HEAL TRAUMA

“You reframe it and say, my boundaries are not gonna push them away. My boundaries are gonna keep the good person, and it's gonna protect the relationship. Because boundaries are not pushing good relationships out. They're just protecting good relationships. So speaking up and saying, hey, Chris, you did this one thing and it hurt my feelings. And I would like for us not to do that. That's me saying, if you wanna stay in a relationship with me and if I wanna protect this relationship between us, I have to say this. That's my advocacy for what we have.”

“That's the balance between when you become biochemically hijacked, right, where you just the chemistry just feels so intense and you're like, but I just want that person. Like, I just want that person and it becomes a challenge and everything in you is giving off the pheromones that, hey, I'm available to you. Right? And so there's a sure, that's one part of us is our biochemistry, but the universe didn't just give us that. It also gave us a frontal lobe. And that part goes, Yeah. This drug might give me energy, but it also will make me lose all my money. Or this person is incredibly handsome, but they're gonna break my heart. Right. But that requires pause. It requires processing. It requires going. I know what I'm feeling. I'm feeling attracted to this person, but let me take a pause. Let me think about it. Let me step away because if I act right now, I'm going to act on biochemistry. And that has nothing to do with mental clarity. It just has to do with in the feelings, the the the sphere you just described, and that doesn't tell me anything about how this person's gonna treat me.”

“So the people who are emotionally unavailable have a much better time on dating apps than the emotionally available people. Why? Because emotionally unavailable people are looking for dopamine. They're looking for comfort. They do not want to put in a lot of effort in a relationship. They do they do not have the capacity to put a lot of effort into it. Whereas emotionally available people are looking for consistency and follow through and to focus on one person at a time. And dating apps and swipe culture is all about the dopamine of more and more and more. And the more options we have, the less invested we are in those options.”

“Because obsession is rarely ever about the other person. Obsession is about nervous system activation. Because in early dating, you do not have enough data to know if this person is compatible with you. You do not know enough about their patterns. You do not know enough about alignment between you two. And so if you're feeling obsessed in early dating, meaning you can't stop thinking about this person, you're having intrusive thoughts about this person, you're constantly waiting for their messages and rereading messages, that's your nervous system saying something is uncertain, and the nervous system is designed to create certainty out of uncertainty. So when a person is inconsistent and they don't give you enough clarity, the likelihood of obsession is much higher in that situation and that connection than a person who gives you stability and clarity early on.”

“I used to watch movies, and I love gradual development. I love seeing character development. I love kind of psychological thrillers are my thing. I like to know how people think and solve an issue. Nowadays, movies start in the middle at the most emotionally gripping part of the story because we don't have the attention span to sit through character development anymore. And that's the same with dating. We want to know the most intense part first because we don't wanna sit through, I gotta take her on another date and I gotta find out where she's from and I gotta find out what he's into and what was his life like and his childhood. Because people just wanna know, is he making me feel the biochemistry that I'm used to when I get Amazon next day delivery, when I get Uber Eats, when I get Instacart, when I fast forward commercials? That's what I want. I want it right away, and I don't wanna wait.”

“The wrong people oftentimes are the emotionally unavailable people, the people who do not have the capacity to sustain something substantial with you. So whenever there's uncertainty and unpredictability, there's dopamine spikes, which is highly addicting. There's also cortisol spikes, which is highly stressful. And then there is nervous system dysregulation because the nervous system is designed for certainty. So the wrong person triggers uncertainty in you and all your brain and your nervous system wants to do is focus in on this person to get clarity. And so you're really chasing clarity, but you're now reframing it as I must really love this person. And I can't get I can't stop thinking about them. So I'm wondering if they were my person all along. No. That's just your nervous system trying to regulate itself.”