Ep #38: Are You Using Your Situationship to Avoid Your Life?

In this solo episode, I’m diving deep into the truth about situationships - not just what they are, but why we find ourselves in them. This conversation was inspired by a listener who shared how much she loved my previous episode on secure situationships, and a private client who realized she was using hers to avoid parts of her life that needed her attention.

I’m sharing my own story of how casual dating once became both a healthy outlet and a sneaky form of escapism and how I learned to tell the difference. Because sometimes, a situationship can genuinely add joy, fun, and connection to your life… and other times, it’s just keeping you from facing what’s really going on.

If you’ve ever felt like your situationship started out exciting but slowly began to drain you, or if you suspect you might be using love as a distraction, this episode will be the honest, loving reality check you need.

In This Episode, You’ll Learn:
• The difference between conscious casual dating and avoidant escapism
• Why some situationships empower you and others drain you
• How to spot when you’re using dating to avoid your emotions or responsibilities
• The key questions to ask yourself when it’s time to let go
• How to refocus your energy back on yourself and your goals without losing your sense of fun and connection

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

Previous ep on 'Secure Situationships Are a Thing - Here’s How to Have One': https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/the-secure-love-club-podcast/id1792782864?i=1000718346075 

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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. How are you? I am doing amazing this morning. We just finished up the launch of peacefully attached for our October round, and today as I am recording this, I have welcomed in the new. Group of amazing women who are joining me for the next 10 weeks on their journey of ditching their anxiety riddled dating patterns and becoming secure within themselves, and therefore secure within their relationships and their dating life. And I'm so excited. I just feel that every time a new round starts, it injects me with so much energy and vibrancy because. I get excited about the journey. I know they're about to go on, and how life changing it is. So that's happening today, which is amazing. I got a DM the other day from a beautiful woman over on Instagram called Emma. Emma, if you're listening, shout out. Hey, who actually shared about this podcast on her Instagram story? Talking about how she just found the podcast and she was obsessed and she's been binging all of the episodes. And of course it made me so happy to hear. I love to hear the impact this podcast is having on your life and to see the messages come in. So never shy away from jumping into my dms and saying, Hey, if you are a regular listener, I love to hear it. And I was asking Emma about. What types of episodes have been her favorite so far? And she told me that the first episode that she listened to when she came across the pod was the one about situation ships. So you may remember that one, or you may not. It was a very popular episode and it was talking about how to have a secure situationship and. A lot of people were quite surprised by that episode because I think for a lot of the women in my community who are on their journey of going from anxious to secure, we can get it really twisted when it comes to a casual relationship, right? That's how we're defining a situationship is something that is not an exclusive relationship. It's casual in nature, so you're not committed, but there's still connection there. It's still a relationship of some sort and. Women can tend to think that, oh, if it's a situationship, if it's quote unquote casual, then I can't set boundaries. I can't have needs, I can't speak up and advocate for the things that I want that are important to me, and I just need to be the cool girl and I need to be chill. And in some cases, which is actually very common, is we have this secret hope that. The person we're in the situationship with will just end up catching feelings and fall for us. Even if they've said, I'm only looking for something casual and no shame if that is you, we are here in a safe space to talk about this stuff. This is the club. This is the Secure Love Club. We are here to help each other out and to illuminate the path of maybe where we've been going wrong and. The path that I would like you to walk down to change things in your life anyway. Before I go on too much of a rant, this conversation with Emma inspired me to do another episode on Situation Chip. And in fact, the, the inspiration for this today's episode came from a mix of this conversation with Emma and one of my private clients who I'm working with, who has given me permission to discuss her situation. Obviously keeping it anon, but in her situation around she's in a situationship or a casual relationship, and feeling that the situationship is beginning to be a way to. Avoid her life or avoid important things that she knows she needs to be facing in her life. And I thought it would be a great topic to bring to the podcast because situation ships can be good, they can be bad, they can be in between. And I wanna talk today about when they are, in my opinion, a good thing and when they can start to be a negative thing that is. Actually just becoming more of a distraction from things that are more important in your life. So buckle up. Let's strap in for a juicy solo episode on Situation Ships. For today's episode, I want to talk about situation ships through the lens of going into it consciously. Consciously choosing a casual relationship. And the reason I say that is because, like I mentioned in the intro, sometimes we can fall into situation ships because we are not clear on what it is that we are looking for in dating or because we are not communicating what it is that we want in relationships. So maybe you actually do want a committed relationship, but. You maybe haven't developed, uh, enough of the confidence yet to communicate that, and you are operating from a fear that if I ask for or state that I want a committed relationship, I'm gonna scare people off. I'm gonna push these people that I like away, and so we silence ourselves and what we really want and we just pretend to want what they want, which is something casual, and then that gets us into a whole mix of a whole world of problems. So if that is you, then I recommend going back and listening to the other episode I did on Situation Chip. I will link it in the show notes for you because that episode is going to be. Highly, highly valuable on equipping you with everything you need to know about how to have a casual relationship in a, uh, in a healthy way. And also how to avoid a situationship if what you actually want is a committed relationship. So today we're talking about, let's say you are at a point in your life where you want connection. You want some level of intimacy. Be it physical and or emotional, but you know, you don't want a full-blown, committed relationship. Okay? You are a conscious queen and you know that for whatever reason, you don't have the emotional availability or capacity to give someone your full commitment for a romantic and intimate relationship. Now, I'm of the strong opinion. That casual relationships can work and they can be fantastic. You've done right because. I know that a lot of, for a lot of you listening and a lot of the women I work with, one of the biggest end goals that you have is to find that person who you can have a committed relationship with and start to build a family with. Especially as we start to get around, you know, our thirties, our mid thirties, late thirties, uh, wherever, where we, where we do start to think about the biological clock as women. And if, if that is something that you want, having children, having a family, this stuff is a priority. But on the other hand, I also think that dating is, it's, it can serve so many purposes other than just having a committed relationship. I think casual dating is fantastic for. Having another outlet in your life where you experience connection and fun and play that is outside your friendships and your work and your personal hobbies. I think casual dating is fantastic for getting to know more of what you want and what you don't want. In fact, it's one of the quickest ways to figure that out. I think it's fantastic for. Of building your self-esteem and building your confidence, right? If you're doing it from a grounded place of, I just wanna do this for me and I wanna have fun. Not doing it from a place of, I feel like I need this in order to validate my worth as a person. So I am an advocate for casual dating. You've done correctly. Now, I think there are times in life when. Casual dating can be a positive. Escape a positive form of escapism. Okay? Now, you'll hear all over social media these days all in the personal development world, and you may even heard, have heard me say it that you know, you, you shouldn't be avoiding your feelings. You shouldn't be buffering the things that are happening internally that you need to focus on. You shouldn't be avoiding responsibility and escaping through forms. Uh, things like social media or. Um, too much casual dating or over consumption of anything. Okay. However, I do think there is a healthy amount of escapism that we can all experience and enjoy because. Part of being human and part of living life is to have fun. It is to experience pleasure and joy. Okay? We are not here to just grind 24 7 and be constantly trying to improve ourselves. Like we also get to live a little and have fun. So I. If you needed that permission slip as I often need that reminder myself. There you go. So let's talk about an example. I'm gonna talk about an example from my own personal life. When I found that casual dating was a really positive outlet for me and actually ga, it added a lot to my life at a time where I was in quite a dark place. So let's rewind the clock to 2023, and at this point in my life. I was in a very weird place. I had a business prior to this one. It was sort of the same business, but a different focus. I had a life coaching business that then turned into a bit of a business coaching business. And long story short, that business, uh, collapse, like it fell through it. It ended in April of. Oh my God. I'm trying to get my dates right. Yeah. April, 2022. Okay, so you may have heard me talk about this story briefly before, but it was April, 2022. Everything in my life was amazing. Also, I thought I was running this business. I was living in my dream apartment with ocean views. I was. In a new, beautiful, secure relationship, like things were all good, but then things took a turn very quickly. So when that business ended, I realized that I was extremely burnt out and I was out of alignment to my surprise in, in a few different ways. Essentially what happened was the business closed down. I couldn't show up anymore for the business, like I just was so burnt out, I couldn't pay my rent. So I got a job cleaning houses temporarily, and I had to move out of where I was living, and I moved in with my grandma now. So grateful and fortunate that I could move in with her. It was such a, a blessing at the time. Um, and it was a really humbling experience, as you can imagine. Like I was literally scrubbing shit out of, out of other people's toilets, and I gotta say the way that some people live their lives and their homes, it's fucking nasty. And it was, let's just say, I said to myself, I never wanna be in this position again. So I did that for. A few months and yeah, it was humbling. Um, I'm not above it, but I also don't ever wanna do it again. And anyway, let's not get too off track. I was doing that and then I was living at my grandma's, and then I got a different job as a receptionist. In the meantime, whilst I was trying to figure out what the hell I was gonna be doing with my life because I had a full blown identity crisis where I didn't have the same. Energy and vigor and passion to show up online for my business that I once had. And ever since I decided to get into coaching and build a business as a coach, there has never been a plan B. That still to this day, there is no plan B like this is, this is it. This is my purpose. And so you can imagine how scary that was when that was, felt like it was taken away when it felt like it disappeared. I was like, what the actual fuck am I gonna do with my life? Who am I? What is happening? And I realized that so much of my self-worth and my identity was tied up in my business. So when it went away, I of course didn't know who I was. I didn't feel like I had any sort of anchor. And then my relationship, so that was April, 2022. And then obviously when you have a full blown identity crisis. It is going to put strain on your relationship because at the time I think I was, I was needing a lot of support from my partner, which is understandable, but it definitely did put strain on the relationship and you know. When we got into that relationship, I had one version of a life going on, and then several months in my whole life changed and I really hit what felt like a rock bottom and anyway. How long later, like nine months later or eight months later, our relationship ended, and now this is not necessarily because I had this identity crisis and my life felt like it went up in flames. This was because of certain differences that we ended up having in terms of how we wanted to live our life in the future. That just didn't align and it was, it was understandable. And so we parted ways and there's no bad blood there, but. After getting through the pain of that breakup, which I spent about a good six months, really moving through the, the pain of heartbreak from that relationship and processing the pain and um, you know, all the things that goes with heartbreak. And I was still in the position of. Not knowing what my business was going to be at this time, I was still working, uh, as a receptionist, I was, I was paying off debt, so things were starting to come into place for me, like I could understand why that business that I had previously fell apart because what I was coaching on just was not aligned with my true purpose and my true passion, and it needed to crumble away. I also had debt that I needed to repay that I'd gotten myself into in those first few years of business, trying to get things off the ground. So I was paying back my debt. I was seeing the light in terms of why things hadn't worked out. I was healing from my breakup and I, so I was, I was getting better, but I was still at a point where I didn't really know. What I was gonna be doing, and I was lacking a bit of joy in my life. And so six months after the breakup, I decided that I wanted to get back into dating, but I knew that I definitely wasn't in a place where I wanted to commit to anyone. I didn't have the emotional availability to commit to someone like I was still. Very much holding space for my past relationship in my heart. And I just wanted, I wanted fun. I wanted connection. I wanted intimacy. Um, and I wanted to truly experience what it feels like, what it felt like to date multiple people at a time. Because I choose to do so, because up until this point, I'd always had the intention of doing that. Like every time I got into dating, I told myself, okay, I'm gonna date around. I'm gonna have fun, and I'm not gonna get into a relationship with the first person that I meet. And every fucking time I would meet someone and get into a relationship with the first person. So I. I was convicted. Let's say I was convicted this point, I said, no, I'm gonna date multiple people. I'm not getting into a committed relationship. That heart space is closed off, but I'm gonna do this for me and I'm gonna have fun. And because I was so clear in my intention of what I was looking for, it made it easy to find people who were on the same page. And this is something I'm so passionate about and I'll die on this hill, is that you must be clear. Re like as clear as you can be. I know some people will say, but I don't know if I want a relationship or not. Just be as clear as you can be about what you're looking for and get honest with yourself. Like if you, if you say, oh, I don't really know, like, I don't know if I want a committed relationship. Challenge yourself, challenge yourself and say, well, is that true? Is it true that you don't know? Or do you actually want one, but you're just scared? You're scared of getting hurt, you're scared of getting rejected. You're scared that you'll scare people off by saying that what? Find your truth, because that's gonna give you a lot more clarity and power in how you approach showing up and dating. It's gonna give you clarity on who you say yes to and who you say no to. So I was very clear in my intention. Therefore, it made it easy for me to communicate that to people and to find people who were a match for what I wanted. And so I went on my merry way and I started dating. And when I say multiple people, I'm talking like, maybe you are, you're hanging out with two or three people at a time and that can look however you want it to look. It doesn't mean that you, you. Have to involve physical intimacy with multiple people at a time. It could be varying degrees of intimacy. Maybe some people, like you can say, I just wanna, I wanna hang out. I'm, you know, I'm not looking to, um. Be intimate too soon or whatever it is. Or maybe you do wanna be intimate with multiple people at a time. There is no right or wrong. That is your prerogative and there is no judgment. All right? Obviously practice safe sex, but do you boo? So that's what I was doing, that it was, in my opinion, a healthy outlet, a healthy outlet in a time of my life where. I needed the space and time to naturally figure out what my next step was going to be in the evolution of my personal life. Because sometimes we do need to do that. We need to give things time and space to unfold, and we can't force ourselves to find the answer. Like maybe you're in a place where you're between careers and you don't know what your next step is, and you can't force yourself to figure it out. You need to live your, okay. I'm sorry. I just need to say that Ody, the dog is barking his fucking head off. And I don't know if you can hear him in the background of this or not, but I just need to say it because I apologize if you can, maybe you can't, but, oh my God. Real life over here. Okay. Where was I? Yes. So sometimes in life we need to allow. Time for ideas and inspiration and clarity to come in of what we're gonna do next with our life. And in the meantime, I do think it's okay to direct your attention elsewhere to have fun. And so that's what I was doing. And now I will preface this by saying the key to doing this successfully is. Number one, being very open and clear in your communication with the people that you're dating. So letting them know what you are available for, letting them know what you are not available for, and making sure that they are on the same page. Very important. The second key thing is remaining conscious with yourself, remaining conscious to how you're feeling. Because when you are anxiously attached, or if you have a history or a background of being anxiously attached, so meaning you maybe get feelings for people quite fast, you attach to people quite quickly. Um, even if on some level you know they're not right for you or you don't want a relationship with you. We need to be very conscious to how we are feeling and continue to check in with ourselves. So that's what I had to keep doing because. There was certain people who, even though I knew I didn't want a relationship with them, because we were spending a decent amount of time together on a consistent basis, you can start to catch feelings or you can start to develop a sort of sense of attachment to that person. So I had to keep checking in with myself and be like, Ooh, am I feeling attachment? Am I feeling this? If so, let's pull it back a little bit. Maybe we spend a little less time with that person. Maybe we focus our attention on hanging out with someone else or. Maybe it's time to end that situationship, whatever it is, just remaining conscious to how you're feeling. And I think if you're doing that, then having a situationship or casual dating can be really fun and really positive. And it definitely gave me a lot in that time of my life, in a time where I didn't feel like I had a lot of direction or purpose. It was. An outlet where I just gave myself permission to have fun and enjoy different experiences with different people and use it as well to gain an even deeper contrast on. What I wanted for myself in the future in terms of my next relationship. You know, I was looking at my past relationship that had ended six months prior and taking stock of what I liked and didn't like in that partnership. And then using the, casual dating scene to see, oh, okay, this is different to him. Maybe I like this more. Or, oh, this is so different to how he showed up in this way, and this is clarifying that. He set the standard in this area and this person is showing me what is like something I definitely don't want. This went on for, I'm gonna say a good six months where I was in my casual dating era and having situation chip here and there that were healthy, that were enjoyable, that were filling up my cup. Now, at the end of that six months, I got to a point in time where I knew within myself things were shifting in my personal life and it was time for me to give other areas of my life my undivided attention. I'd had my fun, and now it was time to focus back on getting my career on track, moving out of my grandma's place, and finding my independence again, and this was all starting to happen. At the end of 2023, so heading into 2024 is when I made that call, and around that time was when I actually did find my new place where I moved out to. And also a few months prior to that, I had realized that I wanted to start to about dating and relationships. Online I wanted to come back and bring my presence back online and I had so much history with relationships and such a big journey of overcoming anxious attachment. And I knew that I naturally wanted to start talking about that and creating content around that. And that's where I wanted to be pouring my energy and see how it would feel to build my, a new business based on relationship coaching. So at that point, I honored that decision and I redirected my focus. Where I wanna go with this conversation now is that there are times where we feel this urge that we need to focus on other things, but we ignore it. And I wonder if you might be in that point right now where you are using your situationship to avoid your life, to avoid taking responsibility for. Getting your shit together, for lack of a better term. So maybe it's you're neglecting your health or certain goals you have there. Maybe you are neglecting your work. Maybe you have a business that you've been wanting to start, but you're scared to start naturally and so you are avoiding that. Maybe you. Know you need to change your living environment, but it's hard or you're scared to change your environment even though you're unhappy, and so you're avoiding that. And one of the easiest ways to avoid all of this stuff is through. Your Situationship, it is directing your attention and focus onto someone else and onto those fleeting moments or experiences when you are with them and you're loved up or you're just having fun and you can forget about everything else. You can forget that there are things in your life you know need to change and you can temporarily feel relief. From that discomfort, because that's what it is. When we go into avoidance of things that we know we need to do, what we're actually doing is just seeking temporary relief from that thing. This might show up for you in, in different ways as well. Like it could be that there's something, you know, you need to put your attention onto, but you, scroll on social media all day because it's a, it's a quick out, it's a quick way to get relief. Maybe you go and get. A donut or a cookie or chocolate as I love to do. You have your kryptonite, you have your way of avoiding and situation. Chip can be one of them. One of the biggest and best ways to know if you are using your situation chip to avoid your life and other responsibility is if when you are not with that person you are. Really miserable. You are unhappy in your life. You are buffering in other ways. So the social media, the, maybe it's online shopping, maybe it's just constantly moving around physically, from location to location, doing different things. You're feeling miserable. But then when you know you have plans with that person coming up, you are hyper fixated on that. You're getting ready for that. Maybe you're going out and buying a new outfit, or you're doing your hair, or you are, you're just pouring energy into looking and feeling your best for that thing. When you see that person, it's really exciting. You mood starts to lift like the day before you go and see them, and then when the rendezvous is over and you have to come home. It's awful. You feel this huge crash in your energy and in your mood. Your mood feels heavy, you feel maybe a bit depressed. You feel anxious about coming back to your reality in a nutshell, and that is a very big sign. That you are using this person and this connection to avoid your life. The other way to know is if you're starting to get over that person a little bit. Like you realize that you've had your fun with them, but because it was always casual in nature and maybe some part of you knew that you didn't want a committed relationship with this person, it's sort of like the honeymoon period is wearing off, or the fun is wearing off and you're not. Actually loving that person's company so much, but you're still persisting on hanging out with them anyway. Okay. A surefire way to know you are in big avoidance mode is like this person is, maybe they're giving you the ick, maybe they're getting on your nerves, maybe you are meeting some of their friends and you're not vibing whatever it is, but you're still insisting on spending time with them. Yeah, we got some shit we, we need to face here. And when you dip into this territory, it starts to become. Unhealthy escapism. So earlier I spoke about a healthy level of escapism. Like it's okay to go and have fun and focus on pleasure and joy whilst you are waiting for clarity on other things. But then if you know the steps you need to take to move forward with your life, but you are avoiding because you're scared or uncomfortable, then it's unhealthy escapism. It's full on buffering. You're fully in avoidance mode. And the funny thing about. Avoiding the things that we know we need to take responsibility for and we need to do is it is actually so draining doing that, the avoidance of the thing. Is more difficult than actually just doing the thing. Because you have to keep, it's like you're trying to outrun yourself, you're trying to outrun the discomfort, and you can only run so far before you actually just crash and burn and you have to stop and face it. So the sooner. You can realize that this is what's happening and this is the conversation that I was having with a private client of mine, and she's starting to recognize that. I think she's in this point of avoidance of, I don't think I actually see this going anywhere, and I think I've had my fun and I think it's starting to take away from my life more than it is add to my life. Okay, this is the point. We need to face this and face ourselves. Some questions. I would encourage you to ask yourself if you are in this place of using your situation, chip, to avoid your life and feeling that intuitive pull, intuitive nudge that is telling you, girl, it's time to switch lanes. It is time to get our shit together. Here are some questions I want you to ask yourself. Number one, am I still genuinely enjoying this person's company or am I enjoying the temporary relief from the discomfort and misery that I feel in my own life, which one feels more true? Number two, what am I avoiding? Get clear on the actual thing that your brain is trying to run away from, and if it is, okay, I'm avoiding. Uh, applying for jobs, like I know I need to get a new job. I'm avoiding that. Okay, so the circumstance is applying for a new job, but what is it about that that you are avoiding? Because anytime we're avoiding something, we're actually avoiding a feeling that we think that thing is going to. Create within us. So what is it about that that you are avoiding? Can you sit with it? Can you write it down? Can you look at it and acknowledge it for a minute? Stop running from it. Turn around and face it and say, oh, okay, I'm avoiding applying for jobs because I am nervous about needing to do interviews or. I'm realizing that I don't want to work in the same industry that I've been working in for the last 10 years, and I need to make a decision on what else I want to do. Or maybe you are unhappy with your health and you know that you're actually avoiding taking responsibility for getting in better shape and fixing up your eating habits and things like that. Can you sit with it for a moment and just acknowledge the thing that you are? Running from Another question you can ask yourself is if my life was going the way that I wanted it to be going, so meaning the things that you're avoiding were no longer needing things that needed to be avoided, like everything was working out well, would I still want to be seeing this person? Mm-hmm. Hmm. Would I still want to be seeing them if other, everything else in my life was going the way I wanted it to go? That one's gonna highlight, a very key answer for you. Another question, does this situationship make me feel empowered or disempowered? Chances are when you're in a healthy place with casual dating, you will feel empowered.'cause it's fun. You feel confident, you are doing it for yourself. You are not trying to avoid anything else, you're just doing it as a healthy outlet. When you are in a unhealthy relationship with your situationship, you'll probably feel disempowered because you are putting the situationship up on a pedestal as the only thing that is giving you any source of happiness or temporary relief from the discomfort of your own life, which is quite disempowering. Once you've gained awareness of what it is that you're avoiding and you're starting to confront it, the next piece of advice I have would be to develop some plan of action. Because if the thing you're avoiding is getting a new job, let's just say for example, that in itself is too big of a task. It might feel too daunting and overwhelming that we need to actually break it down. We need to break it up into. Bite-sized chunks into baby steps of, okay, what does that actually look like? If I need to do that, maybe one thing is reviewing my resume. The next step is updating my resume. The next step is spending two hours a day looking on seek and seeing what piques my interest, or wherever you look for jobs, right? So we're just breaking it down so it feels more doable, because often when we are procrastinating it's because there's a lack of clarity on the action steps we need to take, or it's just the, the task itself is too big and overwhelming that we need to actually break it down. The next step would be if you can get support, having someone you can talk to in a safe space and be open and honest about. This is what I'm really struggling with. I know I need to face this, but I need emotional support. I need encouragement, and whether that's hiring a coach, someone whose sole job is to be there to support you, to hold you accountable and help you move forward in the direction that you want to go. If you can't do that right now, maybe it's talking to someone you feel safe with who you trust, like a really close friend or a family member that you can. Ask for a safe space to talk about this stuff without judgment and tell them that this is how you wanna move forward and maybe even ask for some accountability. You don't have to do this alone. When we are feeling particularly emotionally vulnerable, it really does help to have someone in your corner who believes in you and who can help you take the steps that you know you need to take. My final tip for this is. Plan for other ways, healthier ways that you can still experience some joy and happiness and fun or healthy escapism, because if you've been putting a lot of your energy into this situationship and. You end it and walk away without thinking about how you're going to fill your time and take care of yourself when that is no longer in your life, it could feel a bit jarring. So, plan things for yourself that are going to. Add to your life in a healthy way and and contribute to the energy that you need to focus on what you need to focus on. So maybe it's reinvesting some more time back into your friendships, planning social things with your friends on the weekend, or maybe it's planning nice things for yourself, like when you need to focus on these steps, can you plan to take yourself out to a nice cafe and buy yourself a nice drink and make it a positive experience rather than something that you need to dread. I know it feels daunting if this is the situation you're in right now. I know it feels scary to face yourself, but I promise you that it is actually the thing that is going to make you feel so much better. The sooner to it. The sooner through it. We actually end up feeling a million times better when we just face the thing we've been avoiding and we just get it done. That is what's gonna make you feel empowered. That is what's gonna boost your self-esteem, and it's going to give you a sense of forward momentum in your life. And also. It's going to help you avoid getting attached to people who, let's be honest, you don't really wanna get attached to. So my friends, I'm gonna wrap it up here. I hope that this episode has been, if anything, just a bit of a wake up call to you if you have needed it. And a reminder that dating does get to be fun, but we need to remain conscious of. What we're doing with it and what we're using it for. Remain conscious to how you're feeling. Keep checking in with yourself and take charge of your life with both hands, because when you are filled up in your life, when you are happy with your career, with your friends, with the things that matter to you, you yourself are going to be a happier, more magnetic individual, which is only going to enhance the type of relationships you have moving forward. All right, my friends, if this resonated with you, I would love to hear, come over to Instagram, send me a DM, and let's chat. And if you are loving the pod, it would mean the world to me. If you share this with a friend, maybe you know someone who's in a situation Chip, who they're using it to avoid their life and they could use this episode, send it their way. And it would also mean the world if you could rate and review the podcast wherever you're listening, to help spread the word and get more people into the Secure Love Club. Have a beautiful week, my friends, and I'll 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.