If you’re not dating, taking a break from dating, or hating dating because all those terrible crappy uncomfortable feelings dating brings up in us - this episode is for you!

WHAT YOU’LL LEARN FROM THIS EPISODE:

• How avoiding, resisting and reacting to our feelings causes us more problems than the feelings themselves
• The oh-so common ways we avoid, resist, and react to our feelings
• What to do instead & how to do it
• How you’ll benefits from doing it differently

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Welcome to the Stop Hating dating and find your person podcast

I’m certified life coach, Stacy Perry

I went o 475 dates to find my person, so you don’t have to!

Each week I’ll teach you the skills and mindsets to confidently show up for yourself, interact in a way that’s authentic to you, AND gets you the relationship you want.

If you’re ready to make dating and finding your person easier, more fun, and without all the unnecessary drama and BS - this podcast is for you!

Ep 12 Why You Hate Dating - Part 1 - Ewwwwww, Feelings….

If you’re listening to this, I’m assuming you really want a partner soul mate your forever person to love and adore and be loved and adored by and share your life with. But even though you want a partner, some of you aren’t dating, or take lots of long breaks from dating, because of all the terrible feelings even the thought of dating and putting yourself out there brings up for some you. Not to mention all the crappy feelings that come up when you’re actually dating, and swiping, and messaging, and being ghosted, and having shitty dates.

But the truth is, most of us aren’t really even feeling those terrible crappy uncomfortable feelings. And THAT’S why our experience of dating can be so awful.

Most of us have spent a lifetime trying not to feel our feelings.

Feelings might be the worst F word in your vocabulary.

Or is that just me?

Hell, I was trained and raised to ignore my feelings - brush it off - you’re okay. Which makes perfect sense , my parents weren’t taught how handle their emotions it was the 50s! So they definitely didn’t know how to teach me! They were busy doing what most of us do with our feelings avoiding, resisting, and reacting - of course they couldn’t handle mine too!

Now all my friends with kids have books, and bedtime stories, and charts with faces expressing different emotions for their kids. Now a lot of parents and schools are teaching kids about their feelings and emotions.

But for most of us, we just didn’t grow up with that.

In this episode we’ll explore the oh-so common ways we avoid, resist, and react to our feelings. And then I’ll give you a new way and new tools that will serve you, your life, and any goal or dream your going after! Especially dating and finding your person!

So lets first look at how we avoid, resist and react to our feelings. For the record, if there were Olympic competitions for NOT feeling your feelings, I’d be a gold medalist in the avoiding event. I can eat, drink and shop my feelings away with the best of them! I’m sure some of you would be up there on the podium with me! Some of you would be competing in the resisting or reacting events. And some of you over achievers would be stars in the iron man trifecta of not feeling feelings.

So let’s look at my favorite first,

Avoid (what is. reality) When you're avoiding, you're trying to quiet your thoughts and feelings with whatever your favorite way is to distract, escape, numb, buffer, check out.

Think of a kid plugging they’re ears with their fingers and chanting La la la - emotions I can’t hear you. We don’t want to feel what we’re feeling, so we distract ourselves by over indulging, over being the key word, in a favorite ways to numb ourselves and check out. Like my go to - over eating, over drinking, over spending. When I was single in my 30s - I had to have plans 24/7 because god forbid I feel board or lonely for one second. Some of you over busy yourselves with plans too, over work, over clean. I have been on the receiving end of friends who like to clean and organize as a way to relieve stress. Years ago, One of my besties Lisa totally cleaned and organized my garage and basement during a breakup. Luckily, organization isn’t my strong suit, so I had messed it all up again in time for my friend Jen to do it all over again to deal with her Covid shut down stress. Please note, organizing, cleaning, drinking eating - none of them are bad until we over-do them in order to avoid reality and our emotions. We may avoid dating all together or stop dating to avoid the discomfort of the feelings that come up for us. You may shut down on a date when the conversation gets deeper. numb them out on a date with over drinking. I’d swipe swipe swipe to find someone to avoid my disappointment and sadness about someone I liked ending things. Some people avoid other things in their lives, and escape those feelings by seeking attention from other people on the apps. You may over drink or over talk on a date to calm your nerves . With someone you're dating or in a relationship - this might look like ending things to avoid the conflict or deepening or fear of being hurt or reacted. This is the flight or freeze response. You may seek attention from someone else.

Resist (what is, reality)- You push that emotion away. over thinking. This shouldn’t be

happening. Judging ourselves for our feelings and telling ourselves we shouldn’t be feeling this way. Blaming and being mad at the universe or god for things not happening the way they should of happened or for taking too damn long to send us our person. Ruminating on all the ways we should have done it differently. Queen of denial. Dating is an emotional roller coaster. Most of you are telling yourselves things that are really unhelpful when we’re resisting reality and our feelings about it. You tell yourself it should have happened by now. That you shouldn’t feel lonely. You have to put on a happy face. You shouldn’t be jealous and should be happy for all my friends and you're a bad friend if you aren’t happy for them all the time. You try to will away our uncomfortable feelings, white knuckle it, and force happy thoughts. Unfortunately, what we resist not only persists, but it actually grows. . Our feelings are super patient - they will wait. They will bide they're time. They are persistent when we try to resist them. Resisting perpetuates the negative feelings. The fastest way around is through. All these sayings are sayings for a reason!

React -This is the fight stress response to our feelings. Attack mode. snapping. Yelling. Theatrical crying slamming cabinets and doors. Throwing things. Huffing a puffing. Saying true, or not true things, with the intent of being hurtful. Being sarcastic (my sarcasm def shines bright when I’m reacting). Sending nasty texts to hurt them or get a response out of them. Sulking. Adult temper tantrums. We are acting from the negative emotion - we let it control our actions and blame our actions on the feeling. Fuck it - I’m deleting the apps. Fuck it - let’s just break up then. Fuck it -all men are assholes, this is a waste of my time, why bother, I’m picking up my pail and shovel and I am out of this stupid dating sand box! Hmph

The truth is -Feelings aren’t a problem, even the uncomfortable ones.

There just vibrations in our body that typically last about 60-90 seconds.

These vibrations aren’t a problem or an issue -

It’s our attempts to avoid them, how we react to them and how we resist them that causes us problems. Its our feelings ABOUT our feelings that cause us the most issues, pain and suffering, and perpetuates the uncomfortable feelings, It's our inability or aversion to experience them for what they are. To be in a rush to get out of them because we think they are a problem.

Feelings are just a part of the human experience, they are created by our thoughts. Some of those thoughts are conscious, tons more more are subconscious, most are just habitual on repeat. Those thoughts are firing away all day, about 60k-90k thoughts a day. About half of them are negative uncomfortable thoughts. And those negative and uncomfortable thoughts are causing negative and uncomfortable feelings all along the way. ALLLLL of them are normal to feel during the process of dating and finding your person. To be human, is to be in the cycle of thinking, feeling and acting from those thoughts and feelings. We’re doing it all day long - so let's get really skilled at it on purpose!

Note, there are ways to change our beliefs and thoughts in order to create more of the feelings we want to have to drive our actions to get the relationship we want. But for today its all about stopping avoiding, resisting and reacting and what to do instead so you know to your core that feeling aren’t a big deal, you can handle it, you GOT THIS

So, if your not avoiding, resisting and reacting … what’s a girl to do

OBSERVE!

Other ways to say this are

Bring awareness to your physical experience

Be the watcher of what sensations are going on in your body

Watch how that feeling shows up physically

Pay attention to what is going on in your body

Be Curious about how its moving around in your body

Allow - allow emotions to be there without making it mean something has gone wrong

Process the emotion

And the classic way to say it that makes some of you want to barf -Feel your feelings.

We are giving them the time they need to pass through us, and contrary to belief, this allows them to move through us more quickly and our feelings about our feelings will be so much more pleasant and lighter than when we are avoiding, resisting and reacting.

What does this look like in practice?

Just notice -

What is the emotion?

Name it. Sad, scared, angry, hopeless, lonely?

Intentionally witness it.

Be curious - Hey whats going on in there?

Think of it like your’ working for one of the hot artificial intelligence companies and your job is to help program the AI so it knows what emotions are.

So you tell the AI the name of the emotion and then describe it in detail to them..

Where you feel it in your body

What it feels like

You tell it if its moving or stagnant. .

If its moving you explain how its moving, like maybe fast or slow

Maybe if has a shape, so you tell the AI the shape

Or if it feels like it has a texture. Maybe bumpy, gooey, or jagged, or sharp, or pointy, smooth

Does it have a color? What’s the intensity of the color

Tell the AI how this feeling makes you want to react. Run away, clam up, pop out of your skin, distract yourself, hide, scream and yell

What thoughts are are causing this emotion - tell the AI all the thoughts that are causing this emotion to vibrate through your body. Then tell it the main thought that is causing this feeling the most.

That exercise really has you being the scientific watcher.

You can do that same AI exercise, but instead imagine you’re holding the emotion in your hand and describing it to a friend.

Another tool you can use to observe your feelings is to ask yourself if it was an animal, what would it be? And describe the attributes of the animal and what they represent. Like your fear could be a sweet fluffy bunny that wants to be pet and cuddled but when it gets scared it bites.

Or maybe you pretend to be talking to a younger kid version of you and have her describe the feeling to you. Have her describe the sensations and you console her.

All these tools and exercises are a way for you to just be the observer and watcher as a feeling flows through your physical body and takes whatever time it needs to do so. And for you to get awareness around all the things you’ve been doing and not doing to not feel a little vibration move through your body!

If you like acronyms to help you remember, here’s a funny one I made up. WTFF

What the fuckity fuck.

WTFF

What happened - whats the situation triggering you? Write it all down

Thoughts - what are your thoughts about it? What’s the main thought

Feeling - what is the feeling I’m having - name it

Find - find the sensations in your body and and describe it to to the AI, or put it in your hand and describe it, or do the animal exercise or the younger kid you exercise.

If your more of a mnemonic devices are more your thing, here’s one from one of my teachers, NOW. N.O.W

N - name it. What is the one word to name and describe this emotion

O. Open up to it. Let it be there.

W - Witness the emotions. It's just a physical vibration from a thought. We had a thought, it caused an emotion and now we are experiencing that emotion as a physical vibration in our body. Watch how that feeling shows up physically in your body

BENEFITS:

When we shift into being the observer of the sensations happening in our body - voila - you’re in the present moment. You’ve shifted from your thinking mind where your judgmental ego brain is wanting to go back and change what happened, busily cataloging all that can and will go wrong in the future and what the worst case scenarios are - even though your not a fortune teller who can predict the future. You shift from thoughts around wishing whatever happened didn’t happen and that what you wanted to happen happened instead into just paying attention to the vibrations in your body. Not wishing them to stop or be different, just curiously describing them to the AI. When your brain starts chiming in with all its thoughts and opinions, just kindly shift your focus back to cataloging the sensations in your body to share with the AI.

This is a practice. You’ll get faster and faster at noticing yourself stuck in avoiding, reacting, and resisting emotions - and faster and faster at kindly shift the focus on your physical experience of the emotions.

AND - if you know you can observe any emotional sensations in your body - and those sensations are the worst thing that can happen - then you’ll be unstoppable. You can handle anything thing that comes your way. Because, the worst thing that can happen is you have a really fricken uncomfortable feeling about it. And with this practice, you’ll learn you don’t have to avoid, escape, numb, resist, react, attack, blame, shame, or should on ourselves. Your feelings aren’t going to kill you. And if you learn to just watch them, instead of running from them, blocking them, or fighting them - they will run their course through your body. It’s like those posters, Stay Calm and Carry on. You can have a calm sense that you can handle any emotion that comes up for you as you carry on about dating and finding your person.

Again, they usually last about 60-90 seconds. And sometimes they’ll come back again like waves when were experience heartache or fear. The emotions may come and go.

If you know you can be a witness to the feelings in your body, and get more and more skilled at this, you’ll be less and less scared of the feelings that come up with your dating. Because you’ll know you they pass. Like the saying, this too shall pass. Nothing is permanent - not even our feelings.

This will make you a better friend, because you’ll better equipped to sit with a friend when their having lots of uncomfortable feelings.

With your kids.

With your partner - guess what - your partner is going to have lots of uncomfortable feelings too. And they’re going to have a habitual way that they deal with them. Greg and I are both world class Olympian avoiders!

But most importantly with yourself. You’re your forever primary partner! You’re your Eternally exclusive partner. And the price of most your dreams and goals and the big amazing love and life you want is feeling uncomfortable. The road to your best life is paved with discomfort. Doing things that you feel wobbly and unconfident about doing at first- like putting yourself out there, sharing who you really are with the possibility of someone you think is wonderful, is part of the process. Feelings, all of them, are a part of life. You can practice and get super star skilled and allowing them, witnessing them, and letting them be.

That’s a wrap my friends! Love love love being apart of your dating and finding your person journey!

As always, message me if you have any thoughts or questions about this episode.

Mwah! Love you! Go get’m and be a witness to the feelings that come up for you while you do!

Thank you for so much for listening.

If you're ready to stop hating dating and find your person, let’s chat.

You can pop right on my calendar for a free coaching call to see if private 1:1 coaching feels like a fit for you! - It's like a like a first date to see if we’re a match.

You can get direct access to my calendar on my website, StacyPerrycoaching.com, there’s also link in my IG bio, or use the link in show notes, just do it and get yourself booked for a free consult coaching call. Let’s go find your person!