00:00:00I'd love to find out the sort of neurological underpinnings of what's happening during the
00:00:06I can fix her, I can fix him chase versus the I have arrived, I am safe, I am secure
00:00:15chase which I guess is kind of less like a chase and more like a rest.
00:00:20Reason being there's a lot of that sort of cortisol dopamine energy going on of this is
00:00:26the goal and if I can achieve the goal I will get a sense of satisfaction but it's always
00:00:31very rushy.
00:00:34It's always kind of like a high and then a low and there's whiplash and it feels a little
00:00:40bit sort of chaotic and ambiguous and unpredictable and uncertain and that sure there are highs
00:00:48but they're more like victories than they are true rests and I would love to work out what
00:00:56the sort of neurochemicals that are driving that are and I would wager that there will
00:01:02be stuff to do with pursuit and risk and edginess like adrenaline epinephrine norepinephrine
00:01:12dopamine as opposed to like oxytocin serotonin.
00:01:17You are in a sympathetic relationship not a parasympathetic relationship, does that make
00:01:21sense?
00:01:22And one produces as you say the rollercoaster and it's not just a feeling of achievement
00:01:29it's relief you know like that's the feeling so often is relief I have them I have them
00:01:39like they when that person who you just so want the approval of and you so want them to
00:01:45want you back the way that you want them you want them to think about you as much as you
00:01:50think about them when that person says something like they send you a text and they say I miss
00:01:57you so much I just love you so much out of nowhere you like all of a sudden you're like
00:02:05it's almost like you your life was being threatened and now it's not now you feel like someone's
00:02:10taken the gun away from you yeah oh my god I'm safe right now in this moment I feel briefly
00:02:17briefly safe I and that release that kind of euphoria that results from that extraordinarily
00:02:28powerful and that you know when psychologists talk about that trauma bond there is that variable
00:02:36reward nature to it what is a trauma bond trauma bond is the idea that you know someone treats
00:02:44you badly again and again and again and again and again and a certain point it's so unrewarding
00:02:54that we might even consider like enough is enough but then right as we're starting to
00:03:00make up our mind about that person they do something sweet they do something seemingly
00:03:06kind they show up for us in some way they apologize when they've you know lied or gaslit
00:03:14us or made us feel awful about our feelings for the last 10 times but all of a sudden they
00:03:20show some promise and then we're dragged back in or sucked back in that's the trauma bond
00:03:27and it people stay in that for years and years and years that's the really scary part but
00:03:33there's a variable reward nature to that that's in a way the slot machine right if you never
00:03:40one chances are you wouldn't be there but you win just enough that it keeps you there the
00:03:50kind of safety that a healthier more slow release energy relationships produce is a different
00:04:03kind of feeling and I you know like I sometimes what when I see there's like certain Instagram
00:04:12content out there you see of people who are like you know I'm just waiting that there was
00:04:18one I saw the other day from someone a guy who was like I'm just waiting until you know
00:04:24I'm not going to settle I'm not going to do this I'm not going to do that I'm waiting until
00:04:27it's magical I'm waiting because love is you know I'm not going to settle for love that
00:04:32isn't magical for love that isn't this love that isn't that and the more he spoke the more
00:04:37for me it didn't feel like the version of love that is that tends to be enduring that tends
00:04:46to be genuinely make people happy it felt to me like a kind of justification for constantly
00:04:54waiting for that that feeling and I think we get like in some ways these arguments get pitted
00:05:00against each other like it's either you find someone that is stable and healthy and it's
00:05:06kind of boring and you settled a little bit but whatever or you find someone who's exciting
00:05:11and it's passionate and it's magical and it makes you miserable I don't think it's necessarily
00:05:20an either or in those terms but I do think that in the same way you could do drugs and
00:05:27eat pizza every night and get drunk every night and that would produce a kind of high but you're
00:05:33a healthy guy who values the feeling that being healthy gives you there is something you get
00:05:39from that that's more powerful to you and if and in relationships until that thing becomes
00:05:46more powerful you're always going to be chasing this other thing there's this interesting link
00:05:54where people confuse chaos for chemistry yeah and intensity for intimacy and I think it's
00:06:04just largely like a neurobiological trick I don't think that there's anything really deeper
00:06:09going on I think that somebody has not almost all of the situations through any choice of
00:06:16their own just the way that they present has hooked a particular like fish line into this
00:06:22area of your brain and it keeps on pushing it and then calm love feels boring at first
00:06:29and that chasing love that feels safe instead of exciting and not assuming that this person
00:06:37isn't sparky right that there's no spark I mean this was a great insight I learned from
00:06:43Jessica Baum's first book Anxiously Attached she's got a new one out called Safe you should
00:06:48bring her on the show she'd be great for you and she said some people sit down with someone
00:06:55and they feel a spark and they assume that that's something special between both of them
00:06:59but what they don't realize is this person is just sparky with everyone that's just who
00:07:03they are yeah and you know that's brilliant and especially on a first date we had this
00:07:09with Prime Logan Paul's drink for instance allow me to blend two worlds you didn't think
00:07:14I was going to blend today the beverage industry and like intimate connection Prime optimized
00:07:21for first sip and we did a ton of taste testing on a lot of different drinks and there were
00:07:25some drinks that have they you're like tolerance for them over time Diet Coke is a great version
00:07:30of this like you take your first sip and it's satisfying but the real key to Diet Coke and
00:07:35all of the coke line is that you can keep drinking it and you really never get sick of it there
00:07:41are other drinks that you optimize for the first sip so if Logan Paul's on his podcast
00:07:45and he flicks a bottle of prime across and he goes Matthew taste that you take a sip and
00:07:48you're like wow that's really fucking hell that there's something going on there but after
00:07:54you get halfway through the bottle you're like it might be a little bit this is getting a
00:07:57little bit sort of sickly and by the time you finish it I don't really want another one
00:08:00of those like they've certainly balanced some of the flavors better than others but for some
00:08:04of them it's like whoo and maybe if you're a 12 right like your palate is slightly different
00:08:09to mine I think the same thing is true with partners that there are some who optimize for
00:08:17the first sip up front and you're like oh this is so it's thrilling it's through I'm on a
00:08:22roller coaster you're like yeah like being on a roller coaster is cool until you can't
00:08:28get off there are so many ways that we get it wrong with that mind trick that you just
00:08:33talked about and actually it's the key to getting over it that's the great part what understanding
00:08:40that it's a kind of trick of the mind is the key to not over valuing that first feeling
00:08:47you get oh this is just oh hello brain you're doing that thing again you're doing as opposed
00:08:52to imbuing some you know karmic existential transcendent value onto this person and they're
00:09:01doing a thing that as you say it might be something that they put out universally that once you
00:09:11realize that it becomes cheaper yes it no longer has the same way I've met guys where I'm like
00:09:19did it like I meet a guy and when we go out or something I'm like this guy's like it's
00:09:24so charming what a raconteur so dazzling I'm like and then he makes me feel so you know
00:09:31like connected and I'm like we're gonna be best friends I've like fallen into the trap
00:09:38you've been finessed by some dude on a night out well I've been so charmed that I've I'm
00:09:43like we're gonna admit I'm like go home and I say yeah like you cut this guy's great you
00:09:48got and like and then I realized like how many of the the friends I have forget romance how
00:09:56many of the friends I have in my life today that I truly value are the people that in the
00:10:05first 20 minutes I went home and was just like I got text that guy again you know like whatever
00:10:12how many of them were that guy usually it's the people that over time I really like I value
00:10:19who they are their character the way they show up the integrity all of that so the same is
00:10:26true in our love lives it's very easy don't we have to be very careful of getting bowled
00:10:31over by like a nightclub trick essentially like wouldn't careful careful dismerging the
00:10:39world of nightclubs okay you can take the boy out of promo but you can't take promo out
00:10:44of the boy we you know you know that nightclubs will often just hold a line outside regardless
00:10:52never did that even when there's no one inside never did that and then everyone sees the line
00:10:58outside of the club and says there must be something going on in there look how many people
00:11:02want to get in there and then we've most of us have been in that place of like we got in
00:11:07and we went where is everybody no one's there's no one here there's no value everyone there's
00:11:13more people in the line outside the club than there are inside the club so it's we're all
00:11:20prone to that to that idea and by the way when we don't value ourselves when someone else
00:11:28is showing themselves to be hard to get instant look we increase their value for two reasons
00:11:33one because it's natural the natural economics of attraction is scarcity if you make yourself
00:11:39seem hard to get you're rare and if you're rare you must be more valuable but there's
00:11:44also a personal part going on which is if you reject me or if you make yourself hard to get
00:11:49for me and i have even an inkling that i'm not enough then i start thinking you're really
00:11:56valuable it's almost like if you want me i'm like i don't value me so by you valuing me
00:12:03there must be something wrong with you yeah there's something going on with you you want
00:12:06me like you're you're starting to dip in my eyes that is one of the most unfortunate dynamics
00:12:12for somebody to have that i only want somebody who doesn't want me like if that's your motivation
00:12:18and somebody that seems to be kind and well balanced and open transparent about their wants
00:12:24and committed and ready now and you go oh that doesn't there's something there's something
00:12:31in there that doesn't seem quite right i can't work it out but it's because you have low self-esteem
00:12:38it's because you don't think very much of yourself and that means that if you see somebody who
00:12:44shows up in a way that you are not prepared to show up for yourself you assume that there's
00:12:49a pathology going on yes in other news if you're feeling tired you might not need more
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