Catherine Gray on Unexpected Joy

what we do. We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their good wolf m Thanks for joining us.

Our guest on this episode is Catherine Gray, and you may remember she was actually a guest once before when her book The Unexpected Joy of Being Sober was released. She now has a new book called The Unexpected Joy of Being Single, Locating Happily Single, Serenity. Hi Catherine, Welcome to the show. Hi alright, thanks for having me. It is a pleasure to have you on again. We have not had a whole lot of guests who have been

on more than one time. And you might set the record for the guests who was back on the fastest, but I don't. I haven't measured that, but it's close, So welcome back. I feel honored, Thank you for having me. So your new book is called The Unexpected Joy of Being Single, Locating Happily Single Serenity, and that's yeah, and it's a follow on to the Unexpected Joy of Being Sober. And so we'll get into the book in a minute, but let's start like we always do with the parable.

There is a grandmother who's talking with her grandson and she says, in life, there are two wolves inside of us that are always at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness, bravery, and love, and the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And the grandson stops and he thinks about it for a second, and he looks up at his grandmother and he says, well, grandmother, which one wins?

And the grandmother says, the one you feed. So I'd like to start off by asking you to answer for the second time, what that parable means to you in your life and in the work that you do. Yeah, absolutely so in the context of being single. So this will be slightly different to my answer last time. I would say that the bad wolf for me represents that victim mentality that I am very prone to myself around

being single. You know, no really loves me, I'm going to die alone, that sort of thing, um, And a lot of that comes from societal messaging. So it's about learning to block those negative messages. And the good world for me is things like I am enough, I am complete, and also that this is the right choice for me right now, rather than feeling like single them has been thrust upon me. Um. So for me, that those are

the two wolves. That's a great answer and a great way to put it kind of in context of what we're going to be talking about. So I'm just going to read something that you say early in the book and then we'll kind of go from there. And you say, if being single is so terrible, why are more than half of us choosing it over coupling? Simple, because it's not terrible. Being single for an extended period of time or for life can be incredibly empowering, fun and emancipating.

Being single is a heck of a lot better than panic settling, that's for sure. Panics settling that cracks me up. Yeah, I mean that's it absolutely in the UK, and I'm sure well the Western world in general single has seen is quite a sad existence. Um, it's a it's a waiting existence. It's you'll meet someone soon, your life will begin soon sort of thing. And I don't think that's the case. I think it's all about perception. If you see it as equally as nourishing and revitalizing a sort

of life, then you will enjoy it all the more. So. I think it's really about reframing your perception of being single and um, questioning the narratives and conditioning around being single. Yeah, it must be a testament to the strangeness of my social circle that I was the one that felt weird for getting married years ago. But really interesting. Yeah, well I just I mean, yeah, just most of my really good friends are not They are single, they've been single

and they for a long time. We're not young, so yeah, I that's just been my frame of reference from a lot of my friends, and I think some of the stuff that you go on to say, I think is really useful because you're not sort of advocating for being single. No, no, it's no, it's not that at all. Yeah, you're just saying, and I love this. You say, there are perks to both ways of life, single and attached. We both look over the fence at each other's grass and long to

roll around in it. Isn't it true? Though? Because I interviewed a psychotherapist for the book and she said something really interesting. She said, often I'll have somebody come into a session and it will be somebody who's single later in life, and they're saying, if only I could meet the one, then I would be happy. And then afterwards she'll see someone who's married and they're saying, if only

I was single, I would be happy. And there's just this feeling of the grass is greenness syndrome, and we're not appreciating the things that are good about either way of life. Um, so I think it's really important to absolutely enjoy where you are at that time. I agree. I mean I have been happily single, happily coupled, unhappily single, unhappily coupled. I mean I've had all those variations and and it is. There's just pros and cons to both.

And it's just another variation of thinking, Okay, I have to be you know, I have to be in a couple, or I have to be married or whatever to be happy. It's just another variation on the you know, if then happiness loop. Right, If I get this, then I'll be happy. If I get this, then I'll be happy. Yeah, And it always moves. It's always a moving target. I find that if if then, um so, it just doesn't work. It's it's all about choosing to be present and make

the most of where you're at exactly. And I think it's just another variation I've been learning about the hedonic abdept Shan model, which I mean it's we've all heard of the hedonic treadmill, right, you just keep chasing after things. Well, you know, I thought it was called hedonistic. I think I've said it wrong in the book. No it might not. No, no it might not be. I'm just this is what this one has been called. She just calls it the uh, the hedonic adaptation model. But um so it's a little

bit different than than that. But but the essence of it is exactly what we're talking about, which is that you essentially get used to whatever you have, yeah, right, and then you shoot for the next thing that's right, that's right. And it's that it's that very thought process which is almost impossible to completely overcome because I think it's kind of built into us to some degree. But there's a lot of things we can do to counter it.

And I think to your point, that's what this is in the single versus being coupled model, is that you just think that the other thing would make you happy, when the reality is I believe we can all be happy within within parameters, with whatever circumstances were in Yeah, definitely. It's like, for instance, at the minute, I live alone. I'm in a one bedroom apartment in future Brighton by the Sea, and I could look at this two ways. I could be like, oh, I'm so lonely I come

home and there's nobody to greet me. Or I'm so independent and I come home and I can eat whatever I want and watch whatever I want, and go to bed whatever I want, and the bathroom is always free if I want to bath which I choose the latter. So it's it's all about how you see it, I think, and counting up your gratitudes. As you said earlier, I've been in relationships where I've been really happy, and I've

also been in relationships where I've been deeply unhappy. And I've cohabited with a couple of boyfriends, one of which was a very toxic relationship, and I was very, very lonely in that relationship, even though we slept six centimeters away from each other. Um so, and I don't think there is a lonelier place to be than constantly with somebody, but you feel unheard and uncherished and unappreciated. So, um single is definitely better than a bad relationship, for sure.

I one concur as somebody who spent a lot of time in a bad relationship. And you know, I'm not blaming anyone at all. It was just a bad relationship. And it is miserable to be in a relationship and be that lonely and feeling stuck and all of that. So I agree, yeah, and feeling paralyzed thing scared to

end the relationship. There was an extraordinary survey that I came across when I was researching the book, which asked twenty thousand people what would make them are the most happy, And five thousand of them, so a quarter of them said finding someone other than their current partner. I mean, what, so those five those five thousand people should be single if they're that miserable in whatever relationship they're in. But they're not because I'm guessing they're scared of the alternative.

They're scared of being single. They're scared of being alone. Um, and that just makes me really sad. So in a way, I wrote the book for a couple of people too, because if we're so scared of being single, then we don't have that freedom. Shoot, we don't have the alternative, which means that we get stuck in toxic relationships. So that's why I wanted to break down the stigma around being signaled and and show people that actually we're just

as happy. So um, yeah that was important to me. Yeah, yeah, I totally agree. I mean, I think people end up being stuck in relationships for for a variety of factors. Being afraid of being alone is one of them, and then there are others. If you've got kids and you've got you know, different things. But I agree with you, like stay in a relationship because you're afraid you'll be alone is a terrible, terrible idea. Yeah, yeah, I understand

it exactly. I've done it years. So I'm just gonna read another quote from you, because you're writing just always, I think is so good and cracks me up. And you're talking about your time sort of your sobriety to this book, and you say, if you had mapped my personality islands in my twenties, there would have been a booze island, a mort Or style I'll filled with lost handbags, nightclubs like be at One, slavering demons and bottomless abysses. But the island that would have been just as big

and just as malevolent would have been Man Island. It was constantly illuminated, shaking and beset with thunderstorms, like a possessed amusement park. That whole phrase is so good. A possessed amusement park. That's a great phrase for, uh, some of my internal conditions at points. Thank you well. It is a roller coast of being in a relationship, isn't

it um? And I think the two coexists so often drinking and love addiction, because well they just do, which is why some people call recovering from love addiction the second sobriety. Right, Um, yeah, so I think this is absolutely a trend for those two things to go hand in hand, the dating app and the glass of wine. Yeah, I would agree, which makes me have to pull out one other phrase from later in the book when you talk about the dating app, because it's you quoted somebody

who wrote this. This is from writer Mark Simpson, who calls singles who spend hours a day trawling dating apps the unpaid secretaries of desire, which is just so brilliant, such a great, great phrase. But but back to what we were talking about, I agree. I think that love addiction very often came and be the second sobriety. I know it was in a lot of ways for me. I went through that, you know, I had to go through some of that. And it sounds like you and

I are sort of similar in our love addiction. And I feel I feel remarkably recovered like I do from alcohol. Yeah, I know what you mean. You know, I feel like that's been a long time coming. Yeah, And and so let's talk about it. You refer to yourself as a batshit crazy love addict, So talk to me about what has been a love addict mean to you? Okay, Well I did a lot of research into this, and love

addiction is a real thing. So in the UK we have the foremost we have clinic would probably be considered to be the priory. We have clinic and I'm doing this by memory. But they defined love addiction as clinging to idealized versions of relationships, staying in toxic relationships, and just in general allowing your behavior to become warped because you're obsessed with preserving that relationship that the most important thing to you is making sure that relationship does not end,

even if it's a toxic one. Um. So in me, this manifested in all sorts of behavior that was actually detrimental to my relationships. I would do things like snoop on messages to make sure that they weren't about to leave me, or find out if there was any other people in the picture, to try and preserve the relationship. But of course snooping on people's messages is absolutely invasion of privacy and so that created loads of problems. Um, I was very needy. I needed a lot of attention,

that's another classic sign. Um. And also because I was addicted to attention from um, the opposite sex, the gender that I'm attracted to. I also cheated so I would go out. But this is related to my drinking as well. It was always pretty much when I was black out drunk, so I would go out and caught attention from other men and kiss other men. So it was it was just something that I was fixated on um, this romantic attention,

and I would do anything to get it right. You say that when I wasn't with someone, I felt flat and dark, like a pitch black room that waits for someone to come along, flick on the light and animate it once more. And that describes me so much, as you know. Earlier for me was like if I wasn't in a relationship, that was the primary thing I was after. That's what I thought made me whole. Yeah, and then I got into some of what we'll talk about here in a second, which is why we fancy that's an

English term. For US American listeners, we might say like in different people more, but for me it was like I was I was looking for that, that relationship or that thing to fill up some hole in me so I would get it, and when it didn't fill up the hole because it can't. I would suddenly conclude that the partner was the problem. Yeah, and then it would be like, Okay, now I need the next thing, which is the same thing as like thinking if I get this promotion at work, then I'll be happy. Once I

get it, I don't find myself happy. I start thinking I need the next It's the same mental process, which is I'm trying to fill some hole with something from the outside, and when I get it and it doesn't work, I assume the problem is what I got, not the entire underline thought process and emotional structure. Yeah. Yeah, it's It's the whole mark of addiction, isn't it. It's you never have enough enough? Is this ever moving neon sign that you're trying to get to and you can never

reach it? So um, And you're right, it's because you feel this whole inside of you and you try and fill it with glasses of wine or um whatever your drug of choices or a person and that just doesn't work. So um. The only person who can make you feel whole is yourself. Right. And you actually talk about this a little bit later on. Um, I used to think, like you know everything was like an inside job at all came from inside of me. And one of the things that show has taught me over and over is that,

you know, these external connections are important. But what you talk about later in the book is how some psychologists say, you know, you need bonding with three, four or five people, not one. Yeah, order to have a solid social connection, which is important to our well being. Yeah, I think so. Um. That was from a famous Oxford anthropologist I think is called Robin dunbar Um, and he said that we need five people, five close people, in order to be happy,

not just one. So there's also this famous quote from a psychotherapist called Esther Perel who says something like, we go to one person and we expect them to give us everything. Give me security, give me novelty, give me you know, all of these contradictory things. And once that would have taken a whole family or a whole village, we would have looked to the entire community. And now we're looking for this one person, this soulmate, to provide

it all, and that just doesn't work. Nobody can do that. Um. So I think it's it's very important to remember even if you are in a happy marriage or relationship that you need the other people as well, Tom to make you feel truly content, so not to put all your eggs in one basket. To coin a British phrase, Yeah,

I think so too. I mean, certainly I am in a crazy happy relationship now and have been for for years at this point, which I honestly did not at a certain point in my life think was possible at all. I thought, like, I am broken, won't work. I relate to that. For me, it was sort of startling to me what happened when the right person came along. But that was also after decades of personal growth and learning

and all that. Um. But my point of all that was even being in that my other friendships are still so important to me. And one of the things that you mentioned somewhere in the book, and I have it my notes here, but this made it come up, which is one of the things that can be problematic about being coupled is that we we give up everything else. Yeah, so a marriage or a relationship pushes out on average too close friends, which I can completely understand, because when

you become coupled, you become more insular. Another really interesting thing is that people that live alone have been shown to be more sociable and less lonely, and I think the reason for that is that you make more of an effort to get out there and socialized, Whereas when I've lived with boyfriends in the past, it's just so easy to come home and lie in front of the TV and not really talk, Whereas now I make sure my social calendar is quite um, not too full because

I'm an intro it, but full enough with exciting things to do, whereas before I would just come home and stick on Breaking Bad. So it's I think that's true. We can become more insulate in a couple and neglect our friendships and also as times taken up by our partners, friends and family as well, so who we aren't necessarily they're not our chosen ones, so I think it's important to preserve that autonomy and make sure that our loved

ones are still getting the attention and FaceTime. It's possible Chris is going to insert an editor's note here that says watching Breaking Bad is never a bad idea, so it's just possible he's going to do that, and I kind of have to agree. It is a pretty brilliant show. Interestingly, back to the hedonic adaptation model that I have been

reading about. There was a scientific study about it in the context of relationships, saying that this happens in relationships, and one way to avoid it is to do exactly what you're suggesting, which has not come home and watch breaking at every day it's too introduce novelty into the relationship. Do different things together, you know, that keep you from being coming so adapted to your partner and board and

falling into that same routine. Yeah, I think that's quite advice. Absolutely, So let's move into why we fancy in different people more. I'm gonna just give you my relationship history up until, you know, five years ago, in a nutshell meet someone, fall head over heels with them, get into the relationship, they start to really like me. I become bored, I become distant, I become I want out. I want out,

but of course I don't do it. And then they finally are like, this is ridiculous, and they leave and I have a complete and utter breakdown because they're the most important thing in the entire world to me and I must have them back. And so and the few of my relationships that that never happened in are the ones where I never fully felt like they really wanted me. Yeah, see, you hadn't on them, so they remain slightly distant. Well, this is this is just something that replays over and

over in millions of different relationships. Um. And one of the reasons is it's something called reward uncertainty, whereby when we know that we're going to get a reward, we can become less interested in the reward. So if you text somebody and you're not entirely sure they're going to text back, when they do text back, it gives us more of a hit of dopamine, so our brain lights

up like a Christmas tree. Whereas when we know they're going to text back, you're slightly bored when you receive the reply, which is just our brain making us fancy the wrong people. So the people that are consistent and reliable and always reply are the people that we fancy the least. Um. So it's just annoying. But once you're aware of it, then you can begin to rexify it.

Like anything, the awareness is the key to changing that behavior. Yeah, that's one of the things that now I'm like, wow, that mechanism actually seems not to be completely gone, but yeah, it is not the driving force for me at all anymore. It's like I somehow have gotten to the point where knowing that somebody cares about me and loves me and is always there has become something I'm like. I love it. Yeah, yeah, but I think that's something that clicks into place once

you like yourself and respect yourself. More so before, when I didn't like myself or respect myself, when somebody was really really into me, I thought there was something wrong with them, right, I really did so, and so I would reject them. So whereas the people that weren't sure about me I was more interested in because I thought, um, they've probably got the right idea because I don't really like myself either, so therefore I'm going to try and

win them over. And I was completely unaware of this at the time, but that's what was going on. So yeah, it's just so interesting once you dismantle it and take it apart. Yeah, I agree. I thought this was perfect because this describes me pretty darn well. You say that. As a result, when a partner is a super keen eight into me, even if I liked him at first, I will find things wrong with them in order to unhook myself. Whereas when a man is sixty to seventy

nine percent keen, that's when I'm hooked. That's when I become the emoji with heart shaped eyes. Anything less than sixty and my dignity kicks in. Yeah, this is so true, so so so perfect. And you know this reward uncertainty is not just related to relationships, right, It's it's across the board. When we don't know that we'll always get the reward, we're much more likely to keep seeking it. Yeah. Yeah,

it's it is across the board. And it's also related to um attachment styles, which I'm sure you want to talk about as well. So let's go there. Yeah, let's do it. I'm not an expert in this, but I've read a lot about it. There's an amazing book called Attached, which is by neuroscientists called amere Levin and a psychologist called Rachelor something. I'm so sorry I can't remember her last name, but it's incredible and it was one of those books that I read and it just made everything

makes sense. So the theory goes and it's based on a wealth of research that we have three different attachment styles, um, and it's created in early childhood which attachment style you are, And there's anxious attached, secure attached, and avoidant attached. Now I'm an anxious attacher, which explains all the needyness, and I basically expect rejection rather than I am surprised by it. And anxious attachers tend to be overwhelmingly attracted to avoidant

attachers who will avoid and swerve close relationships. So it's so interesting. Secure attached people tend to end up in relationships with other secure attached people, and so the rest of us are left in this sort of merry dance avoiding an anxious It's just it's just a nightmare. But you can change your attachment style. So I was really interested. So I did it from that. There's loads of quizzes

in the book. And I did it from the point of view of me when I was drinking and at my most chronical love addiction stage, which was five and a bit years ago. And I did it from the point of view of me now and I'm moving much more towards secure attachment just because I've been doing so much work on myself. So that was a revelation for me, I don't know about you. Well, I haven't read the book, but I have heard of attachment styles. I have a

question for you though about that. So you mentioned that you're anxious attachment, but then that also turns into avoidant for you, when you're turning into avoiding a relationship or pushing it away. Is that not your attachment style. It's just a it's a behavioral mechanism that results as part of your attachment style or from your attachment style. I think it's part of the anxious attachment style, whereby if you seek avoidant people. So I think I see what

you're saying, that I switched from anxious to avoidant. Maybe that is the case. Maybe I'm a double winner, anxious and avoidant. I haven't really explored that, but it's entirely possible. Um. But yeah, so when people get too close you, you swerve away. It's just it just means that you would never end up in a content fulfilled relationship. So learning about that was really important for me to reframe that and understand where I've behaved in some ways in the

past and how to change my behavior and future. That book, I've seen it come across a couple of recommendations now, and I recently suggested it to a coaching client and she is absolutely loving it. So thank you for the suggestion. Already helping others. It's a great book. I recommend every I'll read it. Let's talk about love addiction. We've talked about what it is, how it might manifest, and so one of the things you say is, okay, I'm a

love addict. Great, but in a way it's good news because it already means you have the tools in your arsenal to beat this. So let's talk about what are some of the tools that you learned from sobriety, from getting sober from alcohol that you've now been able to use with love addiction. Yeah. Sure, So I decided when I first got sober, I completely ignored the advice to take a year off dating and got into quite a serious relationship for six months, and then when that ended,

I was really quite crushed, very crushed. But it was more to do with my fear of being single and fear of being ending up alone or left on a shelf or whatever you want to call it um And so I decided to take an entire year off So for me, that abstinence was really important, and it helped me completely reframe the way I see my life. And it also helped me see that I can get happiness from all sorts of different sources and love from all sorts of different sources. Romantic love is not the most

powerful form of love. Familiar love and platonic loves are just as powerful. Um. So that was really important that year completely off dating, I didn't so much as whold a man's hand, um, And that reset everything for me. But then I reintroduced it, which I haven't done with alcohol because well, I can tell you, yeah, I could tell you. So I did the same thing. I took I think nine months off dating at one point, which

was great for me. I also, at one point in my life reintroduced alcohol and it did not go well. So we're not built for moderation. I don't. I don't think, even with all my development and growth, that that's ever going to be a good idea. I hope I remember that, and I have no desire to it you either. It's just it repulses me now actually alcohol. But that I am over five years, so I think that comes later.

The thing that you said a little while ago that struck me was about how like, once you got sober, you know, the way you behave changed so much, And it's just I always think it's remarkable how easy it how much easier it is to be faithful when you're sober. Oh my gosh, it really is. I mean I was never faithful before, and it was never premeditated. It was always when I was off my face, which it just is a British term meaning very drunk. So it was never something that I planned to do. And I was

the geet. The guilt would eat away at me, it crucified me, and I didn't understand why I couldn't get it, why I couldn't stay faithful when I couldn't stop myself from kissing other blokes. And then it just it was so simple. Just take away the alcohol and you know, it would never even occur to me to be unfaithful now, it just it will never happen. I can a d say I will never be unfaithful now that I don't drink um. And I think so many people go through

that torment. It's it's just such a shame that they don't realize it's a it's a side effect of the alcohol not their character, right, Yes, yes, alcohol will cause infidelity and will cause any number of terrible decisions. Yeah yeah, taking codes off in public. Yeah yeah. The list goes on and on and we don't need to recount them all. But let's not go there, alright, So let's talk about

the tools. Yeah sure, so, m Yeah, I think it was very much a case of for me, I really really looked at the social conditioning around alcohol, and I did the same around being single, because we are told in a million different ways that being single is sad. In fact, I saw an advert the other day on the tube and it stopped me in my tracks. I literally stopped and stood there and people there was like a sea of people moving around me because I couldn't

believe it. It was an advert for a dating app, and I won't mention which one, but it said single is your time to shine, and it showed these happy people. And the reason it stopped me in my tracks, it's because I've never seen an advert that was pro single before. Um and you know you'll turn on the radio. I had an advert for a credit card the other day which I have no idea why it said this, but it said we know that being single is no fun, So get our credit card. I don't know what that's selling,

but it's everywhere. It's in rom comsum and once you start looking out for it. It's from our relatives as well. You know, if you say you're single, they'll say they're there. You'll meet someone soon. You know, you'll be cured, soon, someone will come along and release you from this terrible fate. Ums.

It's the same as the drinking thing. We're told that alcohol provides fun, and sobriety is boring, and we're told that relationship provide contentment and being single is a lonely and awful So once you're aware of that, you can detach from it. So that was a really important tool for me, and I think so much of you know that cultural peace is there and it is transforming a

little bit. I was started watching Downton Abbey recently. I had never watched it, you know, at least in the early part of that show, like getting those daughters married is like a matter of life death, right, Like how serious it is. And so if you look back and you think about what being a single woman has historically meant, it's not been a great thing. Those days are so

very very different now, but we're not fully culturally caught up. No, no, And it literally was a matter of life or death back in back in those days, because if your parents hadn't managed to marry you off, then when they were gone, if there if there was no inheritance, then how are you going to survive? So, you know, when you look at the it was the seventies in Britain when women were able to open their own bank accounts, buy a house, you know, so they really were very reliant on men before,

whether it was a father or a husband. And we still don't have wager quality in the UK certainly, so he can. Yeah, it's it's it's such a problem. But we can provide for ourselves and we can have careers, and we can put a roof over our heads, and women can have a baby now without being socially ostracized if they're not married. So there's been so much progress. So I think a lot of the single movement is

simply because of feminism or in other words, equality. So I think that's it's important to recognize that that's why this generation is more single than any generation before, because we can be yeah, exactly, definitely, I interrupted you there. You mentioned understanding the cultural programming was one of your tools for dealing with it. Yeah, and also just knowing that a thought can't. So I was pretty addicted to dating apps when I quit drinking and then ended this

relationship with this six month guy. Um. So before I took the year off, I just was constantly stabbing at dating apps trying to fill the vacancy that you know, this boyfriend's going missing had created, almost as if I was looking for a new job. That's how urgent I felt about it. Um. And it's the same you. You know, I know now that a thought cannot make me drink, even though I don't have thoughts about drinking anymore, but

I did for many, many years. And you know that a thought of oh, you could have a drink, now, what about a drink? That drink would be nice? That doesn't have to make you drink, um, And those thoughts go away the time. So it's the same with using a dating app or texting an X. A thought doesn't have to lead to an action. So that was really important that it's such a great phrase. I thought doesn't

have to lead to an action, thank you. Um. And just simple things that I've learned from recovery like cults, which is hungry, angry, lonely, tired. Um. Sometimes I will feel overwhelmed by single sorrow. I remember there was this one time this summer where I was walking because I'm not fixed by the way, I still have days where I'm consumed by single sorrow. And I think it's important to say that so that people know that it's completely normal.

Where I was walking up this hill in Barcelona and I was crying behind my sunglasses because I'm not married and everyone else around seemed to be married. Um. And then I had a snack and I was fine. So it's sometimes something that feels like an emotional tragedy is just that you're hungry, or you need a nap, or you need to phone somebody, you know, just like Holt in recovery, which is such. It's was the bedrock my early recovery. Um. So yeah, which for listeners is don't

let yourself get too hungry, angry, lonely or tired. Yeah, which is so. I don't know if they have these commercials in the UK, but there were some commercials they were running here for Snickers candy bars in the US and it's this funny commercial where I'm trying to think of exactly what is like a full grown man, like a football player, gets hungry and he just turns into this like almost weeping, high strung, totally emotional, over the top deep diva. Yeah yeah, and then then you eat

the Snickers bar and boom, it all goes away. And I mean that is so, I mean, I agree. I still fall back on that, you know, hungry, angry only and tired. And I've always thought that's a strange combination of four words, because two of those you just eat or sleep, um, the other to take a little bit more work with, like all right, I'm angry, Okay, that's gonna you know, it's not the solution isn't is biological or lonely. The solution isn't is biological, although it's all wise.

I've just kind of thought that that's a strange grouping of those categories. You say, yeah, you say, realizing in an emotional Greek tragedy often has a fourhead slappingly simple solution pierces its power. Yeah, it really does. Um. And one of my methods so something that I used because I found that when I was unhappily single, which was always in my twenties and thirties, I would constantly comb

over past relationships. Um. This is another really key thing. Um. I think, even if you are in good terms with an x, if you keep looking at their profile on Facebook or in Instagram or whatever, you need to block them because you can't move past that until you stop looking at that. And it's a very modern problem. I mean, we did not have this in the nineties. You did not You were not able to see your ex with his new girlfriend on holiday and or a video of

them playing with their toddler. You know, these things are threatening our mental health. So even though it feels like you're sort of losing control of them, if you block them and delete them, um, and you know, it's like keeping a piece of them, still being friends with them on Facebook. You it's absolutely a gift to your mental health to delete them, and you're allowing yourself to move on and that is a healthy thing. So that was

something that I really realized. Yeah, I agree. I mean, luckily, I think I have not spent a ton of time in the truly single world in the Facebook age, only a little bit, but I recognize how bad that could really be Well, we are somehow here at the end of our time. Well, here's here's the good and bad news. The bad news is where at the end of our

time here. The good news is that you and I are going to continue talking in our post show conversation, which listeners you can get access to by going to when you Feed dot net slash Support. And I think some of what you and I are going to talk about is exercise gratitude, turning your brain from a worry sinking instrument into a bounty hunting machine. Explain what that means, and maybe talk about how learning and growth is not linear. So again, listeners, you can find us in the post

show conversation when you Feed dot net Slash Support. And Catherine, thank you so much for coming on. It was a pleasure. As always, Thank you for having me, and thanks for everyone listening. Bye bye ye. If what you just heard was helpful to you, please consider making a donation to the One You Feed podcast. Head over to one you Feed dot Net Slash Support. The One You Feed podcast would like to sincerely thank our sponsors for supporting the show.