Hey there, this is clay with www.ModernLove.Life and this is the relationship inner game experience.
Today we're going to be talking about the topic of how to know if you're wasting your
time with somebody or not.
Oftentimes I get questions from people that, you know, somebody goes onto explain their
situation, the story and all of that, and then they say, do I still have a chance?
Is there still hope?
What are the odds that this will work out?
Or something like that.
And I often looked behind this and I was like, well, what do they want me to say that they
have a 76.4 % chance that this will work out or something.
Like I have some kind of computer in my back room or something that's gonna, you know,
I put in all the info "Oh was a long distance relationship.
There is a rebound person and just do, do, do, do, do" you know, 82 percent chance or
something.
But, but when I really started to look underneath it a little bit more, I realized that people
just want to know if they're wasting their time or not when they are trying to pursue
a relationship with somebody or pursue some sort of connection with somebody.
And I want to get to the bottom of this because this is very important and that is that your
only wasting your time.
If you learn nothing from the experience.
If you have absolutely nothing from the experience, then you are wasting your time.
You know, people often go through things like relationship challenges, dating challenges,
you know, somebody ghosts them, somebody flakes out on them, somebody cheats on them, or even
just like breakups, you know, they want to get back together, but maybe it doesn't work
out for one reason or another.
And they often think, oh, well, you know, I just wasted my time trying to make that
work.
I just wasted my time trying to connect with this person.
I just wasted my time trying to date that person.
And that's a really sad way to go about looking at things.
It's a really sad way to go about looking at life because the truth is everything that
you experience, everything that you encounter, everything that happens to you in your life
is an opportunity to learn something from it.
It's an opportunity to learn something from it and it's an opportunity to gain a lesson
from it that you can take and move into the future, into your future experiences, so maybe
things didn't work out in a previous relationship or you just gonna let that be just a terrible
thing that happened and you're just gonna feel bad for a week or two or something and
then you're going to get out there and start dating again and just do the whole thing all
over again.
Are you going to say, wow, that's something terrible happened.
Let me see.
Like why she cheated on me.
Let me see like why he flaked out on me?
What could I do differently in the future to make sure that that doesn't happen?
Could I be maybe choosing different partners?
Could I be a behaving in a different way when we're together?
Could I be doing this or that?
Right?
If you actually learned something from the process than it is never a wasted experience,
so have that mindset and you won't ever have to worry about this ever again because no
matter what happens to you, you will win.
No matter what happens to you, you will gain valuable lessons.
No matter what happens to you, you will find a way to make success from it.
Okay, so find the lesson in everything that happens and use it to your advantage.
This is something extremely important and I never want you to forget this.
No matter what your relationship situation is, no matter what things happened to you
in dating or relationships moving forward, always find a way to gain something from your
experiences, no matter how good or how bad they are.
Okay?
Now, beyond this, people I know, just want to know, hey, is there even a possibility
that it's going to work out?
You know, is it even a possibility that we're gonna?
Get together and be in a relationship, isn't even a possibility that she likes me, isn't
even a possibility that he wants to be my boyfriend, and the truth of the matter is
beyond just taking a lesson from things that happen to you in your life there, there really
is no way to completely remove risk, to live a life without risk and uncertainty.
There's always going to be a certain degree of uncertainty in life, especially when it
comes to dating, unless of course you just completely opt out of dating and just decide
you're going to not try and just be single.
There's nothing wrong with that, but that is the only way to have certainty when it
comes to dating.
When you are in a relationship with somebody, when you're dating somebody, when you are
in partnership of some kind with somebody, you are inherently uncertain because it doesn't
just involve you.
It also involves another person.
Okay, and that person has their own freewill.
That person can make their own choices.
That person can make their own decisions and so on and so forth.
So as long as you're gaining something from it, as long as you're learning something from
it, you're going to come out ahead.
But there is that degree of uncertainty and you have to be able to expose yourself to
uncertainty in calculated doses.
Okay?
I mean, obviously don't just go out there and try to be in a relationship with somebody
that you know is severely incompatible with you or somebody that, you know, there's just
a complete mismatch between the two of you or something like that because that is as,
from what I understand that Thai people say like a dog barking at an airplane, the dog
is getting all worked up trying to, I don't know, do something with the airplane, but
the airplane of course is, you know, thousands and thousands of feet overhead and is completely
unaware that the dog is even there.
Right?
So you don't want to do that, but, you want to be completely okay with uncertainty or
at least okay with the amount of uncertainty that you're welcoming into your life.
If you're not okay with the amount of uncertainty that you're putting yourself in, then you
might want to dial it back to some amount of uncertainty that you are emotionally okay
with, or you might want to look at increasing your capacity for uncertainty in your life.
You have one of those two options, again, once more to reiterate.
Also, learn something from whatever happens to you in your love life.
Learn something from any setback that you experience and use that to your advantage
to have a stronger approach, a stronger strategy, a more compelling future for you.
Don't let the setbacks that happen just be, you know, terrible, awful, crappy things that
happened to you and then you know, you just brush yourself off and then go out there and
do the whole same thing all over again.
Learn something from it, refine your approach, get a little bit better with every experience
that you have.
So with that being said, let's go and talk about our questions and answers this week
from the people in our modern love association community.
Our first question is from Daniel.
Daniel writes in and says, how do you develop a more natural way of authenticity instead
of sounding scripted in interactions?
Okay, Daniel, so when it comes to sounding scripted in interactions, that's probably
because there is a part of you that actually is scripting your interactions, a part of
you that actually is in some respect turning your brain off and just going off of some
sort of memorized script or something that you thought of beforehand or something that
seemed to work in the past or something along those lines and whenever you're interacting
with somebody in that way from some sort of script or some sort of memorized speech or
some sort of thing that you thought beforehand or something like that, you're going to be
dead in the interactions because you're not actually present in the interactions yourself.
You're sort of hitting pause and saying, okay, let me go back through my history, my memory,
whatever, and pull out this thing that I thought up.
I don't know, a week ago or this thing that I said to the last five girls that I went
out with or something.
That worked out pretty well and let me just use that and that isn't really very authentic
because when you're actually being authentic in the moment, you're actually able to gauge
the other person's response, gauged their engagement with you and gauge how they are
following your story or how they are following what it is you're telling them or how they're
following the interaction and you're able to adjust what you're saying to match them.
So if they seem like they're getting bored, you could maybe say, hey, it seems like this
is a little bit boring for you, or you know, just check in with them or you could maybe
change up the pacing or if they're more of a detail person, you could maybe go into some
more details about some of the things that you're telling them or, whatever it might
be.
But you have to be able to feel into the interaction to be able to know whether you should be speeding
up, slowing down, revealing more of yourself, reviewing less of yourself and so on and so
forth.
And this all involves actually being present in the moment.
So if you're sounding scripted or if you're sounding inauthentic, then that probably is
because there is some part of you in those interactions that is not authentic, that is
not being really present in the moment, there is not being alive in that interaction and
I would look at how data is showing up for you and I'd look at ways that you could stop
doing that and instead start being more present and following, engaging where the other person
might actually be in the moment.
Okay.
So I hope that helped you out, Daniel, and if you have any more questions, please let
us know.
Our next question is from Jp.
Jp writes in and says in some of your old MQAs, you mentioned that if an ex is giving
complete radio silence, it may be beneficial to respond to that silence with empathy, clear
up ulterior motives or to respond to the unanswered message as if it were asked to you.
At what point do you suggest using these approaches over the light hemingway or Texas Tequila
type message?
Okay, JP.
So like I was just telling to Daniel, you want to be able to feel into the moment to
know when the right time to use this as.
It's not just like, okay, when the following three things are present, then you can turn
your brain off and clear up an ulterior motive or something like that.
What I want you to use, I want you to be able to ascertain what the right time to do these
sorts of things is.
But just as a rule of thumb, you have to feel into the moment.
You have to understand what the other person's emotional experience is.
So for example, if you're trying to contact somebody but they're not contacting you back
and you think that there might be some sort of emotional thing going on with them that's
causing them to not want to contact you back, you know, you might want to say, okay, well,
would it make more sense?
Would they feel more open and more comfortable talking to me if maybe I responded to their
silence with empathy?
Would they feel more open and comfortable talking to me if I cleared up some sort of
ulterior motive or if I apologized for something that I did that that they're still holding
onto hurt feelings for something like that, would it help them to feel more comfortable
interacting with me?
If I got the conversation going myself and responded to the message as if it were asked
to me, I don't want you to just be looking for signs or clues or hints or things like
that to tell you when the right time to use a certain strategy or another would be.
I want you to actually be able to put yourself in the other person's position to see the
world from their position so that you can understand, okay.
I think they are probably upset with me because they're still, I don't know, still hurt because
of that thing that I said that one time and they're not willing to let go of it and they're
still holding onto that grudge and if you're able to do that and you don't need me to tell
you, oh yeah, they're still holding onto a grudge.
But if you're actually able to feel into that situation yourself and say, oh, they are still
holding onto a grudge, you can say, Hey, I understand you might still be pissed off because
of that thing I said anyway.
I would just really want you to know that, that I didn't really mean that.
Or you know, whatever.
Just cleared up and then you can start to have a conversation because you know, if they
are still upset with you over something that you said or did from the past, just as an
example, they're not going to be able to let go of that and have a nice, friendly conversation
with you until that's cleared up.
I mean that should be pretty obvious, right?
So you want to be able to feel into these situations, you want to be able to know what
the right thing to do is by putting yourself in the other person's positions, not by just
memorizing a bunch of if then sort of scenarios, I want you to actually be able to feel into
the situation so that you can see the experience and feel the experience of what you are projecting
to the other person from that person's point of view and you can say, Ooh, that probably
doesn't feel good because I don't trust you enough yet or because I'm still upset about
the thing that happened in the past or because I don't know if you're invested in this conversation.
And then you can say, okay, well if they're feeling that way, then I should do this instead.
Okay, so JP, I hope this helps you out and please keep us updated on how things go moving
forward.
Our next question is from Sue.
Sue writes in and says, hi clay.
D and I broke up six months ago.
We were together for four years and he is in a rebound relationship with somebody who
is very controlling.
She tracks his location on his phone and made him block me everywhere, sent an email from
his email telling me not to reach out to him, etc.
He also says that she is not his girlfriend and no title and it's not gonna last says
that they are not compatible and constantly have differences, but 10 days ago, D had taken
her to a business meeting where our common friend was present.
Our friend told me that they looked like a happy couple and even kissed at breakfast.
That broke my heart.
However, the next day he texted me all day long highlights of which word quote I think
about you constantly still and can't seem to get a clear understanding of anything and
quote, quote, I wish I fully understood all that and took the dive and risk and got married
or what the next step would have been.
I mean, after all those years, it's pretty evident that we've been through thick and
thin and quote quote.
I often thought what would have happened when I say I love you in person and how it would
feel and quote, these were just some of the messages during our conversation that he kept
asking if I loved the guy that I'm dating and if I've slept with him.
However, as I suspected, not only did he disappear, he also blocked me on whatsapp.
The next day I've been going on dates just to keep myself distracted and one of them
even seem to be growing on me and seems more and more interesting, but my heart is with
D and D is all that I want without all the games that he's been playing.
I would like to know at which stage of getting back together he is on.
Would he even get back since he has a girlfriend though?
He says that he misses me.
He has blocked me everywhere.
Do I still have a chance?
Okay, so in terms of the stage that he might be in, it's.
It's really tough if we're just going off of some text messages here, but I would guess
that he is probably in late riding the dragon or possibly crisis point and the reason that
I'm saying that is because I have seen a lot of positive interactions from him towards
you and I haven't really seen any negative ones, so either he hasn't done a pullback
yet or he is over that part of riding a dragon where he would be doing that pull up and he's
mostly seeing you in a positive light.
Now as he gets further and further into the crisis point, he's going to have to deal with
that crisis that he is probably not addressing directly at this point, which is what to do
about this woman that he's dating, who's very controlling, who apparently sends emails from
his email account to you, who blocks you on his social media platforms, etc, etc.
He will have to deal with this at some point or another.
And you know, he has to either say, Hey, I'm going to stay in a relationship with this
controlling person, or no, I'm going to end this relationship and I'm going to see what
happens between Sue and I and this is his decision that he asked to make.
And the thing that you want to do as you enter into crisis point and as you travel through
crisis point is to keep positive pressure on him.
So you want to make sure the interactions between you and him that you do have continued
to feel good on an emotional level because I can guarantee you that the interactions
he's having with his current girlfriend do not feel good on an emotional level.
A does not feel good to know that the person that you're dating is tracking you on the
phone, that they're hacking into your email account and sending messages on your behalf
that they're blocking people from your social media.
And so on and so forth.
That's not something that I imagine anyone would really enjoy.
So she's applying the negative pressure and if you apply the positive pressure, you're
going to sandwich him between these two possibilities and the more pressure that gets applied, the
faster he will feel compelled to make a decision.
If there's not enough pressure, he will not feel compelled to make a decision.
And so we want to do is you want to apply this positive pressure to really stack the
deck in your favor so that when he does make a decision, it's more likely to go in your
favor as opposed towards the controlling woman, right?
If you're gonna, throw out ultimatums and you know, have interactions that feel bad,
then all bets are off.
But if you have interactions that feel good, if you're able to connect with him on a, on
a positive emotional level and all of that stuff, then you're really stacking the deck
in your favor and you also want to know where to even get back.
Since he has a girlfriend and he says he misses it.
Yeah, I think he, he's definitely is thinking about it.
He definitely is entertaining.
That idea is just, he's not really directly confronted with that crisis yet to the point
where he actually feels compelled to make a decision, right.
It might just be some sort of thought that's floating through his head or maybe he does
miss you, but he's not committed enough to the possibility of getting back together with
you to actually act on that.
So you want to do things like what we recommend inside ESP and continue to build that positive
emotional connection and continue to apply that pressure for things such as the crisis
point.
Okay. you also say that he is blocked you everywhere.
Do you still have a chance?
Well, it seems like he blocks you and then unblocks you or rather she blocks you and
then he unblocks you and messages you and then she blocks you again.
So, she is trying to control the flow of communication that he has with you and it seems that he
is able to sometimes unblock you and, and, and communicate with you in that way.
So, you know, yeah, you are blocked.
Yeah.
You are going to have a difficult time getting through to him, most likely due to her monitoring
of his activities and her managing of his activities, but it's clear to me that he does
still have strong feelings for you.
Do you believe that there is a possibility that the two of you could get back together?
it really depends on you and it depends on him and it depends on whether or not he is
really willing to step into that crisis and to make a decision.
but of course you can really help him by creating positive emotional interactions that do that
now, given that his current girlfriend is a very controlling person, you may not even
need to actually be there to create those positive interactions.
Sometimes it's just the memory of you being there, the memory of the positive interactions
that the two of you had contrasted with the controlling interactions that they have with
this other person that feel bad on an emotional level.
That could be enough to create the pressure to cause him to break up with you.
But nobody can really say one way or the other.
Exactly.
What's actually going to happen, but it's definitely something that I've seen before.
Do you still have a chance?
I mean, yeah, I mean there's, there's always a chance.
Unless of course you just give up.
There's always a possibility.
So, you know, yeah, there definitely is a chance.
They're just, like I told you the last time you asked me if there was a chance in your
situation.
So I hope this helps you out and please keep us updated on how things go moving forward.
Our next question is from Sarah.
Sarah writes in and says, hi clay.
My current relationship I'm trying to save, we have not broken up, at least as far as
I know.
At the same time, we are having a lot of arguments.
She said not being real with myself and what I want.
I said I'm the best boyfriend she had, but I don't trust her that I'm still hung up on
my situation of my ex cheating on me and getting over that, that I need to get over that issue
for us to have a great relationship.
Also said that we spend too much time together and she is not able to do stuff on her own.
We are spending time apart space as she suggests we need.
I need advice as to do the active no contact as people will say that may be too long for
space.
I'm also doing the compatibility code course, hoping she is not seeing anyone right now
at this time.
This is one week so far of ANC.
So far I've realized I have no hobbies, no friends to hang out with, felt too clingy
to her and wanted her validation.
Everything from her eyes.
I'm sure that I'm a mess at this time.
What advice would you give me in this situation so I can get on track for keeping my relationship
going?
Okay, so if you realize that you have no hobbies, no friends to hang out with and you are clinging
to her for validation on everything, that is where I would really start.
People often think that a relationship is going to make them happy, when in fact a relationship
is not going to make you happy.
It's just going to serve as a bit of distraction during the newness of it, but at the end of
the day, if you don't like your life right now, if you don't have anything going on in
your life right now, then a relationship is not going to suddenly fix it and make you
suddenly love your life.
You're just going to be somebody who still hates their life.
If you hated your life before, but you're going to also have a girlfriend or you know
if you're somebody else listening, a boyfriend in your life, and so the most important thing
that you can do is to actually love the life that you live with or without someone else
in it.
This is going to obviously cause you to enjoy yourself a whole lot more, especially as you
get into a relationship, but this is also going to make you a much more attractive person
in general as well too, because you have to understand that people are going to be drawn
to you and attracted to you based off of the life that you live.
If you hate your life, if you're not doing anything that you find enjoyable or worthwhile
with your life, then you are basically sending a broadcast message out to everybody in the
world that might date you, that says, Hey, if you want to be with somebody who hates
their life and is not doing anything worthwhile with their time than I'm the guy for you.
Right?
And that means that if, if there's somebody out there who has self esteem, somebody out
there who has goals and ambition in their life, somebody out there who wants to be a
part of a relationship where the other person actually has some sort of driving momentum
or some sort of goals or aspirations or friends or hobbies or whatever, then that person is
going to be fundamentally a turned off by you.
If you don't have those things and they're going to go and find somebody else to date,
which means that the only people that are actually going to want to date you are people
that are okay with you having no hobbies, no friends, no driving goals or aspirations
in life.
Right?
And these are probably going to be a certain type of people, right?
Kind of like if you know, like one thing that women often say is that, you know, oh well
guy needs to approach me.
I should never approach a guy because if you approach a guy shows that he's interested
in shows that he's serious about dating you and all that stuff.
And I don't believe that at all.
Right?
Really, if you take the passive route as a woman and you just wait for guys to approach
you, you're generally going to get approached by guys that generally approach women or don't
have a problem approaching women.
These include drunk guys, pick up artists and players for the most part.
And if you have been playing the passive role as a woman waiting for guys to approach you,
you may have been able to look back at the past and say, okay, I've been approached by
drunk guys.
Pick up artists and players.
Right?
And it makes you wonder where are all the good guys at where all the real men.
Well, the truth is is that most decent men out there don't approach women on a regular
basis.
You know, they might muster up the courage and you know, their friends might dare them
to do it once in a while or something, but most regular guys don't go up and talk to
a women they're attracted to on a, on a regular basis.
Especially if those women are strangers, you know, if they know them through a friend of
a friend or something, that's a different story.
But if it's just, you know, hey, I'm out on the street and there you are across the street.
Most guys aren't going to do that.
If you're at a bar and you're on the other side of our.
Most guys aren't just going to do that unless they are the kinds of people that are accustom
to approaching strangers or unless they just happen to muster up the courage on that particular
night to come over and talk to you.
If you were a woman and you wanted to meet a nice decent guy who's not a player, not
a pickup artist, not a drunk.
You might actually need to change your strategy and start talking to men, approaching men,
right?
I'm not saying you have to like take the masculine role and ask them out on a date and you know
your first word should be like, Hey, what's good?
Go out on a romantic date on it, but just have some smalltalk.
Interject yourself into his presence so that he feels comfortable talking to you and that
he has the ability to take the lead and to ask you out if that's what he wants, right?
But you don't have to take the passive role and mistake that for femininity because femininity
is not passive.
Femininity absolutely can be active.
Passive.
It is just passively.
It's not feminine.
Okay, so let's clear that up and going back to what you said, Sarah, when it comes to
you attracting high quality people, when it comes to high quality people being attracted
to you, the best thing that you can do is to live your life from a place of power.
Live your life from a place where you actually enjoy your life because that is actually going
to be incredibly much more attractive than whatever it is you're doing now that's causing
you to not have any hobbies or friends and to seek validation from a women.
Okay?
Because I can guarantee you, as you start to reclaim your life, as you start to move
your life into alignment with your own values, you're going to notice that you're going to
get a much different response from the people around you.
Okay, so I hope this helps you out and please keep us updated on how things go moving forward
from here.
Our next question is from Gigi.
Hi Clay.
I appreciate you helping me become more aware of my ex's frustration in not being able to
meet and wanting to connect deeper as I had never realized that because I have been so
focused on his pullback in texts, but I can see now how offering to meet in person does
in fact me and he's willing to go deeper, I suppose just not on phone anymore.
So to give an idea of what I meant by pull back last week, I have noticed that he is
not reaching out anymore.
This is a big step back to how often he used to as just a few weeks ago he was sharing
photos saying I should be there.
I know in videos you mentioned not worrying about who initiated it and once they fall
back in love they'll start to do more, but if it is the other direction where they were
in touch often and it stops, I assume it's due to a loss of interest.
I noticed though that he responds quickly and has some conversations with me if I reach
out that he doesn't let it get too deep or if we are joking around a little bit, he doesn't
let it go on like before and drops the conversation.
I feel nervous as it is different and it won't be possible to visit his city or see if he'd
visit me as you suggest for a few months.
Unfortunately, due to my health issues that he has known about, he has always disliked
phone calls, so I haven't asked for one yet though.
Maybe it's worth the risk of him saying no.
Seeing as how it's better to have voice.
I'd like to know how to reconcile the two things.
What would make him pull away in our communication lately, even though he has asked me to meet
several times the past few months and I couldn't do to being in the city.
What is creating this new gap between his low investment in communication and having
asked to meet not too long ago and how can I bridge the two until I'm able to get there
in a couple of months.
I feel like he is slipping away and I'm stuck.
Okay, so Gigi, when it comes to situations like this there you have to understand that
when somebody pulls back and is not communicative the way that they used to, it's not always
because of you.
It could be due to other things going on in his life.
I don't know.
Maybe he's just really busy with work or something came up and there's some kind of family drama
or whatever.
I know that for me personally, having a newborn daughter is requiring a lot of my time and
it's making it more difficult for me to actually keep in touch with people, in my own way.
Right.
It's not because of them, it's not because they don't like them any less.
It's just something my daughter is pulling away my attention and causing me to focus
on that.
Right.
And so something like that could be going on.
Another thing that could be happening as well too is that he is just growing frustrated
with the long distance thing and it's just not really working out for him anymore.
And so he's just kind of giving up because he just doesn't really see it going anywhere.
He's, he's tired of interacting only through screens and phones and stuff like that and
he's just not feeling the connection as much and he's starting to pull back a little bit
because he, he doesn't see a future between the two of you.
Okay.
So if you want to, you might, you might try reaching out to him and seeing if he would
be open to talking on the phone or something like that as opposed to texting.
I mean maybe that would work, I don't know, but you just have to use, have to really think
about where he's at on an emotional level and you want to create a connection that you
have to think about.
Okay, well what is it that I could do to meet him where he's at emotionally, right?
So maybe he's frustrated, maybe he's, he's tired of the whole texting game and all of
that stuff.
He's trying to guard himself a little bit because he can sense that you could easily
be pulled into interacting with you.
But he's just frustrated because it doesn't seem like it's ever going to go anywhere and
it's just going to be some sort of text relationship forever and ever.
Right.
So what do you think you could do to meet him where he's at emotionally that would actually
cause him to feel good interacting with you that actually caused him to see a future with
you?
They're actually caused him to want to co-create a future with you.
Maybe that would be actually talking to him on the phone.
Maybe that would be actually talking about getting together in person at some point in
the future.
Even if it's months away from now, maybe you could at least talk about it or planet or
or get the idea out there or something along those lines.
Right?
Because that can give him something to to latch onto that can give them something to
hang his hopes on.
Maybe you could also talk about the possibility of the two of you.
Maybe even someday living in the same location.
I don't know if that would make sense for you, but.
But if it does make sense, then maybe that's something that you could talk about a not.
I'm not saying that you should move to a place for him or anything like that, but if it's
something that is actually physically possible for you to do, then why not talk about it
so that he knows that this isn't just going to be some sort of endless long distance relationship
because nobody wants to be in an endless long distance relationship forever and ever and
ever.
They want it to eventually become a interpersonal relationship where you can actually wake up
in bed next to the person that you love, where you can go to brunch with the person that
you love, where you can introduce them to all of your friends and family members and
you can go to parties and do things together.
Right?
That's what people want.
And if they just think that they're just going to be in some sort of endless marathon, long
distance kind of thing, that can be a lot for them and it can make them want to give
up.
So, yeah, you might want to consider some of these things.
and I hope this helps you out, Gigi, and please keep us updated on how things go moving forward
from here.
Our next question is from Maddie.
Maddie writes in and says hello everyone.
Before I get into my questions, five stages wise, I think my ex is riding the dragon,
he's mostly positive towards me and I think that I'm still at the attachment stage.
Question one.
So I practiced the intimacy bubble for a little bit and ran into trouble both in using it
with other people as well as my ex people seem to be a bit put off whenever I asked
them.
What was that like for you?
They seem to find it weird.
My ex has told me that he finds it annoying because it seems fake to him.
You've never asked me that before.
Is there a more subtle way of using the intimacy bubble?
I mean, yeah, I mean, you don't have to use those exact questions.
You could just say things like, tell me more about that.
Or were you nervous when this thing happened or what was rushing through your head when
they said that?
Or, you know, things like that.
Things that actually make sense in the context, right?
You don't just have to robotically use the things that I tell you in in the, in the lesson.
That's just an example question too.
Even though I did ANC and the exercises suggested, I still find that talking to my ex impacts
me emotionally in a big and negative way.
Listening to him talk about his new relationship, which was one of the reasons he broke up with
me, leaves me feeling extremely sad.
Oftentimes I find myself overcome by new waves of anger both at him and his girlfriend.
After interacting with him, do you think this means that I need to do ANC again, should
I be vulnerable and tell him about my anger or should I somehow deal with this on my own?
Okay, so if interacting with him is causing you to feel bad on an emotional level, that
means that it is not conducive towards creating interactions that feel good on an emotional
level.
So what I would do is I would stop interacting with him until you are able to interact with
him.
And it feels good on an emotional level.
Okay?
Because the more you interact with him and it feels bad, the more you're going to pull
the two of you apart.
Okay?
Whether he feels bad or whether you feel bad, it is going to drive the two of you apart.
So it is a big thing that you are feeling bad for.
You do ANC, probably a should it be vulnerable and tell him about your anger.
Only if you think it's going to bring the two of you closer together.
If you think it's just going to cause the two of you to go further apart than I would
not tell him about your anger and how to deal with it.
On your own.
Question three, I'd like to ask my ex what made him lose motivation to save our relationship?
Is this a good question to ask or do you think it's going to make things worse?
If you think that he would be excited and thrilled to talk about why he lost the motivation
to save your relationship, then go ahead and ask it.
If you think it's going to bring the two of you closer together, then go ahead and ask
it.
If you think he's going to just be like, well, this is really obvious, why are you just cluing
in on this right now?
Then probably not.
Okay, so what I would do is I would just circle it all back and say, is this likely to create
an interaction that feels good on an emotional level for him, for me, and for the two of
us together.
If it is likely to do that, then go ahead and do it.
If it's unlikely to do that, then don't do it.
If you don't know if it's going to do that or not, then work more on your empathy skills.
Okay? with that being said, I hope this helps you out, Maddie, and keep us updated on how
things go moving forward.
From here.
Our next question is from AA.
AA writes in and says, hi clay.
Thanks for helping me out.
Last time, just to refresh, my ex and I and a long distance relationship had almost daily
contact.
I thought we were in phase four when he told me that he had kind of was in love with me
and sent me that gift.
He says he feels attached, attracted and that he can trust me to be there for him.
I'm also the closest person to him besides his family.
He has now pulled back a lot again and said because of his move to another country for
his career, we had to cut contact completely, but maybe we could be friends in the future.
He said he was tired of our contact and that we could never be happy again due to our past
arguments.
Although we've had many talks about our past and I have sincerely apologized.
He said that we had to think about this and that we most likely would talk soon.
I think had become a bit relationship focused after those events, but I also think him booking
a plane ticket caused him to stress out even more.
Plus dealing with his depression and family crisis.
So I guess I'm in riding the Dragon.
He texted me after telling me that he felt overwhelmed and carried so much anger for
the past with everyone and has to deal with it alone.
I empathized and told him that I respect his decision.
Although I said I did wish to keep our communication.
We ended the talk on a positive note.
After two days he reached out.
We had a brief that positive interaction.
I understand that there's so much going on that he doesn't feel ready for anything right
now and I do want to be there through this move and I think that we can get back to our
regular lovely interactions, but how can I move past his resentment?
Before I knew about esp, I did no contact, but it's like he doesn't remember because
he been depressed and time hasn't been a concept for a long time.
He would just forget a lot.
I'm working on detaching.
Doing ANC again.
How do I get past riding the Dragon?
I feel like I've been stuck there for so long.
Thank you.
Okay, so if you've done passive, no contact before, you've been essentially hoping that
time will make your ex want to emotionally connect with you, right?
That somehow the mere passage of time is going to change the quality of the interactions
that you have with each other, and that is not really necessarily true, right?
There are a lot of dubious reasons to do passive, no contact, most of which don't work, you
know, making her ex jealous, making them miss you, making them regret, breaking up with
you, making them a suddenly want to open up to you, all these sorts of things.
The ultimate thing here is that you're basically saying, okay, I, I'm not really a factor in
this.
The way I'm bringing myself to the interactions is irrelevant.
It's all about just me shutting off the spigot for a month or whatever, and then then I'll
just come back and everything's going to be great, and that's not how no contact actually
works.
What actually happens is if you do no contact passive, no contact, your ex is going to get
accustomed to life without you, and then when you come back into the picture, they're going
to suddenly remember you as the person that you were when you stopped contacting them,
and if you are the same person when you stopped contacting them, then they're going to see
no difference and they're going to say, wow, that's pretty good that I broke up with them
because they are exactly the same person that I broke up with.
Right?
And so if that was your no contact strategy, then I am not surprised that things are still
difficult and I would probably recommend some active, no contact emphasis on the active
part, emphasis on actively cultivating the ability to feel into situations and know what
the appropriate way to respond to them on an emotional level is because that will actually
help you to meet your ex where he is at an emotional level, connect with him at an emotional
level and create a bond with him so that the two of you can create a strong emotional connection.
Okay.
So yeah, I do think that doing active no contact would probably be a good move for you.
How do you get past riding the Dragon?
The way that you get past riding the dragon is that you create an emotional connection
that is strong so that you can really continue to build that emotional trust between you
and your ex.
Okay?
Your ex will continue to trust you.
The stronger the emotional connection is between you and them, and the stronger that connection
is, the more consistent that strong emotional connection is.
The more layers of trust will get built within your ex's emotional experience of you.
And the more layers of trust they build towards you, the more they're going to actually start
to, not have these pullbacks anymore because they're going to really see you as the person
that you are.
They're going to really understand that they can consistently go to you and they're going
to consistently get a similar emotional response and that they can actually start to put some
faith into interacting with you on an emotional level.
And as that happens, you'll be able to move past riding the dragon into the crisis point
where ex will have to really directly confront the actual reasons that are keeping the two
of you apart.
Okay.
So I hope this helped you out AA and please keep us updated on how things go moving forward.
Our next question is from Ellie.
Ellie writes in and says, hi clay.
It has been eight months of wall of reactions from my ex and I am finally ready both time
wise and emotionally to talk to him about his decision to prevent a friendship from
happening between us.
We have organized a talk over online chat because he was not willing to meet up in person.
I want to open up a discussion about the wall between us and move past it so that we may
start redeveloping a friendship.
I plan to focus on the emotional connection above all else.
That's a great idea, even if you won't budge on his decision.
However, I also want to let him know how I feel about being called out for so long.
Unfortunately, I have a history of letting him know how he has hurt me in the past, a
lot of which were just misinterpretations of events by me, which is why he decided to
wall in the out in the first place.
I think he's afraid of feeling guilty and I don't want to make him feel guilty that
way, but I also think that I should express my sadness over being walled out.
Do you think this is a good idea for me to express my feelings on being walled out and
risk upsetting him as a result?
If so, how can I best express my feelings on the matter without upsetting him or ruining
the connection because I made him feel bad.
If you feel that it is not a good idea, then do you have any advice on how I might forgive
him for walling me out?
I believe the main reason I want to express myself to him is because I want him to acknowledge
my experiences and apologize to me.
I understand that he is not obligated to, but it is what I would like.
Okay, so I would express your feelings about being walled out if you think that it is going
to strengthen the emotional connection between the two of you.
Okay.
You have to look at your look at this and say, what is the purpose of me expressing
my hurt to him?
You say you want him to acknowledge your experience and to apologize for it, but what is the benefit
of him saying, you know, yeah, I wold you out.
What's the benefit of him doing that?
Like, is this going to help you feel better in some way?
If it's not going to help you feel better in some way and it's not going to bring the
two of you closer together, then I don't really see much of a reason to do it.
If you do decide you're going to do it, I would recommend you go through the communication
section of ESP.
We talked about a lot of things there regarding communication, owning your experiences, etc,
etc, so that there's a little possibility for him to misinterpret what you say and to
take it the wrong way and all that stuff.
So definitely review that if I think it's not a good idea, how do I suggest you forgive
him for walking you out?
I would just suggest that you put yourself in his position and say, okay, well in the
past Ellie has lashed out at me and said some things just based out of misinterpretations
of events.
So you know, would it be so surprising that that, you know, he might while you out, could
you understand where he's coming from?
Could you understand what his emotional driver might be?
Could you understand why he might choose to wall you out?
If you can put yourself in his situation and say, okay, yeah, well if somebody did that
to me, I would probably do the same thing or a, you know, I might've done things differently,
but I can totally understand maybe what motivated him to do that.
That makes sense.
When I think about it from that perspective, then then just simply putting yourself in
his position and understanding where he's coming from, that can be enough to help you.
Let go of this, this need to express this to him.
If it's not really going to be helpful in any way whatsoever.
Okay, Ellie, so I hope this helps you out and keep us updated on how your online chat
with him goes.
Our next question is from faithful in love, faithful in love.
Writes in and says, hello clay.
Thank you for answering my question.
Last week, a few months ago, me and my ex had met after a period of not talking to each
other.
He made me promise that I won't tell his parents about the Meet up.
Guess that was because he didn't want his jealous rebound partner to find out.
He asked me to lie to them if they were asking, which I did to avoid a fight.
He promised me to tell them.
As soon as, we were on speaking terms.
Now four months later, although the rebound is history, he still hasn't told them that
we are friends.
Still says that he will do that.
When I asked him what makes him keep this a secret, he said it's because he doesn't
want them to think anything bad.
I said it's his family, so of course he can do it.
In his time, I don't want to ask any further because he was busy and I see that the topic
doesn't feel good for him.
I'm on good terms with his parents and I don't understand why he struggles telling them,
can you help me understand what might be going on here?
What makes it so difficult for him?
After I begged and put pressure on him for months in damage control mode, I now want
to avoid pressuring my ex in any subtle way.
That's why sometimes taking longer to reply so that he doesn't feel like I'm expecting
him to always be available.
It's not about keeping score.
I know my overinvestment is something that I should work on.
I know this will take some time getting away from being attached to outcome.
Can you give me advice on how to evolve here?
I'm scared to let go and afraid it could hurt my chances of getting him back.
Hosting couchsurfing, as you suggested last week, is nothing that I can do as I have a
one room apartment, but sometimes I sleep in hostels, sharing rooms with strangers.
Those are opportunities to meet all different kinds of people and connect with them.
What is your opinion on that?
yeah.
I think that's an opportunity to connect with people as well too.
Regarding your other questions.
Let's see.
You said what would make it so difficult for him to tell his family?
Probably because they see his family has a lot of strong opinions about you and he doesn't
want to let them know that you're back in the picture until he is pretty sure about
how you fit into his life and so that he can really tell his family, hey, we're, I don't
know, getting back into a relationship or just friends or whatever.
Right.
And so he probably doesn't want to tell them until he really knows what he's telling them
because they might think, oh, well, you know, faithful in love is no good or faithful in
love is the best person.
I can't wait for you to get back together or whatever.
And so he's probably still in the process of feeling that out and trying to understand
what the two of you are when it comes to your relationship.
To one another when it comes to helping you to get over an attachment to outcome, I'm
really the best thing that you can do is to look for ways in your day to day life where
you are attached to outcome in in smaller ways.
Like maybe it's just like, oh, when I go to the coffee shop and order my coffee in the
morning and I order, I don't know, a latte or something, and then they make me a, I don't
know, something different, a Mocha or something like, do I get upset?
Do I like where do I go emotionally?
What happens emotionally and how can I work through those emotions in a productive way?
Right?
Where can I be less attached outcome?
Not In that I'm going to be a doormat, but that I can be open to things happening the
way they happen and I don't have to have an emotional response where maybe I just yell
at the person for making me the wrong drink, but instead I can maybe understand that maybe
they were stressed.
Maybe they misheard things and I can say, Hey, I'm sorry but I ordered a Latte, but
you gave me a Mocha.
Can we fix this?
Or you know, you can come up with something to to to respond to them in a rational sort
of collected way that's not going to be sort of a you an emotional outburst of sorts.
Okay, so look for small ways in your day to day life where you can really be less attached
to outcome and where you can be more open to where things go.
Maybe this involves having more free flowing conversations with people where you don't
have a hidden agenda.
We're not trying to get something out of them when you're just simply being present with
them.
We're just letting the conversation go wherever it goes and you just open to talk about whatever
you're open to.
Talk about where maybe you can actually be more vulnerable with the people that you're
having conversations with without trying to look good or, or, or, or, or make.
Make sure that you don't look bad or whatever it might be.
And you can just simply tell them like, hey, yeah, like this is how I feel about things.
This is what happened in my life.
You know, if I'm being honest with it, with you, I voted for Donald Trump.
You know, whatever it is, right?
And you don't have to worry about the consequences because you're not attached outcome.
You're not attached to looking good, you're not attached to not looking bad or whatever
it might be just to look for these ways in your life where you can detach from outcome
and where you can just simply let life take you where it's going to take you and you don't
have to be so wound up about making sure that you look good, making sure that you don't
look bad, making sure that things go a certain way, make sure they don't go a certain way
or whatever it might be.
Okay, so I hope this helps you out.
Faithful in love, and please keep us updated on how things go moving forward from here.
Okay?
Those have been our questions this week.
Once again, this has been Clay with www.ModernLove.Life.
If you have liked this relationship and a game experience, please give us a thumbs up.
Go ahead and subscribe to us on Youtube or on Itunes, and please leave a comment down
below letting us know what you think about our videos.
Anyway, I will talk to you next week.
I hope this has helped you improve your relationship inner game.
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