Speaker 1: This is pod popular podcast for the people, The Great
Speaker 1: Love Debate. It's the Great Love Debate, the Great Love Debate.
Speaker 1: It's a Great Love bab Hi again. Everyone's Brian Howie.
Speaker 1: Welcome to The Great Love Debate, the world's number one
Speaker 1: dating and relationship podcast since twenty fifteen. I am here
Speaker 1: in the very fine studios of Pod Populi Podcasts for
Speaker 1: the People. I am at the one in Lyndhurst, Ohio,
Speaker 1: just outside of Cleveland, fancy shopping complex called Legacy Village.
Speaker 1: I am here. It is not warm, so I'll tell
Speaker 1: you what time of year it is in Cleveland, which
Speaker 1: could be anywhere from January to January. Anyway, you're in
Speaker 1: there anyway. So we are at the four hundred and
Speaker 1: ninety ish episode of this podcast, which means the ball
Speaker 1: is dropping and countdown is on towards our big five
Speaker 1: hundredth episode. It's coming up. And I asked you guys
Speaker 1: for some suggestions on what we should do, and I've
Speaker 1: kicked around some ideas with the longtime producer of The
Speaker 1: Great Love Debate, the two time Emmy Award winning Kickup,
Speaker 1: and I think it's going to be a little bit
Speaker 1: of everything you guys like worst Dates, Happily Ever afters,
Speaker 1: some of our greatest hits, some surprise guests, and more.
Speaker 1: So you have just a couple more weeks to send
Speaker 1: in your suggestions, so sent them in Great Love Debate
Speaker 1: at gmail dot com. We do have our absolute finalized
Speaker 1: list of the ten worst dates ever. Those are locked
Speaker 1: and loaded. So I don't care what happened to you
Speaker 1: this past weekend. I don't care what's going to happen
Speaker 1: to you next weekend. You ain't cracking this list. These
Speaker 1: are gold. We've been working on this list for ten years,
Speaker 1: so look forward to that. So, because it's miserably cold
Speaker 1: here in Cleveland, Ohio, apparently my guest has a cold
Speaker 1: and she was going to be really good for this episode,
Speaker 1: but she canceled, which you know, that could be sort
Speaker 1: of related or tangential to what I'm going to get
Speaker 1: into today, or maybe just coincidence. I don't know. You
Speaker 1: guys often wonder do I pick my guests first and
Speaker 1: then decide what I want to talk about with them?
Speaker 1: What I picked the subject matter first, and then the
Speaker 1: guest can sort of hit the ping pong ball back
Speaker 1: around the topic. And the answer is the latter. She
Speaker 1: did not show today, but it is on with the
Speaker 1: show because I knew what I wanted to talk about
Speaker 1: very specifically, and you know, she's really good at this.
Speaker 1: But we'll see what we can do here. What I
Speaker 1: want to talk about today is self sabotage, the whole thing,
Speaker 1: why we do it, when we do it, how we
Speaker 1: do it, because it is a whole thing. My guest,
Speaker 1: she's self sabotaged having a big audience by canceling on
Speaker 1: this podcast today, so Sey LEVI, but I have dated
Speaker 1: my share of self sabotage. And I know what you're thinking.
Speaker 1: You're like, oh, it's a mercy killing by them, or
Speaker 1: you know who wouldn't want to sabotage a relationship with
Speaker 1: you for self preservation. So I will pause while you
Speaker 1: get your jokes and wise cracks in three two one. Good, okay,
Speaker 1: And I'm sure men do this too, but I'm gonna
Speaker 1: focus mostly on the female side of this because that
Speaker 1: is what I've witnessed the most. They call it runaway bride,
Speaker 1: not runaway groom, you know, So it is what it is.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's a stereotype, but that's what we're getting in today.
Speaker 1: And what do I mean by self sabotage. It means
Speaker 1: that they can't handle it when it's too good, or
Speaker 1: they're afraid of it getting too good, feels too right
Speaker 1: too quick, or they pull away before having to even
Speaker 1: decide if it's good at all. I had a girlfriend
Speaker 1: once who every time we had a good time or
Speaker 1: had a nice experience or positive feelings, she would say, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm just waiting for the other shoe to drop, and
Speaker 1: I'm like, what what a buzzkill? It was like somehow
Speaker 1: she couldn't handle things simply being nice or going okay.
Speaker 1: There had to be some impending backlash or repercussions around
Speaker 1: the corner, or some price to pay for the pleasantry.
Speaker 1: Not to be too I literative, but the price to
Speaker 1: pay for the pleasantry. And it was so incredibly frustrating,
Speaker 1: definitely for me and almost assuredly for her too, that
Speaker 1: she felt like she would either either jinx it or
Speaker 1: set herself up for heartbreak by letting any positive feelings
Speaker 1: kick in. And I kept telling her just because something
Speaker 1: didn't go right before, it didn't mean something couldn't go
Speaker 1: right now, and she couldn't accept it because she just
Speaker 1: wouldn't believe it. There always had to be some boomerang,
Speaker 1: some backsplash, and that was someone I was actually in
Speaker 1: a relationship with for quite a while. And so it
Speaker 1: would always be this Sissyphusian Sisyphis, the one who rolled
Speaker 1: the rock up the hill and kept prolling back down, Sissyphus.
Speaker 1: But how many who's the one who flew too gross
Speaker 1: to the sun Icarus? Something like that Greek mythology. It's
Speaker 1: a classics minor, But how many of us have steered
Speaker 1: away from from green lights and towards the red flags
Speaker 1: before something even had a chance. You cancel the night before,
Speaker 1: or you ghosted when you started to have these feelings,
Speaker 1: you pulled the parachute right before the best part of
Speaker 1: the night. You know, I've had it happen. I've seen
Speaker 1: it happen. They they seek an off ramp before the
Speaker 1: second or third day because of the headlights ahead. Were
Speaker 1: just heartbreak in their minds, almost like you from the past.
Speaker 1: So that's a little bit what I want to get
Speaker 1: into complicated stuff again. I don't have all the answers.
Speaker 1: My jobs to raise the questions. I had somebody coming
Speaker 1: in she might have the answers, but we're going to
Speaker 1: seek some answers together. I'm gonna raise a few more questions,
Speaker 1: but I take a quick break. We will be back
Speaker 1: right after this, and we are back. So the reasons
Speaker 1: people self sabotage, I think it's pretty obvious. They're almost
Speaker 1: always rooted in fear, fear of being hurt, the fear
Speaker 1: of being rejected, the fear of the unknown, fear of
Speaker 1: the outcome. But the ways that people self sabotage, that's
Speaker 1: that's such a huge range of possibilities. Sometimes it is
Speaker 1: stuff you wouldn't think of. It is nit picking your
Speaker 1: your partner to death. You'll you know, death by a
Speaker 1: thousand paper cuts, a little bit every single day, po poke,
Speaker 1: poke poke, hoping subconsciously it'll drive them away, you know,
Speaker 1: knowing that your constant comments or subconsciously having it taking
Speaker 1: a toll and you're unable to stop it because that
Speaker 1: part of you that you can't reach and really can't
Speaker 1: even understand it wants to blow it all up. Or
Speaker 1: you stop communicating any positivity whatsoever. You're always harping on
Speaker 1: and you're obsessed with the negative. Or you get jealous
Speaker 1: for no reason and you cause a fight because of
Speaker 1: the jealousy, or you don't show up for the dates,
Speaker 1: or you don't speak to the future, or you reach
Speaker 1: out to someone in your past. All of it can
Speaker 1: do any of it, either quickly or over the long haul.
Speaker 1: It can even rise to the level of cheating. You know,
Speaker 1: we did an episode a couple months go on infidelity.
Speaker 1: You feel too good in his arms, so let me
Speaker 1: spend some time in someone else's because I don't deserve that.
Speaker 1: I don't feel worthy of the good, so let me
Speaker 1: revert to the bad. What happens a lot. You don't
Speaker 1: know that you deserve the right to feel good, to
Speaker 1: be happy, to be loved. And I learned that doing
Speaker 1: this show. I never really thought about that before. We
Speaker 1: had a guy named doctor Gary Solier. He's our live
Speaker 1: show Bunch, but he's on this podcast too, and that
Speaker 1: was his real his mantra is that all of us
Speaker 1: have a right to be loved. And I never really
Speaker 1: thought about it that way. You know, somebody that you've
Speaker 1: heard deserved to it, or I've earned it or whatever,
Speaker 1: but a fundamental human right to be loved. That was
Speaker 1: this philosophy, and I think I agree with that. I
Speaker 1: never thought of it that way, and sometimes either we
Speaker 1: don't recognize that right or we forego that right simply
Speaker 1: because it feels too right, So you don't even give
Speaker 1: a new relationship a chance, or you might prevent an
Speaker 1: existing relationship from being everything it could be and needed
Speaker 1: to be. And it's weird. I always hear like what happened?
Speaker 1: Oh he looked good on paper. So many people tend
Speaker 1: to date quote unquote on paper. I go out with
Speaker 1: him because he seems good on paper. This guy was
Speaker 1: perfect on paper. And then somehow and sometimes it all
Speaker 1: falls apart because of something that wasn't even on the paper,
Speaker 1: never date on paper, or something that ever wasn't ever
Speaker 1: going to be on the paper. So you're really you're
Speaker 1: going this with this listless list, and then you're scrolling
Speaker 1: in the margins of stuff that was never going to
Speaker 1: be there in the first place, good or bad, And
Speaker 1: it's simply ghosts in your head. It's ghosts of past
Speaker 1: relationships or things that simply aren't real. You could not,
Speaker 1: you know, ride that high to see where it might lead.
Speaker 1: And I'm fundamentally an optimist when it comes to dating.
Speaker 1: I don't believe in it's too good to be true.
Speaker 1: I want it to be too good to be true,
Speaker 1: because that means we're living in a fairy tale. And yeah,
Speaker 1: even a grumpy, aging dude like me, Damn right, I
Speaker 1: want to live in a fairy tale? Who want that?
Speaker 1: Isn't that the dream? Isn't that why we call it
Speaker 1: a dream? So why can't the dream be a reality
Speaker 1: when the dream becomes real? Sign on the dotted line,
Speaker 1: don't scare it away? No, I don't know. You can't
Speaker 1: aim too high if you keep shooting yourself in the foot.
Speaker 1: Does that make sense? I don't know. You can't win
Speaker 1: the race if you can't even get out of that
Speaker 1: the gate. Whatever simile or metaphor or analogy you want
Speaker 1: to apply to this, it's true. We are always, almost
Speaker 1: always our own worst enemies. And if we don't believe
Speaker 1: in us and our ability to get everything that we
Speaker 1: absolutely deserve, then the relationship has no chance, and the
Speaker 1: other person never stood a chance. And so yeah, we
Speaker 1: always need to look after ourselves first it But doesn't
Speaker 1: it suck to know that you were depriving the other
Speaker 1: person at a happy relationship and a real honest chance
Speaker 1: at loving simply because of something in your head that's
Speaker 1: not fair to them, and you keep doing it over
Speaker 1: and over and over and it keeps happening over and
Speaker 1: over and over, Like that would suck if somebody was
Speaker 1: really giving you everything that you ever wanted, and you
Speaker 1: found a reason to imagine that they were giving something
Speaker 1: that you weren't getting in a negative like that makes
Speaker 1: no sense and it's not fair to the person. Imagine
Speaker 1: how frustrating that would be if you were on the
Speaker 1: other end of it. I can't even imagine. Actually I
Speaker 1: can imagine because it's happened to me. It sucks. And
Speaker 1: I know this sounds a lot like a like a
Speaker 1: pep talking, and sometimes it is. And when you know
Speaker 1: it's happening to you with someone and you're trying to
Speaker 1: convince them of what they're doing and how it's all
Speaker 1: in their head, and it makes it even worse. It
Speaker 1: sounds so insane, sounds so insane to them because they
Speaker 1: don't want to believe that this is what they're doing,
Speaker 1: and it sounds so insane to you because you're like,
Speaker 1: is this this relationship that I'm in that I keep
Speaker 1: doing everything that I think they want me to do
Speaker 1: and they and they can't accept the good they cannot
Speaker 1: receive I give, they don't receive, or the other way around,
Speaker 1: like it has to be rooted. The dream has to
Speaker 1: be rooted in reality, and the reality is what has
Speaker 1: actually happened, not the negative imaginary stuff. You can imagine
Speaker 1: that the good stuff that is ahead, But if you're
Speaker 1: imagining bad stuff that is right in front of you,
Speaker 1: like that's that's going to kill the road. It's gonna
Speaker 1: kill everybody, you know. And so if you're somebody who
Speaker 1: does this, generally you're aware and is the one good thing.
Speaker 1: A lot of people who have done this repeated and say, yeah,
Speaker 1: I tend to self sabotage. I think you got to
Speaker 1: let that person know up front. Don't let them know,
Speaker 1: you know, when you're collecting your belongings at their house, like, yeah, sorry,
Speaker 1: self sabotaged it because it's too late. Then you know,
Speaker 1: be aware of you why this is fundamental. You know,
Speaker 1: this is therapy one on one again. The person I
Speaker 1: was going to have on here tease, he wrote a
Speaker 1: whole book on it. We'll have her back if she
Speaker 1: doesn't self sabotage, the opportunity be on the great love debate.
Speaker 1: But if you're somebody who does it, or you've had
Speaker 1: it happen to you, well not to let ourselves totally
Speaker 1: off the hook. What is it about our behaviors and
Speaker 1: the environment we're creating the causes somebody to self sabotage?
Speaker 1: What made them pull the parachute the emergency? Uh, fire thingy,
Speaker 1: fire thingy, I'm looking at one right now. What makes
Speaker 1: them do that? Or is there anything about it? I mean,
Speaker 1: it's not just like, oh I'm so good they couldn't
Speaker 1: handle it. It's not quite that. So we all have
Speaker 1: to sort of do a little inventory and self analysis
Speaker 1: on this to figure it out. On this note, the
Speaker 1: good people here at pod Popular, which includes me, we
Speaker 1: are we did this couple of years ago, we're gonna
Speaker 1: do it again. We want to do a podcast that
Speaker 1: is sort of related to this, like produce a show
Speaker 1: about this. And it's going to be called cold Feet,
Speaker 1: and it is about from men or women who called
Speaker 1: off engagements, not who got divorced three weeks after or
Speaker 1: not who broke up you know before I want actual
Speaker 1: called off an engagement or called off a wedding. And
Speaker 1: we are looking not for stories, we are looking for
Speaker 1: a host. We are going to produce this podcast. We're
Speaker 1: gonna give this podcast away a year of podcasting to
Speaker 1: anybody who feels they can do this, who can drive
Speaker 1: this ship, has personal experience with it, interested in it,
Speaker 1: and wants to We'll do the job of getting all
Speaker 1: the stories. But we were looking for somebody to host
Speaker 1: this show. I thought about doing it myself because I'm
Speaker 1: fascinated by it, but I've never had the cold feet,
Speaker 1: so I'm not a good example somebody who because the
Speaker 1: hardest thing to do in the world world is to
Speaker 1: call off that wedding, call off that engagement. The deposits
Speaker 1: are there, the families invited, like it takes such guts
Speaker 1: to do that, and so many people go through with
Speaker 1: it knowing that it's not going to work out. So
Speaker 1: I want to hear from the ones who stepped up
Speaker 1: and did because I think it'll help a lot of people.
Speaker 1: The podcast will be called cold Feet, and we are
Speaker 1: looking for a host. So shoot me an email, Great
Speaker 1: Love Debate at gmail dot com if you think you've
Speaker 1: got the stuff to do this, and I think it's
Speaker 1: got to start with your own personal experience. Those of
Speaker 1: you who have reached out because you're listening to my
Speaker 1: other podcast dead to me. Really, we're very gracious knowing
Speaker 1: that I shared my own story. So if you're gonna
Speaker 1: host the gold Feet podcast, you can have thought out
Speaker 1: feet now, but they've better been cold in the future.
Speaker 1: And I don't mean you live in Cleveland, Ohio in
Speaker 1: the middle of the winter. So shoot us an email
Speaker 1: if you think you've got a win it takes. We
Speaker 1: will handle all the hard parts. If you want to
Speaker 1: host the Cold feat podcast, shoot me them a Great
Speaker 1: Love Debate at Gmail comm as well, if you've got
Speaker 1: thoughts about self sabotage or history with it, or if
Speaker 1: you want to chime in your thoughts on what we
Speaker 1: should do on the five the show. I think we
Speaker 1: have it locked and loaded. I have a meeting with
Speaker 1: Kko about it and we're gonna break it all down. Please,
Speaker 1: even after ten years, like share, follow and review this podcast.
Speaker 1: Your reviews always mean a lot to me and in
Speaker 1: the podcasting ecosystem because, as always at the Great Love Debate,
Speaker 1: we never stop making love. See you next time the
Speaker 1: Great Love Debate. It's the Great Love Debate. Degreat Love Debate.
Speaker 1: It's a Great Love Debate.