even people you're not emotionally attached to but people that that may be takers for example um I think it's it's good to recognize that okay okay, you know what,

I might still have feelings for this person. This is not conducive to me moving on. Let me not follow them on Instagram or let me not text them five days a week. So I think applying those boundaries with other people is important. But yeah, it's about respecting the boundaries that you set for yourself too. And if you say that, you know what, I'm not going to do something because I don't think this is helpful for me or good for me. It's about trusting yourself and respecting your own decisions and respecting your own boundaries. And sometimes I think we can, we can, I've done this before. I've like set a boundary for myself and I said, Tony, you will not do this. You will not do this. You will not do this. Then boundary for myself and I said Tony you will not do this you will not do this you will not do this then the moment comes and I do it and I think it can be very very hard to

listen to yourself but it's important to do but even if you if you do cross that boundary though it's important also to be compassionate with yourself because I think sometimes we can cross the boundary and beat ourselves up and be like oh my god it's all my fault and I'm this horrible person for not being strong uh when in reality we're only human so both boundaries are really important but I think sometimes we can lie to ourselves and say oh I can do this and I can storm you born I can do this I'll be fine I'm not emotionally invested when really deep down we know we cannot or we know we are still connected to that person yeah I think that's so common you know from my own experiences and those of my friends very often particularly if you're the one that has broken up with someone I think it's very easy to be like

well this is what I wanted and now I'm fine I'm feel free and having the best time and that'll last for like a month or two months and then it sinks in and the sort of grief of losing the relationship actually starts to hit home and I think feels much worse than if you had actually just allowed yourself to really feel that loss. Because whether it was a loss that you wanted it or not, you know, it's still a loss of a human being in your life. So it's just so funny. I see it over and over again with my friends

and I've done it too. And it's just like, we need to not delay that process because it makes it so much more painful. Yeah, yeah, I agree. It really, really does. I've been there, done that. not delay that process because it makes it so much more painful yeah yeah I agree it really really does I've been there done that okay finally it's time for our lessons in love segment so obviously this is literally in the title of your book so I think I think you've got so many lessons that you could give us so I'm not sure how you're going to pick just one but if you can try if you

could tell us something that you've learned from your previous relationship experiences that you'd like to share this is tough because that's literally my whole book okay the first thing that comes to mind is to just be your authentic self and I think this is really important for me particularly as a woman in today's society like everything tells you to just like be this be that people will adore you if you behave in this way if you're too loud you'll turn men off if you're too independent you turn men off you're too strong you're too this you're too this you're too that I think I absorbed a lot of these lessons as a teenager these unhelpful lessons as a teenager and in adulthood I realized actually no by behaving

inauthentically I'm attracting people who are not suited to me because they do not actually know the real me and I'm not giving them the privilege to learn exactly who I am and I'm doing myself a disservice and I'm doing them a disservice too and it's unfair that I'm wearing this mask and trying to be this like perfect princess for for people in the hope that they would value me so I think um just loving as the authentic you and the truest version of you and I'm not saying like oh don't wear makeup don't put hair extensions in don't yeah I'm not talking about the surface but I think sometimes people hear that and they immediately think oh yeah women need to I'm not do whatever you want to do like your body is your

body but it's about you and your core and your character not and not waking up or going to a date or meeting someone and feeling like you have to pretend and be someone else to be loved like there is someone in this world who will love you for who you truly are um and it's about recognizing that you that that doesn't mean either that there's no room for improvement because there is always room for improvement and we all have flaws but just recognizing that your core character is not something that you should be ashamed of that's such a good one particularly I think the shame angle because you know we know that obviously if you feel that you have to play up to someone who you're not in order to impress someone or to make you look to make them like you it's obviously not a good thing but I think then what the byproduct of that is which is also really important to discuss is like you said the shame but then you

feel about your true self and I think you can carry that shame for years if you have constantly been made to feel by people that you need to live up to some sort of idealized version of a woman in order to be worthy of love and it's quite hard to shake that shame off do you think it's just about being with the right person or is it about doing the work on yourself or both I think I think both because you could do the work on yourself and be with the wrong person and end up back in square one and you could be with the right person but because you're not doing any work on yourself you're just you're still as anxious about who you truly are and I think it's about working on both and and that's not to say you need to be this perfect uh person like I mentioned like you don't

need to be just like self-love jedi before you like get in a relationship which is which is true a lot of people think oh no I need to be this perfect like all self-loving being before I get into relationship no I think you can both can work side to side but it's about saying that you know what I need to do what I can to feel proud of who I am and that might be taking time out to do things I love and enjoy that might be affirming my value in different ways whether it's writing a journal whether it's joining a club whether it's going to therapy and talking about the things that bother me working on yourself and truly administering that self-care while also being with people who don't need you or don't tell you to change, who are happy for you to try and become the best version of you, but they love you for who you are right now and not solely for your potential.

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