Ep #18: You Don’t Want a Relationship… You Want Peace

You think you’re searching for a relationship, but what you’re really craving is relief. A break from the spiral of overthinking and the constant need to feel “enough.” In this episode, I’m sharing a truth I learned the hard way: When you haven’t learned how to regulate your own emotions, you’ll unconsciously make your partner responsible for doing it for you. And that, my love, is where anxious dating patterns are born. We’re diving deep into why love isn’t the fix you think it is—and how chasing a relationship to soothe your anxiety will only leave you feeling more alone. 

In this episode, I’ll walk you through:

✨ How to spot when you’re emotionally outsourcing 

✨ The real reason relationships don’t “fix” your anxiety

✨ What it actually means to create peace from within

✨ And the question you need to ask yourself today if you want to feel truly secure in love.

🎧 Tune in now! And if this episode resonates, send me a DM on Instagram—I’d love to hear your thoughts!

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Connect with Mimi on Instagram here! 

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Transcript

0:00

You are listening to the Secure Love Club podcast. I'm your host, Mimi Watt. Hey friends, welcome back to the club. I've got a powerful one for you today. This is gonna be one of those episodes that might just flip a switch in your brain and shift how you see everything, because here's the truth, no one wanna tells you or maybe the truth you don't want to tell yourself, and that is you don't want a relationship. You're just used to thinking that you do because you're so used to seeking happiness in someone else. What you really want is peace. Oh, peace. Because as an anxious, attached, girly or guy. That is a rare commodity, and I can say this so clearly because this was my reality for years. You know, if you've been listening to the pod for a while now, you know a bit of my relationship history. But to rehash, I spent so long going from person to person. To person, constantly searching for a partner who would soothe my anxiety, fix the emptiness that I felt inside and finally make me feel secure. I, I genuinely believed a relationship was the missing piece. I. I did, I thought, I just need to find the next person. They'll be the right one, and then I will be happy, and then I will no longer feel alone or afraid in my life. But instead of feeling better when I got into something, when I found my rebound, I'd end up feeling more anxious, more alone, and more confused. Why did being with someone make everything worse? It wasn't until 2020 that everything finally clicked for me. I realized that all I'd ever been chasing wasn't love. It was relief. I wanted to stop the overthinking. I wanted to feel safe in my own skin. I wanted to stop feeling like my entire worth depended on whether someone was texting me back. And when I stopped trying to get that piece from other people and started learning how to give it to myself, my God, that is when my entire life changed. For real. I still, it's five years on and I still look back at 2020 as 2020 slash 2021. The most pivotal year of my life. I learned in that stage how to love being single. For legit, for the first time in my adult life, I finally learned, oh, like this is what it feels like when people say they love being in their single girl era, or they love being independent and they feel strong and confident in their independence. That had been a genuine myth to me. I was like, how do people experience that? Like what are they taking? And how can I get myself some of that right? I created a life that felt full, grounded, and so damn good on my own. And from that place, everything shifted and I can say that that is all I ever wanted. All I ever wanted was to know what it felt like to live a happy, fulfilling. Independent life to be that girl, that woman walking down the street who just knows her worth, knows she's empowered, can do anything she wants, can you know, be with anyone she wants, can have the career she wants, like that. Is what I craved. That, to be honest, is what I put on a pedestal. I think deep down, like I didn't realize it until this all changed. That's what was on the pedestal for me. So in today's episode, I'm breaking down why your desire for a relationship might be rooted in emotional outsourcing. How your anxious attachment keeps you stuck in the cycle of chasing validation. Why the anxiety doesn't disappear in a relationship. It just shifts focus. And the most important part, how to start creating real peace and security from within. Now, let me preface this by saying this isn't about giving up on love. It's about redefining the goal so that love adds to your life. Instead of being the thing you rely on just to feel. Okay. Alright, my friends, let's dive in. I'm gonna ask you to open your mind and to stay with me on this one. Trust the process of what I'm going to tell you. Let's kick off with the fact that if you resonate with what I shared in the introduction, here you are chasing a feeling, not a person. You think you are. You think you're chasing a person. You think you want the dream relationship, but what you really want is a feeling. You are, you are chasing a feeling of safety, of validation, or worthiness, and what does that chasing look like? Let's say you are in your dating era, you're dating someone new. You obsess over every text. You obsess over their texting habits, how long does it take them to reply? If I wait five hours, does that change things If I reply right away, does that change things you read into their emojis that they use or their tone right? If they give you a short answer versus a long answer, you are overanalyzing things. You become a detective. You panic when they pull away. Right, because that feeling that you're chasing gets further and further away. The may, the more that they pull away. It could be that you start stalking their social media, right? You notice when their following count goes up, who are they following now? Are they following a different girl? What does that mean? Are they dating this person? Are they dating that person? Right? Our mind just goes into overdrive because you're trying to control the outcome because if you can control the outcome. You can control how you feel. We are catching on here, so let me just call this out from the get go. It isn't about them, it isn't about the person. It's about what you haven't given yourself yet, and this is how the anxious ait. Anxious attachment system works. Now, most of you listening are here because you have an anxious attachment and you're still in the throes of it. You're taking steps to learn how to heal it, and I commend you for that. I'm so happy to hear it and to see it. But at the moment, if this is still your pattern, this is happening because your nervous system is craving regulation from an external source. Okay? So. To, to really water that down. It means that you feel anxiety in your body. You feel stress, loneliness, unworthiness, sadness, anxiety, whatever the emotion is. And instead of knowing how to regulate that, so how to make yourself feel better in a healthy, sustainable way, you turn to an external source. The external source is most often a romantic partner or someone we are dating because. When you were a child, you had a primary attachment figure, which is your parents or caregiver, and when that attachment figure created a dynamic where you didn't feel that you would get your emotional needs met with predictability, with certainty, like every time you needed them, they would be there if that's what was your reality growing up, you and you weren't taught by your parents that. Things were okay that there was safety. They didn't teach you how to calm yourself down, how to honor your emotions. If you didn't get that, then as a child, you hooked onto your parent The attachment, primary attachment figure as being the only thing that could make your tough emotions go away. The only thing that could settle the anxiety in your body. So we then carry this dynamic with us. It lives in our body, in our nervous system. We carry it into our adulthood, and we repeat the pattern with the next primary attachment figure, which when we are an adult, that is our romantic partner, the person who we are, are most intimate with physically. Mentally, emotionally, spiritually, sexually, all the things. We are the most intimate with our partner. Therefore, they become that primary attachment figure. So it's almost like, in a weird way, it's sort of like you're looking at your partner as your parent. I. That sounds so messed up, but it's like through the eyes of the wounded part of you, they feel that your partner is the same as your parent. So you're actually still chasing the love, validation, reassurance, and comfort that you wanted from your parent. You are now just. Placing that onto your partner. So the pattern is you feel anxious. Okay. Usually because maybe the person you're seeing starts to pull away, there's some distance. There's a threat there, right? Because when we are anxiously attached, we associate distance with potential rejection or abandonment. So when you feel anxious, you reach for the that partner to soothe the feeling, just like you did when you were a child with your parent. Yeah. Then if you get it from them, you might feel better temporarily. Okay. You feel better. You know what I'm talking about here? That feeling when, okay, oh, like I can breathe again. The feeling has, that anxiety has gone away. I feel better in the moment, but it never lasts long enough. It's like, oh, if I could just take this feeling, bottle it up and drink it and be drunk on this feeling of relief, I would, is how it feels, and then eventually when it goes away. The pattern repeats itself. You feel anxious again. You reach for your partner to soothe you. That feeling is only temporary. And around and around we go. So what's happening here is you are emotionally outsourcing. You're not in love. You're just relieved that someone was able to momentarily calm your nervous system. We have been taught both through our lived experiences with our parents and also through, I'm gonna say Disney, Hollywood movies, fantasy fiction novels, that when you get that beautiful partner, when you get the, the guy or the girl, and it all comes together, that everything will be perfect and you get this happily ever after, but. The truth that I fucking know for sure from my past, and you may have experienced too, is that getting into a relationship doesn't fix the anxiety. It just gives it a new focus. How crazy is that? So we think, okay, if I just finally like down this person, if I pinned down this relationship, I'll be good. The anxiety will go away. But it doesn't. It just changes form. Okay. It turns to do they still like me? What if they leave? Why aren't they as affectionate anymore? Am I doing the right thing? Do they still love me? Do they still wanna be with me? Who's experienced that? Raise your hand if you have experienced that. I can still remember when. I, I speak about this particular relationship a lot because it was the one that was the catalyst to me when we broke up finding out about my attachment style and what the fuck was going on. But when I met this ex-partner, I. We started dating and there was a lot of intense chemistry mixed with a lot of anxiety, all the ups and downs, all the unknowns. And he was really courting me like he was putting in the work as a lot of avoidance do in the beginning. They give you a lot of love, a lot of attention because they like the chase and there was so much anxiety. And then I remember, I can still remember the night when we became exclusive. We were a little bit of a story time. We were sitting at, we were at his house and he cooked dinner for us. And we were sitting out the back at the table. He lit candles, there was music going. He'd made this beautiful meal. And we're sitting there eating dinner and he's telling me about his day. And at this point, keep in mind, we weren't boyfriend girlfriend. Anyway, he's sitting there and he's like, oh yeah, I was at work today. And someone, um, they said, oh, like, what are you doing this? What are you doing tonight? What are you up to? And I said, oh, my girlfriend's coming over and oh, oh. And I, he stopped himself'cause he just let it slip that he called me his girlfriend. And I was like, what? Excuse me. And you know, it was this moment where we both looked at each other and like laughed. And then he popped the question and he was like, do you wanna be my girlfriend? And of course I was gushing and I was like, yes, I wanna be your girlfriend. Oh my God. And so we were boyfriend and girlfriend and for the rest of the night we were on cloud nine on a high because it was so exciting. And then. The craziest thing happened over the coming weeks and months. The attention he gave me started to dwindle, and it became less intense. I didn't feel like I was being courted. I didn't feel like I was being chased. And it was because he'd got me, he'd pinned me down, right? We were in the relationship, and so for an avoidant, someone who's a bit emotionally unavailable, once they have that, once it's like, oh, this is real. Their natural pattern is to slowly pull away. So of course that creates more anxiety. And of course I started having the thoughts, does he still like me? What if he wants to break up? What if he sees someone like another girl down the street who he thinks is hot and he wants to date them? Why isn't he giving me as as much attention as he was before? So the relationship becomes another battleground for your self-worth. Because if you aren't picking up what I'm putting down so far, it's that you are sourcing your self-worth externally from a partner. So the relationship, the anxiety isn't just solved by the relationship, it's still there. It just takes on another form. So now that we're really seeing here what is going on, and the fact that you are un underneath, you're not actually desiring the relationship, you're just desiring the relief from the anxiety that you feel. What if the goal isn't love from another person, but peace within yourself? I want you to imagine for a moment that you feel you are someone who feels calm and confident. Even when someone doesn't reply right away, you don't spiral. When a date goes cold, you are able to self-soothe and move on because. You don't have time for someone who's gonna go cold on you or play games or be inconsistent. Imagine you are someone who attracts partners who add to your already peaceful life, not ones who are supposed to fix you. Imagine you are someone who has hobbies and amazing aligned friendships. Imagine you are someone who is aligned with your career path and you love what you do for work. Imagine you are someone who loves spending time with yourself, who takes yourself on dates, who walks to the markets, and buys yourself flowers, who treats yourself to a beautiful meal and cooks it for yourself just because you wanna love on yourself. Imagine having so much fun in your life and being so good at nurturing your soul, at managing your emotions, that you just feel so grounded and in control and fucking lit up by your life. Just imagine how good that feels, and also imagining you are someone who, yeah, you love your single, your single life, you love your independence, but. You also know to your core that the right relationship that will add to your life that will compliment your vibrance is inevitable. It's not a will that ever happen For me, it's a, of course, it's gonna happen for me, but I don't need it right now because I'm over here having way too much fun with myself. That gets to be your reality. And so if a relationship isn't the answer. How would you start creating peace within yourself right now? Not when you're in a relationship. Not when someone starts texting more consistently, not when you finally meet your person right now today with exactly who and where you are. Okay, let's go deeper. Ask yourself, where am I outsourcing my emotional regulation? Am I constantly checking my phone? Refreshing my texts, hoping they'll say something that makes my anxiety go away. Am I constantly stalking their social media? Am I seeing if they've watched my story? Am I seeing if they're following anyone new? Where are you outsourcing? Because that is emotional regulation, like I mentioned earlier. It's where you get that quick fix, that bandaid response to what you're feeling because you're looking for evidence, you're looking for control. So where are you doing that? Asking yourself, am I waiting for a partner to tell me? I'm lovable to tell, to finally tell me I'm worthy of love, because I don't quite know how to believe that on my own. And this is a big one. This is a common one. You know, I used to feel this on such a deep level. I didn't feel that I was worthy of true love because I didn't feel good enough, because I didn't get the. Maybe emotional experience that I wanted when I was a child. So I internalized that and I grew up believing, yeah, I'm not lovable, I'm not worthy. Which fucking sucks to carry that belief, but you reclaim your power when you recognize that that is what's going on under the, under the surface. So am I waiting for a partner to prove to me or to tell me that I'm worthy? Am I waiting to be chosen by someone else because when I'm chosen. Then finally it'll prove I'm good enough. Then I want you to ask yourself, what can I start doing to feel secure without needing someone else to give that to me? Is it building certain rituals that will calm your nervous system? So I know for me, a big one was, um, when I was going through this chapter in my life, when I started regaining my independence, I would like, I'm a morning person. I, it's my favorite time of the day, so I would always start my morning with some form of movement or being outside. Sometimes that was a morning walk or a morning trot, as I call it sometimes. It was, um, there was a phase where I joined an outdoor bootcamp and I fucking loved it because it was outside my comfort zone. And also I got to meet really interesting new people, men, women, all different sorts of people that I would see on a weekly basis who I got to know. It was fun, right? Other times it was surfing. I started a new hobby. I got really into surfing. I met amazing, uh, friends through surfing. It was also a time that if I wanted to be alone and do it on my, on my own, I could. It was amazing. So for me, a ritual was doing something where I was outside and I was moving my body. Then I would come home and instantly do a meditation. So I've mentioned before, I use the app One Giant Mind. I still use it to this day. And I would do just like a 10 or 15 minute meditation, which I always prefer doing after I've moved my body. It feels so good. Then maybe I would do a little bit of stretching. It doesn't have to be too much, but it's just about noticing what feels really good for you in your body. What are the things that make you feel your most calm? You're most zen, you're most. Yeah, in control, I guess, of your nervous system because if you have lived a life where you're chronically dysregulated, you're chronically on edge because of the toxic relationships you are in. A big part of the healing work is learning how to bring back your regulation, bring back your sense of calm in your day to day life so that. When you get into dating and relationships again, you are far. It takes a lot more for you to be triggered or activated. It takes a lot more for you to be sent down an anxious spiral and to have your whole day or week derailed, right? You are much more in control. It starts with the daily rituals that you implement when you are not in that emotionally charged situation. To help your nervous system feel stronger and more calm? Is it speaking to myself with the compassion I crave for others? Now, if you don't have much practice in this, in having literal conversations with yourself and speaking to yourself, then this might feel really weird, but I want you to think about this like. In a way, you know how they say your brain doesn't know the difference between what's real and what's imagined? Well. Why don't you just pretend and trick yourself that your brain doesn't know that these words you're speaking are coming from you. It could be coming from someone else, but the way I like to think about this in order to sort of separate and create that imagination is speaking to my inner child. So anytime I feel myself needing some reassurance, some comfort, um, some words that'll make me feel safe. I speak to myself, but it's like I'm speaking to someone else. I'm speaking to that part of me internally. That little girl who's the one who's scared, who's the one who needs the reassurance, and I can't tell you how powerful this is. You might think that it's not gonna do much, but think about the impact that this would have over six months, 12 months. A year, two years, three years, four years, five years. The cumulative effect of not speaking to yourself with compassion and just letting your thoughts and your mind go on autopilot, speaking negatively about yourself, judging yourself, shaming yourself, thinking you're too much, all this stuff, right? Or being so kind to yourself. Speaking words of love and compassion. Letting that part of you know you're proud of her or him for doing the work, that you love them, that they're doing a great job, that you see them, that it is safe to grow. It is safe to become secure. It is safe to sit with your emotions. Think about the cumulative effect that would have over six months, 12 months to five years. It all adds up. And as I say to my clients all the time, this journey of going from anxious to secure isn't just, you know, this overnight quick fix. There's not a magic pill that you take. It really is in the daily intentional practices that you have with yourself that compound over time. Another question I want you to ask yourself. Is it finally setting boundaries with the parts of me that want to chase breadcrumbs, just to feel momentarily, momentarily enough? Okay, so again, we are focused on what can I do to feel secure without needing someone else to give that to me? Is it finally setting boundaries with the parts of me that want to chase breadcrumbs? Just to feel momentarily, momentarily enough, and I say setting boundaries because sometimes we abso fucking absolutely need to set boundaries. This is not an easy path. You are not going to feel like sitting with your emotions. You are going to want to check social media. You are going to want to send a text to try and get an emotional a, a reaction from your partner or from the person you're seeing. It's built into you to want to do those things because that is the fastest way that your brain and body knows how to move towards pleasure and away from pain. But this is where you need to step in as the secure, stronger adult and set those boundaries with that part of yourself that wants to chase, that wants to repeat the toxic patterns that wants to go into chasing the breadcrumbs. You've gotta, you've gotta set those boundaries and you've gotta be tough with yourself. You've gotta have a bit of grit. You've gotta say, I know you wanna do this. I can see that you want this. I feel the urge. I know you think that this is what's gonna help you feel better, but I, I know that what's actually gonna be better for you and for us. Is to not chase. We are gonna pause. We are gonna take some deep breaths. We are gonna work together to feel better so that we can break the patterns of chasing the next relationship. That inevitably leaves us feeling more isolated and more alone than before. I really want you to let that sink in, uh, because I remember many moments where I did not. Want to do the right thing, quote unquote right thing by myself and, and that I knew would set me up for success in the future. I wanted to run back to that avoidant X, and I did run back to him several times. Like it took time to get to the place where I was fully ready to recognize that I actually didn't want that anymore, and that there was a different option available to me. An option where. I could create peace on my own terms and I could have an amazing life, and I didn't need his approval or validation. I didn't need him to choose me in order to feel that way. It takes time. So knowing that helps and just be compassionate with yourself. And finally, the big one, who do I become when I trust that love will meet me after I've anchored into myself? I. Ooh, it's such a good question. Who is that version of me? What does her life look like? Or what does his life look like? How does she walk through the world knowing she doesn't have to beg for scraps? She doesn't have to beg for bits of attention or affection because she's the whole damn meal. Who is that version of me? I want you to think about that. I want you to see her feel her, visualize her, visualize her going throughout her day. How does she speak to herself? How does she wake up? How does she treat her body? What food does she put into her body? What boundaries does she set? What does she not tolerate in her life? What is she available for? What is she not available for? How does she handle setbacks? What does she do? What does she say to herself when she has a little slip up and she might fall back into an old pattern? Does she let it derail her completely? Does she use that as an opportunity to beat herself up? Or is she resilient and compassionate? Does she catch herself doing that? Get curious as to why that happened. And then make a decision on how she's going to move forward in a healthy, effective way. Who is that version? Because I'm telling you, you've gotta start living as that version of you now, and then everything falls into place. Obviously it's easier said than done. We know this, and this is why it's so important to get support as you are on this journey, to really learn the tools and to know how to implement them and to have someone guiding you, an expert in this field as you are on this journey. Because sometimes we need to borrow belief in us from someone who sees the potential in us, like a coach, just like I did when I was on this journey. I had several coaches who I had in my corner because I knew I am gonna give myself the best fucking chance of success here to finally break these patterns, to finally break this habit. And what do I need? I need support. I need someone who is my designated person that I can turn to, who is gonna be my rock, who's gonna encourage me, push me forward, and hold me to a higher standard of myself. You don't need a relationship to feel like you're enough. You just need to remember who the fuck you are without one. You've spent long enough chasing peace in other people, and now it's time to come home to yourself and my friend. It feels so fucking good if you know you're in a position where you are ready to take this work seriously. And you want the support of an expert who's been in your shoes, who has walked the walk, and not just talking the talk, then send me a DM with the word peace and let's talk about how I can support you. If you have a friend who is stuck in an anxious dating pattern. Go ahead and share this episode with them. Give them some support that they might need through sharing this episode with them and please leave a review if this resonated with you because this message is one that more people need to hear. Alright, my friends, you have a beautiful week and I will talk to you soon. Bye-bye. If you enjoyed today's episode, hit that subscribe button and leave a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Share this episode with your friends and come find me on social so we can hang out between episodes. All the links are below in the show notes.