3 Wrong Places You're Looking for Love

[00:00:00] Shanenn Bryant: Well, welcome back. This is Top Self. Thank you for listening. I'm going to give you three wrong places you're potentially looking for love. My name is Shanenn Bryant, and in my own experience, one of the wrong places to look for love is in the bottle.

[00:00:21] If you're trying to turn down your jealousy volume, my personal opinion, and yes, it is just my personal opinion, but my personal thought recommendation on this is to stop drinking for a little bit. I don't have anything against drinking, even with my father being an alcoholic. It was one of those things where 

[00:00:44] I just, I didn't want it to be a taboo thing in my life and I didn't want it to drive my decisions or my opinions on alcohol. I always knew I needed to be careful with it. Sometimes I was. Sometimes I wasn't. 

[00:00:59] But alcohol affects the part of your brain that controls inhibition. We know that. So yes, when you drink, you might feel more relaxed and less anxious, which when you live with anxiety day to day, you want some relief from feeling so anxious and often is why you may turn to alcohol.

[00:01:25] According to alcohol. org, when you drink, there's more serotonin and endorphins that are created, which those are what's responsible for regulating our emotions and our sense of relaxation and happiness. So, it makes sense. But ultimately, the more often you drink, 

[00:01:45] your brain becomes more vulnerable to the effects, making your moods more volatile over time. That relaxed, laid back feeling is only gonna last so long. About... until you take one of your partners small comments the wrong way, mixed with your cocktail causing chemical changes in your brain. And then all of a sudden, negative feelings, anger, sadness, strong emotions, and that's it. Game over, party over! It goes up in flames. 

[00:02:20] A survey by that same website showed that 45. 5 percent of men and 37. 4 percent of women said that they feel disgusted.after drinking. Disgusted. So please don't take this as something else that you have to feel bad about or that you should feel bad about because it is not.

[00:02:42] Don't take it as I have a negative stance on alcohol. I'm just sharing this with you because I want you to be aware as you know, as I say all the time, awareness is key to this whole thing. And so, being aware that alcohol can absolutely exacerbate things like anxiety and depression.

[00:03:04] I know when you have an event or situation that you're dreading, or you just know that you're going to feel uncomfortable or there's a potential for you to feel uncomfortable, it's very common to think going for alcohol is going to calm you down and make you feel more relaxed. And to a point it might do that.

[00:03:23] But if you find yourself looking for love in the bottle, you might want to pull back and see how you feel and how you navigate those types of situations without alcohol. Because if we're relying on the alcohol to navigate those uncomfortable situations, we're just trading one symptom for another, one crutch for another.

[00:03:49] So if you really want to kick this in high gear, I highly recommend just, just take a break from alcohol for a bit. or don't turn to alcohol in those situations where you feel like you're going to be uncomfortable. Go through them, as I say, sit in the suck, see how it feels without having some type of crutch. Let yourself be able to handle and get through a situation. There's a lot to be learned from that. 

[00:04:20] So that is the first place, the wrong place, you might be going to look for love. The second place is other romantic relationships. There are a couple of mistakes that you might fall into with this one.

[00:04:36] verybody handles jealousy differently. You may be one that feels like you can't contain your jealousy. You can't hide it for one single second when you feel it. UYou might be another type that keeps it to themselves. 

[00:04:51] I have a friend who is just as jealous as I used to be or, or I feel like she is the same as me, but she did it differently. She very much would hide it from her partners, like most of the time, the things that she was doing when she was feeling jealous, they didn't even know about it.

[00:05:15] So you might be the type that mostly keeps it to themselves. Maybe you have one friend that you share it with on occasion here and there, but otherwise, suffer through it in complete silence that even your partner doesn't know the extent of it. Or maybe the type who feels like revenge is the best medicine and tries every which way but loose to make their partner feel jealous; feel the way they do. 

[00:05:48] so You might flirt with other people. You might plan a night out with, with your friends just to get their goat, 

[00:05:54] or you might tell them an experience that you had where somebody was flirting with you or somebody made a comment to you in line at the bank or something that day. I don't even know why I said that. People don't even go to the bank in person anymore.

[00:06:11] Like, I can't remember the last time I actually stood in line at the bank. I don't know why I said that. I just said, I just said it like it happens all the time. I think maybe with it being around my birthday And I am just in my head about being 50.

[00:06:27] So I've picked up elderly expressions and thinking back about the good old days, I guess, geez, but You get the point. You might be trying to retaliate or to get revenge by planting these seeds to try to make your partner jealous.

[00:06:45] and what's worse? You probably get mad at them when they don't notice that you're flirting or that somebody else is flirting with you. Or they do notice and it doesn't even bother them. So, then here comes, like, choo choo, here comes the train of all of those things that we just dump and...

[00:07:09] spew to our partner, anything we can think of, all of these things that we feel insecure about. So tell me if any of these things sound like something you might say or have said in those situations. Because now we are in this state of Well, they didn't even notice, which means they didn't even care.

[00:07:33] So you might go into things like, you didn't even say anything about the way I look tonight. You never even noticed me. But I'm sure you noticed the waitress. I'm sure you noticed Susie. You probably wouldn't even care if another guy was hitting on me. I'm sure you'd be like, Take her, I don't care. Do you even love me? I don't even think you like me most of the time. It's like everything I do gets on your nerves. When's the last time that you actually planned a date or did something romantic for me? I mean, we don't even cuddle anymore.

[00:08:09] Or you know. I mean, something like that. Maybe you have said some of those things. I'm just spitballing off the top of my head and remembering back some of the things I would say in those situations where I felt like, man, he didn't even notice me or he didn't even notice that that was happening. And most of the time it was that somebody was flirting with me and for whatever reason I would want him to notice.

[00:08:36] I would want him to care or I would want him to get jealous for a minute, just a little bit over something. But that's the wrong thing. My point is, you know, trying to make your partner jealous because you feel jealous or trying to get their attention. That never works. And if it did, I mean, is that what we really want?

[00:09:03] Would you really want the wrath of jealousy? Heck no! So. Trying to get their goat by flirting with somebody else or getting upset if they don't notice somebody else hitting on you, that is never a good thing to do. It is really looking for love in all the wrong places. That is not a good place to try to get that attention.

[00:09:33] the second mistake that you may make in looking to other romantic relationships is taking it further than just flirting. You may be one that is grappling with the guilt of going too far and realizing that getting the attention somewhere else only makes things worse, way worse. 

[00:09:58] I understand when you feel like you're being ignored or you feel like they aren't interested or giving you the attention that you want or feel like maybe you don't have it anymore like you used to. It may be tempting to fill your cup with someone else's coffee, but that drink is bitter.

[00:10:21] Getting the attention or getting the goods from someone else is never a healthy choice. This is not going to get you over jealousy. It's not going to make your relationship better, that is for sure. And it certainly isn't going to make you feel better about yourself. 

[00:10:39] So, other romantic relationships is certainly the wrong place to look for love. 

[00:10:47] The final place we go looking for love is unsupportive people. And this could be your friends, family members, or even your partner. 

[00:10:58] I want to talk through each of these and some things to be careful of if you do turn to them about your jealousy. Don't be too upset when people don't quite get it. If you've never experienced jealousy, this kind of jealousy, this way of anxious thinking, it's really hard to understand it. Also, many times when you're talking about it, your emotions are high.

[00:11:29] and we know when our emotions are high, our clarity is low.  Most of the time you don't even feel like you have the language to explain it or know how to get across what you're feeling.

[00:11:41] So it can be really hard for others to understand your feelings when you're struggling to make sense of it, when you're not sure how to communicate it. Our partners may be understanding in the beginning and they may try to support you and walk with you in this, but after a few hundred times of being accused or being questioned or being insulted or rejected, whatever your go to punishment is for them, after so many rounds of that, their compassion level may hit rock bottom and you may not get the support you're looking for in them.

[00:12:22] I think there is some understanding that we have to have for our partner's patients. Yes, we want them to be supportive and we want them to hold our hand through this at the same time. We can't expect to continuously beat them up and still, you know, ask them for a hug.

[00:12:43] We can't do that. So just being a little bit understanding with them that one, they already don't understand it. They don't know what it feels like to be this way. And then we are insulting them and most of the time saying negative bad things like we're pummeling them. We're punishing them in the heat of it and wanting a hug at the same time.

[00:13:10] And so it just makes it hard and confusing for them. Another group in this unsupportive circle are family members. Many, not all, but many moms are great for being able to tell anything to, and you know, they still love you. Their opinion and their love for you is never going to change. It's not going to waver no matter what you tell them.

[00:13:35] But moms can be very protective of their cubs. When they're just getting your jealous side of the story about the incident or the argument that you and your partner got into, they can quickly shift into that mama bear mentality and form an opinion of your partner that they may not be able to recover from. You can get over it and realize when you calm down that you were in fact blowing it out of proportion a little bit, or you may just get over it quicker, but mama bear, she's still ticked. And your partner now has a mark on their scorecard that's harder for your parent. to get out of their mind. 

[00:14:19] Like you might forgive your partner or you might realize that you were in the wrong. But moms, a lot of times it's really hard for them and dads too, probably really hard for them because they're not in it. And it's going to stick in their mind with your partner. And you don't want your parents and your partner to not get along or for your parents not to like them.

[00:14:48] Because once you're able to dial down the, this jealousy. And if things start going well, you don't want your parents to still have this negative opinion of them. And I'll tell you one thing, if your mom is anything like my mom, you do not mess with one of my mom's kids. Period. So, you don't need to walk on eggshells and not share anything, but just be aware of who you tell and the way you tell it because they may not be able to get over it as quickly as you do.

[00:15:24] So those are the three wrong places to look for love. Alcohol or looking for love in the bottle. Other romantic relationships. That's a no, no, no, no. And unsupportive people. 

[00:15:40] Until next time, take care and remember, you're not alone.