Connell Barrett:

Alright. 54 3, 2. And welcome back to the dating transformation podcast. I'm your host, dating coach Connell Barrett. I'm normally here to help you learn to flirt, and find a great soulmate using authenticity. But today, we have a different mission in mind. Today, it's about how to get over your ex and how to use what's happened with perhaps a bad breakup in a way to help you become more authentic, more awesome, more amazing, and then down the road, find somebody. And we're gonna do that today with a very special guest.

Connell Barrett:

Today, I'm joined by doctor Courtney s Warren. Courtney is an award winning board certified clinical psychologist and author. She's an expert on addiction, on self deception, something I know a lot about, and on romantic relationships. Her latest book is called Letting Go of Your Ex, CBT Skills to Heal the Pain of a Breakup and Overcome Love Addiction. It explores breakups and how to heal from them through the lens of addiction. And she has a TED talk, which I just watched. It's really good. It's called Honest Liars that's been viewed nearly 2,000,000 times.

Connell Barrett:

And if you wanna know a lot more about Courtney, please go to her website, doctor courtney.com, and that's drcortney.com. Courtney, thank you so much for being here on the dating transformation podcast.

Cortney Warren:

Total pleasure. So glad to be here with you.

Connell Barrett:

I'm really excited about this. I have not ever spoken to a breakup expert or how to recover from a breakup expert. But I have one question I wanna start with. I just watched your TED talk, and I love the first line. The first line you come out and you say, humans are masters of self deception. And, boy, did that hit home for me for a lot of reasons. Can you elaborate on how we deceive ourselves either in the area of dating or in the area of perhaps a breakup that you can't get past? Take it from there. We

Cortney Warren:

I really don't have any questions. Yeah. We don't like to think of ourselves as liars. It's not a very positive way of self-concept. Right? It's not a way we really want to think of ourselves, but the truth is that we all lie to ourselves in very characteristic ways. And even though we want to believe that all of our thoughts are true, in fact, most of them are very distorted. And when it comes to romantic love, we learn from an early age, from our parents, from our cultural context, from our peers, what it means to have a partner, what it means about us, what it means about them. And some of the biggest lies that we are likely to internalize include the following.

Cortney Warren:

I need a partner to be whole, to become 1. This other person completes me. If I look at the purse perfectly, if I have the right hair and the right body shape, then I'm bound to find the right person, and then we're going to have this perfect life and nothing's gonna be difficult because I've found this magical human. The truth is that we believe so many falsehoods about romantic love that we unknowingly bring with us into our dating relationships. And as we do that, we really unintentionally thwart the ability to connect with another human. And that's kind of the crux of how self deception relates to ourselves in romantic relationships.

Connell Barrett:

How great this is. I'm in a relationship now, a wonderful relationship with my incredible partner, Jess.

Cortney Warren:

Congratulations.

Connell Barrett:

People thank you. I'm so lucky. I'm so lucky and in love. She's my schmoopy as I call her.

Cortney Warren:

Amazing. Schmoopy.

Connell Barrett:

And what you just said, we can take what I think you said something using the word thwart. We thwart ourselves with the next relationship after a breakup. What are some ways that people, especially men, thwart themselves?

Cortney Warren:

I think that until you can stare down what didn't work about your last relationship and see it and acknowledge it and try to shift it, there is a very strong likelihood that you're going to bring that baggage into your next relationship. In addition, we learn a lot about ourselves and our value as a romantic partner from our insecurities starting as young children. And so to really be sure that you're not talking, like, it's as if you have a suitcase and you're bringing your baggage from, oh, that breakup didn't go well. That person cheated on me. That person I really wasn't that into. Oh, that person that ended in a huge argument with me moving out of the house. If you don't pause and very deliberately look in the mirror and say, what does this situation say about me? What did I do to contribute to these relationships not working or to the relationship dynamics being unhealthy? And how can I utilize that self awareness and that information to shift my thinking, to shift my expectations, to shift my emotional reactions so that I now am a more authentic, more grounded, more secure human as I walk into my next phase? That's really the goal of how I want people to think about dating and relationships. I want you to think of them as a massive experiment.

Cortney Warren:

You are in a big romantic relationship experiment that includes lots of people over the course of your life starting in adolescence, and those can be really doozies. So you might have some guys out there going, oh, those were some rough ones. And we transition through our lives, hopefully, ideally gaining experience, gaining knowledge, gaining a sense of who we are and what matters to us. But if you notice you're still pining, you're still stuck, you're still angry, you're still idealizing one of those old exes in a way that's harmful to your current dating experience, pause. Because now is the time for you to look in the mirror.

Connell Barrett:

Yeah. What I hear you say here's my hot take. My hot take is that a breakup is good for you. A breakup can be the best thing that ever happened to you if you can find a way to use it as a vehicle for growth and transformation?

Cortney Warren:

100%. Every experience you have in life has the opportunity to give you a massive gift. If you're going through a bad breakup, it is inherently because the relationship is not working for you or your partner or maybe both of you. And so from that lens, look for the gift. What can you learn? So that eventually, a day from now, a year from now, 5 years from now, you look back and you say, oh my gosh, thank you. Thank you for that breakup. Thank you for that experience. I never want to go through it again.

Cortney Warren:

I hope I'm never there again, but thank you because I wouldn't be who I am today if I hadn't had to live through it.

Connell Barrett:

Very well said. I wanna read an excerpt from your book, which I love. A brief dramatic reading from Letting Go of Your Ex. It's a short paragraph. I'm there's a couple of ellipses in here. So, Please. Forgive me for shaving a little bit off to make it concise, but I just love this paragraph from your introduction. You write, quote, you may be struggling to get through each day.

Connell Barrett:

This is after a breakup. It may seem like nothing good could possibly come from this experience, but I'm here to tell you that something can. There's always a gift in life's most painful moments because distress is one of the biggest predictors of therapeutic change. You're more likely to evolve and grow when you feel so bad that you can't afford to stay the same. As your ex stops being the center of your world, you can emerge as a stronger, more authentic version of yourself. That just hit me so hard in the best possible way when I read it, and I just wanted to say that it was a great quote. And would you like to add anything to that, or do the words speak for themselves?

Cortney Warren:

Oh, thank you so much for that. When you're in the thick of a bad breakup, let me just paint a picture for anyone listening. You meet someone Out of the sea of 1,000 potential mates, there's this person. They capture your attention, and you start thinking about them. You start obsessing about them. You start planning for a future together. You want to be with them. You want to touch them.

Cortney Warren:

You feel euphoric. You feel magical. This is really that intense, addictive experience of falling in love that most humans are going to have at some point in their life. And it's probably arguably the most wonderful, natural, addictive experience that you could have as a human being. And in that experience, you create all of these conclusions about that person and yourself. They're perfect for me. I want to be with them all the time. We are building a life together.

Cortney Warren:

You are the magical person that's going to make my future bright. And then you break up. They don't want to be with you anymore. You realize they're really unhealthy for you. They aren't the person that you thought they were. You have some very unhealthy dynamics. Maybe they just really don't love you the way that you love them, and you enter into a state of withdrawal. You are sad.

Cortney Warren:

You feel depressed. You are anxious. You are panicky. You want to know why it ended. You want answers. You want an answer that makes sense to you about why it's not gonna work. You wanna see them. You wanna touch them again.

Cortney Warren:

You wanna find a way to change yourself or them so that it will work. It is this desperate, miserable heartache. I wrote this book for people experiencing that, where you have fallen so madly in love with someone that it feels like magic, and then you break up and you feel lost and alone as if your life has ended and you don't know who you are anymore. And the truth is that that experience really is terrible. I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. I have been there. You have probably been there because the truth is that almost all humans will be there at some point in their life, and it's also very likely that you've broken someone else's heart in that way. It's a very natural human phenomenon.

Cortney Warren:

We're wired that way because evolutionarily, our biology wants us to become so fixated, obsessed with some other human that we wanna touch them and be with them and have sex with them and procreate so that we will propagate our species and help us all survive. But if it then ends, it really can be one of the most distressing experiences for humans, and it's one of the primary reasons that people come in for therapy. Because when you're in that state of heartache, you also will make some very untrue conclusions about yourself. You may think things like, I'm never gonna get over them. Nobody's ever gonna want me. I am broken. I am unlovable. Something's wrong with me.

Cortney Warren:

Now, everybody knows. I just made a huge mistake. I'm not the person that they wanted me to be. I have to change. I'll do anything. I'll do anything to get them back. None of that is helpful. Most of it is false, and it offers us the opportunity to understand you at a deeper level and how you got here and what we need to shift in order for you to move forward.

Connell Barrett:

Wow. You're bringing back memories for me. Well, I wish I hadn't quit drinking. I could really use a whiskey right now. No. I'm kidding. You brought back memories. I I went through a bad breakup about 12 years ago, and intellectually, cognitively, I knew that this woman and I were not meant to be together anymore.

Connell Barrett:

But for, gosh, a full 30 days after it ended, I felt like I was walking around in a world with a different atmosphere. I was so tense. I felt incomplete. I had so many questions of self doubt. Like, oh my gosh. Did I just make the biggest mistake of my life? We had so many great times. What was I thinking? And, eventually, it passed, but, gosh, it's like your brain can tell you it's right, but then there's something else happening inside of us that can just overtake the emotions even if you know it's the right thing to do.

Cortney Warren:

Mhmm. Absolutely. And when you were going through that, were you dating again? Did you realize that you were still preoccupied with your ex, or were you trying to move forward?

Connell Barrett:

I was not dating. I just felt like, oh, I probably need at least a couple months of non dating time. Mhmm. I just missed I just missed her. I just missed her and the friendship we had and the connection we had. And, like a lot of men, I'm in my head a lot thinking overthinking. Did I do the right thing? Did I should I have committed to her? Mhmm. And, no, I wasn't dating.

Connell Barrett:

I was just, I was just sad. I was just sad.

Cortney Warren:

I get it. You know, it's helpful sometimes to think about a breakup as a grieving process that starts with shock and denial of, like, this can't be happening. Is this happening that quickly moves into bargaining, which is this grappling that you're describing, where you're saying, maybe this was a mistake. Is there a way to fix it? Is there a way that I can figure this out? And actually, I think for men and women, but men who are in that phase of grappling where it's like you're in a non relationship relationship now, you've broken up technically, but you're still sleeping together or you're still thinking about them, or you're really unsure because you kind of want to hang on, but you intellectually might know that it's really not good for you, yet they're, you know, really good looking, or you have great chemistry, you have a lot in common, or you're afraid of change, or you're afraid you're not going to meet anyone else. That bargaining phase, that grappling can be incredibly distressing and unpleasant. And eventually, usually when the breakup actually happens, we have a strong emotional reaction of sadness, of missing them, of anger sometimes, especially if they broke up with us or cheated or did something that was really violating in some way. And the goal eventually is to get to a place of acceptance. And that's really kind of what you were highlighting earlier, where you can look back on the breakup and on the person in all of its glory, the wonderful moments, the magical moments, and the really tough, brutal, ugly moments, and say, I'm grateful.

Cortney Warren:

It's over. The relationship is done, but I am actually grateful for the entire thing, and I really have no more attachment to it. So oftentimes we think about breakups from a perspective of love and hate. Like, I love this person and now I'm so angry and I hate them. And the reality is that love and hate are not opposites. We often talk about them, though, like they are opposites, but they are not. The opposite of love is indifference, and the opposite of hate is indifference. It's the ability to come to a place where this person, this stimulus actually has no effect on your life at all because you no longer have any feelings about them that matter.

Cortney Warren:

And eventually, hopefully, it actually is profound gratitude for the experience with a smile on your face where you look at them and go, wow, That was a lot. That was a lot. But whether you're dating or married to somebody else now, or maybe you're still single, send me a message from time to time and I have that thought of, Oh, should we revisit this? And then I go, Oh, you know what? No, but I wish you the best. That's the goal after a breakup is for anyone out there listening who still has, you know, that wandering eye for that ex, or they keep their eye on them in case they're single again, or maybe they even idealize this past person and compare all their new dating partners to her or him in a way that keeps you unavailable to your next mate.

Connell Barrett:

Right.

Cortney Warren:

That is what we're trying to come away from.

Connell Barrett:

Do you have a tip on laughing through the memory of the pain on what to do in literally those first 1, 2, 3 days after the breakup happens. Here's what not to do based on my past. So when this relationship ends, don't go to 6 Flags Amusement Park Oh, wow. With your friends who are trying to cheer you up, and god bless them. They had great intentions. They said, Connell, we're going to 6 flags. We're gonna have a great day. This is literally 2 days later.

Connell Barrett:

And I walked around trying to eat my cotton candy and ride the roller coasters, and I was just miserable. Oh. It was the least fun day I've ever had at an amusement park. Maybe I'm just that, that's me. So dear listener, don't go to 6 flags if you just got dumped or if you feel really guilty over dumping somebody, which is more what happened in my case. Mhmm. Any thoughts on do's and don'ts in those first 1, 2, 3, 4 days after the breakup happens?

Cortney Warren:

Mhmm. Do self care as much of it as humanly possible. Try to eat in a healthy way, try to get some sleep, try to get some social support, contact loved ones, talk about it, get some exercise, get outside, anything that you can do that is self soothing in a healthy way. Don't chronically try to contact them. Don't try to get answers that they may never be able to give you.

Connell Barrett:

The why question. Right? Don't

Cortney Warren:

allow yourself to act in self harming ways. So the whiskey example, going to the bar, any kind of cutting, any kind of self harm, don't. Don't do any of that. My biggest recommendation for those first few days or that first week is really just to pause and focus on self care, whatever that looks like for you.

Connell Barrett:

Okay. It's not amusing, it's not a roller coaster in my case. You know. It might be in somebody else's.

Cortney Warren:

Sure. If that's what you need, that's okay. I do think being with your friends is one of the top things that will help you. So the fact that your friends took you out is really wonderful.

Connell Barrett:

That did help me. Not at the amusement park. Just talking with people. Yeah. But You

Cortney Warren:

know? And

Connell Barrett:

not playing whack a mole wasn't the answer for me.

Cortney Warren:

Little anger management.

Connell Barrett:

Yeah. Here's my tip, guys. I have not written a best selling book about this, unlike Courtney, but if you get dumped, don't go play whack a mole. That's not gonna fix it. I'm sorry. You were saying?

Cortney Warren:

And remember that you're not alone. Remember that this is a very human experience. Really, it's part of how we learn and it's part of our dating journey, and there isn't anything wrong with you. There isn't anything bad. Sometimes, especially in dating, you make the best choices with the information you have. You meet someone, you start dating them, and it may be an in love experience, but at some point you get enough information to say, this isn't good for me, or this isn't working, or the other person says, you're not right for me. When you get more information, the best thing that you can do is change your choices. Don't lie to yourself.

Cortney Warren:

Don't try to sugarcoat it. Don't turn into an inauthentic version of yourself. Don't compromise your own values to try to meet theirs. Stay true to yourself and ask yourself, really, well, what do I need to do now? And if that means you need to break up or they're gonna break up with you, work on accepting it. Eventually, that's our goal, is to come to a place of acceptance and gratitude.

Connell Barrett:

You have a lot of great stories in the book. Some are about you. Some are about clients and people you've worked with.

Cortney Warren:

Yes.

Connell Barrett:

Is there a story that comes to mind personally or somebody else's that is a really good example of somebody who thought, oh, gosh. This is hopeless. I can't get over this. I'll never love again. And then they were able to look back and say, you know what? That breakup happened for me. I'm glad it happened because look at my life now. Any stories or examples that come to your mind?

Cortney Warren:

Oh, yeah. I mean, 100. I think I'll use myself because self disclosure is probably the best way. Great. You know, I think I fell in love, madly in love for the first time when I was in college, and I was absolutely unprepared for what that experience would feel like and how it would affect me. So I met this person and had all of these faulty conclusions. They're perfect for me. We're gonna end up together.

Cortney Warren:

We're gonna get married. We're gonna have a family. We're similar. We have similar values. The truth was that I had a very dysfunctional childhood in many ways, as many of us do. And when I fell in love, it triggered a whole host of insecurities in me that I didn't even know were there. For example, my parents were divorced when I was really young. I was about 4 years old.

Cortney Warren:

And so I learned that love was not safe and that if you fell in love, you were going to be left. So when I fell in love, it was this magical, wonderful, I love this. And very quickly, it was followed by panic. Oh my gosh, how am I going to keep him? How am I going to make this work? What if we break up? Where is he going? And one of the most profoundly sad moments for me, we had been dating for probably 2 years, and he came to my room, I was in college, and said, I'm going out with my friends. Normal. Totally reasonable. Some of the guys out there might think, yes, I do this. And my reaction was to burst out in tears.

Cortney Warren:

Like, I was sobbing. And he looked at me and he said, Courtney, what's wrong? And I said, I don't know. And he left and he went on his very normal time with his friends and he said, if you don't work on this, you're going to ruin our relationship. And he was right. And that really started my own personal journey of trying to understand my own intimacy and romantic relationships and how to authentically be close to another person with a trauma background that said being close to other people is actually never safe. And so I can use myself as an example to say, I think in romantic relationships, unlike many other relationships, one of the hardest parts about them is that they will bring up any insecurities and self doubts that you have about yourself or that you've experienced during your life prior to falling in love. And if you combine the falling in love experience, which is highly addictive and highly emotional with any kind of past trauma, difficult experiences with previous relationships, unhealthy learning about yourself and your value as a human being from your parents, from your peers, from your cultural group, it is going to explode in your romantic relationships and dating life. And the only person who can help you figure that out is you.

Cortney Warren:

And so that's really why romantic relationships and breakups can be such explosions from a mental health perspective in our experiences, because I guarantee you if you're insecure about something or uncomfortable with intimacy or don't trust other people or don't feel grounded in who you are and your value, your core value as a person, it's going to emerge in your dating life.

Connell Barrett:

That's so on point and powerful. And, you know, you and I were emailing a little bit about helpful talking points and topics for this conversation today. And one of the things you emailed me about was dating after a breakup and dating after heartbreak.

Cortney Warren:

Mhmm.

Connell Barrett:

And some men listening to this might be in a situation where it's been a while since the last relationship ended. Maybe a long while. Maybe a year. Maybe longer. Mhmm. But they still feel like, you know, I'm still not over her. I'm still not over Rebecca. And they're using that, right or wrongly, they're using that as a reason why they're not gonna go out and date.

Connell Barrett:

Do you have any advice for that kind of man who he wants love? He does want a great relationship, but he's still pining over his ex? This is a big question, but how do you know when it's time to start dating again? How do you go into dating with the right attitude and, and not feeling like you're still pining over your ex?

Cortney Warren:

Mhmm. I think the time to start dating again is when you are open to a new experience. And I say that because you don't have to be completely over your ex to keep dating. I actually don't even think that's reasonable. There are certain exes you may have in your life that you're always gonna think about, that you're always gonna care about, that you might have some insecurities and sadness about, and that's perfectly okay. There is nothing wrong with you that you still think about your ex. What I think is dangerous is when you're completely fixated on your ex still and you're dating as a distraction. Because in that situation, you're not actually open to meeting someone new and to having a different kind of romantic experience with someone else.

Cortney Warren:

You're trying to essentially distract yourself from the pain of someone who is still the center of your life, even though you're not in a relationship with them anymore. So if anyone listening is recognizing they've gone through a bad breakup, they're still thinking about them, but they know that it's over and they actually don't even really want to go back, but they still think about them or they still have some heartache sometimes, I would say that's okay. I would jump in. There are many techniques and skills that I wrote about in the book. The book is a very hands on kind of workbook style to be used with tons of exercises in it. I would encourage you to go through your values. Think about what you really care about now? What are those kinds of core values that you think you need in a partner? And try to solicit dating experiences that might capitalize on those values first and foremost, so at a minimum, you're meeting people that you like, that you have something in common with, that you will enjoy being around. Because oftentimes, especially with younger men, I would say, and maybe with all humans, you could argue, lust is a driving force in who we select to date.

Cortney Warren:

What I mean by that is you're looking for somebody who turns you on. Who's hot? Who do you have chemistry with? I'm going for that. But the problem with lust is that it doesn't have anything to do with who the person is on the inside. And so it's very likely that if you're lusting over someone and then start sleeping with them and you have this huge endorphin hormone rush and you start to get attached to them, that you could fall in love with them, and then you're going to be in a relationship with someone who you're in love with and have nothing in common with and are not going to have a very healthy dynamic moving forward. So start smarter this time. Start with, who am I and what do I really care about? How can I meet someone who has at least some version of a similar value system or some kind of core interest in common? And then who I can also authentically show up as the best version of me now, which includes the fact that I've been through a heart wrenching breakup and I'm still struggling with the ex to some degree, and I can actually integrate that as a part of my new relationship when I meet this new person and can say, you know, I've had some heartache and what I've realized through that journey is this, I really want an authentic connection. I really want someone who I have chemistry with, but also who I really like as a human being, who I share some things in common with, who wants a similar lifestyle to me. And that's what I'm hoping for, and I'm here to try to see if you're that person or if you could be that person.

Cortney Warren:

Or maybe you're not, but maybe I just get to meet someone who's great, and I get to have an experiment. I get to have an experience to learn about myself in the process.

Connell Barrett:

You said the wrong thing.

Cortney Warren:

Is really

Connell Barrett:

not to be Please continue.

Cortney Warren:

Your ideal person. Like, this is not what dating is. Dating is not for you to say, I'm out there to find mister or missus wonderful. That's not it. Dating is the experience of understanding yourself in a relationship context. And in that experience, the ideal, the hope is you find someone who you can authentically meet, be yourself, share your whole self, the good, bad, and the ugly, and they can do the same and you still choose to be together. Sorry for interrupting.

Connell Barrett:

A 1000%. I'm all about authenticity. What I teach my guys is I want you to be radically really vulnerable, real, be an open book, not an open wound, open book. Have value

Cortney Warren:

on it. Truth.

Connell Barrett:

Exactly. Tell the truth. And, absolutely, I tell them that dating is a social experiment. Your worth as a man is not on the line here based on how this date goes or whether or not this woman wants to keep dating you. Worst case scenario, you're not a good fit for her or she's not a good fit for you, and that's totally okay. So you're speaking to the choir for sure. Couple final questions here. Oh, go ahead, please.

Cortney Warren:

I want your followers to know, like, 100% know in their gut, in their core is, whether they're in a relationship or not, has no influence over their value. 0. Whether you are single, dating your ex, dating the new hot thing, dating someone or not is irrelevant to your value, and the more you know that, the better positioned you're going to be in life for new relationships, for your career, for your sense of self esteem, all of it, period.

Connell Barrett:

And I would add to that. The number of people you've dated in the past is not a reflection on your worth and value. Because I get many men who have had little to no dating experience, many men who are virgins, or many men who've just had one short relationship. And they say, I don't know, Connell. Will she like me? I haven't dated that much. And I say, that's not your worth, how many women you have dated or whether or not you had great relationships. If you can show her that authentic connection and you meet what she wants in a man and you have a genuine real connection with each other, then she might be the one for you and vice versa.

Cortney Warren:

Actually, your job isn't even to figure out what she likes or if she likes you. Your job is to be yourself because to end up in a successful relationship means that you get to be yourself and they still want to be with you. So I would take it even a step further and say what she thinks of you is actually none of your business. Your job is to be your best self, and eventually, if you develop a connection that's strong enough, then you'll care what she thinks because you value her, not because it reflects your value.

Connell Barrett:

Absolutely. I like that. It's none of your business what she thinks of you. I tell my guys, you can't be a solar powered structure that's only warm when the sunlight of a woman shines on you. You've gotta be powered from within. You gotta be a nuclear power plant. Have a furnace coming from the inside, and that's going to make you much warmer and brighter to attract somebody. No question.

Connell Barrett:

Steal your line too, anyway. Mhmm.

Cortney Warren:

None of your business. Don't worry about what she thinks. It's none of your business.

Connell Barrett:

One final question from me. I'm dying to ask you this question. Okay. You mentioned, oh, let's talk about what happens when you're trying to be the perfect date. Oh. So you've gone through a breakup. You're over it, or you're as over it as you can be. Mhmm.

Connell Barrett:

Do you have any tips for the single introverted guy who's just dating now and might be thinking, I've gotta be the perfect date? Any advice for that gentleman?

Cortney Warren:

You absolutely do not need to be the perfect date. There is no perfect date, Period. What I would say though, especially for anyone who doesn't have a lot of dating experience and is trying to have a fun time, is to really ask your date what they like, what they enjoy, and then think about what you like and enjoy and try to create an experience together that would be fun. Because fun is actually a really integral part of our quality of life as humans, and dating can be really miserable. So the more you can have experiences that are fun and enjoyable, even if it's not a love connection, the better as far as I'm concerned. So find a way to make it light and enjoyable.

Connell Barrett:

See, you

Cortney Warren:

Do they like music? Do they like a certain kind of food? Do you like to dance? Or are you just really anxious? And it's like, well, let's just take a walk or get an ice cream or meet for coffee or something that's less stressful? But whatever it is, go into it with the goal of being your same

Connell Barrett:

thing?

Cortney Warren:

Prepping for a date, so trying to make sure that it goes perfectly and did I say the right thing and am I wearing the right thing and the less fun you're going to have because you're gonna be stuck in your head. So

Connell Barrett:

Yeah.

Cortney Warren:

Get all of that out the window. Your job is to show up, be yourself, and have fun.

Connell Barrett:

Tony Robbins has an interesting concept that really spoke to me at one of his seminars years ago. He talks about this idea of a primary question. In different contexts of our lives, we have this underlying question that's beneath the surface, but it's informing things. And on first dates, I know from my past that my underlying question was, how can I get her to like me? Mhmm. Or am I good enough for her? Mhmm. Or later when I got more advanced, but still and the disempowering question was, how can I make this the perfect date? And those are all very disempowering questions to ask yourself because they don't give you good solutions and fun dates. I love the question that you essentially told the listener to ask himself, which is, how can I make this a fun date for both of us? Yes. How can I be playful and authentic and have fun with her and just see if we click? That gives you so many, such higher quality answers and gives you a more fun date.

Cortney Warren:

Love it. It's coming from a position of power and playfulness and confidence as opposed to trying to avoid things that might make it heavy and negative. So I love it. How can I make this fun and playful for the 2 of us? How can I make this a positive experience?

Connell Barrett:

Right. Yeah. And my you know, people who listen to this know I I say things like, thumb wrestle with her. Have a staring contest. Have fun little word games. There's a million ways to have fun on a date. And what's nice is when you shift your focus from how can I make her like me or how can I be perfect, which just creates stress, you instead say, what's the next fun thing we can talk about or do? And look, some women like tall guys, some women like muscles, some women like good looks, some women don't care. I think almost everybody on a date loves fun and playfulness.

Connell Barrett:

Who wouldn't? That's a universal thing, so that's a great place to come from.

Cortney Warren:

No question. No question. You want to leave the date going, that was really great. I don't know if it's a love connection or not, but that was great. I liked him. I'm glad I went on that date. That's all you're going for. The truth is also that even if you don't have chemistry right away, even if it isn't a lusting situation where you think, oh, this is the perfect person physically or based on sort of demographics, the more you like someone, the more you're going to find them attractive.

Cortney Warren:

And so there's a whole large body of research looking at attractiveness. And the truth is that if you are just yourself and you like them and they like you, they will over time think you're better looking and be more likely to want to date you.

Connell Barrett:

I know that's true because women have told me that they said, you know, I wasn't really expecting to be that into you, which was her way of saying you're not a male model. But I just was laughing, and I had such a great time. And, yeah, I wanted to keep seeing you. So not everybody has 6 pack abs or No. 6 foot 3, but I think every guy can cultivate fun. And I'm not saying it's funny. You don't even have to be some super witty, funny guy. That's a nice bonus.

Connell Barrett:

But if you just cultivate fun, light, playfulness, talking about fun, light, playful topics, You're giving her a wonderful gift on a date, and she might look at you and say, wow. I I want more of this. This is great. And it does make a woman feel like, wow. I'm really attracted to him. Maybe it's the overall energy she's feeling and emotions, not just the package, the overall physical package. So I love that you said that. I didn't know that.

Connell Barrett:

I'd love to hear more about that data and those stats and how fun and playfulness makes us more attractive because we can largely control that, whereas we can't control our looks and our height and things like that.

Cortney Warren:

I would totally send you a bunch of articles, and we can talk about it more too. It also is true that as you start to make eye contact and have more sexual behaviors, and I don't mean just intercourse, I mean, you know, touching and looking at each other and, being playful with even touching each other's shoulders, it will stimulate bonding hormones. Right? And then certainly when you actually start having sex and orgasm together, it will also make it more likely that the other person could fall in love with you and that you would fall in love with them. So our body is really trying to help us here. If you like someone and you enjoy them, you're more likely to have some kind of physical touch, even if it isn't seeming like you're in the bedroom. And then as you move forward that way, it's actually likely

Connell Barrett:

to grow. Well said. I'll leave you the last word. Is there anything I didn't ask you or anything really important or powerful you would love to talk to the single good hearted, probably somewhat introverted and nice guy who's listening to this that we haven't addressed.

Cortney Warren:

I think what I'd really want you to know is that there are lots of people out there who would like to date you. Because I have really seen over the years that there's someone for everyone. There are many people for everyone, actually, and there are 1,000,000,000 people in the world. It may not look like your checklist of who you think you want, because sometimes we get stuck in our own heads about like, oh, this is the person that I want to marry or this is the person that I want to date. And then in actuality, the people you really connect with look nothing like that. That was certainly true for me when I was dating younger in my life. And so don't give up. Don't lose hope.

Cortney Warren:

Be open to different experiences. Think of it as an experiment. Date people who maybe on paper you'd think, this probably isn't for me, because you never know what you're really going to like and what you're really going to connect with. What I really strongly believe is that if you want a mate, you can have one, and that it's just going to take some practice to find someone or many people who you really want to spend your time with. Don't give up. Don't lose hope.

Connell Barrett:

I love it. Try this. There's a lot of people out there for you potentially. Yeah. And it only takes one to find the one. And to that, I would add, even though there's millions of possibly millions of people out there for you, there's only one of you. And I love this idea. You've talked a lot about authenticity, which is what I'm all about.

Connell Barrett:

And I say to my listener, look. There's lots of guys out there using the same cheesy lines they find in pickup artist forums. But if you are truly authentic with a woman, you're not 1 you're not 1 in a 1,000,000. You're 1 in 8,000,000,000. You are a perfectly singular person, and that is gonna rock her world if you're the type of guy she wants to be with because you're quite literally unique. So thank you so much for coming and talking about your book and authenticity and how to get over a breakup. Can you tell our listener, if they wanna get your book, what's the best way for them to find a copy?

Cortney Warren:

Sure. You can get it anywhere you like to buy books, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Goodreads. You can get it on Audible now, so feel free to check it out or even recommend it to others who might be going through a rough breakup. It's really written for people who are in the throes of that really bad breakup situation or even years later still feel like they're stuck on their ex.

Connell Barrett:

Yes. And you're approaching a 105 star review on Amazon. You have sky high ratings and reviews. So, it's a darn good book. I've already been reading it. Please check it out. Courtney, thank you so much for joining us today. I had a great time chatting with you.

Connell Barrett:

This was really eye opening.

Cortney Warren:

My pleasure. Absolutely enjoyed it. I wish everyone the very best out there.

Connell Barrett:

Thank you for listening, and remember, your dream partner, your dream girlfriend, she's already out there, and she already likes you. She just has to meet the real authentic you. See you next time.