Pacing: The Discovery You Can't Rush

It is so exciting when you've met someone you like and they like you back. And you might feel tempted to do a few things that are familiar to me. You might want to lock them down, you might want to run away, or you might want to figure out where this is going immediately, even though neither of you actually know that yet. This is the slow dating season. So we're gonna get a bit deeper than the usual about why pasing is important and how to support yourself long enough to chill out and let something beautiful emerge.

Today's episode is all about pacing, which is a discovery process you just can't rush.

And make sure you stick around until the end because we're actually going to walk you through two really important practices. One is a somatic practice to be with your body, to then drum roll, do the hard thing, which is the shadow work that helps us uncover like what the heck is happening when we're going through that rush? Why are we behaving the way we are? And why are we feeling so swirly? So we have 10 awesome juicy shadow work prompts for you, and you're not gonna want to miss that.

There are a lot of good reasons why it's hard to slow down, why we wanna lock this situation in. And the urge makes sense in so many contexts. Dating is no exception to that. We wanna harvest before the fruit dies on the vine. We wanna lock people in before they can learn more about us and possibly reject us. And we don't like sitting with uncertainty general.

That chemical flood that rushes in when we're excited, we've met someone that could be the one is actually a lot of big feeling and big sensation to hold and be with. So none of us want to slow down and feel that. We just want to go, go, go.

And our fears about not knowing what's next are also a lot to hold. These are big sensory and emotional things. And in that context, certainty feels like safety and uncertainty feels like danger. So obviously we try to create this sense of safety within us.

You can probably imagine or remember being a little kid and not knowing what's about to happen next and how scary that feels. So I think it makes sense that when we don't know what's gonna happen, there's a part of us that feels uneasy and just wants answers. So there's that bit that leads us to rush. And then I think, I mean, this really applies to me. When you go through childhood and you feel like my needs don't get met, there isn't this abundance.

abundance of attention and welcoming for me. And all of a sudden you're dating and you're meeting someone that you like and they like you too. And you finally have this chance of getting this attention and acceptance and this, you know, good feeling experience with someone that you've always longed for, you're gonna want to lock that down. You're gonna want more of that. You're gonna want more now. And that's how it was for me.

And I think we seek to avoid disappointment by trying to identify up front whether there will be any, you know, that childhood feeling of something going differently than you expected or experiencing some kind of disappointment. We're unconsciously trying to avoid that for the rest of our lives in various ways.

Yes.

So

I must know now what this good feeling thing is going to turn into. One of the fears that can really push us to want to rush is also this fear of wasting our time. You know, I've gone on many dates, had relationships that didn't work out, and when I'm dating again or I'm finally in something that's starting to feel good, my fear brain says, Are we wasting our time? Don't waste your time. Figure this out fast. Get the answers now because time is ticking.

And we want to be aware of that fear running the show.

Yeah, that's also the trap of not wanting to make the same mistakes, which really means that you're seeing the same mistakes being possible in front of you instead of seeing what's actually there.

When we rush things and we push for things to move a certain way, it can feel like we're in the driver's seat, like we have some control of a whole lot of unknowns, and that can bring us a lot of comfort. But it also comes at a cost. It

It does. And the cost is you're not letting the thing that it wants to be emerge. And that's really what we're all after with this falling in love thing in the first place.

To let something emerge and be present enough to see it and feel it and engage with it and enjoy it. Hallelujah.

For all this talk about pacing, you might be saying, Yeah, I already know that. And I ask you, does that knowledge help you? Has it assisted you in the pacing when you feel the first sparks of chemistry with a person and that connection? It probably does not, because these are patterns that are wired into our bodies, our physiology, and our subconscious. They are not affected by all the beautiful knowledge and logic that we have in our conscious mind.

It's such a shame. If I could just be operating based off of all the things I know would be good for me, life would feel a lot easier. Knowing and understanding something says nothing about our ability to actually do it. If that were the case, I would not be scrolling for hours at night when it would be better for me to go to sleep or eat chocolates in bed because that feels cozy, but not really helping me meet my health goals. And I think we can all relate to

Knowing does not mean I'm able to do it and to do it well. What makes it all even trickier is when we're feeling uncomfortable or scared, that's definitely not the time we're going to do the thing we know would be best to do. That's when the body takes over and that fear energy takes over and panic is there and overwhelms there, and it says, just go do the old thing that you know.

Yeah, absolutely. And the way that you build this capacity is by practicing. So this is reps. Reps seems to be like the theme of the world right now. Reps, practice, continue the doing. And we would recommend actually doing it in circumstances that aren't super heightened, like when you're in the throes of a chemical romance with somebody new. This is the work that we do in our relationship lab, in our conscious relationship trainings, is practicing where the stakes are low, where you're not super activated.

And then guiding you through actual activation so that you can practice this stuff and gain the reps even while you're activate.

And it makes it so much easier. Once you've had those reps, not only do you build the muscle memory, but you feel more confident in yourself to be able to do the things you know would be helpful to do.

So when that chemical rush first hits, you've actually started a relationship, you're super excited. Does that huge rush actually mean all of the magical things that we think and hope it means, Chi Chi?

Well, it depends if you think it means this is my person, we're gonna get married, we're gonna be happy forever, and they're never gonna upset me just like every other ex did. And no, it does not mean that. It could mean this could become something really beautiful. We just don't know yet. Yeah. Because we still need to spend time with this person and spend time apart from this person.

And notice what comes up for us and for them, right? So the big feeling I I made this mistake so many times is I thought big rush of love feelings, big rush of lust feelings, even big rush of things seem to feel really good with us. There's a great flow and energy here. We have a great vibe between us. I mistook that to mean this is the one. I didn't give myself the time.

to really slow down and watch actually what was happening, feel what my body was noticing. I would brush off these things because I took the big rush to mean this is it. This is the one.

Yeah. This is the point of why we're wanting you guys to slow down and why we're trying to give you the tools to help you do that and to see reality while you're still enjoying this rush. Cause there's stuff that only time will tell. And that's another thing that we all know. And it just doesn't matter by the time we get there because we've gotten so involved and we're so identified with this person and all of our eggs are in this basket.

And then you just can't extricate yourself. You know, you've become entangled in such a way that you can't see anything other than this direction. So we want to keep like a periscope of all the directions around us all the time so that we can be with life instead of just a moment or a rush.

Mm-hmm. I think we have real evidence of this. Most of us have probably experienced feeling this big, beautiful rush, so confident this is it. And then ultimately it crashes and burns. Like, I don't know. Has that happened to you?

Almost exclusively.

Like I was a member of that club. And that disappointment, like what's sad about this, if I look back in hindsight, is that crushing disappointment of when it feels like it's such a high to watching it crash and burn, it actually for a lot of us puts us back into hiding and thinking that nothing good is possible or I can't trust my gut. And we actually pull ourselves out of.

the game, if you want to call it we pull us out of the opportunities that would help put us in a place to meet our person because we're so deflated. If we hung out and saw and felt and enjoyed what was really in front of us, I think we'd have a lot fewer of these crash and burn moments.

Yes. Maybe so I'm certainly not this person, but I certainly know people like this and maybe you do too. People whose relationships start coming apart and it doesn't seem to completely catastrophize everything for them. They're just like calmly talking about how, you know, this doesn't seem to be working out. Maybe this isn't what I thought it was. And I'm like, how are you not, you know, devastated and crawling into a hole? And it's because they see more than just this person.

which is not an experience that I used to have. I couldn't see the larger world. I could only see my hopes and dreams. And if anything detracted from that, I was pretty ruined. And I'm certainly not alone in that experience. These are the tools that we're giving you that will help you expand that lens so that, you know, you don't feel destroyed if things aren't exactly the way you dreamed and hoped they would be.

Yeah. Because along the way, we're seeing all the components of it. And so if it works out, we're like, yeah, that makes sense. I was seeing all the components, signs were pointing to this gonna work out. If I look at my relationships that didn't work out, and this is not a judgment of myself, I know why I did this at the time, but in hindsight, if I was watching and paying attention to all the things that were actually happening in front of me.

It would make a lot of sense that this was not working out.

A hundred percent. Yeah. Yeah. When I look back on the past relationships and it's like, at what point would I have done things differently? I wouldn't have gone near any of these situations. You know, the stuff of today can see a lot more of the landscape.

Yes. So bless all of us and the parts of us in the past and maybe even some of your current parts that rush into wanting connection and acceptance and to enjoy the beauty of something that feels really good because that's a really human thing. Now we're just saying, how about we also learn to pace and slow down and be with things as they emerge and evolve.

Yeah. While valuing ourselves and our needs tier tier.

What you mean?

All right. The art of holding multiple realities at once. Yeah, you've started this relationship, you have hopes and dreams, you also have reality, and you know that a lot of reality has not yet presented itself. And we need to know all of that before we can really know if this is going to be your person, the long-term match that you're looking for. Holding two realities at once is a muscle that we need to grow.

When you can't hold both at once, your mind will present you with a false choice. It wants to resolve the tension by either giving you certainty or by shutting down. So this is where you might experience the either go all in right now or just run away.

What you're talking about here is what happens when we let excitement run the show, right? So when I have let excitement run the show, I have seen this person every day. We have done sleepovers right away. We go on a trip, you know, very quickly into things. And again, none of these are bad per se, but it's noticing whether it's coming from a groundedness, this feels like a true right timing for this.

or whether some fear is running the show of if I don't lock this down, this person might run away and choose someone else. And so letting excitement drive the bus has had me marrying the person in my mind very early in and then ignoring a lot of the red flags that would have been really good for me to pay attention to.

For those of you who've listened for a while, you might know that I was an accidental lesbian for 15 years. And one of the things that lesbians are famous for, and of course this is not all lesbians, is bringing a U-Haul to the second date and moving in. Because the criteria is basically, I like you. Do you like me? Yes, we can make this work, and we will until we don't. And then we move in with each other, hence the you haul. And part of that is the excitement running the show, right? Part of it

is our beautiful loving, hopeful arrogance that we can make anything work and that, you know, we're likable, they're likable, what could go wrong, right? We ignore long term compatibility. And then in modern times there's also a really important consideration, which is financial stuff, right? So if you're hoping to be rescued financially by another person or to make your burden lighter, then you can very quickly become financially entangled with someone.

So they're right off the bat. There's zero pacing. It's I like you, do you like me? Yes, we now live together, the end.

There's a lot of really good stuff to touch on here. Because the opposite end of that spectrum is when fear drives the bus and it has us running away and calling it quits and saying, I know this is gonna burn itself to the ground eventually. Everything I'm ever in burned to the ground or every person I've ever been with, it's great at first and then they run, right? So I better cut and run before I actually hang out and see.

If maybe this time there's a different possibility, a different outcome. Holding excitement and the yuckiness of the unknown. I'm going to call it yuckiness of the unknown for now, and I'll say more about this later, was really hard for me before. I hated it. I didn't know how to do it. I only primarily knew how to ride the excitement bus. I wasn't much of a runner. But when I was in the beginnings of my relationship.

My current relationship. I remember feeling so excited. I remember calling Steph and I'm like, this feels so good. And I'm so excited. And everything has just felt so right. And then I also balled my eyes out to Steph. And I was crying. And I remember saying, like, my heart just cannot take another heartbreak. It just really, really can't. It has gone through so much.

I have worked so hard to get myself and my children through really hard times. I don't know if I can do this again. I don't ever want to experience that level of heartbreak and betrayal and disappointment again. And I remember you reminding me, and of course, like in a calm moment, I could probably access this factual data.

But in those moments of deep overwhelm and this fear of experiencing something that has been so bad in the past that we know very well, it was easy for me to forget, which was, you said, he's not the same man. He's a different man. And in every piece of data you've collected so far, which is still not going to be every piece ongoing, but so far the information that you have.

Is he behaves very differently in relationship than these other people you've been really hurt by. How about we just ride this wave and see what happens? And thank goodness I could come to Steph with that. Because I think this is the thing is to feel excited and to feel scared makes a lot of sense. But it's when we dump all that fear.

Onto this new person we're together with, whether it's just excessively going on about our fear and wanting them to reassure us that they're different, or trying to manipulate and control, push things faster than they're going, to not have to potentially experience that disappointment. None of that serves the getting to know the real person you're dating.

takes time and pacing and for you to be chilled out enough to let it happen without projecting all your crap on them, right? Yeah. So there's two things I want to say to this. The all men this is a different man, that piece, right? Imagine a world where every man you've ever encountered has only done something kind or loving or given you candy or stuff like that. You're

Field of vision when it comes to uncertainty will have a very different set of context than, you know, men have broken my heart, men have lied, men have done all these things. By chance, by some magical chance, you happen to have been born in the world where all men just give you candy. When you're sitting with uncertainty, it's going to feel very different than the uncertainty where the unknown has been full of heartbreak and all these things. So what I'm wanting to emphasize there is.

Your set of circumstances has informed your point of view right now. And outside of that narrow point of view that I, you, we all have, there is literally every other possibility. And so this is what we want to make space for in that moment where you have uncertainty. There's all your programming that's going to tell you all the things you should worry about. And then there's literally every other possibility that you can tune into in that moment.

And the other thing I want to say about this relates and it's about ego collusion, right? So Georgiana could call me and I could remind her this is a different man. And that's because I've done all this work as well to realize that he's a different man. We just don't know yet. We don't need to fill in the blanks with shit, you know? We could fill it in with, I don't know and I wonder, and something lovely, you know, something hopeful. It's a choice. If you're calling your friends and they're saying, yeah, he probably is a piece of shit.

Guess what that's reinforcing in your mind? You know? There's so many messages that we can be giving to each other, including this is a different man and we just don't know yet. And can we ride the wave? Right? This is why we want you guys to be practicing this stuff in groups together where you can check yourselves on your own nasty world views and see what else might be available to you.

Yeah,

it's really important to have people in your life who do not believe that the best way to support you is to agree with you.

Yes.

Right. Of course we want people to agree with us. It's gonna feel most comfortable. But if I really now that I've experienced what it feels like, if I really want to be supported, I wanna be with people who will be honest with me and that they feel that is the best way to love me as a friend. And sometimes it's gonna say, Hey, Gigi, this is a different dude. Right. Okay, thank you.

It doesn't mean that my fear is invalid. It doesn't diminish how heartbreaking my past experiences were. It's just naming the fact that this is a different person. When you practice doing this work, I never thought this was possible, but I'm gonna say it here. There can come a time in your life where holding both, holding excitement and the unknown actually feels fun. Like fun and delightful because you're like, wow.

What else great could happen here? It feels really nice. I went through that middle part. I'm gonna call it the middle part of my relationship, getting to really swim in that. In wow, this is feeling good and that is feeling good. And I'm so delighted to see what happens next. I have no idea. I don't know who we're gonna become for each other and how long this will last, but I'm excited to find out.

Yeah. It's an expansive feeling. Like I now have a visceral sense of these two different mindsets in my body. When I'm trapped in my fears, it is like being in a little cage with little scraps. And when you step out into this possibility scape of ooh, I don't know and I wonder, it's like a cornucopia of the universe. Like everything is there. It feels really big and like so much choice within them.

Hm. For me it's like the mountaintop meadow, right? Where like the sun is shining, the sky is blue, the grass is lush and like the air is fresh and anything's possible.

Nice. And I love that because these are now like felt sense cues we have that tell us where our head is at and that can give us pause and be like, whoa, I suddenly am feeling like I'm in a mountaintop meadow at all. Let me pause and see what I could tweak in this moment to be with reality. How are some ways that you tended to write this story ending when you were dating?

Mm. I noticed I wrote the story differently depending on which old wound was still open for me. yeah. Yes. So at the time where the wounding was who will choose me? Like, am I choosable? Am I lovable? The ending was just finally someone who will choose me and be nice to me. That was the ending. Like this will be my person.

Doesn't leave a lot of room for anything.

to happen, hey? What do you mean? And what's interesting is, you know, not that at the time I wanted the feedback. Like this person actually said to me, like I feel sort of like I don't know if he used smothered, but but but something. And what a shame because there are actually really great parts to our connection. And I'm sure the part of me that had that gaping old wound of

Who will actually choose me caused me to push and want certainty and want to move things faster than maybe he was ready for. And it was also true that his comfort was to pull back and run away. So, like all of these things had truth in them. But when you bring them all together with two people who are blinded to the fact that their old wounding is actually what's running the show.

It takes a connection that is really beautiful and could potentially turn into something wonderful. And it just lit it on fire in our case. It didn't feel good. It didn't feel good for either of us.

So you you implied something there. This is the person who's gonna choose me f like forever, I think, is what you said. If there is layered an always. We refer to the alwayses and the nevers. These are ways we write the ending in in various circumstances. So right there you've got once this person has chosen me and made me feel good, that's their job in every moment until the end of all perfect.

So

what's interesting is I wrote this story of this is going to be the person who's gonna choose me and be nice to me forever. La di ja, let's live into that story. And also, but what if they don't? And like, so it's like two sides of the same coin running the show, right? I've already defined what we're gonna be and locked us into this story, my fairy tale.

But my nightmare also lives in this relationship,

Yeah.

which is that you're gonna leave me and choose someone else. And

Yeah.

your face, your face, face. I think that's probably how he felt. And and then my fear is showing up in this relationship too, and wanting answers to everything and wanting certainty to everything, and wanting us to lock things down really fast. So it was all playing.

This is giving me the visual of walking on a knife edge, where one side, so you have to walk this very thin, very sharp edge, and on one side is my ideal perfection, and on the other side is all my fears and horrors. And this is then paired with the visual of just flopping the knife down on its side so you can walk along the fat wide edge of the blade and have more more options available to you, a little more space to move, to exist.

I don't know what you're talking about. I mean, I know what you're talking about in in it being different, but at that time this was unfathom unfathomable to me. Yeah. The idea that I didn't know how it was gonna turn out and that could be a delightful thing to not know how it was gonna turn out. And I could just hang out in the relationship and see. Mm hmm.

That wasn't part of the multiple choice answer options for me. I did a lot of work after that relationship because it was really one that shattered my heart into pieces. And it did a lot of work to realize like I'm choosable, I'm lovable. Like I don't need someone to actually tell me that or prove that to me. But then there was this tricky other one that maybe I wasn't ready to fully see, which was the wound of I'm a single mom with two kids.

And who would choose us? We're some type of broken family kind of thing. Although I don't actually believe that. But like it just touched on this core wound of mine of we're not good enough. We're not as good as these other people. And it's just another reason for someone to not choose me because my kids are this extra burden instead of wow, someone might potentially see this as a

beautiful honor to get to be a part of our life. And so when that wound was was running the show, when I met someone who was all into family and loved my kids and wanted to like be so involved in our lives and my kids' lives, I was like, okay, wrote the story. This is the one. This is the one. We're gonna have this beautiful blended family together. And la di da, we're gonna have a great life.

This is a great distinction. Consciously, you knew that you had value that some people would like family people, that this was a possibility for you. But the wound is what runs the show, right? So we might consciously think we're great and we're worthy and everyone is worthy of love. And we might parrot this message out into the world. But when it comes down to it, it's our subconscious beliefs and our wounds that are actually going to be showing up in this interaction. So you can be saying, I'm amazing.

While feeling deeply not amazing and while unconsciously assuming that you're gonna be rejected. Even if somebody is in the moment accepting you, you will hear rejection. That's wild.

Fun stuff. Lots of layers. Lots of layers that get revealed in our tendencies to either rush or our tendencies to run.

One of the ways that we write the ending earlier, try to force an outcome. Overattaching after one good date or a few good dates, right? Making this your husband, which we're keenly aware of that habit. Planning the future in your head. So there's you know, there's a difference between having a daydream and noticing you're having a daydream, and planning the future. If it doesn't go well, you know, I'm attached to this future, you're bad and wrong if you don't give it to me.

Pulling back to stay safe is another way that we write the ending. And then testing them for proof. Classic. Testing them for their answers for evidence that they are either good or bad or whatever your unconscious story is.

There were two traps I often found myself falling into. And one is taking what someone is implying and turning that into a story. And an example of that is in this relationship with someone, they knew that one of my sort of big dreams was to be able to be in a Westphalia camper van and go on adventures. And so one day he said,

Ooh, I've been looking at a few West Valley events. I was like, ooh, made it mean all sorts of wonderful things. Like for sure we're gonna be together forever now. And he says, and you know, I've been looking at the West Valley events because it seats a lot of people.

It's not part of my dream.

Well, it was because I made it mean it means that you want me and my kids.

I see, said

Yeah. And like I remember the moment that I could feel it was being implied. And then I gave confirmation that I picked up on the what he was implying. And then we merrily just went along with that without further clarifying anything else.

Yeah.

But that was locked in. That was locked in as, well, that's clear now. This guy is planning the future with me.

A future that includes my kids and my dream of this West Valley event and going on adventures.

Yeah.

That was not reality. Right. The reality was he told me he went to look at or was looking at some West Valley events. I don't I even actually know if he went and saw them, or if he just told me that he went and saw them, or he just told me that he was thinking of them.

This is brilliant. Wait, I must pause you there because he's told you this detail. And when people tell us things, we illustrate it in our mind visually. And then that's what we remember later, right? You're like, but I can picture him going and looking at the vans. Like I'm sure he was there. I'm sure that's what he meant. I'm sure that's what he said. Because the story becomes so vivid in our minds.

Yes, right? So I am guilty of taking what I think someone is implying and turning it into a vision for our future. And I am also guilty of taking what someone says. I remember someone once saying, I would feel so proud to walk down the street with you on my arm as my partner. I was like, my goodness, wow, it's gonna happen. This is my person. It's gonna be the one. They're gonna be delighted to be with me.

Well, it never really happened.

Right. Yeah, I have this same is it an illness? Is it a something to to manage where I believe what people tell me and where I project that meaning into my vision of the future. This is just normal brain function, right? This is what people do. And especially if you've been surrounded by people who like follow through on what they say, you're gonna expect that from everybody. And this is why partly pacing is important, because we're learning a whole new reality of a whole new person.

Where we actually don't know anything at all.

No, and I think it's a beautiful human quality to believe the best in people and to believe what people say. But I have learned a nuance that I can believe what they're saying in this moment, and it will still be their actions over time that confirm it. Right? Because there will be people

Who say things who are intentionally trying to deceive us. And then there will be people who genuinely believe what they say. It's truth for them, but they may or may not have the capacity to actually bring that into life. I didn't know how to see and feel the nuance of that before. I just grasped and clung on to any words that fit.

The narrative that relieved me from my old wounding.

Indeed. Okay, there's one that I've got here, which is a bit of a sideline, but I'm a person who's tended to date. I mean, I've dated people that I don't know, but I've dated also a lot of people that I've known for quite a while. And that adds a new layer of confusion because you're like, I know this person. This person actually already loves me, which really feeds into my story of, now we're getting married, right? Why wouldn't we? We've known each other for eight years or whatever it is.

The reality is that people are very different in friendships than they are in relationships. Right. Relationships is where all of our stuff comes to the surface, all that subconscious stuff and all of our expectations. And so what we're suggesting here is that you slow down and you let that unfold and you bear witness to it while still hopefully enjoying some of the excitement at the same time.

Right. The data that you had with this person or these people are you had the data of what is it like to be in friendship relationship with these people. But you had not had the data of what is it like to be in romantic relationship with these people. And that's why like collecting data has a lot of parts to it. Right. And this is why I think sometimes we can feel so defeated.

When our friends are so excited to set us up with people who they are like, this is a stellar human being, because they are probably a stellar friend. But like not all people who do friendship really well or certain friendships really well can do intimate relationship really well or can do intimate real relationship really well with who we are and what we bring in, right? Because it it's always a different mix.

Yeah.

And I think

I had to realize that. I remember being set up by friends and I'm like, okay, like they speak very highly of this person. And I know they're people of integrity and they're fun people and they're people who know me. Surely this has great potential. And then I went on, you know, a couple dates and like we liked each other enough and it was sort of progressing. And then I was like, I really don't like how this dude shows up. So many mixed messages.

I was like, what kind of dude do these friends of mine set me up with? Yeah. But the reality was in friendship, he was of very high integrity. His actions matched his words. But in intimate partnership or in dating, that wasn't the case.

Yeah. I wonder if there's somewhere in here to talk about like the ick and and like assumptions based on context. So let me just share the contents of my brain with you here for a moment, see what you think. So a couple things. I've recently had a bout of visiting someone in the hospital and seeing a lot of doctors. And every time a doctor came in who was a man, you know, I had whatever fantasy I had about you know, th this guy's hot.

He's a doctor, what does it mean? Is he my husband? And a couple of them I felt very attracted to their like official demeanor and their expertise. And so I clocked, like, that's you know, it's hot when a guy knows what he's talking about and he's confident, obviously. And then I thought if I had no context and I saw him on a dating app, I'd be like, farewell, you know, immediate farewell on site. Good day to you, sir.

And then I realized, okay, so I should be, you know, more open to like people who might not be photogenic or whatever. Hello, me. And maybe I would like them in X, Y, or Z context. And it's like, okay, but this is an X, Y, or Z context. They're not my medical doctor. They're my husband. And I'm not going to be seeing them at work. You know, I'm going to be seeing them getting out of the shower naked. So there's that aspect. That's one of the contents of my brain right now.

And the other is about a fella that I knew who was very appealing in many respects. And part of my work is letting people be their complete selves, including the unappealing aspects, and still feeling love and care and respect for them. But there was a bridge too far. And it was so sad because things were lovely. And then he introduced Dirty Talk, which I'm great.

Dirty talk it up. But whose fucking voice was that that you just produced out of your mouth in my ear? It was this little gomery, weird voice that was not his voice. And I everything in my body shut down immediately. I heard it was three words, and I was like, my God, you have to leave. We can never do this again. I'm sorry. Good day to you, sir. that was the contents of my head. I don't know where they.

I think they fit in this whole sacred time of data collection because the truth is that parts of what you experienced with this person were delightful and great. And parts of them less great. And you wanna have all those pieces of data and like sit with how that feels for my body. How does it feel to do different el elements of life with this person I feel?

All these different things with. Does it feel good? And this is the thing where there's no black and white answer. Cause you could say, do the good things outweigh the bad things? But like to what degree are you like, well, 1%, yes. Or are you looking for like 95%? The good has to outweigh the bad. Like it's so subjective. There's so many nuances, and that's why it's not an equation. It's like take your time to get to know someone and collect all this information.

Yeah. And to know yourself. You know, at that time I didn't know myself well enough or trust my voice well enough to be able to just say, Whoa man, who the hell was that that just came out of your mouth? I enjoyed that. Except for the tone. Could you lower that several octaves and gruff it up a little bit, you know? And perhaps he could have done that and then we could have had a lovely time and been wed. But you know

Okay. So this is also, I think, a really neat thing. Cause you are describing in that moment the ick. Yeah. Right? The ick came over you in that moment. And right. And here is where we take different off ramps. Because one of the off ramps is I felt an ick. I gotta run. Yeah. And I gotta run fast. The other one is I felt an ick. I wonder if I could talk to this person about this.

And like collect more data. Like, is this just how they are? Are they open to trying things differently? That would be good information to know. And I guess for some people, they're like, even if they could do it differently from this point forward, the fact that this happened one time and this is within them somewhere, it means they are not my person. Maybe that's you and that's okay. But you wanna, you wanna have different.

Pathways you can take and know them instead of only having one default one that's often a protective pattern.

Indeed. Perhaps, dear listeners, you can identify with this as well. I once also received an ick from a man who was a great guy. He was just great in every way. But then he danced at a nightclub and I had to go forever. And now, you know, thirty whatever years later I'm like, could he have been the great guy? You know, could he have been the one? And depending where I'm at in my cycle, I might feel quite sad about that, or I might like, Whatever, didn't happen. This is also an important key.

to notice. For the women specifically who have cycles, this is something to notice in your pacing. And it might take you days or weeks or months to go through your cycle and actually notice how you feel at different times and to not let your ick take over and wonder, you know, 30 years down the line if you let a good one go because you just didn't know yourself well enough to sit still and find out.

This is really important and it makes me think about this other thing, which is be aware of the level of nervous system activation, or I'll call it stress. That might be something that we are more familiar with. How stressed are we week to week, day to day? Because however taxed or stretched or overwhelmed you feel is going to impact how you experience and perceive and see someone. Right? So

Sometimes it's not actually that it's not the right fit, but you're really overwhelmed right now. And like it just takes the tiniest thing to throw you over the edge to make this seem like this is a no for you. Yeah. Right. So that's why the somatic practices that we walk you through here in the relationship lab and in CRT, they're really important. Because for me, I know that I can be more critical of my partner when I'm feeling taxed. When

I'm like not feeling taxed, like he can do that thing and it it doesn't register in me as like I might actually even find it endearing.

Yeah. Mental state and our past experience affects the way we write the story. And what we're telling you here is that writing the story is a fun mental activity, possibly, or possibly a grueling one, but it defeats the purpose. It actually interrupts the entire process of being able to see who's in front of you, determine whether they're a good match, and then let a relationship emerge.

This is sacred time. This time you learn to give yourself while you're in the early stages of dating. You're collecting data. You're noticing how your body feels in the presence of this person. You're noticing how your body feels in the absence of this person, which is also good data. And you're noticing how they show up in life, in their own life, in times that you're together. And only time gives you.

A variety of circumstances so that you get a taste of who this person actually is in real life. Things you're going to want to know are how someone shows up when they're stressed out, when they're feeling taxed, when you accidentally hurt their feelings. How do they show up when something we've done by accident has triggered up some old wounding in them? How do they show up when

The look in your eye looks a little bit similar to how their ex looked at them. You're gonna wanna know these things. You're gonna wanna know how they behave when I'm having a good day, when I'm having a hard day. How do they show up for you? Are they encouraging? How do they show up with their friendships? It never even occurred to me really to pay much attention to what is the quality of this person's.

Friendships and outside relationships. Because my old wounding was like, choose me, choose me, choose me. And then we can be in our own little world, in our own little bubble where we choose each other and we're each other's everything. And it really doesn't matter how you and your boss behave with each other, or how and you and your mother are, or how you and your friends are, or if you even have friends. I didn't care.

Yeah. Yeah. I I almost preferred actually wow that they didn't really have a family relationship or other relationships 'cause I didn't then have to deal with anything. Except my very unpleasant relationship where they couldn't really deal with me or any of my stuff 'cause that's the pattern they had demonstrated in life, which I was consciously choosing through unconscious means.

Yes. Where I feel like the richness of the data I received in my relationship when we were going through that early time, it came from all these moments. We did long distance. There's a lot of stress and a lot of unknowns in long distance. How does someone handle themselves in long distance? What are the things they're willing to do or not do to show that they're holding this connection sacred? Right? Because there's a lot of things we can do and not do while someone we're dating is far away.

That either help us feel more solid with each other and what we're trying to do here or create more chaos and make the ground shaky. Right. I got to see that. I got to see, wow, this dude makes choices that give me the feeling that it's important to him that I know we're on solid ground. That's great. That feels good. Yeah. Right.

Life threw us some pretty hard things, I'd say, pretty early on in our relationship. And I got to watch like how does this man navigate really horrible life events? And I got to see how family and extended family and family of ex and all this stuff, how they relate to this person. And I could see, wow, I'm like all these people trust him.

All these people hold him in high regard. That's a really cool thing to see. Right. And again, I practice not making it mean everything because it doesn't mean everything, but it does give me more of a glimpse into who is this person really? How are they experienced by other people? Right. One thing I really noticed about our relationship, and I said this to him many times along the way.

Said something I really appreciate is no matter how stressed you might be in your life or what challenging things are happening in your life, you're never snappy with me. This is a dude who managed to hold the hard stuff in his life, navigate it, but he never used it as an excuse to treat me poorly or to treat our relationship poorly. That's really special. I don't even know if I could do that, but I really

Enjoy watching and experiencing what this looks like and feels like with someone because it was so new to me. Right. If he would have said, I'm so sorry, I'm just feeling really stressed and like I'm sorry I snapped at you, I'd been like, Yeah, okay, you know, that happens. You know, we repair and it's okay. But like literally never happened. Like good data to have.

Yeah, good data to have. And the kind of data that can only be built over time as we're discussing, right? I can imagine that the craftier, less patient people among us might try to orchestrate such circumstances as a test to see how the person will respond. One of the ways that we do that, I think, is trying to get each other to meet each other's people. There's a couple of reasons for that, right? There's

genuine good natural authentic reasons to meet each other's people and good timing about it. And then there's also let me introduce you to my people because I don't trust my own read on things and I want theirs. And there's let me meet your people so that I can judge you and see if you're a good guy or not. Right. And all of those contrived circumstances won't actually give us the information we're looking for because it can only be occurring over time. The group of people that they'll introduce you to right off the bat.

is different than seeing someone they know on the street, running into them and seeing how the interaction goes. You know, noticing how they talk to the barista on a first date is very different than how they talked six months in when they're really stressed out and their dog died. These are the things that only time will tell.

So

this is so interesting because I told you that I really wanted someone who would choose us and want to grow family together and wouldn't feel like it was a burden to be with me and my kids. And I remember one day we were walking down the street and a little kid was sort of being loud and maybe like ran across in front of my ex. He just got snippy. And I was like, dude, it's just a little kid. He was just excited. And then he like mumbled and grumbled something. And I sort of let it go.

But I remember feeling in my body in that moment, I'm like, that's an interesting big reaction for something like that. But I think because I so wanted this man to be the actor in the script of mine and be the one that plays this beautiful family plan out in my life, that it was easy just to brush that aside. Yeah. Or one day, like the way actually he spoke to the barisa didn't seem as kind as I would.

want and feel comfortable with someone being. I'm like, it's one thing that you're kind to me. You've never spoken to me like that. You don't speak to my friends like that. Why are you speaking to a stranger like that? That doesn't feel cool. But again, it was an easy thing to brush off. I think even mentioned to him, he's like, what do you mean? You know? And like the way he talked it and down and minimized it. I was like, maybe I'm imagining things. Maybe I'm doing too much of the testing. Because that was the other thing.

I had just come off of a big heartbreak and finally sort of feeling a bit ready to date again. And so there was a part of me that was maybe more hyper vigilant than I might have normally been. I s would start questioning, like maybe I'm just reading too much into this. And he knew that too. And he would play into that. I think you're making a big deal out of this. I'm not your ex. And I was like, right, you're not my ex. But then I would ignore like.

This is a yucky feeling. Like I don't wanna date someone who talks to the barista like that even once.

Yeah. This is why we are always harping on about the body. Cause now, however many years later, you're going like, I knew it. You know, I knew it. I saw it then. I felt it then and I ignored it. I talked myself out of it. I let someone else talk me out of it. This is what our brains do is they make things make sense. They make your brain and your circumstances match whatever situation you want it to be. So you wanted it to work.

Ta-da, super easy to ignore all of these red flags that come up. But if you're slowing down and you're just operating on what your body is telling you and following that through with communication and taking your time to see what's on the horizon, that's how you're going to get the real data. That's how you slow down enough to discover what's really there and if it's a good fit for you and to make moves if it is or isn't.

Yes. There's another key, I think, when it comes to taking time and listening to our body. A lot of our body's signals initially are actually the wires are quite crossed. We read safe situations as dangerous and dangerous situations as safe. And right I'm using dangerous as safe as very far pieces on the spectrum. But, you know, we're misreading stuff because of all the things we've talked about in this whole d you know series and on our podcast, because we're not familiar with

ourselves in that way yet. And it takes time. Like if I just followed the first feeling in my gut, but I'm quite an anxious person and every person has let me down in relationship, then the safest, technically safest person who actually treats me really well could be seen and felt as a threat. So that body feeling of threat, danger, walk away, run away.

might not actually be accurate. And it takes us time not just to know the other person. It takes us time to know ourselves, ourselves in relation to the other person. And we've also got to do a whole lot of hanging out with our body sensations just on our own to start learning them and getting clearer with them. Right. So time is sacred in so many ways. Yeah.

True. And practice. So like there is one hack to accelerate all of this for you. And it's to do these body practices that we're teaching. It's to disentangle that wiring inside your body and to feel what's actually true. Remember talking to my dad about intuitive eating and he scoffed at that and said, Well, then I just eat I think it was Reese's peanut butter cups all day till I was sick. It's like, yes. And then you would be sick.

And your body would get the message, right? That that's not actually what my body wanted. It would take time to discover.

Yes. And I think that's why it's not as simple as just pay attention to your body. Just take time. Just put in the reps. Well, the reps of doing what? We already put in the reps of doing a whole lot of stuff, but the reps that we're doing are usually creating the same results. So we want to be really deliberate and intentional. Which reps are actually important for me to practice.

I think part of the point we're trying to make there is that this isn't a waiting period, right? This is an active participation time where you're gathering information. One of the funny things that I've never understood is the way that we buy houses. And I think we kind of date in the same way. We go to an open house, we maybe have a couple of viewings, we make an offer and it's off to the races. This is my home forever, right? And it's only after you move in that you realize, the house was staged and it had been professionally cleaned and

There's a stain on the rug. You learn all the creaks and cracks and things that you couldn't see before. This is what is meant by taking your time to discover someone the way you would discover a house and all its funny noises.

This might sound like, it's an exploration, it's a discovery. Here's the key. If we don't know how to bring the energy of exploration and discovery to any other part of our life that is not as high stakes as intimate relationship, how do we expect ourselves in dating to be like, this is the time for you to explore and discover?

Right. So you really want to grow that muscle. You really want to look at other areas of your life, even our day. Is there an energy of I'm curious how the day will go? Or do I need to lock down exactly how every part of my day is gonna go? Right. Right. There's nothing wrong with wanting some structure to your day and wanting to know sort of a general plan. But like, can you navigate life emerging in front of you day to day?

And when we don't have those skills yet, doesn't make you bad, wrong, or, you know, hopeless. It just means, there's some muscles to grow. So that you can also let your dating life just emerge.

Yeah. And there's a lot of subconscious reasons that we can't or won't or feel uncomfortable letting things emerge. So we're gonna walk you guys through ten shadow work prompts that are gonna start helping you excavate and explore some of this inner material that's really affecting not only your day-to-day but your dating life specifically. Before we do that, we're gonna walk you through a somatic practice that will ground you into the energy of

Calm exploration, even though you're touching some parts that might be a little bit activated.

When we're diving into shadow work stuff, getting to know ourselves on a deeper level, we really want to be able to bring some softness to ourselves because it doesn't always feel super comfortable, even though there's such a beautiful payoff at the end. I'd love to suggest for us to maybe offer our bodies a little bit of touch that feels nice. So you choose what that might be for you.

I like skin to skin. So I like putting my hand on my chest sometimes or on my shoulder. And then, so we're playing. I'm just walking you through a variety because it's not about a specific practice you must use in order to use shadow work prompts. It's about learning, huh? Exploring and discovering what actually feels soothing and nurturing to you.

What helps you feel a little bit better when you're feeling uncomfortable?

Yes. And I wanna add here for the people like me who think we don't need any soothing or can't connect with even the idea to just give yourself some kind of a grounding anchor. I discovered eventually that having my hands touching something gave me like a more of an interface with reality, which was helpful for when I'm excavating mental

Yes. And again, just like dating, you're only going to know through trying. So if you're like, actually, I don't want to touch any part of my body, don't touch any part of your body. Touch a chair, touch the table, do something totally different. Notice if moving in some way would feel good for your body. For me, sometimes it's a gentle rocking feels good. But it's what feels good, right? Or what feels decent or what feels supportive. And here's the thing: if we don't even know.

What feels good to us yet. How will we know whether the person we're on a date with or dating for three months is the right match for us? Yeah. Right. And that's why we really say this all the time. Return to the body practices because they make all this other self-discovery a lot easier. Sometimes when we walk people through this on our calls in the relationship lab or in CRT, people are like, well, I don't know what would feel good.

And then we always go with this, and then the answers always come, which is try something. Try anything and see. The other option I'm gonna give you is to tap on some part of your body. For me, my go-to is if I tap on my sort of upper chest and with a certain pace, that feels soothing for me. For other people, they're like, it's my head. For some reason, when I tap on my head, something feels very soothing.

You choose whatever it is. Okay. So Steph, have you chosen something? Is something come to you through trying that you're like, I can use this right now?

Yeah. So I've got my fingers interlaced because I know hand holding helps. And also know I have a tendency to fiddle with rings or cuticles. That's my body telling me it actually wants some kind of connection and movement. And now I get to use that consciously. So fingers are interlaced. Thumb is caressing my thumb of my other hand.

So I know that sometimes when I'm talking through or journaling on things that might feel yucky or harder to be with, I actually like laying on the floor in my belly because the pressure of the floor on my belly is very soothing. The pressures where my lungs, when I'm breathing in, that they get to sort of push in and be supported by the floor.

That feels settling for me. That's what we mean by try out different things that support your body because that's gonna increase the likelihood that there's gonna be a willingness to explore the parts of yourself that are often scary to go toward.

Yes. And this is so neat because you know, now we're at this point where we can feel like, hey, if I get a rush of wanting to like lash out at someone, something is needed right now, you know? And I can know, maybe it's that I need to put like a thick, heavy rug on my back or all these unusual things. Like, if I feel like I need to send a text that I really feel anxious about and

Maybe lying on the floor on my stomach is actually what I need to do, you know? Yes.

Wild. So last night I was washing dishes and like I feel this swirly energy in me. And there was a little time I was just like pushing through. I'm just gonna wash the dishes on, get this done and get to bed. I'm like, no, like I think I need to bounce. I need to bounce this out. So I bounced it out and of course I'm like delighted. I'm like, yeah, that's the thing I need. I need to bounce this out.

But I was doing dishes. It's really no big deal. If I would have pushed through, I could have done the dishes, I would have been fine. It wouldn't have had a meltdown washing the dishes that night. Sometimes I might have a meltdown washing dishes, but last night wasn't that night. But like Steph said, this feeling is not isolated to washing dishes. This feeling hits me at other times. And often when I'm trying to

be in connection with my partner or something has come up between us and this feeling rushes up inside me. And now I'll be like, is that feeling again? It might not be bouncing that I need, but I'll remember, it's that feeling. And that feeling needs some tending too. And if I tend to this, probably chances are this outcome with whatever we're trying to do here together is going to be better. Yeah.

Tend to these feelings, people, because if you don't, they come out exclusively sideways in your relationship.

At the most inopportune time. Yes. Here's the 10 shadow work prompts for you to play with and explore and discover what comes up for you. When I'm in the beginning stages of a relationship, I tend to hope that. See what comes. And when we're working with prompts, this is not about thinking it through and

Coming up with the answer or the best answer, the right answer. This is a great time just to let things flow and let and feel it in your body. This is a, I would say this is a talking out loud exercise. You could also journal on it, but we would encourage you if you journal on it, read them out loud after each sentence one at a time.

And feel your body's response to each line as you say it out loud, because that will reveal things to you. Mm-hmm.

And you're gonna run through each prompt multiple times till you've run yourself dry, right? So answer that, fill in the blank for question one until you can't fill it out anymore.

Okay, number two, when I'm in the beginning stages of a relationship, I tend to worry about these things going wrong. Okay.

Yeah.

Number three, I tend to pedestalize the other person by.

Classic.

I did tons of that. Yeah. So in each one of these, we're using the beginning prompt of when I'm in the beginning stages of a relationship. But for the sake of just moving through these 10, I'm not gonna say that each time. Now in shadow work, we like to touch on duality because we are human and life is all about duality and we want to uncover the spectrum. Right. So we pedestalise people.

And we also tend to demonize people. So the next prompt is I tend to demonize the other person by. Mm-hmm.

And I want to insert in there, take a moment to think back on times where you've done this. What happens next? You know, the story leads to an action. What happens after they've been knocked off their pedestal? How do you think of them then? What do you do? Really useful things to think about while doing whatever self-soothing thing to help you cope with the reality of how things have been for you and how they could be different.

Yes, and the same thing holds for when we make them the almighty greatest ever. What do you tend to then overlook and minimize? Right? That's an important list to uncover as well. My list was long. Okay. Next one. Five. I tend to hide these things or parts of myself. What do you mean? Aha, nothing.

I'm gonna throw in a bonus here. A a 5B, let's call it. When I'm in the beginning stages of a relationship, what do I tend to like throw in the face of the other person? Like this is where often the trauma bonding, the trauma dumping happens. What do I tend to tell them all about with secret hopes that it would either show me they're gonna run away? Mm-hmm.

Or it would show maybe after I revealed all this, they still don't run away. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Number six. I tend to aggrandize these things about myself. This is about what do I want to highlight about myself in the hopes that I'll be chosen, in the hopes that this will be enough to cover up the other stuff that I don't want them to discover about me.

Yeah, how do I add enough value to be worthwhile in

Yeah. So some deep shadow work ownership here. Okay. Number seven. I tend to tell myself that I should, right? So at the beginning of the early stages of relationship, things are going well. What do you tell yourself that you should do? You should think, you should be, whatever the things, like what are the rules you're giving yourself?

Yeah. How should you dress? How should you act? What should you say? How often should you text? There's gonna be a lot of shoulds in there and if you start uncovering them, you might be surprised.

You might be surprised why you're feeling pressured. Yeah. Next one, I tend to tell myself that I shouldn't. Right. So that's the flip side of that. Number nine. Ooh, nine and ten are juicy. When I'm in the beginning stages of a relationship, I tend to expect them to.

A few things.

I feel like this is a part where I'd be like, What do you mean? I don't expect them to do anything.

And then there's, you know, down deep hidden and buried would be the truth.

Yeah, that's right. I remember I've got a housemate, she floated this idea about getting a cat for the property. And I was like, What do you mean when you say that? Like, how do you think that would go? What's the story? She's like, There's no story. I'm like, if you thought there was a story, what might the story be? And she's like, well, they're two little white cats and they're brothers and their names are this and that and here's how they're gonna live and here's where they're gonna I'm like, There's so much in there, you know, we we extrapolate and even if we think we're not, something is in there.

Well, this is a great example of getting a cat to one person doesn't mean the same thing as getting a cat to another person.

Slash getting married doesn't mean the same as getting married. Got it. Yeah.

It I need space doesn't necessarily mean what you think it means. Yes. I had to learn that one. Okay. Number 10. When I'm in the beginning stages of a relationship, I tend to assume that they expect me to.

A few things. Can you see how juicy this will be to get into your subconscious set of assumptions and how you're bringing those to the world day to day, to cat-related decisions, to dating-related decisions, to all the assumptions you've got that you carry about yourself and the other person and their assumptions about you? It's deep.

So, there was a deep dive and some shadow work you get to play with.

And we could talk about each of these and give you like thousands of examples. Send us a message. If you're going through these prompts and something comes up for you or you feel stuck somewhere, like just message us and join our programs and practice this with us, practice with other people. You can listen to more episodes. You can go through a thousand journal prompts. Like we really want to be helping you with this work. So do feel free to reach out.

Yes. And I think there was this idea of like doing sort of book club with these slow dating episodes. This is a great opportunity. Get together with your friends and share notes. What did you come up with going through your 10 prompts? And the beauty of that is this is the next step of the shadow work. One step is revealing the truth to myself. The next step is revealing my truth to others and being witnessed in it.

And it's really powerful. And that's why we love conscious relationship training, right? That's revealing yourself to yourself and other people in real time. But you can do this in your own life and like get a little taste of it. Choose someone you trust.

Yeah. Don't do this on a date. Don't do it on a date. Don't do it on

Do

not do it on a date. No.

This is the kind of thing you could explore if you're deep in a relationship with a person. But even then, I would suggest don't process with your person. Have a nice life with your person. Do your processing work with your friends and with compatriots in the work. but do not let this seem like a getting to know each other activity. Although it is definitely that. This is an inside job for you.

So we don't often tell you things you should not do. This is one we highly recommend, especially if it's your first time. That's right. Do not bring this into your relationship or people you are dating or use it as a first date list of questions to ask someone.

Fairy cunning plan, very crafty won't work.

Sorry. There would have been a time where I would have thought this is the best plan for the first date.

That's right. Well there was that I can't remember what it was called.

Questions in the New York Times of how to make someone fall in love with you.

And isn't that just the best title? Not how to really get to know someone, how to make someone fall in love with you.

Yeah, I think it was something like that, along those lines. Yeah.

Quite right. Yeah, I'm sure it was.

I thought it was a great article. I was at a different time in my life.

Yeah. Well, and great questions too, but there needs to be some kind of foundation there. And like context. Yeah, it's very easy to contrive that, which is the opposite of pacing and discovery, right? That's one of those crafty, we're trying to force a fit here. We're trying to force deep knowledge that actually takes time to uncover.

So just like getting a cat is not the same as getting a cat, a question all questions are not equal. A question is not a question. There's more to it. There's more nuance to it. Right? From what place are we asking these questions? From what place are we answering these questions? That's important.

So take your time with these questions. Take your time with your dates. Take your time with your pacing and discovery. And we will see you next week. As always, please do like, follow, and subscribe. And if anything we've said here today has been helpful for you, please share with somebody that you care about. And we'll see you next time.