The Unified Team

Welcome to honest talk about heartbreak, dating and relationships, relationships. The podcast helping you navigate your path to happy ever after with your host, Rob McPhillips. I believe that there's free keys to relationships. So that's what we're going to do in the next free meet ups. So tonight we're going to talk about key number one and I believe key number one is connection. So tonight, we're going to be on a quest and we've got Betty and Janell's leading our quest to look at the connection and disconnection.

So we started off in a breakout rooms by discussing when we felt from experience connected or disconnected in relationships. So what did you find? What ideas did you have or any comments, feedback from the discussion? I like the idea of connection or disconnection. Well, he felt that the central feeling at the heart of. Feeling connected is to be supported. So first of all, we look for examples where we felt connected and we kind of reversed, engineered and looked for examples where we didn't feel connected.

[01:37]

So an example was where somebody was trying to communicate with someone and the person wasn't listening because they were on the phone and they had a blank expression on their face. So we said the opposite of that. Then obviously to be listened to and to feel heard and to feel respected and the feelings around that word, to feel acknowledged and for someone to show a genuine interest and to ask questions, you also felt. Another example is when someone shows genuine concern and asks questions and it's like what's bothering you?

[02:11]

And they listen. So the feelings we have were like feeling lighter, feeling validated, respected, respected of your needs and empathy and uplifted and embraced. And really we felt that when people felt heard, they felt relaxed and at the central feeling. So that was to feel supported. And that that was what was one of the most important things to feel connected to someone like.

[02:41]

That's great, thank you. Any other comments from that from that group? And what else? OK, journalist. We may need more find it, this connection, it's coming from the communication, the behavior and expectations. So that came out that like object, the object is change or our common goal is change over the time. He showed us three changes in overtime, so like trying to get over.

[03:25]

It's like it was a situation where somebody wanted to take the other one wanted for kids over the time. So they wanted weekend house or they wanted more like a flat. It can be between each other. It's changed to goals like. That could be the case as well. Yes. Oh, yes. We had a contest issues as well when we feel disconnected. It's unable, actually, to open the other person. So, yeah, honest communication is.

[04:16]

Too much comfort. OK, as in, they got complacent with each other and. Over the time, you know, after a couple of years, they get too much comfort with each other, so they're not doing the same way like in the beginning.

[04:35]

Yeah, too much to keep and not compromise. One person to match, the other one is not compromise. OK? Distance getting critique and called. Distance and it's critics and cause. OK. Lack of respect. And the personal presence. OK, so so like the other groups there where some of you are talking, but not really they're.

OK, can I add something there, Rob? Yes, you just I mean, sometimes, you know, there might be a number of instances, but, you know, obviously sometimes you meet someone and it might be a bit lost in the it or, you know, oh, do make me laugh, you know? So it's I'm not saying it's first day, our first date stuff, but as you get into knows when you might go, that I forget all the, you know, really attractive.

[05:47]

And yeah, sometimes you might not know the personal first by you as you get to know one six months down the line. That's why you might become disconnected, because it's not all just about attraction and gone. They're not fully twenty four, seven or every time you see them, they're not fully normal because I see him five days a week now, but I only used to see him on a Saturday night. While all the effort that made me laugh, I'm trying to say and I'm going to quickly compare that to I used to see my son for two hours a week.

[06:24]

So that two hours is just a highlight, again, a day can be four hours, five hours, whatever it is, and it's just it's all good when you see somebody four times a week, it can't all be good. Yeah, I wouldn't say none gone well, I see in four days a week now, and he's not falling all the time now, was we? What we used to eat once a week is full and. And I just got a few comments as well, will show that basically we're talking about disconnection when a man goes into his cave, which is the classic book, Men are from Mars, women are from Venus, men retreat into the cave.

[07:12]

And that can confuse a woman is confuse me in the past. But I respect the differences. And I would also say that I like to retreat into my cave as well. But men don't always understand that. So it's kind of always getting a little bit of a stereotype in men. And then I apologize because I realized I needed to get more specific about my own experiences rather than generalize, which is the sense that I'm learning not to do that anymore.

[07:43]

But yeah, men, they retreat. But I would like the man when he retreat and say, OK, honey, I'm off for a while, you know, I got to think about this. I will be back and I'll let you know they were ready to publish a man to just say a few things around that and they can spend all they want you to in the cave. But it's not me, they said, like a few words of respect.

[08:11]

You got me.

[08:13]

Yeah, because I think what you're saying is it's not the fact that they go to the cave. It's the fact that you don't know why they've gone to the cave. You don't know what that means.

[08:28]

Absolutely. That's what I do.

[08:31]

But why do you need to know it's there? It's it's probably a part of a ritual because I'm not a man, but I go into whatever it is that I go into.

[08:42]

Yeah. And to work when I come in after a hard day's work, don't speak to me. I don't want to talk to anybody. I'm serious.

[08:53]

I must have my cup of tea and then I'll have my shower. Then you can speak to me then.

[09:02]

It's about communication because if, if one person goes into the cave and they want their space and they want to be left alone for the other person to feel content in that relationship, to still feel that connection, is it that they need to just simply communicate and be like, I need my space? The actually we need to understand first ourselves, what is that feeling? And to know, okay, I need a little time now and after the communication, but so many of us, we not even know I need time.

[09:36]

So it's very difficult to get into the nation until you understand your own behavior, so first you need to understand yourself. Then after he was able to communicate expression, it should come from our first. We need to be able to express for ourselves, for our brain to let know what I actually want now time. And I thought that that makes sense.

[10:02]

I like the way you put that it starts with yourself and then communicating that honestly and openly.

[10:09]

Sometimes even we may not know why we are going into the cave, but you just find yourself there. But there's just the emotion is just you just feel down and you just want to get on with it yourself and you don't want to know how to talk to you about it. But you can't save a man just like, yes, if I could crumble outside the cave financial center, that would make things really, really easy.

[10:39]

But as a mom tends to get more experience when I got into my cave rather than get bored and that's what I got really mean and thought of why are we paying what what you know? And it's like, I don't a minute you can go into your case for what I go into. My case is like drama.

[11:02]

So I'd just like to say it's actually chicken and black beans or some of.

[11:10]

Look, it's not easy, but make sure you put out your socks in the board all your time. Thank you. And you did that.

[11:22]

See, I think that if we are communicating in general, we should have developed a sense of what a person.

[11:35]

What makes a person tick your partner tick what what their their work life is like, if it's a stressful type of job or if they have long days, they come in very tired, et cetera, et cetera. And I think we can go some way in helping them by trying to understand just based on the cues that we're seeing from them as well. And in that way, we can have a proper conversation.

[12:08]

We can ask questions because sometimes you are doing things and you don't even realize that what you are doing is affecting the other person negatively.

[12:21]

I think what's simple sometimes what's happening because women are waiting for the most part, I feel so deep, deep to express their base, but sometimes it does. Well, I'm not just one side, but they just form and delete couples needs to switch off. But sometimes they should do that outside. But most of them they do in front of TV.

[12:47]

Excuse me, I'm not in waiting at home for men to come home and I see Rob died with laughter. But sometimes what man is waiting for wife to come home? Wife is the wife is the bigwig and her husband is junior to wife. Husband is waiting for wife to come home. What about that situation? No, come on. I used to work seven days a week, OK? I was on call as I at some point and I used to travel a lot.

[13:20]

I used to go to a lot of international conferences. Husband had to stay home with baby even though there was a helper. OK, so I am the grumpy one. I have no one to come home. I have a cave. Not here it goes. I'm not blowing my trumpet, OK? I'm just saying that it goes both ways and time to decompress and have some space. And to my mind, if I didn't have that time to not speak, to let my hair down, just to take half the road close and just feel like a human being.

[14:03]

I don't want to hear your problems. Don't tell me about who's doing what in the office and who did what. I can't accommodate it. Give me half an hour and I'll listen to you afterwards. I'm all yours, but just give me that space. And people are often scared.

[14:20]

To be honest. I want my generally all. If you try and communicate these things that no one's perfect. But I think that when do go into that, just to give some indication if that's what's going on, even if it's not worth it to communicate, just to give some indication, sometimes coming back and being left confused and then it just makes things worse.

[14:43]

And if you like, if you're married, I absolutely get, you know, your partner inside and out, you know, all the nuances and all the other reasons. And you can like you, you can play off the keys, you know. But when you first date, when I was talking about when you first go out with somebody and you learned about them, say, in the first six months, unless were giving you stipulations, not like going to OK then.

[15:11]

And yet they they don't contact you like ages and suddenly they appear and safely and you think where the hell if they know, you know, if there's no communication that needs to be more communication. You know, it's so important. One of my love languages is how a man communicates with me. That is my love language. How many presidents like that, but how often communicated with and what they bring the apple crumble or no? I'm not going to leave that other than what I think about the point that those made when he was saying that if you start seeing someone, I mean one night a week and it's an awful and then you see the more and it's not so much, how do you maintain the connection and.

[15:58]

Okay, yeah, that's perfect timing. So whenever we talk, every problem or every situation has different levels. There's the level of the content and that's where we're talking at the moment. And when you talk from the level of the content, it's very emotive and you can't really see much other than where you are in any actual conflict. So there is the content. There's also the concept, what it's about, and then there's the concept context. So we're going to go be abstract and look at the context so that we have a full understanding of connection and how it informs what it's about, how we develop.

[16:42]

And then the question is going to be then to bring it back down to the content. So we have a bird's eye view and so we can see the different sides. Okay, so. All right, so we're going to go abstract. Okay, so, you know, there's the old case. First of all, a quick. Four on this and your first responses to what is connection and what is this connection? We cannot choose to feel known and to feel alone, you need to feel seen and heard and respected and valued.

[17:28]

OK. Also my lover. Should write a book, should write a book, you know, not love what you say. Does anyone else have any views on connection, this connection, connection is things in common? No, you're being listened to and not just if I take it. If somebody listens here on the. They've hated on what you've told them, so hang on, I hate it that you keep putting your feet up on a buffet two days later, every day of the week, the next week, you still put your feet up on the buffet.

The Hill I’m Willing To Die On

Tue, 09 Feb 2021 13:08:00 +0100

Relationships often descend into pointless bickering.

The hill you'll die on is a way to clarify what's worth fighting for and what is a pointless argument.

Transcript

Welcome to honest talk about heartbreak, dating and relationships, relationships, the podcast helping you navigate your path to happy ever after with your host, Rob McPhillips. Tonight, we're talking about the Hill you'll die on, and that probably sounds a little bit. It's not very descriptive. Thing, but really what it's about is. What? What are you really willing to fight about and what is a meaningless fight for you? So the saw her look at where did it where did it come from the Hill that you will die on?

And it seems to be seems to have come from 1969, in 1969 in the Vietnam War, it was a battle for a hill and. The Americans lost, they say, six hundred and thirty Marines or. What more infantry and Viet Nam say fifteen hundred. And essentially, they were fighting for a hill that had no strategic value. That had no real benefit, and they gave up on it when it got when it became hard to. To win, so it was Edward Kennedy who is a senator then who named the Hamburger Hill because basically the infantry men who were killed were basically treated like mincemeat.

[01:44]

And so the hill that dying is represents. Like, if you have to if you have to, like in the military, having a hill is an advantage because it's hard to fight. And so to win, to win a hill means that it has to be something worth conquering. Now in relationships. All the fights that you're going to have were fighting for. Or are they just something you've got in the pattern of squabbling about, are they mean meaningless battles?

[02:28]

And then. In life, there's really. Fights that. The gain is not worth fighting. But there has to be something. That powers your life, something that's important to you. Because if you don't have the hill that you're willing to die on. Then. You don't really have something that gives you is going to give you a source of passion and enthusiasm. So the idea of the Hill that you go down is about having some sense of purpose and it's also having some sense of identity about what your life's about.

[03:19]

So these are the things that become our North Star. So. First, though, I'm curious because you were talking about what you are passionate about when you were young. So does anyone want to share what they want you to be because I didn't hear anyone else's. OK, and I got my sherry, so we were talking about so I really do need to also with job rules actually, but when I was really young, I liked I had the dream of traveling quite a lot.

[03:51]

So I wanted to see the world. And I was like because I felt like such a big world and I want to see it and get to know it. And I always felt the best way to meet other cultures and understand them. And then it kind of evolved. And I really started with journalism, but I always been passionate about animals, which is something I haven't mentioned. And I did quite a few rescues when I was back home. So that lasted until I moved to the UK and only at the age of 15 I thought of becoming a social worker.

[04:19]

So I wanted to do something that was meaningful and help others. So yeah, I think that was that. And so far it remains like I still want to travel loads. I still love animals and I want to work will help as much as I can. And I still work in care in the health care sector, so. I'm still doing all of those things, so. Well, I wanted to be everything that I read as I was explaining to my group, so any book that I read that was really so I went from medicine to archeology to veterinary medicine to God, he knows anything.

[05:08]

And of course, it was a bit of a what you call it, a toss up things that girls are supposed to do versus things that girls weren't supposed to do became part of the family thing, but that I ignored.

[05:21]

And so eventually I became a marine zoologist, then an aquaculture aquaculturist, growing fish. And now I do science and technology, so I've gone all the way around, so, yeah, so now I do a science and technology policy. So I look at strange and emerging technologies, robotics and A.I. and genetics and lovely, wonderful, futuristic things, which I absolutely enjoy. Good. So what's changed is the general question, what's changed from childhood to now?

[06:08]

Reality. A healthy dose of reality. So is it reality or. So when I was young, I wanted to be a professional footballer, you know, like lots of kids, then somewhere along the lines I realized, one, that maybe I didn't have the skill. And to do more than that, I wasn't prepared to work for. But then also the other things coming to your life, so there are competing forces that tend to moderate or modulate whatever the word is, moderate your your passions.

[06:56]

You know, some of your passions, because they start to compete for time and attention and also passions to. OK, um. OK. So one of the questions not to discuss now, but for later. Is the things that moderate and the things they stopped and the things that changed all by. Real. Or are there things that we put in? So. Is it really reality?

[07:53]

Sorry, can you repeat the things again, the things that the things that stopped us, were they really barriers? Or were they challenges that we weren't even prepared to to work enough for or we give up on our dreams because they became challenged? I think in some respects it was more of a compromise. Some things are based on compromise, but I also think that there are some things that you can't control. For example, competition in the workplace or in education, you may wish to do something a particular course, but you can't do it because the competition is so great, that's out of your control.

[08:51]

Well, that moderate that changes, that's the bit that's the problem I'm thinking about. Right. So the competition. Means it became it became harder, right, but someone has to win, and if it's really your passion and if you went all out and really committed to it. It depends on the stage of life that you're at, because when you're at home with your parents, the conditions that you live in, in other words, with your parents, for example, if it's a very competitive thing that you want to do and see your parents can't afford it or they can't afford extra tuition to enable you to compete, then then that's not something that you can control.

[09:52]

It's it's a reality which Templar's which has to temper your behavior or your your ability to realize your passion. And then you have you have more choices to make in terms of whether you really want to do it and you can afford or you make the sacrifice in terms of. You know, time and money, yeah. Thanks for that opportunity, is that as well and what you say about sacrificing sort of things to do the yeah, I want to get is, is that.

[10:38]

When we believe the reality more so, there are really always examples like the pursuit of happiness in that film, where Will Will Smith is now, where he finds all the odds, spaceplane, true story. And you always hear like Olympians who've had every hardship and yet they found a way and I kept going. Is it just that we start to believe reality more than the opportunity? Is it what sorry, is it that so it seems so hard to achieve and so we can rationalize that by saying, you know, it would take too much, there's too much competition is is I need to have motivation, all of those things.

[11:37]

But the one like the one percent or the one person that's really dedicated. I mean, when you if you think about.

[11:49]

Someone like I mean, I don't know his story, but Michael Spinks or someone like that who's so committed, I think Lewis Hamilton has a similar story. I think he. His father, his father worked three jobs to raise. And I'm trying to think of other people like that, but there are people that despite every you know, they should have just listened and should have given up by all rational reason, but they still found a way.

[12:27]

Anyway, to start off, I just want to try we'll try something different, but before you go, Rob, there is another side to that in that haven't missed out on a particular path that you really desire. You embark on. You have to embark on another journey, so to speak. I hate that word. But for what it's worth and in some instances, there are people who have found greater fulfillment than the original passion that they thought that they could not live without, because that happened to a friend of mine who in my class at high school A-levels, he failed all of his day lives that we did because he wanted to do sciences.

[13:18]

He wanted to be a doctor. But he was very he was very he was a very committed Christian. And even at high school, he had started preaching at church. And on the failure of the A-levels, he decided that he was going to go into the seminary to get his education and he rose to become the second highest in his denomination in the church eventually. And became a principal of the seminary that he went to. Whereas if he had chosen to send his senses, he would have been mediocre at best, probably.

[13:54]

Yeah, yeah, that that's really what I had not excited or waiting for in that way. But, yeah, it's really about is it sometimes is the right thing to give up and to try something else, because sometimes things that we have an interest in or a passion for are only to lead us to something else. But sometimes we give up on the thing, and I don't think there's only one thing like he's not a. It's not something that if we miss that, then we always miss the boat.

[14:30]

But I think the key distinction is, are we given up for practical reasons because we think it's too difficult or are we giving up because it's a real change of passion? Right. So we're just going to try something else to start with, everyone sitting comfortably. So and if you want to put the camera off for this, fine. So maybe you should just sit relaxed and. Focus on your breath so you can breathe in for inches for four.

[15:16]

Come out through the mouth, right? Rainfall. Outfight. Enfold. Outside. Now, imagine that your life is like a train line. Lie down on the floor. And imagine that you could float up. So you could see the whole line from beginning to end. From where you are. And imagine that you're looking where you are now. Looking down at you, that's down in the line. And you can see from where you are in certain things, so relationships, certain roles that you have to play certain ideas and beliefs and keeping your chin down.

[16:18]

Even you limited stock. And from where you are, just see if you can see which ones those are. And then. Look and see the ideas and the opportunities and the relationships and the roles that. Are about. That could energize you and lift you up. Which video of which could. And then when you when you've looked at that and when you're ready. Just float to the end of the line. And then look down and think about.

[17:09]

When your life reaches the end, what are the things that will really matter to you? What will you really care about? And then as you float back. Think about which of the things that holding you back. Will impact on that. And which of the opportunities are there things that. Could help you rise higher. Open sea, see? And then when you're ready to fly back to new. OK, if everyone's ready, I'm going to go into two breakout rooms.

[18:14]

And. Just to talk about. What do you think is holding you back now, what is going to matter and what opportunities are there for? Your muted we can join, you're going to we're discussing. We can break up, break record. OK, so yeah, I'm going to you're going to get a link when they when it says it's going to close. Just carry on your conversation. It's just like a one minute warning. Welcome back.

[18:59]

So we were talking in the breakout rooms and. All of life, how we experience it is is about the reality that we see. And the meaning that we make between that and all of that is a story. Everything that we perceive. Like the temperature, like when we see someone doing something, how we are, all of that is all of perception. Is. Factual, but we can't operate on facts, and so we have to make those facts into some kind of story.

[19:42]

And the story that we tell determines our experience to the story that we tell is the difference between giving up or being. Lewis Hamilton or someone who's fought for every. Obstacle, I'm thinking when I'm talking about them and come to mind, Frederick. I can't I can't remember his name, but it was a famous slave, and so basically his story was that he was born.

[20:18]

Illegitimate son of a slave. She'd been ripped off by the master. So he was banished to another plantation. And so he's someone that really should have had no. No chance of ever achieving anything but just through circumstance that the plantation he was on had like a Connelly, the wife of the master was quite kindly and taught him how to read. Which was actually against the rules, and so he was later he told others, and so he was banished for for doing that because they weren't allowed to read.

[21:07]

And. He waited years and eventually was able to find to escape, and he escaped and one day he was like this group took him in to look after him. I think in New York, and they put on talks and gatherings. And one day you stood up and talked and he just had a talent for telling stories. And so anyway, this was hardest that he became ultimately he became he one of the president's advisers and campaigned for the abolition of slavery.

[21:51]

I don't know if anyone knows. Historian Frederick Douglass, Frederick Douglass as the one you know, the one that Trump said he knew that he's a good guy to lie, wasn't it?

[22:09]

But such an inspiring story. And so there's and it's like Victor Frankl in man's search for meaning, talks about in the concentration camps, how some people were crying. Some people were mean, some people were happy. Some people were sad. They all depended on the story, in his words, the meaning that we might have of the circumstance.

[22:36]

So. Really? What's what what really matters to us is the story that we tell and there's a story that will make us miserable is a story that will lead to failure, is a story that will make us give up. There's a story that will make us better. If you look at things like the red pill theory and there's a feminist equivalent, I can't remember the name of it, but all these kind of manganaro my. And all of these are stories that people have made of reality as they see them.

[23:16]

Which have led them to be bitter, which has led them to be isolated and cut themselves off. And then there's other people who through every kind of hardship for every kind of. But. Everywhere where life told them that they couldn't do it. They still kept believing, they still kept trying and eventually. Found success. And so the difference is all about the stories. So. OK, so we got a small group tonight so we can either stay here and talk about stories together.

The Artisanal Relationship

Tue, 02 Feb 2021 12:56:00 +0100

In this episode we talked about creating an Artisanal Relationship. That is a relationship that is perfectly designed for you and your partner.

Transcript

[00:01]

Welcome to The Thing Free Rebellion. The podcast for independent thinkers to rebel against ignorance, manipulation, dogma, doctrine and the fears and temptations that stop us being ourselves and living our best lives. Good to make relationships, simple dotcom to join us at an event or find more information. Tonight, we're talking about autism relationships and priorities, know what I mean is that most people do things by default, so most people basically go along with a condition that go along with what everyone else tells them, like from the media and so on.

[00:48]

So. We've become in commodities world where everything can be manufactured and comes off cheaply and most efficiently and most effectively, there's become a great market for artisanal products, for things that are down the traditional way hand with great skill, with great care. And of better quality, so. I look at a lot of people, the relationships in by kind of like the rights of our culture, and it's it's that they it's like a diamond engagement ring. It's with a big, expensive wedding.

[01:33]

It's with the big house or the big car and luxury holidays as as if they're the things that are going to make you happy. And by contrast, I think an artisanal relationship is where you get to skilled, like relationally skilled individuals who build the relationship. That's right for them that they can both thrive in. And so it's it's custom built and it's built with skill. It's distinctive and it's disregards the traditions or the customs that doesn't serve. So you were talking in breakout rooms about five qualities and I went into his room, really just see how or where you were four times and I went to bring you back and it looked like you were agreeing five between each of the group.

[02:34]

Is that. Is that OK? Right, Stewie, can we have a spokesperson for each? Yeah, I don't mind being a spokesperson for my group. Sarah. If I say, OK, great, OK, I think you've got the the go ahead. So what about Sandra? Who was it? It was, yes, Fernando and Sandra. Really small group. Sandra, would you like to be there? I think she's looking for the mute button.

[03:22]

Yeah, that's all right.

[03:27]

And we have a problem, Alan, the eating group. That's right. The the most social group. OK, are you happy with that, Alan?

[03:44]

Yeah, I will go. All right.

[03:46]

So let's have Sandra arole and Sarah. OK, so we'll have a discussion of the five qualities. So if you each argue your case. And let's see how different they are and what we come up with. So should we go with case? Should we go? Ladies first. We start with Sarah, Sandra and in our bringing up the rear. OK, we thought I'm going to take one of the top qualities from each person because we didn't come up with for you a group, we have five each.

[04:28]

We got 15. But I'm going to take one from each of us is fair but playful enough so I can just put you Sarah.

[04:38]

OK, so Nicole and Janosz were in your group one night, so you can private message, Sarah, if you want if you want to change or whatever, as she's explaining. Sorry. Go on, Sandra.

[04:56]

Now, Sarah. Sarah. Sorry, silly asses.

[05:02]

Yes. No worries. So playfulness, we thought, was a really major key ingredient in the relationship. Obviously this the time to be serious reason things, but also that needs to be some levity and a way to diffuse any conflict and not to make fun, but to keep it. Levity, I think is crucial. I so would that also be classed as far Manuma? But, you know, playfulness might be something more reciprocity, like humor can come from one person but might not be shared.

[05:40]

But to be playful, I think we were assuming there was some reciprocity in, you know, OK.

[05:49]

Should I go on to the next keep kind of something that would have been not even something that I would have considered years ago, but now I'm getting it all the this is so for you to say compassion and Collimore. And we also mentioned all these things like acceptance, support, all come under the umbrella of kind of unconditional love. That was a really big one that came out of great, unconditional love, that what that means is when someone is really feeling depressed or down and not to criticize this kind of compassion, it just is such a long way to relationship.

[06:38]

OK, we're going to limit you two to five, though. Yeah.

[06:44]

So I think I've said so.

[06:47]

I've just crossed the last one of them, which won the unconditional love or no compassion, compassion, just cross compassion if we don't need compassion for every animal. OK, ok.

[07:01]

Thank you. We'll be back. We'll be back to you. OK Sandra.

[07:07]

OK, I'm going to leave out the ones that Sarah has already made and now you got to pick five.

[07:14]

Right? So I'm going to give those two undercity. So we're going to refine to five from everyone. Yeah.

[07:18]

OK, Fernando, give some very interesting insights, which I think I will use as the first three.

[07:30]

He talked about personal development as being important to somebody who is evolving, but not only evolving in of themselves, but enabling you to also grow by encouraging you and. Participating in your evolution as well, which I thought was quite, quite nice. And from that, he also brought up in this. Evolution, bringing about increasing compatibility as a couple within the within the couple. Yeah, we are growing more together rather than growing apart. So I suppose in that sense, your evolution is in parallel, in a way, if you look at it, it's congruent and then, of course, looking at.

[08:36]

Beauty and beauty in the person, and that embodies not just not the physical, not just the physical, but the spirit, a sense of self and what they add to the relationship, which would embody the whole thing about humor and all of those things. Right. Right.

[08:56]

But, Fernando, so physical and emotional and spiritual and spiritual. Yes. Yes.

[09:03]

And kindness and all of those other attributes. And then for me, I thought of confidence.

[09:17]

And having the confidence to nurture your own individual growth, but no, it is Fernando, in a sense, having that confidence to not.

[09:30]

Restrict your partner's journey, your partner's evolution, so confidence and then social conscience is the other one which speaks to things like love of nature, treating people with respect.

[09:55]

I think that is that five. Yes, those five. OK. All right. OK. It's interesting because when you look at your list, there's going to be a very different person from Sarah as groups list. Okay. Thank you, Errol.

[10:13]

OK, so we thought loyalty was one of the key attributes that I don't think we went blind loyalty, but loyalty in the sense that the person is committed to the relationship rather than always being somewhere else. Maybe the other one we had was trustworthiness, under which we kind of saw things like integrity, honest old being part of the overall general approach as well. The other one we had was supportive. So the person is there for you when you need them.

[10:57]

We and also loving, caring potentially about kindness, as I think Sara was talking about earlier on. Well, being in the sort of supportive that that person is there for you, that will help you hopefully.

[11:13]

Um, he almost certainly came into it, but didn't quite label it playfulness. But I mean, being from person to be around with rather than just looking off until the time kind of depressing. And the other one we had was communication, somebody who was communicative, who will maybe express their feelings or express their thoughts. I mean, I don't think we meant verbal diarrhea, by the way, like me, but something a bit more, a bit more, sort of somebody that gets their point across so that, you know, you can understand them.

[11:58]

You can kind of understand how they're feeling and how they are thinking. Then I'll ask you to spot any issues or positives or whatever so you can kind of feel more bonding in that sense. That's kind of our five, I think three. Well, you got you got you got five I'm now thinking of.

[12:24]

OK, right, so we're going to go back into the breakout rooms, but I believe there is it should be it depends on the variables that you've got, but you should be able to move between the rooms. OK, we'll get it, we'll go back into the breakout rooms, so I'm putting down the.

[12:53]

Qualities of each group. So each person who read out the groups knows what their qualities were. Yep, yep. OK, so what we do is we'll go into the breakout rooms and now everyone of Iroh, Sandra and Sarah can move between the groups. And what you're going to do is listen to each person's pitch and choose the partner that you would you would pick if you had to pick one of those partners who embodied all of those things. So that makes you realize this was going to be a dating game?

[13:43]

I no, I would have preferred that.

[13:47]

I recognize that's the ultimate stitch me up here.

[13:56]

OK, so we said we're going to go back to the main groups, but then you should be able to listen to farmwork. How? Like a picture of what someone would look like. You've had all those qualities and then you listen to each of them.

[14:16]

And so we're trying to convince them that the person that we have kind of created is the best person to be with. This is like blind date and you are person number three and everyone else is going to listen instead of going instead of being a just on. Well, the answer is yes, it is pitch and what that person would be like. So so is the only arrow. Sarah and Sandra and everyone else can ask questions, pick holes, and you've got to decide which one you're going to stick with for life.

[15:02]

OK, well, I'll be jumping in and out of the breakout rooms.

[15:09]

So when when we do that, we go into like one room each and how are we going to make it in the room? Are you going to tell you can you go back in the same breakout rooms? And it should when you were in that breakout room, you should be absolutely cutting breakout rooms or it should have an option of joining the different rooms and said any conflict between them.

[15:30]

So try it. Where do you find that? I'll come into the groups and I'll show you. You're going to contestants want to move. No, no, you ask questions and then when you think, OK, so does everyone know, OK, I've got to finish the qualities of my schema communication.

[15:52]

Wouldn't it be better if people started in different rooms because I a up and I discussed this five interests is looked like by the right person, but it may be that they need to kind of hear the other file first. Then what? Like some sort said.

[16:12]

Yes, but we're going to start off in your room. But my expectation is that everyone's going to move the room straight off because of that reason and see if I can get a better option.

[16:28]

The popcorn doesn't count. You can't bribe everyone to get the roast from the end. Yeah, I do have some roast chicken roast potatoes. No.

[16:45]

Yeah, sorry, you can't jump to that because. Sorry about. I was I was going to leave the apple crumble for later, actually, because I also I baked as well apple crumpling cream.

[17:05]

Actually I like it with ice cream but my book that's not playing fair I love is not fair.

[17:15]

All right.

[17:16]

So who's fair in love war. OK, so I've got to make a pitch to convince somebody that I have the right set of.

[17:24]

Yeah, they might ask you questions. Hi, Betty. Did you catch up with what we did, you get a hello, did you get a grasp of what we doing?

[17:37]

H.S and qualities of your ideal partner?

[17:39]

Yeah. So these are the kinds of groups that speak five qualities that if you were stuck and you can't commit to this person, you've got to stay with them for life and there's no get out. So I'm going to join you to a group where you can move between them to whoever you think has the best options. Right. So we should listen to the fact that they've chosen the and you want me to say which ones I think are the best?

[18:04]

Yeah, you got to pick the person who embodies one of those. The person. Yes.

[18:10]

So you imagine that he's a person that embodies all those characteristics, you see. I pick one of them. OK. All right. I'll see you in the room at. I...

The Path To Mastery

Tue, 26 Jan 2021 14:24:00 +0100

The only certain path to success is the path of mastery.

We can't master everything, but there are certain things that we can never be happy without achieving. In this episode, we looked at what those were and what was the path to mastery...

Transcript

[00:01]

Welcome to The Thing Free Rebellion, the podcast for independent thinkers to rebel against ignorance, manipulation, dogma, doctrine and the fears and temptations that stop us being ourselves and living our best lives. Good to make relationships, simple dotcom to join us at an event or find more information. To lose or gain in 21. Three and a marriage weighs a few pounds.

[00:40]

Yeah, we feel the punishment is a sudden gain a gain of marriage and lose a few pounds.

I thought you said gay marriage. It's all coming out, though. It's it's as if dating strategy. A whole new market. Yeah. Now there is too.

[01:08]

I thought I thought the weights, but it would be gain muscle and lose fat. But that's OK, isn't it.

[01:15]

Yeah. Lose weight, get fit. Find that lovely gentleman. That's it. No marriage in the Marriage Act of marriage you know.

[01:32]

How long were you married for some time, if you don't mind me asking.

[01:35]

Thirty four years. That's a lifetime.

[01:37]

Was OK. Much longer than one but over a decade.

[01:45]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

[01:50]

I was. I was married in 14 years. You're looking for differences, Rob, but I am a bit too superficial. No, no, no. It was it was only the warm up. So we're going to go deeper.

[02:10]

So you found the perfect relationship now. I'm sorry I said so. You found the perfect relationship now. How do you mean I'm teasing you. OK, yeah, I know you said it was the warm up something you found the perfect one.

[02:30]

Oh, I see. Like the marriage is OK.

[02:35]

Um, right. So the next bit is. Right, in order for you that we're talking about Mostri, so you can only master so many things. So what are the three to seven things that would be essential for you to live a happy, meaningful and worthwhile life within one category?

[03:11]

Or do you mean different categories of different categories? So I would I would suggest health money. Career relationships are probably like universal self development. I don't know if that's necessary. That's more of a life journey, but it's mastery of yourself. Yeah. So that's probably that's probably why not have counted.

[03:42]

Or is that yeah, I mean, it's sort of combined with relationships, I suppose. But there is a self, there is the self actualization of self, but there isn't the relationship, the extension of the self. It is an extension. But to really be fulfilled in a relationship, I think you have to work on yourself. So it's it's this to me, it's the grounding of self. As far as the individual and the extension into into a relationship which completes that the complete seal.

[04:17]

Yeah, yeah. Which which is where I was going to say, like, you have a relationship with yourself to master the relationship. You could classify it as a relationship with yourself as well.

[04:29]

Yeah. OK. I suppose it goes back to the old saying of yourself, you have to get that first before you can love somebody else.

[04:42]

Yeah, yeah. Does anyone have any different? Freedom from. Yeah, I was about to say Independencia, same thing. What are you thinking about covid-19 million? How did you guess?

[05:05]

Well, I guess you might say let's talk over the weekend and the snow and with some family.

[05:11]

And it just reminds me of the saying that the best things in life are free and with you know, you do take it for granted that those type of things you could do without question, you could go where you want to what you want. And we can't can't do that anymore. So. Once it's taken away, it's become more chaotic. It's easy to think of all the things that were lost and that were restricted to do it at the moment, because you can never I don't think anyone can ever completely lose the sense of freedom.

[05:48]

No one can ever completely take anybody's freedom. There's always something that someone can take away from you. It's like that quote from Victor Frankl, isn't it, the last the last freedom is the last. Freedom is the ability to choose your response.

[06:13]

Yes, OK. Is there anyone are you there, Betty? Hello, I'm just getting dressed. OK, what we're doing is because it's such a small group, we're doing the breakout rooms in here, so feel free to join in if if you want to and when you're ready. OK, so is there any on that list that anyone feels doesn't apply to them, select cell phone relationships, money, relationship, money, health, career, career?

[06:56]

I'd say I don't feel like I don't really connect to that one. OK, then.

[07:04]

Was there an overall health of career, money, relationships, faith and freedom? Do you see what we have done? There is happiness, although you might say what makes you happy. But all those things don't necessarily always make you happy. I mean, just because you felt that you could have career and all that, you've got to kind of understand what's missing in your life. So, like, a little bit something cool, I suppose. I mean, I could totally just quit sitting here in a back.

[07:37]

But, you know, if you're kind of on your own, you haven't really got a relationship with anybody. It's not. It'll be nice, but it's not really fulfilling thing. I think I've mean, having a good relationship with yourself and a good relationship with all this is that brings happiness in and of itself. I think it'd be very difficult to have a good relationship with self and always and not be happy. Yeah. That being comfortable with yourself, I suppose, is what you so really you are really that list is about the self matters, being comfortable with yourself, being yourself.

[08:16]

And in my interpretation that is also freedom, like as we had the whole free thing for a living. So it's so I think if you have not of health that you feel is as good as you can, you have mastery of your career. You do something meaningful. If you have mastery of money, then you're free of the money worries. If you have relationships, then you have good relationships. And so a sense of of of of control over your life.

[09:00]

Yeah, yeah. It's in a way, yes. It's really about the way I conceptualize it is that you have. You've confronted the main problems that we have. I suppose parenting would be a tough one for people who have children. I was thinking parents involved and I was thinking maybe that comes the relationships. It does, but it has a lot to say about parents and some of the responsibility. Sorry, Alan, what about parents?

[09:37]

I'm just saying that's probably if you have children, it's probably another matter if somebody wants mastery over how to get rid of the kids.

[09:49]

Yeah. You know, how to keep them close, keep and say, oh, we got this spectrum. It's their time to go.

[10:02]

But it's funny that the reason I asked that question about the parents involved was because, you know, you've got your mind, your mind's eye, and you think, yeah, that's not impossible or impossible.

[10:13]

That's possible. But in terms of parenting, for some reason like that, we just like Blobfish in terms of I don't think you could have gained mastery over that. That was what the mind was telling me.

[10:25]

And that's why I know you can definitely them. You can definitely. It's just like in your career, like you get better, I you spend more time sort of navigating it and stuff like that. Yeah, no, I agree.

[10:41]

It was just, you know, when your parents just got like a Fulgham doesn't kind of like go along with what you kind of think in yourself. So logically, you can't put my mind to saying, no, you can't. That's why I asked that question.

[10:54]

So I have to accept that with parenting, there are there are the bits that you can control and there are the bits that you can't because you're dealing with other individuals and it's acceptance of yourself having done the best that you can do.

[11:17]

Um, yeah. You know, I think sometimes people put too much emphasis on the things that they think that you should do as a parent. And they see themselves as having failed if they did not do those things, whereas if you were to speak to the child, you would get up, probably get a totally different perspective because they are not looking through those eyes. And I think sometimes we're too critical of ourselves. There is no doubt that the pressure that we put on ourselves, lead to lead to unhappiness can lead to unhappiness because we feel that we have failed.

[11:58]

Do you think parenting is harder than any of the others? There's more intricacies to it than all this. I think it crazy to give a lot more in some in some circumstances, and you're not it's not you give without necessarily expecting to get. An equivalent in return. So it demands some selflessness on your part. And I it's it's how that plays out, I think that's what's important in the long run. I think. It's more or less the same principles or ideologies applied to a normal relationship with a child.

[12:55]

But I will say it is harder in this sense that you are dealing with a little person when you when you are dealing with a partner, you are dealing with an adult.

[13:08]

Well, let's just at the brains completely developed to that stage. Yeah. So the other person in STEM and. Exactly. So assuming the other person is not is a normal person, you're dealing with another adult, you may disagree on things, but you're going to get a sensible response or you're going to get something that you can discuss things through with a child. You are going to get the little pure feelings coming back and you have to learn to sort that through.

[13:35]

You get that with adults as well. I mean, that's why I'm saying it really depends. So, I mean, I had this in my own relationship with my spouse. I as the spouse, I suppose you get a lot of. A logical response was back, but then if you ignore all that and you get to the core message, you kind of go you're upset about the thing, aren't you? But what you're saying has got nothing to do with what you feel, but also more introspection and introspection in that respect.

It's not yeah, the difference lies. But with children, you see, you get that all the time and you have to learn to cut through that. So they might say, oh, you're just being too much. And the other because they cannot see this sense in what you're saying sometimes, or rather they don't want to see it because they want to play, they don't want to study or they don't want to go to bed now because they don't feel tired, but they're not thinking about the consequences of tomorrow morning when they're going to be tired or they can't see what you see because they haven't got the life experience.

[14:41]

They don't understand that all these things are going to lead to something negative. You understand that, because probably you've done it and you experienced it or you've seen it, but they haven't. And it's not real to them. It's like people still you can't think in abstract yet.

[14:57]

Still, it's a bit like people are still saying, you know, covid-19 isn't that bad. Well, you know, almost two thousand people died. So it can be very bad for some people. But can you say so? It's it's a bit like that. So I think in that sense it's harder because you have to learn not to love your own feelings anyway. And that's very difficult, at least for me, because they are your child and you are emotionally connected.

[15:29]

If it was somebody else's child, you could actually be a lot more calm and funny and a better person in that sense, because you are allowing your emotions to get the better of you and you can kind of cool the kind of explain things and, you know, that probably will get through the message will get through better. But when it's your own kid, get over there, get it done, believe you, because or they study you haven't studied hard enough or whatever because you know, they can do it, but they're just being lazy.

[16:02]

And so in that sense, I think it's harder. But it's exactly the same principles. For example, by the way, stop me from dominating the conversation. I find, for example, with my kids, one thing I have always done is been absolutely honest and clear about my things. So they know that I'm a man of my word. If I say it, I'm going to do it. But that also places a lot of responsibility on me to be careful not to say something I don't want to do.

[16:36]

And so if I say if you do that, you're going to get into trouble, then I have to follow it through if they do it. But and they've got a point, for example, that I told a joke. And sometimes when I talk, my face is very serious. So sometimes I will say something that kids would look at me and go, are you talking to? And if I say yes, I'm joking because then I will tell them that I'm joking.

[16:59]

And then they know and they have a laugh about it. But so the point is that kids know that there are boundaries and they know that is consistent. And the same thing with your spouse. They know that they can trust what you say. They know that there are certain boundaries and that you're consistent. If you say you're going to do something, you will do it. You know, it's obvious that you're serious about it. So the integrity bit, the honesty bit, the reliability, it always has to be...

The Think Free Rebellion

Tue, 19 Jan 2021 18:54:00 +0100

The Think Free Rebellion is a personal choice. It is the choice to make yourself the authority and author of your life.

Transcript

Today is going to be a little bit different because it's not going to be so much of a discussion as I want to share some ideas with you, and it's about changing the nature of the group and the base of the group. And then so I'm going to run through some ideas. If you have any questions about anything as I'm going along, just interrupt me. I'm going to run through this and then we'll see. You can see whether you agree or disagree.

[00:33]

OK, so. The idea so the basic idea is. That if we have a group that's formed around relationships. And people talk about sharing different perspectives. There's always a basis for conflict. And so whenever you're dealing with conflict, you have to look at where's the point of agreement? And so I've been giving it a lot of thought to thinking of. What's really behind, like, personally, most my philosophical view and where this conflict come in in terms of it.

[01:14]

So I want to start with a personal basis and as to how why, I think thinking free is the key to everything. And then we're working back. OK, so. When we talk about relationships. Or anything, we're talking about different things because we got different experiences and different perspectives, and so oftentimes that means there's a clash when people think they're talking about the same things. But actually they're coming from a completely different angle. You know, the thing about if six blind people come and see an elephant, they all have a different experience and they call each other lawyers because they don't understand from that frame of reference.

[02:07]

So, OK, so. The question of what's between you and your perfect life or your perfect relationship, now I want to share my my model of what about that? What causes us to what's between us and them perfect basis and explain, OK, hear me and explain why from my perspective. So. What are we looking at here is. I think. That based on my life, I spent four or five years studying happiness. Before relationships and really what meant what happiness, what makes someone happy is basically we have a blueprint, we have a blueprint that we can't change.

[03:05]

It's genetically what we believe to be. And so becoming happy is a is a journey of growth, is a journey of growth into becoming more of who we are and expressing that potential that we have. So this is kind of representing that journey. Now, what happens for a lot of people, for most people probably is somewhere they get swayed off course and so in terms of relationship can become stale or they can become bored, they can become bitter or even things go really wrong.

[03:45]

And they end up with an in somewhere that is quite toxic. So. What is so I'm looking at what why do people get swayed off? And the airline industry, they have a one in 60 rule. So basically, a flight path is similar to this that an airplane will set off and it's aiming for wherever it's going to land. But all the time it's getting buffeted by wind, by turbulence, by all these factors which take it, of course.

[04:23]

So in the airline industry, the one in 60 rule is that for every 60 miles an aeroplane travels, every one degree off is going to be one mile off. So, James, earlier in atomic talks about if if an aeroplane sets off from Los Angeles, it's four and a half degrees of. By the time it would have reached New York, it's instead in Washington, D.C.. And so I think that's an analogy for what happens in our life and in our relationships, is that that's what we're meant to be.

[05:01]

And then we get swayed off so we don't actually become the. So why do we get swayed? And that's really three things. There's. Ignorance. So in the example of the planes, planes have crashed when you act, when there was a miscommunication between them and the air traffic control so that they thought they were in a different place. And so obviously, they're like crashing into a mountain when they weren't expecting anything to be there. So what happens to us individually is we're born helpless, we born not knowing anything.

[05:48]

And. So we have to learn the ways of the world because we can't become. When we operate in the world. Like from day one. So we grow up helpless and we grow up and our parent or caregiver is looking after us, but they're also telling us all the traditions or all the rules and all the customs of our society. And that's the way that we pass on information generation to generation, and a lot of that is useful because otherwise we'd start from day one.

[06:27]

We have fire, we have technology, we have everything that we have because we don't have to start from the beginning again. And so then we've institutionalized these ways of passing on values and beliefs and expectations, and this comes from the wider culture, from so that we get to school, we've got the media, which is giving us certain ideas and values, religion and all of these kind of things. So they're basically giving us the map. But the map that they're giving us isn't necessarily Ahmet.

[07:10]

So we talked about the fairy tale framework, it is one of the biggest things that sways people off in terms of relationships. And. This is a mistake and this is something that we're told and we set up with expectations and beliefs and assumptions that aren't actually true. And so there's a lot of things and even without meaning to like when you're five years old and the teachers tell you, shut up, no one wants to hear from you when they say, like when you're made to feel stupid, all of these things become lessons to us.

[07:49]

All of these things become fears that we don't stand out. We don't say what we really mean. And so all of this. Sways us off our individual unique path. So this free, otherwise, what is free, why so why is ignorance, and it may be that we don't know what we're doing. We don't know, like we haven't got an accurate map. Or it may be that the assumption or the expectation or belief wasn't true, then the other two are fair.

[08:29]

And a lot of the times the fear comes from the idea of public speaking is is the biggest fear because. Of we are afraid of what other people tell us, because we've we've been told certain things and we've learnt certain things along in our childhood, so that makes it frightening to stand out. It makes it frightening to stand up for what you believe as opposed to what you're told. What everyone else thinks is true and said in the other way is.

[09:00]

That there's all these shiny objects, so. Like the get rich quick schemes, the idea, the hacks and the shortcuts and all these kind of things which are tell us that we need to. Do certain things, say a certain thing, so in terms of relationships. Like what stops us fear? So, for example, if you're dating is the fear of standing out is the fear of rejection. If you're in a relationship and is the fear of being honest, the fear of being vulnerable.

[09:40]

So what's the shiny object? So it may be that someone so attractive. That your state, of course, because they're not the perfect person, but they're so hot, or it may be that you desperately want it to work with a certain person who is an. The person who is going to be right for the. OK. All right, so we're looking. So where was I? So in terms of being swayed off by other people's like by by media references and things, I just want to use one example is does everyone needs to be Dimond's?

[10:32]

The rest of the base diamonds, so basically it's the story of why in 1930, 10 percent of engagement engagement rings with diamond rings. Now, something like 75, 75 to 80 percent. And so basically, that was a concerted, concerted advertising campaign for a generation of women, so Dimond's didn't have a lot of use and the birth had funded this big expedition to find precious resources. And they found these mines of diamonds and they had this glut of diamonds that there was no market for.

[11:19]

And so there wasn't really any value. And so they tasked advertising agencies for about 30 years to try and work out different approaches to find the market. And essentially what they did. Was like the winning campaign was they targeted a whole generation of women from about 15 to 20. So this was in the nineteen thirties. So all the women who were of, like, thinking about being proposed to them and basically told them a dime and lost forever, if your boyfriend proposes to you and he doesn't use a diamond ring, he doesn't mean it forever.

[12:07]

He doesn't really care. And so what happened was this there's this pressure on the girls that if they had an engagement ring wasn't diamond, it was a sense of you've accepted an engagement ring from a boy that doesn't care about you. And so they then put pressure on two boys and say, well, I want a diamond ring and. Then they came out with all these campaigns, like, if your boyfriend doesn't like what what's a lifetime of happiness worth, isn't it worth a couple of months of your life?

[12:46]

A couple of months of wages. And so basically in the generation. The diamond ring became. Like standard. For no other reason than the fact that the birds needed needed the marketplace to sell their diamonds. And so when we look at the messages that we get from the media. And when you look at magazines, when you look at TV, all of them are exist. Their business model is to exist in order to sell advertising. And so when you're looking at social media, it's basically the same thing that as it said, like if you if you aren't paying for something, you are the product.

[13:34]

And so when we look at. So when we look at the way that like and I'm not here with the conspiracy theory, I'm not bashing. Economics or money, but what we have to look at the motivation of. Advertising and media is basically to sell stuff. And so how so when we look at. Where does that lead to, like a commercial marketplace leads to? Being creating, I want to use the food industry as an example, so the food industry, like if you if you have a raw potato, is not really worth very much.

[14:23]

If you make it into chips, is worth a lot more. And if you make it into crisps, is worth a lot more. But what you've really done is you've taken a basic food and you've made it less nutritious. So. So the food industry works by pandering to our taste buds, as in sugar fat. So. And so, like we now, decades later, have an obesity crisis. Because they're creating the food that's going to that's going to compel us, make us crave and make us buy their products.

[15:11]

And so it becomes a rush to who can have the most sugar, who can have the most. So. In this way, so that it becomes a bit different and we have those suits. And so that's really what happened over 30, 40 years in the food industry, and so why we now have an obesity crisis. Now, when you look at. In terms of information and social media. Or social media is. Their business model is to sell our attention.

[15:50]

And the way that they get our attention is by. You know, things that things like Areva polarize us and outrageous, and so there's this culture of outrage and it's like people talking about in social dilemmas and other places that basically what you see in your news feed. Is individual to what you believe. Because so, for example, if you want to advertise on Facebook, you're not allowed to say anything that might target someone or might make someone feel uncomfortable.

[16:31]

Because if it if it's challenging, it makes someone feel uncomfortable, they're not going to spend as long on Facebook. So Facebook blocks those those ads out. And so basically. What we all get in our face. All the people that we agree with, the groups and the pages and things that we already agree, so we're not.

[16:55]

And what that leads us to is groupthink, which is basically where people who believe the same thing. Make poor decisions because they don't have the diversity of opinion. So. OK, so so basically. What I'm saying is. The world out there is kind of pushing us. To fit into it is is easy to sell us stuff, whether it's products with Armani or whether it's an ideology. And when you look like so you can see this play out in the recent Trump.

[17:43]

And to a lesser extent in Brexit, in terms of. We don't. Actually get to see the facts, we get to see the conspiracy theories, we get to see the dramatics and the polarized sides, and so it pushes people apart and it stops open and honest. Debate. OK, so so that's where we get swayed off by ignorance or by assumptions or beliefs or expectations that aren't actually true, and then we get swayed off by fear because our narrative makes us afraid, to be honest.

[18:24]

Makes us feel unworthy, makes us feel we're missing out or and so that's how we stray, we stray in terms of when something is easy. So so that's really the three ways that we get straight, that we stray off our path. So does that make sense so far? Could you repeat what the freeways are, please? Yeah, so it's ignorance, which which is like not having an accurate path or being so out of fear and desire.

[19:05]

OK, so the next be able to talk about is the difference between when we navigate that path. The way that we get swayed off in terms of fear and desire and often also ignorance is by emotions. Now. I'm like sometimes like when I describe things is very logical, sometimes it can seem cold. And. So I want to talk about why that is. Is that. There is when we say, for example, when we're talking about a relationship, when we're in a relationship, we're in it for the emotion and the benefit of being in the relationship is the emotional side the way that we can judge.

[19:58]

The quality of a relationship. Is by the emotions. When we feel good, we're on a path. When we feel bad, it's because we're off our path. So the why and that and. Why don't we evaluate the relationships is all emotional. However, the problem is that people. Use emotion to navigate. So when you're making a decision so like if, for example, if you had a GPS that worked on navigation, it said, OK, we're going to go down this road because because this is really pretty.

[20:37]

Right. I really like this route. We're going to take this route. You'd end up in a different place. And so when we navigate our emotion, when we navigate our relationship or even the life. Based on emotion. We take the wrong path because the role of navigation is is mediating what we want with where we are. And if we disregard the reality of where we are and like the map of the land. Then we just go where we want to go, and that's where we get switched off.

[21:17]

So logic is the bridge between what you want and where you want to go, so logic is a terrible reason to be in a relationship is a terrible reason to judge. Where people overthink is when where they try to judge their relationship through logic. So the emotion is for how the relationship's going. You judge based on emotion, why you want to be in a relationship is for the emotional feeling. But when you make emotional like so like when people really, really attach someone and they say the same people who are in abusive relationships, the guy that I love him and, you know, I, I, I can't leave, so.

[22:06]

And that's all because we were attached to certain outcome, because we were afraid of something...

How To Plan For The Relationship You Want in 2021!

Tue, 08 Dec 2020 09:00:00 +0100

In this episode as we draw 2020 to a close we looked at what we need to do to build a great relationship even if we don't already have a Partner.

Transcript

[00:01]

So we accept that if you a relationship is a result of your behavior and your behavior as a result of the practices and the habits that you you use, that you have. And so then we look at attitudes.

[00:18]

So your attitude to dating relationships is going to affect how enthusiastic you are, how much activity that you do and how and the quality that you bring to that. So having a more positive attitude about dating relationships means that you activate more of the best in other people.

[00:39]

It means that you meet the people who are more attractive and more not attractive in a physical sense, but more attractive as they have the qualities that create a more attractive relationship. So. We talked about personal narrative in the way that you rise, you improve your attitude. We talked about all relationships, create problems. So you may have problems initially in the start of dating. And when you start school, then you can have a problem somewhere late. There isn't going to be a problem solving problems.

[01:18]

It's which taught in the breakout group about the difference between a fixed and a growth mindset and where knowing that problems are something that you can resolve if you change what you do and life works out. And the model that we have is going to determine the problems that we face and adjusting the model that we have can prevent or resolve the problems along the way.

[01:51]

We then looked at skills. What abilities do we need to develop improve in order to have better dating, dating experience and relationship experience about what? Atwar relationship?

[02:11]

Next year, what difference can you do to improve the your knowledge, skills and confidence in terms of dating relationships? And so what action can you take to have better relationships? So we covered quite a lot of things, and if you follow through these, if you listen to the recording now, if you follow through and ask those questions of yourself, then you.

[02:41]

I can come up with an action plan for 2021 in 2021, I'm launching the relational mastery system and a relational mastery system is the habits, the practices, the process. Two dating. How do you have the confidence, how do you have the minorities that results in better relationships? How do you have the dating skill and the how do you choose your partner? And then how when you've met someone, how do you develop the relationship? How do you build the relationship that has less friction?

[03:25]

Welcome to honest talk about heartbreak, dating and relationships, relationships, the podcast helping you navigate your path to happy ever after with your host, Rob McPhillips. OK, so today we're today we're not going to have too much discussion, it's going to be more planning session, a session for you to really think about what you do next year to.

[04:00]

Put your relationships in the best position that they can be.

[04:06]

So I've got some questions to run through, and so we're going to run through those questions and mostly talk about them in the breakout rooms. And then we can come back and we can just get a couple of things from everyone. But we've got four questions. So that's going to take quite a bit of time for the sake of if you're listening to this and you're not actually here, then this is really, again, for you. These are questions for you to think about, because what can you do next year to make your relationships in the best position that you can?

[04:44]

So for anyone who's new here, what we do in the main room here where we are now, the discussion is recorded and so you can listen back on any of the past mishaps that we've had, the discussion that you have in the breakout rooms is private. OK, so before we actually get started with that, I'm just interested to know where you put in a chat or whether you want to hear what he has an interesting news resolution.

[05:27]

In our room, we actually don't have New Year's resolutions. We'll be doing some lifelong changes instead because people don't really stick to news or solutions. It just short term is like a spur of the moment thing. People kind of go, I'm going to do everything because I'm fed up with something. So it's a knee jerk reaction to a problem is not a realistic expectation. You're all hyped up, so you set yourself impossible goals and then you just set yourself up for failure.

[06:02]

So instead, what we say is, I want to change my life for better. I'm going to do this. Which comes back to what you were saying about relationships as well. Oh, yeah. I'm going to find a new partner next year. It's kind of unrealistic. I mean, life doesn't love your partner, so it's not like you're going to necessarily find somebody. You can, by all means, look things into thing. But you've got to look at yourself because to change yourself, you gotta be more likeable, I suppose, or somebody that or put things into perspective or put things into operation so that you can go and find someone, but not because it's a New Year's resolution.

[06:42]

And very wise and perfect set up for this evening.

[06:50]

AK. So if unless anyone else has any interesting. Different points. Well, I'm Guerin's. Sorry, I don't know if man is really interested, but it's short term, it's 20, 21, I'm sure it's interesting. Well, we're all we're all interested, aren't we? It's interesting for me.

[07:17]

Well, resolve my lingering marriage, finalize what it will become. No marriage and move on the new single Tell Me for 2020. Well, yes, that's it. Yeah.

[07:38]

Now, up close that chapter. Yeah, that sounds like I think once you come to a decision, it's you know, there is always a natural delay because to that it's hard to make that jump. But, yeah, if you've decided, then that's. It's time to collect. Yeah, and it's and it's going to be hard because I am giving up. Thirty four years of. Marriage and all that entails, it means I'm starting all over, so I've got to be I've got to have a very strong spine.

[08:22]

Yeah, yeah. Well, I'm sure you'll do it and you'll you'll be fine.

[08:28]

Oh, I'm stubborn and I don't give in, so I will be fine. I know. I am making sure that I'll be fine.

[08:35]

You better believe I will be fine because I think what this is also this group has helped me to do is not to waver because I was more or less resolved.

[08:50]

I knew that that was what I wanted to do.

[08:52]

But it's more of how you think of yourself and your place in what's about to happen and how you develop a plan of action that you can stick to. Because, you know, the there's that outcome that your your your sort of you can't you can you have a clear vision of a better word as the end game. Yeah. So thank you very much.

[09:29]

OK, and that leads us perfectly to the first question. So there's actually five questions we're going to ask, and the first one is, what is your vision for? Your relationship is next year, so you've got an ultimate vision of what you want your relationship to be. And then as as I said, what is? Like, what is the step, so we'll win. I think we all want this perfect relationship and whatever, but there is sometimes things that we have to put in place.

[10:13]

Because it's not just about meeting someone and then everything being magical. It's about you have to have the foundations for you, you have have the foundations for the relationship. So what what is the what would you like this time next year? What would you like to have achieved in terms of relationship? So I'm going to ask that question and we'll go to the breakout rooms and this will be a shorter one. So if we go for six minutes, I think I guess most groups two minutes per person.

So if you if you can kind of go for two minutes each. When you get a link to come back, don't come straight back, let it kick you out and you still a minute from when that when you get that warning. Are you frozen peas, frozen peas and Ice Cube is gone.

[11:18]

So anybody in terms of relationships or what is anyone got any plans? Yeah, I have.

[11:24]

Can I just share quickly what my problem is so I can get out the way? Yeah. So good to see everyone today. I not as face as I was last week. I've chilled out a bit you know. Yeah. Much. I've got all of that out right now.

[11:40]

I'm really, really changed now so.

[11:45]

And thanks for being so patient with me, I appreciate. Yeah, I've just got a job in a forest school, which has been a bit of a dream of mine to to sort of work in alternative education. So I don't actually believe mainstream education is always good for every child. I would really love to meet my partner in that kind of environment where we have a common goal, like a partnership, not like we fall in love and can't live without each other, that kind of stuff, but a real partnership and a completely meaningful.

[12:18]

Yeah, common values and a vision of because this has been my vision for about 15 years of building an eco therapy cabin in the forest to help children that have gone through trauma and for people in addiction that need to rehabilitate, you know, for families and children. And yes, this is my vision.

[12:44]

You see a shared vision, shared goals, shared purpose in life. Yeah. And then so preferably he would be quite good at building. So I'm good. I'm good at designing. So I would be the designer and preferably he could build the house so we could work together. That would be awesome. That would be that's my dream.

[13:03]

Will his name be Bob Bob the Builder. No, I think his name is going to be like Bill, not Bob. And I just want to make sure that's okay.

[13:18]

Sarah is a really good guy that you just described what you're looking for, that you should have a shared purpose and goals and values. That's really good. I'd be fine. I'd be fine.

[13:26]

Oh, Betty, it's so nice to hear your voice. I didn't know you were in the I didn't know you were here today. Lovely to hear from you.

[13:34]

Yeah, good. Well, thank you. As anyone else.

[13:39]

Got anything to add. So I was just trying to show you what we were saying was if we could decide for next year where be like to be playing the road this time next year in terms of relationships, not so much as a New Year's resolution, but, you know, ideal situation will be hopefully find my life partner an amazing guy, you know?

[14:22]

But but but I mean, is that is that do you think that within a year you'll do that in a year?

[14:32]

I don't know. I guess like my learning now is how did how do you. How how do you. How do you enjoy the journey while you wait for someone who is absolutely amazing, because I'm not going to settle for anything else that is just absolutely amazing anymore. I'm done. Yes. Me first.

[14:54]

This time, you have to be able to enjoy the ups and the downs of the rollercoaster.

[15:01]

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I'm just hoping to make friends by this time next year. I mean, obviously, I'd love to find somebody who will kind of go, well, you know, this is it. But I am being careful not to set myself any unrealistic expectations because then I'm setting myself for failure and it's just disappointment. So if I can meet a couple of people and have one or two good friends, that's, you know, anything about that is icing on the cake.

[15:39]

I am looking for fun if you are on the road, whether are you in London.

[15:47]

Let's go.

[15:48]

Though, just tell me and I'll be there. But on Wednesday nights and Friday nights, also dancing. You know, I've got to get home.

[15:59]

I'm sorry. It has to be in the day. Okay. So was a really nice family atmosphere.

[16:07]

Yeah. But you see, I'm at the stage where I think having lists what can.

[16:18]

Yeah.

[16:18]

You know what? On one hand it's good to know what you want, but I don't want to create a list that I am going to be checking boxes against somebody because they may be quite different, but yet still they are the best fit for me.

[16:35]

I am not looking for a husband and looking for somebody who complements me and enables me to be my whole self, including all of my craziness.

[16:50]

You either love it or you hate it.

[16:54]

And who is not threatened by my independence.

[17:00]

So that's going to be a hard sell, I'm sure.

[17:05]

And as I said in my group, I am not going to be this again. Been there, done that. So I don't want any projects.

Why We Love? Why We Stray?

Tue, 01 Dec 2020 09:00:00 +0100

Helen Fisher has the broadest study of relationships. She is an Anthropologist and Biologist who has studied over 80 different cultures looking for the universals of relationships. This is a discussion of her work.

Here's what we discussed...

Transcript

Welcome to honest talk about heartbreak, dating and relationships, relationships, the podcast helping you navigate your path to happy ever after with your host, Rob McPhillips. So tonight, we were talking about the work of Helen Fisher and Helen Fisher talks about relationships as being life's greatest prize. And so we talked about. The various formats of relationships, whether they were monogamous, whether they were, is it natural for us to be monogamous? Is promiscuity natural?

[00:44]

What's the like? What what format of relationship works? How do our narratives affect the way that we relate? And. How does the history of patriarchy and social control, how does that affect our relationship and essentially what we were trying to work out with which is which comes first, like the nature or nurture. And of course, both nature work within a context of nurture. OK, all right. So let's start tonight. So the topic tonight is life's greatest prize.

[01:36]

And so this is really what Helen Fisher talks about. She says that. Life's greatest prize is finding a mate, and it's the way that we have children, it's the way that we have companionship. And so we'll talk through all aspects now. Handfish work is probably the broadest of all the like. There's loads of books on relationships, but. They although, you know, like you got five love languages, which is probably one of the best selling, which is basically communication, you've got the government, which is about their shared house model.

[02:22]

You've got lots of other people that talk about relationships. We talked about stand talking before, but that's attachment theory. So they all talk about a small section of it. Whereas what Helen Fisher has done is she's an anthropologist and biologist. And so she's looked from like she goes back to 21 million years ago as to climate changes, as to, you know, that caused changes in. Primates that led to all the way that we interact today, so I mean, Herberg so why him?

[03:01]

Why her, why we stret, why we love. So what I want to do to start with is because they are so, so broad. I was looking at, you know, what are the questions we can put in the breakout rooms and this so much. So what I would like you to do is put in the chat box any particular questions that you would like to cover. So really what? So to give you some idea, just as a hands up, he's read the blog post that summarizes it.

[03:39]

OK, and so if you can write any questions that you have from that or anything you'd like to talk about tonight, we'll go from there. So if you knew down the bottom there's a chat box and you can write in there. Anything that you're interested in talking about? OK, so just and then we'll start tonight. So I'm just going to give you some housekeeping, so. What we're here for really is a safe place to explore, a safe place to explore ideas, to discuss relationship ideas and to come away with.

[04:30]

Some perspective that helps us in our relationships away from here, if you can if you can have your video on, so it just helps people see who they're talking to, especially when you go into the breakout rooms. Now, the discussion here is the audio is recorded and so you can listen to any meetup that you haven't attended, but the breakout rooms are private. So in the breakout room, you in a small group and it's just a chance to to talk because in the main room, we can't all get a chance.

[05:08]

Not everyone's comfortable talking to everyone else. Okay.

So right, so what we're going to do is we're going to discuss some topics, we're going to go breakout rooms to discuss them privately and come back and share one couple of bits of housekeeping is.

[05:38]

One of the first eral was asked a couple of meet ups ago about how he kept faith in dating in the face of. Failure, and he he was kind enough to share down his ideas, and so there's a blog post Woodchopper in the chat later, if you haven't had a chance to see it, and he's here to answer any questions so we can bring that up if anyone has anything to say in terms of etiquette. We have one person talking at a time, and if you have something that you want to contribute, then just put your hand up and if your camera's off, you can put your in.

[06:30]

I think it's some reactions, isn't it? You can put your hand up participants for you. Okay, so everyone's been hit by default just to block out background noise, if you want to jump in just a minute yourself or hand up. Okay, so the idea of monogamy is. I forgot the central idea is this one, yeah, one spouse, one spouse, that's it. So the idea of monogamy is one spouse, so.

[07:09]

From looking at. All of history and. The nature of relationships depends on the culture that they live in, so patriarchal relationships are very different from hunter gatherers and she talks about that. She talks about basically the 10000 years since we became agricultural.

[07:33]

We from hunter gatherers to farmers is really about.

[07:43]

Both men and women needed each other and members particularly needed because of the weight of the plow. And so this is basically where patriarchy came from because men had men were needed more. And so when you look at patriarchy is really. Catering to men's fears, it's controlling women, it's controlling the narrative, and so. Making so there's been so when you look at. Like the essential, essential evolutionary goals are, when you look at evolutionary psychology, the goals are for a man to perpetuate his genes and for a woman to ensure the safety of his children.

[08:37]

So. Every woman pretty much knows. That her children are has no man can really be sure. And so when you look at. Taking away money, independence from women, and that's really about. Limiting access, their access and their freedom to. To basically cheat so that the man knows his children, that his children and his OK, so one.

[09:13]

So one so that's really where monogamy in the patriarchy has generally been, not unless men had the resources, when men had the resources, it was only about like in cultures where polygamy, multiple wives is is available to something like five to 10 percent of men who have the resources. And she uses the story. A lot of she talked to a Negaunee man who had three wives, I think, and she said, well, how many wives would you like?

[09:49]

He said, none. And basically, she talks about the problems of jealousy because while you can. Okay. I think we need to backtrack to the central premise of Helen Fisher is that there are three wives. There's the sex drive. There's the romantic drive and there's deep attachment. And so what she shows from her brain. The neuroscience research is that they operate on different. Different aspects. So they're driven by different hormones. But she says all three of them are cool.

[10:38]

They come from the like the reptilian brain, the cool brain stem. So they're as important to us as. Hunger as first, and so he says that they're equally. Equally important, however, they work independently of each other and so we can find someone attractive and be sexually attracted to them. But the Rachmat, so she talks about, OK, so the sex drive is basically testosterone driven and so tested testosterone and estrogen. I think it is so that works on lust.

[11:27]

The romantic drive. Is. I can't remember which Doberman and the romantic drive is about. Focusing on one person, it's focusing your attention on one person and then a deep attachment she proposes is an idea, is a mechanism to attach parents, which seems to be for about three or four years, because when she looks historically at relationships and she looks even like way back in the past that there tended to be, she says all societies had a form of divorce.

[12:11]

It didn't used to have any stigma or shame to it. It was just like they're not happy together. And about a third, probably about a third of couples would divorce and they would just but they would always remarry, which is why she says it's an instinctive drive and.

[12:30]

So those three work independently of each other, which is why. Why we. Why we why there's so much infidelity and she looks back and she says there's always been infidelity and it used to be quiet, like she she gives examples of cultures where they sort of turn a blind eye to it, sort of like Italy and. Where unless it was blatant in their face, they just accepted that they had other partners. So. Am I making clear does anyone have any any comments or.

[13:24]

But the discussion, more or less, this ignores matriarchy. Yeah, make sure it's. It deals with it, it deals with the issue of infidelity in a way in a different way. You can you talk a bit more about that?

[13:48]

OK, like, for example, that group of people, that tribe I can't remember the name in China near the border with Nepal and Tibet. I think it is they have something called a walk in marriage. And the men don't live with the women and the women. The children belong to the village because sometimes they don't even know who their fathers are. And the men have to be invited to spend the night with the woman and at her place and hence the walking, because then he walks back home to his mother every morning in the morning and it can be a different mind all the time.

[14:23]

And they're all they're all OK.

[14:28]

The men don't fight each other in terms of jealousy over the particular woman, because I suppose those who are in favor would probably also have many partners, but it seems to work out and the children belong to everybody in the village. So they're all parents. Of all the children and you know, hmm. Yeah, there are cultures where there is a cultural comment. Which one it is, but I believe that when a woman is pregnant, she will try and mate with.

[15:04]

All the men in the village that have characteristics that she she wants her child to have, and I believe that they all contribute to the child. And so someone who's intelligent, someone who's a great warrior, someone who's kind, someone who's this. And so there's also the idea that.

[15:30]

Which is one of the reasons they say, like, why do women was like, why do women cheat? Or I'm part of it is that they are protecting their children. If if everyone knew his father, who was the father of a child and they were rivals for powerful resources in that tribe, they could be killed, which is one of the reasons why. Monogamy is what Helen Fisher says, monogamy is basically the way that we work, because while we can be poly, poly, polygamy, polyamorous or have different arrangements, we haven't evolved past jealousy.

[16:26]

And it's those basic. So when she talks about relationships where there were multiple and she does talk about multiple husbands, will they that's that's a lot rarer there.

[16:40]

There's like children being poisoned, his wives fighting each other constantly. And so. It just seems to complicate things, so her view is that. The best the one that works best is monogamy, although she talks about because we want that commitment, so it's commitment, but also we've planned clandestine affairs. And. I read a really good book, actually is called Sex at Dawn, and it was recommended by Sarah Pasko, actually a comedian, and yeah, she was likening human beings to saying that we were closely aligned to bonobos.

[17:30]

But it was it was quite interesting at looking at the polyamorous, um, aspect of it from an anthropological point.

[17:43]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, usually, you see, I think one of the problems is that because we've had 2000 years of Christianity and I mean, we I'm talking having come from a Western society, which is mostly Christian in more of, you know, the culture. And so what's happened is sex has become stigmatized and shamed. And so we look at. Monogamy as being moral. Whereas she's not saying that at all, because if you look at different societies, they'd have different arrangements and the arrangements, determine the arrangements and determine basically by the culture, which is determined by the environment and the situation of the people.

[18:37]

So we can have relationships in all kinds of ways. And that's basically practical, but. Predominantly, it's one man, one woman, and it doesn't mean one man, one woman for life, she talks about there being a three or four year high, which is like the attachment stage. And after that. It's kind of like the high point and I think the problem. With that is because we don't have a. Mechanism for dealing with relationships past that up till then.

[19:22]

I don't think we have so she's very positive about relationships, she talks about, you know, the agricultural thing and now women are increasingly getting their independence. So we're now reverting back to pre agricultural because what's happened with the industrial revolution is that you've separated resources from the relationship because a husband and wife had to stay together because if one left, the other couldn't cope and one had to leave with nothing because you couldn't separate farm. Whereas now when you have, you got to work, you earn your money, you have resources that can be separated.

[20:11]

So monogamy is one monogamy as one spouse. So it can be one at a time, so you're like lifelong monogamy would be. Yeah, so whether it's staying together forever or serial monogamy. OK, so. Pete, I'm not sure did I answer that question or is there any more? You know, like when you said about sorry to go back, hi, my name's Sarah. Hi, guys. You said about that a man needs to know who their child is.

[20:51]

I think you made a pretty good point about the woman. Always knows, obviously, where you know her child, but the man might think that the child is someone else's. But that is not just that does not correlate just with why men need to dominate the woman. The reason why a man historically needed to dominate a woman wasn't just to do with that. That issue was to do. You're talking about an insecurity in the man and a lack of trust in the relationship, whereas the reason why women were dominated historically was a multilayered I mean, how long if you go.

[21:29]

But it's to do with power and control society. And historically, a woman was dominate it because of power and control. And I still think to some extent that is true politically. If you look at the political background that we're living in, 80 percent of the houses of parliament is made up by man. Whereas in New Zealand I've lived in New Zealand, that's what I know. It's about 70 percent of women that they are in parliament and culturally New...

The Five Levels of Relationship Operating System

Tue, 24 Nov 2020 09:00:00 +0100

Like computers have operating systems so do we. In this episode I tried to explain how our O/S affects our relationship.

This discussion is based on the following blog post;

https://makerelationshipssimple.com/evolution-relationship-operating-system/

Transcript

Welcome to honest talk about heartbreak, dating and relationships, relationships, the podcast helping you navigate your path to happy ever after with your host, Rob McPhillips. So basically, we were talking tonight about the evolution of the operating system and the operating system is the cultural narrative for how relationships. Function for the narrative around what a relationship means, how it's formed, how why expectations we should have and how we can fix it if if if it goes wrong. So we looked at the level so level one is basically the caveman level of tightwire I want.

[00:48]

Level two is the more civilized a sense of like we have to be here in within civilization, we have to take care of other people. And so it's the deal making level where we make deals of maybe it's not a so we might see this level now in terms of a golddigger relationship or a sugar daddy sugar relationship where someone marry someone for. Some other reason than than love or attraction level three was from about a 12th century, I think up until now the prevailing cultural narrative has been that we marry for love, that we marry because we meet the person that sets us alive and we fall in love and they are the one and love.

[01:47]

So I think we move to level four when we recognize that the fairytale myth doesn't work to level four is about a level of confusion. It's recognizing the narrative that still culturally we have. Doesn't work, and it's more of a pragmatic response of that doesn't work. So what will and I think the movement to study relationships, I think people like Harville Hendrix, people who've advocated more progressive relationships, has an open or polyamory and that kind of relationship. Our reactions to the recognition level three doesn't work.

[02:37]

So the minor upgrade to to that is recognizing that its skills and knowledge that can help us to develop our relationships, and it's the recognition that we can no more, that we can impact our relationships and level the next evolution is the sense of we recognize that our life is essentially a story and it's every story that's given to us or it's a story that we create and it's recognizing that we don't have to take the narrative that we're given culturally, but that we can transcend that and create our own narrative.

[03:31]

And so it's it's taking. Our life and our situation and making a story and recognize that we're consciously using that as a construct until. We find data that contradicts it. And so it's recognizing that we create narrative in terms of. What things mean to us, and it's just being consciously in control of that. The idea is that it's a buffet of ideas, so we all can bring and share our own perspectives and our own ideas and you take what you want.

[04:08]

So there's no one, right? There's no one. We're not here to convince anyone. We're not here. No one's right. No one's wrong. It's just an idea where we can share ideas and take from whatever is useful to the main room where we are now is recorded. And the audio with the main room will be a podcast. So you can catch up on any of the meet ups by looking at any of the past on a podcast.

[04:35]

You can look at any of the past ones and catch up on any that you've missed. If there's a problem with the breakout room, you can leave the breakout room and come back. I'll be in the main room and I'll help you reassign. Also, if you if you have an Internet connection problem and you get dropped out, then I'll be in the main room and help you get back into your breakout room. I'll give you a link for feedback later.

[05:03]

So any problems or any ideas for future meet ups? Like I said earlier that we discussed in December, we got the Christmas party, so share any ideas.

Also, just want to let you know in the new year, obviously there's going to be lots of people starting dating.

[05:25]

It's a time when New Year's resolutions and people decide to start dating. So I'm going to be doing the pilot study last month. And so start dating. Right. Is going to be opening in just in between Christmas and New Year's so people can get started. And that's basically a there's details on that on make relationships simple dot com. And if you go there, if you look at the start dating. Right, that's a month long training in online dating messaging coming soon is just finalizing the curriculum for relationship mastery system, which is going to be like the start date in what is a cut down version of that or cut down version of part of that.

[06:18]

But the curriculum is a system of relationship building that's going to be coming in January. Right. So now so the topic of tonight is the evolution of the relationship operating system. Now, in order for us to be able to discuss it, I know it's kind of a. It's an abstract idea, and it's maybe not. Immediately obvious what it is. So first of all, I want to just clear up any misunderstandings or not.

[06:56]

Not not knowing what a relationship operating system is so that we can go into the breakout rooms with some solid idea of of what a relationship operating system is. So if I if I mention relationship operating system, who thinks what's. How does that apply? Or is everyone clear that it was in the blog post or Spain, so I can explain a bit, that would be great because I don't think I fully grasp the concept.

[07:32]

Yeah, OK.

[07:33]

So basically, I like if you look at your mobile phone, it has it's got hardware. So that limits the scope of the camera and the ability of what it tells the speed of its processor, things like that. It has the IRS or Angel or whatever the equivalent Android is of the operating system. And then within that, it has the apps and the apps allow you to use the phone to do specific functions, so like message or take pictures or whatever is now my.

[08:11]

My proposition is that we have humans have a similar set up, we have genes which are genetic or genetic capability, what we're going to be the colorize, we have the skin color, the person, the temperamental factors.

[08:32]

So that's the hardware. We can't there's bound to within which we can change that. The and then on top of that, we've got a relationship operating system. And the operating system is the set of frameworks and beliefs that we have about the world and more particularly about how relationships work. And so that said, basically in a relationship, when you react without really considering every element and nuance of the interaction, which is basically how we interact most of the time, then we're working from on autopilot.

[09:14]

And when you're walking on autopilot, it's from the operating system.

[09:19]

Does that make sense? We're trying to analogize the humans way, working through the use of technology.

[09:28]

Yes, it's basically a computer. The operating system mediates between apps, which is skills in humans and the basic hardware. So in order to for a human to function, they have to have a view of the world, a set of beliefs and rules of thumbs. And so those rules of thumb are what we operate on, unless we give a lot of focused attention to a specific instance. So what would be the what would we what was the aim of the debate?

[10:11]

What specifically out of this concept?

[10:14]

OK, so the evolution of the operating system is the five basic is the way that I see that relationships have evolved. So initially, when you go back to caveman times, it was I want an answer to the cavemen, you know, dragging a woman by the by a hair and with a club taking what you wanted. So the next evolution was we civilized, we we civilized. Then we realized that in order to get this, we had to do this.

And so it's about we're looking at how do I get what I want? What do I have to do? What do I have to give? We don't have to pretend.

[11:05]

And so when you look at like pick up, pick up and chat up lines, that's basically what do I have to do to get what I want.

[11:17]

The next evolution is the romantic.

[11:22]

Operating system, which is the idea of I feel like this, therefore it must be love and therefore it must be fight, the next evolution was really evolved from a confusion where with political with the rise in independence and equality of women and I not knowing what to do, kind a sense of confusion of what are the rules, what, what, how these things work. And so then it's it's. The use of skills within that, and I believe that the next evolution is a personal narrative based.

[12:08]

So does that make sense generally? Yeah. And is everyone so vacay with the basic concept, when you say operating system, do you mean underlying beliefs then paradigm? Yes.

[12:26]

So when I talk about the fairy tale model, that is a framework that is a that is like operating system free. Is anyone else? I know this is quite strange.

[12:48]

Explain the artisan in the master samples.

[12:53]

OK, thank you. Um. Let me let me see that he said basically, I know, right?

[13:06]

I so basically that is that if the value model of where you go from here to here.

[13:16]

So the line is. Once you're free or operating below the line, so it's it's subpar results. OK, so I'm sorry, I'm not saying that was the mastermind looking at the wrong one. Is that the one on the very top? Yes, four five point Zero Mostel and four point one one. OK, inscription the fine and artisan consolidate to make sure I cross it right.

[13:52]

OK, I'm seeing a different image, but I do know that there was the Arsenal master. Basically, artisan is basically master is someone who's gone past artisan level. So it's a higher level of a more effective operating system. And this is on the operating system. Post an evolution of relationship operating system. Yeah, it's the one on the meetup post. Oh, I may have posted a slightly different one. I'm sorry. No, no, no, it's okay.

[14:36]

I had no sorry. It was my fault. I picked the wrong one. Oh, my. That's a changed one. Okay. So so basically, it's like caveman settlers in civilization. Okay, so so someone who's operating at the caveman level, they're the prescription for them to to get to the next level is to have empathy to the caveman level, doesn't have empathy and settlor level is to level of within a civilization and aspiring to want more than that.

[15:08]

Kind of like what's given.

[15:11]

And then the dreamer is the kind of romantic dreamer. But the the next that prescription is to challenge and think a little bit more critically. Okay, that makes sense. Yeah. Okay. Right. So the topic of the breakout room is. To really consolidate the idea of the relationship operating system for you, what you understand of it and how it can impact relationships. So maybe in personal experiences, if you see somewhere where it's impacted your relationships, if you see other people operating from certain levels.

[16:04]

That will be another example. Does that make sense to everyone? Just released through the lake that you are basing this on into the chat so that we can just make sure. Well, yeah, we're looking at the same time.

[16:24]

She should be the first link in the chat and I will post it again. Chat. Okay, go. Okay, so the topic is really discussing what a relationship operating system is doesn't make sense to you. What do you understand it?

[16:58]

Because our understanding each side is a kind of foreign concept, you understand, because I think it's OK, I'm repeating someone's audio.

[17:12]

And so what what what you understand, Biak, and what impact it has on relationships. How does that make sense? OK, I will. Just one more time, please. OK, right, quick show of hands.

[17:41]

Does a relationship operate? The system makes sense. Do you have a vague idea of what it might be? Hands up. Hands down. Hands up, if you have a vague idea and you can use the reactions if you haven't got camera on.

[18:04]

OK. Right, OK, right, so so you sorry, Sandra was not. Yes, yeah, OK, so. When we function, we function most of the time and rule of thumb, we function without thinking. So when we're driving, we learn to drive and it becomes automated. So initially, it's really awkward and it's learning the skill and we have to constrain everything we do. Like, I don't know if anyone else, when they're parking has to turn the music off so that they can accommodate things at once.

[18:45]

So. The relationship operating system is what do you function on when you're not thinking about it, when you're just relating, when you're when you're thinking of what your partner does or has done? What are you referring to? You know, when people say they should do this, what are you referring to? So it's gut instinct or rational thought. So where's the gut instinct coming in from?

[19:22]

OK, so it's the belief somewhere you have to have an expectation of what a relationship is, certainly of how it works. That's the relationship operating system. OK, right. OK, we're going to go to the breakout rooms for 12 minutes. When you get a link to come back, don't come back straight away because you still got a minute of the conversation. Welcome back. OK, so. How about room one? What what was your discussion, what was.

[20:14]

Any questions or examples that you can share?

[20:22]

We wondered if people had different operating systems would be compatible....

The 5 Relationship Commitments

Tue, 17 Nov 2020 09:00:00 +0100

Commitment sounds like effort. It sounds boring and dull.

Yet total commitment is easier than partial commitment.

We're always committed. But what we commit to determines the level of quality of our relationships. Here's what I suggest we should commit to...

Transcript

Welcome to honest talk about heartbreak, dating and relationships, relationships, the podcast helping you navigate your path to happy ever after with your host, Rob McPhillips. So tonight, we were talking about the five commitments and the five commitments that we have to be committed to in order to have the relationship of the quality that we warm. And the idea is that we have those commitments so that we're not forever judging each situation individually, so that we know what we're committed to and what conditions we're committed to them under.

[00:48]

And so the commitment, the five commitments are to build a relationship of equals based on trust, respect and kindness, to learn what it takes to make a relationship work. To take complete responsibility for your relationships. To commit to choosing a partner based on the qualities and their ability for a long term successful relationship and a commitment to to being the quality of partner that you expect. And so the the idea is that if you have the commitment to those, those become your boundaries, those become your the standards that you aspire to, and so that you're able to nip problems in the bud.

[01:38]

OK, so welcome, everyone. So the topic tonight we've got is the five commitments and basically. The the idea is that. One hundred percent commitment is easier than 99 percent. Okay, so before we actually start with the main topic, I'm just going to run through expectations. And if anyone is new to the meeting and insight of what's going to we're going to do ahead. So the whole point of this group is to having a safe place to honestly discuss relationships.

[02:15]

So everyone's opinion is valid. No one's opinion dominates. It's not about being right. It's just about having a place, a safe place, that we can discuss relationships in a way that maybe we wouldn't with people that we see in our everyday life. There's no stupid questions. Everyone's anything that you could be struggling with, other people who can act out as well. It's always good to clarify and redefine. So how it works is in the main room, we have a discussion this the audio is recorded and so then you can catch up on any time that you've missed out on the breakout rooms are private, so that doesn't get recorded.

[03:01]

And I want his other than the people that you're discussing with. If you can if you can have it, Kameron, because this is a person-to-person interaction, it just makes people feel better, especially in the break room. Some people feel some people feel uncomfortable and it's going to change how people perceive you if you don't have your camera on, because people are going to think, who am I talking to? So, of course, there are reasons sometimes because of bandwidth, because of where you are and what you do.

[03:32]

You can't if you can in the breakout room. If you just explain to people why you can't have the camera on you or you don't have the cameraman, OK? So I think that's most of it. If there's any problems in the breakout room, if you leave, I'll be in the main room and I can reassign you. I'm going to put a link in the chat later. That's for any feedback, comments or suggestions. OK, so let's start with the main the main topic, so the topic is the five commitments.

[04:06]

And so basically this is about. The fact that if you haven't made a decision is tyring to make decisions, so if you. Wait until you see how you feel, you end up never going to the gym, you end up eating the cake, you end up buying the impulse buy. And in the same way, with dieting and relationships, it means that if you go to a dating site and you're not really committed to it, you're going to give up when you have a bad interaction in a relationship, which means it's more stressful because you're always thinking, am I in this relationship or am I not?

[04:41]

Would I you should I leave? Is the grass greener? So you always have to make like one different decisions. And research shows us that making a decision is tiring. And so the less decisions we have to make, the more energy we have for the big decisions. So in a blog post, I share some information I shared about Barack Obama and Mark Zuckerberg and Steve Jobs, who basically made the decision to always wear the same thing. And they wore the same thing because it meant that they never had to make a decision about what they were going to wear.

[05:25]

So they had the energy freed up for the big decisions. So. If you have basically the gist of the article I wrote was if you have if you make Clear-cut decisions, it means you never have to make a decision whether to change the game, whether it's about whether to do this or to do that, whether you're in the relationship or not, it means that you just get on and do it. And most of our energy and most of the anguish in relationships is about my decisions.

[05:58]

So. Yet I don't believe that you will, you always need to. Relationships are going to be conditional because. You're not in a bad or a good decision then. Because you say that it's tiring, but it's also sort of. There's a need, a desire to make a good decision, so time spent thinking about and weighing up the consequences of making the decision, is that not worthwhile just to make a good decision yet?

[06:43]

Definitely. So. For example, I think there was there was a spate of there was a time like the 80s and 90s when. All business groups that were basically taking what was in the Japanese style of business of Khoisan and continuous improvement and things like that, and basically one of the differences when they go over their ideas, they didn't always work because there is a different culture. And one of the important parts of the Japanese culture is that it seems to be that they all agree.

[07:23]

But actually, they spend a long time before they make the decision in private discussing it. And they they hear all sides of this, quite a lot of diversity in the way that they make the decision. But then once they made the decision and they all agreed to it. So, yes, I think you should make it. You need to spend a lot of time on working out what the right decision is and obviously should review it sometimes. But I think and really what I've done in the five commitments that we're going to talk about is.

[07:59]

What I believe are the keys to the key decisions to commit to so. I think you should make a decision, but with that is conditional. So people want unconditional love, but the reality is humans for the most part, are capable of that and.

[08:26]

If someone I don't think anyone should stay in a relationship where there's abuse, where there's violence, where there's control, where there's manipulation. So I think there needs to be clear. Boundaries of what what is unacceptable? But what you don't want to be making a constantly remaking the decision is. I don't feel so great today. Am I am I still in this or this person is more attractive and maybe I've got a chance with them should, you know, chopping and changing because that kind of chopping and changing is always going to is never going to lead to lasting happiness.

[09:10]

So it's really yes, so there's a lot a lot of build up to make the decision and to be clear. And yes, you can change the decision. Because as we evolve and as we change, we get more clarity and we can make better decisions. So I think. The what would they now is who go to small breakout rooms. To actually start for one minute. And think about how does this apply in your life? So for some of us, it's going to be.

[09:54]

So, for example, I've been trying to give up sugar and I've mostly given up I've given up chocolate, but sometimes it's like you had you've had dinner and you really feel like a cake or a biscuit. And that's the worst time to make a decision. So that's really my plan. So some people decide to exercise light based on how they feel and then they go to work and they are not too tired. And so they end up never going to the gym.

[10:24]

Some people go out and make a decision to buy something when they shopping based on whatever it feels like a good deal of the time. For a lot of people dating, it's like they get a couple of bad. They have a bad experience, they have a bad message and they go, dieting doesn't work. I'm giving up. And in relationships, it's they have a bad day. They're not feeling good about their partner in that day, that week.

[10:54]

And so they decided maybe I'll be better in a different relationship. So we'll take one minute to think about how does this apply to your life? What area are you making decisions based on how you feel in the moment? Is this exclusively for relationships or does any of you know, first of all, is to think about any area so it could be excited to be. It could be money, work, whatever. OK, everyone's back and you can meet everyone again by yourself so we can arm yourselves one at a time to talk.

[11:47]

Anyone got any question, comment or insight in that on that concept, on the idea of making a decision up front al-Qaida's. I think it's good to have a balance of being disciplined or organized the way I tried to perceive it that you were saying, Rob, is it's not good to be doing everything off a boss. Believe maybe that's disorganized or. It's got to be organized, put. Is it because some people might be very old and too organized to planned a robbery relative, you said tossed you out for a pint tonight, a bit like I always do in Washington.

[12:44]

Would I always go to the gym on a Monday? And these very little flexibility, not friends, family, potential partner, it can disrupt things and make things not as good as they could be. They could be better if you don't be flexible with people. I described I knew a female friend. It was very organized about chores and this is my day off. I always do my washing on my day off. She was like not my friends, but she was like potentially meet someone as well.

[13:17]

Well, I told her myself, I said. A year later, two years later, I said, I've seen changes in you that when you're texting me. It seems as if he'd been more flexible with this new leaders on this aid, an hour to go because I wasn't interested, but I said I see it seems as if you're not being so rigid with that person. Maybe that's because it's more of a person that you think they might be the one and you, whereas all the people you did, either it was you or the Arab or you're willing to make that more effort to be more flexible.

[13:53]

And I still think there's a good balance between being organized, because sometimes it's good because if you're organized and it can accommodate other things, if it was organized tonight, you could say right. Teased or dressed. And I asked myself and then some somebody randomly might say, well, and the good old days, do you want to come to the pub randomly? But you might say no, sorry, I've still got potatoes. Are you Zarganar? You might have the night free.

[14:20]

I'll be that flexibility and doing things on impulse switch date where Rob actually go. Text does talk about oh, we hadn't planned it. As the most disorganized and spontaneous person, I am fully with you, I think it is it just for the big decisions, for the real, really important things. I think this is like you make those ahead of times. But I'm just going to bring in Catherine CACC. Good to see you here. Yeah, thank you.

[14:58]

Thank God they worked out for me. So what came up for me that I think it will definitely free me up to have time and energy to make bigger decisions is to predetermine what I'm going to have for breakfast and and dinner, because I don't really I don't have a preference. It will just make my life easier. But I really care about lunch. So then lunch will be a little more flexible. And every day I have something different, but I might have a theme.

[15:25]

Mondays is Taco Monday since I could do it their way and they just do it that way. But that can be applied to anything else. The things that are not as important and that we do a lot of marriage, why not have it set? So then when something big comes up, then we already have the energy and excited to do it. And also we have flexibility. Our own schedule is our own decision. So something changes. You have the freedom to say, I changed my mind or I have something planned, but because that sounds more fun, I want to do this.

[16:02]

Yeah, I think. I've had that kind of thinking about like if I if I set a time when I'm going away, I don't always have to make the decision because otherwise I'm sitting there and I'm working and I'm thinking pretty hungry, really fancy. Three and half the time is an excuse to get out of. You like to procrastinate. Alan.

[16:31]

Yeah, I remember about 14, something like that, I was I was on a bus to school and basically the stop before school was where the shots were. And it was it must have been like the longest space between bus stops in the world. It was massive, about four miles. So it was a big decision. Do I get off and get a chocolate bar and not walk to school or do I go to school?

[16:57]

And by the time it made my decision, I realized I was actually off the Boston. I couldn't believe it. I was like, wow, what's going on there? And so I automatically taking myself off the bus because the impulse of the chocolate bar was more important than the war. The school. Well, I've never forgot that because I think it's an important thing of. It's did it automatically and I think where we come, where it will lead to potentially and this is the automatic thinking, because if something is we breed automatic, we are happy to automatically.

[17:40]

And. Thinking, as you said, it only requires requires energy, and even if we know what we're going to have for our economy, we know what we're going to work already.

[17:57]

Then those decisions don't take away the energy. And I suppose we can then apply the energy elsewhere in our lives. I say in the group that I despise going to Japan when I will put it off and put it off and put it off. Well, I do spend a lot of time thinking about what will have me saying, you know, I asked for of food, I think it definitely is definitely something to it. And I think maybe getting some sort of balance in place would leave people in a better place more.

[18:36]

Hello, Fresh really worked for me with food. Because they just give you you just pick them up a couple of weeks in advance and then it's just which pack Imran is Imran.

[18:54]

Maria, it's Maria. Sorry, it's my surname. Yeah.

[19:00]

So I'd love to I forgot his name, but the person who said about the balance between being organized and...

The Relationship Landscape

Tue, 10 Nov 2020 09:00:00 +0100

If, as we have said previously, relationships are a quest, then what is the landscape we have to journey through?

Transcript

[00:05]

Welcome to honest talk about heartbreak, dating and relationships, relationships, the podcast helping you navigate your path to happy ever after with your host, Rob McPhillips.

To summarize today's talk in five minutes, so we were talking about the relationship landscape and we talked about instead of looking at. Relationships as being more evident than in the moment, being the zoom out and see them from a bigger time scale, from being able to see your whole life, being able to see how the specific situation that you're in at the moment is just a speck in the big scheme of things.

[00:56]

You have a sense of perspective, being able to visualize the landscape as if you were creating a film, as if you were creating a drawing so that you are able to visualize the emotional states so that you have more ability to look at and. Journey to where you want to go to whatever visualization that you can use is the way that your brain is, is structuring the way it thinks, and so that visualization can tell you how you're looking at the situations of your relationship status.

[01:43]

So we looked at someone had a series of mountains that they had to climb. Someone else was on the edge of a forest and I didn't know what was in the forest. And someone else was confused and not knowing where they're going. And so we looked at what our fears are then. And in the current our current relationships situation, what priority we have to overcome. What was this at and. What what do we do next? So I think that was kind of it, but if I missed anything major out, jump in.

[02:26]

So thank you for being here tonight. If if anyone's got a few minutes to talk about the meetings in general and feedback. Stay on. Otherwise, good night and thank you for being here. So tonight's topic is the relationship landscape. So. We'll get into that in a minute, but just a few things I wanted to take over. Thank you to the people, asked people for opinions and simply said that was quite interesting. Quite a lot to go for.

[03:06]

So possibly at the end of the session or perhaps another time. Well, we'll go through some of those. For anyone new, if you can if you can put your camera on just so we can see you, if you're not comfortable, that that's fine. The so what we do is we're going to have a discussion, we're going to run free like some Startrek sizes and some breakout rooms, so, I mean, the breakout rooms we have is more private discussion.

[03:46]

In the main room, the conversation is recorded. We don't use the video, but we use the audio. So any meeting we've had, you can go back and listen to. What was? OK. So. I think my strengths. So the idea of relationship landscape, does that bring up anything for anyone? Is it confusing or does it before I was quite looking forward to learning what it's all about.

[04:24]

OK, I'll ask this because. What I want to start with is. Really tapping into your imagination kind of might seem a bit weird, but I thought this might be. Because it's something different. This is just the way I kind of envisaged it, and I think it might be useful for you.

[04:49]

So. Before you have any preconceptions, it might be an idea just to go through this exercise to. Exercise your imagination. So if you want to have a camera on camera off as fine seconds, Meeteetse, I'm just going to run free this. And what we're really looking for is how do you envisage it so I don't know if you have any pen and paper about. Or access to it. And you're not going to need it right now, but at the end.

[05:31]

Will. It might be helpful for you to have it. OK, is everyone saying if everyone sits somewhere with a relaxed when they feel comfortable with this little background noise, they can. De. And if you just said, well, we're going to start with this is a breathing exercise, so if you can breathe in really nice before. And in breathe out through your mouth, I said. Every evening for. And in breathing out, Farai.

[06:24]

And then if you see if you can just relax and if you focus on your breathing and keep that breathing pattern and then. Relaxing. Each time that you breathe. So this and now next time when you breathe in, if you can support your muscles. So, Brevin, for. Tense up and breathe out for right to relax. And then just relax. More and more. So if you can imagine all your stresses and worries and concerns and if you imagine just putting them in the bag and just leaving them.

[07:16]

And should you just relax? And then imagine that you can leave them up. You've got a bird's eye perspective. And then above you, above your home. Above the city. Now, if you can imagine your life in a line. And you can see where it begins. And you can see where it goes to. And pick out some of the milestones, the relationship milestones. And just imagine what they were, a deck of cards, you can just pick out a few of the cards, so you pick out a few of the incidents.

[08:20]

As The Receptively Review. And just zulily. We're going to go to the land of relationships and imagine that there's this land. We talked about it being a quest. So the idea of the land is that there has to be a land. The question is within. So. Looking back, looking down. What does this land look like? What can you see? What can you smell or can you touch? What places are in? Where have you been to?

[09:11]

Where are you going to? And what's the journey you have to make? To get from where you are to where you want to be. So if you look look around. Where are the different places? Where is the hazardous? With the easy pass. And then when you're ready. Zoom back about back above. And then back down to the now. Feel being back in your body. And then open your eyes. OK, so for if you have pen and paper, draw out what came to you, what was around, what is the relationship landscape like, if you were in a.

[10:29]

Bad place, where is it if you're in a good place, where is it? And. Map out where all the different places that you could be within the relationship landscape, where you single, where someone. Where is. It's stressful. Where is it lonely, where do you feel love? Where were you happy? And what are the obstacles? And so when you've got something and you feel ready, if you just put in a check ups.

[11:12]

I'm going to open up the breakout rooms so you can discuss it in a small group, if you're still working on it, then just ignore the breakout room invitation. If there's no one talking in the breakout room, if you just leave the breakout room and you'll come back to the main room and then I can reassign you to a different way. If there's a problem in the breakout rooms, there's ask for help. Link, so you get an invitation now when the warning comes that last minute, if you stay in, you've still got a minute to finish your conversations and then automatically bring you back.

[12:01]

And if you're still working on it, then just. Carol, know the breakout. Welcome back then you won't have anything to share about their landscape. My landscape was mountains and a path, no, not a path, a little spot on the ground because there is no path because yeah, I don't work well between the three or four of us, we decided that we're a little bit confused and a bit hesitant about going forward because probably because of past past problems from previous relationships and then.

[12:44]

Yes, like a conflict between what you want and what you're willing to sort of try. Yeah, that's that's definitely what I am at the moment with my little my little spot in the mountains.

[12:59]

OK, so you up in the mountain, you know, I'm at the bottom of a bunch of mountains.

[13:05]

OK, yes. That's a big trek yet. OK, thank you. Anyone else? I can dive in if nobody else wants to go. You know, what I would do is I'm just going to meet everyone if you can meet Sulpher and then whoever wants to talk just so that we don't have background noise going on our. OK, sorry, so mine is mine is a forest below a thick forest. I suppose I'm on that. I'm on the pathway what's behind me, but I left it.

[13:50]

Well, there was a fireplace. Let's just saying I wouldn't say it was quite demonic or anything like that, but it just wasn't a nice place.

[14:02]

And for a while it got really bad.

[14:05]

But now I left the place and I'm moving to a place which I feel is going to be a lot better. I can see some clearing up ahead, but I don't really know whether they are the actual destination that I want to be at. But the excitement for me is that at this I'm going to find out. I'm going to get there. But I'm also preparing myself that it may not be what I was looking for. After all, you know, the gold may not necessarily be in the clearing or it may not be in the other clearing.

[14:37]

So mentally, I'm also prepared not to get too too disappointed if it isn't what I'm looking for and to try and enjoy the journey that I've got there, I've seen it at least and know if along the way I happen to see flowers, tears, you know, whatever, that that's great.

[14:58]

I've learned things. I've seen things, I've experienced things. So to take the journey for what it is also not to have a bit like Alice in Wonderland, I suppose, not have a clock like the Revit time shield of matter. Obviously this is all metaphoric, right. For but so that there is no concept of time. It is just the journey. And I just enjoy the journey as you go through it. And some things don't, don't just rush through and then miss.

[15:34]

But that was a nice bunch of flowers. There was the city. I mean there is a journey to be had, of course, and you don't want to spend too long analyzing a particular theatre or something, but at the same time, you want to not miss things around you. So it's a little bit balance for me as I go through the journey. That's best to I see if that makes sense to anybody, I can put it into plain English.

[16:00]

Well.

[16:04]

You want me to throw you just spend forever wandering around the forest without making it through the forest, though there is the potential, which is why I said it's a very good idea that you picked up on this like it is like peeping through at the end of the forest.

[16:19]

It's over that way. Can well, I mean, I and that's why I said not to spend too long just analyzing all over analyzing something and looked like possible. And it's a it's a balancing act so long as you feel comfortable with your because life is such that you can change what you want. So you may decide that actually this isn't what I want anymore. Actually I want something else. And so long as you're comfortable and you will not look back on it with regret, that's the most important thing.

[16:55]

So what I don't want to do is look back on my journey and regret that I didn't spend time or I spent too much time, but at the same time, don't get too scared to spend the time, will not spend the time and get yourself paralyzed in that, you know, you just do what feels natural, what feels right. But keep your eye on where you want to go. Don't take your eye off where you want to go and analyze.

[17:21]

It is still where I want to go to. I still want to see that. Yes. OK, then carry on, because today I may look at certain things. Maybe I reach a clearing and I look at it and I go this type of clearing sort of total waste of time. There's nothing as total rubbish. When I come back to the path, if I see a similar clearing, I'm not going to go and explore it perhaps and just move on to something else entirely.

[17:48]

Has anyone else got a different. Landscape. And when you think about going up out to Tea Party type of thing, I don't know of anyone in the manga cartoon Akira and it's like a big Nayo Tokyo landscape. And that's kind of where where I went. And I was like looking like a big mouth. And I was looking down and. Everything locked in significant insignificance at the same time. And. I didn't really associate with the other people that were there with.

[18:36]

And I didn't know because you talk about whether you want to go, what direction do you want to be in? And I was totally unsure about which which direction to go in. And I think that was amplified by the fact that I was up in the air in the. And. In this particular landscape, so, yeah, from a visualisations point of view, I mentioned it in the in the break up rooms that I took, the exercise is being.

[19:10]

To. Look into your own life from an external point of view, rather than one which we often do, where we look with limited viewpoints.

[19:27]

So I think taking something positive from it. Usually that image of command that created when you talk, and I think that's a good way of stepping out of your situation and trying to look at it from maybe a different perspective than what you currently go, that's the way I that away.

[19:48]

It's also.

[19:52]

When you look at fairy stories and even films now, they are the way that we work out our fears, what we're dealing with. So, for example, dreams, one of the ideas of reasonings of. Actress of dreams is that it's a way that we develop social skills. And it's how we how we work out what like how we gain the skills that we need to deal with whatever we're facing. So often when there's when we've got a challenge, we start having dreams that are maybe symbolic, but then we have to use those skills.

[20:46]

And so when you look at.

[20:49]

Like the fairy stories of old. All the creatures like the trolls and the demons and the wicked witches and the big bad wolf were all in the forest because that was the extent of where we knew. Now that we know that it's like the aliens are going to come at us or it's artificial intelligence or something like that. So, yeah, again, above it is enables you to see a picture in Dissociates, it's not so personal and also that it's.

[21:24]

When you're in a situation, it can seem overwhelming because you're in it, but when you put it...

Wired For Dating: A Summary of Stan Tatkin's Book

Tue, 03 Nov 2020 09:00:00 +0100

In this episode we discussed Stan Tatkin's book Wired For Dating and how that could help us in dating.

Transcript:

So the topic tonight is we're going to talk about STEM Takins award for dating. And so I can really talks about neuro biology and. Attachment theory, and so really, it's about. His work is really about, he says to when you're in a relationship, is 10 nervous systems interacting with each other, which is the reason why people can end up arguing over silly things, which is really what they're arguing about. So in the breakout rooms we were discussing.

[00:46]

What happened in your relationships or relationships that you think? And just before we we open up the discussion or just a couple of people say, just so everyone knows what's going on. So what we do here is we have a chat here in the main room. And the the chat here is recorded when you go into the room is private and then the recording you can catch. So if you've missed any time, you can listen in. What I'm looking for is an example of maybe and oftentimes we can't really explain why we get into these arguments.

[01:33]

But just looking for some real life examples so that we can we can use them to illustrate the principles and bring some clarity to them. Does anyone have anything that they were talking about in the. In the breakout rooms that. They could share. So if you want to I me to come you. Yes, I was talking with Sasha, so she left.

[02:05]

So she told the people I mean, in arguments in relationship, when the argument happens, the couple argues like a child is.

[02:19]

So the reason is because of lack of communication and I mean too much expectation.

[02:28]

So that's her answer. But my answer was that, I mean, since they love each other and they know each other so much, so they're connected to each other and they also called themselves like baby or things like that. So they're going to love each other. They act like a baby. Similarly, when they come correct, like when they are caught, they also act like baby.

[02:52]

And if they would have argued without relationship, I mean, they're not familiar with each other or maybe they are colleagues, they might not have like argued like childish childishly. And the other reason is that when they argue they know so much detail about themselves, like they used small details, like somebody says that your I mean, snoring is not good enough. I mean, your dress up is not good. And so this kind of small little things are used in arguments to hurt each other.

[03:26]

So this kind of small little things, when I brought in these kind of arguments, these are also components of babies like childish like arguments. So this is my I mean, thought about why they I mean, when they argue they act like childish. Well, they may not be childish. Well, I'm not saying it's not, but it might be that these things have annoyed them for a long time, like snoring, for example, but they just haven't mentioned it before because everything was fine and dandy and, you know, and there was no underlying problem.

[04:00]

So he didn't mention it. They just thought it. And then when something else is annoying them, then I'll bring it up. So it's actually just simmering under the surface.

[04:08]

So while they're arguing about the snoring, but it's not really about snoring.

[04:13]

Well, yeah. Yeah, probably not. No, they've brought it up. Yeah. So there's actually underlying issues on other issues.

[04:21]

You know, I think that's just a lack of being able to communicate around those things. So say like someone's got an issue with snoring or I think most of it is borne out of not expressing what you want clearly, and then not finding a sort of like mutual resolution to it looks like a win win situation or.

[04:44]

I think that's probably where it kind of yeah, and I think also because people aren't really clear on what they want. Only when they feel like they feel like I'm reading them what going on and just react. Yeah. But as you said before, it's sometimes a symptom of something that's an undercurrent. And so it's something that in good times you would probably tolerate, even though it is something that you wouldn't like. I have been through snoring and it drives me crazy because I wake up very irritable because I can't sleep.

[05:31]

And the response that I used to get is, what do you want me to do about it? So which says to me, you don't give you know a lot about me because you know that I need to sleep.

[05:48]

Therefore, that just escalates and escalates when if everything was lovey dovey and also very nice and stuff, you would try to find a way to de-escalate the tension. And, you know, what's that? What's happening. But because there is something else that is driving you bonkers or you're angry about that causes the explosion.

[06:14]

Well, for me, it causes me to just. I lash out with a pillow and a knife. No, I am I don't need any tools. I'm just very, very honest and very caustic. And so my husband will tell you, when you speak sharply, you cut like a knife. I'm sorry. It's nothing to boast about, but it's the truth. That's what he said.

[06:43]

Yeah, but not in that situation. His response basically meant he doesn't care. It's a lack of respect for you. Exactly. He's not doing anything about it. He's not trying to solve the problem.

[06:54]

So why does he feel like that? Because presumably, like five, 10 years earlier, he didn't. So why is he ended up like that?

[07:00]

I suppose it's a power play. It was a power play. Power play, OK? Did you have two bedrooms in the house, you could just or just left yourself maybe, I don't know, just no, no. He lives in Jamaica and I live in the UK.

[07:16]

And you can hear him when he when we are together in London.

[07:24]

But I believe that I mean I mean, living in two separate rooms will not solve the problem.

[07:33]

It will. I mean, make the problem deeper because you. I mean, living together, maybe they could I mean, make some kind of point. But if they're separate and they're lives, I mean, living in two separate, you can make the situation worse. There is quite a number of people that they sleep in separate bedrooms.

[08:04]

Yes, it depends on based on their preferences. But for me, I believe there may be whatever problems is happening. The problem is happening between these two people. So if they're working together, maybe try to find some common ground, then it will escalate the situation by living separately. Maybe that helped them come down at some point, but constantly living separately will make the situation worse.

[08:32]

This is not a start in the end, though, separate. But what I don't know is not necessarily because, like I, I know my girlfriend, we both sleep much better when we're on our own because it is hard, you know, like if you want to sleep early one week later and and just if you've been used to being on your own, you sleep better. So I don't know. But a lot of couples like if someone is snoring all the time and I can't change that.

[09:11]

My solutions, yeah, there are I don't know, but I do know that there was quite a sizeable number of people that do things separately. I suppose I think is unique, I think. I don't think that's necessarily. The end of a relationship or the start of the end of the relationship, it can just be a way then they they work out. As Colum pointed out, though, it's about the response that you get when you mention something to your partner.

[09:47]

It doesn't have to be about snow or it's whether they take it on board and even if they're not very active in terms of changing it. But at least they respond to you as though they're willing to do something about it to to reduce your impact that is happening on you. You know that. Yes. This is you're not happy about this and with good reason they will try to meet you halfway. It might not work because like, for example, snoring is very hard to resolve.

[10:22]

But if you're trying to make an effort. Then I would feel as though, OK, fine, you are trying to help the situation, but if you are not, then it says data for you.

[10:38]

Just as a show of hands, how many people and if you can resolve it, if the reactions down the volunteers, a show of hands, how many people have heard of attachment theory?

OK, and what was a question of it's such a mystery and does anyone know what attachment style they have that without just if you read it?

[11:05]

I think, Michael, I think I go through different attachments. I think sometimes I'm sure sometimes what's the other one, depending on what's the other one where you don't want? Well, for the fourth one's not very common, though, is it?

[11:27]

No, actually, I don't have the percentages and I. Yes. Is that the one are you talking about anchor and Wave and whatever? Yeah, although it's not secure, anxious, anxious, avoidant and ambivalent, fearful. I think I'm very avoidant sometimes, all the times I'm anxious and sometimes and completely secure, OK, depending on on.

[11:57]

Yeah, I mean we go through stages I think.

[12:00]

Yeah. How we feel like if you're with family, well, assuming it's a good family, then you're probably going to feel more secure than if you were in a situation you like your new workplace, you don't really know anyone. You're probably going to be the context is going to determine some of that. So roughly. OK, so we'll get into attachment actually a little bit. But first of all, I just want to give some background for anyone.

[12:31]

Oh, yeah. The other thing was how many people have read the book or listen to the TED talk. So one, two, three. To talk. Yes, there was a TED talk or attachment theory. Now it was where we stand. Stand by. Anyway, I'm going to I'm going to run through that. So I'm just going to meet everyone now. There's no background noise. And then. We'll discuss in a minute. OK, so really.

[13:15]

Being in a relationship can become frightening because suddenly. Your future and your autonomy is caught up with someone else's. And so it means that you've lost what is the feeling of loss that a sense of identity when you're single, you can just make a decision and can do whatever you want to do. And when you're in a couple, you then there's someone you have to check against. And especially if you're raising children, then. It's not just how you parent them mean, it's also how your spouse, partner's parents and often you might have different styles.

[14:05]

And so you have this sort of. You don't have that freedom, so. Really, when we're born, we're born into. Into a context, we're born into a family and this someone who's looking after us. And. That. That introduction to the world. Is what's going to slum everything you see of the world from there on? It doesn't mean that you're condemned to to to that style, but it means that's the style that you that you have.

[14:47]

And different parents obviously vary in how well they are. Able to look after you, how much space, how much stress they have, whether they have postnatal depression, whatever the context of their relationship or and how the living circumstances and all of those. Factors determine how you grow up. So this is so attachment theory really is based in your earliest experiences of the world. So when we're born, we're completely helpless and we're dependent on. Of caregiver, which is usually definitely when attachment theory came out, was mostly the mom, but whoever is mainly looking after the child.

[15:39]

So as a baby, we both completely helpless. We there's nothing that we can do for ourselves and we can't even ask. And so some parents are naturally maternal, paternal, and they'll respond and they'll be able to work out the latest nappy, change the food in comfort. And now so the only way that the baby can ask for help is by crying, so. What attachment theory is really about is how responsive that parent is, determines the trust that the baby has in that person and then that trust in that person shapes how they see the world.

[16:24]

So a person that has a secure, responsive, caring parent looking after it tends to trust other people more. So there's a story of six men and six women come across an 11. And one of them's got its trunk and one of its leg and one of them is a one of them's got its main body and one of them's going to tell and whatever other partners. So then you've got. Like six different people that have six entirely different interpretations of what an elephant is, and they describe it to each other and they they can't like, you know, your life because it's not like that.

[17:18]

So their experience, because they can't see the whole they've only just they can kind of feel around apar. They have different experiences in the same way. We all have different experiences in the way they grow up. And this is attachment theory in terms of how responsive main caregivers. But it's also about a culture. It's also about our family. It's about our religion. And all those factors shape how we first see the world and then everything that we see after that.

[17:52]

Is based on the initial initial view of the world. So. So we're going to look at numbers, about 50 percent of people are securely attached, 20 percent are anxiously attached. Twenty five percent are avoidant and five percent are fearful. And so. So what happens when someone has a really responsive, caring mum or dad? They then feel like they're going to trust them and then they're going to trust other people, so. So when I first did research on how they discovered this was they noticed that children were about to have free would some would really cry when they separated from their mom and some...

The Lover’s Journey

Tue, 27 Oct 2020 19:39:00 +0100

Joseph Campbell popularised The Hero's Journey. Here we applied it to the journey of finding lasting love.

Transcript

Right. So I think we're all back shall we put if you want to put in the chat and anyone who wants to share Which films? You can say but not everyone's going to talk. So my ones I really recommend when I just watched earlier, it's called The Lighthouse. It's a new movie psychological Thriller the lighthouse I highly recommend us I recommend to call it the wild. And maybe Battle Royale. This is a Japanese movie. Okay wasn't very James Bond one of them title senior Royale a I'll it's a Japanese movie. It's like the Hunger Games. It's like the original version at Hunger Games. They reckon The Hunger Games copied my oh no. No, sir. So, what was it about those films that you well I'll just talk mainly about the one I just saw today which was called and the lighthouse it was a very like unique for them. There's only two characters in it and it's a psychological trailer and like it's just very very entertaining like Always you never get bored of it like and it's like and it's just shows like the man the camera work is really good. It's Black and Whites to look like an old movie and the story line is just very very good. It's like I recommend looking looking it up anyway and see if you might not be everyone's cup of tea, but it's the type of movie that I like and I said what film that came out a few years. Segoe, okay. What was that? It's like a psychological Thriller is well with the real question being a philosophical question, which is what is it mean to be human? Okay. So is this like machines versus Humans type thing? Sort of but not really but they make a an AI artificial intelligence and they're trying to make it as human as possible. And I so I was saying that the deeper question is not what does it take to make an AI human? But what is it that makes us quintessentially human. So in order to make a AI that successfully passes the Turing test and is taken for human. You have to be able to find out what obviously constitutes fundamentally human said the real. Not about the ARB. It's about our humanity. And what is it that makes us human interesting is essential think when you look at some of the technology that's coming around it's where we're going to sort of merge with review moments where like intelligence is never going to be a competitive advantage in the future because machines are going to be there and implanted in us. So yeah, that's that's an interesting question for I will have to face it started already. Don't be scared. Yeah, think of your Cochlear implants in your bug your your joints and your Pacemaker and your insulin pump and all of that started. It's just that those things you think of them as You don't think of them as things that can be hooked up to become a network of its own as you go along. So the more things are replaced and the more that they are program of programmable. Then you get you're getting closer and closer to that cyborg State. Yeah. Okay, so we got seven as well wasn't was seven like a horror or thriller. Weller psychological Thriller, but serial killer I don't want to give too much away in case somebody wants to actually watch it. But yeah, it was good. We could you find whenever some love. Yeah Netflix list here at night when the lights are off. Yeah, okay. Alright, so we're I don't really know the main characters in this but so we'll get we've tonight we're going to talk about the hero's journey and how that relates to relationships and the reason why I asked about films is because the hero's journey is is a concept that Joseph Campbell popularized and he actually got them the monomyth first came from James Joyce, but Joseph Campbell was this genius who sort of lived life on his own the damn bastard live life on these in his own. Design sort of way he wanted to do a PhD in literature and he'd arranged his Ph.D. And he went traveling and he really found out all it was about it was going to do American Native an apology and he he went travelling he found all this a fury and Celtic mythology and he said like it's expanded. I don't want to do this and they wouldn't they said my my you've agreed this this is has been a good idea and he just said sorry it went and it was in the beginning of depression and 1930s. So he just went to this to you this heart in the middle of the forest and for five years you just live that in his heart really simply just reading all day. And basically he went into to this solitude. It's reading all kinds of Mythology all kinds of books and he emerged five years later and he wrote this He wrote this book the hero and the hero with a thousand faces. And essentially the premise of the of that is that there is a universal structure to all stories and every great mythology and every great story from Rocky from Harry Potter Lord of the Rings to Jesus booger The Iliad and odyssey. See all follow the same structure and when you look at this the structure that he's got it's a brilliant. recognition of the structure that we go through whenever there's any kind of in order to like in order to have the career that we want in order to have a business that we want to have a relationship that we want to do anything that we want of significance. We have to become better than we are we have to develop skills knowledge confidence that we didn't have and the hero's journey is basically the story of that. It's the story of this free phases to it. There's the Comfortable Ordinary World is the separation we go to a new world and then there's the return. And the journey like when you think of a question the question is like the Holy Grail where you go for this object, but what all of those the stories is about is while you're going for that quest for that thing you're changing and it's it's really about The Interchange and not the the outer chain like the outer award. So let's look at the question. So we need If you I don't I remember the holiday in the buses, but I don't know the characters well enough to look at their hero's journey the others the others was a great film. So I really look at the archetype now probably the closest archetype to this is Star Wars and George Lucas had Star Wars for years and you couldn't write it and it was only when he came upon. The hero's journey structure that he just literally followed it out like that. So there's lots of like the Matrix is based on it. What ship down Lion King, all of these kind of films are based on it. So the first step is you have to show the contrast you have to show some on first in that Audrey world. And so first live Sky will clear. This is where he's all on the farm and he wants something more. So it's the safe stable world, but is is wanting something more and this is where a lot of people are at in terms of relationship. It probably comes the more, you know, it might be happy on their own but they just feel that they want something something more and I feel like there's something more out there for them. The next stage is something happens with a great white is called an inciting incident is something that happens that Spurs them like opens this whole new world and so it could be you come across someone really attractive. Someone asks you out it could and for Luke Skywalker was Princess Lea. The message from Princess Leia for Neo in The Matrix. It was when he got this message that follow these watch out for the white rabbit or something like that. So it's the Call to Adventure. But what almost always happens is is scary. And so there's the refusal of the call. So most of the time the hero will refuse and Luke Skywalker refuses the call because his uncle needs him Harry Potter doesn't believe that he you know, it has anything magical about him like the epitome of the refusal of the call is to build. By Baggins in The Hobbit. This is like, oh, I wouldn't want an adventure nasty dirty dangerous things that make you late for dinner. So this is Sometimes people are wanting to go on a dating site page. Sometimes people have been asked out but they feel uncomfortable in the situation or ascared of what that involves. So I think we all refuse the call as well. But the key to the review the key to the refusal of the call is that life is never going to be better. It's like life is going to always become boring constricting and Till you accept that call and so that's what films so that's the first section. That's like the Ordinary World. So I think We can see it in films. But if we relate that to your own circumstances your own situations things that have happened in the past. When have you been in the Ordinary World what's been the Call to Adventure and power of you refuse then why have you refused it? So I think that would be an interesting point for a chat and in the breakout rooms. So if we go to the breakout rooms for we just have a short chat you think 8 minutes be enough? okay, so if I set the breakout rooms and we'll be back about eight minutes again when you get the link, you don't have to rush straight back because you'll still have another minute. So is that clear? What what we're talking about? Just gives it again please rub. Okay. So the three stages are the Ordinary World where you are in your own work Ordinary World The Call to Adventure like the inciting incident what has called you to what have you been dissatisfied with in your current state that you would like a relationship? What is the Call to Adventure? What's the incident that made you think like this whole new world could open up to me and what and how have you? used it okay did so I think this is although this is like a script writing has been used as a script writing so that it's a way of interpreting books and films. I think we have our own narrative and we live by narrative and the difference between really struggling and really feeling empowered and grow for an experience is the narrative that we give to it. So I think by Able to apply these narratives. We we can change our experience of what happens. So did anyone have any insights or any stories or experiences that they can relate to? That they would like to share. I think so. I just got some amazing stories, but it's just kind of unable to tell us at the Mormons. She's going to have a busy night typing. I think she is. Yeah, there's a bit of a discussion going on in our group about kind of life being candid that in secret intricate that it's difficult to say, what's what I see you brought it over but it's hard to say what's technically go there. And because of the intricacies of life because of that. There was regret that doesn't really I don't really have much regrets. Obviously. I'd rather have not done certain things or behave in certain ways, but you kind of where you are. Because of what you've done I suppose and that's the thing more of his kind of says something similar in The Matrix about things happened just because they they also know like that countries a phrase which kind of fits into what we were talking about. Yeah. I remember this is a story I used in my bed case. Maybe it's her like a Chinese proverb. And that's it. Yeah, you know it. Yeah, it's so so one day like in ancient China this horse comes in and this man gives her a horse which is like a horse is worth like a house now and everyone to know how lucky you are. You're so lucky. He said maybe and his sons breaking in the horse and the horse froze him off and breaks his Leg, and if I saw what terrible luck your son, how are you going to bring in all the crops and how we've been a farm everything this year? And he said they said, you know what terrible luck and he says maybe and then a couple of months later the Army come around and can script in all the figuring men and he can't go and he's like one of the only ones saved from like a bloody war and it's just like Alan Shepard. Sign what we think is like sometimes you can never tell if it is or isn't it takes a longer time span? In terms of the refusal of the call and the Call to Adventure. Like does that bring any insights on where you may like where your fears might hold you back or where you're feeling of obligation to your current state cyst, like for example, as I'm saying that what comes into my head is the research that on average it takes a couple six years from where decide they're going to leave like a marriage to when they actually leave it and that's there's so many obligations and fears and restrictions. So does that make sense to you that the refusal of the call? It makes sense and we were discussing along similar lines because it's one thing to recognize that you need to change. But then as you mentioned obligations sense of Duty that can hold you back. But even after you have resolved that or those issues there is still yourself. How do you proceed? One it says it's the landscape has changed so they are fares as to how you're going to cope. What how can you navigate this new place? How are you going to be comfortable in it? Are you confident Etc? So there is one your yourself within a relationship or within a system because every marriage or relationship has not just the two people but family members business all of those. Things are intertwined and you have to unravel those to get yourself and not feel guilty about that process. And as you said takes about 6 years because you have to figure out how you're going to get yourself out with I suppose the least amount of bruising to yourself and to others because there's also The the fair that what you do can have serious impact on the others or the significant other in the relationship and how they are going to cope as well. And those things can hold you back. But once you're out of that there is as you say making that step to enter into a new phase of Life the confidence to do that. In a landscape that you probably don't recognize and to figure out how to maneuver the develop that confidence to then try to engage with people who again, it's going to be the same thing. Am I going to have to go through the same set of experiences that I had and how many as I as I called it how many princes am I going to have how many frogs am I going? Case before I find my prints are going to go through all of that that is just time consuming his energy-sapping. It's can't I just find the one right now and we just start you know, and we go through this thing. So it's I think it's effort. It's fear of the unknown and it's having to go but I think a positive note is that we I've gained some experiences that we can draw on even though that relationship that we are leaving or that situation at relieving we have failed their lessons that we have learned that we can bring to bear. And that's interesting because that kind of leads us to the next stage. So it's really there's all these external reasons like you said and really it's about us getting to grips with all of those and the internal fears and being ready and like the details of actually doing it. I just a sort of administration but it's it's becoming instead of facing the fears. And so this is the next state of thats that's like the cut off from the Ordinary World. So now once you've gone past the refusal of the call, the next stage is the stage that takes you into the new world is the meeting of the mentor meeting with the mentor. So this is the idea that you have a plan. You have something you see some way that you can do this and initially it may be that you don't have belief in yourself. But you have belief in something else. So or Luke Skywalker is Obi-Wan Kenobi and knowing the world of the Jedis and having cop having belief in the Jedis for Neo it was Morpheus and you know all that. Yeah, Morpheus and Trinity that they had a plan and they had something going on for think of other films for for Rocky. It was it was finding his trainer Mickey who taking him on so the stage of the mental is Finding some knowledge finding someone or some training that you can believe in until you can believe in yourself. Sorry. Once you have that that sort of pushes you over the edge and give you the confidence to take this new quick New Journey. And so the next part is crossing the threshold increase it crossing the threshold is The stage of leaving the comfort of your own world and finding this strange new world. So in Star Wars, this is when he goes into that bar. It's full of all these strange aliens of it's like this completely different world for a mate for Neo in the matrix. It's going into the joining the crew of The Never member kashiro or whatever it is. And so it is finding this. Only world that you're in and just finding your place now. So in terms of relationships is crossing the threshold could be like date joining the dating site. It could be when you've leave your relationship and you suddenly got this new world open up. Yeah, I think ultimately is I think the refuse of as I said it can it be dangerous that stage. Yes it is because ultimately what what the refusal of this call tells you is that life is always going to be shrinking and I think there's the comfort zone and if you don't Branch past that comfort zone Everything you want is in what I call the Adventure Zone but the adventures that design is scary and if you don't take if you don't make that leap your life is always going to be less than it could it's going to bore you and what's and what anxiety what happens is the less you face anxiety the more it in circles you and shrinks and so there's the more and more scares you so the less needs to happen. Are you to feel anxious? so Okay, so he's crossing the threshold know once you cross the threshold. You're in this strange new world. And once you're in a Strange New World, you think you find yeah, that's actually says of each of the individual these three things that patient. That's really what what determines how long it takes you to go from the refusal of the call. It's really about getting the confidence together and feeling ready to take that leap. And so yeah, it's going to be different for everyone. So all of this is unique the Is a universal structure but the I mean we can see how many films it's in. I remember years ago. I used to sort of emails and it was like 501 different Heroes Journeys and they broken and 501 films down into the hero's journey structure. So once you're in the new world, it's about tests allies and enemies. So a new world has different challenges for you. It's tests that you're not comfortable with and then it's sorting out who your allies and who your enemies so in Star Wars, you've got the rebels you got Han Solo principally a cube a coronal then and then you've got the Stormtroopers. You've got Darth Vader in Harry Potter. You've got the sliver earrings and Gryffindor is it so it's like you've got allies and enemies. So what did I see in sight you're going to have? People that you may not be attracted to you may not get on but you probably going to end up just chatting to a few people as kind of friends. You're going to have people who are rude people are aggressive and you're going to have tests. You're going to have rejection. You're going to have to deal with people who are rude and you're going to have to just like how do you get someone's attention? How do you deal with people who are persistent but your uninterested so all of these are tests. So the next stage is the approach to the innermost cage in the most cave. And so this is...

The Enchantment Dating Strategy

Tue, 20 Oct 2020 09:00:00 +0100

In this Meetup we discussed the Enchantment Dating Strategy. As usual we veered through a wide range of topics and brought a range of views and perspectives to the debate.

Transcript

So our topic tonight is the Enchantment Dating Strategy.

[00:04]

What was the discussion like in the breakout rooms?

[00:06]

We came up with some things, we came up with stuff, but I think it was a little bit of a struggle. OK, so what was the general consensus about approaches on dating?

[00:19]

I think they were quite good at pointing out things that didn't work, but I'm not sure we could actually come up with anything great.

[00:26]

OK, OK then. So that might be a good approach.

[00:32]

So what didn't work like? Definitely big challenge that they put people on the spot. So in real life I think it was very well.

[00:44]

I could imagine that being some some awkward situations.

I was coming to the workplace in a toxic male environment from a woman says he was the last piece Sandra was coming from a woman in a toxic male environment like a me.

[01:08]

That's speech. So embarrassing. Publicly embarrassing. Yes, yes, yes.

[01:18]

Point of the question that how you come across it makes a difference to whether you would be a pain in your heart to someone.

[01:26]

Sorry. Can you say it again, Betty? Yeah.

[01:28]

What's the point of the question? Was that how you come across to someone, but also whether you're appealing or not?

[01:38]

Not necessarily the point. The question was what approach is attractive?

[01:42]

Because it may be that someone comes with the perfect approach and yet you still aren't attracted to them and you're not going to get into a relationship with someone you're not interested in. But it's too to learn from good examples and from that. Nothing for me, sorry, the Sheila for me. The environment was important, so for me, you know, it's I wouldn't mind being picked up in a bar in the bar.

[02:23]

Can I just pause you there a moment, Sheila?

[02:25]

I'm just going to mute everyone because you got some background noise and then if you can answer yourself.

[02:37]

Yes, sorry about that. That's OK. So saying for me, being approached in a bar is not my ideal environment to be approached, because I tend to think if you're being approached in a bar, it's just. And I stereotyping here, I know it's like a guy on the make, you know, it's not after a serious or, you know, looking to be in a relationship. He's he's looking for a pick up. So that, for me, is completely off putting.

[03:11]

Sorry, can I come in there a little bit? It's funny you say that because I think the complete opposite.

[03:18]

I'm actually saying to the people of my great courtroom that quite often it's the environment for me as well, the place I don't really appreciate somebody approaching me. I mean, for example, I don't own the street or supermarket or places that I'm perhaps not open to being approached. But I find that if I go to a restaurant or a bar or a pub, then I I'm a bit more open to being approached. Whether that person is doing it, just like you said, someone on the make or just whatever, I try to ascertain that in the conversational in their approach to me and take it from there, really.

[04:02]

So it's it's funny that you say that I just sort of base it on the fact that I don't feel so confident to receive attention in certain places, that I don't feel comfortable in a bar situation.

[04:17]

OK, well, I feel more open because I feel like I wouldn't mind in that sort of environment restaurant. It's not an issue, which is interesting. Sheila, really interesting case for you. So would you be more open to sort of receiving an approach sort of in the supermarket, for example, or on the street?

[04:39]

No, probably not. Again, like you said, I'm guess I'm not expecting it. I guess, you know, if it was, say, at a dinner party, a friend's house or, you know, even in a restaurant. And I think it's probably my own hang up that, you know, I'm I don't really drink drink occasionally. And for me being in a bar, I'm probably there with a friend. But secondly, I guess, is the fact that I don't drink.

[05:03]

I feel as if I don't feel a bit for fraud, impostor being in a bar. So I'm not comfortable in my own skin in that environment anyway.

[05:12]

OK, ok, that's interesting. So from both, they said it is individual and where you feel comfortable, but it's about feeling comfortable. Is where you're going to be more confident with the approach and more receptive?

[05:36]

It is it is absolutely for me the case, I think so I think to be receptive to an approach, I think you have to have. Confidence in you, I think, dare I say, attractiveness in that environment, and although in a bar I may I may have dressed, you know, I feel my self-esteem may be there and my confidence might be there, but just. I still feel this imposter syndrome being in a bar. That's very interesting.

[06:12]

Where their location doesn't bother me. The person bothers me. So I couldn't care less. It could be anywhere and it has been any and everywhere, so, you know, so but it's the person so I zero in on the person.

[06:31]

So is that the person that's attractive or the person that you makes you feel comfortable with the approach?

[06:40]

A little bit of both. Yeah, because if I think if I think you're creepy or just totally off, I just can't I don't like you. No matter how good the introduction or the opening lines or whatever the circumstances are, it's not happening. I'm not going there.

[07:03]

It's the gut feel, I think. Yeah. And I've had and I've had pretty interesting topics and invitations as I told my group, some of them and the person, no, it's not happening.

[07:21]

I don't like you.

[07:23]

It brings to mind two situations, two approaches I've experienced. One was I was in a park in Sydney when I was travelling and I got approached by this guy who there was nobody else in this park or very few people out of nowhere. This guy appeared. And so I started chatting up, OK, this is really creepy. So I got out of that situation pretty sharpish. And then there was another time I was in in a museum in New York.

[07:52]

And it was actually my last day. And I was actually trying to get to this museum and see this exhibit before I had to get to the airport. And I was approached by a guy that worked there. He was like security. And I was like he was actually having a really interesting conversation. But I was, you know, I knew I had to leave within, like the hour because I was literally on the way to the airport. And so, again, it was, again, gut feel, the environment, a gut feel.

[08:23]

One of the things that's kind of picking up, which you find quite interesting, is the discussions about environment and also how the environment is influencing somebody else's or the person who's approaching intense. Because the intent is basically what that patient is wanting by speaking to somebody else, obviously, in this case we would assume or making out that that person is trying to hash it out on a date or whatever it might be. So how do we. How do we actually know what the intent is, because surely the only true person I ever know is the intent behind any particular action is the person themselves.

[09:19]

So are we not being a bit too restrictive and saying, oh, yeah, because it's about it's there because it's in a park if they're shot, because then she could market it. If the judge thought it kind of like, throw that out there just for some opinions. Alan, what do you mean by intent?

[09:38]

Well, the intent behind us, you know, asking about so you get approached. So I can't remember who it was. But somebody mentioned before that they're not comfortable about being poached in a bar or something like that.

[09:58]

It's because you've got photoperiod and. You're you're kind of the assumption behind that is because you were saying that they might just want to have a one night stand with you or whatever it might be. Well. I don't think that we can assume things like that because the. Life is basically show into chaos that we really don't have any control over what goes on at all. We have little control of ourselves, so we have even less control over other people.

[10:34]

And by control, what I mean is by controlling the situation. So we believe in that case that that person is as God and negative intentions. It's not what we want. And therefore we're going to reject it because that's what we we assume. But I don't think we can assume things just because of the environments that we're in. And I think that kind of this and this is just my opinion, I think that kind of blocks the truth, because the only way you're going to find out is to engage in conversation, OK, if that person turns out to be a shlaim or what makes it clear that the the just after the one night stand will.

[11:14]

Fair enough, but I don't think it's right to just dismiss on the basis of environments only. But sometimes you have an interaction with somebody and it's not serious, it's just a hello or there is just some a bit of some kind of an attraction, but it's not going to go anywhere. It's just a bit of flirting. It's hello, you know, whatever. And you move on. I don't think every interaction is necessarily going to turn out to be something.

[11:49]

Serious are, you know, it's going to go any further. It's just another human being trying to connect with another human being. And hi. Hello. And you smile or whatever it is. I remember walking somewhere. I was going to a meeting somewhere in London, and I'm busy walking to get to my meeting. And this gentleman is coming on the pavement and I'm focusing on getting there. And he passed me. And somehow I just thought, what's going on here, because he was looking at me and I turned around and there he was, he stopped, he was looking at me and he was shaking his head and he was just doing this.

[12:35]

And I just looked at him and smiled and said, yeah, OK, good one. And that was it. There was nothing there for him to. He never wanted anything from me. I didn't want anything from him. It was just hello in it, you know, and two people passing by. And a smile. And I think you don't read anything into that, it's just a pleasant day, it's just another human being and you feel that you've connected with somebody in some way.

[13:07]

And I think sometimes if we were too restrictive, we don't even allow ourselves to see to acknowledge another person in a pleasant way, because we are thinking that they want something from us all the time and maybe they don't. It's just. I see you, I like what I see. I think you might be a nice person, so hello. And that's it, you know, so I'm just saying that to say that there are different types of interactions and there are different levels of interactions and most of them are not going to be.

[13:48]

Lead into a relationship of any kind.

[13:51]

But they do enrich us, I think so sometimes we shouldn't just see look at look at another person as a potential date, a potential.

[14:04]

My right, my one and only my. Made to be. I think it's a debate to just no answer to it, and you'll never find there's no right or wrong. I mean, in my experience, you've got guys I was trying to tell the story, but we got switched back into the main room.

[14:23]

What was why suddenly 14 years ago. And he uses that as an excuse to to empower women and chat them up with move on to the next. And he's doing it about five times. Unbelievable. But then there's also women in the group that, you know, the pretty the bad guys, and they spend the night getting drinks bought for them all night and they go from guy to guy, getting a free night all the time, free meal, free drinks and people like us, honest people even in the middle of all those sharks.

[14:59]

And it's hard. It's difficult. And when you've been divorced and you're thrown in the middle of it, it's soul destroying. And when you don't get to the last thing you need is that because he's just you just being taken by shock all the time. And it's awful. And for someone who's got a low confidence anyway, it can it can really it can really knock you down. I don't know anybody else thinks about be creative.

[15:23]

Don't go to a bar, go go to a park, take a picnic lunch and go and sit in the park and chat. Don't go to a bar and spend all your money buying drinks for ladies who are not interested in you. Go for a walk. It's free.

[15:36]

Yeah, yeah. I have a the plane and my wife and I decided that I was going to say why I'm so grateful for the fact that violence is all the rage for the purpose. Stop this...

The Stand Up Routine That Lead To 95,000+ Breakups

Tue, 13 Oct 2020 09:00:00 +0100

Daniel Sloss's Jigsaw standup routine has led to 95,000+ breakups. Here's a clip of him talking about it on Conan O Brien;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRpOtOs45bo

We discussed the topics raised.

Transcription

What were your thoughts on watching? The jigsaw. Well, it was quite harrowing. Well, I think we need we need more of the percentages of the healthy marriages that do work out rather than focusing on all the ones that don't.

[00:22]

I think his point was exactly that the ones that are breaking is because they are together for the wrong reasons and it won't last at all.

[00:30]

But at the same time, I think it goes to an extreme that I don't believe there will be an absolute perfect person for you. You're not going to love like the one hundred percent of that first. And there's always going to be something that is not there. But you just kind of work with that because what you love is more than what you don't love and you make it work. So that's where I disagree with him, because he makes it like you can't it's like it's not there's no malleability in these jigsaw.

[01:02]

It's like the piece either fits or then throw it away. It's just to me, it's a bit too much. But that was my thought about it. I found it funny when he was saying you spent all your life being so busy working on your own jigsaw and they spend all your life being so busy working on theirs, and then we try and merge the two together.

[01:26]

It's just like, yeah, I think that's us.

[01:32]

And he does mention common goals. I think that simple.

[01:34]

And you need to have some sort of common vision to be able compatibility agenda goals.

[01:42]

But yeah, I agree with a lot of what he was saying, but some of it was just a bit too cynical and a bit too doom and gloom and whatever. Yeah.

[01:52]

I mean, I think, first of all, you have to put it in the context.

[01:56]

There is a stand up and he's also done a TED talk. And I think what he's brought up is a serious issue. But he has done a TED talk where he talks about like himself and Ricky Gervais and Frankie Boyle and basically saying that when you're doing standup to entertain you playing a character, his role is to take things to extreme. You shouldn't take it seriously.

[02:30]

But I think what he what he picked up on what he's pointing out is the governments have done some research and they say that on average, it takes people six years to leave a marriage from when they they're thinking about it. So when they actually pull the trigger and I know when I'm thinking back like I knew my marriage was over a long time before, but you've got children and how's that going to work out for them? And so there's all these kind of things that mean that you you kind of stay together, unhappy for years.

[03:12]

And I think that's that's what he's he's done and there are people who are needing to be in a relationship rather than a great relationship, and because of that, they're getting some sense of validation and whatever from being in the relationship. And I think those are the relationships that are vulnerable and that he's close to break up. And of course, it's not his cause that he's just made people ask questions that I would have asked sooner or later anyway. So.

[03:54]

Did you have you seen times where that has played into, like I said, as played into my past relationships, I can I can think of instances. Did you. Are there things that, if you thought of that at the time, would have changed how you behaved or how you whether you stayed in or not in the relationship? I know I was a victim of that sort of fairy tale and, you know, you sort of just stumble into a relationship where somebody sort of scenario and then you try to change them to fit what you want and they try to change you to fit.

[04:33]

Well, they won. And you know, what worked was a. I do think, as I've said, that. Yeah, he's gone to the extreme that nobody is going to he's basically at the extreme is saying you need someone who's going to slide into your jigsaw, which, like you said, you've got to Jigsaw's. No one ever is going to. You need to let go of the jigsaw and build a new one. So what can we learn from it?

[05:14]

Is he kind of not seeing the particular program, is he kind of like saying because the show consists of different shape, the pieces, that those pieces are never going to go together? Is that kind of weird that you thought of that?

[05:30]

No, I'll try. I'll try and give you a summary. So basically, he said when he was seven, he asked his dad what was the meaning of life, and he said his dad answered him perfectly. You gave him the perfect metaphor. He said, well, son, he said, life is like a jigsaw. And you've got the Four Corners, which are like family. Friends were hobbies. And then maybe someone will die and you'll have a piece missing.

[05:54]

You'll have different friends you might change this about. You might have to change hobbies for work and make a compromise. And so then he said, well, okay, so what goes in the middle? And he said, well, one day someone will walk into your life and make it complete and they'll fit perfectly into the middle of your jigsaw, just like your mom did for me. And you'll live happily ever after and they'll completely. And so he lived his young life, finished along in his 20s, trying meeting someone and then changing to please them so that they would fit into the jigsaw.

[06:34]

And basically what he's saying and. The point he's trying to make is that he's rebelling against the idea that being in a relationship makes you better, like from sort of smug, arrogant social media posts of look at me, I'm with this one I love so much when that isn't the truth of their relationship. So he's saying it's okay to be single. He said, why is society pressuring everyone to be in a relationship and to prove that they're happy?

[07:05]

And then he says the three particular things that it tells you, that you can't be happy without a relationship, you're broken without a relationship, and you need someone to completely. And so that's basically the jigsaw metaphor. I don't think we need people to completely and I don't think we can be absent of happiness, but I definitely do think like relationships, a healthy relationship brings something to a person's life that they wouldn't have necessarily had without it. And I think there's even research to say that if you've been in a healthy long term relationship, you live longer and have better health and all that sort of stuff.

[07:49]

So we kind of hear what he's saying. What do you think people can be complete?

[07:55]

It's not yeah, it's definitely not the perfect analogy and it doesn't all make sense. It's still quite skewed in his own head.

[08:05]

Well, actually, the the there's a study. That's been done, John F. Kennedy was in it's a cohort of Harvard University and they studied them as they came out and they studied them through their life. And so this was John at John F. Kennedy was in university, and it's the Harvard. Some anyway, it's been going like that 80 odd years, and so it's had a number of people managing the study and the last two have done TED talks on saying basically everyone throughout their life has opportunities.

[08:49]

Everyone has has highs and lows.

[08:51]

They have good things happen. They have bad things happen. They all have money problems. They all have health scares. They lose people they love.

[08:59]

And they said the most important thing, the biggest factor for wealth, for health and for happiness was the quality of people's relationships. So, yes, I think it's we're social animals. We have to be part of the pack. And in a relationship, not necessarily. I think some people I think there are a few people that are happy being single. And, you know, like you look at like the Dalai Lama or some monk somewhere who's I think.

[09:34]

They're probably going to have the easiest, most peaceful life because they're going to have the stress of a relationship, but most people have what Helen Fisher talks about as a we have a sex drive, but she says we also have a romantic drive and need to be. With someone or or to love someone special, so, yeah, I definitely think that's part of it. I think it's just the fact that we need to learn how do we get along and make the relationship healthy and not settle for something that's less than enough.

[10:11]

In that particular study that we're talking about is the relationship with a significant other or just general relationship like family, friends?

[10:20]

Both. Both, particularly. Just generally.

[10:29]

They basically like people who've sold out for money and just driven for what what they want to do, achieve the cost of their relationships. Business and personal are the ones that have less health, less happiness, more regret later on. That strikes me as somebody who is transactional rather than emotional and. I mean, I can think of my grandfather as being a very transactional person, my mother's father, that that grandfather. Yes. And he created. He received love because he gave money.

[11:23]

Which I suppose worked for him. That's the loyalty, that's how he got loyalty from his children, because there was always the promise of money. Hmm. And so there are times when all that the 10 children would be together would come to see papa because papa was getting interest on his accounts and the money was the was available to be shared. So you need to come to visit Papa on a set on a Sunday and spend an entire day with him.

[11:57]

So you would be looked on favourably and you would get a. A chunk. And you wanted to be number one out of the ten, you know? Well, there was one who never got and it was yes. So it wasn't real love. And did that cause a lot of friction between the siblings? Oh, yes, even now, even now, I don't speak to two of my aunts because they're just horrible people because of because of that, it's all about money.

[12:29]

And I'm just not getting involved in that. It's that's how they view the world. It's what they can get. And so if you are if you are a well-off sister, then you're my favorite sister, because then you're going to leave me something in the world. But if you are not able to do sister, then I guess you're my sister and I love you. But that doesn't mean anything. I will not be there for you in any way.

[12:56]

But you're my sister. I love you, darling. But now I will not come and visit you if you are ill because you have nothing to live for me in the real.

[13:08]

So that, to me is transactional and. I don't know what kind of gratification you actually get out of that, because you must realize that it's false. That's the point I'm actually making. That is not a it's it's not real. Those people have no real emotions for you. You have bought it. Hmm. I suppose Mr. Trump is the Trump.

[13:35]

I think from my personal experience, my. My dad was the eldest of four siblings. And there were three sons and one daughter and Chinese culture, traditionally, the boy inherits and my father was quite. He's passed now, but he was quite forward ticking in that, you know, you know, all should get equal shares, you know, so we had some property in China that the government gave back. If you applied and the other two brothers wanted to cut the sister out because she was married and no longer technically part of the family, she belonged to another family.

[14:24]

And my dad said that, you know, no, she should have a share. And to be able to apply and get this land back property back from the Chinese government, all siblings had to sign this document to apply for it. So, you know, and at that time, because my family, my dad is not a rich man, wasn't a rich man, you know, we just managed to get by. But his two brothers did very well for themselves in Hong Kong, but they needed his signature to apply for this property.

[14:57]

And so throughout the years, while they were going through the process, they were like loving brothers, you know, every holiday with they speak and everything and see how they were. But apart from that, they did speak to each other, you know, like, well, my dad can live like these 20 years. There was no contact. And all of a sudden, you know, out of the woodwork they did this and then. Everything got the land back and everything, and then they needed his signature again because they wanted to sell the property and get the cash.

[15:30]

And in that time, my aunt died suddenly and again. They wanted to cut out her children from from a share because, you know, they would have inherited the mother's share. I don't know what happened there. But what I do know is that when my dad was seriously in a hospital, he was dying. My dad asked us, asked me if I could call my uncle to let him know so that he could come visit him in hospital.

[15:59]

And literally, I called the house the number and they said we hadn't spoken in years since they sold the property and somebody picked up and spoke to Chinese. And basically when I asked my uncle, I was told it was wrong. No, she put the phone down and then when I called back, the answer supposed be called. So it's straight to voicemail and, you know, I have actually disowned my my father's side because to me, they're not family.

[16:29]

And what you're saying about being very transactional now, I think when my uncle, prior to being married, potentially there was a chance to have a better relationship. But I think he was quite old. I think he was in his 40s before he married his wife, introduced through his sister in law, and she was in her twenties and he wanted a family. So out of that, I believe, a transactional relationship because she wanted to come out of China.

[17:01]

He wanted a wife. He wanted a family. So what he got out of the relationship was he got a son. You know, so I think that's how he really he measured. Love, whatever. It was transactional, I think they both knew what they were getting into. That, yeah, sorry, that was a very long story. Thank you for sharing. It helps to see how these kind of dynamics play out in real life situations.

Dating Tactics: Game Playing Or Authenticity

Tue, 06 Oct 2020 09:00:00 +0100

There are The Rules, Pick Up Strategies and all self-proclaimed experts claiming they have the secret to dating success.

But is success getting in a relationship that's wrong for you?

We discuss the topic and as always range all over the areas of dating, relationships sharing perspectives and experiences.

Transcript

So I'm thinking if we break into breakout rooms based on the cooking, I can't get through. Now, last week, last week's version was treat them mean to keep them keen.

[00:15]

So wondering we're in agreement. I don't think they necessarily agreed with. With the principle, but believe it happens and the other room was so opposed to that. So.

[00:33]

I was hoping by by being in two sort of camps, we might develop the argument more and have a bit more of a debate to tease out all the issues. So does anyone want to start and open up the debate? Gulfstar. And we sort of discussed that it does work, it does happen, it does work for people and we don't necessarily think it's that or at least I can talk for myself. I don't see it as being it's not the only way that works.

[01:17]

And we don't think it's anything that's going to result in a quality, authentic, long lasting relationship. Think, did you want to say more sessions now, so we're finished and I'm just going to I'm just komu everyone. And then if you want to talk, just talk. Just we cut out the background noise, so just admit yourself to talk. So, Ben, are you.

[01:43]

Yeah. I think what came up for us. Well I speak for myself from what I picked up on the theme of availability and perhaps sort of not showing that you're too available in the early stages of. Courtship, for want of a better phrase, might create a sense of failure or attraction. That's my theory. I mean, it's not it's you know, it's kind of sort of bordering on veer into dishonesty, manipulation at its most extreme. But I think everyone does does do it to a degree, really, whether it's treating someone mean or not, you know, discuss which we're doing.

[02:36]

But that's that's what those are my thoughts anyway. That's what I got from our discussion group. And if anyone else wants to chime in and add to that or disagree.

[02:48]

Yeah, I was saying that if you come across as too keen, it can actually pay off a woman. But that doesn't mean you have to. But if you come across, I don't know if your tooth is yardstick, she can think, I don't know, you're too easily available or I don't know what the logic is. But so I think there's some truth in what you just said, assuming that's what you meant. Yes, but at the same time, I find it hard because as a man, I think there's still a lot of women's minds, the sort of expectation of the man.

[03:21]

It's my job to kind of initiate and lead and show interest and balance right early. Yeah, I think so. So I think there is I think you have to separate the two, really there's like the person and then there's the like the social mask, the social view of the person. And being that we're social animals, there is and we're pack animals, there is kind of like a status. And if. If you to it's not that I don't think it's necessarily the fact that you're too quick to respond, I think it's the fact that it appears that you've got nothing better to do.

[04:08]

And it seems like you have low social value because you're not really it looks like you're. Always dependent and needy on that person, whereas if you're authentically doing your own thing and you're busy, sometimes you're not going to be able to reply. So is it do you think it's something to do with that social value as opposed to. As a strategy. It does the strategy work because it increases your social value? I'm not sure it does. I think it's just if people are overenthusiastic, it just feels too fast more than anything else.

[04:54]

Or at least I can only say that from my perspective anyway, which then creates the pressure.

[05:00]

And you feel like they're going too fast and you feel like you then have to reciprocate.

[05:04]

And I lose myself. If I had to go at that pace and lose my own grounding and it all got a bit like you have to explain it better than that, it almost feels like.

[05:20]

If I was to reciprocate the speed of the overenthusiastic, it would it would just I don't know how to explain it. I would lose a sense of reality and a sense of grounding in that. As in it's kind artificially fast us. You feel smothered, I suppose. As well. Yeah, yeah, it's kind of we lose everything else going on in my world and I would be yeah.

[05:52]

And also you start wondering what is the is that an affirmative? As well, but. I think when we talk about this sort of and I think was it Ben, that said that the manipulation basically, that's what it comes down to. Ultimately, it's it's not going to work. It's not going to be a long lasting thing. I think this will Sasha will sing as well and. It's not so much I think the whole point comes down to authenticity.

[06:27]

If you are not yourself, so if if you are, for example, the desperate person, you've got nobody and you cling to one person and smother them, that's going to come across the way it is. And it's going to put the person rightly so, because you're almost like drowning them, then you need to kind of get a grip on your own self. You need to sort your own issues out first because you need to treat the other person with some respect, give them a bit of space and all the rest of it.

[06:58]

The desperation comes across. If, on the other hand, you, I suppose, used the tactic and try to be as if, you know, I haven't got time today, I want to respond to you on purpose so that I can make it look like I you know, I'm so busy I haven't got time for you. But actually, I have. I'm just trying to respond. But I'm just there is manipulation game that is still not being true.

[07:28]

And after a while, people will figure you out for who you are. And then and then where are you then? Basically nothing, because they'll just walk away. Rightly so. So I think if anybody feels that they have to have somebody they can't be without someone and they're going to end up smothering them, then they perhaps need to look inwardly and see how they can fix that first. We'll need somebody at some point, you've got a defined time, I can you define rushing in because some some people say rushing in is a text message every 30 seconds.

[08:09]

Another people you get a text from every three days. How can you fall in love with someone with a text message? Every. But then again, the text messages all day at work can be smoldering in and over the top. It's a debate that there's no there's no answer to it. It could go on for years. The debate like this.

[08:28]

Well, I think the first thing to recognize with that, I will say anyway, is that we are not dealing with a mathematical formula. You're dealing with human beings. Yeah. And every person will be different. And in any case, that person will change over time as well. You'll notice. So you're going to have to learn to read the signals from the other person. If if you kind of go right, first I do this, then I do that, then I do that, then I get the result.

[08:59]

People are like they may be having a bad day. They may be having a fantastic day. So on the fantastic day, you get lots of responses that are joyful on the part that you get zero responses. They say to you, sort of leave me alone. I've got things to you to kind of compensate for that a little bit. You know, I mean, I talk to my friends and sometimes we talk a long time. Sometimes I'll send the wrong message and she might not get back to me for two days.

[09:24]

And all I will think is, oh, she must be really busy. And that's it. You know, I won't I won't be pestering her sometimes. And sometimes she does the opposite back. She brings me a few times and says, I feel like I'm stalking you now. So, you know, if you're busy, just let me know or something. And I was under attack saying, I'm really, really busy at the moment. Sorry, I'll call you later on this evening or something.

[09:47]

And it's that sort of sort of relationship, but. I suppose what I'm saying is even with people, you know, sometimes you may not get a response all the time, even though I've known this woman for a long time and we're just just friends, nothing else. There are times when we don't talk to each other for a long time because we're just very busy. So I suppose bottom line is that there isn't a formula that you can use.

[10:12]

You just have to learn what the other person is about. You just have that this. I suppose in some ways that's the scary part, but it's also the fun part, you are finding out about the other person. If you're interested in the other person, in some to some degree, you're going to find out what they're like. To be fair, I think it's a lot different speaking about a friend than it is a potential lover because there's just not the same dynamics and being involved it, although I do appreciate what you say.

[10:46]

I yeah, I don't know, I, I'm not so sure I agree with that, to be honest with you.

[10:53]

Well, yeah, because you're not you know, you're not trying to get your friend into a bad idea. You're not trying to have a romantic thing with your friend.

[11:01]

So it's so passionate is absolutely right.

[11:05]

And you know what? One thing I discovered after my marriage is that first thing not to do is never to try and get into bed anyway, especially because you don't know.

[11:17]

I don't really know what I mean, because obviously the subject tonight is about seating them and keeping them keen, isn't it? And I think we're talking about from a romance issue, if we can use that word relationship.

[11:30]

Absolutely. Yes, even in even in Korea, even in a romantic setting, I'd still agree with our being being not being this sort of authentic way to go about things.

[11:42]

Exactly. What I'm saying is that I'm sorry if I can just finish and then I'll let you guys go. I think personally, the way to the romantic romantic bit is the not not the ultimate goal is quite rightly the opposite. That's kind of the start of a relationship. But if you want to get to that level, you have to go through the friendship side first. I recommend, because you have to know the person you're looking because how can you feel romance for somebody who you do not really understand and know, because you are going to base it on the physical attributes which after a while will mean nothing because you got used to those physical attributes as well.

[12:32]

So what's going on? I come in after this. But I finished, so thanks. Well, I think these kind of dynamics can come up with friendships as well. I think whenever you've got, like expectations and you've got a sort of social contract where two people say, OK, well, this is what I expect of you. And I think like you've talked about this a lot and I really agree with you where things aren't verbalized, but people have expectations without being a romantic or a friendship relationship.

[13:07]

That's where one, you know, relationships of any sort can get into difficulty. I think, like if a friend thinks, oh, well, that person should get back to me by two days or so, I think, you know, it's just any relationship, really. That's my opinion.

[13:24]

So and I'd like to go back to Sasha's point, though, where she's talking about having two different speeds, so to speak. If I'm getting her right and one party is not moving fast, can't move at the speed of the other one. The other one is overwhelming in terms of demands or expectations. And I think that type of on balance, where you feel as though you have lost your self-control, you are to control what's coming from the other side is not so much your problem with you, but the other person may be.

They have been through many, many things in their past where they feel that if they don't go in all they're all in, that they will lose out. And how does one bridge that gap to create understanding with the other party that. No, my speed is you're making me uncomfortable at the rate at which you're going. But I do like you. But can we? Because some of the times what you are doing is that you're busy. As Errol said, you have other commitments.

[14:44]

You have a pattern in your life, that and other commitments that you can't just disband your life because somebody is coming all in and wanting you to be available. The answer and text messages all the time, you know, just on the spur of the moment, all the time.

[15:03]

We have commitments. We need to have a pattern. If your behavior can coincide with my my pattern, my life pattern, then maybe we can give it a go and you don't. It's not that you need to think that I'm doing other things. I don't want to talk to you or I'm seeing somebody else or all those things that create mistrust.

[15:28]

So how do you from the very beginning, start to establish those basic foundation pillars, so what you say and at that point I wouldn't know that I like them or not because I don't mean that in a disrespectful way, but I haven't got to know them enough to know that I like them enough to continue, if that makes sense. Yeah, it's just very it's just very difficult from the are from the star.

[15:59]

Yeah. I think that's I think that's the basic compatibility issue isn't it. It's like the right of I think everyone I think there needs to be, as John said, there needs to be some momentum because otherwise it's just going to die. But it needs to be, whereas some people might be quite insecure, reattach the middle validation and need a lot of attention. Someone and it can be a difference. It can be a problem between someone who's got children and someone who doesn't have children and maybe doesn't have much else responsibility in their life.

[16:37]

And so they're looking for a lot of attention where someone else is very busy and full life. And I think that's that's one of the basic issues of compatibility. Like the...

Treat Them Mean, Keep Them Keen! True or False? Part 1

Tue, 29 Sep 2020 09:00:00 +0100

Some people such as 'The Rules' advise on following tactics designed to make you appear less attached and less interested.

Is this a valid strategy or does the inauthenticity affect relationships?

We discussed this topic and a wide range of other topics such as Poyamory and Monogamy.

Transcript

Welcome to honest talk about heartbreak, dating and relationships, relationships, the podcast helping you navigate your path to happy ever after with your host, Rob McPhillips. This question has had me having nightmares like that, it just it just reminded me of a certain scenario that I was thinking, this is why I don't believe it's true, why I believe it is false because of this scenario. And then I've been having nightmares about this scenario last night. Oh, gosh.

[00:38]

You want to tell us what the scenario is or is that it wasn't a slip in something major just a day in a situation where it was over a long period of time, it's probably over like two years.

[00:50]

I kept seeing the same guy on this this thing on the website and we never really talk to each other. And then we got talking somehow. I was like a bit not sure about him, but we got talking. It was really weird and taking ages to text back and all the rest of it. Days like three days, four days, sometimes the message box. So I just fizzle out and then didn't see him speak to him again for like another year or something and completely forgot about the other time and then would kind of arrange to meet or and then he'd just go sit at the last second and then he would not actually arrange to me it was just kind of like, do you want me?

[01:34]

OK, then again, about a year later, I started talking again on a different website and it seemed a lot more interested this time year. Getting to know me more and all that sort of stuff seemed interested. So I was like, OK, let me go on this time and arrange to baby. So I was about to leave and everything and he just didn't respond. So I just didn't just delete him off my phone and whatever and then left it.

[01:59]

But I think that was kind of one of them. Treat it means keep from keen. And I think he thought that that was going to keep me hooked in and I just like, fizzle out. And then he kept liking me on the thing as well afterwards because he most of premium's you can't rely on my account and like him, I just just left it, left it physically now because I'm not playing I'm not allowed to play games. But I think that was one of them scenarios I amines CAPM key.

[02:24]

I was just looking for some of them, and there's a four page open that's gone, but it was this one recommends you take four hours minimum to reply to a text. You only see them once a week for the first month and only, oh, this is is this advice to be able to treat someone mean to keep them interested.

[02:54]

Yeah. All right.

[02:56]

But what do you think? Do you think that works?

[03:02]

I think that it's getting more and more complicated to make things work because there's so much. So much, so many fishes in the sea, I don't know how to put it, but I'm not very good at playing those games. To me, those are games. And I don't know, I did do it for a little while, but I tried to kind of date guys that. Kind of go with the same perspective as me, so we are both honest and very like it's consistent behavior.

[03:35]

So if a guy doesn't text me for three or four days, I just match them or whatever it is, because it should be consistent. And it's not showing me any respect, because if he's busy, I'm busy. So I'm really bad at that.

[03:50]

But I do believe that sometimes you do have to play a bit like you mean to keep them calm. So I did do that with a guy that I'm dating at the moment. There was consistency when we were talking, but I was not always available to meet up, so I tried to keep a little bit of a balance there, but it's really hard.

[04:15]

I don't really know how to explain, but I. Yeah, I do think there is a bit of a playing games. So so what did you do in terms of playing games? Uh. I am I playing games, it's just like I think when we begin to get to get interested in someone, it's really easy to just shut everything down and just focus on that and let your life you like. At the first message we get, we hear that.

[04:49]

And I was like, oh, my God, it's him. Let me reply.

[04:51]

And I was like, no, save yourself.

[04:54]

Just finish doing so. That's just putting yourself in check. Yes. But at the same time, if it was the old me, I wouldn't think about it. I had to go through bad experiences to kinda. OK, hold on, finish what you're doing or go and do this first and then come back and reply. So I changed my behavior if it was anybody else.

Also it was a family member or friend message. And if you're busy, you're going to put your phone down a message in Berkeley or anywhere.

[05:24]

You know, it really depends. I normally, quite honest, I don't always have my phone with me and at work I probably they know they probably won't reply straight away, but I tried to reply as soon as I can so I didn't change retasking.

[05:41]

So I'm always like, I need to focus on.

[05:43]

Yeah, I do, I do multitask a lot so I can do that. But and I work with my phone with me. But sometimes I really have to ignore it and just focus. I carry always carry my personal phone and my work phone with me. I have to work with my phones on all the time so I will see it. But I choose to reply or not and I don't really know. I'm really bad at playing games, but to me it has to be a bit of that.

[06:14]

I was more concerned about what I was doing. I think of the OK, hold on, because if I reply too quickly in my read this into OK, she's very available to get those. Those are the things that we hear a lot.

[06:29]

I don't think it goes very well when you when any of us move too fast. Yeah. Excited for you. I think it is better to sort of take things more of a natural pace and just I don't necessarily see it as a game. It's just it's just more of a natural pace.

[06:48]

Yeah, but I say this because I'm saying about it's really hard.

[06:54]

I find nowadays to have a proper conversation through a chat, for example, where you were in the past. It was normal, like, OK, oh, we texted me and after like five minutes I would text back and then we would have a conversation. Now it's pretty much like, OK, text today, reply. But tomorrow we will send another text. It's a it's a bit hard to keep up with that pace because you end up not having a proper conversation.

[07:23]

And how are you going to really develop some interest that you will go on a date or something like that? You're not available sometimes. Yes.

[07:32]

So that's that's I think that some women are better at that than others. And then at the same time, why is it why do I feel that? But guys don't really feel that. I don't know. Because I had guys that would reply straightaway, if I message, they would reply straightaway. I think it's a feminine or masculine thing. I think it just depends on the person. It's just some people are a bit more like, oh, yeah, we need to know what message about straight away.

[07:59]

So I really believe that they have to kind of like hold back and wait a bit more natural about things. And then there's some that we'll be like incessantly texting you every second. The guy is just like, whoa.

[08:12]

I was just wondering if if women feel that pressure more than men do. Also, no one thinks about it and is just go with the flow. Now, I think I think it's positive. I think men also get the same advice from some people. But I think I definitely like you. I think the part where it has some validity is if you're I think this is like your. Like being authentic, but then there's also like there's the core of who you are, but then there's also we live in a society with social creatures and there's this social pecking order.

[08:58]

And it's like we look at people in terms of like social value and the highest status is more attractive. And so there is something that. How you act, how you behave shows people like your way, where you are sort of in the pecking order and people are watching prickliest. And if you if you're willing to willing to please be willing to give up everything, then it seems that you have low social value. Yeah, but I think where it becomes false is like I'm not going to reply.

[09:48]

I've got you know, I'm going to set my timer for four hours. I think I think you have to have a certain level of momentum. And for me, like, if someone's a long time texting, it's just like you can't there's no, like, Spock to work off. And so I personally, I would be less interested or if I feel someone's playing a game, then I just like, completely uninterested. That's what I mean.

[10:19]

Like, I'm not good at playing games. I find myself. What I changed was that maybe on the beginning because I started online dating for. Two years ago, I think, and it was very on and off because I'm not very patient, I don't know how to play games. If people would text me, I would reply to them. If I was free, I was free. And I also had the unfortunate event of most of my friends went away.

[10:46]

So they moved back to their countries or they moved to other cities. So I had more time in my hands. And I don't think that gives me less value. I don't have less value for that is just the way things worked out.

[10:59]

It's not necessarily there's less value, but we're looking like an all animals day looking like if you have a dog, you have to make sure that you'll you'll see as the leader. Yeah. So. It's not that you have less value because of that, but it's that there are certain unconsciously we judge and so conscious of it, and it was my opinion consciously and unconsciously.

[11:29]

But I think there is.

[11:35]

There is a little bit of luck, if we know we can have something, then we're going to sort of strive for the next thing. And I think people are indicting all sort of striving for the best that they can get. And so there is it's not that you have less valuable. That is just that that would play some of the unconscious triggers. But I thought there is some research that they did.

[12:04]

There was what is researched by flies, but it is found that people who play games attract partners who play games. And so they have less. It's. The more authentic you are is the best long term dating strategy. Seller, in your situation, though, like you said, you were worried that people would think that your own life or whatever it is you said, you are busy, though. You work, you you're doing this. You do not what you choose to.

[12:40]

I don't know.

[12:42]

But then I guess it's not like we try to worry less about what they might be judging you.

[12:50]

But I think I came to my son and I don't think I don't think I changed into playing games. That's not what I meant. I think that I became more conscious about putting myself first and just finishing what I'm doing and then replying. So I'm not counting the time to reply. And I'm not doing that. I'm dating this guy for almost three months, so I'm not doing that. And I did not do that. But I was just very aware that I needed to do my things first because and this was due to past relationships where I had I think I am I give a lot.

[13:28]

If I'm like someone I do, I like to do nice things for them. And it's not the first time that I would do it. I say that they had me for granted and that to me was quick. Excuse me, it was quite insulting. And of course the relationship didn't carry on. So to me, it's just like I had to learn from a really bad relationship to kind of put myself first.

[13:53]

But it's really hard to keep a good, normal balance to it. And and to me, it was more that, like, I am still interested. I still want to have a good conversation with you, but I would do this first hour.

I am going and do that first whatever, and then I'll reply and and at the same time, I would give probably a better reply after I had done those things because I would be more focused on life and things ended up working.

[14:27]

All right. But just but I had but I had the same opportunity where someone was always texting, always very keen. And in the end of the day, they were playing games anyway. It's really hard to read into people, I could read what was going on, it took me a little while, but I did get where we were going. But it's just really difficult. But I just kind of I think it was I'm not playing games. It was just me, like kind of prioritizing me, not getting too involved too soon and just trying to save myself, if that makes sense.

[15:06]

I think I think there's something I think there is something that, like the old value comes across in the sense of, you know. Not exactly. Yes, I think this is a principle I have that people will give you the minimum that you'll accept. And that's like being able to set boundaries and say that I'm not going to accept anything less.

[15:43]

So generally speaking, though, because if somebody wants a certain standard for themselves, regardless of what other people are going to give them or not give, if they're going to still try to hold to their own standards of themselves over recent people.

[15:58]

Yes. Yes. So is being able to walk away from someone that doesn't fit, right? Yeah. Is going to treat you right. Like there's a level that this is what I this is what I'll accept and I won't accept anything less. And then people will generally rise to it someone. But then they were never going to be, you know, this concept of somebody...

What Is Happy Ever After?

Tue, 22 Sep 2020 09:00:00 +0100

We spend a lot of time trying to get into relationships. We spend a lot of time thinking and talking about our relationships. But have you ever defined what a successful relationship would be like for you?

Listen in as we discuss the topic from different perspectives and clarify what happy ever after would be for you.

Transcript

Welcome to honest talk about heartbreak, dating and relationships, relationships, the podcast helping you navigate your path to happy ever after with your host, Rob McPhillips. So if we start individually, we can be extroverts are going to right. So five minutes really thinking about what what would you have to have to have your personal happy ever after? And it may be that you want to move or turn your camera off or whatever while you think about that, and then we'll go into the into the groups.

[00:46]

So I'm going to be here for a minute while I had everyone else. I know some people who come in and just for the recording, because I always forget about that.

[00:59]

But if you're listening along afterwards, he also it because I think it's really important that you have your definition before you listen to anyone else. So the question is, what would happy ever after look like? And the answer is going to be different for each of us, but there probably are going to be some common themes, so. He would like to share what they discussed or their. Vision. I'll go first on the news for an hour. So this is going to be a good time to mention I, I am on that spectrum.

[01:44]

So for me, someone who understands the news, who understands that I might say the wrong thing occasionally and I might not react in the same way and I might not laugh. You joke. You don't get it. I actually have to ask. I'm sorry. Are you being sarcastic? Which isn't so I'm not being sarcastic. I'm genuinely asking how are you being sarcastic? Because I got so, uh. But yeah, just someone who likes to laugh as well because I'm a bit, I'm a bit silly.

[02:10]

I've got better sense of humor like a pun. So someone who is not too strict about things but I do like to set routines. I go in this day, that day and that day and night and then like gets disrupted. I got a bit like that because the way my brain works, so someone who's OK with my little sort of like what the word be, I think the way to be not certain way like little idiosyncrasies. Someone is OK with those.

[02:39]

Yeah, but, um, I'm pretty easygoing in every respect, so as long as they're all right with me forgetting to take the Benzal occasionally and talking, not talking over, talking over them when I watch to because I've already seen the film, I don't know what they're gonna know what's gonna happen other than that. Yeah, I'm pretty much fine as long as I'm not a huge drinker. So and anyone who goes out on the set, everyone I know, I'm not I'm not.

[03:01]

I'm not I'm not aware of that. But yeah. Over the night. Yeah. I'm pretty easy going to be honest.

[03:06]

Okay. So you want to be understood. Really. Yeah, understood. But also I just I understand because of my previous relationships that it's give and take on both sides. So, you know, as long as they are a bit patient with me, I'll be very understanding with them.

[03:20]

So, you know, it's really tricky for Sharon and anyone else. Shall I say something or just, you know, there's a little arrow in here coming to the rescue again for this silence?

[03:36]

Well, I just thought the silence was a bit deafening for me. Yeah, OK. So from my point of view. I suppose so with me, it's something I've not really had properly, my relationships, and I don't know what not, but it will be a much more closer connection. So it will be a case of a little bit like what was described just now. But it's I suppose it's. They have now, if there will be where I feel that that person is always on my side doesn't matter.

[04:19]

I'm not expecting that person to agree with me all the time because that will be unrealistic. But I expect them to be honest and they expect them to be have my best interests at heart. So basically, when they say something to me, it's because they are thinking the best of me. So if they say, I don't think you're right about that is going to go wrong, they're actually trying to prevent me from making a mistake.

[04:46]

I may not agree with the. But also to seem to agree to be able to talk really on things rather than deteriorating into some sort of I don't like I don't mind arguments, it can even be a heated argument for health care. But not just I don't know why, but it really has a very negative effect for me. I like to just be able to talk to people, discuss things. So for me, it's a case of saying. You know, working together through life's ups and downs, but I accept that there will be issues and problems, but so long as I feel that that person is always on my side, that for me creates a trust, a bond.

[05:37]

And that for me is the one, the most important things in a relationship that I know that I can trust them with whatever happens. And if I'm down. You know, if they told me this isn't going to work forever and I don't listen to her and I get on with it and it all blows up in my face just the way she said it was going to be, what it does is rolled up their sleeves and gets Maxin and helps me sort it out, because what that does next time round is for me to say I was I was an idiot.

[06:09]

I should sat there and listen. I didn't see what was coming for some reason. And, you know, I've got to pay more attention next time in my previous relationships. It's not been like that. I mean, I've had to make the decisions because there was a little dithering going on. And then when it did blow up in my face, the other person just stood on the sidelines and told me, I told you so. And, you know, I don't I don't particularly need that at that point.

[06:36]

I just need someone to help me out. Even if it was deserved, I would suggest that everyone makes a mistake. And therefore, if you are meant to be partners in life, because for me, I mean, in the last week we were talking about the fact that we had a lot of independent people and that's how the women were independent, rightly so. And they were quite openly saying, we don't actually need them. And as such, to buy me things or do this or do that because they're independent, they can manage their own life.

[07:06]

But actually, we all need somebody. Otherwise we wouldn't be here. So we need somebody to share our life with. It's a journey and we want to share that journey with someone. That means that someone is there to help you when you fall down and help you along and on Monday fall down, you are there to help them. Yeah. So for me, they're for the happily ever after isn't necessarily everything is going to be peachy, but that we can work through the rough times together without it getting becoming a negative event that we actually get through them together.

[07:39]

You know what, the bond is stronger because we help each other out. We got through it, OK? We might have got a little bit stressed at times. But the point is, you know, we we work through it like two adults. We discussed our issues and problems. We agreed our way forward. And, you know, we are stronger as a result. That's kind of where I am, but anyway, I don't know if that makes everybody confused now as to.

[08:09]

Nothing to me seems quite clear, and I like what the government says, is that basically a couple of really good marriages or relationships are based on what is it like, baby, when you have the whole world stops.

[08:29]

So the focus of each other is to like, if one if one's down and one's having a hard time or, you know, whatever the other ones are there for them, is that teamwork? Yeah, thank you for sharing that. Has anyone else or if anyone doesn't want to actually talk to that, but they can put it in check. Laura? Did you talk? Yeah, you still meet its. The muted on me. OK, yes, sorry if you've heard this before, my great, but for me that happy ever after, I guess the focus was on that word happy having been in quite an unhappy relationship.

[09:21]

And it was like, I want to feel happy in my relationship and I want to know that the other person feels happy in the relationship too. We we laugh together. We share love, a kind of emotional level, physical level, mental level, bizarre, maybe a spiritual connection to its connection. It's meaningful. It is mutually supportive and nurturing from this group. I've also loved learning has taken place the having skills, you know, the skills of communication.

[10:03]

Problem-Solving, what can we bring to a problem that's arising in our relationship? How are we going to deal with it so that it doesn't destroy our relationship would be really important as well, so that we can work together to support each other through problems and deal with the problems that arises from our dynamic in the relationship. Yes, so when I listen to that, what I'm hearing is. Is it's about fundamentally you've been happy and also the other partner being happy, and then it's about when you look at being happy.

[10:49]

It's like riding a wave. This is the metaphor that comes to mind, and it's about when the seas are choppy. And how do you navigate?

[10:59]

How do you balance and stay on top of that so that you you don't allow, like, the waves of life and rough seas to come between you, which I think is basically that the struggle that most relationships have is when times get tough, everything that they had was built on this fragile relationship, this fragile tie that when other things could come between them, tear them apart.

[11:34]

Is that yeah, yeah, yeah, I can kind of relate to that, the end of the match for the sea, calm waters, stormy waters riding the wave, but also like navigating the seas about the skills of sailing, about what you do, you know, dealing with the wind, et cetera. So it's not just like. Going with it, I guess you've got to try and proactively develop together the skills to deal with the rough, you know, stormy weather.

[12:16]

OK. And I just. Can I just add. For me, it's important to have mental stimulation. And a part of that is to be with somebody who, yes, you have shared and common interests, but having different interests as well so that we're not carbon copies of each other, we bring new and interesting ideas or experiences into the relationship and that that would keep me interested. So that will keep me happy.

[12:57]

That will keep you also. Being possessive, needy, living in each other's back pocket does not mean I don't have to see you every day.

[13:12]

I don't have to see you, you know, all the time.

[13:20]

Welcome to honest talk about heartbreak, dating and relationships, relationships, the podcast helping you navigate your path to happy ever after with your host, Rob McPhillips. So tonight's meetup is about playing the game of relationships, I've got my game of Game of Thrones mug here. So first thing I think we can discuss in the breakout rooms, if you discuss. When I couldn't so I'm going to talk about our relationship has been, again, lasting again tonight. And what's your reaction, what's your feeling about that and what's your view?

[00:56]

It is often. Often this. Well. Often these people have a reaction to sometimes being called again. Okay, so we're going to split and see breakout rooms differently.

[01:13]

I'm sorry I didn't tell you.

[01:17]

You said to go to the breaking room.

[01:20]

Yes, a breakout room. Let me see if I can. To the breakout room. Did you get a link to click?

[01:28]

But I left it. But what what to do in this briefing room.

[01:31]

OK, so the breakout rooms for more private conversations. So you're going to discuss the topic in smaller groups.

[01:39]

Mm hmm. Yeah. OK, and then. I just want to come back to. Yeah, OK. And then we're going to come back into the main room, where will we discuss to discuss anything anyone wants to talk about that came across in the breakout rooms and then we'll have a more general discussion.

[02:05]

OK, again, I be.

[02:11]

Joining us, OK? Hi, Robbie. I was just actually replying to your message. Yeah, I found I found it was in the meetup calendar.

[02:26]

OK, yeah. Sometimes people people done is kind of buried in. Okay, so what we did tonight, as you saw, was playing the game of relationships. So how it works is we have while people are joining this, others, you don't have a breakout group, breakout rooms. So the smaller groups where you can have private discussion. So I'll send you a link to see join one of those groups and then we're going to come back here and have a big general discussion about what they're discussing in the groups is the question is in terms of what I'm talking about tonight, relationships being a gang, life being a game.

[03:14]

What's your reaction to that? Do you agree with it or disagree with it? How do you feel about that and say that clear enough? Yeah, makes perfect sense. Yeah.

[03:26]

OK, all right. So going to actually to your breakout room two. So if you just. You should get a link oh. Sorry, Rabbi, I jumped off the bed quickly, but I think we're halfway through it being something I know now, if you just joined the just join the group and.

[03:55]

Yeah, yeah. Then you yeah. There probably been more discussion. We just joined and then when there's a chance just joining. Yeah, that's fine. Now, we're sorry about that. No problem, can you get it? Uh, yeah, but you can. You can. Everyone stay in their discussions. I'm sorry. That's OK. That's really good. You know what? I love the game of Blic and how to play well.

[04:29]

I listen to a podcast called The Reality Revolution. Brian Scott, I know ever is is it's amazing. It's a really good podcast. Kathleen has everyone back. OK, so did anyone have any interest in discussions, any interesting forced? Joshed. This is Sheila and Sheila. Hi. I think most of us, if not all of us, agreed that to use the term game doesn't sit well with us in terms of relationship. Personally speaking, I can see the concept of a game and I can see there are similarities in terms of rules.

[05:27]

Players in quote marks. Again, the word players doesn't sit right with me in terms of relationship. But I guess, you know, again, concept of being winners and losers. But again, that's whether you're playing as a team, as a couple together or playing as individuals, therefore being a winner and loser. But I think, in fact, I believe that, you know, you don't necessarily know all the rules going in. If you're in a relationship, you you have to, like, find out the rules as you go along.

[05:58]

And everybody has different rules. Thank you for that. OK, I heard you say something, it's just I am beginning to feel more like the you know, it's not the dating stage that's just like a game because you don't know at that stage what you're getting yourself into. But once you're in a committed relationship, I think it's more if it was a team thing rather than two people competing against each other. OK, yes. Anyone else? Is that the general feeling in our group as well?

[06:49]

We sort of put forward a slightly different angle to it and by saying if there was any positive.

[07:00]

So if there were any positives to come out of the game situation, then you could say that you're entering into a win win game rather than a win lose game. And by default, there will be rules. And those rules could be authenticity, openness, communication, trust, the basic fundamental things for a relationship. And if as long as everybody's aware of them, then you could both be winners of that game. And I guess if one person is not fulfilling their part of the bargain on that, then the game might not be successful, I guess.

[07:45]

And Armytage, about I wasn't sure if you can talk or. So you mean it's. I was going to say I do agree with it being a game, but not in the sense of like your playing and your being conniving. I do think life is a game and you've got to play your cards right. And in a relationship, you need to go into it knowing who you are and what you want out of that. And you need to set your standards, your values, and the person needs to know what is expected of them.

[08:25]

Coming in from the start, so I think the yeah, I do agree with it being a game. OK, I you. So I'm going to the reason I set this as a thing is it's similar to we were talking and I was talking with, I think a couple of a couple of weeks ago about you remember we were discussing about love as a currency and you had a strong reaction to that. And there's a subtlety to to both of these ideas that really underpin a lot of the problems that people have in relationships.

[09:09]

So, for example, when I was talking about love being a currency, it wasn't because obviously meaning it was actually because what I'm saying is, of all the currencies is the one that we that we value the least in terms of our giving our attention, I refer to it. So. Okay. So I want to put some more detail, too, to the concept of life and relationships being a game. And the best way I know how to do that is from there is a book from James class and he talked about finite and infinite times.

[09:49]

And so finite game is a game that we're used to. I'm just going to mute everyone so that there is no background reaction. That's. Mean yourself if you have something to say, so. Okay, so there are finite and infinite times, so finite game is what we're familiar with in terms of it has agreed laws. It's a game like football. It's a game like tennis or any of those kind of games that we used to it. It's got agreed.

[10:29]

And this is what some of you picked up on, is that it's got agreed upon rules, but they're imposed rules. So there is and by definition, there's a limitation and there's a winner and a loser. So if we look at so in America, they've got the elections going on and the election is a finite game. They can only be a winner and that can only be a loser. And there's a time when it's over. And so.

[11:06]

In the final game that we have, like titles like if whatever row you have, if you if you play the game of law and you qualify as a lawyer, you're a lawyer. And that doesn't change. And so.

[11:24]

And today's winners and losers and the fight to win is fierce, fighting for control. So the infinite game is a game that doesn't end. So it's a game without boundaries, it's a game that we define by ourselves, and it's a game that deepens over time. So if you have someone who's an artist who loves art. There is an infinite game because you can always get better. There's people who might win this prize or whatever, you know, kind of you think of an art prize, but, you know, like people win the Pulitzer Prize for writing.

[12:07]

But it doesn't mean that they're forever they forever won the game. It means at that moment in time, they were at the top. But it's going to change. And, you know, music is again, is an infinite game. We have the charts and someone's at the top, but no one is at the top always. And so it isn't so much about winners and losers, but it's how can I play the game and get better?

[12:37]

So. Dieting is often spoken about as being a has been again, because it's the diet. And if you look at the way that people treat the dating game, it's players. It's people who feel that they're won by if they can sleep with a girl, if they can get the most attention, if they can do all of those things, they're playing a finite game.

[13:06]

And and, yeah, of course, and there are relationships where someone of want to be in control and they will see themselves as winning by getting their way, but they're playing it with a finite game. And if you look at a lot of the relationship advice, it's technique to send this text. It's say they do this thing so that you get a certain result and that's playing a finite game, whereas an infinite game is about deepening the connection, deepening the conversation.

[13:33]

It's about it's not about winning or dominating, but it's about developing the connection. It's about exploring rather than than winning, it's about dealing with what's now rather than let you win, and therefore you're always a winner. So one of the problems is that. In work, in business and things, people play and play a finite game, so someone who seems like someone who sees business as a as a finite game is how much money can you win?

[14:16]

And. So they're driven to be like destroy the competition, but actually no one ever wins. You know, when you look at those charts of Jeff Bridges is the richest man Bill Gates was for a long time, but no one's ever won because it's never over. There's no there's no finish point. And so a lot of the problems that people have are someone feels like that that wasn't proud of them, they felt like they were a loser at school, that they have this.

[14:53]

Insecurity, and so they have this drive to prove themselves, they have they feel like they need to have more and more success. To get away from the feeling of cost. But the label comes from the past, and so the feeling is from the past and no amount of success that you have now is ever going to change that feeling that you had back then. So when people. Play. A finite game. Like rejection in indicting warm relationships is all consuming, and so one of the reasons people are so devastated that a break up is because it feels good, because that they've got a finite game attitude to it, like this person's gone.

[15:46]

Therefore, I've lost. I'm never going to have that back. And if you treat it so when I'm saying about playing the game of relationships, what I'm talking about is that. If you ever. Wants to love and be loved, then you're playing the game of relationships, it's whether you know it or not. But you're actually. You're in the game. It's an infinite game. It's not like there's winners or losers, but it's different places.

[16:22]

And. So relationships are an infinite game. So there's never an end to it and it doesn't matter what state you are, because there's this whole I'm going to show you later about the landscape of relationships, but wherever you are is a place in the game of relationships.

[16:44]

And it's about if you don't like where you are, it's about moving to a different place. So the idea of playing the game of relationships is. That you're conscious of how you're doing it, because when you're conscious of how you're doing it, then that means that being in that relationship, it means you're not playing passive aggressive or not playing victim and and control. You're not playing the power games that people play, the drama games that people play.

[17:20]

But you're you're like bringing it to awareness. And so it's about doing relationships more consciously.

[17:30]

Bellamy Riley, if I've got your name right, you've got your hand up. Did you want to talk?

[17:34]

Yep. So you were talking about, like, proving someone wrong.

[17:41]

So when something happens, like when someone says that I cannot do something, so our tendency is to like, prove someone wrong. So if you tell me, like, I cannot, like, do some kind of heart, I cannot win a particular game, then it's very common for us to prove someone wrong. So it's been in our genes. So how would you actually like differentiated and how do you recognize when you are playing like a finite game on infinite game?

[18:09]

Okay, so if you're driven by an insecurity, which is to prove someone wrong. To accept the label that you're a loser or you've lost or you're a failure means that you've said that the game is over. Because if if the game is still playing, then you kind of lost. Does that make sense? Yep, yep, so it's it's it's when we put it into a full context, it's when we haven't really looked at or been conscious of what we're doing or how we're playing it.

[18:56]

And so...

Navigating Friendships

Tue, 08 Sep 2020 09:00:00 +0100

Friendships can be deeply rewarding and also deeply painful when they go wrong. In this episode we discuss relationship problems that ended up touching on the biggest questions in life.

Transcript

Welcome to honest talk about heartbreak, dating and relationships, relationships, the podcast helping you navigate your path to happy ever after with your host, Rob McPhillips. I've not really done a lot of work in terms of friendships, so I'm not really clear on what people want to talk about and what the biggest issues are going to be. So if we talk about. In the group's. Really, what you'd like to get out of how you like your relationship friendships to be improved.

[00:42]

Any problems that you have in your friendships? And then we'll come back and go from there, because we've got to have some new people just to remind everyone that we record the audio of what was discussed in the main room. And but what was said in a bright carriage is private, so. Yes, sir, we only the audio and first time. Right, so. He wants to sort of sum up some issues that came up in breakout rooms.

[01:27]

I don't know whether I don't mind. So basically what we can do with shamers in order to. To attract a friend, especially when you've got to be a friends yourself and show, in other words, it's about being comfortable within within yourself, and then once you're once you've got that level of comfort, when you meet another human being, regardless of gender or age, that person will automatically be attracted to you because of the quality that your students from yourself.

[02:07]

So I gave an example yesterday where I went on when I went on a walk with another Meetup group, which had never done before, and my expectation wasn't negative. I wasn't thinking I'm going to go on a two hour walk with a lot of the people who we don't know and they don't know me and I'm going to be bored and will I enjoy it. I just went with complete serenity in my own head, and when I arrived, I instantly got so wimbish, like all grown.

[02:41]

And then we spent the next two hours walking around up in a really good laugh and I really enjoyed myself. But at the end, once I had listened to the other people, other people's conversations whilst I was there, I was aware that although I would be able to hold a conversation with them, they were compatible, compatible with myself and I wasn't compatible with them. So it was like like it had automatically attracted, like by me not doing anything.

[03:16]

Yeah, yeah, I think that's that's that's one of the key things, I think, of the issues underlying friendships. And I was discussing. That's some friendships can be hard to start, like one party will recognize traits in another person that they've just met that they like, but they're barriers that the other person presents. And sometimes it's a bit of a challenge. You almost have to work at it to get through that, to get to that friendship.

[04:01]

And I was setting an example with myself.

[04:05]

A friend of mine that I met at university, we were in the final year together and the initial meeting was one of she just didn't like me at all. She just was like this, you know, but I liked her.

[04:25]

And I know we're best friends. And she lives in London. And, you know, we have been friends ever since.

[04:34]

But it took effort, it took a lot of time and I had to, I think, suppress some of some of my natural instincts, behavior to not antagonize her and to allow her to see that I meant well and and study partners who were in the same group and study group. And so we got to know each other and. You know, I was a bridesmaid and her daughter's godmother, I mean, we're that close. But it took it took months.

[05:14]

And that was really developing the trust and then once you trust it, yes, I think there was a lot of anger in her and I think she saw me as.

[05:25]

I hate to say this, but she she was at the time we were like polar opposites and she didn't recognize that she had things going for her that I didn't have.

[05:37]

She she's an accomplished musician, she has a beautiful singing voice. She has been on television singing and well, this is in Jamaica, OK? And so very talented and and a pretty girl.

[05:51]

But she was twice my size. So for her, it's like, OK, you're looking skinny thing, you know, sort of thing.

[06:01]

And I'm large, but I can't sing to save my life, OK?

[06:08]

I'm not a single I'm so she had things that I admired and looked up to and I, you know, and I had given up on my music lessons and all the rest of it. And here she is. Great. You know, going off to competitions abroad and all the rest of it. And I'm in all of her.

[06:32]

But she just looked at me and said, oh, that's the pretty girl that everybody's after. I don't like her kind of thing, you know, and I don't that's not that's not me that's on the outside, you know.

[06:45]

It took a while for us to get. To the point where we could actually emerge as friends. Yeah, I can see I can see how that relates to what Alan was talking about in terms of, you know, relationships are barriers are really it's a self that puts the barriers there. And so, yes, I can see some commonality of that. Did anyone? I like to start from problems because I think when you've got a problem, you're able to to analyze that is, did anyone have any problems that they wanted to talk about?

[07:32]

Yeah, actually, I had one that I was sharing with the group, so I have a very good friend. We've been best friends for five years and the last few months, a few weeks, I feel like we are growing apart and I'm not sure.

[07:51]

I feel like I'm changing, but she's not changing the same direction and she's going through some things as well, and it makes me feel like she's less open actually towards me and what is happening with me and she's less empathetic.

[08:07]

That used to be and I confronted her about it today, that I felt like she was insensitive towards me a few days ago and it just really bounced off her and she just really didn't get it. And I'm not sure if I should. Try to have another go, like in a really structured way, explaining her where I'm coming from, what I feel, or maybe it's time that I just kind of like. Let it go a little bit and let it be a little bit closer, friendship and.

[08:41]

Focus on the relationships in my life. This sort of relates to we were discussing we sort of had a breakout room here in the main room where.

[08:59]

Sometimes friendships, people change and then the friendships change. And so I think you have people in your life for some maybe for the lifetime, some for less parts. It's like as we change in different stages of life. Relationships change. Do you feel like where you met? And the friendship was at its strongest, all the situations like the situations you used in her life, have they changed? Yeah, I feel like we are in different life situations and I feel like I used to have most of my life, I wasn't conscious of that.

[09:54]

My whole life revolved around my relationship. So like, I was always in long term relationships, but it just I just had too much emphasis in my life in relationships and.

[10:06]

Those kind of things, and I'm going through therapy at the moment, and I really feel like something is shifting in me and I don't want to live like that anymore. I want to have fulfillment in my life. And then if I have a relationship, that's great. But I feel like she's still just a little like her mind is like all about dating and that will fix everything. And I can't relate to it. And I don't want to be one of the things.

[10:34]

But but otherwise, she has so many good qualities as a person and. When I got to know her, but now I also feel like she's kind of going through some sort of mid-life crisis and she's changing like I think she used to be more compassionate, but she's not like that anymore. And I'm kind of puzzled. Have you asked her anything about her situation? Yeah, like we talk about her situation all the time, but. But, you know, like.

[11:11]

When she feels down, you know, and she's explaining telling me her thing, you know, I need to understand what when I say what is bugging me, she's just brushing it off, you know, and it doesn't feel nice, like.

[11:33]

I think Alan Alan made a good point earlier about forcing the issue, I suppose it sounds like you you've you reached out to try and mend the relationship, to find out what is wrong, to see if it could be salvaged, if you could be close together again. It sounds OK. And if she is if she understood what you meant. So if it was a meaningful conversation where she really understood what you meant, but she is still rebuffed and said, no, I'm going my own way, then I suppose you can't you can't force the issue.

[12:12]

At the end of the day, you cannot only self. And if you are healing yourself, then you know you have to you have to go on your own journey, I suppose.

[12:23]

Yeah. Oh. No. Yeah, I think so. But you've got to be. You got to be true to yourself, I think, and without. Without without being desperate for other people's company, hmm, this is, again, the point that Alan was making, quite rightly. Yeah, you've got to be comfortable with the company will come back and change. Change is good. Change happens all the time. We can't have because we are not the same people that we were when we were first born grow and change as a person ourselves.

[13:04]

And things don't stay static. Change is always supposed to happen in life. That's how better things come along. Hmm. That's my belief. No, thank you. I was just going to say in the back on the back of that is that. They've left then they weren't meant to stay. Left, they were never meant to stay, so. I think would be an injury, we will look at things through the level of our own understanding and the level of our understanding about anything, least of all somebody else we know almost any of us here truly know about ourselves.

[13:49]

Probably not a lot. And we're here to ultimately discover ourselves and and find out how we can interact with other people more successfully with more children. I'm afraid that's got 10 friends. I have got probably about 10 close friends. So I'm not here because I'm laughing friends, but I'm here because I'm looking to get better relationships with the friends and better relationship with Michelle. But, you know. Nobody ever walked away if they were meant to stay and.

[14:25]

What we've seen before in regards to why people go well, we don't know the answer to that because our level of understanding is is absolutely mind youth and we we'll try and ask them. They might not give us the answer. And even if they do, they might not give us an honest answer. That's where the acceptance comes in if someone's walked out. You just got to let them go and move forward in your life because your life is more important to them even.

[15:00]

Mhm. Yeah.

[15:02]

I think sometimes you need to be cynical and just think to yourself, does this person take away more than that.

[15:12]

I know that can feel quite harsh, but at the end of the day we have a very short time on this earth and also maybe even shorter than we think it might be. So why should we spend it with people that. Take away more than they give. I know that sounds cynical, but I, I know. Also, I think that. Friends come in different packages and feel different needs in in a person. They have different purposes. So I find as I have gone along my friendships, it's almost like they alternate depending on what's happening in my life or their lives or if they need me, if I need them, depending on what's what's happening.

[16:08]

Then one friend will probably be closer at a particular point and another friend. So it moves around. But there's still all we're still all friends.

[16:20]

And also in my situation, I find that if my friends, I keep my friends separate in a sense, I don't try to make them become friends, too. I don't force that. So when I'm with one friend that I give that person my full attention, that's my friend, I'm dealing with you, but I don't try to put two or three of my friends together and force them to be friends because I'm your friend, but also. My friends, I go to different friends, so different things, I get different things from from different from from from from from each one of my friends.

[17:07]

And Alan, you have a small group of people that you turn to, you know, most of the time.

[17:16]

And also, I suppose there are layers of people who you reveal your inner self to, some more so than others. So, you know, there are some who.

Slaying The Dragon: Overcoming The Barriers To Happy Ever After

Tue, 01 Sep 2020 19:06:00 +0100

Every relationship hits a problem when our view or vision differs from our Partners.

Slaying the Dragon is the step of the Fairy Tale that everyone skips. Every Prince and Princess had an ordeal before they lived happily ever after. That ordeal is overcoming the problems that will otherwise block your happy ever after.

Transcription

Welcome to honest talk about heartbreak, dating and relationships, relationships, the podcast helping you navigate your path to happy ever after with your host, Rob McPhillips. So the topic we're going to talk about tonight is slaying the dragon. And slaying the dragon is the metaphor for the problems in a relationship and how you resolve those problems. So. When we going to break out rooms I'd like you to think about for a minute now, is the relationships in your life where.

There's a problem that's coming between the two of you and so these can be all kinds of relationships, romantic relationships, whether it's friendships, whether it's work, relationships, wherever there's a problem.

Between you and the other person stopping the relationship from really flowing. So if you think about those relationships now, what are we going to discuss in the breakout rooms is what is making the relationship a struggle? What is the problem that's come in between the two of you? Perhaps examples might be it might help if everyone writes in the chat box. Examples that they have of a problem that's hindering their relationship. This can be any kind of relationship because we're looking at a process rather than the actual details here.

And while everyone's everyone's doing that, is there anyone that has a problem that isn't too emotionally sensitive that they would be happy discussing? We can use as an example. And, Carol, to add anything specifically there, would you say, for example, that we can use OK for for for us?

I believe it was lack of communication. So in our relationship, there wasn't anything in any event. So there was no infidelity. There was no abuse. There was no there was no particular specific thing that you could point at and say this was caused the problem. Except that I will say that. It was because we didn't really talk to each other about the things that I suppose we put up with things rather than talk to each other about it. Can that eventually, I think, took its toll?

OK. OK, and so if you weren't able to resolve it and that led to the end of the relationship. Yeah, well, it's a bit more complicated than that. I mean, she basically got to a point where in her mind it was finished and she basically kind of said, right, this is it, we need to get divorced. And and that was it.

OK, OK, so come on. OK, is anyone anything else come up in the groups that anyone would like to discuss?

So I was going to say, Rob, that for me, my my girlfriend, when I went in, she was quite needy, like she had mental health issues. And and I think after about sort of three or four years, she she improved quite significantly and she actually turned into a different person in some respects. So she went from being a massive introvert to being quite extroverted. And it was actually difficult for me to I felt like I had to know I had to learn to get to know her again.

I felt like it was a different but. In some respects, we go for. OK. All right, so what I'm what I'm going to do is I'm going to just talk about my ideas because the Slay the Dragon, then how many people are clear on what I mean by Slay the Dragon?

Yeah, OK. All right, so I'm going to show you my ideas on why I think slaying the dragon is important and how we go about there and then we can use that as a framework. To look at more specific, so. Right. One minute they are going to share the screen just so sometimes visuals are easier to. To get an idea of what I'm saying, okay, I'm. But let me, if I can, move this box.

Okay, so where do we go first? Slightly slain the dragon is really about and when you have the prince and the princess, like in a fairy tale model, then.

What most people miss out is Prince means princess, and then they fall in love and live happily ever after. But the missing piece is that in the fairy tale, the prince and princess have to lift some, which is curse that slay the dragon and have to go through some ordeal. And that is the key for them having a happy ever after now.

So what exactly is the dragon? So the problem in relationships is like Timewell says, when you marry someone, you marry a set of problems. And if you didn't marry them, you wouldn't have those problems, but you'd have a different set of problems. And John Gottman talks about 68 percent of problems are unresolvable. So let's look at exactly what that is and how you can manage that within a relationship.

So basically, the problem is that when two people get together, they got a different idea. They both have different views. They've got different slightly different values, perspectives, experiences of where they see that they're going. So we might talk about in the big picture, you know, we both want kids. We both want this kind of life. But even when we're agreeing on that, the specifics of what it's going to look like are very different. And so the differences between our views and where we're both heading is the dragon that we have to slay.

Does that make sense to everyone so far? Yeah, think so, right, the big things that people argue about are money, sex, children, how you raise them, in-laws, friends, career, all of these kind of things and the differences that one person might like to be really frugal. One person might see money as fun, sexy type and quantity children one parent might restrict. One parent might be really relaxed. One person might want to see themselves as a small family unit and not have much contact with others.

One might be really social and want people living around the house. So let's talk about what kind of problems. People have so let's just stop there for a minute, let's look at the chart and if anyone wants to. Stepan. It's interesting said that John Gottman said that six people would say what was the 68, 68 percent of problems unresolved?

So they got problems into solvable problems and unsolvable unresolvable problem, unsolvable problems.

I mean I mean, considering there are quite a lot of relationships that at least go on for a while, that seems like a no. Yes, but what they what they mean by that is. That the problems are. The problems are personality differences. There's value differences there, slight ways in like instead of the big five that people argue about is money, sex, children, the extended family. So. If we look at a chart, so let me see what I it's not necessarily that.

Documentation's OK, okay, but the things that people disagree on, there's a pattern. So what it means is when people disagree in a long term relationship, it's the same problem reoccurring over and over again. Does anyone recognize that in their relationships? Yeah, yeah, so it's usually like one person is always like one person leaves their clothes lying around on the floor, one person, those kind of things. So they kind of patterns of behavior, which is based in differences in the way that you see the world, the way you operate in the world.

So let me get back to. This site, these are the problems and. Move that, okay, so typically I write something on this last week that someone said, well, you know, like, I'm always compromising in my relationships and then it doesn't work out, but. Typically, people say that you compromise in a relationship. So this is the difference between them is is that basically the dragon and compromises like you go halfway and you both give up something.

But what that means is that Niva is happy. So they're both getting a substandard result. I just mean, this is where the basis is for people to settle in relationships. So I so rather than so if you've got past here, you've got person B here on C, Pilar Opposite's.

When you slay the dragon, basically what you're doing is you're making a point C, which is what I would call like a sculpted solution. So when you have a compromise, it means that you give up something in order for the full harmony. And so what eventually happens is you basically lose yourself and you don't get what you want and you expect and hope that the other person gives up what they want for the sake of the harmony. But eventually what that means is never, never is happy.

So the relationship basically isn't working for either side. So when I'm talking about a sculpted solution, what I mean is when you understand the differences between you, when you understand where the problem came from, you're able to. Grow said, rather than give up something, you're basically growing. And your understanding each other at a higher level, so.

Got a little bit out or ahead, so for me, problems are really the gateway to deeper understanding and deeper connection. A chance to understand more about each other. So. When we look at the closeness of a relationship is about how intimate we are and the intimacy that we have is based on how much we show the other person and how much they we see of them. So the way that humans connect is through self disclosure, is through understanding each other at a higher level.

So when we like strangers, we just judge on face value people we like. We have a little bit of a snapshot from social interactions, friends. We know a little bit about that personality. We know what they like. We know what they like to be around close friends. We might share our hopes and hopes and fears, but family, we have more. Affiliation, they're part of who we are. So. So it's really when you have a problem, what you've got up here.

You've got kind of an iceberg and you've got the stated reason that someone said in the. Above is like what's above sea level, and so that's what we work off, but underneath that, there's all these assumptions and sense of identity and all these kind of things that underpin the real problem. And so slaying the dragon is about uncovering all of this. And. So what I'm talking about, the sculpted view, like John Wanamaker said, that 50 percent of advertising is wasted, but I just don't know which half.

And in the same way, most of our beliefs are wrong, but we just don't know which ones. So when we go through life, you know, like we if you look back at the history of civilization, it's full of assumptions that are wrong, that the earth is flat, that we're at the center of the universe, all of these things that over time, as we develop our knowledge, we learn we were operating on a false premise.

And the same way in a relationship, we'll find that most of the things that we think that we want, the things that we think that we really value are really important to us. Often actually wrong. And so the way that slaying the dragon and sculpting is in having the communication to be able to talk about what the real problem is, to be able to analyze. Exactly. What why you how the assumptions, the beliefs that you do? And then in finding that you're able to find what's actually true and what.

It's just something that you misled, misinterpreted, and then you go for this to come to. I like point C in where we can. A point in here, so it's not a compromise, but it's something where we've both grown to to a better solution. But let me just go back. So does that make sense so far? Tell me if I'm leading you anywhere. I'm I'm I'm struggling, said for me, a compromise is is if you have like three warring parties, then they compromise.

This way you find a solution. Isn't that. OK, I think this is a matter of. Syntax really is really what this compromise mean. Yes, Nancy. Yes, but mostly compromised. Means that people compromise their beliefs. Yeah, I want to agree.

And so once you've compromise, you believe you've compromised who you are. OK, and if you still are if you still believe it, but you say, OK, I believe this, but I'm going to do this.

Your actions are out of line with what you believe. Yes, they say, but but you can have a compromise without compromising yourself. Yeah, so so what I'm saying is, is rather than compromise, I believe this, but I'm going to do this rather than compromise in that way. You work on what other beliefs you're talking about behavior that.

No, no. Yet compromise is when you change your behavior, but you don't change your beliefs. And we have an example. Like a working life example. OK, so thank you, Margaret. So I can think of one that happened between me and my son, for example, yesterday, but I don't think it was a wee compromise. It wasn't like a belief behind. It was just Wilmont. It one thing going to know if I wanted another thing.

So we had to find a win win situation, which is not right. We didn't really have to compromise our beliefs in that scenario. So if you got a situation where it's about compromise and beliefs, you you able to talk about that?

It was only a little I just wanted to go shopping and I knew I was going shopping just to get food shopping or go on my own last minute. He says, you know, I'm not feeling very well. I was the only one right to go and whatever. And I said, well, I don't really feel like going on my own to feel more secure. He came with me and ended up just being a compromise. He was happy to call me if it meant that he was allowed to buy an extra room that you wanted as soon as it saved enough money.

So he didn't have to wait for it. And he was happy to do it and he was happy to come out shopping like that.

And then so I got what I wanted and he got something else that he wanted.

OK, OK, so. So what? Kind of what you did with sorry, sorry. Sorry, but isn't there a difference between negotiation and compromise and in some instances, some instances, it's it's really negotiating to get something done that has to make sacrifices.

Sometimes I was willing to make a sacrifice at that point. And you just said, no, you know, I'll come with you. So in that scenario, obviously, we all need to make sacrifices sometimes as well.

Okay, so it wasn't really like it wasn't a big sacrifice. It was a sacrifice you were willing to to make in order to get a small example.

OK, so that's a sacrifice is actually compromising and going backwards. Whereas I actually like having something where someone says you can have this if I have as a bargaining state is actually going forward. So once at once.

But yeah, OK. But let's look at a problem that would break a serious relationship.

OK, so one wants a child, one doesn't want a child, for example.

Okay. Because that is something, Soki, that you're willing you would rather leave the relationship than than give up on. So there there are negotiations, like you said, that could work to fix a small problem in order to move forward. But what we're talking about, the problems that break relationships are things like the baby don't want a baby in the move house across the world and not wanting to do that, those kind of things. There are problems that break relationships.

And so a compromise can't work really in there because someone is giving up something that they really care for in order to preserve the relationship. Does that make sense? Yeah, so so what I'm talking about there, where is that kind of problem that's going to break the relationship is you have to. Then work out, what do you really want? And so in the same way, it's sort of in the same process that what you did was you worked out.

You went kind of a layer of what you know, why is it really important to you? Why is it really why don't you want to do this? Why don't you want to do this? And then you were able to find a middle ground. So it's similar in that sense. But it's it's about understanding more of the person. Is understanding what that really means to them so so in terms of if it's about a baby, then you need to get to the truth of it.

Is there any point of, like, commonground? And so why why does one person want the baby? Why does the other one definitely know? And there's going to be all kinds of assumptions and beliefs about that is going to be like.

I hated my childhood. It was horrible. I don't want to bring someone else up into that childhood. I need to feel secure. I need to feel like I've got a certain amount of money that I can bring a baby into the world or someone else might be like, I need a baby because I'm not going to feel complete without a baby. I need a baby because I need that love. And sometimes people who want babies isn't like the baby isn't going to solve the problem.

But there's a problem that they're looking for connection. They're looking for love. They're looking for belonging. And they think a baby is going to give that to them. Does that make sense? Yeah, so is trying to find out what's behind that door. I for one or not one.

Yeah, and if you really get to me and you understand each other the deepest, deepest level and you can appreciate you got lucky, like it's really important to you that you want to. Baby, I'm not will s not willing. You know, there's nothing on me that's changing. It's really important to me.

That's when, you know the relationship is going to work and we can't come to a compromise at that point or one's not willing to give the little for the other or vice versa.

Yeah. And that's when and then there was so much animosity because, you know. Exactly. The relationship just isn't going to work because it's something so key. And so and so you even uncover the solution or you get clear on what is the breaking point of the relationship. That's why I think it's OK to talk about these things prior to getting into a relationship to have sort of sad things.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely. I mean, before you get like white people got married without ever having discussed this. So mostly we just stumble into relationships. Let me just go back, because I think there's a little bit more on here before we discuss it a bit more. OK, so. Right, so now dragons are really a metaphor. And so this is Joseph Campbell and Joseph Campbell just basically studied. He spent his life reading books and then looking at the meaning behind them.

So he he came up with what's called the modern mayfly, the hero's journey of what the key stages of basically every story that's ever been told.

And then he looked at what was what the metaphor and symbology behind it was and what he says. The dragons basically represent greed. And so he said there's a difference between a European version of the Dragon and the eastern version of the Dragon in their mythologies. But the Europeans are lucky. The Knights, where he was slay and dragons were basically gods, things like gods, like heaps of gold and virgins. And it's not that he can make use of them.

It's about greed, it's about the ego and what he says is basically the ego is our dragon's cage. So the point my point in including that is that basically underneath here. And as in Vladimir Vasiliev in martial arts, and he says the goal isn't...

Who Are You? Self Awareness and Acceptance

Tue, 18 Aug 2020 11:32:00 +0100

Who are you?

It's the question others always ask -implicitly if not explicitly -when they first meet you.

Do you know clearly yourself?

On what level?

And how do you express who you are in a way that is authentic and encourages deeper exploration?

This is what we explored on the call.

Transcript

Welcome to honest talk about heartbreak, dating and relationships, relationships, the podcast helping you navigate your path to happy ever after with your host, Rob McPhillips. OK, so we've still got a few people to join. I expect that will be joining us in the next 10 minutes. But rather than everyone wait, I think what it might be best to do is we'll go into breakout groups and just to ask each other the topic of the day, today's meet up career.

[00:42]

And it's just a chance to get to know people. In a little bit more detail. OK, so he had an interesting how did most people respond?

[00:58]

At this point, I want to look to the question of who you are and generally how how did it feel?

[01:10]

Really awkward. Yeah. I think it was quite comfortable because we were such a small group and we were all kind of one, I think.

[01:22]

OK, so what I'm interested in is what were the different answers that people had?

[01:34]

I think for ourselves, we was kind of associating ourselves, relating ourselves to our circumstance with which which we want to. Well, what we're challenged with, like trying to change, like relationship status or trying to.

[01:54]

Stablish Will Hermes. So we didn't identify ourselves, such as about usually what people would do through hobbies, interests. It's because of the nature of this meeting is themed. We we associated ourselves with our status where we are. And what kind of Drew was, hey, I guess we take.

[02:18]

I don't think we're going into any philosophical discussions, at least not while I was desperately trying to connect the. And who are you as a person or personality or I think. Well, I took it literally as a question. What's your background? What are you trying to achieve? I think the rest of the group at the time was discussing a case that was in terms of relationships, because that's the context.

[02:46]

Yes. OK, what about other groups?

[02:52]

I was pretty much similar in our group. It was pretty much, you know, this is my age, this is where I live free and all that sort of thing. This is what I like to do, this demographic and psychographic a group.

[03:09]

We took it a bit further and we can't discuss the tests that we took earlier. And what if we agree with the style and related to that?

[03:18]

Okay, so which test is that the most Brixham and the attachment or the love language mainly.

[03:25]

Okay.

[03:26]

We also had a discussion of about friendships, the types of people who we gravitate towards in terms of developing friendships and whether or not sometimes we need to change those boundaries or those frames that we put around the types of people that we think we are friends with or should become friends with. And maybe we should get rid of those framing parameters and and be more be less choosy.

[04:01]

Maybe we'll make some really interesting friends who just don't fit the usual mold of what we think our friends, you know, of our friends are going to be, because I don't think anybody ever tells anybody how to make a friend.

[04:19]

We just assume that we are able to make friends.

[04:24]

And then we were discussed. Sometimes we make the wrong friends who we meet.

[04:32]

We help people. We tend to be people who help a lot, me and myself. We find that we are nurturers in a sense, but at the same time, do our friends treat us the same? Do we get that back from people? So it's those kinds of things that are coming out for us.

[04:52]

We never did the tests I mentioned. I mentioned what I was and said they would change the mood of in what way?

[05:01]

I am sorry.

[05:06]

So say my what will change in terms of which test you're talking about and what will change the the personality won't come out as the campaign that won't be, and whether that one is depending on where you are in life, depending whether your having a social life or very solitudes life, you may change your answers because I think I've done this of test so, so few times in my life. And I think I've come out differently, depending where whether I feel more isolated or whether I feel over socialized or whether my job challenges top, I am forced to have to speak like in front of people or job challenges forces you to have it likes and dislikes.

[05:52]

So I find that because I've changed so many times in different careers, different areas, I give different answers depending how I feel or what the mood is for that period of time. My life. OK, I was thinking about I was wondering about that, actually, because I have taken it several times or at least a few times and over seven years ago, I think is the first time I took it. And I was kind of wondering if people, people's personality type change because I never did.

[06:29]

It's always been the same, even though I felt like I was different in a way than I was. I feel like there's lots of ways I'm different than seven years ago, but I still have the exact same. So I was wondering if that was similar for everybody, but obviously it's not. So you've got two different ones.

[06:45]

We usually usually it's fairly constant. Like introvert. Extrovert. Yes, pretty much a dimension is the way your brain works can be sometimes things like George, you perceive a can, can change, but generally Montebourg is usually fairly consistent.

[07:06]

OK, yeah, I've always been really consistent.

[07:10]

So what might be really interesting is if everyone if you say a networking or a social event and you were asked to by someone say, who are you? It will be interesting is if everyone can put in a chat how they would answer that. So if you want to put on the spot.

[07:30]

So if this was a networking or sort of social event and you were asked to describe yourself, how would you. How would you answer that question now? We invited in the chat, yeah. Then we can see lots of lots of reactions. But while everyone's talking, if anyone wants to say. I think I'm a complex person in some respects. I can be easy going, I can be very driven as well. Sam.

[08:24]

Very I wouldn't say it's not necessarily a career, but I'd like to learn and I enjoy lively discussions and debates and as a result of that, I don't suffer fools gladly.

[08:42]

I'm very impatient with nonsense.

[08:48]

Yeah, very, very, very short.

[08:51]

And yes, I. Put up with a lot. I can be very patient, so there is that aspect of me, I can be very patient. But at the same time, if you are really being stupid and just ridiculous, then I'm going to explode. So I have a nasty temper, too. But I am also very chilled and very funny. I'm happy I you can tell, OK, I'm gregarious, but there's a shy side to me as well.

[09:24]

So I am everything. How is that for an answer encompasses all, you're not hedging your bets there, are you?

[09:37]

No, no, I know myself. I can tell you I can be very quiet and I listen and everything, and then I can just be noisy. The whole work. Hell, I'm Jamaican, right? You know, a quiet, introverted Jamaican. That's me. But I am. And I like my own company. But I also like a good party. So there it is. OK, I get along better with men than women, the best friends I make out.

[10:18]

Do you want the honest truth? Men, women see me as competition. They don't like their husbands to talk to me in my in my youth. I was considered very pretty. Therefore, I was competition. So women just never liked me. And I decided, oh, well, to hell with it.

[10:33]

I will stick with my male friends always that it wasn't here in the UK. Now Jamaica went to but to Jamaica. And I keep friends for a very long time. Some of my best friends are people that I have known from. My oldest friend, I went to what we call in Jamaica in those days, infant school, which is which would be the equivalent of kindergarten like four or five.

[11:08]

I have one friend from that time and my best friend, I met her at university first day of going to University, age 18. And we have been best friends since and I have my closest friends otherwise were from high school before that 14, 15, 16. I keep my friends. I think I'll have them for a lifetime.

[11:36]

And, you know, like minded. No. Not the different my best friend is is totally different, she's we are, we are. There are lots of similarities, but there is enough difference to make it interesting. She does things that I won't do. Let's put it that way, and we but at the same time, we have a bond that is she's that my sister because I have no sisters. And she's the closest thing to being a sister to me.

[12:14]

OK, so what I'm what I'm looking at is really interesting is, is everybody looking at a chart, they seem like the different ways that people. Describe themselves and see themselves, but there's some people by roll by circumstance, some people by how would you like in this sense of purpose or spirituality? Now, does how you describe yourself change on the context? No. So, yes, how many people would say that they change?

[13:09]

Depending on context or how they describe themselves. And how many would stay constant wherever they are? I think so, because in a professional sense, I would give a different description of myself and the professional ways.

[13:29]

That's the core of a view that doesn't change. You know, I suppose human beings were always looking to connect with people, aren't they? So you try you try and go for some sort of shared experience with whatever group in the state you live. Obviously, there's a lot of you that makes up you. So, you know, if you're if you're sort of out there, then you can choose what you want to reveal and what not. So what gives you about the connection and the context?

[13:58]

But I think, for example, in a professional sense, there are certain attributes that come into play that meant not in terms of a general description, you think of, you know, are you a leader or a team player or do you, you know, certain characteristics such that come to the fore in a working environment, which generally you may not think of off the top of your head? That's what I'm thinking, you know, because it's more it's more defined in a narrow sense.

[14:32]

Whereas in general, you speak about all the aspects of yourself talking about yourself.

[14:40]

But can you be a leader without being a follower?

[14:46]

I don't think so. Because in order to be a leader, you have to be part of the group, and so you must have unless you set up the group, which is.

[15:01]

To some extent, you have to follow others in order to get to that position. And sometimes too often, you are leader to some, you know, in a hierarchical structure, you related to some follow to others.

[15:18]

OK, I've been really stuck with this one because the level of complexity, because normally it's fairly clear cut, it's like there's a problem and you can see where you are before, where you are after. And so. What I want to ask is, what would you like to get out today?

[15:38]

Is it about understanding yourself more so that you're more emotionally balanced and you're personally feeling better and being better version of yourself?

[15:52]

Or is it honestly who you are to express to...

The Inside Secrets On Dating Apps… From A Dating App Creator

Wed, 12 Aug 2020 11:33:00 +0100

In this episode we had a chance to grill Sanjay from elatedate.com to find out how dating apps really work and how to make them work for you.

Transcription

Welcome to honest talk about heartbreak, dating and relationships, relationships, the podcast helping you navigate your path to happy ever after with your host, Rob McPhillips. Sanjay is the creator of a dating app called Like If I just pass you over, Sanjay, you want to just give people a little bit of details about what what I can find out from you.

And yeah. So yeah. So I think I'm seeing some of you guys on this floor.

But yes, I'm the founder of a dating app called a late just kind of launching at the moment.

And I not traditionally from the dating world, like I actually worked in kind of marketing and business. And it's kind of different companies I go to and stuff. But we got into the dating world more recently and working with a kind of a company called Nucleated to build this app and trying to build something a little bit different. So, yeah. So it would be really interesting to hear what you guys kind of think and what your frustrations and stuff with the generally.

And then I'll try and give you a little bit of an insight on what it's like to kind of build one and what it's like to kind of try and match people in an app.

Okay. Well, thank you for being here, Sanjay. Well, while we're waiting for everyone to get on, what we'll do is we'll breakout into breakout rooms. And a topic of discussion is what what is your biggest frustration with dating apps? Hi, and I would say for me on my personal experience, like over the past, I'll say eight years, like it started off with plenty of fish and plenty of fish. And eventually, I got to say, this was like a year ago, I finally decided I just gave up without and deleted it off of delete.

It did not, like, clear my whole profile on the actual site. So I just delete the app because basically. On plenty of fish, for example. I was just never getting any messages from girls that I was interested in. I was just so basically I would always browse through girls close close to my area and I'll drop a message. I'll drop a message I try to make. I tried my best to make the message. The first message, like how you call.

Not to basic, but some to some until I start a conversation, and even now I still get I don't get a single message. I know they've seen my message. They've lots of high profile, but they don't respond back. So that's one. That's one. That's one frustration.

Okay, I'll just put you there. That's what we're going to do, is we're going to go into breakout rooms so we can discuss this in smaller groups. So if you want to discuss it there and what we're going to do is come back to Sanjay's brains of how to find a solution for you.

OK, OK, so I'm just going to send everyone in, will go for 12 minutes, so I'm going to force you should be about four minutes each. I cut you off. I don't know if you want to carry on where you were. Lost from my screen tastelessness. OK, I'll start off like I've been I've been on pretty much every social media to dating sites over the over the years, and for me, me and girls is basically just anything I do to try and like, I just try and get any girls I want.

It's just nothing seems to work for me because I never get anywhere because. Do you think I get with girls it's just endless rejections or time wasters who they're not interested, but they enjoy, like wasting my time one way or another. So I've tried many dating sites from 10 to from Playfish to tender to Cupid to him, you name it. And as I mentioned before, with with plenty of fish, I've actually had plenty of fish over a year ago because I was I wasn't getting nowhere like.

And every girl that I've met on that, no no one wanted to say basically, I just got one girl have got back to me, lots of my profile, but none of them got back to me. So I finally gave up without Amontillado are still on Tinder, but I just barely use it nowadays because. I already get a match, and if I get a match and I'll try to get conversation out of them, just enough conversation so I can get so we can like Gulfton, they'd like see like taxand what's up?

And they don't even even talk back or they'll just say a few messages and then you never hear from them again. OK. Yeah, okay, so that's quite a general thing about dating sites in general is not particularly about the app. It's about like online dating.

Yeah, yeah. OK, so so that's going to be about I don't know if you want to jump in, Sanjay, but I'm just going to say, if I was looking at that, that would be about who you were targeting. The profile that you've got. Something is is evah, not the right matches or that. But I but I think the focus we're going to talk about mostly here is how you can make the algorithms work for you, how what kind of profile.

Whereas I think this is more of a dating question than a dating app. Does that make sense, this is what you think, Sanjay? Yeah, so much on that, and I think it comes down not just to say hello.

Yeah, I can hear you. Can you can you hear, Sanjay this? Yes, well, I think one of the things that I was thinking about this is, you know, it's definitely a frustration that you will experience on one day. There's a couple of things that are fundamentally a problem with the industry that mean it's more like happen. The first one is the massive skew towards male users compared to female users.

So this stat is 60 40 in terms of the 60 percent men vs. 40 percent women. But that's like a general kind of industry wide thing. But it's on some it's far, far worse. So, like the likes of plenty of fish tend. I mean, there's been some there's some statistics that say that Tinder's like nine guys for every one woman, even on Bumble, which are apps that are designed for women or marketed to women, are it's it's way, kind of way more this way more men than there are women.

So that's the first problem. That is just something that unfortunately you just kind of have to deal with. The second thing is in terms of you talking about time wasters and and just kind of not getting anywhere. Another thing to consider is that not all dating apps like that, what you're trying to get from the app in terms of what you're looking for in terms of relationship makes a big difference to the type of that you should use. So I would say never use something like plenty of fish if you're looking for a relationship.

Never use something like Tinder just because the way that the apps are designed aren't made to optimize to a relationship. So Tinder is primarily superficial, even though if you try really hard because it has the most amount of users, you could probably find a relationship on that. My ex I've met on Tinder a few years ago, but ultimately it's a it's a much harder slog because it's a lot harder to find out who is there for what. And then and the other thing to think about is, is the barrier to entry in terms of how easy it is to set up an account.

The easier it is to set up an account, the more time which is you're going to have basically because there's no qualifying of the person who's coming onto the app. If you're going on Tinder, you can do it with a couple of pictures and not say a single thing. And so there's no guarantee that they're actually going to be worthwhile talking to. And a lot of people and there's a lot of stats and data that shows that actually there's a good proportion of people who you go on dating apps like Tinder simply for, you know, to to to kind of pass the time as a game.

I mean, if built like games for a reason, because it keeps people in the. Mm hmm. And another thing like like because if our belly still use and send up a hell of a lot less, because with the experience which I've mentioned before and I've been watching different many YouTube videos, like, I know different Maysam, go out and meet girls outside of the online world as well as. And that unlocks a different day in culture and political parties where they say like, oh oh to do like to go out and meet girls, oh, you must say they saw you must do this or do they do that and go out, go out in the open public knowing in the streets like.

So if we can pull out in a sense and I see girls walking about and just go out and start approaching them all, like our approach goes in on the nightlife life, like she's been looking at looking outside the box, like not limiting myself to just only looking at dating apps.

But guys, I'm going to stop you there because I want to talk about for everyone is so that we can get the most used dating apps. So we're going to do is we're going to talk about dating apps for now, problems with dating apps. And then at the end, when we going through that, we can discuss your particular situation and the questions you ask more of a generic dating rather than what I want to do in our time here is get my most out of dating apps and use them in the most effective way.

So if you have to answer that question, we'll get back to that later. So if anyone else wants to talk, but before they do, if everyone could put some something in the chat, in the chat box about what your biggest frustrations are with dating apps and online dating.

There are some technical things, yes, that can companies do some tricks and they absolutely have some sort of shut out like automatic generated message to people to keep Zino on. And it's not real people. They're some sort of officier algorithm somewhere on their abs or. Yeah.

I mean, can they have fake profiles and can I make it look easy? You mean like they had can I have fake profiles and some scam people.

Sort of, yeah. Or maybe just to keep people on in their tracks. So when sometimes you log into some dating apps and you just immediately started chatting with someone and all you do is ask questions, but you don't really learn anything and you keep answering and you don't get what you ask, which is you don't get a reply at all these sort of things. So this is something made by a company or it is some kind or. Like, what we're doing is we're going to collect the list of problems and in a sense it's going to take us through exactly what the problems are, why and how you can overcome them.

So so, yes, that's basically. Later, about it's about fake profiles or about fake profiles, keep making it look easy. It is. And people engaging people kind of leading them to it.

So this is two ways of looking at it. So one, which is the actual app itself, which is easy because I wouldn't say that the apps themselves are the companies themselves. If we're talking about the likes of 10 to 20 flash all of these big companies, I wouldn't say that they're doing it. Maybe some of the smaller ones, there's what they call them, the affiliate apps. These are basically rescanned versions of of apps. And the whole purpose of these businesses is literally just to get get users in cheaply, make them pay some money, and then they don't care if they lose them because they're not actually trying to get them to match with anyone.

They're just trying to get some money from them. And these companies just constantly spending money on time performance out of paid advertising to bring you in. So that's certainly the type of company that potentially has those sorts of kind of tactics because they're not likely to retain users very well and they're just going to want to try and get you in their place of money. And then if they lose you, they don't take the money, actually. The problem with the bigger apps and things like Tinder that is that there are it's literally big business in in terms of there are entire companies that are in Eastern Europe where they create profiles and they they literally just trying to they're just a bunch of fraudsters.

And they they go to these industry events even though, like, it's well known within the industry that they're kind of creating it. So. It's a problem I wouldn't necessarily say it's always the company itself that's doing it in some instances, it's like so there are certainly some companies that will be creating profiles to make it seem like there's more people on there if they're just trying to get you to kind of pay for a subscription or something. But then on the flipside, there's also a lot of companies.

It goes again back to us. And the the how hard it is to create a profile, the easier it is for them to kind of the fraudsters and the kind of people who are just trying to, you know, to to create the profiles. I you see in Central Park, you can. AK. Unless there's anyone else who's got something to say. And. Yes, sure. Are then, John? Yeah, I just find people that tend to be addicted to using the dating app to talk to people even when they are dating or when they move to a relationship.

Like, when you feel bored, you want to find someone to talk, not seriously. All right. I don't like it. Especially I. I met my. Plus the X from our front door, and we were in a relationship for two years, but he was using Tinder is doing when we are worrying relationship. It's not just happened to me.

It's also happened to so many of my friends around me who, you know, feel bored and switch left and right, just just talk to people and not seriously enough or even when they're in a relationship. Some of them might flirt with other guys or girls. I just started because I find this happens. I think when you feel what you want to use social media getting attention. Yeah.

Okay. Yeah, I think we'll talk about that when we get into more and more depth and. But I do think that is is one of the things I think Sanjay will be able to talk about that later John.

Yeah, I've had mixed experience with. Various dating apps, largely Tinder and Bumble, over the years, I had a two year relationship, it was really good with, um, a Dutch academic and that was great, I must say. Um. I. Feel inhibited by the fact that on a stroke survivor. I made the very good strike survivor, you know, that's what I do as my job, but I'm a barista. I'm representing. Disabled people in claims on the equality rights and.

Think there's a lot to say about it and passionate about it, but I sometimes wonder whether. There's two things which. Conclude the algorithms really working for me. Firstly. It's such a small. Narrow band of people who are disabled and are coming on to website dating websites and to. Maybe if your. Kee. Material concern is how much money to people spend. You have to get them excited by your website and you want loads of people and loads of things that the small groups like, for example, disabled people.

You're never going to get a bomb because what's the point, because they're disabled and they you know, you have versity pretty poor and university university, you know. Frankly, who cares? I mean, that's a maybe a cynical view, but I'd be interested in what Sanchez? And so just to recap, so kind of concern is that the disabled community is definitely under represented and underserved, basically kind of the summary of what you're saying. Yeah, yeah.

I think I think you're right. I don't know of any specific service. I'm sure there probably is. But I'd have to look into it whether there's a specific service for kind of people who are differently abled. And but, yeah, the problem with certainly the bigger ones is that they are designed to be as broad as possible. And so and to kind of put as much as much focus on the users doing the self selection as opposed to then kind of catering to each each different type of segment, I think.

And then on the flip side, there are countless kind of niche dating sites and in fact the majority of new dating sites and dating apps that come about on these apps because it's easier to try and build something that is the same as all the others. But after a specific target market, as opposed to trying to create something genuinely different in terms of the app itself. And so I guess the hope is that that you could be served in that way, because then it's kind of literally capturing those people and and providing that.

But then on the flip side, you the I think the better longer term solution is to just have the major sites and major apps kind of serve them better. So unfortunately, there's not really much I can say in terms of like how we get to that point. But it's a definitely a really good. Thing to raise and hopefully we can kind of move to something. It's certainly something I be thinking about. So this is quite a few I'm going through and trying to make sure everything from the chat, but what I thought would be interesting was if we were to break out into breakout groups and consider.

So still a lot of these. Of these problems, from my view, originate from this, there's a conflict of interest where if you're a user on an app, you want to use the app without buying and you want to get the best match. And whereas the app has to make some money. And so there's always going to be that pressure to push people towards towards paying. So. One way of understanding the problems is if we were to think of what would be the perfect map, what would be the perfect that you would like to use, one that's also going to be sustainable for the company to continue making it.

And so what would be the things that you'd be willing to pay for? What would be the features that you'd want to eliminate? So the discussion is to create a wish list of the perfect app. Yes, everyone, everyone, I just wanted to raise some points, I think, with what you said is definitely regarding paying for the jobs.

For example, I wouldn't mind paying, but I would want some sort of support or guarantee that this app would be able to match me to someone. So I think what that offends me from buying many times is that I feel that maybe it's not worth it or it is not going to work, you know. So also, if the apps or the websites have some sort of how can I say like reliability or some sort of can can give some guarantee that, OK, we are doing this and the potential to work is quite high, then I think paying will not be that bad.

But then again, I've never paid for my website or for an app, so I don't really know.

Yeah. I mean, I would say I'm glad you spoke up because I was looking at not matching to some clarity, but I think I get that in a sense of that you would have pay and then you have met anyone.

Yes. I mean, I think it's one interesting point is what Sanjay said as well about we need to be able to realize what we what we are looking for. So, for example, obviously on Tinder, we will probably not be able to find the citizen relationship. I think this is a problem that I have. Maybe I'm not looking at the right websites and apps, but I think, again, because because as I mentioned as well, there are some websites that they just I think was Sanjay or you.

I forgot that. Just want to make some money then, you know, it keeps people a little bit like, should I, should I pay, should I not? So maybe a website that can give some sort of not a guarantee because nothing is guaranteed. Right. That some sort of like

Make Divorce And Breakups Simpler

Tue, 04 Aug 2020 13:00:00 +0100

In this episode we talked about breakups and our experiences in getting over them.

We talked about the the grief process to getting past the pain.

We discussed the three stories that are key in processing the emotions and learnings we can take as we move forwards.

How To Build Relationships That Last

Tue, 28 Jul 2020 09:00:00 +0100

How do you create a relationship that works for both sides?

A relationship that lasts because it makes both partners feel that they are better in the relationship than being single or with anyone else?

That's the question we addressed in this podcast.

Transcript

Welcome to honest talk about heartbreak, dating and relationships, relationships, the podcast helping you navigate your path to happy ever after with your host, Rob McPhillips.

[00:16]

Okay, so the topic today is the built to last relationship, so they built last relationship for me is is a relationship where both parties in the relationship want to be in a relationship because they believe that it's going to make their life better than being alone or being with anyone else.

[00:44]

So. So the question is, how do we build that? So what we're going to do, we're going to go into breakout rooms and the question I'm just going to share. So the question is more like heated discussion in discussion groups, is the last relationship that you were in or the most significant relationship that you've been in, what happened to Britney care and what was what was missing? Feel comfortable with it is to as briefly as you can, right in the chat box.

[01:35]

What you think was the cause of your breakup or what was missing in your last relationship. But if you can not put anything that you personally identify anyone and what I want, I'll have a look at that and we'll have a look at here. But also, I'd like to kind of break down what the reasons were and sort of look at them in dynamics as in what can we do in the future.

[02:06]

So you just probably just want the reasons for the breakup, you wanting us to write down. Why did what I think was missing? Yes.

[02:15]

So so what caused the breakup? Was it like it could be incompatible, grown apart? It could be infidelity. It could be whatever the reasons are. And yet what or what was missing. OK, so we've got mismatched values, lack of honesty, lack of communication, maturity, lack of excitement, intimacy and humor, help poor communication. OK, so communication is a big. Excitement. I'm going to class personal foundations like emotional communication, compatibility or infidelity.

[03:13]

Okay, is there anyone who who wants to talk about what they talked about in their group? I will. So who's who is this ahead of us? That's going to to.

[03:29]

And I'm trying remember, I think there was two parts to the question I just on. One of the things is like lack of flexibility. So, you know, where these things should things should in between 60, 40, 50, 50, in some instances, things were going 80, 80, 20, that that's what that person expects or wants. And if they don't get what they want, they'll use a number of things like jealousy. And when things weren't going, how they expected and then met on Facebook, I knew will bother me.

[04:09]

I guess it's kind of like playing games, games, games. Yeah, I'm not saying all the time give the woman some credit, but I saw that that was a mutual mate, used to like our common interest and she accepted his friend request, kind of commented on it and she just went, yeah, stay that way. It's still on and off. But you've got to weaken the way we make. You know, I'm not going to get up to anything, it's just booze and because she didn't like it, even though, you know, we're official within each other, we still communicating because she didn't like it said, well, I you don't know either that either of this bloke is a friend.

[04:54]

OK, and that's somebody just coming out and saying, trying to control me and get like, say, my gate. And there is no mind games because I was very close to a young son as well, very close at times. He wanted to spend time with me rather than his mom. I'm not calling her, but it was a little boy to play football and Darren won't play football with you. So she knew she had to. Up to where I was close, or she could use him to get my son.

[05:30]

So was it like that in the beginning or was that how it began?

[05:34]

That's how it became. Yeah, what that scale. I think more that whether she thought six months down the line, a year down the line, it still wasn't going down the route that she expected down that timeline. Then things started to change. The world might live together after 18 months, but I still expect you to stay over. But at one point, her son was getting into the bed every night, book punching and kicking and no violently as two and three year old boys would do, stretching out in the bed.

[06:11]

Then he went through a stage of wetting the bed. So I really want to spend my evening.

[06:18]

So what happened before? So what led to that?

[06:26]

So that was kind of an I don't know, just things probably not going like such a way that you can still see three days, those three days.

[06:40]

I'm just going to meet everyone. Yeah. I say, so he said, what led to that Dejour maybe that maybe just eventually you start to find out what their expectations are, what they see as, how they see how a relationship should be, or they look at other relationships. And if somebody spends six nights a week with their partner, so we start to find out what their expectations are, then you've got to people are probably or even three because there's a child involved.

[07:15]

Still, our feelings towards each other. So I don't know what some of it was, bitterness, so sometimes you might be sat in watching TV and I'm going off to the pub with your mates, but. Yeah, and I'm stuck here with a child, and I think some of them comments used to come out, a couple of friends that but that wasn't your commitment. It's not your son. If you want to see your mate one night a week, you shouldn't be better or angry towards you because she chose to.

[07:47]

That's nothing against any the females she chose.

[07:50]

She wanted to be OK. So, yeah. So so became better because there was a lack of clarity. There was expectations. She became upset and maybe there was like, you know, things just weren't as you would want them to be. And so there was that became the behaviours. Yeah, I think she likes it over opinions and. About, you know, there's a few times where she's talking five, not four or five nights a week.

[08:26]

She gets two nights free without a soul and both of them nights she spent with me. Was there any of any other examples because we're going to try and look at a few different. Examples that we can use. So can I go? Yes, sure. OK, so in our group, we had, I think, two examples that will be written for one of them was we felt was perhaps a couple growing apart and there being no communication between them until one of them drops the bombshell on the other one.

[09:06]

And perhaps but the issue was lack of communication again, but maybe they grew apart and the other one goes around again, maybe perhaps compatibility one partner and not finding the other one is interesting as they want it to be. And again, there appear to be no communication until more or less the last minute, shall we say, and one partner is ready to walk out on the other one. In a nutshell, I mean, I think with the details, if you want, but that's a good summary, A.

[09:44]

Yeah, OK, I said yes.

[09:47]

So basically so again, this is when the connection is kind of gone, is kind of gone without the communication. Yeah. So, you know, in both cases there appears to be no communication until the last minute.

[10:02]

Yeah. OK, so so the commonality there is, is that as we say, there is the expectation there was a communication in terms of knowing what they were expecting. They became bitternesses, excited, because I think the question originally was, how can you build something wrong in your relationship and so on? And I think that can be a very difficult question to answer of what went wrong. Yeah, because when millions of things can go wrong and the longer time you spend together, the more possibilities of things going wrong.

[10:37]

But it wasn't.

[10:39]

But of the question wasn't what went wrong. It was what was missing. Yeah. So that's kind of different because a lot of things can go wrong. But you know kind of what's missing, though, don't you?

Because in the back of your mind, there's that feeling of I like this person, but it isn't quite right, you know.

[11:01]

Yeah. And the communication wasn't there for in both cases. OK, yeah.

[11:06]

Yeah. So so it was what went wrong and then what was missing, which is the next kind of step.

[11:14]

I suppose today's is really about well a lack of clarity, lack of communication.

[11:20]

And that's when things start to go wrong or you're on your way out of it once things have gone wrong. Is there anyone else?

[11:32]

I, I could go, um. Can you hear me? Yeah, yes, yes. So in a while, I'll talk broadly about the group. So we we had three people that spoke and and again, there was lack of communication, long distance relationship one person had and then growing apart, two actually had long distance relationships and there was no intimacy in communication. It was just day to day mundane. But the actual fulfillment within, you know, emotional fulfillment, within communication maybe wasn't there.

[12:14]

And then personally, my latest relationship broke down because I think I didn't view him in a realistic way. I had kind of this romantic idea of who I thought he was and that wasn't him at all. And it became clear over. But it took a long time for the penny to drop for me.

[12:45]

Yeah. Which I'm ashamed about. But that's the truth of it.

[12:50]

Hmm. OK, so, Tony, look what's common to all of them. It's kind of like. It's when you lose the connection and when you lose the connection, you become aware that you can't communicate and you can't bridge that chasm is that seems to be OK. It's also about the quality of communication, I think, with something as well.

[13:21]

So you can be talking to each other quite a lot. Obviously, it's about the quality. It's about making sure that you know what that person still wants, I suppose, as well.

[13:32]

I'd say the once as well, because if you want different things, you can communicate until the cows come home as well as you possibly can communicate. But if one person's really sound, one part, one in one direction and another is not in another direction, that's, you know, how much communicate, you can't bridge that gap.

[13:51]

So, yes, so it's both being committed and to communicate on the same level and also one in the same things in life might one in the same direction and wanting the same things to make sense in terms of when you say wanting the same things.