This is doctor Wendy Walsh and you're listening to kf I AM six forty, the Doctor Wendy Waalsh Show on demand on the iHeartRadio app kf I AM six forty. You have doctor Wendy Walsh with you. This is the Doctor Wendy Walsh Show, and I am taking your calls and answering your dms on Instagram. The number is one eight hundred and five two zero one five three four. Just a reminder, I'm not a therapist. I'm a psychology
professor at cal State Channel Islands. But I've written three books on relationships and wrote a dissertation on attachment theory, and I've had a whole lot of life experience. All right. One eight hundred and five two zero one five three four. Producer Kayla, Who do we have? We have Steve with the question is Steve?
Hello?
Steve is doctor Wendy.
Hey, doctor Wendy. My question is I have never been faithful to one girlfriend slash wife ever in my whole entire life. I'm always looking for the next person. Am I what am I? What's what's going?
What do you think? Well, that is a very big question for you and your therapist to spend months digging into the real question is, uh, do you want to change or is this okay for you? Or you know?
No, no, I would like to have somebody do I actually like and like? But it seems like that I get a I start dating somebody, and I'm like, eh, and they just never go away, and then I go to the next one and then like, But like I said, I've never been faithful.
So you've never been faithful with any woman that you've ever been with. Have you been married? I have been married, You've been married, and you are.
I cheated on her before we even got married.
Wow. And now the research, by the way, and again, you don't necessarily have to change unless you really don't like that you're hurting people. But I don't care if I hurt people. Honestly, you don't care if you hurt people, because I was going to say that the research that compares men who are monogamous with men who are not monogamous, the big thing that keeps men monogamous is empathy and compassion for their partner. Worried so much I don't have hurt you don't have, and so what do you want?
Because it sounds like I mean, the only advice I would give you. You know, the human beings have the widest range of sexual behavior of any primate species. Right, Some have multiple partners and some are completely monogamous and everything
in between. I think the most important thing is that, just from a purely moral standpoint, is that you're honest with your partners instead of this it sounds like you're in this pursuit of perfection, instead of saying, this is who I am, and I'm going to find partners who are willing to have open relationships with me, because in this day and age that's very common. You just put it in your dating profile and you'll find your peeps.
Right.
So the question is are you looking for monogo or you feel satisfied or are you looking to maintain multiple relationships in a more honest way.
If I could find something that I'm comfortable with, monogamy is no problem for me. But I just haven't found the right one. And I've gone through about fifty And you use.
The word comfort and uncomfort and discomfort, So what is the discomfort that makes you want to have sex with other people?
Like even the littlest thing like can irritate me sometimes and I'm just like, I can't, like, I can't sleep in the same bed with somebody for more than like two hours. I have to kick him out.
Even when you're married, you got your own bed.
Well, it's been twenty five years since I was married, right since, So it sounds like twenty five years.
It sounds like intimacy is not your thing, not physical intimacy, not emotional intimacy, which is separate from sex. By the way, sex is a drug, right, So it sounds like that amount of closeness you find something wrong with somebody to protect yourself from the threat of intimacy. Intimacy is being close enough to somebody where you can see their flaws and still like them, and also knowing that they can see your flaws and you still like yourself. Right, that's
real intimacy. I would suggest if this is bothering you, or it's causing ruptures in your life or your social life, that you seek a licensed therapist to get to the bottom of it, because a lot of it was programmed in childhood for all of us, and maybe finding those answers might set you free. Thank you for calling, Steve. I really appreciate your honesty, all right, do we have another caller? Or am I moving on to social media?
Social Okay, Dear doctor Wendy. Every time I try to talk about our future, kids, moving, etc. My boyfriend change is the subject. How do I bring it up without pushing him away? There are many ways that people communicate. Sometimes they communicate with words. Sometimes they communicate with their bodies body language. Sometimes they communicate with silence. I think
you got your answer. When you talk to him about a future and wanting to have kids, or wanting to move in together or whatever, and he changes the subject, his answer is not with you. I'm sorry. I'm sorry be the deliver of bad news. But you have to pay attention to that kind of communication. Then you have to say, I don't think we have the same goals in life. We may not have the same values, so
it's probably best that we part ways. You know, the hardest thing about love is being able to break up with somebody who's inappropriate, because there is this belief, as I've said, that it's the last man on the planet. He's not the last man on the planet, I promise you, But I don't think he wants the same things you do in life. So all right, producer Kayla. Who do we have on the line. We have Susan with the question. Susan, Hi, Susan is doctor Wendy.
Hi, doctor Wendy. My question is is I suffer from very deep depression and anxiety. Oh, how do you? How do you maintain a relationship with anxiety and depression?
Okay, So, Susan, thank you so much for sharing with me that you suffer from depression and anxiety. The most important thing is that you seek therapy to get the help that you need to heal. There is start with your insurance. Go onto your insurance's website. If you don't have insurance, you can go to medical who will pay for all kinds of therapy for you. There are really affordable therapy. One is called in Pathways in Los Angeles,
who does on a sliding scale. But you need to be an intensive therapy for your depression and your anxiety because it is not the job of somebody else to make you happy. Right relationships, The research is pretty clear. Happy people have happy relationships. And I feel that all of these things can be addressed. That there are treatments out there, but you've got to reach out. You've got to do what you need to to get the treatment for depression and anxiety. And I'm so sorry you're hurting, Susan.
But it's not a relationship that's going to fix it, that's for sure. You've got to start out from a better place, a more whole place inside, all right, when we come back. Never thought that if you choose a mate who's most like you in many ways that things will go great. Well they will, but it actually could hurt society. I'm gonna explain when we come back. You are listening to the Doctor Wendy Walsh Show on KFI AM six forty. We're live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from KFI AM six forty.
Welcome back to the Dr Wendy Walsh Show on KFI AM six forty, Live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. So Ever heard the saying that opposites attract well, In reality, similarity is sexy, and people are more often likely to choose a mate that's most like them at least that's linked to longer, more satisfying relationships. But this can be good or this can be bad. So, for instance, I think Julio and I are pretty similar. Julio and I
are both extroverts, although I do talk more. We're both pretty educated, and we value education and gaining new inform like we're thinkers, right. We both love the outdoors and walking, Thank goodness. I once had a boyfriend who said I hate walking, walking the most basic human action. Anyway, Hulu and I love to walk. We walk all the time. We like to travel, we like to talk. We walk
and talk and walk and talk a lot. But we met later in life, so we didn't have kids, so our assortative mating choosing somebody similar to you isn't dangerous for society. So what is assortative mating? It is the fact that individuals tend to pair up with people who are similar, well obviously similar, like in age, education, income, religion,
or even physical traits. And this can happen completely by design, consciously, or it can be completely unconscious, but it can influence all kinds of things I mentioned, relationship satisfaction, social mobility, and even genetic diversity. Let's break it down. Okay, so assortative mating, so you choose somebody who's like you, maybe your same age, race, the same value system the same
amount of education, et cetera. So a study out of the Netherlands looked at how people select potential partners on dating apps, and they found that people with higher education levels are more likely to choose profiles indicating that that partner has higher education. In fact, there are apps for that. I think there's one called the League, like implying that you all went to an ivy league. That's all about
assortative mating. Another study looked at how personality traits influence partner selection on dating apps, and they found that people tend to pick others with similar personalities, like I said, Hulu and I are both extroverts right now, Then there's
the sexual strategies and made value. The other research looked at the interplay between people's mating strategies and their perceived mate value, and so they found that, well, I'm gonna go do now because I'm gonna saying this forever, people with short term mating orientation and higher perceived attractiveness were more likely to match with also, hot people who just
wanted to hook up. Basically, I mean, there's real cycle babble to describe that, but we'll just call it hot people who also wanted to hook up, and those people with long term mating orientations tended to choose partners who shared the same thing. Now, if you are somebody who proclaims that you would like a long term relationship, but you keep finding that you only meet people that want short term relationships, that has and you'll say things like my pickers off or I don't have a good picker.
That often has to do with attachment style and attachment anxiety. And that's something to talk to your therapist about. All right, here's the bad news. Assortative mating, especially by education and income, has been shown to contribute to growing economic inequity in our culture. Sure, it can lead to more stable and compatible relationships on a personal level, but when we're talking about society as a whole, it actually can reinforce or
even widen gaps between the social classes. And here's why. So let's say two people who both make a pretty good living and are pretty educated. They come together and their double income high earners, and what do they do. They concentrate wealth, right, so they're more likely to own property together, to invest in assets, and they accumulate generational wealth. On the other hand, people in lower income couples or single earner households have fewer opportunities to build wealth, and
that's what widens that income gap. Educational stratification. So college educated folks are increasingly like to likely to marry somebody else who went to college, and this creates a divide between households with two college degrees, which means access to higher paying jobs. And also then their kids are more
likely acculturated to go to college. So I happen to teach at California State University, Channel Islands Go Dolphins, and I think from the last statistic I saw, we're about like sixty nine percent Latino female first in their family
ever to go to college. We call those first gen. Now, these are super important students, these first gen students, because by changing the educational level in a family, making it normal the norm within the family to go to college, that first one to start to do that starts to rise up the entire family and future generations and indeed communities as a whole. So my grandparents on my dad's side, where my mother did not go to college because her
dad didn't believe in educating girls. On my dad's side, they were farmers and college was kind of unheard of. Now, my dad was smart, so he was first in his family to go to college. And here's the loophole that he used with his very Catholic mother. But let me go get a degree in philosophy and then I'll enter the seminary and I'll be a priest, and a good
educated priest will be better. Now, back in the day now we're talking about the nineteen forties or fifties, having your firstborn son become a priest was the biggest deal in the world. A firstborn daughter was supposed to be a nun. And yes, my aunt to Emily's sister Emily
did that. So my dad finishes his degree, and then he goes to his mom and he tries another trick, and he goes, look, let me just join the navy for a year, and then when I come back, I'll go into the seminary with my degree, and I can enter the navy as an officer. So you know, it's not gonna be dangerous. I'm gonna be fine. You know, I'll make a good living. I'll come back in a year after I see the world. She says, yes, he
comes back. You know, twenty two year old boy with a thirty year old bleach blonde from the city my mother. I had always heard that my grandmother didn't like my mom so much. Now I kind of know why. Okay, So, assortative mating moon right along, reduces upward mobility. Right So, if you're stuck in a lower income bracket with your partner, it's harder for the two of you to move forward,
and the outcomes for kids. So high income, high education parents they invest more time and more money into their kids development, extracurricular activities, tutors, better schools, et cetera. And this enrichment gives kids a really strong competitive edge in education and career opportunities. So, but that's only part of it. Assortative mating also reduces genetic diversity. Look, I just did twenty three and meters recently, no a while ago, a few months ago, and I found out that I'm one
hundred percent Irish. This is like embarrassing. Okay, they might as well have just sent back basic white bee back. Think of it. Both my parents' ancestors came over during the Great Potato Famine, and they both landed on islands where they made it with cousins. I mean, I'm lucky. I don't have three heads. Just want to say that.
But one of the problems with a assortative mating is that you don't have as much genetic diversity, which is really important because we need to have We can't be homogenized, right it can. It's dangerous for our health to inherit inherit similar kinds of genes, and we need to we need to mix the gene pool so we'll have a better future. So okay, bottom line, Well, assortative mating might feel like easy and then the relationship is compatible and
you have shared values. It unintentionally can create a wide gap between the haves and the have nots in society. So my thing is day outside your comfort zone. Mix and match, right, mix and match. I'm lucky. I mixed with my kids. My children are Irish, Canadian, African American. I finally mixed up that gene pool. Whew, I did it. Hey, when we come back, if you're a woman of a certain age trying to figure out what your next big act is, I have an author and coach who is
going to help you find your diamonds. In her new book, Finding your Diamonds, Heal the Girl and the Warrior appears. You're listening to the Doctor Wendy Waalsh Show on KFI AM six forty be live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from KFI AM six forty.
Welcome back to the Doctor Wendy Walls Show on KFI AM six forty, Live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. My guest is someone who has been spending a great deal of her life helping women transform their own lives. I've actually been honored to be a guest on her podcast, Conversations with Warrior Women in the past, although now it's called The Liz What Oh, I'm gonna say ye wrong?
Liz?
How do I pronounce your last name?
Love?
Swatik swatik Like I'm gonna swatick you out of my way so I can go forward to be a warrior right Swatik Liz Swatik. Liz is a healer and rapid transformation coach. Rapid I love that word, and she basically is all about resilience and when she, just like myself as a journalist, brings knowledge to the masses, it is from the worlds of neuroscience, human design and sometimes mastering our own illogical, irrational, and downright wrong beliefs. Liz Swatik, thank you so much for being with us.
Thank you for having me. I'm so excited to be here.
I am curious to know how you found your own passion and what you did before this that led you to this place of being a healer and transformation coach.
Well, the better question might be what haven't I done.
That I know?
Oh my gosh, I have been. I was a stand up comedian, I was an actress. I was in luxury marketing. I had a social media company that I ended up selling because it was just too much for me. All this to say, I think, you know, you hit a certain age. I'm fifty five, Double Nickel, just had my
double Nickel birthday, Happy birthday. I thank you. I think when you, you know, when you're in your forty fifty sixty, you start to realize, you know, maybe the things you were doing before, just because you're good at it, doesn't mean you want to keep doing it right. And I think I learned that and I kind of hit a wall at forty nine and I realized I'm not I'm just kind of going along just doing kind of whatever comes to me. I'm not really making these choices that
I want to make. And then I had some guilt and shame about the pack that I'd done. I felt like I was the Jane of all trades and the master of none. You know, I've done everything and had some success. But really now when I look back on it, now it seems like this beautiful mosaic my whole life. Now, everything I'm doing now I use every single thing I've ever done in my coaching and my healing. It's almost like Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz, like I went down the yellowick road, and here I am and I
have arrived. So it's I think I was always curious about transformation. I think I've always been curious about healing and transforming and changing and evolving, and I think now I get to do it for a living, and that just is amazing.
Well, what's interesting is I think often of my own media work. I think of that wonderful saying from is It from Jonathan Livingston Seagull in that book where he says, we teach best what we most need to learn, and for people like you and I, Liz, who are extroverts, who process externally. As we are going through our own life, navigating of life, we're like shouting it from the rooftops for people like, oh my goodness, this is what this
is how you do it. Look, I'm doing it and it sounds like you went through your own transformation to get to this place to want to share it with other warrior women.
No, that's exactly right. It's because I have walked this path that I am an expert in transformation. And also, you know, I'm also an expert of getting knocked down and getting back up again, which I know you are as well. I think that's kind of you know when people come to me like, well, Liz, I can't do it because I'm going through this or this, and I think, yes, I've done that, Yes me too, uh huh, Yes, I've
heard this, you know. So I think because I've been through so many things, everything from infertility to marriage issues too. I've got a child with a physical difference, I've got a child with ulteris. I mean I have things, you know. I've had a kiddd a HD who's struggled through high school. I've had so many things. So I think because I've
had so many things. I have a unique way of using my stand up comedy, using my humor, and really understanding where women are in midlife and they what the unique challenges are of that zone.
And I don't need to tell you that we are a very unique species in that we are the only one of three species on the entire planet that has menopause, a time of a woman's life where she is wise, experienced, energetic, fun and also sterile and evolution. Mother Nature was so perfect she was she created the stage of a woman's life. I believe. Well. Evolutionary psychologists would say to help nurture the next generation, but that includes getting involved in politics,
building businesses, building charities. That's all nurturing the culture. We become costodians of the culture because we now have the time to do that. But figuring out it sounds to me like the people who follow you and read your work and listen to your podcast are people who are trying to figure out how to create that important meaning during that special third of their life. Am I right?
You're one hundred percent right? I call it legacy work. I think a lot of women think of legacy of what happens after we're gone. I believe that we live our legacy now in our thoughts are actions, how we make people feel, how we feel, all the choices that we're making every single day is leaving a legacy. And I lead women to that many different ways. But the
first step is always there's needs to be some healing. Right, Sometimes we have to go back into our past to look kind of at how we got where we are, how did we get here. And when you look at your past, it's not to live there, right, to not live in the hood, as I say, the victimhood. Not live in the hood, but to look at it and
find the diamonds. What are these points of wisdom? And like exactly like you're saying, there's a unique wisdom that comes to us in our forties, fifties and sixties because we have lived. We have lived, and we have wisdom. And I think there's this kind of prevailing knowledge that we're supposed to shrink away or feel bad because we're aging. It's like, no, this is the juiciest period of your life. This is the time where you need to be sharing
your wisdom. And I have these safe spaces where women can come and share their wisdom. And you know, there's everybody gets to, you know, be together and feel safe enough to expand and grow and try things right and evolve exactly.
And let me tell you, there is so much opportunity for all women to be effective, to create change and have meaning. And definitely we are not meant to wither away. We're in what I call our power stage. This is definitely our power stage. So when we come back, Liz Liz Swatik, there's a via there by the way that she says sounds like a W so she apparently has rewritten the alphabet as well. That's how. Yes, this woman's super powerful. Your new book is called Finding Your Diamonds.
Heal the Girl and the Warrior is revealed. I got cut my spear and the Warrior appears literally one word got cut off and my printed thing. I was like, I know something happens with this warrior. I know she comes out somehow. All Right, we're going to talk about Liz Swattick's new book when we return. You're listening to the Doctor wendywall Show on KFI AM six forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from KFI AM six forty.
Welcome back to the home stretch of the Doctor Wendywall Show on KFI AM six forty. My guest is Liz Swatick, healer and transformation coach. Her new book is called Finding Your Diamonds. Heal, the Girl and the Warrior appears. First of all, Liz, when I saw your new book cover, rilled. It's gorgeous. You're gorgeous. The colors are great. We're not afraid of pink anymore?
Are well unafraid?
Tell me how you chose this title and what does it really mean finding your Diamonds?
So yeah, first of all, I love it because to me, when I see this cover it's pink and white, it's just I would I would want to buy this cover just because it looks delicious. It looks like a dessert. But don't don't hear what I'm not saying, because this is a very deep book. This is a very very deep book despite all the pink and every all the
things of the cover. But Finding Your Diamonds is about finding the wisdom going back in the ashes of your past, maybe even things that you thought really went terribly or things you have regret or shame about and unearthing excavating the diamonds of wisdom, because how are diamonds made? Of course, through pressure, force, heat, you know, all.
The elements, and we've had a lot of pressure. Liz. Let me just say, oh my god.
Oh my god. I mean, there's no listen to the truth is women are just standing on diamonds. That's what they're doing. And I think they don't understand that. They think that all these things that have happened to them, you know, it's ruined parts of their lives, or they have regret. There is no regret because everything that you have been through is a diamond. And I think it takes some distance and time right to hit those juicy forty fifty sixties so you can really look and find them.
But I'm encouraging women to find the diamonds that they can stand on and build a foundation on and then heal the girl and the warrior appears. I am a big proponent of little girl work. Back in the day they called it, you know, inner child work. I call it little girl work because I work with women. But she is really the key, that little girl. When you reconnect with her, it brings back to playfulness, the energy, the lightness, and then also guess what you get to
feel your feelings. I mean, every woman I work with, they tell me their tears are stuck in their throat and they're apologize for crying, and I say, no, it's okay, right, Like we're supposed to feel the full range of human emotion. So that little girl is really the key to our healings.
And let's talk about some news you can use. Can you share a couple strategies from the book Finding Your Diamonds?
Yes, and I will tell you. In this book, I have included a little Girl meditation, so you get to in the kindle you just click to it. Otherwise you can see the website to go to that there is a meditation. So I'm a big proponent of using meditation to reconnect with your little girl because I know it's hard, right, it's hard to kind of imagine sometimes or we're afraid to do this work. So I've made this gorgeous meditation
that you can do. Also, in every single chapter, I have exercises everything from boundaries to little girl work, to legacy work and questions that you can ask yourself. So even though I'm using my story to kind of illustrate it. Every single chapter has questions and things you can do in journal about. But one thing I would say if I had, if I had to give a tip, I would definitely say that it's getting it's getting quiet. You know, I think we're really busy. We never slow down.
We are very busy, Barbie Wis. We have people to take care of older people, young people, work people. We barely have time to take care of our own bodies.
Yes, and we are, we are the caretakers, and so I get that. But if you do not slow down, you cannot hear your intuition, You cannot hear your own voice. So that's that's the first thing you have to do. You have to slow down and start letting your feelings and your thoughts catch up with you. Not that you can. You don't have to believe every thought you're thinking, because guess what, that mind is tricky, So I wouldn't believe
every thought comes to your mind. But at least here hear yourself right, and slow down and a long enough so you can actually feel and know where you are.
Where can people get the book? Finding Your Diamonds Heal The Girl and the Warrior appears.
Right now.
You can get it on Amazon. It's available kindle, paperback, hard cover, and actually for the next four days it's free on your kindle.
Wow, you should have told me to bring my kindle to work. Wait, I think I have the Kindle app It might even work on the Kindle app. Right, I'm gonna try to figure this.
We can do it.
Try to figure this out. It's interesting that you will close by talking a little bit about meditation. For any of our listeners out there who think that meditation is woo woo California silly stuff, there is. I teach a section on meditation in my health psychology class to university students, and I teach what the research says. And what's really fascinating about the research is not only does it make you more empathetic more than anything, you have less rumination
about your stress. Those are thoughts spinning around. It creates a nice little gap between Oh, a bad thing happened and what should I do next? It slows your brain enough. It's like, you know, you know how Lizy call it a practice, right, And I always say that you know what you're practicing for stress in life? When you meditate, your practicing for the stress. So I use the metaphor of like, you know, you don't go on a StairMaster
or run on a treadmill only to look good. It's because one day that car is going to careen at you while you're in a crosswalk and you're gonna need to jump out of the way, and if you've been working out, you'll be able to do that. So the same thing with our minds and meditation is if we stop our thoughts. I mean, we're not supposed to stop our thoughts. You supposed to just watch your thoughts and
acknowledge them and respect them. But it gives you a chance to just create a little gap or a space between feeling and behavior, and it gives you like this little time to think it out, which is so right. And I'm just so grateful, Liz, that you do the work you do, because I know this is important to many many women. They feel like, you know, our culture talks about agism like we're somehow irrelevant. We can't have a baby yet. Now our babies are the entire globe
of babies and adults. We're taking care of lots of people.
Right absolutely, And you know it's funny about meditation. You just made me think of something. When you think about meditation, you know, you think about all the things you're like you're saying, you're practicing. We're always practicing what we don't want. We're always worried, we're focused on what we don't want. Rarely do we focus on what we do want and how we do want to feel. No one asks women, how do you want to feel? But that's the question
you can ask yourself in midlife. And that's what you get to do when you meditate. You get to actually focus on what you do want, practice what you do want to feel when you're meditating. So and you're and meditating brings brain coherence. Everybody tells me, oh my god, I feel like my brain is scrambled. I can't remember anything. They're using meditation with Parkinson's now, they're literally helping people with Parkinson's with brain coherence. It literally tells the centers
of your brain to come back together. So listen. I went kicking and screamings. I did not want to do it, but boy is it important.
You're a hundred percent right, Liz Swadik, Thank you so much for joining us today. The book is finding your Diamonds, Heal the Girl and the Warrior Appears. You can get it on Amazon Kindle anywhere, and it's free for the next four days. I'm going to punch it into my Kindle app Liz right away. Thanks for being with us and that and that brings the Doctor Wendy wall Show to a close. It is always my pleasure to be
with you every Sunday from seven to nine pm. If you miss any part of the show, remember producer Caleb puts it right up on the iHeartRadio app afterwards as podcast. I think they call it Doctor Wendy on Demand. So if you haven't downloaded the iHeartRadio app, you should search Doctor Wendy Walsh and then there's a little button at the top called pre Set. If you hit that preset button, then anytime you open the app, I appear whatever you missed shows up, so you'll never miss any part of
the Doctor Wendy Walls Show. Also, feel free to follow me on my social media where I talk about the science of love a lot at Dr Doctor at Dr Wendy Walsh is the handle. We'll see you next week. Thanks for listening to The Doctor Wendy Walsh Show on KFI AM six forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. You've been listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh. You can always hear us live on KFI AM six forty from seven to nine pm on Sunday and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app