How To Release The Patterns That BLOCK Love & Keep You Single | Matthew Hussey

30:48We have to know our options. We have to know if plan A doesn't happen, what's my plan B? and at any point i have to be willing to make plan b the new plan a that's happiness happiness is when you have the the superpower to always know if plan b is what i i do how do i make plan b the new plan a if plan c is what i resort to how do i make plan c the new plan a if you have that skill, you're set. You're invincible. Wow. Why do you think, I'm going to speak for women, because this is a lot of, you coach a lot of women. Why do you think when there's a very reasonable or available man that meets the standards of a woman in front of them, that they're on a date with, that they're dating, why is it sometimes that women sabotage that potential really good relationship that is right in front of them.

31:48If they meet a good guy, they meet a good guy, they've gone on some dates, there's no red flags, there's no ick, and there's like, here's a guy, he's got a job, he's kind, he's like, he's groomed, he's healthy, he's, you know, he can have some funny, he's got, you know, maybe he's not Superman, but he's got a good package, right? Why do, literally and spiritually, why do women sabotage when there's a good man in front of them? The question can be applied equally across the genders. And we all, I know I've sabotaged potentially wonderful relationships before. Almost did it with the relationship that, you know, turned out to be my marriage.

32:39I almost like screwed that up. And we have to look at what's... Why do you think you almost screwed it up? We get into these patterns where we chase the wrong things. I can't take credit for that phrase. My wife Audrey loves that phrase and I got addicted to it too because it's such a great phrase. This idea that if you chase the wrong things, It might be fun sometimes, but until you start chasing the right things, that chasing the wrong things will always loop you back to where you started. and you know I got to the point as a single person where I realized this is not this is not as fun as it you know this has become a kind of drug of its own and what am I really chasing here does it leave me feeling better at the end of it does it leave me feeling more anxious in my case it actually left me feeling more anxious.

33:46It left me feeling worse about myself.

33:51And I, you know, I think in some ways that the longer we take to find our person, I don't believe in the one, but I do believe in our person, because it's a very different thing. But the longer we take, I think some of us, we have to now justify all the people we said no to. Because if I'm going to go for this person, then why did I say no to those people? They were great in these ways too. And so we kind of, we're chasing this idea we have in our mind of something. Instead of being present with who is in front of us and what's actually unfolding in front of us. What I wasn't paying attention to at the beginning of meeting my wife was that I felt like I was home.

34:44And that's a subtly different feeling. I felt like I was home. I could truly be myself. I felt genuinely accepted and not judged. And it was a kind of an unfamiliar feeling. I don't know that I was fully ready for that feeling. It almost felt unsafe because it was so safe. Yeah, it felt unsafe. We had an argument at the beginning of our relationship where we weren't even in a relationship yet, I don't think. But we had an argument where she started talking about some other guy. Uh-oh. And it got under my skin. And then I was an arsehole about it. Like I was not... You weren't even committed yet.

35:31Huh? You weren't even in a committed relationship. Were we? Oh, you were. You were, she said. Yeah.

35:39Okay. We were. But she started talking about someone and I, it got like my ego flared up. My ego flared up. And then I started being really cold and quiet. I didn't say anything for ages. She was the one making all the conversation. And at a certain point she was like, what's going on? And I was like, nothing. Cause what am I going to tell her? I'm not going to tell her at this early stage that I got insecure about a guy I don't even know. And that that somehow on some deep level has made me feel threatened. And how now I feel like I could get hurt in this and it's robbed me of some kind of power that I must have been holding on.

36:28I'm not going to tell you all of that because now you have even more potential to hurt me. I'm not going to give you all of that now. I once had a relationship where I told someone, like I debated all night whether to tell an insecurity that I was feeling. Really? And then I did at the end of the night. This was a different relationship. At the end of the night, I spoke on insecurity. And she looked at me and she said, I find that, I went, what? She goes, I just didn't know that you felt like that. I find that unattractive. Oh. Oh. It was one of the most horrendous. Yeah. It's your biggest fear.

37:15Yeah. I was like, for me, I didn't want to say it. I wasn't going to say it. So then I was like, why did I say it? Brene Brown.

37:39Vulnerability is strange. Doesn't work for men? Be vulnerable. I find that unattractive. That's why you have so many fucked up guys in the world now and they follow other fucked up. Yeah. up guys and they're all in their little circle of doing everything wrong because they got hurt they're hurt they just hurt people who have decided that the best way to deal with that hurt is to armor up and to hate everyone and to hate women and think that you're all against us and and and look i had a little moment in that moment where i was like never doing that again yeah exactly that's the last time i ever do that and then i met audrey and when i when i felt insecure about this this person i was quiet and passive and then passive aggressive and quiet and and she eventually like ringed it out of me because she's too perceptive and nothing gets by this woman.

38:51Nothing. And I eventually, after her having to drag it out of me, I eventually said it. And then I hated that I said it because I had that thought in my head. Well, there you go. And then, so she got it out of me and then I went cold all over again because now I was like ashamed. Really? Why did I say that? Now she's gonna think, now I'm not that attractive guy, I'm not Mr. Alpha, I'm not blah, blah, blah. All of this is happening, it's not like I'm verbalizing this to myself, but this is what's happening. And I'm supposed to not seem threatened, I'm supposed to be bulletproof, I'm not supposed to get threatened by another person like that.

39:39And then I said that it had, I was like, I wish I hadn't said that, because now you're gonna think this, and she was like, what? She was like, oh my God, I love, firstly, it doesn't change how attracted I am to you at all. I'm so attracted to you, my God.

40:03And the fact that you told me that, it's just, I love it because I get to know, I know you better. I get to know you better. It doesn't change anything. It's just, I love knowing you better. And if something's on your mind, I want you to share it with me because I want to be able to like talk. You know, I want to share why you don't need to worry about that. We had to go through so much that day to get to that little moment. And in a hundred other early dating phases with other people, that would have been the end of the relationship. that would have been it because someone would have not got it out of me and I would have never said anything and I just would have held on to it and it would have eroded the relationship or they get it out of me but then I don't feel safe with that person from their reaction and so I now back off or you know there's so many ways that moment can go wrong and in this relationship what was normally a moment where it would go wrong was a very healing moment for me.

41:14And she's had her own moments like that. And we chase these things that feel off because it's what we know and it feels familiar. And it's, you know, you're texting me back. This person's not texting me back. I feel like this is a little more interesting. She's laughing at everything that's wrong because she's been through it all, right? She's like, I know all this too well. There's a, you know, some of that is trauma. Some of it is our brain making this false calculation that if something is rare, it must be more valuable. Non sequitur when it comes to relationships. Someone being more rare makes them more valuable.

41:56You know, it's like when you walk past a nightclub, if they just let you in. I haven't been to a nightclub in many years. what I'm saying is, but you know, like when you used to walk past a nightclub, if they're like, yeah, you can come in. You were like, but the one you walk by and there's a guy with a list and he looks at you and he's like, what's your name? And you go, oh, we're not on it. He goes, well, I'm sorry. We've got a line here. You go, we need to be in there. Some going on in there. like nothing's going on in there it's a there's a bunch of people sitting at boring vip tables paying too much for drinks like nothing there's no great bacchanalian love fest going on back there that you must be part of it's a nightclub but the way they get you into that nightclub is to make it seem like it's really really hard to get in and we take that that those that uh those economic dynamics into our love life and someone stops texting us or someone feels like they're drifting and all of a sudden our brain says they must be important you like me what's wrong with you you're you're you're treating me like crap and you're in and out of my life and you text me and then you go cold and then I don't hear from you you might be on to something you're the one for me yeah yeah this is this is what happens for so many of us and we have to so much of it is retraining our instincts our instincts are not we we have to be very careful with the idea that we like trust your instincts your instincts will get you killed in a boxing match you were showing ufc in a boxing match with an inexperienced person getting in the ring do you know what the instinct is when a punch is thrown at their head?

43:53It's not duck.

44:00You blink. If you're not used to punches coming at you and a punch comes your way, people blink. People go blind in the exact moment they need to see. Because the appropriate response for a trained fighter is to slip the punch or parry.

44:24what are our bad instincts in our love lives we all have them you pull away from me i chase i get scared i shut down i had a woman that i work with you know she was all going great with this person and then one day he had a uh this was like a few dates in a few weeks in maybe he had a barbecue with his friends on a Saturday. Didn't invite her. And she was like, so her. And it brought up everything for her. All of her deepest fears of abandonment and not being good enough. And he wasn't proud of her and so on. But it was very early. And she said to him in the middle, firstly, she was like, I'm ignoring it.

45:10I'm ignoring the fact that you didn't invite me. I'm just ignoring it. I'm ignoring it. I'm ignoring it. Because that was her first pattern. Now, her instinct is something's bothering me. Go quiet. Don't dare say it. Then in the middle of the day when he was at this barbecue, it ate her up so much that she could not say something. So then her other instinct came out, which was a kind of like barbed way of speaking. So she went, why didn't you invite me to your barbecue? She texted that in the middle of the barbecue. Why didn't you invite me? and he said oh my god i'm so sorry these are old friends i haven't seen them in a while i was just getting together with them can i call you afterwards now she's ashamed she feels vulnerable she feels like she's let her guard down she's shown him how much she likes him by us like she played her hand the same way i did when i said that part that thing made me jealous she played her hand why didn't you invite me the subtext is i like you and i wanted to be invited i've now played that card.

46:07And now I hate you for making me play that card. So when he said, can I call you later? She said, don't bother.

46:19Three days later, she was talking to me and saying, what should I do? He hasn't called. He said, don't bother. But we can all look at that and see what that was we none of us know why she didn't get invited to the barbecue we don't know neither did she but her instinct in that moment sabotaged the situation before anything could ever really take root and we all have our version of that yeah i don't even know if that's instinct or if that's just wounds. Yeah, but our wounds create our instincts, right? So if you got hurt at some stage in your life, a survival instinct was created. If you do something today, we all do these things, right?

47:19Something will upset you. It'll make you anxious. It'll make you depressed. You'll have a reaction to something going on in your life that you'll kind of hate yourself for because you'll be like, why am I like this? Why am I like this? And that becomes fuel for hating ourselves. Why can't I just be like everybody else? Why can't I just handle life as well as Lewis Howes? Why don't I deal with this well? Why did I sabotage it? And then we beat ourselves up. The truth is, what we're doing right now is normal for someone like us to do. We are not broken. something happened, we went through something, we've had a certain kind of a life, we have a certain kind of a brain.

48:10There is some cocktail of things that mean that you are the kind of person that in this situation reacts like this. That doesn't deserve your hatred, that deserves your compassion what happened that i created this as a survival instinct i think both men and women create that survival instinct based on breakups pains people hurting them lying to them cheating on them whatever it might be all these different things you mentioned the relationship you're in where someone um said that you know they couldn't receive you from sharing a vulnerability before and I was in a relationship at one time where I can't remember what I was going through.

48:54I was going through some hard moment and I was like barely crying. It wasn't like I was like weeping or bawling or something, but I was like kind of crying and like just a little, a little tear, barely. And the person looked at me and started laughing at me. And I remember I was like, I was just trying to stay in the moment. I was like, man, I'm just kind of going through a lot right now. I just felt overwhelmed. And it was just kind of like a little tear, just like one tear. It wasn't even like crying in the fetal position. It wasn't like this weak moment. It was just like a little tear. And they were like, I know I'm supposed to think this is okay, but you look really weak.

49:29And imagine the, just like you had with whatever that moment was. And that was her belief. It was like, okay, I can't, I know I'm supposed to accept you for having a vulnerable moment, but you look weak. And, you know, men and women probably both have their ways of not accepting the partner they're with or they're dating based on a vulnerability or an insecurity or a weakness or whatever it might be. And I think until we're able to start processing and healing, like that could have scarred me and just been like, I'm never going to show weakness or a tear again with a woman ever. And I could have leaned easily into a belief system showing vulnerability means someone doesn't accept me.

50:18I'm not lovable. I'm not enough. No one's ever going to be in a relationship with me, whatever it might be, which would then I would start aligning a behavior that just says, I'm going to stuff it. I'm never going to show my emotions. I'm just going to act like I got to put together and then never be able to be open and truly connect with my heart. And so it could have conditioned me to harden my heart. Luckily, years of therapy allowed me to keep it open. But I think it's like both men and women have, you know, a lot of shifting to be able to receive someone's vulnerability. And why do you think today there are certain women that can't see a man be vulnerable without thinking they're weak and they're not going to be able to show up for me and vice versa there's certain men that maybe can't handle when the woman they're dating is emotional for a moment or going through a hard time and they're like toughen up i can't handle these emotions why is that seem to be prevalent in society today sometimes we can't give people what we don't allow ourselves so someone's someone's weak you see someone crying and you're like pull it together what's wrong with you but you that's the also the voice you use for yourself that's why you you make yourself so miserable you're making this person miserable now for the same reason you make yourself miserable so there's a lot of that um you know a lot of people didn't have they didn't have modeled for them what a great partner looks like.

52:05You know, they grew up with a role model or a caregiver that made them feel like you had to chase in order to get love. You had to do everything right in order to get love. And even then, that love was highly capricious. so you could have it, but then at any moment, it could be taken away from you. And so now you're the person in a relationship who, you know, it's like a nice Sunday. Another person's been quiet for too many minutes in a row. And you say, are you mad at me? and they go, what? What do you mean? And you say, I feel like you're mad at me. Is everything okay? And they go, yeah, I'm fine.

52:59Everything's good. So nothing's wrong. No, everything's fine. Okay. You're sure you're not mad at me? I'm not mad at you.

53:15So now, now like this situation starts to get created and now they're getting a little impatient and you feel that impatience and now your fight or flight kicks in. Oh no, here it comes. So these patterns are deep. They're deep. A lot of people hear messages about self-love and self-compassion and I actually think that so much of the message around self-love and self-compassion is so vague as to not be helpful it's like everyone says you have to love yourself how tell me give me tools for that what does that actually look like many people don't have a good answer when you ask them that but there are practical ways to love yourself and one of the great ways to love yourself is to realize that because of your survival instincts because of what you've been through because of the things that have always happened in your life.

54:14You have certain beliefs about what is possible. We think that the results we've gotten so far in life are all that's possible for us. Because if something else was possible, why didn't it happen? If it didn't happen, then it must be because I'm not good enough and it must be because I'm not capable enough. That's just not for me. Which is why we can see other friends making money or getting into great relationships. And in theory, that would give us reference points for the fact that it could happen for us too, because it happened to my friend. But we exceptionalize ourselves and say, no, no, but not with me.

54:53I'm not worthy of that. Why do you say you're not worthy of that? Well, it's never happened for me. If this is all I've ever gotten, this must be all I'm worth. If I was worth more, I would have gotten something more, but I'm not, so I must not be worth more. So we get locked in this level that we've set for ourselves. Our results today are not a reflection of our capabilities or our worth. Our results today are just a reflection of our patterns. And our patterns are a result of the instincts we've developed to cope with the things we have been through in our lives. Very hard to change. Very hard to change those patterns.

55:38Therefore, Or the starting point when we exhibit a pattern, either on our own or with other people, that doesn't serve us or sabotages us. The starting point for that is a kindness that we offer to a person. How awful that you have been through things that have led to this. A door closes too loudly and you do this. how awful that something has happened in your life that has meant you wake up three times in the night wondering if someone's in the house. How awful that that's something that you have with you. The last time you got anxious, did you decide to get anxious? No. Something happened, and like that, you got anxious.

56:36You didn't choose it. If you had a light switch, you could just go, no more anxiety. You would hit that light switch now. So this feeling, this thing, this reaction happened to you. It was instantaneous. That deserves compassion. But what we can do, the act of self, if I said to you, what's the practical way you can love yourself? Here's one. When that happens to you, we can stop and say, look, I know from everything you've experienced in your life that it's really hard for you to see past the things you've already experienced. If you've been cheated on in the last five relationships, it's really hard for you to see beyond this idea that the opposite sex are unfaithful or the same sex are unfaithful.

57:26Like, it's really hard for you to get there. I know you have a limited perspective. I know that you don't believe you can make money easy because of how hard it's always been for you. I get it. I don't expect you to be able to see over the hill. But the kindness, the self-love, the self-compassion comes from being almost like a wiser voice. You can picture it as like a voice from the future. like you 10 years from now who's aware of things you've done and experienced that are different from what you've experienced before that are going to give you a different perspective isn't that true already from 10 years ago there's you've experienced things you didn't think you would experience you've you've broken certain barriers you didn't think you would break so almost imagine like this wise voice from your own future coming back realizing that you're talking to someone who you can't convince logically that something new is possible, like this thing, this result is possible.

58:31But they don't have to believe that the result is possible. They have to believe that it's possible to do something slightly different than what they're doing right now. And that by doing that, a new thing will happen. What it is, we don't know. It might be good, it might be bad. Let's say that woman at the barbecue instead called him up that night and was like, so I've been on a bit of a journey for the last 24 hours, emotionally, and I'm so embarrassed to say this,

59:09but I kind of wish you'd invited me to that barbecue. What if she did that? Maybe it goes well, maybe it doesn't, but something different will happen than what normally happens in her life and different is the goal. Different is the goal because, because, because, because if something different happens, it messes with your idea that the only thing that does happen is the thing that's always happened. Suddenly, you're like, that different thing happened. It's like inception. Something different can happen. That may not have been the bullseye, but something different happened. Someone was a little kinder or someone spoke to me in a different tone of voice or the car crash happened slower than it normally does or like whatever it may be, something different happened.

1:00:12And so the great gift we can give ourselves in breaking our patterns is curiosity. Curiosity is the gateway to new beliefs. Become an experimenter in your own life. Experiment. Just go, what happens if I do this slightly differently than I normally do? And watch it produce just a slightly or vastly different result. And all of a sudden, you'll realize how big life is. All of a sudden, you realize that the way that you have told yourself life is, is one tiny fraction of the way that life is based on everything you've been doing so far. Lewis, since the day I met him, is one of the most giving people I have ever met.

1:01:10I have a very generous heart and was terrified for most of my life of being taken advantage of. and that closed me down so i would be very afraid to give in situations where i would see lewis give a lot and i know in lewis's life there have been many cases where that's meant he's been taken advantage of so the very thing that i was most afraid of actually happened to you a lot or in certain cases and i would be like i i'm i am always curiosity is my lens for everything so i'm like well so wait wait but what if you give and you do that thing for that person but then they like screw you over and he was like i mean they might it could happen i'll just be careful give you know i'll know who they are at that point and then you know with them i won't be as giving in the future i went fascinating but last week you did actually get screwed over like how surely you're like now i'm never doing that again and he was like well i mean it happens you know that person did that to me and you know it's like taught me a lesson about that person but you know i don't want to close down myself and like you know i was like every time i asked him these questions, I saw where Lewis went right when I went left.

1:02:38And here's what's hard, like in a good way, here's what's hard about that, is when you see someone going right where you go left, and in a certain area that you want to improve in or get results in, they're doing better than you. I was like Lewis is crushing it in ways I'm not and he keeps going right where I go left and he's not it's not like Lewis does it and no one ever takes advantage of Lewis no the thing that I'm afraid of does happen to Lewis yeah it does but his way of recalibrating is different from my way of recalibrating and that was that then I'm like I'm gonna try this yeah and you've changed me in that way you've changed me in that way and it's that has been a real i'm watching you is one of the great things about being close to great people is that there are these lessons that you learn where you and you they go right you go left you can do that with people in your own life ask them a million questions about how they make decisions and you will find ways like on a date what happens so what do you do when that happens on a first date well I do this and I do that oh and you're like well for me at that point the date would have been over but then this person has a much better dating life than you do or this person's actually in a really happy relationship and you're like oh how interesting these these little distinctions they matter so much and that's when I said at the beginning of this whole session you have taught me I've learned so much from you I really mean that but it's because I when I see someone running in an area where I can barely walk, I really want to know how do you do it differently than I do.

1:04:31And the last thing I need to let Lewis talk, I'm talking way too much. The last thing I just want to say about this, because I feel for completion, it's really important.

1:04:43Don't beat yourself up when you do that, and you can't do it as well as the person who you're modeling. I can tell you now, I will always be a more anxious person than Lewis has. I'm never going to be Lewis. He's always going to be, there are going to be areas of life where he is a black belt, and I have to struggle just to get by. That's always going to be the case in certain ways. but you don't need to get all the way to that person in order to get the result you can change the entire trajectory of your life but i can change the entire trajectory of my life by being 10 or 5 more like lewis in that department don't beat yourself up that you can't get all the way over there there are some areas you never will they haven't been through the same you have you haven't been through you haven't had the same life there's so you can't make that comparison but you can you you can take a few percentage points and those percentage points radically change your life that's beautiful that's beautiful love that thanks man appreciate it i've got two final quick questions for you the first one is uh i had everyone do this exercise here so my my first one is what are you what are two things you're grateful for today Oh, we're in the audience.

1:06:17My wife Audrey is here and my brother Stephen Hussey is here. And for me, it's all relationships. I don't know if you, there's a documentary everyone in this room should watch. Whether you're a fan of South Park or not, it doesn't matter. But there's a documentary called Six Days to Air. I think it's called Six Days to Air. And it follows Trey Parker and Matt Stone in the making of an episode of South Park. Where is this Netflix, Amazon? God, it could be that now it might just be on Amazon Berry somewhere, but old documentary, but it's, it's a very inspiring documentary. There was a moment where Trey Parker gets asked that they're, both of them get asked, you know, you say a lot of things that are cancelable in a world that has been canceling a lot of people.

1:07:08How do you continue to like be brave and just say whatever you want to say in these episodes. And they said, we always have the fishing rods in the car. Anytime, like we're always ready at any episode, we might go one step too far and they take us off the air. The fishing rods are in the car, the bags are packed and we're going to go to a lake and buy a house and fish and we'll be just as happy. Like the, and that idea of the fishing rods, it really stuck with me. Like, what are your fishing rods? I, for me, my fishing rods, like two of them are sat right there. Like whatever happens, if I burn down on stage right now, if, if, if my career is over, if the business doesn't work out, I am like the people in my life.

1:08:03I'm so, so, so lucky for the love that I have in my life. The fishing rods are in the car. at any point I can leave this life and go to a life that is extraordinary in the relationships I have that's beautiful speaking of beautiful relationships what final question for you what is the thing you love the most about your wife Audrey that has supported you in becoming a better version of yourself by being with her someone a friend of Audrey's once said to her the way that you love people makes them into a version of themselves they could not have been without you in their life. Shakespeare once wrote of Falstaff, that Falstaff, not just a wit, but a cause of wit in others.

1:09:01Not just a wit, but a cause of wit in others. By the way, that's a wonderful lesson for all human dynamics. If you want to be more interesting, make other people feel more interesting. If you want to be funnier, find other people funnier. You know, be someone who is in full staff's case, not just a wit, but a cause of wit in others. My wife is not just a loving person she has made me a more loving person she she has changed the way that i love by the way that she loves me wow and that has enabled me to love other people in a much braver way and in a much more pure way um so thank you that's beautiful that's beautiful i hope you enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness.

1:09:59Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's episode with all the important links. And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me personally, as well as ad-free listening, then make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Share this with a friend on social media and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts as well. Let me know what you enjoyed about this episode in that review. I really love hearing feedback from you and it helps us figure out how we can support and serve you moving forward. And I want to remind you if no one has told you lately that you are loved, you are worthy and you matter.

1:10:38And now it's time to go out there and do something great.