The Red Flags You Keep Ignoring! (Don’t Let Men Treat You Like This!!) - Sadia Khan & Matthew Hussey

I'm so excited because this is a first on the school of greatness sardia this is what he brought us here for what do you think he set this up for all right you guys ready M we have the inspiring Saudia KH in the house who is an incredible psychologist and dating coach one of the best psychologist in the game Saia Khan and we have Matthew hussy Matthew hussy is New York Times bestselling author speaker dating and relationships expert and Coach Matthew Hy when someone is playing a game either texting or on dates what is that saying about about them they're entering relationship with a desire to preserve their ego rather than truly connect with that person wow that's interesting I canot text you back for 3 days and if you're the person who buys into the illusion that that must make me more valuable then I can raise my value simply By ignoring you for 3 days so there is self-preservation but in the process is self-destruction wow okay for you it's that men want connection but women are so jaded at this point that they're not offering it yeah I have to say that feels like the vast minority of women what you're really signaling is I'm so desperate to be love that I'll push it away and make you think that I don't want it I truly believe in my bones the more in life you accept yourself and every part of yourself you see more people as wonderful not less welcome back everyone in the school of greatness very excited about this special episode we have two relationship experts and coaches in the house today we have Saia a con and we have Matthew hussy Saudi is a psychologist and a relationship coach that works with people all over the world with well over 100 million views on your videos Matthew hussy over a half a billion views on his videos New York time best-selling author and um both of them you both help people navigate relationships relationship Dynamics social human dynamics dating scene people in relationships going through breakups so we're going to talk about a lot of these different things today and I'm so excited because this is the first on the school of greatness so thank you both for being here I've known you both for a while I know personal things about both of you which I'm excited about I'm not going to say the things but I know personal things about both of you yeah and I see the work you do professionally as well and um I'm excited to see what unfolds here today this first conversation is going to be talking about when you're single or dating and there's a lot of talk about red flags you see this almost every title of every video right now what are the red flags and what I want to ask you guys first is about the green flags and why do people tend to sabotage when they actually have green flags in front of them with a person they're dating experiencing getting to know why do some people tend to sabotage that when they actually have someone who's not toxic in front of them and I'll and I'll start with ladies first um that when when you see that or when someone sees that I don't know if you have girlfriends are like yeah he was like just a great guy but I sabotaged it why does that happen for men or women is it because they're emotionally unavailable is because they've never seen someone in a healthy relationship with thems before why would you say I would say that their barrier to intimacy has become their self-esteem and unfortunately for them and it happens to a lot of people they have developed a core belief about themselves either through their childhood or through adult relationships where they believe that love should be a struggle it should be difficult and it shouldn't be smooth sailing and when it is smooth and somebody does show them love and compassion because they don't have love and compassion for themselves they start to question the Judgment of the person who is showing them love and they start to think there's something wrong in that person and the smoothness that they acquire in their relationship is something that they're just not used to and they have attributed love to being chaotic difficult turbulent when it's not like that they just think that they haven't got an attachment they think in order for me to be loved I should be obsessing over them I should be wondering what they're doing I should be checking their social media I should be anxious when the anxiety is stripped of Love they think gets deprived of its fundamental ingredient when really it's being infused with peace which they're just not used to wow that's interesting I love that we started with this right now I don't know if that's something that you would relate to or if you agree with or you think there's something else to add there no I I think it comes from different places familiarity is you know it drives us so often in life and familiarity doesn't really care whether something is good or bad just that it's known and I like I never used to I remember in my 20s I never used to understand what people meant when they said like fear of success because I was like why would anyone be afraid of success and then I realized I probably was afraid of success like anytime things got too hot any time like I felt like everything was a runaway train I would find myself getting nervous and why was I getting nervous well because it was just unknown it was like I'd never I'd never gone that far before I'd never been there and unknown territory is just unknown territory when things feel unfamiliar we we get afraid of them they feel disconcerting they can feel boring um strange and so it's our our body has a way of searching for for what is familiar I I also think it shouldn't be discounted that there are certain feelings that just feel good what are those feelings well it's like eating pizza like eating pizza does feel good even it's bad for you there is something it gives there's something that foods that are bad for you or substances that are bad for you give you that is a feeling that is quite addictive and you want to chase it and of course a lot of us pay the price over time for chasing those things and I think sometimes we have to acknowledge that there are certain kinds of people that feel good MH in the very beginning there is a certain kind of charm there is a certain kind of Charisma that feels really good yeah inconsistency is addictive yeah inconsistency and even just like a kind of superficial charm can be exciting someone someone's at a dinner table and they tell you great stories and they Captivate you and there is a kind of like you want to be around that speaking speaking into that then what would you say are the most addictive I guess emotions that that are unhealthy that people get addicted to when they're dating and they're they're starting a relationship what are those unhealthy addictions around emotions in my personal experience of working with clients that come to me particularly men when they come to me and they're in these kind of addictive habits they get addicted to shallow substances like appearance and sex usually when they find men when they find themselves in emotionally abusive situations is because they've placed all of their satisfaction in her appearance and the sexual gratification they receive and it's almost like a shortcut to an ego boost and they place that on a pedestal and that becomes their conflict resolution is sex it becomes their form of status is that she gives them that appearance when they walk around they don't look for somebody on the same level of them in terms of appearance they shoot above their shot they go a bit higher than what they should be going for and as a result they become like a slave and submissive to her behavior simply because she possesses that sexual quality that they've been craving for a really long time yeah particularly if they're a man who haven't had access to women throughout their childhood and throughout their life and so when they do meet a beautiful girl they allow her beauty to determine their attachment rather than her character and that becomes very addicted from a male gaze in my experience and I don't know as two men but does sex have that much of a power over them where they can blur their Vision on all other characteristics I hate to say but I'm guilty of this past it happens well I mean it it's it's blinding for a period of time until it isn't right so it and when you think that the character is also there then you're like wow this is unbelievable but then you know I personally you know just experienced in my past was kind of blinded by that the Beauty and the sexual attraction and then when I realized that certain values weren't consistent with words yeah they weren't matching over time you get disinterested in the beauty you're like okay does it take something to snap men out of that when they're in that kind of intoxicated pain pain suffering heartbreak yeah uh sadness depression you know it's like a disease whether it be an emotional disease or physical disease for me I think it was kind of both it's like I had to just feel like man I don't feel myself I feel like I'm giving up who I am to try to please someone else and they're never happy no matter what I do how much I change who I become it's not enough and it's it's exhaust it was exhausting yeah and I think that's when I realized oh okay I chose uh a certain relationship based out of a wound everything you were saying was like speaking to my like wounded child was like okay yeah no girls liked me when I was younger you know I didn't have any ATT you with that because you an athlete no you know when I on my teens it it changed when I was younger it was like you didn't get the attention so when when I had the W when I was choosing based out of a wounded me it was like oh okay here's this beautiful opportunity or this experience or whatever it might be and that was captivating in some ways right that was pulling me in drawing me in and it made you forgive other unacceptable behavior in the moment in the moment but then you you know after a period of time I was like okay I you wake up I woke up yeah and I think um those lessons allowed me to have wisdom and being like okay well that's not really everything you know just Beauty and sexual connection is not yeah does not necessarily mean long-term happiness in a relationship maybe you know maybe it is but there has to be other values and things that match things like that it shouldn't be the primary filter unfortunately and you're saying that a lot of men that you're working with that you see get addicted to sexual connection or beauty attrac attrac feel yeah they'll come to me believing it's some childhood trauma and they'll think it's that but really it boils down to how much of a priority they've made sex and beauty and I know it's difficult in this day and age with the Advent of pornography and social media where beauty is the main kind of component of women that we're seeing but it makes them stuck in a way that they can't explain to themselves and only when I say is the sexual chemistry the best you've had and they're like yes it's the best I've ever had moment I hear that I'm like that's why it's become your it's become your glue it's addicted to it they're addicted to it so and this is something that I that I think um people should have try if they're if they found themselves in kind of addictive P patterns in previous relationships try being with someone and not having sex for a period of time wait as long as you can I'm not saying wait forever but you know wait a months two three months for me uh you know with Martha we we waited for a long time and allowed me to say do I actually want to spend time with this person if we don't have sex and I would want everyone to ask themselves the question if I did not have sex with the person I'm dating right now would I want to be with them exactly or would it be too much stress and and trouble would I be addicted to them yeah would I yeah exactly I don't know what do what do you see women um in your perspective struggling with in terms of the emotional addictions in dating or in relationship patterns what is that is it sex chemistry or you seeing it's something else with the women you working with going to say I feel like you guys are giving women too much credit you're you're letting them off a little light it happens on I don't get access as much to the female perspective and it's the same kind of you would imagine I don't think there's I I I I'm not seeing a huge difference between men and women in this department at all wow I women women get attracted sexually they get attracted to someone's looks to you know is it more the sexual or the the material or the status that women are attracted to like here's a beauti handsome man a sexy man or is it more oh he's got status and money and that makes him sexy I think the the myth is that it's just all women are go around looking for status and money and that you know when they see status walk into a room they're like yes please and if that were true then every I agree Rich dude that walked into a room would be the hottest property around and just know that's not true a lot of guys who make a lot of money get to that point and realize oh my God I need help in meeting women really because I'm not good at they struggle the most they struggle the most yeah because they they've spent so many men spend their whole lives trying to achieve a certain level of status or money thinking that at some point there's going to be a door they're going to open in the money world or the status world and when they walk through that door all of a sudden women are going to come flocking and they find that they're the lonely guy at the party who no one's talking to and oh it turns out it still matters to be able to go and talk to someone it still matters to be able to carry yourself in a certain way where there's something about you or there's an ability and conversation so I don't or I keep losing out to the 25y old dude hot Surfer who's broke who walks into the room and and is the one getting the attention so I just I think there is this myth among men that all our problems will be figured out if we could just make enough money and if we could just get enough status and I think there's this myth among women that or about women that they're not interest like they're not driven in by Charisma and looks and sexiness and that you know they don't care about those men are superficial they care about those things women don't care about those things not my experience my experience of of women is that they're just as uh interested in all of those superficial things that can lure any of us away from deeper values or how someone treats us or um it's not to say that there's not there's not an appeal for some people to someone who's got their life under control but um but no I don't I don't think we should let women off so lightly when it comes to being attracted to The Superficial interesting now you Saudia you've said that you work mostly with men or more men seem to watch your content and you work oneon-one with more with men Matthew you you've leaned more towards working with women your content towards women although both of you guys work with you know any human being in all genders um but I'm curious Matthew with you when a woman has gone through your Workshop or maybe watched your content or you know been a part of your community for a while and then they say okay I'm ready to go out there and meet a guy and there seems like a really healthy good kind compassionate you know value driven spiritual you know healthy conscious man in front of me and for whatever reason she's unable to be excited about that what is that saying about that woman in your mind if she is unable to lean into the green flags of a healthy potential mate in front of her does she still need work to do is she just not emotionally available herself what does she need to start the process of doing so when she sees someone who's healthy she can be actually be attracted to them and work towards building a relationship I think it's usually a sign that for for anyone men or women alike that we're not we're not truly putting our well-being first we we're not we we we think the source of our worth is outside of us um and we see someone who looks like the kind of equivalent of a VIP nightclub or a VIP weight list and we you know it's there is an instinct there is an instinct we all have you walk past 10 restaurants and one of them's super busy and they say we we can see you in 3 hours [Laughter] there's an instinct that says that you know this maybe this is the one I want to eat at you might have passed 10 places already but the one with the three-hour wait list there's something about that that makes us go maybe well maybe we can hang around for 3 hours maybe it is that good and the problem is that in in love and dating the people who make it feel like there's a three-hour wait list or or a six-month weight list or that they' have all the options in the world they give the impression of being the best meal in town interesting but it doesn't necessarily add up there's a there's a lot of ways to create that illusion I can not text you back for three days and and if you're the person who buys into the illusion that if I'm in consistent with my communication that must make me more valuable then I can raise my value not being any more valuable in real terms but simply By ignoring you for 3 days it requires zero calories for me to make myself more valuable in the eyes of someone who's chasing that kind of value and so or someone who might be wounded and needs that Val or coming from that place of of their model for love is that it is inconsistent is that it has to be fought for tooth and nail is that scraps is is all you can really expect and also you know again to talk about those feelings that we get in certain situations if there's someone who value we've started to raise in our minds because they've made themselves unavailable which is a very common Instinct it's a very bad Instinct but it's a very common one that someone's less available so I start to attribute more value to them well if we attribute more valuable more value to them when they become unavailable that we now get anxious because we really want to secure them because they're valuable and we sit there wondering how do I secure them how do I secure them how do I secure them ruminating obsessing even ruminating is a form of investment yeah right because the moment what if you're thinking about how to solve a problem non-stop the problem feels like it's really important you're investing in a person even though you're not with them you're investing in them in your mind so at the moment like 5 days later after all of that work you've been doing and all of that Obsession and all of that fear and all of that anxiety when you get a message from them it can be next to nothing it can be what's up and you got all this adrenaline and you've been trying to figure out how to solve this riddle of getting them back into your life and you get a two s a two-word message yeah it feels like the most important thing in the world and of course when you get that Rush of Blood to the Head you how can it not feel kind of euphoric how can it not give you an extraordinary feeling and when you get that extraordinary feeling and those chemicals are released you go oh my God I feel so strongly for this person but you don't feel strongly for this person you feel strongly for the dynamic there's a big difference between those two things so you know we we it's about what am I chasing here am I chasing a feeling am I chasing an idea of value and what is that value based on is it based on someone I think is just rare and difficult to get or is value based on how of a person someone is in my life how much they actually invest in me what kind of teammate they are what kind of energy they are it you know that if we start valuing that more which deep down derives from us valuing ourselves more because you don't if you if you don't value yourself and you just value a feeling well you may as well do a bunch of drugs all day right right because you just that's it's not drugs might hurt me but I'm valuing the feeling not myself if I value myself then I think what do I need to give myself self in order to feel better that's a much more conscious and intentional path to take it's harder MH but it's it it's somewhere that leads somewhere much happier I sometimes I've had situations you know you can take it outside the realm of love life that's situation in situations in business or work where you know let's say someone asks me to do their TV show or their podcast and let's say it's just something I've always wanted to do m MH like I've always wanted to go on this show there is an instinct when you get that email that says call them right now right right call them immediately tell them we're ready tell them we could do it this afternoon yeah like we can do it now if they want I'll get ready like I was you know I I'm halfway across the world but I'll fly there tomorrow there's that instinct and you know if that opportunity goes away because you didn't do it tomorrow there's a feeling in us that beats ourselves up and says see I blew it but it was never yours yes it was a Fly by Night like drive by superficial opportunity if it can't wait a day for you to email back and a couple of weeks for you to book it in yeah then you have to decide what your relationship is with opportunities in general yeah like do I want to have that relationship with an opportunity where the moment an opportunity comes through the door I am that opportunity's hostage is that the relationship I want to have with opportunity in my life whether it's opportunity in business whether it's opportunity in love and we have to make that decision and I got to a point in my life and I it's not I never get like activated in that way because something big can come through and I'll go I'll feel myself going into that place but these days I'm like what relationship do I want to have with opportunities in my life well I'm I'm never going to be the hostage to an opportunity so if it comes through and it happens organically through just normal communication a normal Cadence in a consistent way and it happens then wonderful if it if it doesn't then frankly I don't I don't want to know interesting see um I wanted to ask follow up on emotional availability and it seems like women used to be more in society emotionally available MH in I guess life and wanting more relationship and emotionally available and needing more from a man but I'm curious today from both of your perspectives who are more emotionally available today is it men or women what do you think I Think It's tricky to answer because the men I work with majority of the time they're actually looking for something stable and they can't seem to access it with the women in this day and age and um I don't know if what's happened is because hookup culture has made women immune to connection now they kind of used to men just coming and leaving and not calling them and not labeling it that they've always come in it come into dating with that expectation and when women lose the kind of driving force of the connection men don't know how to lead emotional connection so as a result we've got endless broken relationships occurring so I don't know if women are breaking their connection because they want to or because they've been conditioned to because of Tinder and Bumble which has just created a bunch of people who haven't really got the skills to maintain Ain longlasting connections all finding each other and then breaking up with each other finding each other and breaking up with each other I've had clients say to me I met this beautiful girl and when I met her and we hooked up she was like you can go now if you want I know you want to go home and he said no I want to get to know you but she was so used to men being in that state with her that they've taken relationships and seen them as kind of vacations from their real world and they'll go back to the real world once the weekend is over so I think it's more society's conditioned people to not look for con and because men tend to place the acceleration of connection in the women's hands and they're so used to it not being that direction they've lost control of that and it's now kind of fizzling out for both genders interesting do you feel like people actually want to be in a long-term relationship a committed relationship or do they want to just have the feeling of a relationship for a weekend and be able to have it with multiple people but never fully go deep with people it depends what she values in her life if in this day age you can be 22 up until 42 so you can still have vacations whenever you want you can still kind of live an Instagram kind of Lifestyle you can still go out with your friends there's no kind of shame in being a woman who's a bit older not married no kids you can still enjoy your life so if that's something if she values Independence and she values Freedom then she's not going to be looking for connection she's going to place connection beneath what she values in life and that's men and women I would say that applies to both but if somebody values and recognizes that their Root of Happiness is their relationships and their true happiness comes from when they don't need external stimulation and they don't need vacations and they don't need all of this they actually want someone that they can stay home and get bored and do nothing with if that's what they value in life that's it will depend on what they value and what what they value will depend on what they've experienced the most around them so if they've experienc people showing them investment they'll probably in value connection more but if they've experienced being somebody short temping every weekend they'll start to get immune to connection and invested in stimulation instead interesting have what have you noticed or seen around I don't I I don't know I find it hard to the so your for you it's that men want connection but women are so jaded at this point that they're not offering it yeah I feel like they now just go into it with a mentality that this man is probably going to be seeing other girls he's probably going to be liking a bunch of pictures he's probably going to be dating loads of girls on Tinder I'm going to catch his dating profile still be active so instead of being the idiot in this situation I'm going to take control and I'm going to replicate his behavior and as a result they're almost like cheat first before being cheated on and that's become the mentality and I think social media has had an impact on that as well but it's almost like women are like I'm no longer being the girl that cries over a cheating boyfriend I'd rather be the one that has a backup boyfriend than be on the receiving end of this humiliation I have to say yeah it it that feels like the vast minority of women yeah and I might be here's where I might be on this jaded end because I get the jaded men who have experienced those women I probably lack access to the ones that are actually trying to just build a nice healthy connection it also feels like an interesting place to kind of pinpoint the issue because I would say that that even if what you said is true for the majority of women which I think is the majority of women are actually quite the opposite of that that the the issue is would I would still Circle back to the issue as one of male un emotional unavailability okay because because what we're saying is that there's so many em like I I'm not even sure I subscrib to this but in that theory there's so many emotionally unavailable men yeah that they've managed to make the entire population of women cynical to the point where now going God like I'm so I so don't believe in the idea of a relationship anymore that I'm just going to mirror that behavior do you think the issue would still lie with men if that was the case I would argue it's more that the men the women want I would say that the tiny minority of men that most women want are the ones that because of the Alternatives and the options they lack the investment and as a result the women's experiences all men are like this but there's so many nice men just like there's so many nice women but people aren't giving those people as much it must have a chance so it's almost like the popular kids in school are making the whole school look bad but aren't men doing the same thing absolutely I would agree 100% cuz men because if if women are going for the top 1% of men men are going for the top 1% of women and both are both are going to have a harder time being emotionally available than other people because that's just a natural kind of when you have choice and a lot of it yeah then you're naturally going to be more difficult for especially if you know you have 90% of people chasing after you that's going to be a harder place to be available so I just don't know I don't know that I see a difference between the Sexes when it comes to that the only thing I would say is um even with men not only are the top one% going for the top 1% of women even the lower end the bottom 1% are still going for the top 1% through only fans and pornography and so so they're kind of soothing their emotional unavailability through pseudo relationships so it's almost like um the mid-range is there but they're usually spoken for so women in the dating pool are either experienced the top 1% who have loads of options or the real bottom that have very little options but are so not used to human connection that they're a bit more addicted to pornography and video games and midrange is more like they're already in committed relationships they're the hard ones to find they're they're the ones with relationship skills they're already relationships they're already got they're got kids they're married they're by that rationale we're talking about 98% of men are emotionally available but you would say they might be committed already they might be yes I mean I see good there if that's true if what you said is true I see nothing but good news there that the majority the vast majority of men are great guys who are emotionally available they may not be what women want they may not have the skills they may not have the communication abilities they may not might lacking other things they may not have maybe the financial I think height is a huge one I honestly like how big is height for women like really though are women that superficial to think that height is that important for them depending on how height and her level of beauty I would just say that like sometimes I meet men who are like 54 53 and they'll say to me I really really want a beautiful girl in my personal experience with beautiful women what happens with them is they assume Every Man's super tall because that's all they've ever experienced they don't know how to compromise on attractiveness because they've never really needed to so they see the world through the lens of of like I didn't know men come in a different size so they can be very shallow with that but even the I unfortunately I think height is to women what facial beauty is to men so it kind of has that similar impact it's not definite but it has a similar impact I mean you have a lot of women that come to your Retreats do they say height is a factor for them or they you know are all women there they just like I'll take a guy shorter than me and it's fine I think I mean I tend to meet a lot of people who have reached a point in their lives where they're they're bringing a kind of awareness to their love life where they're saying I want to meet someone I'm not 22 years old and showing up with this checklist of superficial things but now they're older though and they're like I can't find a guy I'm willing to kind of spread my options wider now I I I would say that we all get to that point where we go are the things that I once chased really do they matter do they make any difference to my actual quality of life in a relationship um and you know height is a interesting thing if you're a very tall woman then it's natural I think for a lot of women to want someone who's of their height or not drastically different in that sense but you know I think a lot of people just get to the point where they go this isn't this isn't the defining Factor anymore in the same way that a lot of guys realize chasing the prettiest girl at school is have to grow out of that because that doesn't make her the best partner it doesn't make her a great person to spend time with it doesn't she might be but it doesn't it's not automatic um and so I think I think it's a common thing for everybody to start to let go of some of those superficial factors but I I do I do want to just touch again on the you know talking about who's more emotionally unavailable because I do my my experience of women is that they really um they they may there certainly are a group of people on both sides who think they are emotionally available but are perhaps not yeah um but what what makes them that if they think they are but they're not what makes them unavailable what makes them emotionally unavailable I think it could be any number of things I think you know for some people it's they're terrified of a just getting hurt so the idea of um letting someone close enough to really hurt them is the scariest thing in the world they want love they want to feel seen and acknowledged and connected but they're afraid of it at the same time you well they're afraid of the damage someone could do if they got in and so for that kind of person what they need is like a a a level of safety that is actually really hard for anyone to achieve because if I don't let you in and I'm like I'm not going to let you in until you make me feel really safe but you don't you know I haven't really let you in enough for you to even feel that connected to me you know or by the way something happens four weeks into knowing someone where they forget to take text you back for a night which is human and happens but for me what was a mistake for you for me is like an existential threat like I'll no I've been getting attached to this person for the last four weeks they now haven't texted me they don't like me what have I done here and then I say well you know what screw this person I'm not going to text them back for the next three days yeah you know like they can now I'm going to give them that medicine back and it's not that this person's a bad person it's just that they're so afraid yeah that it's like I can't I can't risk you doing the damage you can do that's been done to me in the past whether as a child or whether in a formative relationship I can't risk you getting that close again so that's a desperate desire love and connection but it presents as emotional unavailability when someone is playing a game either texting or on dates and they're playing a game what is that saying about them if they're trying to play a game they're entering relationship with a desire to preserve their ego rather than truly connect with that person it's more important that they appear desirable than then they create something that is desirable between the two of them so if it's a case of somebody hasn't text me in a couple of days I'm not going to text them in a days but I'm going to post a really pretty picture on online or if a man is like oh she didn't answer me back or she didn't compliment me no I'm not going to give her any compliments what you're really signaling is I'm so desperate to be loved that I'll push it away and make you think that I don't want it just so then if you don't if you reject me first I can feel like I saved my soul by not investing too much so there is self-preservation but in the process is self-destruction yeah sadly So and I've been there we've all been there I think we've all been there we don't want to look like the idiot we don't want want to look needy but I always just say to people that if in the process of communicating your needs you lose somebody or they think something less of you you're just filtering out the wrong people anyway the right person will appreciate the communication they'll reciprocate the communication and you'll build something the wrong person will you know be scared or run away or whatever it is but you don't want the wrong person anyway so it's a good filtering process effective communication is great for filtering out the wrong people it's so interesting because uh you know when I was starting to date Martha my fiance like just early the first date I was just like I'm gonna share not all of me but kind of all of me up front and no games yeah no games just like this is who I am this is my flaws this is my mistakes this is the things I'm working on this is you know the things I'm good at all these things and I and I kind of was completely unattached to the result yeah like if she likes me cool if she doesn't like me at least she knows who I am yeah and it was freeing it it felt freeing to be like okay this is me I'm not playing any games I was just like if you like me cool if you don't like me cool yeah and and that that gave me freedom to be myself and I think it allowed me to see does she really like me for kind of all of me of what I'm able to you wer trying to impress her you were trying to access a healthy relationship absolutely yeah that's what the goal should be and it was almost like if she didn't want to hang out with me again I wasn't going to be upset or hurt that she wasn't into me I'd be like okay this just didn't work out I think that comes from you you know you having done a lot of work on yourself to get to the point where you had you felt pretty accepting of yourself at that stage yeah I couldn't do that in my 20s no because I think the game playing originates from this feeling of I'm starting from behind I'm starting from not being good enough so how can I manufacture a dynamic that is going to raise my value um how can I show my best self or how can I create a mirage of a self that doesn't exist interesting you know what what what am I trying to do by not texting you back for three days I'm trying to create this idea of myself as this extremely busy high demand person as opposed to the person that I am and and by the way if I was that really busy high high and demand person I probably still wouldn't wait three days to take I would say hey I'm running from meeting to meeting but I wanted to say hi and how's your day cuz you were still even if you were that person and it wasn't where your value was MH you you didn't put your value in being a busy and important person then you still wouldn't be weaponizing it but the game playing is a way to kind of you know manufacture or engineer a self that doesn't exist a self that you think would be the most attractive you that you're not really whereas you came into your relationship with Martha going I'm all right yeah yeah I'm all right I I'm I'm maybe I'm not perfect perfect but I'm all right I you know and I come to think of it I quite like me I don't mind myself and if I find someone who likes me for me that is far preferable to you know finding someone who's into me because of this Mirage I've created that I now have to sustain here's a question for both of you you know both of you give advice to men and women on relationships but I'm curious what is the biggest challenge that you had overcome in your 20s in your own relationships one one for each of you that maybe as a pattern looking back now you could say oh this is something I did in relationships or when I was single maybe I played a little bit of the games maybe I did this maybe I was emotionally available but what was the thing that you think held both of you back the most in your 20s from Finding Love I always had uh a lot of male friends and it was a blessing and a curse because they were so open with me about everything and men in their 20s you know they're young and they're enjoying life so they would have lots of girls on the go and stuff like that and they would always tell me what they're doing so they'll say one of the tricks we do is we put her as my WhatsApp picture but I might text other girls but I she she feels calmer in that moment or I text her on a night hour but you know I do what I want but she feels calmer when I say that so I'd know all the soothing techniques might have a malicious background to it so I would go in assuming men's their ways of soothing you and connecting with you has a malicious intent towards it they were still off dating other people are talking to other girls it was just to pacify you it's not true so because maybe speaks of the men I used to know and hang around with but that would be their kind of play they would kind of know this is how you work with them so what would happen is I would always have this mentality you can't fall me I'm Sadia you can't for me I know everything so the problem would be is I would go I would meet people with the intention of showing them that I'm more intelligent than they think I am so my Pro process would be to prove how you can't trick me so I'd look for cl connect dots that aren't there but it wouldn't be a genuine like why don't I just try and enjoy this connection and just see what's going on and just trust the intention instead it's like no no no I know this means and trying to prove to them how smart I am about human connection whilst not actually creating human connection thing so it's almost like you could have been with like the nicest best guy who really loved you and wanted to like show you the best of him but you were like there's something behind the scenes that you're doing I would try and check what online Behavior they've got what last scene on WhatsApp and then connect some dots in my head and then assume the worst and then think oh well at least by assuming the worst I can't get too attached and then I'm so smart but secretly I'm craving the connection that I'm pushing away yeah when did you realize that was a behavior or a pattern of yours that you were able to say okay let me let me separate myself or start to heal or process from this and start shifting it I thought it would be a permanent condition I thought that I've just been grained with it but I do think having a secure partner their level of transparency and their level of security in themselves and that attitude that you demonstrate with Marshall is look if you're going to play games you're most welcome to leave I'm not going to beg anybody but if you if you want to have a good human connection you are most welcome to take a seat on my table meeting men with that meeting somebody with that kind of mentality made me realize I don't need to come into relationships with all this defense and armor on in my in my back pocket I can actually put the weapons down and actually enjoy the connection and Trust the connection and also having a life I like living with or without the connection when I felt like this was going to be my identity being married to this person is going to be my identity it would mean that I would almost become an investigator and this relationship would be everything and I need to F figure out XYZ but when you have a life worth living outside of the relationship it's like whatever is in darkness will come to light at some stage any rate and when it does come to light I will still be fine I'm still who I am I've still got a life worth living so it's a combination of finding a secure partner and having a life worth living outside of the relationship and and and if something happens where he's Unfaithful or out of Integrity it will come out on its own we don't have to be constantly investigating to try to say I got you if they do come out with that mental and they do are cheating whatever they're not the person I fell in love with so I'm not missing out on anything I know it would be painful God forbid if it did happen I know it'd be painful but part of me the it's the person I loved is no longer existing so it's okay what am I attaching to anymore and we let go but it's just going to redirect you so before we just think it's all in compassing and it would ruin my life I I will still have a life worth living and this person's not worthy of that life worth living if they show me to be that person wow that's interesting okay before I follow up more on that I want to ask Matthew what was the biggest struggle that you had did men do all of those tricks that I did or is that more of a girl thing do all of the what do men ever do like checking online and all when they last on what I think it's more I I think I mean I'll speak from my personal experience I think he used to be like anxious and and be more jealous and be like oh what's she doing why is she out with this girl this guy you know be more like anxious or jealous I wasn't like you're doing something I know it like I found I connected the dots it's no investigation it's just if it's there yeah it's more insecure right I mean I think there probably a decent number of men who will investigate would write that behavior off but I um for you what was the the the thing that you struggled with in relationships or dating you know I I I think I had a a habit of staying in relationships that perhaps I didn't I knew weren't right for me long term but I stayed because I was insecure and was afraid to be on my own and you know really struggled to my worth was far too tied to whether I had someone in my life um so I you know obviously hurt people that way way because you you know you stay in situations where you are inevitably going to end up hurting someone but you don't feel brave enough to get out to end it yeah yeah and then of course when they do eventually end you haven't fixed anything about yourself and so instead of going now's probably the time that I should work on this Instinct I have to immediately go out and find someone new I immediately went out and tried to find someone new because I didn't I wasn't brave enough at that point in my life to really confront the kind of the real work that I needed to do to be okay in my own company to really like myself so would you wait for her to break up with you or would you just end it at some point no I would I would typically get to a point of ending it okay um But like after far longer than you should have yeah me too yeah and I and I and and and you know if I was being honest with myself there would have been things that I maybe would have said in the first place this just isn't a not the you know wonderful people I've had the I've been lucky to to have relationships with truly remarkable lovely people but um you know I wasn't right for them and they weren't right for me um but I was not brave enough to you know to do anything about that and and I think as well you know even even the part of me at that time that maybe judged well they're not right for me because of this and because of this and because of this even the things that I decided were not right for me were kind of also signs that I hadn't really accepted myself because I I truly believe in my bones the more in life you accept yourself and every part of yourself the more you start to see you see more people as well wonderful not less I don't subscribe to this idea that when you do work on yourself your pool shrinks M like a lot of people say that like I've just done so much self-growth that it's hard to find anyone anymore cuz no one's done as much self-growth as me and I or your ccle get so small and they kind of brag about their lack of connection now that they've healed yeah and I I've I always found that to be really strange because for me any like any work I've done to give myself more compassion and make more space for the what I've seen previously as the Hideous detestable contempt parts of myself has always made me make more space for other people because I go oh God if I can accept these things about me I better accept them about you too and I think there was a time in my life where I couldn't I couldn't make space for those parts of me so I just like denied them but of course when you then see them in other people you go yuck that's not what's that I don't want to I that's not for me but what you're really saying is this part of me isn't for me and I hadn't I hadn't figured that out for myself yet so you know even when I say you know that person wasn't right for me or whatever that even then there's a kind of like it you know I'm not saying I would have been ready or that they on a fundamental level would have been the right person for me but the reasons I might have been telling myself that they were wrong were often judgment that came from me still judging myself in really nasty ways that I hadn't figured out yet so it makes for a bad combination when you're judging people too harshly and deciding reasons not to be with them based on those judgments and at the same time you're too afraid to be alone and do the work to accept yourself because that will have you just jumping from one relationship to another to another to another it's a bad but Matthew you were coaching in your 20s as well like at the same time day making YouTube videos since 19 oh wow okay 19 17 years did that age your dating experience or just kind of did you manage to compartmentalize like no I think it was probably NE negative really yeah I mean it's not a it's not a desirable place to be is it to be kind of to be as a career making videos every week helping other people but while you're already feeling shame for things you haven't figured out but you're teaching others and and you don't feel you can be vulnerable about the things you're still working on I don't think everyone who helps other people needs to have every single thing figured out but if you haven't given yourself space to be honest about the things you haven't figured out then you're in trouble because you're having to live this very private world of Shame over here trying to figure things out in private which makes it hard because when you figure things out in private all the time you don't get support yeah and you know I I think over time my you know I one of my favorite things about my relationship with people in general whether it's my audience or the audience watching this or is that very honest relationship of I can truly be myself and it doesn't take away from the things that I know it but it adds color and complexity and it certainly takes me off of any kind of pedestal which these days I'm all too happy to be taken off of um it's one of the best things about it but there was a time where in my the the way I was in my public life mirrored the way I was in my private life which was that if I were to share with people some of the issues that I struggle with my audience the people that know me won't love me anymore or they won't want to listen to me anymore or they won't be connected to me anymore but that was the same as the that was the same struggle that I didn't know I was having at the time but was in my private life which is if I speak this insec security to the person that I'm with if I truly get vulnerable about that and I stop playing the hero in the relationship or in the dating process then this person will very quickly go off me and they won't be able to hold space for Matthew the complicated person who is sometimes heroic and also is sometimes kind of pathetic you know like they won't be able to make space for those two things they'll just see me as pathetic from now on and what's and and when someone isn't willing to share their vulnerabilities or insecurities in a relationship and they only show their best self MH can you have a truly healthy relationship do you think I don't think you can have a very connected one and you can't have a you can't you can't ever really feel like anyone knows you that's the problem in my experience it leads to a double life it leads to a person having one Persona that they present to their loved ones and a completely double life and the double life is not even their true self the second person isn't their true self it's actually a release from the first person that they're pretending to be because when you're pretending to be somebody it's very exhausting so it's almost like wearing a mask the whole day and a bit like when you're tired from work you might do something extravagant just to relax so what happens is because they're wearing a mask in their relationships when they take the mask off they still don't go down to their Baseline true self they actually go more to their vices because they need a release so they go more down the double path where they might lead to Affairs it might lead to completely different type of affairs with a completely different person that ignites a completely different feeling they're almost just running away from their true self so nobody gets to access their true selves even themselves so and then they don't know who they really are but they look for different peoples to escape who they are and just find different identities in different people so it really leads to a confused identity it's very draining for people who can't be themselves with their partner I'll see people who are super successful maybe they're a doctor or a surgeon have a married life kids everything but because maybe they can't be themselves or their partner they find themselves either adct IED to drugs or addicted to escorts and prostitutes and doing this finding themselves in environments that are completely not where they want to be but that double life has taken such a toll in them that they need an escapism Because by the way every relationship is shaped it is is is is made in The Crucible of hard conversations right can you have the difficult conversation can you say the thing you're afraid to say and can you express your need without fearing that if you do something bad will happen

Channel: Lewis Howes

Views: 174,210

Keywords: Lewis Howes, Lewis Howes interview, school of greatness, self help, self improvement, self development, personal development, success habits, success, wealth, motivation, inspiration, inspirational video, motivational video, success principles, millionaire success habits, how to become successful, success motivation, matthew hussey no contact rule, matthew hussey interview, sadia khan psychology, sadia khan podcast, sadia khan lewis howes, sadia khan red flags

Id: IdyLRtakrzo

Length: 53min 28sec (3208 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 03 2024