Hey Girl U Up?

PROLOGUE - WHY ARE YOU SINGLE? | GUESTS: ORNA & MATTHEW WALTERS

• Anna Moulaison • Season 1

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Before I start spilling the tea with fellow 40+ daters, I needed to get some answers to 'Why Are You Single?' So I invited holistic dating coaches @ornaandmatthew for some tools, tough love and truth bombs -  on breaking patterns, spotting red flags, cheating, forgiveness & what it really means when your inner critic lights up! Their new book 'Getting It Right This Time -  Break Free from Your Hidden Blocks to Lasting Love', couldn't have landed at a better moment. Blocks? What? Me? 🤣🤯

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Anna:

Hey girl. You up always is the answer. My name is Anna. I am 40 plus and fabulous. I became unexpectedly single and thrown out there in the jungle of online dating. I was like shocked, amazed, confused. I laughed, I cried. I am not a dating coach. I am not a relationship expert. I am an expert in, uh, nothing apart from going on apparently Bad dates, episode one. Why are You single? I have invited some experts that maybe helped me answer that. They are the creators and founders of Love on purpose.com. They also have a brilliant new book called Getting It Right This Time Break Free From Your Hidden Blocks to Lasting Love. Please meet Orna and Matthew Walters.'cause I cannot wait to get down to business. What is happening out there?

Matthew:

Yeah, tell me. It's crazy, isn't it? Yes. I mean, you go online, you, you uh, you get in any form where people are talking about dating and all we hear is how frustrated everybody is and how hard dating is and how everybody seems crazy.

Orna:

Yeah. And people don't want to date. They wanna go straight to the mate.

Anna:

I wanted to ask like, how did you even, you have a whole business about helping people, finding love, like why are you helping us?

Orna:

We're all sort of sold this ridiculous myth from the minute we pop out of the womb, right? We're told that everything in life was having, we should get a skillset and get educated and practice and to do all this stuff except love. We

Matthew:

spent years trying to figure it out.

Orna:

And so I shared my journey to Matthew. Matthew shared his journey to me, and then we put together a weekend workshop called Creating Love on Purpose. And what's in the book is truly our system. We call it our soul mating system because saying that we help people find their beloved life partner, they. People often mistake and think we're matchmakers. We don't do any matching because everything we do is working with an individual. We always say, when you have an inner shift, then your outer world experience changes.

Anna:

Got it. So you're really matching people with their true self. Correct.

Matthew:

I love that. That's a great way to, you know,

Anna:

for 40 plus singles, obviously something didn't work out.

Matthew:

If you're looking for the other person to ease your loneliness or heal your heart Yeah. Or fill that hole inside of you. Yeah. Whatever it is. Yeah. Then you're going to pick dysfunctional situations. Yeah. Over and over and over again.

Orna:

And the first phase is really awareness because the book itself is broken into three acts. Okay. Three parts to the book Uhhuh and that first phase awareness. Is the work that most people don't wanna look at doing.

Matthew:

It's uncomfortable to look at the stories you have about your bad relationships. Yeah. And you know, the heartbreak and the frustration and all of that. And to look at the pain there, sometimes it's really difficult, but in looking at it and just being honest about it and saying, well, this happened and I chose that and this happened and I chose that and this is the way I behaved there, you could start to see patterns.

Anna:

I've been distracting myself having gone through a really rough breakup. Mm-hmm. Uh, which. You know, and again, I'm a pragmatic person. I'm a business person. I'm a director. So I identify with that Anna, 'cause she worked really fucking hard at becoming a, whatever she became. I have to at some point to pull myself out of my breakup misery. I. And, you know, being on the floor and crying like, I didn't like her too much.'cause you almost have to create a character when you go through extreme breakup to function. And I didn't like her anymore, so I had to, I started applying my, uh, executive Anna, how about that? To dating. And I just started going on dates after date, after date, after date without doing much of that work. I'll be honest. Mm-hmm. Because it was distracting, right? I was looking for a distraction,

Orna:

right. At the same time, I knew that's not the ideal place to date from. I'm looking from a distraction from my heartbreak. Let me go date. Well, I was tired of it.'cause I

Anna:

could tell you heartbreak is fucking exhausting. It is. And I was exhausting and I hate when people go. Go over and heal. Oh, you need to heal first. Can I tell you, where am I going? That corner? No, that

Orna:

corner. No, this corner. Yeah, but this one I sat in it or not for so long. No, you don't. I sat in the emotion. That is not what's in here. Well, I wanted to get rid of it, so I needed the distraction. Does that make sense? It's exhausting. But see, the difference is, is every piece, the through line, through everything that you've brought up, is judgment. And judgment is 100% the biggest block to love. Okay. Uh, you mean I'm judging myself or

Anna:

feeling that way? Correct. Yeah.

Matthew:

You know, one of the journeys in the book is a journey of self-acceptance.

Anna:

Okay.

Matthew:

Right. And self-acceptance is so important because how often are we beating ourselves up? Yep. Or something we said or did and oh my God, I can't believe I said that again. Right? Sixth

Anna:

grade, I can fall, I can go lay down in, in, in bed and I'll be like, I still feel bad what I did to like Jonna in sixth grade and I should have handled it differently. Maybe that's a unique female thing, I don't know. But I will rehash things that happen 20 years. I'll go and I'll be like, I feel bad about that. And then I package it back away, you know? Anyway, go ahead.

Matthew:

Yeah. And you've gotta forgive that little girl. Yeah. And, and you know, bring her grace because she was doing the best she could with the resources she had. All of our behavior at its root has positive intent. Okay. Even the alcoholic Yep. Right. Is trying to get something they need. Right? Yeah. It's not the best

Anna:

strategy, right? So intent is always good, even if it's bad consequences, you think in the human nature,

Matthew:

I think a lot of human nature has positive intent. Nobody's trying to hurt themselves. Even people who are harming, other people are trying to do it so they feel safe.

Orna:

The intent of our behavior is always positive, but the result is not necessarily positive. The result, result can be a negative result, and test is positive for me.

Matthew:

Yes, yes. You have a crappy strategy. Right. You have a crappy strategy for getting what you need, but when you're able to say, okay, I get it. This part of me is trying to make me feel better, uhhuh and the strategy I'm using doesn't work, right? Do I beat myself up because I have a bad strategy? Because what we're really beating ourselves up is because we think we're a bad person.

Orna:

If you're hard on yourself. Mm-hmm. You will also judge a partner harshly. Right. And so if you can't even live up to your own expectations, then a partner can't live up to those expectations either. People set the bar too high to even just go meet for a date. Yeah. It's just a date. It's just a date. It's just a date. I mean, it's really just an event. Right. It's really like

Matthew:

it's coffee, it's a cocktail. Yeah.

Orna:

I mean, we don't even count a first meet as a date number one. Date number one is after already. It doesn't count. No, it doesn't count as when it's zero. It's the ground floor. Oh.

Anna:

So if everybody's intent is me, me, me, and focusing on themselves, then how do we ever

Orna:

then meet in the middle? Because most of the intent of our behavior is to feel loved, approved, and accepted. It's like an umbrella of love. Right? Okay. So it's, it's not romantic love. It's the big umbrella of what love is.

Matthew:

Let's just say. Because we're talking about dating, we're talking about love and relationship. Let's say everybody's intent is to find love. Mm-hmm. If your strategy was one of selfishness, well, you're not gonna find love. Right. It's not a good strategy for meeting your intent. Right. And that's the point we want to really emphasize here. A friend of mine actually told me much later in life that she used to refer to me as the toxic Bachelor. And I was, I was the toxic bachelor. I was commitment phobic. I would just disappear on people. I would chase after rejection. Oh, I would, I would, I think I would trying to get sex on the first date. Oh,

Anna:

I'm sure. I'm sure you are. My dates exactly. I'm dating. I, I'm exactly. I am going for Golden Olympics of dating. I have met you many times,

Matthew:

but I didn't think of myself that way. How did you think about yourself? I thought I was just looking for love and connection. Oh, and you know, hopefully I could get some sex along the way.

Anna:

Was no one good enough? Like what was the thing? Like I wasn't

Matthew:

good enough,

Anna:

but, and but you didn't know that at the time. Of course. Well,

Matthew:

okay, so I say it this way, that if I ever met somebody who was really interested in me Yeah. Who said, wow, you know, you're really cute, you're really smart. My first thought would be, what's wrong with you? My second thought would be interesting. Wait till you get to know me. We'll see how much you like, what's going on here, because I didn't like myself. Oh. And so of course I'm not available for a relationship.

Anna:

Interesting. Because I

Matthew:

would reject whatever would come along. Interesting. And it only was, and this is why I, I'm emphasizing self-acceptance,'cause that was my journey. Learning to go, you know what? I have these behaviors, I have these strategies, and maybe they're not the best and whatever, but I still like myself and I can still love those strategies that get me such bad results. Aw, because the strategy is trying to get me something I need. And so instead of judging it, instead of judging myself and saying, why do you keep doing that? Yeah. Why are you such a jerk? Right? Yeah. I can say, oh, I get that part of me. That's what I learned when I was a kid that try to be safe in my family or to try to, you know, feel acceptance at school or whatever it was. It was a strategy I learned a long time ago. Oh, and so why should I beat myself up for something that little kid learned how to do? Right. And that's what I say to you when you think about that girl when it was sixth grade, you said. Mm-hmm. Right? Why beat yourself up? Because of who she was. She was doing her best.

Orna:

Right. She didn't know any of that.

Matthew:

So when we say self-acceptance, it's really going, oh, see how you softened and opened up as I told the story about myself? Yeah, right. You felt compassion for me. Yeah. Can you do that for yourself?

Anna:

Right. Oh, that's kind of, yeah, that's deep. I mean, the answer is yes. But it's also opened up a whole new layer of, Lord I have so much work to do.

Orna:

If there was some kind of magic, you know, fairy dust that we could trick on you and like heal your heart and like now send you off into the world to date properly. Sure we would do that. Yeah. But that, that doesn't exist. Oh.

Matthew:

But we do have a system for healing heartbreak.

Orna:

Yeah. See, I mean this is like a whole playlist healing your heart. Is that when your heart actually breaks? Yeah, it breaks open to hold more love. Okay. That's what

Anna:

Real Healing does. The only thing I'm gonna say is like my person, I loved him and I thought he was the one. I could not have loved this man anymore, and he cheated on me. So that was a hard thing to come back from. I cannot fix someone else. And I think I tried to fix him perpetually.

Orna:

You can't fix somebody else. But the idea is, is you don't need to fix somebody else. So when people say dating is broken, or the dating app suck, or blah, blah, blah. Yeah. A dating app is a tool to meet per people in real life for a date. That's all it is. It's a tool. It's an inanimate object. Yeah. So it is neither good nor bad. Yeah. If you are not using the tool properly. It, you will probably have, uh, trouble with that tool. What we are talking about is the dating process is supposed to be a process. Oh. And it's a selection process that, okay. And it is just as important to know who to deselect Okay. As it is to know who to continue to be curious about as you move forward through a process of selecting somebody, getting to know a person and decide they're your person. Oh my gosh, that takes time. I mean, there is no such thing as instant intimacy,

Anna:

genuinely learning things here. By the second, I'm at the tail end of my healing. I've gone through like my whole face, my drunken face, calling friends and telling the same story a hundred times. The anger for me is the last piece.

Matthew:

You can have all the compassion. In the world for another person, but sometimes you need solid boundaries if they're toxic. So yeah, compassion and empathy doesn't mean you open the door. I mean, to this person coming back into your life. It just means it allows you to forgive them and keep the door closed.

Anna:

What you're saying is a lot of work to do with myself. I won't find the right person. I thought it was just down to algorithm. Damn, your Bumble. Maybe it wasn't

Orna:

in your app. Are are notifications on, are they pinging you all day long? Yeah, I

Anna:

mean, I'll be honest, I'm also sometimes, sometimes, and we're not gonna floor people for this, sometimes we are just looking for a good time. I have no judgment

Orna:

about that. We don't Judgment. I just wonder for a

Anna:

little bit of both.

Orna:

Yeah. If you wanna just have a good time and even if you just wanna go and hook up whatever. Yeah. We have zero judgment about that. Right. But the process of finding an ideal partner to share your life with, which is different. Yeah. That is a different, don't expect a hookup. To turn into, no, to turn into a relationship and don't expect, have friends with benefits is gonna turn into a relationship. Yes. Learn that. I mean, you want however many people you, but it's

Anna:

not gonna lead anyway from that part. It's,

Orna:

that's about knowing if you have the expectation when you're, when you, when you're in that space of like. I am ready. Okay.'cause I know for me, when I realized I really wanted a great love relationship, I was like, but I don't know how to do that. And so I decided I'd become a student. I was gonna become a student of love, but the place to date from is on the other side of a healing process. Forgiveness isn't about the other person. For

Anna:

you. I know people say this, I'll never forgive the fucker and I don't care. I think forgiveness is overrated. People say it's for yourself. It's, you've can forgive, but

Orna:

you, I would never tell you to forget. Yeah. Don't forget. And it doesn't mean you need that person in your life, but when you look for the. When you look for the golden nugget, there's a golden nugget that teaches you from that relationship, that changes you, that moves you forward on your journey to your beloved. And that's when you step into true forgiveness. Mm-hmm. Because from that place, you feel whole again. Instead of feeling shattered

Anna:

and this, this, there needs to be another word. I'm, I have a genuine problem with forgiveness. I'm sorry. So I have a genuine fucking problem with it. Let's

Matthew:

say

Anna:

it this way. Yeah.

Matthew:

It's not about forgiving him, it's about forgiving yourself for being duped by him.

Anna:

The, the being mad at myself for not, uh, for not supporting the science earlier that he cheated. Mm-hmm. That I let go after about two, three months. It took two, three months 'cause you feel duped and then you realize that when someone made it their full time job to lie. Wake up six 30 coffee, start lying. Go to work lunch. More lying.

3:

00 PM coffee. More lying. It is a full time job for a cheater to lie to you. So I will no longer make any fucking, um, excuses for being duped. I was dumb and gullible and a and a cheater. The last thing I wanna say about that is that they know if they tell the betrayed partner the truth, the betrayed partner is likely gonna leave. Mm-hmm. So they were holding information on purpose. It's, it's cruel and it's evil. And I have a hard time ever letting that go. So forgiveness is not

Orna:

gonna happen for me. But forgiveness is for you because it gives you peace, not just in your mind, but in your heart and in your soul on all levels. When you step into that place of peace, yeah. You claim your power back from that experience. Speaking of experiences, mm-hmm. Dating.

Anna:

As someone who dates a lot. So hopefully my heart gets healed and I use your tools, but I'm still gonna go out there and date'cause you know them, the rules. Uh, what are your tips for dating, like day one to three? Like how am I navigating and how are like, are listeners navigating this? What can you tell us about. Going on first day, second is third.

Matthew:

Well, you want to slow down the dating process. Okay? We're all in a hurry. Yeah. We're in a hurry to find our person so that we don't have to keep dating accurate. And when you're approaching it that way, you're ignoring all the stuff that you need to be paying attention to. Especially in the other person's behavior, right? And you're ignoring your own patterns about what's showing up. So we always say slow down and get present to yourself first. Okay? What are you feeling? What are you thinking? What's going on with you when you're sitting across from that other person? Yeah, if you find them attractive, are you behaving differently than if you didn't find them attractive? Uh, a thousand percent, right? So you're not authentic right away. Oh, you're not being authentic. What? Because you're a different person depending on who's sitting across from you.

Anna:

Oh, a hundred percent. Like I just want that connection. I just want the Zaza Zoo. I want like, you know, I love that. I want the Zaza Zoo. I wanna feel something on the first date. That is my bar. I.

Orna:

Uh, that is like, uh, are we doing two thumbs down? Yeah. That is actually, let's give it four, yeah. Four thumbs down to the zza zoo. Yeah. The whole, I need a connection on the first date. I, I don't, I, this is my whole You did not need a connect. If I don't feel it. No. Here is the low bar, not an ax, murderer. That is your low bar.

Anna:

Hey, kids out there, not an ax murder. That's gonna be my new bio. Yeah, that's your new,

Orna:

that's your new biography. Yeah. There you go. Not an ax murderer. Because really? Yes, because here's the thing, our most unpopular piece of advice Yeah. Is attraction is not a requirement for a date, it's just a date. You don't need chemistry and attraction to go meet somebody. As a matter of fact, when you open up the dating pool, you get to evaluate yourself differently. Dating is practice. I. It's practice for a relationship. Now, I do wanna say chemistry is a requirement for a relationship. Okay. But not for a date. So as a matter of fact, you could go on 3, 4, 5, 6 dates with somebody you don't feel a spark with. Yeah. Oh, oh yeah. Don't do that. And I feel like I'm leading him off. Oh no, you're not.

Matthew:

No, we're actually not waiting him on. We, we see this all the time. Well, you're only leading him on if you're leading him on. Well, I, but, but how do I then, so for example, let me tell you, okay, now you don't say, wow, why did I waste this hour with you? You're such a jerk. I gotta leave. Yeah, it's not. Black and white like that. Yeah. I never do that there, there's plenty of ways you can say, wow, you know, I appreciate meeting you and, and this was a great restaurant.

Anna:

I always say that

Matthew:

world, you know, you can find, find something the world positive to say I am. It isn't encouraging to the other person because what you want to be above anything else is you wanna be authentic. Yeah. And what authenticity means is that you speak how you feel. Yes. Regardless of the expectations of the other person.

Anna:

Yes. So when I send that to them and I say, Hey, we had, so they normally, normally I get a text and say, Anna, I had such a great time and I would love to see you again. And I'll say, uh uh, thank you so much. I think you're an amazing person and talented and funny, but I don't think there's a romantic connection there. And I wish you all the best, but you don't have enough data.

Orna:

And so the data is just as important about, um, expanding your, your zone of, of what's possible. Oh, so is you wanna go in the dating lab, like we have clients that literally put things on their profile that say, I'm in the dating lab. I'm looking to meet in real life. Who wants to meet me in person? The dating

Anna:

lab. Okay? Mm-hmm. So if I don't, so I go on a date, let's say he's not bad, but there isn't any zza Z or any connection, right? Mm-hmm. Which, which. A, according to you is I shouldn't have that anyway on the first date. Then like, what happens? What happens if we do that? Some people walk in and they sit down and I just go, Ooh, you wanna,

Matthew:

yeah, you want to be aware of instant intimacy

Anna:

or just like, ooh,

Matthew:

you wanna, you wanna, that's when you're a little spotty sense should go up and, and say, slow down, pay attention. Because especially if you have a pattern of. Bad relationships or relationships that don't work out or choosing emotionally unavailable people or choosing or or, or narcissists. You gotta pay attention to that instant intimacy because that is your subconscious mind saying, this is familiar. This is familiar. This is familiar. Yes. And it's a heightened signal and we, we misinterpret. That signal as excitement and attraction when what it is, it's a warning. It's, it's the red lights going pay attention

Anna:

so

Matthew:

that

Anna:

our own brain

Matthew:

is

Anna:

fucking us, basically. Yes. It's, well, it's not always. It's doing

Orna:

what it's supposed to do. I'm going with this

Anna:

mind look.

Orna:

Our, our, our, our subconscious mind has one task. Yeah, only one. Okay. And remember, the subconscious dominates the majority of our behavior. Okay.'cause it was like 90% or plus of our behavior. That's

Anna:

terrifying. The things we do.

Orna:

Yeah. Right. And it has one job. It's a very low bar. That bar is to keep you alive. That's it. Well, the last, it's supposed to keep you alive. Okay. That's all it's supposed to do. So Uhhuh, how does it do that? Because this is the best computer on earth. Yeah. It is literally in this moment, taking in over 2 million bits of information. The light on your face, your seat in the chair, the temperature in the room, the touch of those cards in your hand, your fingers touching each other, whatever. Wow. Everything that's happening in this moment is like 2 million bits of information for your subconscious mind. Okay. And it will find what is familiar because we have a behavioral homeostasis. Now we have a physical homeostasis, body temperature, too hot, too cold, we die, blood pressure, heart rate, too high, too low. We die. So we have to stay in the Goldilocks zone to stay alive. Okay? But the subconscious uses the same process of the law of association. Okay? It says this is like that, but it doesn't It so fast. So when you get a Zza zoo, your brain is lighting you up saying, this is familiar. This is familiar, and it has no idea if familiar is good nor bad, because the subconscious can't judge. That only happens in our big prefrontal cortex. Uhhuh familiar, if you've not had the kind of relationship you want is not necessarily bad, like dangerous, but it's bad, as in it's not gonna get you the lasting love you want. So you're likely to pick the same kind of person if you're only going for the, the thing that is lighting you up. It's a different experience.

Anna:

I get it. You wanna like have a dating account for my subconscious and another dating account for Anna, because clearly, clearly we should not

Matthew:

be together. That's why you wanna slow things down. Yes. Right. So you can pay attention to these things. Okay. Right, so that's terrifying what happens to most people. Uh, we're fucked. Everybody. We are go. What happens to most people is the writing, what we call the hope to disappointment, rollercoaster. It. And that's why dating is so exhausting.

Orna:

You're not gonna find your soulmate, your beloved in a profile. It's not a checklist. No, you are not gonna see it there. Say no, but you're setting yourself up to be disappointed. That's what I'm saying. Trigger not. It's a really low, oh my God, don't talk. Don't you have a connection? You know you have a date right next. Get, get a pipeline. Get a rotation. No, I do have a pipeline. Yeah, I know, because you're over swiping. Someone's over sw. Have a pipeline.

Matthew:

I'm going to jump in here. Yeah. We had a client.

Orna:

Mm-hmm.

Matthew:

Uh, she gets on the phone with us and she says, oh, I, I've got these two great prospects and I think they're really great. We great. How many dates you been on? Oh, I haven't met them yet. Oh fine, fine. So that's the extreme fine. That's the extreme version of that where fine. And this is where people say I was, I was, um, scammed by somebody online. Yeah.'cause this is the extreme example. Scammed of the hope to disappointment rollercoaster. Yes. You can only get scammed if you are investing your heart before you meet somebody in person. Good one. If you don't invest your heart, oh, if you don't put any hope into this picture, into this profile, and it's just a, okay, here's another opportunity to meet another person and to be curious to find out what I can find out.

Orna:

And here's the cherry on top. Don't be fooled by zoom or video chat, whatever the hell. Don't be fooled. Because that is not gonna replace it. You have to remember, our minds are meaning making machines, so whatever is missing, like you're just talking to somebody on the telephone. Yeah. This is my telephone. I love, yeah. Here's my telephone. Here's the thing. When you're just hearing somebody's voice, your mind is filling in the blanks. You know this? Yes. You've talked to somebody on the phone a million times, do work or whatever, and then you meet in person. You're like, oh, that's weird. You don't look like I thought you would. Yeah. What do you mean you thought I looked like something, right? Yeah. Because your mind fills in the blanks. Yeah. Whatever's blank, your mind will fill it in. Yeah. And when you're dating, you wanna stop dating as fast as possible. That's what your mind's filling in all these blanks. So in the early part of the dating process, what are we, what are y'all doing? You know what you're all doing? You're slanting everything to the positive. And you know what? After three to six months, some of you then start to fill in the blanks and slant everything towards the negative, right? Aw. Your mind is a meaning making machine. You have to tame your brain for dating and you tame your brain for dating by saying, I'm gonna first put myself in the dating lab so I can evaluate myself. I'm gonna give you an example. Yeah. I went on a date with a guy. So hot, and I remember parting from this guy and my inner critic was so lit up. It was like, you did it and you couldn't. And I was like, oh my God, I never went out with that guy again. I was like, no. Why? Because my purse, that can't be my person. My person is gonna make me feel good about myself when we, when I part from them.

Anna:

Oh, and you got all freaking out already. Like, wait, second I call, not gonna call. Like, I didn't do that. You beating yourself up.

Orna:

Didn't, and I could've, and I should have and I didn't. I was critiquing myself on the date the second we parted. Oh, that is good. The second we parted, I was reaming myself a new asshole and I was like, that cannot be my person. Oh, that's a good one. How hot? Because the person I wanna be with is the person that makes me go. Oh, I just had such do great time. That's so great. I definitely, so

Anna:

critical. I had a situation shift that ended. Mm-hmm. We went on eight dates. I started getting into a little bit at the end, like being subconscious, leaving his house and what did I say the night before and like, and it's interesting. And then one day, by the way, I asked him out on the ninth date. We're like on the path now, multiple days. So I say to him, Hey, do you wanna grab dinner Wednesday or Thursday? Those are my only three days. And he was just like, yeah, I'm sorry. I'm just like not available those days. I have my kid. And I was like, oh, okay. Next time. I never heard from him again, ever. I kept questioning myself coming home and what I'd said and what I've done, and I like that what you said, 'cause I think I can use that if a guy makes me feel. Not necessarily inadequate, but I'm, I'm, I'm, am I pleasing enough? Am am I good enough? Am I, mm-hmm. That is a great tool. If someone is lying to your inner critic, it can't be your person. Yeah. Yeah. It cannot be. That's a good one. If anyone lights your inner critic, not your man, not problem. But there's, but

Orna:

do you only discover these things?'cause we could literally sit here for 17 hours and you still wouldn't have all of our tips and tools. Ah, so here's the thing. You have to put yourself in the lab to discover about yourself through the dating the lab. Yeah. Through the dating process. Sarah, we have to go in the lab. Go back, back,

Anna:

back to school. Okay. We are, we've been doing it all wrong. We've been doing it all wrong all this time. Everything's been wrong.

Matthew:

So as we're, as you're going on these dates Yeah. And you're slowing things down'cause you're paying attention. Yeah. Not only to what's going on across the table from you, but what's going on in your own head. Uhhuh, you're gonna notice that there are thoughts you have that don't encourage you to stay positive in your search for love. Maybe you're beating yourself up or maybe you're, you have a bad date and you end the whole date by going, ah, I'm never gonna find anybody. Why am I wasting my time? Uhhuh, this is so frustrating. Or all the good ones are taken frustrating. All the good ones are taken. And here there's only the, the remainders here in the bin and I don't want any of these. Mm-hmm. Whatever the story you're telling yourself. Yeah. Anything we want. We really want from life, whether it's a successful career uhhuh or fitness or health or love mm-hmm. Is gonna take us putting some effort towards it happening.

Anna:

Yep. Fair enough. It's the bad

Matthew:

news, right? Yep. We're gonna have to do something differently. Everybody's suffering from dating burnout.

Anna:

Mm-hmm. Yes.

Matthew:

So we wanna stop dating burnout. Okay, good. So the way we're gonna stop dating burnout is first we're gonna slow down. We're not gonna invest yet. We're gonna take our time to get to know somebody before we throw our heart in. The second thing we're gonna do is when we notice those thoughts that aren't serving us, we're gonna interrupt them and we're gonna change them, and we have a, a tool we wanna share with everybody to make that happen.

Orna:

Okay? Okay. Sounds like it does a bit fun. We brought a gift for you. Okay. It's our creating Love on purpose bracelets. I'm wearing one. Okay, so this is, um, made by ku, a company out of, uh, Asheville, North Carolina. They make sacred Gemstone jewelry. Um, this, um, there's two versions of this bracelet. This one is rose cords with Rose Wood, and you have the same one. Do I put this on? Yes. Yes. So you take it off. Gonna take it off. So I know for me, I had a lot of limiting beliefs, so I'm gonna give one of my old limiting beliefs that I had to bust in order to be the person that I am in this relationship with. My beloved husband. Okay. Can

Anna:

you down my car now? Yeah.

Orna:

Okay. I'm into this. So this is what we call a pattern interrupt. Now you could, obviously, you can do this with a fancy bracelet like this, what you can do with hair tie or rubber band, anything that easily moves one, one riff to the other. Okay? So you're putting this, you're gonna identify one negative. Thought pattern that you wanna break. Okay. This is taking something from awareness into transformation. I used to think all the all, oh, I used to think all men would cheat. So can you identify a negative thought for you that you'd like to change? Yes. What is the negative thought?

Anna:

I am scared of not finding the one.

Matthew:

There you go.

Anna:

I'm scared. Time is up. Oh, that good? I don't think I'm gonna find the one. I, I, yeah, I'll never find the ones. There's not enough

Matthew:

time to find the one. Yeah,

Anna:

I'll never find the one because listen, I, I'm a serial monogamist. Yeah. I've been in three long relationships. I'll never find, find. I'm scared I won't get my fourth. Yeah. Oh, you think, you think you only get so many

Orna:

cards Still? I'm afraid that time has run out. Okay.

Matthew:

So here's what

Orna:

you're gonna do. So here's what you're gonna do. Okay. In the morning, you start on the right uhhuh, or you can start on the left if you want to, but I would say start on pick one wrist to start. Yep. Now you're gonna say to yourself, when you put this on in the morning. I'm gonna pay attention whenever that thought comes, that I've run out of time. Yep. I've run it. I'm not gonna meet the one I've run outta time. Yep. And so throughout the day, you want your awareness to catch yourself. Oh, I just said it again. Oh. And every time you catch yourself, as soon as you catch yourself, you stop. Yep. You take it off the right wrist while saying, cancel, cancel, cancel, cancel, cancel, cancel. And now we're gonna come up with a new positive thought to say on onto the left wrist.

Matthew:

Does it feel I'm gonna

Orna:

love of my life?

Matthew:

How does that feel?

Orna:

Good.

Matthew:

There you go.

Orna:

Yeah. I wanna be of my life. Because you want, you

Matthew:

want the, you want the new thought. Yeah. To have as much emotion as the old thought does. Yeah.

Orna:

So you need the new thought pattern to be in either in process. Yep. And, and positive. Right. And with emotion. So I'm gonna recap, uh, I'll,

Anna:

I'll, I will never meet the love of my life. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Is my bad one. Yeah. Right. Cancel, cancel, cancel, cancel, cancel. Now. Put it on mark. I will, I will meet the love of my life. I will all day. You need to

Matthew:

interrupt the pattern. Yeah. And create the new thought pattern. We'll meet the love of my life. And what happened when you said it, I just saw your face just light up, relax to lit up. And you, you, you have this huge grin and I can see it in your eyes. Yeah, because Oh, that feels great. It does. And now feeling like this, yeah, maybe you can go on a date with somebody who doesn't give you the Zza Zoom. Because who knows? Maybe he knows the love of your life. You don't know. Every provider. And so you're coming, knows people you

Orna:

haven't met yet. You're

Matthew:

coming with a mindset of curiosity and openness to every experience because you never know what's gonna come of it. Instead of coming with, it has to be this or I'm wasting my time.

Anna:

Right.

Orna:

Because that's, it's rewiring your thought process. You, the goal eventually is to not move it for 40 days. Oh, wow. And when you don't move it for 40 days, then you can move on to another negative thought. And start at the beginning again. And

Anna:

so I have to lock this thought down. Yeah. And then I can move on to other thoughts. Uh, how many years, uh, do we have on this planet, Sarah? I hope with 10,000 years, I think it should be life on purpose. Not love. On purpose. I find all this be unhelpful. I've been doing this. All wrong.

Matthew:

I mean, Anna, you've said several times, oh my God, I have so many things to work on. Yeah. And what we want you to understand is you don't have to be perfect to get out there. You don't have to be perfect to find your person. You have to be on the journey though of awareness. Yes. Of looking at your stuff and being able to take responsibility and, and, and shift your thoughts and all that. But it's all part of the process. If you're waiting, 'cause I think this is. You know, one of the dangers that I'm hearing in the way we're talking is it sounds like I have to do all this work before I'm ever even go on a date.

Anna:

No. I actually, no, that's not how I see it. Yeah, I see, like I've been watching myself in the funny mirror the whole time and, and I just took a step right in a regular mirror. That's how I feel. I genuinely, I feel very empowered. I feel I have tools. I feel like I'm kind of flipped dating on its head, at least for me, and I'm sure for many people listening and watching.

Orna:

So the inner shift creates an outer world experience change because the world is, as we believe it to be. Right. And so it's always through a lens.

Matthew:

It is lens. It's always through a lens. Through a lens. We have a phrase that's common in the culture now, confirmation bias. And we usually think about it in terms of how we interpret the news or how we interpret information. But we have a confirmation bias about everything, right? And so when we're able to look at our own confirmation biases and say, boy, should I believe the words I'm thinking. Yeah, maybe not.

Anna:

We really need to change our own algorithm because it is what you talked about bias. The more I scroll in my brain on whatever thoughts I have, the more it's gonna feed it. Correct? Mm-hmm. So we have to, I, this is not a hundred percent fact checked, but I do know that it's about 50 to 60 million single people in United States and 15,000 dating sites. So it is overwhelming. But ultimately what I'm taking away from this, apart from the five, six tools that I can think of, which. I will, what I put my understanding off on our website is that it's still ultimate about yourself. There's just more and more tools and venues, but that is just a tool. It doesn't matter. You have to refocus on your goals and stop stressing out so much, um, in order to have success with yourself and know what you want to have success out there.

Orna:

Absolutely, and I think a limited time, it's great

Anna:

way to say it.

Orna:

Don't have the notifications on and instead dedicate time. Okay. And so if you, if when you're feeling good, whatever it is, maybe you put on a little music. Maybe you have a little sip of wine, maybe you do a little dance break. Maybe you call a girlfriend. Maybe you have a piece of wine or you call a guy. No, don't get drunk. That's not good. Oh. But instead what you wanna do is just be in a good mood, dedicate time, so there's a time in to the app and a time out of the app. Oh, like you said, tip. Our time is our most valuable resource. Yes ma'am. So you're dedicating time to dating. That means you clock in and you clock out.

Anna:

Okay. Speaking of clocking out, we are out of time. We could sit there with Ora and Matthew forever, but you know what, I gotta go on dates. I have not done anything right. Uh, so the rest of the series, we're gonna invite other fellow 40 plus skaters and see if they're doing it right. Please tune in for the next episode of, Hey Girl, you up. And the answer to that is. Always coming up on, Hey girl, you up first dates the chaos, the chemistry, the check, and everything in between.

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Anna Moulaison

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