S14E1: Who's Showing Up For Your Date? w/ Lair Torrent

00:00:01 - 00:05:02

The Dateable podcast is an insider's look into modern dating that the Huffington post calls one of the top ten podcast about love and sex. On each episode, we'll talk to real daters about. From sex parties to sex droughts, date fails a diaper fetishes and first moves to first loves.  I'm your host Yue Xu, former dating coach turned dating sociologists. You also hear from my co host and producer Julie Krafchick as we explored this crazy dateable world.

What's updatable? Official start of season four teen. I can not believe it. Season 14, here we come. I want to take clips of every time Julie says, I can not believe it's season block because she was like, finds it all very unbelievable. I'm like, Julie, listen, it's season 14. I know, but sometimes I do find it unbelievable that we've been doing this. I actually got corrected that it's only been 6 years, not 7 years. We did the most wrong. Oh, we did. Well, we're 6 going on 7. 6 years is still quite an accomplishment. Yes. And it was Valentine's Day we launched back in the day. Yeah, I actually looked through my old photos of that of that very first recording we did. In my apartment. In my studio apartment, and we had like 7 people crammed in with a live audience. They were all eating like pretzels. And that would never happen again. But at least we can keep the show going. This is like what's so great about this time of podcasting is this is something you can do virtually. It's amazing and we can do this virtually. It's not a TV show where you have an in studio audience and you have to be there live. This we can do all over the Internet. So thank you. We're very grateful that we can keep the show going. Yeah, and it also opens up our guests. I feel like we are so lucky to be joined by our cease and open our guest, layer torrent. You know, I remember the day when we were doing Skype calls and we didn't even have video on to see our guests. So what a world of a difference this has been. And this is such a great way to kick off the season because we're all talking about what are you bringing to your dates? Sure, there's two people and two people bring each other on the date. But did you know that when you go on a date, you're actually bringing a whole team of people with you. It's your energy. It's your vibe. It's what you experience before going on that date. It's your limiting beliefs. It's all of this extra stuff that you're bringing on a date, so the question is, what are you bringing on your dates? And we want to bring in that good energy on the season of the data podcast. Big D energy, the D is for dating. She's been waiting to say that all day folks. She's like, that was UA's line. I stole it from her. She wants to say the big D energies so bad. That's so bad. The biggest compliment I've ever gotten was someone told me that I brought big D energy to a call. Damn. Damn you a. No, I mean, I think the energy is real. And it's not just dating. I mean, this episode to layer talks about how it shows up with his wife of years. There is still many sides of you that you're bringing different types of energies at different situations. I actually was in a work training today, which was so relevant to this that was all about your energy in the workplace and it was based on colors. Have you ever done this before? No, I'm so intrigued. I was trying to find like a free test online because we had to do one that the company paid for that was really insightful. It was like a full on profile of yourself. It was nuts. And I feel like they should be doing these for dating, so it's like buyers brings on steroids. I don't understand it. So it's energy. So it's colors. Basically, there's four colors. There's cool blue. You know, your objective, your structured, your consistent, your factual, your fiery red, your bold, your fast paced, action oriented, sunshine, yellow, which is like, you're very friendly, dynamic, optimistic. And then the last one is earth green. So you're considerate supportive, reliable, trusting. In all of them have the inverse qualities. The thing is you're not just one color. You're not defined that way. But you have a prominent color. That's your energy and your aura that you're putting out there. But other ones show up too, and in different situations they may. But then there's like the reverse feelings of it. So I'll just give one example because there are so many, but let's say like, okay, I am a sunshine yellow is my dominant one, but the downside of that is when you're in kind of a bad mood, you could be hasty or frantic or excitable, like different flip sides to it all.

00:05:02 - 00:10:12

So it was really interesting because I feel like it ties so much with this conversation of just different things provoke different sides, even the same side based on other external factors going on for you can make you show up at a different way. So just to clarify, is this an assessment where you're looking at colors to identify what color you are or do you questions and then it tells you what colors you are. Yes. It's just like Myers Briggs, but instead of getting the letter combo, you're getting a color combo. I was like 81% yellow, 65% red and then so forth. I would guess you were probably, you know what? Actually, I was thinking about it, 'cause one of the things was to think about celebrities and where they fell in, or people you knew. And I was trying to guess what yours was because I wasn't able to find you a good test. Am I the celebrity and the person you know? You could be whatever you want to be, you a. I'll let you decide how I viewed you. I won't say it. Fair. A little bit of both, okay? A little bit of both. 80% person 20% celebs. But I was trying to think about how you would show up. And I was thinking about it that for our interactions, then on this podcast, I would put you at like a red, like fiery. And having more of the fast paced bold. You know, a lot of people say that you're feisty in the best way possible. That was something that people said. But then I was thinking about you at work. And I actually think you're probably more of the supporter, like the earth green. And then I was thinking about how you showed up when you were a dating. And I actually think you might have fallen into either the sunshine yellow or the earth green there too, especially in early dates. So it's really fascinating how we can really show up very different based on the circumstance and who we're with, how comfortable we are, all that. That's fascinating. I like that because it's more visual so that when you go on dates, you know your dominant color is yellow and you go in, maybe thinking, I want to be a dominant yellow on the state, or I want to be a dominant red on this date, and you can visualize that. It's interesting though, because I texted my partner and I was like, which ones do you think I was? There were two that were dominant. And he actually guessed yellow, which I was. And then also the more supportive one, the earth green because I'm very nurturing to him. But again, I was taking this under a work context. That's why I showed up less of that. So it really is the fact that you have all these factors of your personality and I think for so long I just thought of it so black and white of do I show up as real Julia date Julie and I think this episode really helped open my mind up that were so dynamic at all times and then this training was kind of the cherry on top. There is a mic drop moment in this episode and you'll get to when you get to it you'll know and that was an eye opening moment for both of us where we both thought oh my gosh it was like people always say be your authentic self. What does that mean? In this episode you'll know exactly what your authentic self is and I think you'll be relieved by the answer. Even vibe and energy. I was trying to think of I was actually Googling you too. How do you define that, right? Like I think we all can define it in the sense of we know what it feels like, but it's hard to put that actually into words what it is. It's a certain feeling that you're getting from people's body language, the way they're interacting. And I think it's so interesting why we just jive with certain people and why we don't with others. And what this training was basically saying was the people that are opposite of you are the color wheel. It's going to be a little harder to find that common ground sometimes. Oh, so is this saying that yellows would attract yellows? So I mean, this wasn't done in a romantic setting, so I would love to see if there's more research on this. I have a question trader. Does this mean that I'm more compatible with other yellows? They're like, you're missing the point. This is not the point of this. I mean, basically what they were saying is that everyone has some aspects of every color. Some strains will come out more than others, but the predominant color is primarily how you show up, how you communicate all of that. And with people, for instance, I'm a yellow, so the opposite on the wheel was a blue. So for those people that I'm very gregarious and talk a lot with by hands and maybe talk a lot in some of those people might be more introverted and they're thinking things through a bit and it's fascinating because I actually think a lot of times in dating sometimes opposites attract a bit with that stuff, but then there's also the side of it that the barrier to understanding each other and something that the energy you're putting out might be overwhelming for the other person or vice versa.

00:10:12 - 00:15:02

Okay, well, I'm thinking back on a time where Julie absolutely did not get along with this one certain person when we were trying to organize something. And oh my God. That I do. Not a blue. I was saying he's probably a red. Yes. You know that's interesting because I do have a bit of red in me, especially when it comes to work type settings. And I think maybe that's where I clashed with him war is that I also had it. Where you were kind of just like let him do his thing. He'll move on. You were kind of more like go with the flow with it. You're like, he's gonna forget about it in 20 minutes. Just let him be. I'm so glad that interaction is over. But maybe that speaks to your energy bore, right? Especially when it comes to work settings. I think you are a little more like cooling and calm. Neutral. I would say I have no color at work. I am just clear. No, I think you're greed. I think you're more on the green side, the supporting side. Okay, well, maybe I should stop doing that because that takes a lot of energy. I see elsewhere. Anyway, this is fascinating. I think Julie, if you can find a quiz for us, even as a paid work quiz, maybe we can link it for people because I feel like a lot of people would be interested to know. And then we could have like a color party, you know, just like an Instagram Live, everybody show your true colors. Oh, show your true colors. I like it, or maybe there is an expert out there that can speak to this on the dating context. Like I mentioned, this was on the more professional context and I think that would be really cool to learn about like does the same stuff carry over or are you actually compatible with people that are opposites? I would be so curious to know and that kind of brings us to this next part of our discussion because we really want to talk about this is Julie and I are kind of like fed up with bad dating behavior. We feel like the last couple years we've normalized bad dating behavior and we're letting this bad energy come through and take over dating culture and that's why so many of you are frustrated, you're fatigued, you're trying to take a hiatus. That is exactly why you feel that way. So we felt like because we keep hearing terms for bad dating behavior, which normalizes it, why don't we have terms for good dating behavior because we sure as hell know, people in our Facebook group are carrying out good dating behavior, but there's no term for you all. So we decided to come up with some terms for good dating behavior and put up a poll on our Instagram. And this has been really fun because, well, step number one is Julie and I had a really fun brainstorm. And there was just some names, let's just say that we left off the last week's episode. There were some, I know there's no bad brainstorming, but there were some bad. I admit that some of them were mine. But yes, I think with the episode last week you heard a lot of these terms that we were floating, but it was fun to do the follow on to see what are the terms that we want to carry through. Right? So we picked three of the most prominent bad dating behaviors. And then we thought, what the opposite of that? What's the good of that? And then thought of some names for it. So the first one is ghosting. We all know what ghosting is, but just as a reminder, is when someone disappears on you without any warning and maybe you've already engaged in some sort of relationship or situation ship, maybe even may plans, but they just poof disappear and the opposite of this behavior is when we can use radical honesty to close the loop if you're not interested or you're not in a place to date. Instead of leaving people hanging or leaving them to guess what is going on in your mind, right? Okay, so the two terms, we have people vote on. Dalai Lama, okay, radical honesty, kindness, and closed looping. Just closing the loop, not leaving anything to the imagination and 67% voted that closed looping should be the term. I like majority, but closed looping is what we're going to be using from now on. The opposite of ghosting. I love it. It's straight to the point. I mean, I think Dolly was funny, but it takes a little more. There's a few more hoops to jump through to understand the context where closed looping is pretty much. This is what it is. Well, I feel like with Dalai Lama, I think many people may feel like maybe that's not attainable. Like, well, I'm not the Dalai Lama.

00:15:03 - 00:20:01

So that's true. Closely faking as a better starter one. Maybe less intimidating. But we'll ultimately work up to Dalai Lama. Okay. And the second term, bad dating behavior, is roaching. This came out with last year. I said brand new term, right? And it's about you discovering that the person you've been seeing or where you thought you were seeing was a monogamous relationship, you discover that they have a ton of other lovers at play. Thus, the roaching, multiple people in the situation. And the terms we thought of for the opposite behavior would be maybe taking more time with each person. One person at a time or giving people the respect and effort to get to know them instead of trying to get a groupie going, right? I don't know if you watched the alley Wong special, but she talks about fan dick like fan pussy and fan day. He get like fans when you're a stand up comedian and you get more of it when you get famous. So she was talking about fan dick. You have to watch a special because she was a lot to say about it. So this is like getting rid of that fan dick phenomenon. You don't need all those fans around. And the two terms we came up with are fan deck energy. Fancy. It just doesn't hit the right way. Okay. So the two terms are woven and nesting. Woven as we discovered wolves are some of the most loyal and monogamous animals and nesting really just means like trying to create something with someone in a very intentional way and it takes effort to do that. Very, very similar to the last one, 66% voted for nesting and 34% voted for wolves. And I think both of them can be a little bit interchangeable because wool vein can be the next step, right? When you're trying to, when you're trying to get to that monogamy with someone, DTR, and nesting can be like the first intention. I'm trying to create a life with someone. I like it. I like nesting a lot too. I mean, they're both going with the animal theme, but a nicer animal than roaching. They're both a win for that reason alone. I still like exterminating and fumigating. She'll find a use for those at some point. Just for the sake of not over yet. They're not over yet. Yeah, getting rid of the roaches. Okay, third and final term. Benching. Benching is when someone is string you along, they're benching you on the sidelines. You're never a starter player, but they sure want you in the game still, just to watch. And they want to keep you on the sidelines the entire time. So what is the opposite of this behavior is when you can invest more into someone. When you can make them your universe, per se, when you can focus more attention and energy on someone before you decide that you don't want them in the game anymore. So universal is one term making someone your universe and match sticking, which is focusing on that one matchstick at a time. And also with matchsticks, you can't just leave one burning and just let it without watching it because it's going to burn your house down. So you have to really take care of the match. 79% voted for a match sticking. In 21% voted. So we have some new terms that we're going to try to use throughout this season, and we encourage all of you to use those as well. We've got closed looping, closing that Luke guys. Just stop leaving people saying you're ghosting them. Nesting the intention of creating a life with someone and match sticking, focusing your energy on taking care of and catering to this one person at a time. I love this so much. And for anyone that missed last week's episode, you can clearly go back and get the whole rundown because if you haven't done it yet, we all pledge to date the way that we want to be dated. And I think that's so important with this episode two of how are you showing up because even let's say you're a yellow, you're the sunshine personality to the core. If you have too much data trauma and you are down in the dumps about dating and you're showing up thinking, well, this is going to go nowhere. That's not the energy that you want to be putting out there. And I think the more and more we focus on all these bad terms, I mean, this is psychology one O one, right? The more you focus on something, the more it's bound to happen. So if we're always thinking about if we're going to get ghosted, most likely we're going to get ghosted. Instead of thinking about, okay, well, you know, I really want to settle down with someone. I want to find that person.

00:20:01 - 00:25:02

I'm going to find someone else that's down to nest. That's such a different energy that you're just bringing into that date right there from the words alone. So fucking true. I am so behind all of that. Because also, we've heard a lot of you say, I started dating someone, they're doing everything seemingly right, but I'm scared because I feel like maybe it's too much too soon, but that's sometimes it's because we don't have terms for that kind of behavior. When you're like, oh, they haven't ghosted benched or roached me. What is wrong with this person? So now we can say, well, this person is match sticking you, obviously, and then you can recognize the good behavior and accept it. Well, history is being made people. Witness this. Fantastic. Well, before we get into it, should we do a quick listener question that came in that I feel like is right on par with everything we're talking about. Yeah. Here's the question, why is it that I am only attracting the wrong people on dating apps and the people I am attracted to don't seem to write back to me. Well, first and foremost, there is no way to see someone's energy out of data gap. And I think that is the biggest downfall of dating apps, is that we're making all these assumptions based off of a 2D photo. And text that someone's put again. And we hear this all the time. It's like until I met them in person or I thought it was going to be amazing and then we met in person or wow, I was surprised when we met in person. And that's what dating apps are missing, and that doesn't mean you can't use data gaps. It's just understanding the limitation of them. And using them in a way that you get what you're seeing. So I think first and foremost is don't get hung up on the matches that you're getting, get to phone calls, get to video calls, get to meeting in person, seeing that energy because when we talk to people that met their partners, so much of it is the vibe that that person had. The holistic view, it was not just the things that you judge on a dating profile. So that's number one. I think the second is sometimes it's the energy we're bringing, right? If we think that there's no one good out there, we're like, why aren't we attracting anyone good? That's something that's coming from what you're putting out in the world too. So I would probably take a step back, take a reset if needed. I think personally being off dating apps and taking that breather is better than keep plowing through with negative energy. So the quicker we can kind of reset and get ourselves to a place that we're happy with how things are going and our lives, that's when we're going to attract someone that's radiating the vibe that we're looking for. Spot on. This is just a limiting belief. Think about the question again. Why is it that the people on attracted you on dating apps aren't communicating back? Well, you don't know that. There's dead profiles on those dating apps. How do you know you're attracted to them? You've only seen their photos and bios. We just do not know that that is a fact, but your brain is telling you that's a fact. It's giving you evidence for the self fulfilling prophecy, which is the, it's not the truth. And then the second part of this question is, how come the people I'm not interested in are the ones interested back? Well, if you're not interested in them, then why are you matching with them in the first place? Obviously, you swiped on them because you had some initial interest. So again, our brains play tricks on us. This is a limiting belief. Don't let your brain convince you of something that is so not true. The dating apps are just a starting point like Julie said, it's a vehicle for you to meet. It's not a vehicle for you to find the love of your life right away. It's just a contact point. And then the next goal is to get off the dating apps to gauge real-life chemistry. Yep. I mean, my partner and I talked about this that we both almost swiped over each other. We're both like worms on each other. He was saying the stuff that he was attracted to me for was all the intangibles that he would never have gotten out of dating app. It was just how I showed up, basically, and the vibe of how it was on the date in the energy that was coming in. I'm gonna use all the three buzz words in one sentence. But that is what it is. That's what makes people attractive and, you know, I think you can be the prettiest person in the room, but if you're down in the dumps about dating or you're just only talking about being ghosted, people aren't gonna want to date you, right? Yep. Yep, exactly. Dating apps, they're just a vehicle to meet. Let's not put all this pressure on them. And think about it in this limiting way. It's not, nobody started dating app to make your life miserable. So stop thinking that these dating apps are out to get you because they're not. We always say a maybe as a yes. Just take them with a great assault. I really believe wholeheartedly, the best hidden gems on data gaps are not the people that are have the best, most flashy profile. It's so true. And my partner did swipe left on me. That's a little different because he knew you before.

00:25:04 - 00:30:00

No, he was like, no way. I don't know. He's like, I've seen that fiery energy out. I can't handle all that red. Little did he know that you would be a green in the relationship? Little did he know? He almost missed out on this big green energy. We talk about that in this episode, so we're gonna get into it, but you know, you just can't tell right away either. People have so many sides to them, including yourself it's so true. Cool. So true. Before we get into it, a few announcements love in the time of Corona that is our dateable Facebook group. We're sticking with love in the time of Corona until Corona is officially over because we don't want to jinx it. So find us on Facebook. And at dateable podcast is Instagram. That's where it's at. That's where you can vote in these calls. This is where you can make history. You are part of these new terms because you were following us and engaging on Instagram. So if you're not there yet, then come on over. And then the last announcement is share this with a friend. We all need that good dating energy. The big D energy, right? And our Friends would benefit from this likely. So if you have a friend that you think would enjoy this conversation, that maybe down in the dumps about dating or maybe not even down in the dumps, but just wondering why things aren't working out. Maybe they're not bringing the full self that attracts people and other aspects of life. So share this with a friend sharing is caring. And on the DL we do have a TikTok account, okay? It's that dateable podcast. Listen, we're doing it for shits and giggles. Do not have high hopes for it. But if you just want to see something, entertaining, go there. Look, you've been trusted some great videos about to TikTok. Let's not undersell it totally. We don't have any followers, though. So build us up, people, please. Yeah, yeah, please follow us. We'll pay you, please follow us. Maybe not, but please follow us. We'll pay you. We'll pay you in love coins. And last but not least, let's take a minute to hear from some of our partners for this episode. This episode is brought to you by murad's skin care, a line of clinically proven cruelty free products that meet the meticulous standards for safety, efficacy, and care you'd expect from a doctor. One of my favorite products is the in business scar resurfacing treatment, which I've been seeing results from even just the first week. Founded by doctor Howard murad, who is a board certified dermatologist and trained pharmacist who's recognized around the world as a visionary for his unmatched scientific innovations, murad has also launched a digital magazine and podcast called well connected by murad, connecting the dots between science and wellness, find the digital magazine at well connected dot murat dot com and the podcast well connected by murad wherever you listen to podcasts and for dateable listeners only go to murad dot com and enter the code data for 20% off and free shipping for orders of $50 or more. Again, that's mirad dot com and enter the code da for 20% off and free shipping for orders of $50 or more. This episode is made possible by the book you can run by Rebecca zanetti, The Blacklist meets Luther combined with justified in a brand new romantic thriller series by The New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Rebecca zanetti. Here's how it goes. Laurel snow wouldn't call hunting a serial killer a vacation, but with a pile of dead bodies on earth near her hometown, she'll take whatever she can get. Yes, something about this case stirs her in unexpected ways. Then there's Laurel's attraction to huck rivers, the fish and wildlife officer guiding her to the crime scene and into the wilderness, a former soldier, and a trained sniper, huck seems to have his own secrets, not least of which are his whereabouts the night yet another woman disappears. You can probably guess where this is headed. Laurel must negotiate her conflicting feelings for him and her mission to find a serial killer. Get your hands on, you can run by Rebecca zanetti at Kensington books dot com or wherever books are sold. Okay, let's get into it with layer. So it's hard for many of us to articulate how we feel after a date. It's hard to say why we're attracted to certain people, why certain days just don't go as well, and all of it really boils down to this overall energy and vibe that people bring on dates. But there's also this other part, which is beyond energy. There's like the many sides of you that encompasses like the multi dimensional person that you are. But who is showing up for these dates, that is what we're talking about today. So that's why we have you on our show today, lair, who we think that you're going to help us bring another layer to data. Thank you. I'm sure you know for that one.

00:30:01 - 00:35:01

Nice pun. And whatever plays with that name. So who is Larry? He is a marriage and family therapist who specializes in mindfulness. He's been resourced, interviewed by NPR, The New York Times, Rolling Stone magazine, for his expertise and work in couples and individual counseling. He's also the author of the practice of love, break old patterns, rebuild trust, and create a connection that lasts, which just came out in February. He's 51 years old currently in Charleston originally from Ithaca and lived in New York most of his life. So that must be quite a change to go to South Carolina. And he is married. Yes, I am. Welcome. Thanks for having me. Welcome. This is the first time I've heard anyone say the author of the practice of love other than myself. So that was kind of fun. Oh, great. Do we get a medal? You do. Something? Yeah. In my work. Awesome. Well, we're super excited to talk to you because we think there's so much of your book and just the conversations you have that apply to people that are in the dating scene, but also that are in relationships. And I think kind of a double down what UA was saying before as we see this all the time that there's some people that almost take like too much accountability that they play the victim that they're to blame of why dating isn't going well for them. And then we see others that seem to blame all the external. And this could also be people in relationships too. Why do you think some people kind of process it different than others? Well, I guess that's up to the individual. You'll probably see that tracked within their history either a willingness to take perhaps too much blame or a personal responsibility or maybe not enough. And I think that's probably just unique to that individual and how they show up in their lives. You'll see that with their relationship to their relationship, their relationship to dating their relationship, perhaps, to what they do for a living. And I talk a lot about how we show up. And I talk a lot about personal responsibility, either taking on too much, or taking on too little, right? And being able to find that fine line of just kind of where you want to live with respect to that kind of thing. So if I'm working with someone, I'll notice there's an inability to take accountability throughout perhaps. And so, you know, especially in individual counseling where perhaps I'm not putting as much of a shoulder into people as I would normally. I'd let it meander a little bit more. And the process sort of unfold. Carefully let them know. I think I see this happening for you a lot. Like we're putting a lot of power in the app's hands when perhaps you are a particularly powerful person. If you started kind of looking at what you're bringing, what you're coming to the table with and you're on your own unique and innate gifts, maybe we can take some of that power back. And maybe some of this our listeners may be thinking that's easier said than done. They might be saying, well, you're married, okay? You haven't been on the apps. Let me tell you the apps are so frustrating. They are. I message a thousand people, maybe I'll get two messages back. And of those two messages, I might see one person in real life. And then when I see this person in real life, all my eggs are in this one basket because it feels like a diamond in the rough. How can we actually put into practice what you're saying and show up the way that we're meant to show up as? Personal work, right? I noticed that for my people when we interface with the apps and that's particularly frustrating, I'll say, look, let's just let's shut them down for a minute. Let's shut them down and just take a look at what we're coming to the table with. And very often, it's energy. And I know this is going to be getting out there a little bit for people in the whoo whoo, but that's kind of what I do. We love the world. Yeah, so here we go. Look, your energy counts, how you show up energetically matters. And you are a tuning fort, right? And so like energy attracts like energy. And I personally think computers and apps tend to kind of fall in line with that energetic pulse that you're sort of sending out there in the world. And so the question I ask is, are you coming from a deficit perspective or are you coming from an abundance perspective? Are you turning to yourself and are you finding the innate abundance that lives within you? Like, why are you amazing? Because look, there are people who are most people are a pretty amazing inside. We have to find our gold and show up with your gold and know why you're awesome and very often when we go away and then come back, we have to play with it a little bit, but very often the apps do respond. Or they find love somewhere else. I mean, UA, I agree with that whole heartedly. We always say that you don't what we've observed eat with ourselves, that with people are listeners is once they're good with who they are and life. That's when it usually starts to get a heck a lot easier. I want to turn it to your story, I guess from your point of view. Were you always radiating this energy? Or was this something? You had to learn. No, no, lots of personal. I call myself a recovering angry person. Lots of wounding. My mom was 15 when she had me. Very, very impoverished upbringing this version of the life that I've created thus far. It was not in the narrative early on.

00:35:01 - 00:40:00

So, you know, I had to do a lot of work. I moved to New York City and I wanted to be an actor. Not because I loved acting so much as I was just I had this hole in my heart and this ego that needed repair. And I thought becoming rich and famous, of course, would fix everything. Of course. To do that. And what I also did is simultaneously I got myself involved with some individual therapy. And I became a real convert in that respect. I looked at my bookshelf one day and I saw that there were about 70 books on health and mental health and healing, about four books on acting and I decided it was probably time to change course. And yeah, and so the energy that I bring to the table, or at least I try to comes from my work, digging into myself daily. How did you meet your partner? I walked into my bar job. I was a bartender in New York City because, you know, I was an actor, so of course I was a bartender. So I walked into the manager's office in the basement of the bar that I was working in, and I opened the door, and there she was. And I looked at her and I literally said out loud, there you are. Wow. And she kind of looked at me. Like, who's this weirdo? I always say, I always say, I'm not sure. She had the experience that I had. And so I collected my stuff in my drawer, and I tried to get out of there as fast as I could. And I was like, oh my goodness, that was a strange experience. I'm not saying that everybody has that experience, but I did. I had a lot of not great experiences prior to that. Fumbling my way through. But, you know, and it wasn't perfect when we met by any stretch we were both working in the food and beverage industry in New York City. There were quite a lot of tequila filled, not so awesome evenings, but we both were dedicated to working on ourselves and we were both dedicated to the program we ultimately went to to both become a therapist. And so we healed ourselves and each other along the way. That's a really interesting point. Sometimes we think we have to be fully whole too. A track that person and what it guesses, yeah, I see you shaking your head. What is your take on that? How do you still get to that good place, but not be fully healed in any way? What are you trying to create, right? Is it this, we're going to come together and it's this romantic comedy right off scenario? No. No, we are it was horrible Hendrix has said, you know, and I'm going to butcher the quote, but we are drawn to our romantic partners. And we recreate our wounding from childhood, right? But for a very good reason, so that there can be healing. And so people immediately go, go dependence, and I go, no, no, not codependence, an opportunity, right? Like we show each other things. We reflect pieces that need to be healed within each other. Now, most people just battle it out over those things. And that's why I have a job. That's true, that's why I have a job as a therapist because people don't get beyond that top layer of why are we battling this out here? There's a secondary conversation happening below the surface of the sex, the money, the kids, whatever it might be, these top of the mind conversations that you see in the top ten reasons people seek couples therapy or get a divorce. The below the surface conversation, that's the interesting one. And so when I work with people, I mildly interested in the story you're telling me about why you came in. What I know is there's something underneath that conversation and for you it's going to be different for me that's going to be different from you than you. It lives in the area of, am I safe? Am I loved? Am I enough and do I matter? We're trying to answer those four very primordial questions and if we can we come to the table with a wounding and one or two or three or four of those areas and we are trying to heal that with each other. And so I'm trying to say in my wife's case, thankfully I was looking through a textbook and reading and learning, I realized that the world was an unsafe place for her because of her upbringing. I'm not talking to the adult woman all the time that I see staring back at me. I'm talking to the little girl in her that needs to know that the world is a safe enough place. Yeah, let's go back to that because you said something that I've been reading a lot about is this coupling in addition to the attraction and chemistry. It is joint healing. So you find your right partner who is willing to heal with you or who wants to heal with you. I had a friend who says something to me the other day, she was like, oh, I saw you write this thing on your Instagram. It sounds like you're healing. And I was like, oh my God, how does she know that? But how do we know what we're trying to heal? And I think that's kind of the question I have been dealing with is what specifically of those four questions you ask, how do I even know which one I'm trying to heal here? Well, a lot of the time, and I don't know this if this happened for either of you two, but when I start naming those questions, you'll feel it. So people cry in my office for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is because I've named their truth, right? And so when you have something that is been with you, whether you're aware of it or not, like, I am unsafe in the world. Come on before you. I see it all the time. It'll hit. And sometimes it doesn't, but you'll see people going to go, oh, I'm not enough.

00:40:01 - 00:45:01

And so, but now we don't always have the answer immediately, but we have the four questions and when I first found those four questions, I sort of pieced it together from a bunch of different research. I tried to look for a 5th and there wasn't one. If anyone has a 5th, please let me know. I'd be happy to entertain it. But you start toying around with them. You start asking yourself as you look across the expanse of your life from birth till now. Do you see it? If we look from the 60,000 foot view of your life, you know, we stand over any M1 person's life, and we ask those questions, you're going to see it. It's going to come into stark relief, like in all of those scenarios. I never felt like I was enough. That was my. Can you ask those four questions one more time for her listeners? Sure. Am I safe? Am I loved? Am I enough do I matter? So we have definitely experienced this before, that people come and say, it's the dating apps. I can't get enough matches on the daily apps. Then we push them one layer deeper and it's my axe that it goes a layer deeper. And it's actually that was the first person to view me as beautiful or see me in a certain way. So it's kind of what you're talking about. How do we get people to push the boundaries outside of therapy, of course? Sure. It's one way. But how do you go from this superficial external belief that that's your issue with dating to really digging and taking accountability that this is the challenge? Well, I mean, I have my way in the way that I try to encourage my clients to work, which is working on every day. I wake up every morning and journal meditate on it. Look at your life. Look at the different situations in your life and say, okay, I know, you know, I need jerk reaction was to perhaps blame and maybe some blame was certainly deserved on that side, but where did one of those are a few of those questions show up for me? And you can find it in so many different areas. I found it in my internship. I came from the background that I told you about. And I have this, I get this coveted internship on Madison Avenue with these awesome and amazing women and here I am looking for the service entrance, right? I was constantly feeling as though I wasn't enough when I look at that scenario for two years. I was looking for my pink slip and my wife was saying to me, I don't think that's what's going on here at all. But for me, that's what was present there. That's one example you have yours. Look at the different scenarios in your life and the different places where you've found contrast or friction and ask the question, did I feel like I was enough that I feel safe in the world that I feel loved? You're also quite the champion of mindfulness as well. So how can people practice mindfulness when it comes to dating, especially keeping some of our listeners in mind who are frustrated by the dating apps were frustrated by the dates that go nowhere? Where do they start? Well, mindfulness is paying attention on purpose. It's not sitting on a cushion for an inordinate amount of time trying to keep your attention on your breath. That's meditation, mindfulness is the hope for peace that we get from from sitting on that meditation cushion. And so paying attention on purpose I say to how we're showing up to the dating apps, what part of me, what aspect of my personality, what part of me is showing up there. Because let's say I'm unaware of how I know how I feel about the apps, but it kind of pisses me off that I've been having this experience. And so I show up in a part of myself that is defended that is kind of pushing back, or I show up in my inner critic. And the inner critic is the part of self that everyone says, you know, I just wish that part of me would go away would die. And I'm like, well, it's not going to happen. We have to recognize that the inner critic is trying to keep you safe. And so it'll point fingers that you and the apps or other people, but it definitely brings up a resonant energy that's not particularly positive. And so training our mindfulness on our parts of self how we're showing up in the energy we're bringing to the apps or to dating. If you're showing up to that day quite obviously like I'm trying to keep it together, but really I just think this is going to be another one of these duds. It's probably going to be a dad. It's going to be a dad, yeah, exactly. So this is the part I'm still struggling with, this surface level, right? Is all the external. All the things that are going wrong in their lives. And we're saying it is how do you reflect back on yourself and how you're showing up and bringing the energy to that. How can people connect those dots a little more? Exercises outside of what you just said that they can dig a little deeper and get to that next level. Well, one of the things I talk to people about is the narrative. What's the story that you're telling? I usually use this with respect to couples who are struggling in any one area. There's really important. Our thoughts become feelings, right? And those feelings become more thoughts and those thoughts become more feelings. And so we really do have to pay attention to the biochemical conversation that's going on with the brain and the body, all the time. And so if we're having those negative thoughts and we have about 60, 40 to 60,000 of them in the day, it's really tough to keep track of them all. But mindfulness can help us.

00:45:02 - 00:50:00

And we begin to notice, like, oh, I'm actually telling a story in there, kind of in the quiet recesses of my mind. It's not a particularly good one. You know, maybe it's about people that I'm dating, the pool of people that I'm dating, maybe I'm telling a story of how there's just no good dateable people out there. Maybe I'm telling a story about the apps, the apps just are. And I know that you've had an experience thus far. But taking some of our power back with respect to dating and the dating apps might mean looking at the story that I'm telling the thoughts and the feelings that I'm creating around it because we are tuning that fork, as I've said before. Sometimes when you're trying to take control of your narrative, it directly competes with your emotions and for many, it's hard to control the emotions that come up. So something you talk about is the knee jerk response compassionate choice. How do we control or at least deal with the emotions that come up when we're trying to take control of our narrative? So we don't have control. You feel what you feel. And trying to control your emotions. It's like, okay, we just we just don't want to react. That's what mindfulness does. It gets us out of our knee jerk response. To our emotions. So we can get space from them. And we can name them, naming is an age old practice. Buddhist practice of saying, this is what I'm going through. And what that does is it gives us a space from our experience, right? Where we can take that breath and we can kind of go, oh, these are the feelings I'm having. And we can have them. Just I'm feeling frustrated. I'm angry. That's really good information. Underneath the anger, maybe some more sadness or hurt. And so we can process those feelings around that. And not create more of a story that becomes more feelings that becomes more of a story where on that wheel. And now we're getting that sense of we're actually gaining more control. I said we didn't have any control or we shouldn't try to control them. We just have your feelings. So let yourself have them, but not attached to them, if that makes sense. Yeah, no, it definitely does. I think that it's like the first step is identifying them because sometimes when we stuff them down, that's when they just show up. And yeah, they go out sideways. Exactly. And that's like how it shows up on a date all of a sudden you're coming off super angry in the dates. Exactly. And you're wondering why no dates ever go past the third day, right? So we always tell people, how would you describe dating to a friend? And then see what words kind of come up for you. Let's say it is more negative based. Sometimes it's not as easy as just being like, okay, now make it positive. What are some ways that people can reframe that narrative in a way that is serving them? Because I really believe wholeheartedly that just focusing on the negative aspects and bitching to your friends really doesn't do anything. No, there's a narrative therapy, there is a practice of retelling the story. And to begin to populate that story with gratitude. With gratitude, what are you grateful for in this process? What are you grateful for in yourself? What are you grateful for that you bring to the table? And I don't mean just sort of this laundry list of things like, you know, I'm a good person and no, it's feel into what it is you bring to the table. You can really feel it. Let there be a shift within you. When you start practicing that gratitude and then notice how it begins to change the story about how you show up and the person that you are and all of a sudden you're like, wait, no, this person gets to be with me. Coming to the table with that. And like I'm a pretty amazing person. I'm making room in my special life for you. That's kind of a cool place to come from. You know, and I'm having to constantly remind people when I see these wonderful and awesome amazing people that are willing to do the work. My listen to my phone is the last one they want to call. It's usually the door they least want to walk through. And so when they come to the door, I'm like, look at all that you've done in your life and who you are. They pass over it in part because they're having this not so great experience in dating as an example. And so this is me reminding and I'm not just putting a silk out in a cell here. I'm saying, you are an amazing human being in a lot of ways. And you've just sort of forgotten that and at least in this area. Yeah. I think that's a really important thing to note. I'm glad you brought that up because I do think we forget. We almost have amnesia of all the things that have gotten us to where we are and especially when things aren't going well. We get fixated. And I remember when I was doing therapy, my therapist kind of had me map out the last years of my life and what was going on in them and kind of disproved certain stories like at one point it was. I'm not a relationship person. That's a narrative. Yeah, and she was like, have you actually been trying to get into a relationship? No, you moved across the country. You've been focused on work. It doesn't mean anything about yourself. So are there other ways that you kind of help guide people too to be like, it's not a reflection of who I am.

00:50:00 - 00:55:00

It's more of just an instance that could be happening. Well, look, again, this comes down to let's recognize the apps as an example are there. They're there to help us. They're there to facilitate when we start taking the information personally and beginning to film form a story about that. And then maybe like that sort of infiltrate how you feel about yourself, we can't do that. We have to get space from that from that app and from that experience and say, okay, and then you can start asking questions like, what is the story I'm telling? And again, I what part of me is showing up. You know, as a part of me that doesn't want to be vulnerable. Is there a part of me that's scared is there a pair of part of me that doesn't feel worthy of connection? What are my experiences from the past of sort of influencing this? And so there's a reason why these parts are showing up when they're showing up. And it's information and perhaps something that needs to be looked at something that needs to be healed, compassion that needs to be given to yourself. And so we take all that apart, then perhaps we can kind of come at them a little bit differently. And what would you say to the other cohort of daters who are who think they're the shit already, who think they're quite a catch who are like, I am very accomplished. I can list all of my accomplishments. It's the other people who don't measure up to what I'm looking for. And something that we found that's very interesting because we have a finding your person program. And we do these group calls within the program. And a lot of the daters in this program have a very negative narrative when it comes to dating. But when we ask them to recall the positive times they've had dating, all of a sudden, they're like, oh, I totally forgot about this awesome date I've had with someone or this great mini relationship I had. So that's one technique we found has helped is to recall the positive. What are some other ways that how would you speak to this cohort of people who are just like, there's just nobody good enough for me. Nobody good enough for me. Well, you know, that again, that comes to, I feel, I would dig into like, what are you protecting yourself from with this sort of precipice that you've put yourself on, that too is a way to guard yourself against vulnerability? And I think it was brene Brown who said, vulnerability is the cradle of all the things that we want to experience in the world, right? It's also one of the things we fear the most. I mean, you're asking me to give my heart over to someone who may or may not show up tomorrow, may die, may choose somebody else. This is a lie. And so this is just another technique. And so I wonder what would happen if we gave a little grace and a little space, perhaps, and some generous assumption to some of these people that you've opted out to have actually saw someone today in my practice. I have to say that does just this thing and I'm not outing her. She's totally down with understanding that her checklist is too strict and that she's protecting herself through the strict checklist of and ultimately so there's no one right. Here's a good example. I had an actor in my practice years ago and she would say she would say, well, you know, I can't date anyone in acting because they're all insane. And I can't date any civilians because they don't understand our business. Who's left? Who do we have? Nobody. Nobody. I think being protecting yourself from the vulnerability of connection. It's definitely a self protection mechanism because you can't be rejected if you don't ever put yourself out there. If you're always the one rejecting first, right? One of the challenges that a lot of the daters that we talk to have is with modern dating, I mean, yes, we're not going to blame modern dating culture as a whole, but there is some shit that comes with it, right? There's feeling disposable and people ghosting and relationships not getting off the ground. And sometimes this little trauma, a little tea trauma that people experience as a compounds over time, it can make them almost reluctant to date again because either they're afraid it's going to happen again and maybe it's the opposite that they almost become like they're worse critic opposed to taking any accountability. How would you speak to these people? Like how can they reframe their narrative in a way that allows them to take accountability, but also not be like, I suck, I'm doing everything wrong. It's my fault. I tend to go to parts and is there an aspect of you that can kind of well, and Buddhism, we have the middle ground, right? And it sounds like we were kind of hitting either posts, either I'm amazing and awesome, and I can't date or I'm just terrible and I can't date. You're a human being. It's good to find the aspects of you that are also an amazing, but I think we start looking at that narrative that story that they're telling. And it's like, as their therapist start pointing out, you're really going down and not so great road. Is this your inner critic that's come up. So again, I come back to what part of you meets the dating world. It's so great when we can start doing a little roll call in there and saying, oh, here's my inner protector.

00:55:00 - 01:00:07

Here's my wounded child who doesn't feel like they're enough and feels desperate for connection. Here's my inner critic that thinks everyone's terrible, including me. And so what we ultimately find through this inner roll call is the wise enough self the good enough self shows up. The inner roll call. Well, that's. I just made that up. I just made that up in this moment. Another first on our show. Yes. I love it. In a roll call, so would you say, would it be a good practice for people to write down all of their inner voices? And when these kind of thoughts come up, you can just name exactly who is that? Who is that? So I imagine in mind my inner roll call happens in a house that I don't own yet in Kauai or maybe in Costa Rica. And there's this big table and all my parts to get a spot. And I start to get to know the different aspects of me that show up in my life. And so I kind of know who they are, and I'm like, oh, I know who that is. And this is where that mindfulness piece kicks in. And so we get a sort of a sense of flavor and an ear for the different thoughts and feelings that come up rather than being in a mood or any of that. We can say, oh, this is that part of me that just tends to show up around this. Really great information. It's compartmentalization of the mind one O one. In these different aspects of our brains, we have certain skill sets that other aspects of our brains don't have. Let's hold that thought for a few messages from our sponsors. Have you ever thought about how much better dating would be if you had a whole army of people supporting you along the way? We know that dating can be frustrating and lonely, but it can also feel fulfilling and fun. Have you recently decided you want to make some changes to your love life? Maybe you've recently reentered the dating scene. Maybe you've gone on one too many dates that went nowhere, or maybe you're just ready to take your current relationship to the next level. That is exactly why we created the sounding board, a true extension of our podcast that delivers a personalized experience, which includes monthly office hours where you can drop in and chat with us about anything. Weekly sound offs with guided discussions and regular virtual happy hours, allow Julie and I to become your dating sherpas to provide real-time guidance and wisdom in a more intimate way so we can all navigate dating and relationships together. Join the sounding board today by going to dateable podcast dot com slash sounding board. Again, that's dateable podcast dot com slash sounding board. I love this parts of myself because this happens all the time is I have wonderful friends that were like, why do they struggle with dating so much, you know? They're such easy to talk to, lovely people, and also in some of our listeners that we've talked to in our program. They seem like such great catches. Yeah, like how could this person not be just killing it? Right. And I think a lot of it is like how are you showing up dating? We're not physically on the dates of people. So we don't know. And I think it's been hard to put a name to that. And I think sometimes I've thought a bit more black and white of like, oh, this is like your friend sulfurs is your date self. But I really like what you're saying is you have multiple parts of you in some may be triggered in some aspects and not in others. And it's really important to take that inventory because it may not be all or nothing, but we may not be showing up in the way that reflects our best self. I can't tell you how important that is. I almost failed my licensing exam precisely for this reason. It's true. You think of these parts of us are like your cell phone. And I'm the first person that said this, but you know, you have these apps. If you're in your Instagram app as an example, can you send an email? No, you can't. So if you're in a particular part of yourself that you would like to be open, gregarious and connective, but you're in a shutdown protective part of yourself because of the vulnerability you're experiencing on this date or in this connection with this person, you're going to have quite the opposite experience, right? From connection, information exists in some parts of your brain that doesn't others. And again, I almost failed my licensing exam because I was so freaked out by the idea of this 400 question multiple choice test, and though I had done amazing work in my grad program, as I was taking the practice exams, I was failing miserably and I couldn't understand why until this part's then came up and came back online and I said, oh, it's the part of me that's showing up to the exam. I don't even have to study anymore. I just have to make sure that my parts are. And so we can through practice through mindful practice, begin to learn to shift parts like we shift a suit of clothes. Sometimes in the people that I help through the process of dating, they'll be fine in the beginning, right? And that's their first three, four, 5, 6 states, and then all of a sudden, it's like, I like them a lot. And then all of a sudden, they're like, and it's going off the rails, right? What do I do now? And I'm like, okay, it's your part, it's your part. You are in this calm cool collected part, and now this little person in you that wants to know that their love that they're safe that they're this part is now coming up, and we have to take care of that part.

01:00:07 - 01:05:01

And now all of a sudden they're micromanaging everything that they're doing and saying, and it's like, okay, let's just look at who's showing up. How do you do that? It's probably not that easy. But how do you do that? Let's say you're on a date. You realize the part of you that is showing up is the easily irritated, just got off work, had a fight with your boss part. And you like to shift back to your playfulness part. How would you make that shift? It would be like the first step to do. Well, noticing. And naming. And I have a full on dialog with these guys in here. Trust me. Luckily, I lived in New York City where that was okay. You know, I could go down the street. Yeah, talking to myself. Yeah. So that's your acting side, coming through, right? You're using it. And I'm like, I see you. I know what you're doing. I see you. I know what you're up to. And so I get separation because I've named it. And so taking a break, running into the bathroom, you're about to take this call. Whatever it might be. But it's really a negotiation. And you want to have done some preliminary work and know a little bit about this prior to this date. But you can. You can learn to do that. I do it. I know that like what I'm going to step out on stage and I'm talking in front of a group of people. I have to stop. I have to push pause and I say, who's here? What part of me is here? Oh, there's a part of me that oddly enough, I hate public speaking. I have an inner fraud that likes to come up and make myself small. And I have to say, hi, how are you? Love you so much. You're amazing at some other things, not this. I'm going to need you to step aside. And so this is actually this negotiation is done in IFS, which is internal family systems theory, which says that there's an internal family of parts within all of us. And that negotiation is really important aspect, one that we always scale out of a skip. And our parts want to be recognized oddly enough. They want to be seen. They want us to know, because look, they're trying to get our attention for some reason, especially when we get into a wounded children, all that kind of thing. And we can talk about that at the time. But yeah, negotiating with that part, naming it and saying, I see you. I know what you're up to. And I'm going to need you to step aside because I want this other aspect of me to show up. And you'd be surprised like the difference when you just do that. I think that's so big. And I think the separation, especially coming from work to date, is women, especially, I think. Sometimes we feel bad because it's like, oh, I can't let my work side be the date side or whatever. Depending on your job too. Yeah, exactly. And I think from what you're saying though, it's not that it's bad to show a different side. It's just Tapping into another side that maybe more in line with what you're doing at that exact moment. And it's not right or wrong. I think it's an imperative. I think it's an absolutely can you imagine being able to move through your life that mindful and aware like, oh, I'm stepping into this scenario. And it would be great if this aspect of myself were present. I can't tell you how many times I've been talking to my wife and she's turned to me and said, am I paying for this hour? Because yeah. I'm good. I have a therapist. Right. There's that's definitely happened to me before. I remember with my old roommate, I was like, you're now talking to me like you talk to your 5th grade students and not appreciating it that much. Don't get me started about my lawyers, the lawyers in my practice, right? And like, oh, you're wondering why your partner feels like they can never win an argument or get their feelings. Oh, God, yeah. Counselor, you keep showing up and you're litigator. Well, I guess we've been talking about dating, but let's shift over to relationships and couples. Is that something you would recommend for couples to do is to call each other out on which part. That's coming out. Listen, my protector part, my wife calls him Mitch. Okay. Literal name. Literally, yeah. He literally named it. If you could do it and have fun with it. It's fun. And it's actually really helpful for me because she'll say, it's feeling a little mitchy in the neighborhood today. I would do a sweetie. She'll rub my back and I'll be like, I am fine, leave me alone. It's a call to mindfulness, right? Because she's there, and she's noticing. And so I'll say that. And she'll say that and I'll be like, she's right. I can feel it. Like that part of me was really good at dealing with bar fights and the CD joints I worked at in New York, not a great partner, oddly enough, not a great dad. And so, you know, I want to make sure I'm aware where that part of me is that part that it was charged with protecting me throughout the rough times in my life. It's good to make sure in my relationship. If we're having a back and forth and we're not getting, we're not coming to terms on any one thing. Maybe we're having a little argument. I don't want that guy showing up. I'll hear him whispering in my ear. He'll be like, no, you get to say this. Okay, I'm not saying that. No, but you heard what she said you get to say this now. I'm not saying it because I know where it goes.

01:05:03 - 01:10:02

So is this a lifelong practice then? Like from all stages of relationships. You start moving through your life where you are in a more mindful and aware way. You get to be really present for your work for your family extended and otherwise for new possible partners in your life. And you get to be really present for yourself. You really get to know yourself in an extraordinary way. I'm so curious about how this can be put into practice. So I'm going to ask you, Julie. What are some of the parts that you have within you that you've seen come out? I mean, I definitely think I have multiple parts. Well, you definitely do. Like a cheesy sentimental side that maybe my partner sees more than we're colleagues for instance. Maybe more of sarcastic side that could come out on this podcast or maybe more of a type a personality that comes out when I'm getting work done. Playful side. I think I have a many different sides and sometimes I've actually had this thought before that am I not being my true self with someone because I might show one side with certain people over others and then I've come to the realization that that's actually not true. I just do have multiple sides to my personality and it's not that one is one person knows me better than the other. It's just that different people kind of bring out different sides of me and different situations too. Different people, different situations will trigger different aspects of self and it becomes a real curiosity for me as to why. So would you say that you're never not yourself then? I would say you're not you're never not some aspect of self. Oh, that's interesting. You may not like the aspect that comes up. You may not love it and that's your work. What about like if you are actually feeling inauthentic though? You know how sometimes you can be like, oh my God, I just feel fake. Just come out of my mind. Why are you saying that? Yes, there's some part of you that's up that is feeling probably insecure. Needing or wanting something and I'm going to guess I'm going to go right to a wounded younger child part. That's funny, 'cause the T, I just rewatched the TV show insecure and she always says really awkward things that aren't hurt and it's always in mobitz. She feels insecure, basically. I guess UAL turned it to you, but what about you? What are different parts that you could identify with? I think because I've been working from home so much, many parts have shown up in my relationship with my partner and he's starting to see so many different layers. I am an only child, I thought for a long time I was able to hide that pretty well, but the only child me does come up, I call her Susie. She's just like, so fucking annoying. But she's the girl that needs attention. She's a girl that thinks the world revolves around her. She is just the center of the universe. And I hear her. And then I have this other side of me, which is Susie dressed up in big girl clothing. So like the impostor syndrome side of me, where I feel like I'm in authentic in the way I speak to adults. And try to bring credibility to myself. It just feels like I am reading off someone else's resume and the third aspect or the third part of myself I see quite a bit is the nurturing compassionate older woman who just wants to solve people's issues. So the three are conflicting and it's really interesting when one comes up one leads and then the other two kind of want to battle it out to be in the forefront. I wonder what sides of you to come out when you lock horns with your partner when the rubber hits the road and things are a little bit tough and you're having tough you're having difficult communications because it's my theory and I outline this in the book that we don't actually have communication problems that people will call me and they'll say we have communication problems and I say you don't and they get frustrated and I'm like, no, I was there we do and I'll say no you communicated that you have command of the English language. You said that just fine. I understood everything. Well you have as a parts problem. So I'll draw a Venn diagram two circles intersecting. And I'll say, okay, here's your partner and all the parts are in here. The X's and the O's. And we have this little almond. It's the conversation, whatever it is. It's really important who shows up in there, because if you show up in a part of yourself that's like your inner critic or your warrior weapons hot self, it's like trying to send an email from your Instagram. You don't have the skills to connect. So we can use all the I statements we want. What I think I heard you say through the wrong part turns to what I frigging heard you say really quickly. So true. You know what makes dating so challenging? This was kind of just a lightbulb moment for me is that we don't know the other person's minds at all. We're only seeing the snapshot of that about one hour. Like you were saying Lara that your wife can call you on a different part.

01:10:02 - 01:15:03

If you meet someone for a drink for one hour, you can't call them on a different part. That's who you think they are as an entire human being. But maybe what I do, I stand back and kind of let people reveal themselves and notice like, oh, okay, so this is what's happening for them in this moment. Like you can see if they're nervous or they're saying things that are kind of out of left field or they're trying to be cool. It's like I'm going to be sure that I want to meet you on this first date or second date. I'm probably meeting your agent, but not the real you. But I think that's mindfulness. I think that the fact that you are mindful allows you to make that connection where a lot of people are at the surface level, still blaming the app, still blaming the other people, doing all the things that aren't themselves or understanding how people operate. And in that case, it was just walk away and being like, well, that was a Dodge. That person sucked. Opposed to being having the mindfulness that you were just saying, I think that can actually help you on dating too, 'cause it can say like maybe this person. Like, what is the good that I could see in this person, even if it wasn't a 100% home run that could make it that the next date is totally different than this one was. If I'm seeing that date through my inner critic, I'm kind of like, oh God, that was terrible. But if I stand back and I get into my wife, I can say, you know, it was a first date and maybe I can give him another chance because look, we all show up to these in the various ways that we do. And it wasn't their best go. Talk shot, and move on. But yeah, it is this way of looking at the parts of us that show up. Not only does it have to give us compassion for ourselves, perhaps, perhaps compassion for the other person. If we have all these different parts that show up at different times, what is the through line that defines who we are so that we are not like multiple personalities, but it is still us just different parts of us. So you think about there's a seat of consciousness that sits here within all of us, right? And here's the fun part. The wise self, the soul, if you will, does not care who shows up because it's all grist for the mill, right? Like you're going to get the lesson or a lesson. No matter who shows up. But when we stand back in that witnessing wise self and we say, okay, I see that this is part of me wants to come up because I'm nervous about this data. This is the third date we've checked a lot of really great boxes. And I don't want it to screw up. I just want this to go well. So this other part of me shows up. We start naming and doing that in our roll call. Again, what happens is the wise self takes over. That part of us that is wildly compassionate and empathetic and understanding for other people and oneself. And that's important not to leave yourself in the compassion. There has been so much about this conversation that has blown my mind, which is in the best way possible. And I think like to go into some of our takeaways, I think I started off this conversation, having the feeling that I still do, that the easy way out is to blame the external or to blame other people. In the hard work is looking at yourself. But I think what I've learned from this too is that, yes, it's work. It's definitely work to look at yourself and to take accountability, but it also can be great fun if we start to look at it as what side of myself is coming out right now. What part am I showing? What is this bringing up for me? It's almost like this game of clue in the mystery that we're solving of what is the curiosity that I can use every opportunity to get to know myself better because that is the only variable that matters at the end of the day. If you are now in a relationship, maybe you're not using dating apps anymore, but there will be something else that you can blame. There's never going to be a shortage of things that you can blame, but at the end of the day you are the only person that you have control of is yourself and the only things that really can shift is how you're showing up to certain circumstances. So using all the tools and the methods that you gave today, I think is probably the number one thing people can do. It's we see that people spend all this time updating their profile. It's not your profile. It is you in the nicest way possible. And doesn't that give you so much more power and so much more standing, right? It feels so solid. Often we feel like when we stop blaming those things that we're giving up. Right. And really what you're doing is you're taking the higher ground you're taking that road less traveled. I think we need to also ask ourselves, what are we getting out of blaming certain aspects? Because I think sometimes misery just likes company and people like to bitch, but if we actually say, what am I getting out of looking deeper at myself in, I mean, it's almost like endless when you start to unravel that. I feel like we all had revelations even on this interview. So I think hopefully our listeners are digging deeper into those different questions that you brought up at the very start or even just like the different parts that we kind of named.

01:15:03 - 01:20:01

I'm sure people can name a zillion parts within themselves. Yeah, I love that. I was just still blown away by our little revelation that maybe we are always our most authentic self. It's just that there are some parts of us that we like better than others. I think there's been so much pressure from society to just be yourself, just be your authentic self, all those Instagram memes, like just be authentic, many people feel a little bit lost in what that means. Who am I? Know that you are always being yourself and now you have a choice in choosing which part of yourself you want to be more of. I love this idea that we have this inner roll call we have these different parts and one takeaway for me and for our listeners is that I think we can start observing that even more and start naming those parts. So you know how you feel when you are in the Susie part for me or in this other part like surely Julie, I'm going to call your what was your cheesy side? I'm going to call her Shirley 'cause I just love that name. You just love calling. It's an inside joke. So that never call me Shirley. For all back to season one. I was having my own internal joke. I love it. I love it. A third on our podcast. Three people with three different internal jokes happen, simultaneously. But what is it that we feel when we're in that part? So when we observe those feelings, we can choose which part we want to bring out more. I think that is the most empowering part of all of this is that we can choose what we want to show more of. I think just knowing that we're multi dimensional and the people we date are multi dimensional too. I know like on a subconscious level, we all know that, but I don't think we always bring that out onward dating. And it kind of goes back to what we were talking about earlier and we were almost even victim of this too that we're like there's kind of two ends of the spectrum, the people that blame themselves, the people that blame others and maybe you can be both. Maybe there's certain situations that you do go to the external and sometimes you go to the internal and are a little too much of your own critic and same for the people on the dates. I love this of like can we take a step back and just recognize that this person is showing up on a date, dates are inherently uncomfortable sometimes. Can we give this person the benefit of the doubt in modern dating people just do not give enough benefit of the doubt? And of course there's a difference of giving too much that you get taken advantage of, but there's also not giving someone a shot and giving them a chance to develop something. And also for our listeners, this is great date talk. I mean, forget about like, where do you where did you grow up? How many siblings you got? How about like show me your inner roll call? Who lives in you? And know that the second date may bring out something different because maybe you bring out a different part of you that would cause them to bring out a different part of themselves too. So I love this because there's something very actionable here. I think so often we jump to the negative when someone says maybe it is you, right? Like there's something wrong with you. That's where our minds go. But I think if we could reframe it to what we're saying today, maybe it is you. But what side of you and let's figure out how the sides of you that really are make you freaking awesome can come out more. That's when dating falls into place. Sure does. This has been such an interesting conversation. We're so glad that we had you join us. Can you tell everyone where they can find your book? Right, yeah. So it's the practice of love by lair torrent. And I say that because there's a couple other things named the practice of love. So if you look it up on the Internet and maybe take you to the wrong place, but it's on Barnes and noble dot com. It's on Amazon. And it's also Roman and littlefield, which is my publisher. Awesome and we will also link it in the show notes. Thanks so much. It's been such a great time having our being here with you guys. Thank you so much. Thank you. So we're going to wrap this up now before we do that for all of our listeners. The part of you we loved shows up is the part that gives us a review in Apple podcasts. That part, we love that part is great a part that you should bring out all the time. So we really appreciate those reviews, especially when we get those 5 stars. We get very giddy. All right. And now we can finally wrap up this episode. Debatable. The dateable podcast is part of the frolic podcast network find more podcasts you'll love at frolic media slash podcasts. Want to continue the conversation? First, follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter with the handle at dateable podcast. Tag us in any post with a hashtag stay dateable and trust us. We look at all those posts. Then head over to our website dateable podcast dot com. There you'll find all the episodes as well as articles, videos, and our coaching service with vetted industry experts.

01:20:01 - 01:21:27

You can also find our premium Y series where we dissect, analyze, and offer solutions to some of the most common dating conundrums. We're also downloadable for free on Spotify, Apple podcasts, Google Play, overcast, stitcher radio, and other podcast platforms. Your feedback is valuable to us, so don't forget to leave us a review. And most importantly, remember to stay dateable. Enjoy basketball soccer, and all your favorite sports like never before at bet MGM. Sign up using bonus code champion and your first wager is risk free up to $1000. Plus, when you register with bet MGM, you'll get instant access to a variety of parlay selection features. Live betting options. Player props, and daily boosted odd specials, download the bet MGM app today or go to bet MGM dot com and enter bonus code champion and place your first wager risk free up to $1000. Now you're winning with the king of sports books. Visit bet MGM dot com for terms and conditions. 21 years of age or older to wager. Washington D.C. in Virginia only. New customer offer all promotions are subject to qualification and eligibility requirements. Rewards issued as non withdrawable free bets or site credit, free bets expire 7 days from issuance. Please gamble responsibly, gambling problem call one 805 two two 4700.

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