S15E14: I Choose Myself w/ Deepti from Love is Blind

00:00:01 - 00:05:08

The dateable podcast is an insider's look into modern dating that The Huffington Post calls one of the top ten podcasts about love and sex. On each episode, we'll talk to real daters about everything from sex parties to sex droughts, date fails to diaper fetishes and first moves to first loves. I'm your host UA shoe, former dating coach turned dating sociologist. You also hear from my co host and producer Julie Kraft chick as we explore this crazy dateable world. Hi Friends, welcome to another episode of the dateable podcast. We are, I don't know. I'm out of words for excited ecstatic. We are intrigued by this week's episode. Let's just say that. We're intrigued, because the question we want to answer is love blind. What do you think, Julie? Well, what a loaded question, especially after watching season three that just wrapped last week. I don't want to give too many spoilers. I know you ate your only 5 in, but I feel like, okay, so deep D who we have as a guest today. I feel like she was a legend. I love his flight. I mean, I think season one, Lauren and Cameron. We're just like that couple. People are always people say there's my favorite thing about love is blind is watching it, but then going to TikTok and watching all people's reactions. Like my partner and I will lay it bed and watch tiktoks. It's so entertaining. But there's a lot of people that are like, I feel like love is blind with solely created for Lauren and Cameron to meet each other. Because all the couples after have been kind of a train wreck. And I think it's interesting because season one, there were definitely some love stories that are still persisted. Season two, not so much. They're all divorced at this point. Okay, I'll re answer this question. I feel like the part about love is blind that I think is too much is like getting married barely knowing each other, but that actually isn't love is blind. I think the concept of building an emotional connection in letting that side overtake the physical is actually really healthy and dedicating that much time to actually form your connection. We talk about in modern dating, we just don't give each other enough time. I think love maybe love is not so much blind, but connection can be blind. You don't need to see the other person. And the only reason why I know that is because I had a pen pal, I was so in love with when I was in junior high. Remember when pen pals were a thing? This came to me because someone started this pen pal chain. So when you get it, you send you have a list of addresses, which is also kind of creepy that would never happen today. The list of addresses and then you send a letter to the next person. On the address list and then you become pen pals and you are supposed to be friends. I did that too, yeah. You did that too, right? Yeah. Now I'm wondering, how do people get these addresses? Is there a price to see issues? They just send emails now, probably. It's like not even Stella. And we were all kids at the time. Oh, there is some major privacy issues and safety issues there. But at the time it was so great, right? Yeah, so you fell in love with your pen pal. Okay, so granted you were in junior high. Junior high. Had you bid told? Okay, now I have to marry this person. Barely seeing them. How would you Julie? I would have said yes. I pictured her life with this person. Never saw a picture. His name. There was no Google at the time. There was nothing. No information about this person other than just our correspondence over snail mail. I would have been like, hell yeah. I think it's so interesting watching love is blind. I know it's a reality TV show, but I do think you're captures the essence of so many daters. And I love we had our past guest doctor Diane. She's very popular on Instagram and she actually like dissects all the love is blind characters because she's a therapist and I feel like a lot of them what I'm watching. I'm like, I wish you were listening to date apple because you're just diving into stuff, deep deep, I think in my opinion was still the standout character, even another season deep, no pun intended. And we had been talking about this for a while. We're like, if we were to pick one person from love is blond, who would it be? And I remember doing this in our sounding board group and having this topic and everyone was like deep deep. The reason for that is that she sent just such a strong message of I choose myself. You know, we're going to go into deep cheese story fully, but for anyone that's unaware, she was just at least the way it was portrayed and I think what she found out more after was she was not treated well by who she was with. Like he was talking a lot of shit about her saying he wasn't attracted. Things that were very hurtful, especially when you think that you're building a connection with someone. You think you're in love with this person. Yeah, and like on this season, there was the same dynamic happening in coal, and I'm not going to give too much away for you, UA, because I'll just say the finale and the reindeer, there's some shit that goes down with that.

00:05:10 - 00:10:00

Yeah, I mean, I'm sure we already had like a spoiler in our Facebook group and probably for most of you that are like die hards. You've already seen it, but for you a sake, we'll go into it too much. I'm gonna just say she did actually what was interesting. She did put up a post about all the shit that happened. And she made a comment that actually her and deep these weddings were only a week apart even though they aired the season. Wow. Years later. So she didn't know that the same kind of storyline played out for deep D. I'll just say it was handled in a very different way. I'll just leave it at that. But yeah, I think the part about love is blind that's can be really painful as it sets you up to connect on this emotional level. But we all know that attraction does play in to some degree, right? Or it just becomes platonic and I think it's really hard when people can't reconcile between the two in its on TV. What I loved about deep D was she caught my attention on the very first episode before even the little shake thing went down. I just looked at my screen and I was so drawn to her because I was thinking, this is a strong, confident woman. But the show just proves even a strong confident woman can still be blindsided by someone because when your emotions are involved. You become vulnerable to something like that. And that is okay. I think that's more of the message. It's not like, oh, even a strong ass woman can be can be tricked by an asshole. No, it's possible, and that is okay, and we can move from that. As long as you recognize that you were mistreated and she was terribly mistreated from what we saw, it's really bad what Sheik said about her. And if I had known what my partner said about me, I would be so hurt. The way she handled it with so much grace and so much empowerment you're like, yes, deep, deep. And that's why we are so happy to have her on our show. But do you remember, okay, even in real life this happened. Do you remember I'm not gonna say Dave, 'cause I'm not gonna out people, but there was a guy that UA and I knew that was with his girlfriend and he would talk about her all the time. And I'm like, this is terrible. I can not think of anything worse than your partner behind your back talking about how crazy you are or annoying or how they're not attracted to you, like all of that, it's just so hurtful and I'm sure she didn't know the extent of it. Are they still together? I don't know. I think they are. That was horrible. I remember you and I were like this is just so bad, stop. Like you look like an asshole at the end of the day. You're the one that looks like an asshole. If you are acquaintances with the girl and you hear her boyfriend, talking shit about her, what would you do? Would you tell? Because if I were the girlfriend, I feel like I would want to know, but what I want to know from someone I didn't know very well, I mean, I didn't feel like we knew her that. We knew him more than her, and we barely knew him. He wasn't close friend of ours. I would never go up to her and say something. Even though yeah, if theory, I would want to know because the best thing you can do is choose yourself. We're talking about today. But at the same time, how do you have that conversation, even with a close friend? I feel like it would be a really hard conversation. It's so hard because it would be so hurtful. It's almost worse than telling someone their partner's cheating on them. It is. It's like emotional cheating in a way. Not with another person, but just deception and the way that it's going down. I mean, I think choosing yourself. It doesn't have to be so drastic either. I'm thinking back on my life and I definitely had to choose myself moment, especially in my past relationship for anyone that's been with us for a bit. Over the pandemic, we kind of gave it that we're either doing this or we're not. And I remember I went into that totally different that I had. This was an on again off again relationship that had gone on. Since 2015, so we dated for like a year in 2015 and then just 16 and then after that, it was kind of a cycle. And it was, you know, I still think highly of him as a person. He wasn't a bad person. You just had a lot going on in his life and I put him first. I definitely put him first. And I was like, oh, this needs to get fixed, but once it does, we can be together and happy at all this stuff, but I wasn't thinking about myself and like, I'm just like, at someone's mercy of them fixing things that I have no control of. That isn't really what I want. And I definitely had that moment of, this isn't the relationship I want. This isn't the way I want to be with someone. And ultimately ended it because I got to the point of choosing myself. And I actually think that set me up for my current relationship because the way I went into dating was just so different.

00:10:00 - 00:15:01

Like I wasn't thinking about this if the people liked me or how do I make it work with someone that's not showing up as much as I am. I was more like, this is what I want and I'm going to look for someone that also wants that with me and it just was a huge mindset shift that really changed my dating trajectory. It's difficult though and I have to commend you for being brave enough to do that because sometimes, you know, you do think, well, the simple things are in order. This person likes me back, I like them, so therefore let's have a relationship. And if it's like kind of rocky sometimes, maybe that's just a relationship, right? It's very easy to think that way. But when you choose yourself, there is actually a third person in the relationship, and that's you, and you think, okay, do I choose this other person, which is me, or do I choose to be with this partner? It's a very hard crossroads to be. We're so taught in the society to not be selfish, selfish is such a terrible, negative connotation to it, but I think it's making a comeback because being selfish means prioritizing yourself so that you can give fully to the people around you. And if you put other people before you and you haven't given it to yourself fully, it's not fair to anybody in your life. Yeah, I mean throw back to our episode last season we did with confident collective podcast with Christina and rayan. I think that one was all about this. It was like, how do you put yourself first, but what's the difference of being selfish? And I think we're socialized, especially as women, hetero women, just the way kind of the patriarchy is with relationship to men. We've been socialized to kind of be like, oh, we'll just do what you need in a way. And it feels wrong to put ourselves first because of the way relationship dynamics were, which under rules, but that's not the world we live in anymore. And we do need to put ourselves first. We also have this tendency, a lot of us, we balance multiple people's needs. It's not just catering to another person. And I recently faced this because I'm like trying to rearrange some travel plans. And I'm trying to please everyone that would be affected. And then I sat myself down last night and asked myself, what would you want? What is your ideal travel? Let's go from there. And it was very refreshing, deepti was in the back of my mind going, choose yourself. What do you want? What would make you happy? Because I realized if I had tried to please everyone, I actually end up pleasing no one. I would come into this itinerary probably feeling tired or resentful and that I wouldn't be able to have a good time with the people that I'm on this trip with. So yes, I think first and foremost, ask yourself, what is it that I want right now? And then you can start thinking about other people's views. I love that because that takes it outside of dating, and to everything. Have you had a time though, indeed, in relationships that you chose yourself that you can recall? Good question. Good question. Yeah, I think saying no. Sometimes just saying no. It's good. I've had times with, I guess not this current partner, but previous partners who've wanted to go out and I would want to please them and want to go out, but I tired, I don't want to be out and I don't want to be at a club. I don't want to be around sweaty people and there was one time I was like actually no, I'm going to stay in and it was very freeing. For both of us, because he's like, great. Now I don't have to cater to you all night. I can go out and have a good time. You have a good time. Sometimes we also think we're pleasing the other person when we're really not. So nobody gets what they want, you know? I really like your example because you know it doesn't have to be a huge declaration of choosing yourself to. It definitely can deep de example the example I gave, but I think it can be these micro moments too of choosing yourself. That's super important. Even in the healthiest of relationships. Yeah, it's boundaries. It's boundary setting and knowing knowing what you want and getting clarity around that. Knowing you're worth knowing your worth it. This episode is so juicy. There's so much in it. I love it. People will take away. I'm still thinking about it. I'm still so happy we got to meet deep D we're going to post a screenshot from our interview with her. She is just as confident in person, but in quotes in person as she was on TV. She's the same person. But quiet confidence. That's what I like about her. It's not like an in your face and you know, she has a book out, which is a big reason why we did this too called I choose myself. So I feel like this is the perfect time to have this conversation. So whether you watch love is blind or not, it almost doesn't matter because this topic relates to everyone. And if you did watch love is blind, it's kind of that cherry on top. Mmm um. Cool. So announcements this week, you know, really we're in the holiday season, the time for giving, which means give us a 5 star review.

00:15:03 - 00:20:02

This really helps us. It helps us get people like deep D, we're really trying to get to the one K mark. We're at about 600, almost at 600, so help us get to 600 and then help us get to one K we know there are so many more people out there that listen that have not left a review like way, way more. Magnified amounts more. We know no one's like, I'm just gonna ride a review. It's either, I know I'm annoyed by something or someone's told me a bunch of times, but here we are telling you a bunch of times and we hope you can give us this favor. It's also the season for giving. So, share this with a friend. I'm sure you have a friend out there that either needs to hear this message or can't relate to this message to even just see how far they've come. Even if you're out of it, you're out of the thick of choosing yourself and you feel like you've made that progress. I know for me just hear again, I'm like, oh my God, it's a reflection of how far I've come. And sometimes we forget how far we've come with dating. We put things in, I'm single. I'm in a relationship, but there's magnitudes between all of it and every day is growth. So let's celebrate that. Let's send it to a friend and follow us on Instagram. So you can see these videos of deep tea at dateable podcast. Okay, let's hear a message from our sponsors. This episode is made possible by Rakuten kobo. Imagine having your favorite bookstore with you, wherever you go, or being able to access over 6 million titles at all times. Download the free kobo app or read through one of their innovative E readers, shop the always open kobo E bookstore, and easily integrate the power of reading into your everyday. With kobo plus an all you can read ebook subscription, you can grow your library by adding as many titles as you like from the kobo plus Reed catalog, all for one low price every month. You have access to all different types of genres with recognizable titles such as the duke and the last by Jesse clever, only one mistake by Natasha Madison, the baker's creek brothers by Claudia burgau, and sexy nerd by Kayleigh loring. Try kobo now free for 30 days, just visit kobo dot com to get started. That's KO Bo dot com. Okay, let's hear it from deep tea all about choosing yourself. Deep deep to say that we're excited, it's an understatement, okay? We've been wanting to get you on dateable for a while, but we know you are doing a lot of press after your season ended. So, you know, we let you do that. But now we get you after your book. Come out, right? You know? We want to know all the developments, but so nice to have you here with us and for anybody who doesn't know deep deep, she is a breakout star from Netflix love is blind season two. She's also the author of the book. I choose myself, this famous three words, 31 years old, lives in Chicago originally from India and pretty single and also been taking a dating a sabbatical. We want to hear about that for sure. Let's give a recap of what love is blind is and your season. Julie, do you want to do the honors? We love the show so much. Sure. Yeah, for anyone that's been living under a rock. Most people probably seen this, but for anyone that didn't love is blind, you basically fell in love with sight unseen and then got engaged. That's the kicker with the whole thing is that you have to get engaged, deep, deep, you got matched up with shake who may have been one of the worst characters I love is blind. I feel like he is definitely kind of the heap, but really what came out is that he was saying all this terrible stuff about you. Like while pursuing a romantic relationship behind your back and ultimately when it came down to the day, do I take this person? You said those three words. I choose myself. I do not choose you. And that is clearly the catalyst. I think we've all been in that situation before where you're dating someone and that respect is just lacking and ultimately that choice needs to be made to date yourself. So I guess we're going to go into the choose it yourself bit. That's a crux of this episode. But from your perspective, we only saw reality TV. Did you know this stuff was going down with shake, or was it a surprise? When did you find out that he was saying all this stuff? Yeah, I think like during filming your emotions are so heightened and just going through that process, I was very invested and it seemed like he was invested right back at me. I mean, I did see the energy shift a little bit when we were in Mexico. I could sense it, but it was really my castmate. Who were giving me hints about how he was talking about me behind my back. And so as we were living in Chicago and continuing a couple of the guys and some of the girls came up to me and were like, I don't know the way he's talking is like not the best. And so they didn't give me like actual specifics. I was just like, okay, well that's kind of weird, but watching the show back and hearing exactly what he said was for the first time. That must be heartbreaking and shocking at the same time.

00:20:03 - 00:25:05

What was he like with you when it was just you two? No cameras. It was fine, honestly. It was very comfortable living with him and that's why it was like kind of odd because we were best friends like we listened to the same music. We had the same type of lifestyles like us you could say and like we were best friends throughout that whole experience, which is why I continue to try to be friends with him after the show aired. I had no idea the specifics around what he had said. And so we kind of fell off naturally as friends. A couple months later, I was like, I don't really want this type of person in my life, but it wasn't until the next year when the show aired everything kind of unfolded. What was the most hurtful to you? That you saw. Honestly, the hurtful stuff didn't even get aired. That was really better edit. I guess you could say, I don't know, but people already hated him from that. I know. Crazy. Yeah, no, it was a tough, I just thought I had a best friend, or at least a friend in him, and you don't talk about women's bodies or degrade them. In any way, and that's just who he is. And I had to set a boundary, don't want that in my life. Nor should anyone have that type of person in your life. You know, looking back, we always say hindsight is 2020. And you're in such a unique position where this is all memorialized on TV. So you can really look back and think, wow, hindsight's 2020. While you were in it though, when we're in these relationships, it's a little hard to not have the blinders on. So when you were in this, did you see any red flags now looking back? I probably should have paused for that a 100%. There's so many moments where, even just even in the pods, asking questions about people's weight, asking people about their dress sizes. Can I carry you on the shoulder? Those are all red flags. But you said the words that I needed to hear in those moments and where he caught himself and he's like, oh yeah, that's not how I should be acting. That's not what I should have said. So for him to show remorse for those comments, made me think, oh, there's potential here. There's depth here, and maybe we can grow together in this process. And silly me, I didn't realize that change takes a long, long time. It can't be done in 6 weeks, absolutely not. And so that's where the regret a little bit comes in, but again, we had to go through it. We had to go through it for our own lessons. We did. So ultimately, you decided to choose yourself, which is the lesson. That's what I think people really resonated with, because like I said, up top, I think we've all been in that situation before, where maybe you don't realize that this person's not treating you the way that they should be and to sign on to a lifelong marriage with them is a lot. Like, what made you decide, okay? I don't want to be with this person. I'd rather go solo than be with this person. There's so many moments where things that he would say are the way that he would act. He didn't make me feel like I was worthy enough. Like just comparing me to his ex-girlfriends or comparing me to somebody on the crew. You know what I mean? It's just like there's certain ways that he would act and say things that would just be degrading. And it's just like, I don't want to be compared to anyone. I know my own worth. And it didn't take me until even a couple months after that to fully fully realize it and understand why I had to go through what I did. So it was definitely a process, but I thought alter, I just knew there's absolutely no chance. In fact, you know, when you get married in the Hindu culture, you get Mandy and you write the initials of your partner's name and the whole fun thing is that he has to find it. And it basically represents how much lock you're having your marriage, whatever else. Well, I decided to put my own name in mind. Wow. Before this ceremony myself, so I knew beforehand, it's not gonna be a thing for me. So, was the altar scene for TV? 'cause I kept thinking, if you saw these red flags kind of beforehand, why did you even go to the altar with him? Yeah, I mean, the whole premise of school is can you make an experiment work? And the whole purpose of that is to see it through. And there was a lot of hope that I was holding out, like by living together by sleeping next to each other by going through all of these emotions and this journey together. Can you grow into love? And it's okay if the physical attraction wasn't there right away. Is that something that you can grow into? I know that thing with my parents having an arranged marriage and doing all that, they grew into their love. And so I think till the very end, I definitely held out hope that he would just wake up and be like, I see what's in front of me. I don't want to miss out. You know, you always have that small amount of hope, but that just never came to fruition. And that's okay. That was just our journey. Like, could you see him being that person for you? Pending he didn't say all these terrible things. Like, was that kind of a part that said I choose myself or were there other parts along the way that you were like, um, maybe I should choose myself? I think there's a lot of moments. I mean, if he was such a bad person, I wouldn't have stayed the entire time. There's only so much you can cope with or be okay with. But we have a really good time together. We had so much fun. We experienced something so amazing, which is why I think all of this is so much more hurtful because while we were enjoying those moments, he was saying things behind my back.

00:25:05 - 00:30:04

And so I think that was the most hopeful part, but for the most part, he told me exactly what I wanted to hear. He was really kind to me. We had a good time. There was red flags, but they weren't so majorly blatant until after the show had aired, and then you just see this spotlight just made him an even worse person. This is really scary, but yeah, and I'm just trying to relate this back to my previous experiences. There's almost a two sidedness to it all. It's like the side that you experience together, which is the truth. That is what you were experiencing. And he even stood on camera, he's like, I am in love with deep deep. I am having a great time with her. And then there's this other side which is like maybe it's your old ways of thinking or the side you're trying to shed. That does come into play in relationships, but for you, what we've observed was you did find a relationship on that show, which is a relationship with yourself. What were you learning about yourself along the way that maybe surprised you? Yeah, just how strong I am. I've gone through a lot in my life, which is why I wrote the book, the majority of the book is about my life leading up to that altar moment and not like spilling tea on love is blind. All the obstacles that I've gone through that have challenged myself worth, like I've always looked in the mirror and hated myself and for a long time I locked so much self worth and I realized that the last two years before going on love is blind, I put in so much conscious effort to make myself better to view myself in a positive way. And here comes this experience where it's challenging me to the core to remember that the opinions of other people don't define your worth. And no matter what others think of you around you, you have to continue loving yourself. And that's why you'll attract the right type of people in the right type of things into your life. So that's kind of what that entire thing has taught me. It's brought me back to, okay, kind of like putting all the lessons I've learned to the test, essentially. Yeah. I want to unpack that a little more because we hear that all the time. It's like we've done all this self work and it may not be the exact same self work, but you got in yourself to a place that you feel good, and then some a hole comes out of nowhere. Really pushes you, right? And I think people can react to that very differently. You could go into a downward spiral, or you can rise above. Can you kind of walk us through what was going on for you. After doing this work and how did you get out of it? Honestly, I have to say after that ultimate moment making that decision wasn't an easy decision. It's not like it was, oh my gosh, like, I choose myself. It's like after you make that decision, that's when you sit with it. That's when you experience the sorrow that that's when you know you're like, okay, I just went through this entire experience. Yes, I feel empowered, but I also feel sad, even making the right sad sometimes. And I did spiral for a little bit. It's like, okay, how do I come back from this where it's like, I have to remember my worth, you have to continuously put effort into it. And I had to do those affirmations again, work on myself, talk about my feelings because most of the time I suppress them as a South Asian woman, it's hard for me to talk about intimacy and to talk about my issues and problems. And so going inward was the first step and then slowly every single day you come out of it in a better mindset in a positive thinking way. And you know, you just get better. It's all about time and acknowledging that something has happened. Let me process, they don't just bury it and be like, okay, cool, I'm okay. 'cause that's when issues really start to arise. And let's really talk about that journey that you've been on because I read this quote recently. It was like, speak to people based on their journey, not based on who they are today. And sometimes we may judge someone in the moment, but we don't realize how far they've come. So I'm curious to know looking at the show now. What would the old deep D have done in the situation? Oh my gosh, I was talking to my sister about this the other day. I think had I gone into that experience just a year before. I think I would have crumbled, like just your work that I did on myself to really put in the effort to just be like, okay, honestly, the affirmations that I do every day have helped me so much as saying. Because I used to have such negative self talk. So I have to consciously make positive self talk. Otherwise, you know, I can kind of spiral again. So doing that and just putting effort into fitness and meditation. And just like getting closer to my family because I feel like I tend to try to find men to kind of fill a void. After 6 years of dating somebody, I had finally been single for like a year and a half and that's when I went and tested her. But yeah, a year before I probably would have been in such a depressive state of mind and just really beating myself up about why can't I be worthy enough? All of those things that you wrap it hold down, that will definitely be released spiraling. Did you ever feel this way? You said that you were in a 6 and a half year relationship? Did you ever feel like unworthy in that or was this a new feeling? No, my entire life I have felt like that, which is why I stayed in that relationship for 6 plus years even though this person cheated on me, even though he was a financially dependent on me.

00:30:04 - 00:35:22

I think I was just so scared to leave because I wouldn't find somebody else like who is going to love me. That's like the mentality I am, which is so sad. It's like, of course you're lovable. You know, of course you're this, you're that. But I just didn't feel good about myself. And so that's why I stayed in that relationship for too long. And so that is not a new thing for me. When I tell you in the last three or four years, I have really transformed my entire mentality. It's been great. I've been this was like the ultimate test for you. I feel like it kind of was a universe throwing you this situation. It's like, have I grown or not? Exactly. Yeah, and just to fill in the blanks for our listeners in case they don't know your entire background. Actually, we don't know your entire background, but from what we've read and heard, you're born in India, you had a major weight gain and weight loss journey as well. You've struggled with identity, struggled with self worth and self image. But what was it about the show that compelled you to say, yes, I want to be on this and be part of this experiment. That is such a good question. We know originally when people started asking me this, I was like, oh, I really wanted to find a unique love story. But in retrospect, like thinking back on it now, I think it's like this experiment was so special to me because my entire life I've been judged by what I've looked like and that has stopped some people from trying to get to know me more. And what a unique, cool experience to go into where someone is getting to know who you are on the inside first before ever seeing you. So the judgment of your physical appearance comes later. Does like that foundation hold up, you know? And so I think it just was really enticing and also super exciting because I'm like, wow, like maybe this is where I'll find a crazy person who also does the same thing shows in the same boat. And I don't mean this in a bad way at all, but I know you just said part of the reason you stayed in the 6 year relationship was low self worth. Looking back in retrospect, do you think there was anything that was kind of drawing you to someone like shake that stem from the past or do you think that was unrelated? You know, that is really interesting. I think about that all the time, but as an empath, I do draw in people that need a little bit of work. I can. Just like a little bit of an eye hole. But honestly, though, in the pods, like people don't understand that we talked for hours, like hours on end. We had so many dates and we called it pretty deep in those states and there was a lot of similarities in our upbringing and the way we thought. I just feel like maybe I've progressed a little bit more than shake has. But I think we project our insecurities onto our partner sometimes. If I don't have the most beautiful person in the room, am I worthy even? That's kind of his mentality a little bit. And again, those are his demons that he has to work on. We connected, but we realized after a lot of time, it just wasn't going to work like our mindsets are completely different. Well, that's the part with reality TV. They don't show you, right? They only show you the clips of shake being like, what's your weight? Can I put you on my shoulder? They don't show all the other stuff. Yes, well, it's mind-blowing for viewers to ask how can you fall in love in such a short amount of time. But the way you're describing it, if all you have to focus on is connection, it must be so easy to fall in love with someone that you already have a connection with. That I totally get. But what we saw with Sheik, which is different than your journey is that when he was brought back to reality, all of the learnings and progress he had made in the pods went out the window because his old self came back. But you deep deep, you just kept evolving and kept moving forward. And that's what I thought caused the divide between you two is that there was no longer growth on his end. But plenty of growth on your end. So I guess I'm not saying like, I don't want to say shake is such a bad person. He was a villain on the show. I'm just saying like, sometimes we just don't evolve at the same speed, and that's when you end a relationship. From your perspective, if you had to do this whole experiment all over again. What is some advice you would give to yourself on that first day of filming? Oh man, don't be so naive. Like I tend to see the good in people all the time and it's like sometimes people are not good. They don't have good intentions and it's like my entire life I've had to learn that the hard way and I don't know what I'm going to ignore the lesson. I don't want to change and not see the good in people I don't want to be different in that way, but yeah, just to be cautious and a little bit naive with your heart. That's what I would say. I think that's such a relatable comment because we hear this all the time. It's like I just see the good in people. We have a friend that recently got majorly taken advantage of. And it's because she sees the good in people and you never want to say stop being that person, but also no one wants to see your friend getting taken advantage or being taken advantage. Like, what are your thoughts for Eddie wood that's struggling with that or even that you've gone through? And I'm recently going through this again and that was another part of the I choose myself thing is being able to be a good person but also setting boundaries for yourself because to be able to say, you know what? I want the best for both of us in this situation, but for my perspective, I can't overextend myself in this way, or sometimes even just going out, you know, sometimes your friends get upset.

00:35:22 - 00:40:05

Why aren't you coming out? It's like, I have to set a boundary for myself. I need to not do that. There's lots of ways that you can kind of choose yourself in that way, but yeah, I would say practicing boundaries and being healthy about it. You can be selfish sometimes. And it's not selfish. It's just self care. Right. And you can say, hey, you know what? I need to take time to comprehend this or understand this and just have downtime so that I can be a better version of myself when I see you next. You know, whatever it takes to kind of I always say it's not what you say it's how you say it and setting boundaries is a big one, especially for me for sure because I'm always like I want people to please, you know. You take on people's feelings too so you want to be there for them. But it can't be at the cost of your feelings and the cost of your mental health. How do you prevent being too jaded then? If you're learning is don't be so naive, you know, you still see the good in people but don't be so quick to see the good in people, then how do you prevent yourself from being that person that's like all men suck. I don't ever want to date I'm going to be alone. See, I think you have to find the balance between that because honestly, there's going to be so many variations of people in situations. I think through meditation, I've really realized how strong my intuition can get. And when you're going through and navigating life, your body and the universe are weirdly like it speaks to you. If you feel uncomfortable in a situation or if something someone said is like irking you, it's something that you need to address. If there's a feeling in you that you get, where you're like, okay, that gives me the ick or, okay, this feels like the right thing to do. And I feel like following that intuition and that gut, along with just having fun and just not taking life too seriously, I think that's kind of what works for me. Yeah, I don't know. What do you guys think? How do you not get chicken? It's a $1 million question. It really is because you have to protect yourself. You have to protect your heart, but you also have to stay open minded to the universe to all the people that you're going to meet. And you can't judge people by the moment you meet them. There's a lot of getting to know each other there. But then it's like, where do you draw the line of, am I giving this person too many chances to I'm just staying open minded? I actually think it comes back to choosing yourself too. And it is a hard line because yeah, you always want to give people the benefit of the doubt, but not too much of the benefit of the doubt. I think it's getting clear on what your needs are, at least for me, when I got super clear on this is what I need in a partner. This is what's important. When people weren't meeting that instead of being like, let me force them to do that, which I did before for many years, I tried to make people who I wanted them to be. It's accepting that's not who they are. There's nothing wrong with them. There's nothing wrong with me. They're just not my person. Let's keep going and finding that person. And I think it's the I choosing myself. It's like I want a relationship that looks like this. Like who's going to be the person that fits that? I'm not going to make someone be it, right? Yeah, you can't fall in love with potential or what you think someone might be for you. And it has nothing to do with you if someone's like, oh, I don't think that person for me. It's like, okay, cool. We're not compatible. Thank you for not wasting my time. And let's be honest, that's why I think we have to let go of expectations in certain relationships or situations and just let what comes come and let what goes go. You know, I think that's kind of a big deal because then if you don't get attached so much to every scenario or every expat yes, it's easier to let go and keep flowing with life. I think the rejection piece is game changing too when you can stop looking at it as rejection. I even your situation just thinking about it. It's hard to let go of someone for no one. You know, it's almost like I'm walking away from this without a person, even if they're not the right person. Like, how did you start to reframe rejection in this? I choose me mentality. Hey, I've had a lot of experience with good to go. Now that we all, yes. That's a good thing. It is. Yeah, and I think most of the time after a rejection, you feel so down on yourself because you're interested and you're like, okay, what's wrong with me? What is it about me that this person doesn't like? And so I think you have to retrain your brain in the moment that you're even having those types of thoughts and you're like, wait, why am I internalizing this? This is an external person's problem. I know who I am as a person. You'd really have to change the narrative in your own head right away. That's what I wanted to do in a high emotional state. It's hard to regulate those thoughts, but I think when you're sitting with yourself, you're like, okay, I understand why I had the slot to give yourself grace and then change the narrative. That's easier said than done. Because when you're pride, ego, feelings are hurt. It's hard to flip the switch on that. But in your example, we saw on TV, we witnessed you turn rejection into an opportunity to thrive.

00:40:06 - 00:45:20

And I think that's kind of the lesson we've learned is that when one door closes, a million other doors open for you. Yes. Not only did you become this breakout star and everyone's saying, I'm choosing myself, but also you are an author now. You can really speak on this platform. You can be almost loud and proud with what you've learned. So I commend you for that and also you're just living proof that rejection is redirection into something that's much more exciting and more fitted for you. Let's hold that thought for a quick message. This episode is made possible by higher dose. I swear every time I leave the spa, I wish I could have a sauna at home. And now I can with a portable infrared sauna blanket by higher dose. You just lay down inside the blanket, turn up the heat and sweat it out at home. It has all the benefits of a large expensive sauna that needs less budget and less space. You just plug it in and begin. The higher do sauna blanket promotes circulation, detoxes the body, helps to burn calories, and it's excellent for muscle recovery. And I personally like the saunas promote glowing skin, improve my mood and help me sleep so much better. You can now get the higher dose infrared sauna blanket for as low as $50 a month through a firm with a 30 day money back guarantee. Get your own today by going to higher dose dot com. You can use the promo code data at checkout to save 15% off that's HIG HER dos dot com and use a promo code dat or just go to higher dose dot com slash dateable to save 15% off. 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 want to go back to this connection piece as we're talking about giving people a chance and falling for the wrong people. I want to talk about this false sense of intimacy in the pods. Because I realize with every season of love is blind, people fall in love based on their similarities. You and shake had the whole, oh, I've never dated an Indian person. You would be my first. And that we come from the same cultural background and then you're like, oh my gosh, me too. The current season is like, I'm really into fitness. Me too, I'm so into fitness. We must fall in love and wear the perfect match. We see that happening in real dating just like people connect based on similarities, but we see that that's not sustaining. Where else do you think people can connect better on? That's outside of similarities. That's a great question. And we had so many questions laid out for us. That's what you see on the back of the book. I'm so interested. It's just like questions that you can ask your person. There's like a theme of the day, whatever else. But I would say it is hard because when you're in such an emotional state, you just connect so quickly and you like the sound of their voice and love what they're saying and then those similarities connect to you. And so again, just like physical intimacy, you tend to forget about the characteristics that you're really looking for in a partner or if you say something like, oh, I'm looking for somebody who's active. I'm looking for somebody who's creative. The other person just naturally tends to be like, oh, I'm not person. Yeah. Yeah, that's me. Yeah, that's me. That's hard to say. Those things, then actually putting it into practice and being those things, right? And so I think sometimes we tend to get ahead of ourselves and we get caught up in the feeling of that similarity, like you said, that familiarity with that person and you ride that wave instead of being like wait. I see this one little red flag. And I know that's going to stop me later, but I'm going to ignore it right now. Yeah, I think it comes down to the way we date is not going to choose myself mentality. I want to be chosen mentality. And that's exactly why it's like, oh, I'm a little active. You're a little active. Great. I could be active now. Yeah, like looking for someone that reads like half marathons. And you're like, well, you know, I walk around the block, I'm clearly active. What does it mean? But I think that's because we don't want to be rejected. We want our self worth to be defined by this other person and what it sounds like you've made the jump to and I really think this is the key of dating is to find that within yourself or within loved ones that are not a romantic partner and not make yourself mold and instead look at it like, okay, this is who I am.

00:45:21 - 00:50:02

If this person isn't the right match for me, then we're just going to go on a separate ways, not I need to mold myself into that person. And honestly, I'm victim of that in my last relationships, even with shake and I saw myself doing it a little bit with Kyle also is I would mold into their life a little bit and be like that perfect version for them. I would slowly start to do things that I knew they would like. It's to create this attachment essentially and you're like, oh, they're not going to leave me because I am trying to be the perfect version of me for that. But not just for you, for yourself. And so I tend to put other people's needs before mine, and that's when you see the shift happen, because people can recognize when you don't love yourself, that shit is like exuding, you know? Yeah, when you just like put that love inward, you just become so much more radiant. And that's what draws people in. I think the other way, it's like when you get attached, people are like, you're in disposable, essentially, because you're like, oh, well, she'll do whatever. And you want to take it for granted. The opposite of the attention, which is funny. Exactly. Just like human nature just take advantage of something that's always there. I think of the metaphor, are you a tree? That's growing, or are you a river that's just flowing into someone else's river? And if we can just stand tall as trees and we're growing, we can coexist together, but you don't necessarily have to morph into someone else's space. And you brought up Kyle, so we might as well just go there. Kyle was another cast member. I think he was in one of the cringiest relationships I've ever witnessed on reality TV where did not want him or want to choose him. But he was such a great guy and also a fan favorite and YouTube had a relationship. What happened with Kyle. After the show. Kyle was my number two person in the pods, which a lot of people don't know. But yeah, after filming him wrapped, I mean, we kind of connected a little bit. We started chatting a little bit just to be like, oh my God, I never saw you. I haven't seen you still. And I think a couple months after filming had wrapped, we were all hanging out as a group, like we would have grouped gatherings, actually shaken, organized those weirdly. But anyways, we are dealing with well, yeah, there's a lot that happens after the filming shake and I slowly like we stopped hanging out. Like I just didn't really enjoy being around him, but Kyle and I got to know each other so much more. We created this amazing friendship. He became one of my best Friends and obviously there was romantic feelings considering we dated in the ponds and whatnot. So anyways, come after the altar filming. We were kind of forced to address the feelings that we kind of were hiding for each other and we thought let's jump into it. It's now or never we have feelings for each other if we don't do something about it like are we going to regret it? Our whole thing was that we didn't want to lose our friendship, but sadly that's kind of what ended up happening after all dating. It's hard to get that back. It's hard. I read the perfect quote the other day. It was like, you don't get to have two versions of me again, which is like the verdict. You used to have as a girlfriend and one now as a friendship. Like, I can't exist in both of those worlds anymore. So sweet. It's like dark. So what ultimately made it not work? Did you have one of these? I choose myself mentality even though it wasn't maybe as toxic as the shake situation. There was just so much change happening in both of our lives post show and we were kind of navigating it all. We're trying to figure it out. And I don't think the timing of jumping into a serious relationship after that. Like during that time was smart of us because I'm looking for something serious and cows like trying to figure out what do you want out of life still? He's trying to figure out career wise where he's going to go. And so there was a lot of uncertainties there. And we weren't talking about the important stuff in our relationship. Like, what are our love languages? How do we, you know, we just kind of dove in head first, I think, and there was so much pressure from the public. It was too much. So I needed time apart to grow separately. I think he raised a good point though. I choose myself. It doesn't have to be this like this person is saying all this nasty stuff about me. Sometimes it's just like our lives aren't aligned and this is what I want and I know this person isn't there or they're not going to give it to me. Exactly. And we had like a really mature conversation about it. We had full intention to be like, okay, we're going to stay friends, like we're not going to lose each other, but as kind of the months unfolded and things just got a little too messy. So we're just like, you know, we got to really just take time apart. But you also said you're taking a dating sabbatical. So tell us more about that. This is another thing I jump from relationship to relationship so quickly. I'm like, for once in my life, I'm so happy. Just being by myself working on my projects, like focusing on my family and my Friends, I'm just in such a good place.

00:50:02 - 00:55:04

I honestly feel like if I were to be in a relationship right now, it would add so much more effort. Okay, that's like another layer of something that I have to think about, where it's like, you have to give it time and energy, right? And I kind of want to pour that into me right now. Something neglecting me for a little bit. Good. I know you talked a little bit about affirmations and meditation and some of this other stuff that's helped you connect with yourself and put yourself first with relationships. In this case, taking time out of a relationship. Can you kind of walk us through a few more of those tactical approaches you take? What is an affirmation you say, for instance? Okay, every morning, first of all, this has been game changer for me before I touch my phone and get the external noise in me. I say three things that I'm grateful for. Every morning, and that changes my entire trajectory of the day. Because you look for things that you're grateful for all the time throughout the day when I start my day like that. But affirmations in the mirror, like I am strong, I am beautiful. I am worthy. I don't chase I attract, like these are all the things like my heart is open to receiving love, joy, happiness, and abundance. Just things like that that kind of just like raise my vibrational frequency. I think has been so good and meditating, I'm not gonna lie to you in the last couple months. I've had so much anxiety. So much. I'm like, okay, why can't I just rid of this feeling? And it's because I'm not addressing my emotions entirely. I'm just suppressing everything. I'm like, okay, everything's fine. Everything's okay. And it's like, sometimes it's okay not to be okay. If you need to talk about it and let out your feelings a little. And so meditation just sitting with your breath. It just brings you back to the present moment and you're like, oh, I'm calm. Okay, this feels really good. So that's kind of what meditation has helped me with. How long do you meditate for? Honestly, I used to meditate for a lot longer, like 20, 30 minutes, but lately I've just literally been doing 5 minute meditations ten minute meditations. Like very chill, nighttime. It's great. And is there an app you follow or something that you follow? Yeah, have you guys ever heard of waking up with Sam Harris? No. Okay, with meditation, it's very like nitpicky on who you listen to because if you can even hear a breath or like something. I'm like, oh, I can't do it. Yes. Lip smacking. I'm done. We're not here for that. Right. But I love Sam Harris's voice. I think it's just so calming. Yeah, and most of the time, I just self meditate, which is great. I don't mind just go. Okay, so ultimately you're taking the break, but ultimately you do want a serious committed relationship. Like how do you think this choose me mentality or choose myself mentality? How do you think you'll take that into a serious relationship? Where it's important not to lose yourself as we've established earlier, but also you do need to adapt to another person too. So there is a little bit of a balance. What are your thoughts? I think the main thing is don't pour too much love into other people's cups because then you're from yourself. And I tend to do that a lot and a half. I think so my new approach in dating is really just match the energy. You know, like whatever it is that you want to give, give if they don't match it, then pull back a little bit. I think it's like an adjustment thing. I don't know, I'm just praying that, you know, I had a random grocery store running to my person. Probably will. Are you guys single or dating or both at relationships? Yeah. Okay, so the dating world is tough out here. We hear that. We're where, yes. We have a whole podcast about it, by the way. But I think the matching the energy is really important because I know for me that was game changing of kind of what I was saying earlier is I knew what I was looking for. Instead of looking at it, like let me try to fit them in. It's more of okay. This is where I'm at. This person is not giving it to me. You can pull back or have a conversation, but you can also just say, this is in it, right? That all is dependent on the situation, of course. But I think that's such good advice of how do you focus on people that are also focusing on you and that's not in a, I feel like it can come off a little selfish sometimes. I think women, especially, we all feel like we're always being selfish, but we're not. It's just, I'm not going to give to people that aren't giving to me. That's just basic love for yourself and respect for yourself. Don't even love, respect. Yeah, totally, totally. But you know what? A funny caveat to that is why is it that we always chase the person that doesn't want to. Always. And you're like, I'm going to get him to like me. It's going to happen. Yeah. Well, it's the validation. I think that's what it is. It's like when you are looking for validation and worth in other people, it feels like more exciting than someone else because you have to win them over. It's like this achievement or a mountain you've climbed. It's kind of like any other thing too. It's when you're walking down a flat path, like that's not exciting, but you're climbing Mount Everest.

00:55:04 - 01:00:04

You've done it, right? That's so true. Yeah. I just had a conversation with a girlfriend of mine this morning about this. And she's like, I'm seeing this guy. He's doing all the right things. He's great. He's just too eager. He's so communicative and wants to hang out and I need a little bit of chase. And I was like, girlfriend. I think you need to look inward and think, why is it that you need the chase? Sometimes it does boil down to self worth. When you have low self worth, it's not just that you look at yourself as low, you also place value on other people, right? If you think about it. So if you have low self worth, you're obviously putting high value on someone who doesn't treat you right. So therefore you feel like I can get validation from someone who's more worthy. And in her case, she's like, this guy's less worthy because he's not chasing me. So therefore, I'm not getting the validation. So I think this is like some mindful. You're like, oh wait, hold on. Self worth also plays into how I view other people. I have some quick just behind the scenes of reality TV questions because I'm just dying to ask you these, but these are quickfire. How long were you actually in the pods for before you fell in love? Ten days, ten days. Okay, I knew that. Sound system in the pots. We hear you all perfectly, but what are you hearing on your side? Is there a speaker? Yeah, so you know that wall that you have? There's a little speaker at the bottom of it. So right into it, and then of course we're mic'd. And then there's camera people all around. Oh my gosh. How much time did you have with each person? So many hours, 40 plus hours. Wow. We would have 40 plus because in the morning, we would have our day dates. At first, when we had a lot more people, those would be shorter, but when we got down to two, three people, that's the only two, three people we would talk to all day. And then we'd have night dates all the way until two in the morning. Two in the morning. Damn. And then one last question, were the producers feeding you stuff about the person? Okay, okay, that's good to know. Actually, I'm surprised. Very last question. Do you think love is blind? Having gone through this. I think love can be blind, but it really depends on the person and their intentions. And their mindset of it all. It's kind of like an arranged marriage. There's a reason why divorces are not so prominent in arranged marriages is because people's mindset is, no matter what happens, we're making this work, no matter what issues arise, we're going to try to make it work, right? And that's not always healthy, but the mindset of it is the same. I mean, I think there are unhealthy and healthy parts of this whole experiment. Everything, but I think the part that is so healthy is that I have a caveat this. You probably can't make dating your entire job that you're spending all these 40 hours getting to know someone. But you're giving someone time, which is something that we see that people aren't doing in the real world. I mean, I think this conversation has been so great. There's been so many takeaways. I think first and foremost, we have to remember that relationships aren't the entirety of us. Our most important relationship is still with ourself at the end of the day. So if you feel like your needs aren't getting met, you feel like this person isn't the right person or they're mistreating you, it is so important to choose yourself. So often people and I've been guilty of this before too. It's like I want to be in any relationship that it feels better to be with someone. So if someone to talk to your friends about or you just feel like you're winning and you're succeeding because you've someone, but ultimately the only way to find the right person for you is to be single until the wrong people go. So you're doing yourself a disservice and I wish I could get the years back that I didn't choose myself that I chose this person that was not choosing me and putting yourself in the driver's seat of your love life. We've said that over and over again on this podcast by really believe this at the forefront is this I choose me mentality. And whether you're dating in a relationship, single as fuck, it doesn't matter. You can think about, look, I need to choose myself, but that doesn't mean you never compromise with a partner, but I'm going to tell them what I need. I'm not going to just bend over backwards and do whatever. That's choosing yourself, even if it's not a 100% your way all the time, you're still choosing yourself by standing up for yourself. So those are kind of my biggest takeaways from this convo. I love that. I totally agree with you. 100%. You agree so much that you wrote a book about it. That's how much your platform has influenced us. We commend you for being who you are and knowing who you are and owning up to who deep tea is and we've just had such a great time watching you evolve on the show and now getting the behind the scenes look at who you are deep D and I would say authentically you are who you are now compared to who you were on camera. There is no disconnect between your on camera personality to who you are right now unless if you're really good at acting all the time. All the time.

01:00:06 - 01:04:56

You're just so consistent. My biggest takeaway is when you choose yourself, it's about filling your cup so that you can be there for other people. It's like we don't have a full tank of gas in your car and you pick someone up, you can only go so far in your trip. And then maybe then you have to rely on them to JumpStart your car or to rely on them to get you some gas. Then you can't get anywhere in your own vehicle, but if you have a full tank of gas, you feel like you're equipped to take other people on the ride. And if they choose to get out of your car at some point, you're like, it's fine. I still have my full tank of gas. I'm still going where I need to be, but if you need to get out, you can get out. Doesn't affect me. I love that about your message. And my final takeaway is, I think it could be a really fun experiment for people to take one day a week and just focus on connection. We don't have the luxury of speaking to some of 40 hours a week about our connection. But maybe just one day and choose the person that you really want to get to know from the apps or you met once or twice and say, I just want to get to know you. Let's just have a phone call and get to know each other. Having that intentionality behind getting to know someone is kind of key to establishing a foundation for a relationship. So especially if you compare it with getting to know yourself too, because I think ultimately that's what I'm hearing too, and we've seen this with ourselves with other people. When you really know yourself, that's the key to finding the right partner. It's all these years of not really knowing yourself or adapting or molding or trying to fit a square peg into a raffle. That's the times if I look back on the times where I'm just like, what was I doing? That's what it was. Who are you when no one is looking, right? Yes. That's your most authentic self. So deep D, your book. I'm guessing people can get it wherever books are sold. Actually, it's exclusively on Amazon. I was exclusive. Okay. Some Amazon. That's where most people get their books anyways. Yeah. Exactly. But yeah, the audiobook has already been recorded. So as soon for release date, it's coming out soon. And I'm super about that. Yeah, recording that. Okay. I'm sure. There's a link in my bio on my Instagram too. I was going to ask if there's anything else on the horizon. I'm guessing the audiobook, anything else we should be aware of? Actually, I have a podcast coming out in the new year, so I'm sure. I'll be in touch with you guys. And yeah, we're excited to be about. We'll see you. We'll see. Okay. Okay, everyone needs to stay on it. What is that going to be released? Early next year. Okay, cool. We'll follow deep D, get first in line for this mystery podcast. We will be. It's called getting deep with deepti. I already know. I see the cover. It's all about getting deep in life. If it was a keeping your support now it is. I love it. She's fantastic. Love you. Thank you, deepti for your time. Thank you to our listeners for being part of this fantastic episode. You know, something that really helps us get great guests like deep deep is when you give us a rating and review in Apple podcasts when you give us 5 stars, someone like deepti sees it, she's like, yeah, they seem legit. I'll go on their podcast. I'll chat with these girls, and then here she is. So that's how it works. Cyclical pay it forward. You're paying it for by giving us ratings of rubius. And with that, we're going to wrap up this episode. 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 podcasts. Tag us in any posts with a hashtag stay dateable and trust us. We look at all those pose. Ben 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. 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. As long as I continue to make everything look pretty and shiny on the outside, I didn't care how miserable and ugly I felt on the inside. I realized that I deserved a better me, so I can be the wife and the mom that I really wanted to be. If you're ready to get real about addiction treatment, call Karen, a recent independent study showed that 94% of Karen patients were still in recovery 90 days post treatment, visit CAR ON dot org slash real, Karen, real results, real care, real about recovery.

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