Amy Chan || Breakup Bootcamp

psychology behind love, lust and desire. The Observer calls her quote a relationship expert whose work is like that of a scientific Carrie Bradshaw and our Company has been featured across national media, including Good Morning America, Vogue, Glamour, Nightline, and the front page of The New York Times. Her latest book is called Breakup boot Camp, The Science of Rewiring Your Heart. Amy, thanks so much for talking to me today. This is a very long awaited interview for me. Yeah,

I'm so excited to be here. I'm excited that you're here very much. So. I've been really enjoying listening to you talk across various platforms, you know, not just your book, but like on Instagram, on Clubhouse, you know, in various other podcast interviews. So now I get Now it's my turn, I get to talk to you. I feel so lucky. So can you let's just start with this you know, basic question of like the heartbreak that eventually led to

you writing Breakup boot Camp. Yeah. So I've been a relationship columnist for over a decade and I just was never able to figure out love. And then I found myself in a relationship where I was like, Okay, I've got it. I'm living the dream. And back then, to me, living the dream was date, get married, and you know, live happily forever after. And I thought my happily forever after was set in stone. And after you know, two years of being together and living together, that relationship fell

apart due to infidelity, and I fell apart. I had put so much of my identity in him and us that without the relationship, I didn't know who I was. And not only was I mourning my best friend and this person I thought I knew, I was now mourning the future that would never be actualized. And I didn't know what to do with myself, and I spiraled into depression. I had thoughts of suicide. Oh no, itels dark, Yeah, I said, really went dark? Yeah, yeah, oh my god.

It's amazing. No matter how old we are, like, we still have that, you know, Like I had that when I was like sixteen and I still have that when when a break what relationship is over, you know, it's like we don't grow out of it, do we? Yeah, the pain doesn't go away. I think that when you when you do open your heart and you are vulnerable

and you show all sides of yourself. Yes, there's a risk to that, and when it doesn't work out according to plan, it hurts, but I think that's also evidence that you opened up your heart and that's also really beautiful. And I do think though learning some tools does make this make the suffering minimize. And this is where you

come in. So you used I love how you use this your own personal pain as if I can phrase it this way as a bridge to self actualization, because this is a topic of both of our you know, self actualization. We both are really interested in that, and so I love that you took that personal experience and

use that as a bridge. Can you talk a little bit more, Well, just tell me how how it is a bridge, you know, and and and how you you kind of have people not try to eradicate that feeling or or sweep it under the rug, but how they actually it can even be a launch pad to self actualization. Yeah,

great question. One of the things I learned after my breakup and healing from that was that it was a band aid that got ripped off and I had to deal with all of the unresolved trauma heartbreaks, starting with the heartbreak with my father, who was completely unavailable when I was young, and at the time I didn't know it. When I was in the midst of the heartbreak, I

just vilified my ex and everything was his fault. But after I got some clarity, I recognized that this was an opportunity for me to really look into those open wounds that I had, and that's really when I started to look at the patterns and ask myself why the same emotional experience kept repeating, just with different people. And so that's what I think breakups can do. A breakup can be the shakeup you need to redirect your life. And I don't look at a breakup as something so

horrible to feel sorry for someone. When someone tells me they're in a breakup, I'm actually excited for them. I empathized of how they're feeling, but I know where this open door can take them. And I think that if we can take off the hat of being the villain the victim and put on the hat of being a scientist and use that past relationship or the past relationships to uncover the patterns. They're teaching you things about yourself. You can really grow and create the type of love

and life that you really want. Well, I couldn't agree more with that. I couldn't agree more with that. You know, you said it's never just about the X. You know, can you kind of unpack what you mean by that? Yeah. I say this often because the people who come through a new breakup boot camp, they're completely focused on their ex and try to cycle analyze the X or vilify the X, and what they all recognize by the time they leave is it's never just about the ex. It's

recycled pain and our patterns. They follow us wherever they go. The pain that we don't deal with doesn't magically disappear because you've hopped into another relationship or you've gone on dating apps. That's the baggage, that's a compound trauma, and it's just following you. And you might be able to get really good at suppressing those emotions, distracting yourself from the pain, but the pain needs oxygen to breathe, and it's eventually going to seep out either in your reactions,

in your current relationship and your regrets. And so you have to ask yourself, do I want to do the work up front and deal with it now or do I want to, you know, deal with a harder thing because it's just going to grow and it's going to compound later on. The choice is yours. That's good to know you have that choice. Does everyone have that choice?

What we do? Now? You you you just just a double on something you just said you talked about how you know you notice there are these patterns that keep kept coming up and cropping up in your Are there different kinds of patterns that you've identified after talking to enough people, you know, getting a sens of this, Are there Like have you like, you know my systematizing nerdy brain is like, have you done the factor analysis on that one? Yes? The thing is like the same path.

There's a handful of patterns. I'd say, there's a handful of buckets, and they all go down to a couple of core beliefs. And so even though the outcome might look really different or their situation might look really different, if you peel back the layers, we're usually dealing with a lot of the same challenges. And you know what I see often is people have what's called the broken

chemistry compass. It's something I coined in my book. And a chemistry compass is what I call your internal GPS that points you into the direction of who you're drawn to and who you're a repulse by. And when you don't have a healthy model of what love looks like and feels like growing up, you develop a chemistry compass that might be a bit broken, because, as you know, human beings were drawn to what's familiar. Mine is very broken.

Mine is very broken. We can work on that. And so you know, if chaos or unavailability was what you grew up with and that's what you're familiar with, that's your homeostasis. Then when you meet someone who can wound you in a very similar way, you can subconsciously feel like, oh my gosh, I'm attracted. There's so much chemistry, but you're not recognizing like, oh wait, this is familiarity, this

isn't love. And so that's something that keeps happening. People are choosing partners that are not the right fit, and then they blame themselves that something must be wrong with them. I hear that all the time, What's wrong with me? And then the second main pattern that I see is I would say about seventy five percent of the people

who come to renew have an anxious attachment style. And as you know, these are people who fundamentally are afraid of abandonment or rejection, and they're very sensitive to the cues that their bond or their connection might be threatened. And when they sense that it is, they start to panic. Their nervous systems activated, and then they can react in

a way that could sabotage the relationship. You know. What I've been very interested in is the avoidant attachment style, when the person has avoidant but they don't have it anxious. It actually can be correlated with high life satisfaction. I've been talking to my colleague Peter mcgral about that. We're like some people just just like just don't care about romantic relationships. But doesn't mean that like we need a psycho,

we need to like pathologize that, you know. But I think the anxious one is the real you know, that's the one that they can really hold you ba from growth. You know, in a big way, uh, you know, because you're well, there's a constant insecurity there, you know, and that's that's no way to there's no way to live, yeah, in your relationships or in your life. I mean, I'm I'm a neurotic jew, you know, like I I got, I got you know, anxious attachment style to the world.

You know, I say, you know what I mean, Like, so that's no way to live. So I've been trying to practice that through meditation, you know, through I've come a long way, you know, and uh, I think that uh yeah, there's a lot of hope right to people that even if if they have that in their in their relationships, they that they can really work on those patterns for sure. And one of the things, uh, you know,

you mentioned it right there, meditation, mindfulness. This is a hard work up front, that's the stuff you got to do. And you build those reserves, you build those muscles that really help. And also looking at your entire tribe, who's the village you're surrounded with, because the people that you are exposed to on a regular basis, they're wiring you.

I mean, you've talked about this in your book, and it's you know, like, if you are surrounded by low safety relationships where you constantly feel judged that love is conditional. It's only given if you're perfect, or you act a certain way, if you're helpful. If you're constantly surrounded by that, you don't have those necessary neural pathways for healthy connection and trust. Right, you're always in a state of alarm

because you don't feel safe. And so when I work with people on the relationships, it's not just looking at your romantic relationship, it's looking at how are all of your relationships and increasing your exposure to high safety relationships and decreasing your exposure to low safety relationships. That's also super important. Low safety being mean, dangerous, harmful, yeah, emotionally dangerous yeah, or even physically dangerous, right yeah? Yeah? But why why do I Why am I attracted to danger

in women? I love dangerous women. I mean, I be I I believe in being vulnerable and honest. You know, so I'm being honest with you. I find dangerous women hot as hell? What's the matter with me? How does dangerous women show up? Though? What is it that's dangerous? Is it edgy, adventurous? Well, some of it we can't talk about on this podcast, but the parts we can talk about, you know, just like, yeah, I really like I like, you know what, I like a strong woman,

you know, I like a woman like a badass, you know. Like, but yeah, like some of them can be really seductive too though, and uh uh and uh and you know I can get like in too fast, you know, like like kind of gets sucked into a relationship too fast that there's a kind of danger there, you know, if that makes sense where it's like I want to be more mindful about what I'm doing. Yeah, does that make sense?

Yeah for sure. Yeah. So when we when we rush into something so fast, right because we feel that chemistry, that passion, we want to just chase it. We're like, oh my gosh, it feels so good. I want more and want more. And if we have a pattern of doing that and that has created an outcome where we're choosing people who ultimately aren't the right match or ends up being toxic, then we know, Okay, I've got a pattern and I've got to be more mindful and tensable

about slowing it down. Even if the feeling of the moment is rush into it, and as you start to practice that, it becomes a little bit less hard and having a little bit more discipline in that for a better a different outcome. See my uh cush in meditation. No, No,

you're absolutely right. Look, you're abstu right. And I've never I've I've never admitted some of this stuff on them on the Psychology podcast and the seven years I've done this, So, uh, you know you're bringing you're bringing some some vulnerability out of me. Thank you, thank you. I mean I can't be alone in this, So hopefully this advice is helpful to uh, to thousands of our listeners. You know, so, what what does a day at your renewed breakup boot

camp look like? What is a typical day? If there if there is even if there is such a thing as a typical day. Yeah, there's a complete system in how the entire experience is designed. So when the people come in on a Friday, their heads are usually hanging low and if you look at their eyes, there's like

a glaze. And we start off by setting some house rules, and the number one rule is do not vilify your X. We're not there to go in a rabbit hole of blaming and shaming what the X is or is not, and we encourage everyone to put on their scientists hat, because the whole weekend is about learning about the data and the pattern so that we can make better choices

in the future. We also encourage everyone to either put their phone in a bucket that we provide or to turn it off so that they're not wondering if their ex is contacting them. Oh yeah, happy, yeah. And so after that we tell them also, no giving advice. They're in the hands of experts. There's thirteen experts, and a lot of times people aren't equipped to give advice, especially around heartbreak. I know when I went through mine, the amount of times people said to me, be strong, get

over it. It happened for a reason, and I felt so much shame when I heard those things. So after that, everyone shares their story. But then we teach them how to share their story without re traumatizing themselves. And we teach them about cognitive distortions. And so they come in with one story, and through exercise, we actually get them to reevaluate their story, circle all of the cognitive distortions, the assumptions, interpretations, and write a new story, an updated

one with just the facts. And then they tell that story and they look at the difference between how both of them feel, and the whole entire weekend is really about reframing that story bit by bit, and then we bring in an anxiety expert, We bring in a love addiction expert, and then on the Saturday, we bring in a psychologist, a behavior a behavioral scientist who specializes in cognitive behavioral therapy and DBT. I talk about attachment theory and why we choose people who are unhealthy for us.

Then we pair the you know, the heady stuff with body stuff, and we bring in a doctor who teaches breath work and takes them through a session to help them kind of move emotion and trauma through the body. And then on Sunday we bring in a sex educator as well as a dominatrix who has a PhD from Berkeley who teaches on the psychology of power dynamics. Sunday's fun. Sunday is a really fun day, but you see the

women completely transform. And then at the end of Sunday we actually bring in a professional photographer as well as a comedian, and the women get their new photos taken of their two point zero version, and they just look different. Their eyes are sparkling again, they're excited, they're laughing, they're standing up tall. You physically see a difference in them. And that is the most rewarding part, which reminds me all the time. Oh, this is why I do what

I do. This is why I went through so many heartbreaks. The pain was worth it. Yeah, I mean, you're you're paying it forward so much. Yeah, it's so important. There's no you're there's no rule book we get you know. I mean, can you help teenagers too, Like, have you ever thought about that having a boot camp for broken hearted teens? Yeah, I mean that would be incredible, And that's why I'm doing online programs and courses to make

it more accessible for those who can't wait for a weekend. Yeah, because it really hurts as a kid, Yeah for sure. I mean, what you're doing, no idea. I still don't know what I'm doing. But but but when I was, like when I was, when I was, you know, in a teenager, you know, high school, just it's like I can't live without you. I can't live Sorry, I don't know what just happened there, but anyway, Yeah, but it is it's so dramatic, you know. Yeah, so dramatic. Well,

you're doing such a great service. So what are the different I think there are six stages of separation that you talk about in your book. Yeah, so there's typically six, and I've actually observed there's an extra stage I'll talk about that. It first starts off with shock, and this is your body and mind has not adjusted to the new reality without your partner. Then comes denial, which is actually your body protecting you because otherwise the new reality

is still too overwhelming. And this is when you're still rejecting reality. Once you pass through denial, you get into depression. This is when you might feel numb, you can't get out of bed, you're crying all the time, and this is when people have a tendency to isolate. Now, it's really important during the stage that you don't listen to the cues of your body like you normally would, because your body is going to tell you to stay at home,

cry and fetal position and not eat. Also, what we've seen is after during the stage is your your blood flow is going to like major muscles that prepare you for a flight, fight, or freeze. So your appetite becomes like seventh on the priority list. That's why some people don't have any appetite, so you have to actually not listen to your body during this time. The next is anger. This is when you start to think life is unjust.

You might blame your X or you blame yourself. Now this is actually a positive assign because it shows that energy is moving and it can motivate you to start making changes. You then get into a stage called bargaining, which is very similar to denial, and you might even

relapse and get back together with your ex. This is when you think about how you could fix the relationship and you, you know, the withdrawal really sets in and you might do this, you know, back and forth a few times until you're like, okay, the same outcome is going to keep happening, which brings you to this new

stage that I've observed, which is accountability. And this is when you start to accept reality and look at your part of the relationship the upsite downs and even the ending, and not that you're responsible for everything that happened, but you start evaluating and reflecting on how you might have been complicit to some of the things that happened, which

then leads you into acceptance. And this is when the focal point stops becoming centered around your ex and pathologizing them or trying to psychoanalyze them, but that energy and focus moves towards yourself, what you can learn and what

you can do. You can be in a stage of acceptance, and that doesn't mean that you don't still feel some residual pain or emotions, but it means that your energy is now about you moving forward to create this next two point zero version of your identity of life without your ex. And now healing is not linear, and you might jump back and forth, but those are the different stages. And the more you resist a certain stage by blaming yourself or shaming yourself or denying that you're in it,

the longer you stay in it. So it's important that you just allow yourself to move through and process all of these stages and the different emotions that come instead of labeling them as good or bad, and just be kind and gentle with yourself, as if you just broke your leg, I mean you just broke your heart. It takes time, self compassion. Yeah, a lot of what you're describing sound like behaviors that one does to wean themselves off an addiction. Now there's a phrase that I've seen

and know in the past couple of years. I'm sure it existed before him, but I've only started seeing it called a love addiction, you know, because you know, I've heard about sex addiction, you know, for a long time, but love addiction is something that I find very interesting. Could you explain what that is? And have you encountered that in some of the people that have come to your your book camp. Yeah, definitely, so yeah, so love addiction.

We bring in a love addiction expert to talk about this because a lot of the women are actually experiencing love addiction. And when we look at some of the women and how they're so fixated on their ex and getting this attention or validation from their ex. But we look at the relationship, we recognize like sometimes they don't even like the person that they're in a relationship with,

but they almost need this rush. They need the rush of intensity, of the up and down of the unpredictable rewards which keeps them hooked right just that dopamine and as you know, when you don't know when the reward's going to come, that intermit and reinforcement, it gets you hooked, attached, addicted, and it happens to the best of us. It's not that you're weak or you're stupid or you're broken. It's just the psychological tendency. And it happens to rats, and

it happens to gamblers, and it happens to us. And so a lot of the women are dating people who are hot and cold, who are available unavailable, who give love sometimes and then might be abusive, you know, other times, and so they're caught in this cycle. And so it's almost like you're in a spell. And it's when they start to understand like, oh wait, this actually wasn't love. I don't love this person who's been abusive to me. I'm just caught in this cycle. It really helps them

have perspective and make some different decisions. Yeah, how does what you're saying right now? How does that relate to people who get attached to a sacred relationship plan? Oh? I feel like, are they're related in right? Yeah? For sure? I know for myself, I've had this plan, which was date, get married, have kids, live happily forever after. And this relationship plan is one that you see starting from when you're reading fairy tales to movies, to watching Sex and

City or Bridgerton. Uh, it's this idea of what successful love and relationships are and it's completely messing up society because that's not love. You know. The Romeo and Juliette story is not love. That is intensity and love, addiction and lust. And you called it, you called it. But we base, you know, our ideas of what love is on these on what we see in the media, and

then also the sidle pressures. And so sometimes we have this plan and if we don't meet it, we don't get married by this age, we don't have kids by this age, whatever it is, and we we we feel like we're on our way. And then when that plan pivots, you just don't know what to do with yourself anymore. You've been so attached that plan that you can almost fit anyone into that plan. And that's when people do

something what's called conquesting. When they're actually dating, not because not in a way where they're engaging human to human. That person is now an object right to be like, oh you fit here. I wanted someone who meets these check marks by this time. Okay you fit okay you And then they go in with everything. So yeah, part of I think learning the skill of life is knowing that the plan can and will change. And if you don't have buoyancy and flexibility in making pivots, you're going

to be completely destroyed. And this is like, this is building your muscle of resilience. So it's so important to note that. Just taking this to a neurological level, I know, Helen Fisher has shown that the brain on love approximates the brain on cocaine. That's interesting totally, and that's why after a breakup you so many people feel like they're

going crazy and they're literally in withdrawal. Right, Like in Helen Fisher studies, they've shown that the part of the brain lighting up is to say, part as a drug

user feeding for their next fix. So I tell people when they're in a breakup, think of your ex like they're your drug dealer, you know, cut off contact, don't look at their social media, create systems so that you're not constantly triggered by these reminders, because you're going to be craving the dopamine, the feel good chemicals from your partner, and when you don't get it, it's your the motivational drive is going to cause you to do whatever it

takes to get that attention validation. Even if it's like going to be calling them up and having a fight, you're still getting that rush. So yeah, after a breakup, you need time and space to recalibrate, to let those old normal pathways print a way, and to focus on healing and your own self care. Yes, your own self care, not the one hundred percent in the self care of the other person. Because you talk about how some people

show up to your boot camp chronic caretakers. Now that can cause a codependency, and so I guess you're helping people as well with the codependency issues, Is that right? Yeah, so you're doing a lot. You're helping people with a lot of issues over there. There's some that go hand

in hand with anxious attachment and codependency and overgiving. When we do this exercise where we ask who is you know an overgiver, pretty much every single person in the room raises their hand except for maybe one or two, and we look at the reasons why people overgive. On the outside, they'll be like, oh, because I want to be nice, because I love this person. But when we

really peel back the layers. We see that. Sometimes people overgive as a way to control, as a way of like, Okay, I'm just going to prove that I'm indispensable so that you can never re leave me. It's a way of avoiding intimacy because if you're constantly giving and you're not receiving, you're not in relation. For you to be relational, there needs to be a flow of giving and receiving. So it's like jamming a stick in a wheel. You're not

allowing that wheel to go. And so sometimes we do that because it allows us to keep an emotional distance from people. We do this subconsciously because intimacy is vulnerable, and vulnerability is scary because it can really touch your heart. So other times people overgive as they're addicted to resentment. They have become so used to feeling resentful that it's part of their homeostasis. They're comfortable there, it's familiar, and so what happens is when they get a compliment, they deflect.

When someone tries to do a favor for them, they outdo their favor and you're going to give me a gift. No, no, I'm going to give you a gift two times better. They're constantly creating situations where they're in the deficit, and that allows them to be comfortable with that feeling of being resentful. And I have to say, I am overcoming my habits of being an overgiver. And even now when I feel the resentment coming up, I ask myself like, wait,

am I actually communicating my needs? Am I actually stating a boundary? Am I actually opening up to receive? Or am I being addicted to resentment? I'm like, I know exactly what I'm doing right now. You go grow you be addicted to resentment? No, this is great. This is great that you're like becoming aware of all this because and you're helping people become aware of this stuff because we don't If we don't have the language for we may never be able to comprehend what we're doing or

what you know, what's happening. What's the difference between feeling and feeding emotions? Great question, I'm asking good questions. Question. Yeah, So feeling your emotions is allowing yourself to feel the emotion, pinpointing where it might feel you're feeling it in the body, knowing that it's going to pass like a way, and feeding your emotion is when you it's almost like emotional cutting when you keep doing things to make that motion

bigger and stick around longer. So, for example, maybe you're feeling sad and instead of doing the opposite action, which what would be Okay, I'm going to connect with a friend, I'm going to go, you know, jog, I'm going to exercise and you know, get the endorphins, you instead put on Coldplay on repeat. You might want much love actually and these sad romantic movies that have unattainable ideals and

feel really bad about yourself. You might with your body posture, hunch over and be in fetal position and stay there. You do these things and you know it's going to make you feel worse and worse, but it's almost you can't help it. It's emotional cutting. I just need more. That's feeding the emotion, and I call it feeding the emotional monster. So I think it's important to recognize this, whether you're going through a breakup or you're just going

through the ups and downs of life. When you're feeling the sadness or the anger or whatever it is, are you judging yourself or feeling it or are you allowing yourself to Okay, I feel it it's going to pass or are you feeding it? Just putting gasoline into the fire and choose what's going to serve you. Yeah. And also another technique you talking about in your book is the importance of redirecting your thoughts in order to avoid

excessive rumination. I feel like that's related. I mean, can be feeding our emotions, but we can also be feeding our thoughts, right. I never quite put it that way before, but it felt it felt right, It felt right. So can you help people with these techniques if they have this excessive rumination and there's like stop, I want to

stop already. Yeah. So training your brain is it's a skill, right, And like I mentioned earlier, when you've showed me your meditation pillow, that is a hard work up front, Right, it's doing those daily practices that are going to help you that when it comes to game time and you know you're about to go on a rumination roller coaster, because you've kind of trained your brain and you've done mindfulness and self compassion, you're able to kind of pause

and not react. Right. But then a tool that could help you in the moment is I love the stop sign exercise and so when you noticed yourself either ruminating about the past or fantasizing about the future, either way, you're not being present. The stop sign exercise is when you close your eyes, you imagine a big red stop sign, you say the word out loud. Stop. Then you open your eyes and you start just looking around and listing everything you're grateful for and why, like, oh, the trees,

I'm so grateful because it's beautiful. Oh you know that I have this glass of water. You just keep going and you keep listening it off until eventually you lose your original train of thought and then you go off onto this other, you know, direction, And the first few times you may be like, oh, this doesn't work, but again, it's like trading yourself. And the more you do it, the easier it becomes, and you learn how to be ale, to be masterful at redirecting your thoughts so that you

just don't get caught up in this rumination roller coaster. Oh, rubination roller coaster. I love that. Yeah, oh that's so good. So what are those some of the thing traps we fall into when we're feeling unsafe in an intimate relationship. Yeah, so sinking traps are you know, are our way of making interpretations that are not true. They're not based in fact, and they actually add anxiety and stress. And we were all privy to doing these thinking traps. And I think

a common one is all or nothing thinking. So when you catch yourself saying things like I always meet you know, people who treat me like crap, this never happens to me. Just catch yourself, is it really true? Always like every single person in your life? What if it is true?

Then you might need to dig a bit deeper. Then you got you got worse issues than so all or nothing thinking is one catastrophizing when you take one thing and then you turn into this huge, huge problem that's never going to go away, getting caught up in shoulds. So I should have done that, he should have done that, she should have done that. Right, you're not based in reality. You can't change the past, and that causes a lot more stress and often a lot of self blame or

blame onto another or even shaming yourself. And I think another huge one that happens is making assumptions. Right, maybe you didn't hear back on a text right away, and perhaps you had a few experiences in your past that made you associate not hearing back equals you know, a threat of someone's going to drop you or reject you, and so you personalize that. You make an assumption and you're like, oh, this person must not be into me,

this person must be taking advantage of me. And a really great thing to do when you find yourself doing that is actually just great writing down a list of possible scenarios with a passionate lens. And this also if you're kind of in a panic state and your amygdala has kind of taken over and you're like in fight or flight, this can actually help your prefrontal cortex come back online, right, your rational logical part of your brain. Just by listing it out and reviewing that that can

help calm you down. So those are some of the common thinking traps that I see all often. So this is so helpful. So let's say that, like, the person really isn't into you, and so that's one of the possible scenarios that you just rationally think through. Okay, like what if the worst case scenario is true? You know what if it's not, this ain't happening, Scotty, then how can you still show that your self compassion in that situation. Yeah, I think first thing is don't fall into the next

thinking trap, which is personalization. I'm a loser, yeah yeah, right, Like someone doesn't drive with you, they don't want to continue dating. It doesn't mean that you're flawed as a human being totally. And so often people go straight there like something's wrong with me and nothing is wrong with you, and you haven't met your fit yet. I mean, that's what dating is. It's a filtering process. And not everyone you meet is going to be your fit. It shouldn't

be that. Of course, it's not gonna be that way. And so don't turn into personalization as an attack on yourself. And if you have the thought, you you can't control that thought from coming in your brain, but you don't need to feed it. And even just don't even say it out loud or maybe okay, you have the thought, and then pair it with a positive affirmation, something that's a little bit more true, a little bit more helpful.

If you go straight to I'm such a loser, don't go all the way to opposite of I'm such a winner. Your brain will reject what it here inherently doesn't believe is true. When you said the opposite. I thought it was going to be she's a loser, right, But don't go straight to the opposite because it's not gonna be helpful. But you want to find soften it up, find something a little bit more true, a little bit more helpful, and say that out loud. So I think that could

be helpful, and yeah, this is so good. What are some ways we can express anger in a healthy way if we feel that bubbling up to the surface. Yeah. So I've noticed with women particularly that they tend in my boot camps, they tend to actually not feel anger. And it's not that they don't feel it, it's that they don't process it as anger because they've been so used to feeling anger and turning it into something more

socially acceptable, which is sadness. And so we really try to help with the women get in touch with feeling their anger and not feeling ashamed for feeling that emotion. One helpful thing, so exercise is great. High intensity interval training has been shown to be really helpful with releasing anger in a healthy way and releasing emotions in a healthy way. So anything that really gets your body moving. But what I found of really effective is actually pairing

it with using your voice. So this might mean you grunt, you scream, you yell, and you know it might not be socially acceptable because you know you don't want people to hear you. But if you can find a way to get in an environment where you can feel safe and comfortable to just let it out. Sometimes we also don't speak her truth, and there's this blockage in our throat, so actually being able to make noises can be very cathartic.

And then another thing is actually just journaling, free flow writing. Set your timer for it, maybe ten minutes or so, and just just write, you know the anger I feel, and just go from there and don't take your pen off of the paper and let some of it's like debugging, I find, and you're kind of letting the stuff that's like floating around in your subconscious come. And I think that's a really helpful way of releasing. This stuff is obviously stuff that's going to apply to not just relationships,

but anything one does in one's life. I mean, you're this is like, this is such good therapy, a good therapy session for any for anything that one's dealing with in one's life. So let's let me end with this question, then, how do you propose that we redefine love itself? I love this question. I think we need to look at our current definition of what love is and what a successful relationship is and ask if that model is helping you in creating the type of life and love that

you want now. Because so often we have a definition that's based on society, on the movies, we watch the song, we listen to our parents' ideas, and we've all almost absorbed these ideas as if they are our own and we don't question them. And so, you know, what is success in a relationship? So many people think that, oh, as long as you've been together for a very long time, and that's successful. I definitely do not think that's true. If you were in an abusive relationship for twenty thirty years,

I don't think that you deserve a trophy. Right if you recognize that you're in a dead end relationship where it's killing your soul and you get out of it, and that lasted only a year, but you learn so much and that help you in the next relationship, for you to get really aligned with your values and if who you are and who you're choosing. My God, that was a successful relationship. So so question these ideas that you have that you might have just absorbed that might

not even be yours. Question the plan that you think you need to have, and you know, ask yourself, if you were to have a blank canvas and you were to start right now, how would you paint that? And see what actions you can take to start, you know, creating that and making that a reality. Well, let's let's end it there so we can we can all get going already with that blank canvas, filling out that blank canvas. Hey, Amy,

it is just such a delight talking to you. I love what you're up to in this world, and let me know how I can support it in any way. Thank you. This was so fun, so much fun. Thanks for listening to this episode of The Psychology Podcast. If you'd like to react in some way to something you heard, I encourage you to join in the discussion at the Psychology Podcast dot com. That's the Psychology Podcast dot com. Also, if you'd prefer a completely ad free experience, you can

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