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74. Moving Beyond Red Flags: Overcoming Toxic Traits in Dating After Divorce · Dear Divorce Diary: A Fresh Approach To Healing Grief & Building A Life Of Confidence After Divorce

• 0:53
  Speaker 1: Hi, love, this is Dawn, and you're listening to Dear Divorce Diary with my coach, dawn, where we explore the post-divorce life and you, the woman who lives it.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: We cover everything from trauma during and after divorce to feeling like a stranger in your own life and the new frontier of life as a single woman.
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: We're cozy in for the conversations you've been longing to have about this new life.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: Hi, love, today let's dig into dating and your dating strategies that you are currently using, or maybe not using, and you want to use in order to attract a partner and recognize a partner who can and will love you well and cherish you and build a life with you that feels solid and stable and secure, and also fun and loving and sexy and all the things right.
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: So I wanted to revisit dating and talk about some of the things that I don't necessarily hear talked about.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: When it comes to dating strategy.
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: I think we do a really good job on Instagram and TikTok of talking about spotting red flags and understanding attachment styles and how that impacts dating and all of this, but I think there are some things around our own toxic traits and our own self-awareness that really need to be the emphasis of our dating strategy, and when we're not emphasizing our own self-awareness as a dating strategy and knowing our own toxic traits, we're actually setting ourselves up to have harder relationships and harder marriages than we need to have.
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: So let's dig into what I mean by know your toxic trait, know your dating partner, right, okay?
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: So as I got this idea, I was thinking about how, in my own life, I can see today and this is obviously after a lot of work and self-discovery, but I can see today how I have this one toxic trait that shows up over and over and over again in all of my relationships in my marriage with my ex, in my current marriage, in my friendships, in my family relationships, you name it.
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: It shows up and I am still working on shifting that and it's coming very naturally and very gently these days, which is great, but let's talk about what it is Okay.
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: So for me, my toxic trait is that I avoid, actively avoid and subconsciously saying the thing that is my red line or my boundary in the relationship.
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: I will avoid telling you that I'm feeling like whatever's happening in this relationship is approaching my red line, because if I tell you that, then I'm going to be terrified that you're not going to hang in there with me and work to improve the relationship or improve how we're relating to each other, and that you're just gonna say, dawn, you're not worth it, piece, you're out, right?
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: So how is that showed up in my life?
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: Well, in my relationship with my ex, there were repeated issues to do with alcohol as we were dating, and it got so bad before we got married that I actually made a threat and it was an empty threat because I didn't have the ego strength or the secure attachment style to be able to follow through with it.
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: But I said if you do, ex, then we will not get married.
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: And he did the thing and we got married anyways.
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: And so I.
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: That was a very clear example of me saying where my red line was and then ignoring that and suppressing that and moving forward anyways.
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: So then, in all these other relationships in my life, as I've been working to heal that wound of really abandoning myself right, because in that moment I could say that he wasn't willing to do the work and he abandoned the relationship in that moment and that's not wrong, but ultimately right I abandoned myself by saying this is my red line and I need to be accountable for that red line, right?
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: So?
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: And that's because of fear of loss.
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: Fear of loss, we could call it fear of abandonment, but what is it really?
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: It's fear of loss because as a grown-ass, adult woman, I couldn't be abandoned.
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: You can't abandon beings that are capable of taking care of themselves, right?
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: So it's cute to call it abandonment, but it's not.
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: You can abandon like newborn babies, and you can abandon houses, because these things can't care for themselves, but what we're really talking about is fear of loss.
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: So, as I'm continuing to heal my fear of loss, I'm able to step forward and say harder and harder things in my current relationships most of them right, and, and I can kind of look out at the horizon of my life and and look at which relationships people have been willing to go to the mat with me and work through those spots, and I can look out and I can see where maybe people aren't willing or able to do that.
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: But but the thing that I can do now is be accountable for my own fear of loss and I can work through that and I can make a decision.
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: Okay, what do I want to do about that?
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: How do I want to be accountable for that?
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: But I can definitely see how dating after divorce and before I got remarried how that remained an issue, and I can see how and this is the thing I want you to key in on I can see how my fear of loss and my difficulty speaking my truth, my deep, deep, deepest truth, my tendency to protect other people's shameful places because that's what I'm doing, right, I'm avoiding poking at your shameful, vulnerable, susceptible place because I'm afraid you won't be willing to take responsibility for it and that it will be my responsibility.
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: It will become my responsibility, right, so I protect you from facing your demons in order to protect myself from loss.
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: Right, and so I can see how that came directly from my childhood.
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: When I look at both of my parents as primary caregivers and how I related to them and how they related to me.
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: Now your story is going to have some differences to it, but when I sit down and I look at how it felt to relate to my dad and how it felt to relate to my mom and how, if I said hard things to either of them, how they responded, right, I can see where, if I said hard things pretty much both sides it was going to land in the punishment sphere that there was going to be punishment for saying hard things, not abiding, not, let me understand, not curiosity, not unpacking it, not humility or apologizing or taking responsibility, right.
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: None of that stuff.
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: It was more gaslighting, blame, punishment, right?
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: So now I take that information and I look at how that shows up in my relationships.
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: So for you to really be clear about what your toxic traits are in relationships and how that shows up in dating means you looking back at your childhood and mapping out regardless of who the people were that raised you whether it was parents or siblings or grandparents or aunts and uncles or whomever it was right and really taking a look at how it felt to relate to them when you had to say hard things, about how it felt for you to be in that relationship.
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: Producer Joy and I unpacked her childhood and how that turned into toxic traits for her.
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: So she had one parent who was punishing and gaslighting and blaming if she was saying hard things, and she had another parent who just kind of didn't say much of anything about any of that, right, was just very, very passive and didn't call out the other parent's bad behavior at all.
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: And so what happens for Producer Joy then, is she has.
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: She avoids saying the hard things, but also likes it when people take her side in an argument, because she feels like the passive parent never took her side, and so what's interesting about that, as it plays out in her relationships, is she is drawn to people who will take her side in an argument.
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: But what do we know about side taking is that it has to do with drama and the victim triangle, and that she looks for people to see her as a victim and to back her up and to say, yeah, you, that shouldn't have happened, right?
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: Which is all low on the vibrational scale and and victim consciousness.
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: And so it's really interesting to be able to see how our toxic traits that God developed from our early childhood ways of relating to our parents lead to who we attract in dating relationships, what we're drawn to, what feels good to us and what doesn't, because what doesn't get addressed in the dating world will become an issue that blows up in a married life, right?
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: So what do I mean by that?
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: Well, before I married my current husband, I had a strong need for control, again out of fear of loss, right, and so I would want to control a lot of the details of life and how things went, because I would be afraid that if I didn't control how, all the little details of how we parented our daughter, that something bad would happen.
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: If I didn't control all the little details of how I ran my business, that you know, I would lose a customer.
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: If I didn't control all the details of how our house looked, that we would lose friends or you know down to right.
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: All this fear of loss as my toxic trait right, caused me to have a lot of control.
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: So we didn't, I didn't heal all that before I got married to my current husband, but how that shows up in our now marriages.
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: We are spending a lot of time in our marriage renegotiating what it looks like for me to give up control, because now I don't want control anymore and I want to partner to really co-captain the ship right.
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: I don't want to be on point all the time and that's no, it's not natural for us, it's not natural for me to say, hey, hubs, you got the, you got the reins.
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: Today I'm gonna tap out right.
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: That's not a comfortable place for him and I to be together, because he came to this relationship unconsciously because of his toxic traits, with his family wanting somebody who could take control and maintain that control on a regular basis.
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: So it's taking a lot of intentional work for us to renegotiate that.
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: Now, what is the key ingredient to us even being able to do that?
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: It's the fact that we are both willing to change how we show up in the relationship and we're willing to talk about the hard things and we are willing to grow in ways that are very, very painful.
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: And so it's really important to notice that piece about willing to grow in places that are very, very painful, because I think we can look at someone in a dating sphere and we can say, oh, look, that person is willing to grow at their job.
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: Right, they're willing to go to a coach to help grow their professional skills.
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: Oh, look, this person hires a coach to forward their fitness skills, and those are really great places to see where people are willing to grow and change.
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: But they're kind of the sexy places you know what I mean Like it feels good to be able to run further or faster or lift more and look better.
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: It feels really good to improve your performance on the job.
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: It doesn't feel as good to go face your shameful places, your deepest, darkest insecurities and grow in those ways.
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: And so I want you to think about as you're dating.
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: You're here, so obviously you're willing to look at some shameful places, right.
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: But are the people that you're dating willing to look at the shameful places and grow in those spaces?
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: And, more importantly, are you able to hold your own line there?
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: Because I was not right.
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: I, because my toxic trait is dancing away from the shameful places, because I'm afraid that if I call them out, you're going to get mad at me, you're gonna punish me, you're gonna leave me, you're gonna do all the things, right?
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: So, keeping my eye on where in my relationships am I suppressing, calling out this stuff and then not holding people accountable for problem solving in those spaces with me?
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: Because if we don't talk about the shameful places and identify that you're willing to go there with me, then when the rubber meets the road down the road in the marriage or in the later stages of the relationship, where you know we're now co-parenting together, or we're now facing aging parents together, or we're now facing financial issues together, right, if we can't really go there and we didn't learn that when we were dating, then, oh man, is it gonna be a tall price to pay down the road.
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: So these are the things I want you to check in with yourself.
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: Do you have a clear map of how you related to your parents around the hard things, around the vulnerabilities, around holding people accountable, around being able to say painful, vulnerable things, around being able to talk about your shame?
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: How did your parents respond when you were talking about your shame or calling them out on theirs?
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: Right, that's really it boiled down.
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: Let me say that again because that's probably the best way I've said it so far.
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: Think about how feel your way through this.
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: Feel your way through what it was like when you would talk about your shameful places with each parent and when you would call out their shameful places.
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: How did that go?
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: And now I want you to look at how that has gone in the history of your dating relationships or romantic relationships.
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: And those are the skills I need you to stay focused on is being able to talk about your hard things and being able to call out somebody else's hard things and determine if you're a team in those painful, shameful places.
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: Are you willing to be a team?
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: Because that's how we get to conflict resolution and that's how we get to creative problem solving in intimate spaces.
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: You know what is marriage therapy?
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: Other than two people coming to me because they can't figure out how to resolve conflict on their own, they can't figure out how to problem solve on their own, they can't figure out how to work through shame things, they're ashamed of things, that they feel defensive, hostile and blame oriented around without a guide, right?
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: So I want you to be very, very buyer beware, right?
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: I want you to read the ingredients on the package before you buy it.
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: I want you to know how both yourself and the person you're dating tolerate these conversations.
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: Now, do you have to have all those conversations by date three?
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: Absolutely not, right.
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: But I think that there are little clues for us, even in dates one, two and three.
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: How do I know that?
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: Well, because I think that you can get a sense from how a person talks about certain things, even in dates one, two and three.
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: For instance, stds.
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about that because it comes up a lot in therapy, right, and it certainly was an issue for me when I was dating, because I've contracted a handful of them in my life.
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: Right, how does a person respond when talking about sex or sexual issues in on a date right?
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: Do they tackle those topics, sex-related topics, in a way that sounds like they have mutual respect, that they understand how a woman experiences issues around consent, issues around pregnancy, contracting an STD?
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: Do they offer to get tested STD tested up front, and show you those test results?
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: Right?
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: Because I think all too often where people are having unprotected sex or not advocating for themselves sexually, not asking for the test, so those types of things right.
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: It's so interesting how we just talk about or avoid talking about issues of sex tells us something, even if we're not going for those big, deep, dark issues in the first handful of dates.
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: How a person talks about past relationships or past partners will tell you a handful of things about how they deal with their shame and how well they receive feedback.
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: So I think I've heard clients before say well, he talked all about his relationship with his ex and he talked about how hard it was and the ways that he felt betrayed or the ways that he felt she was not a good partner and talked about ways that he was hurt or injured through the marriage.
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: That's beautiful, right.
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: But also, is the person that you're dating willing to talk about the ways that they failed their ex, the ways that they didn't show up as the best partner, because those are the signs of vulnerability, of humility, of being able to talk about shameful things right.
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: So we don't have to get down into the nitty-gritty and the first few dates to know if a person is showing up willing to be humble, willing to be vulnerable and willing to take responsibility and willing to do conflict resolution in a meaningful way.
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: Right, even if someone is just late to a date, how do they respond?
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: Right?
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: Do they respond by making an excuse?
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: Do they respond by being self-effacing, like oh, I know I'm the worst, like I really screwed up, like are they dramatic about how they apologize or are they just like really kind of honest about what happened?
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: So I think that you can really feel your way through a date and notice, does this feel like someone who I could let my guard down and they would be understanding and compassionate and they would let their guard down too.
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: Because I think a lot of times, as women producer Joy and I were talking about this in our noodle session that a lot of times, women, we let our guards down in a dating scenario and we do that damsel in distress thing really beautifully and this was depicted beautifully in the Barbie movie.
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: And men do a really good job of receiving us well in those moments, in those early dating stages, where they're like, oh gosh, I hate that that happened to you, that was horrible.
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: I really wish that I could have protected you from that.
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: And they do a really good job of that.
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: And we misread that as being mutual vulnerability, right, because you have to keep in mind loves that women do damsel in distress really well and men do rescuer really well.
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: But does it work in reverse for the person that you're dating, right?
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: Can you allow and Bernay Brown talks about this in one of her breakout books oh, the title of it is escaping me right now she talked about in one of her books that women don't tolerate men doing vulnerability.
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: Very well, because we like our men to be strong, we like them to be on white horses, we like them to rescue us.
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: And so can you tolerate the man you're dating sharing vulnerability?
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: And or does that feel awkward to you?
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: Right?
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: So, keeping your eye on all of these things where, if your toxic trait is to tend towards that damsel in distress, rescue, or dynamic, if your toxic trait is to do fear of loss in a dating scenario if your toxic trait is to be attracted to the bad boy because you have this tendency towards addiction.
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: I had a tendency towards the bad boy thing and being addicted to a bit of drama, being addicted to that damsel and distress dynamic and asterisk here.
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: If you see where you have a tendency to be addicted to addicts as many, many, many women are know that if there are some real signs of addictive behavior with the men you're dating, a there's something that you're missing there in your own healing work.
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: And B do not underestimate how big of an issue active addicted behavior is, whether it's addicted to pornography or addicted to alcohol or addicted to weed or gosh forbid the harder things.
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: Isn't it funny how sometimes in a podcast episode I will just drop an F bomb but then I'll say, gosh, this is a funny, funny thing about me.
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: So I want you to really really know if you have a pattern of being addicted to addicts.
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: That is not a thing that we can say, oh, he'll grow out of it or oh, we'll deal with that together.
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: I want you to know love that addiction really is is next level issue, clinically right, like in terms of mental illness.
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: Do I even want to call it that, I don't know mind, body and balance like the clinical presentation of that.
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: It is not easy.
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: Last people recover.
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: It is not a large group of people who truly recover from chronic addiction.
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: So if you've been lying to yourself about that and the people you've been dating, now is a time to have a little reckoning, right, if that's your toxic trait to be addicted to addicts.
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: So here's what I want you to take away from all of this okay, that truly having a dating experience that is safe and feels good and feels easy no, it's not going to feel easy, it's going to feel hard, right, but like sets you up to have a monogamous relationship that feels easy or feels safe and feels like secure and helps you create a secure attachment style means having harder conversations on the front end, but means really digging deep into being aware of how it felt for you to relate to each of your primary parents when you said hard things, and that even means when you broke the rules right, like how they disciplined you when you broke the rules is part of this.
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: Right, like, when you got honest with them or didn't get honest, how did they relate to you?
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: Right?
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: And so, knowing yourself well, knowing your toxic traits well, being willing to address your fear of loss, being willing to address the things that you tend to avoid, deny or suppress, is going to dictate how your dating life transitions into monogamous relationships.
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: And having those hard conversations on the front end is what dictates whether or not you're able to problem solve 10 years down the road.
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: Because, love, we are not static creatures, meaning how we are today is not how we're going to be 10 years from now.
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: We are constantly involving and changing.
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: In fact, your body chemistry is very different, especially as a woman especially love as a woman today than it is tomorrow.
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: Right, if you're pre menopause, your body chemistry is changing hormonally on a daily basis.
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: And if you're post menopause like, think about the transition that happens for a woman pre to post menopause there are going to be changes that you're going to experience in life, love that you cannot predict, and you need to be setting yourself up to have a partner who can move through those changes with you and you can still be a solid team.
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: Right?
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: Think about because you want to be cherished into your old.
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: Right, you want to be in a rocking chair with somebody on a porch in Asheville, north Carolina, for instance, and just enjoying retirement someday, right.
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: But like PS, retirement is a major life transition where all of a sudden, you go from having a purpose and something to do every day to like knowing how to have fun without somebody telling you what to do all the time, or having a ton of downtime, or you know, and and it's funny like we're not good at that transition into retirement, like and men especially struggle with that transition.
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: So it's like we're not thinking about, like when we're dating right now, right, we're just feeling kind of alone and we're feeling like we need to be touched, or we're feeling like we need to be desired and we're feeling like we need to be cared for.
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: Well, and we're not thinking about how, right now, in our current episode chapter of our lives where we've had relationship pain, we're not thinking about making relationship decisions, about what retirement is going to look like or what moving through menopause is going to look like, or what being empty nesters is going to look like.
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: Right, we're, we're idealizing those seasons, we're fantasizing about those seasons.
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: We're like and then we'll be empty nesters and we'll be able to adventure, and then we'll be retired and we'll be able to travel and we idealize it without really being honest with ourselves about how humans navigate those moments.
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: Because, as humans therapists, I'm here to tell you we're not cute in those transitions.
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: We are not cute, love, in those transitions, right?
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: So check yourself because, because I guarantee you you've been doing this thing I'm saying so, check yourself and be willing to look at and have these hard talks and look at is part of your toxic trait.
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: Fantasizing about these things is that part right?
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: So, as you're dating love, keep your eyes on your toxic traits and be willing to be honest with yourself and your therapist and your accountability buddies and the people you're dating.
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: Right, because the reality is, the statistics are if you've been divorced once, you're far more likely to get divorced twice and three times, right.
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: The divorce rate goes from like the 50th percentile up to the like 60th, 70th and then into the 90th percentile for first, second and third marriages.
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: So, love, you've got this right.
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: But I want you to think of not just attachment styles and not just red flags that your potential dating partners have, but I want you to look at your willingness to talk about your red flags and to catch yourself doing your own red flags.
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: So it's again, shifting the narrative from outside of yourself to inside of yourself and catching yourself when you are idealizing something, fantasizing about something, in a way that doesn't serve you in the long run.
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: So you know how sometimes we've talked about future self, right, and how, using your future self as a tool it's like.
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: Well, future self is that woman who has the wisdom to know that navigating, for instance, empty nesting and retirement is trickier than you realize, right?
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: But checking in with future self and saying, hey, future self, what decisions do I need to make today?
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: What hard things do I need to tackle today in order to ensure that I'm moving in the direction of my goals, so that I make it to you, future self, right, so that we are one in the same, and I think that that is what we're talking about here right?
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: It's like being honest with ourselves that when we have this idea, this ideal of what future self looks like, am I really taking the steps today to ensure that I am she?
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: Because that's what it takes.
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: Right Is if this is a really concrete, easy way to do it, right.
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: But if future self is 20 pounds lighter, am I making sure that my step count is approximately 10,000 steps a day, because those are the steps that need to be taken in order for future self to reach her goal weight.
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: And so when we think about sustainable, loving, cherished relationships that I get to retire with and be happy, joyous and free with, then the steps I have to be taking today in order to have that future self outcome need to be having hard conversations and changing actively changing how I relate in intimate spaces, because my current brain map for intimate relationships is the one that got developed with my parents, right, and so this isn't blaming parents and it's not not being loving or kind about.
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: They did their best.
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: They loved us deeply, they loved us, they loved us, they loved us, they loved us.
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: But there were relationship habits and patterns, there were communication styles, there were emotional vulnerability, habits and patterns that shaped how we relate to intimate romantic relationships.
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: That's it.
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: This isn't about how much they loved you.
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: This isn't about whether or not they were bad people.
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: It's understanding the skills to do with communication, conflict resolution, problem solving and intimacy and vulnerability.
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: That's it.
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: It's looking at the skills that were handed down to you or, more importantly, were not handed down to you, right, and so sometimes notice that when we idealize how our childhoods went and we don't actually unpack it and get to the bottom of it and we're not aware of our traits and our habits and our patterns.
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: It's that tendency towards idealizing things that can get us into trouble, right?
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: So it's really diving deep and feeling your way into that, being honest with yourself, checking in with future self, who you visualize her as, and then, being honest with yourself, are you taking those steps?
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: And then, if you're not great, tweak it.
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: Right, that's it, tweak it.
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: And I think that even simple things like listening to this podcast helps you move in the direction of future self, because it's just good reminders, right, week to week reminders to get back on track right, that's it.
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: Just get back on track.
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: Easy, does it?
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: No big deal.
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: And trusting that as we keep having the conversations, we get to deeper and deeper layers of healing.
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: Right, all right, love.
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: I cannot wait for you to tell me what you have recognized your toxic traits as, and I'm so curious if you feel like you have one that's different than the ones I've called out here, definitely send me a message.
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: I would love to know.
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: And keep dating right, keep practicing dating, because that is where we learn these things about ourselves.
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: It's where we spot the things that we then need to work on.
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: So I don't want you to.
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: You know there's a lot of advice out there about dating and I think that going out there and practicing is a great place to to grow.
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: So keep doing the thing, having fun, checking it out.
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: Don't take it too seriously, don't settle, right.
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: Don't settle, because when we pick relationships from a place of desperation, remember, on the emotional guidance scale to spare is all the way at the bottom.
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: So the the, the relationship that you would be attracting from a place of desperation is not ideal, right?
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: So so don't settle.
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: Hang in there, keep practicing, have fun doing it, because it's supposed to be fun, right, and I'll talk to you soon.
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: I love you so much, peace.