What if I told you that the secret to becoming irresistible is learning to let go? Sounds kind of crazy, right? But it's true.
The more we chase, the less attractive we become. But when we learn to let go, that's when we become magnetic, when we attract instead of repel. In this video, you will discover the paradox of attachment.
That is, why the harder we cling, the more things go away. How letting go makes us more attractive and fundamentally changes not only our romantic relationships, but our relationship with life itself. Let's start by talking about the paradox of attachment. Why do we push people away when we chase them?
The subconscious signal that we are sending somebody when we pursue them, when we are always present, when we are always doing what they want, we're being the nice guy, the nice girl, the people pleaser, the perfect partner in security. There's a subtle part of ourselves somewhere that is afraid if we stand up for ourselves, we'll push the other person away. We are not making them happy for them anymore.
We are making them happy subtly for us. If we meet and I have nothing going on my week, I say, oh my gosh, I'll spend the whole week with you because I really like you. And at first in a relationship, that's great. Say, oh my gosh, let's spend the whole week together too.
But after... month or two you go, this guy have nothing to do in his life? What is it?
Am I the only thing he has? Like what is he doing spending all this time with me? So the paradox of attachment where scarcity becomes more attractive, the people who are harder to reach, who don't text back instantly, they are more self-sufficient and they have more going on in their own life.
This was something I had a hard time with. I had a lot of insecurity in relationships and When girls would say, you know, they needed our normal hangout day, they scheduled with friends, I would freak out. Oh my gosh, she's choosing her friends over me.
I was so insecure that I was not able to say, hey, yeah, go hang out with your friends. That's awesome. I hope you have so much fun.
We'll talk about it later. No, I was like, me, me, me. And this is where we get into the intricacies of our relationship with life itself.
I believe that most people tend to have a codependent relationship. Not necessarily with their romantic partners, but with life itself. We have a very hard time trusting that we'll be okay in life, feeling like we've got it figured out, that life has our back, that things are going to go our way.
We feel typically very insecure when things aren't going our way, when things are uncertain. If you've been exposed to pop culture sometime in the last 1500 years, you've probably noticed that a lot of the media we consume, a lot of the messaging we are given by our culture, by our society, is that there is some special person out there we are supposed to find who will complete us. They are our person, they are our true love, our soulmate, our twin flame, our whatever you want to call it, our other half.
The implication being of course that you currently must be incomplete. Now what this does is this creates an image, a very vivid image in your mind about what your perfect person is supposed to be. what they're going to make you feel like, what they're going to do, what your life together is going to look like. In a sense, I have imagined the ideal person for me.
That person does not exist because they are imaginary. What I do then is I go around projecting onto other people who I hope they will be for me. In other words, I have a problem and I want you to solve it is the implicit understanding in this arrangement.
The problem is that this does a great disservice to two real people who never actually meet each other. Because I am interacting with my idea of you and who I hope you will be, and you are interacting with your idea of me and who you hope I will be. You can see this in breakups, because breakups, by their very definition, in reality, happen when two people do not match. And yet, very frequently, At least one, sometimes both partners in a breakup will be unhappy that the breakup has taken place. They will want their person, so to speak, back.
But they don't really want the other person back. We tend to think something like, well, if only this had been different, or I had done this different, or this had changed. What we're really doing is sort of making excuses, saying, well, if only...
the situation had been a little bit more like I projected it would be. If only they had been more like I imagined they were, then this wouldn't have happened. In other words, my relationship had nothing, or very little, to do with who this person really was.
It was more to do with my idea of who I thought would make me feel better. This is why Chasing can push people away because a certain energetic chasing, flirtation, romance, that's fun, that's enjoyable. But the subtly needy, desperate chasing that comes from an inner relationship with life that is fundamentally insecure, that says, I'm not going to be okay, that manifests in a compensation where I say, you now are the thing. I need to make me okay. The thing that's going to make me feel whole and complete.
The people in these relationships are just people. That's the thing. The most beautiful, attractive person you've ever met, they're literally just another person. They have the same insecurities. They've had a lot of the same experiences, a lot of different experiences, but they are a complex living individual and they are crucially not the image of them.
that you have in your mind that you say, this is my perfect person, they're going to do all these things, it's gonna be awesome. So they know that they're a normal person. And if you've ever had somebody try really hard to sell you something, or somebody who likes you so much that it's almost suspicious, you know, the feeling that that gives off that feels a little weird. And this is the reason that letting go makes you significantly more attractive.
Because letting go means What this person thinks of me does not determine my self-worth. What this person wants does not necessarily determine what I think. We're still going to aim to have a complete whole partnership of a relationship. But I am not going into this with the idea that I need this person for some reason.
Because as long as I need this person for some reason, I am actually trying to fulfill my own psychological lack. Because I... don't really need that person. I am not incomplete.
I do not have an other half. As long as I believe that there is that person who I need to be my other half. Now I am depending on them based on my own psychological projection and thus I am clinging. This is the clinging we need to let go of.
I am clinging not to who they really are. And that's the disparity we see when there's a breakup, when somebody says, oh my gosh, I can't believe we broke up, we were perfect for each other. You weren't! You were broken up! You were not perfect.
But what your perfect relationship was with was your idea. You say, oh my gosh, if they were just a little bit more like my idea of them, maybe if I had been a little bit more like their projection, then it all would have been fine. If I had been able to fit their idea of me better, and they had been able to fit my idea of them better, it would have all worked out. We would have been clueless, we wouldn't live in a dream world, but and the key to beginning to let go is to see that you are whole and complete and any projection otherwise is compensatory for a belief that is false.
You're trying to fill a hole that doesn't exist and when we stop chasing, when we stop pursuing because we want something, then something interesting happens. When we have that power within ourselves, We can radiate it out. We can become a safe place for other people, some of whom will be needy, but some of whom will just resonate with your wholeness. We'll say, oh my gosh, this person doesn't want anything from me.
They don't want me to be something for them. They want to know who I really am. And if I don't need you to be somebody for me, if I'm not dependent on you for my well-being, you will know I am genuinely interested in you. Not for me, but for you. And relationships that can come out of this are much more authentic because they are two authentic people.
Rather than a mixture of projections and trauma and hopefully solving each other's fundamental flaws. That is the recipe for codependency. But once again, this flows out of our relationship with life itself. We tend to believe fundamentally that we're not okay. that things aren't going to work out, that we need to hold on to things.
We're so afraid. We're so scarcity mindset oriented. We think things like, oh my gosh, I'm never going to have enough money.
This job's not going to work out. What if this goes wrong? The relationship temporarily offers a band-aid.
Well, at least while I'm with this person, I don't feel so bad. Then the relationship falls apart because we are using it as a crutch, not an authentic relationship. And then we fall back to where we were before.
We were actually... Always there, we just weren't looking at it because we had the band-aid. We're thinking, oh well, at least I have this relationship. Relationship falls apart.
Oh my gosh, my life is terrible. This is all falling apart. No, it always was. Surprise, surprise. It's okay.
It's okay. You're human. These things happen, so don't stress out too much about it. But the key is looking at the relationship as part of the symptoms. It is a huge part of our lives and it should be.
Relationships are great, but they are not meant to fix us. They do an amazing job, however, of revealing these insecurities. So if you've watched this video so far, congratulations.
You've probably had an experience that has revealed one of these wounds within yourself and you've thought, oh my gosh, how do I get this person back? How do I get this relationship back? You can't because that relationship is gone. That iteration, you might get another relationship with the same person, but you will be different people.
And that is a good thing. When you want the relationship back, what you really want back is your projection. You say, I want things to go back to the way they were. Maybe they weren't perfect, but they were comfortable.
They were predictable. I knew what things were going to look like. And I enjoyed that sort of psychological security.
Because it's a security blanket. Because we are fundamentally insecure. We want the relationship to compensate.
So letting go then is bringing things back into frame of reality. That person was never who I thought they were. They might have some great qualities.
They might be an amazing person. But they are not the person who's going to fix my life. They're not the person who's going to save me. Who's going to make everything better or easier or change everything. And it's not going to be my savior.
They are not what I need. They're not my... person, they are a potentially great person, potentially terrible person, who knows, depends on your specific situation. But the person who is going to be all of those things for you is you. And the more we deny ourselves in constant projection, chasing other people, the more we erode our self-worth, the more needy we become.
When you are confident with yourself, when you have accepted yourself, you become more attractive because you're not constantly showing people that you're insecure. Now that seems kind of cold to say so let me explain because I do not advocate for the opposite, which is what a lot of people do, which is they say, well if I just act all tough and pretend not to care then I will get everybody. And that might actually work in the short term, but it's not a recipe for a holistic relationship with another person. Or with yourself, what you're actually doing is covering up that vulnerable, frightened part of yourself that you don't want to get rejected with a nice little piece of armor and saying, well, if I just never get too close, if I'm always aloof, they're going to want me.
If I'm always unavailable, then you're playing the game and you're still almost as insecure. And insecurity is the root of this attachment paradox. Insecurity is the root of why chasing somebody pushes them away. When you are constantly fishing for compliments, when you're constantly asking for reassurance, when you are constantly, I don't know, expecting a text back right away or wanting to be in constant contact with somebody, the subconscious message you're sending is, I'm insecure. Make me feel better.
I'm insecure. I'm insecure. I'm insecure.
And that's okay because most of us are insecure on some level. But the key is realizing that the relationship will never fix that. That is a different problem altogether. The relationship at best is a band-aid.
True love involves you as well and so many people who are nice, who are needy, who are loving people in relationships put that energy all on the other person. They save no love for themselves. If you truly had that two-way love including the love for yourself, what would that look like in your relationship? How would things be different? How would they have been different?
Where would you have stood up for yourself? Said, you know, you can go by yourself to that thing. It's okay. I don't feel like it.
Or I'm going to go with my friends this night. I'm going to go do this thing I want. These things feel to the insecure person like they are going to push the other person away.
My neediness becomes more important to me than my own ability to be myself. In other words, I care more what this person says about me than what I think about me. And in doing this, We give away our power.
We erode our power. We make ourselves less attractive. Letting go energy is the opposite.
It's courageous, authentic energy saying, I feel like doing this and embracing your own desire, your own drive, and then allowing if other people want to come along, that's cool. Maybe you'll invite them. But being the leader rather than the follower, not necessarily in a relationship, but in your own life.
And ultimately that is where letting go makes you attractive, makes you magnetic, is because you are in your own energy. You are in your own being. You are no longer projecting I need, I need, I need from you.
It's more centered, more calm, more I'm okay right here. And that makes you significantly more interesting. Plus, it's just a nicer place to be.
However, Many of us have these deeply buried attachments, these deeply buried things that are clinging and we're holding on to and they make us feel so insecure. So we try this compensation game. So if you're stuck in that, if you're stuck in that loop with your mind driving you crazy, here's an exercise you can do that will help the process. It might be a little tough, but it is what is necessary psychologically for us to move on. This is an exercise from one of my favorite spiritual teachers, Anthony DeMello.
Close your eyes. visualize the person, this ex, this person you're hung up on, who you're imagining is going to be your perfect future, but can't get with them for whatever reason. These people we have projected, who we really want, they fulfill the feeling of lack.
We say, oh, I just, they're going to make me feel whole. Think of those people. And we say, mentally, I am grateful for having had you in my life. Thank you very much. I appreciate you.
I love you, but I have to go now. I have a life that is outside of you. I have a life that I have to go live for myself, and I have to let you go. Say that a couple times.
Maybe there's a couple people you need to mentally say that to. A couple things, situations in your life where we say, thank you for what you've given me. I appreciate the learning opportunity. I appreciate the time we had together. But I have to be my own person.
I have to move forward in my life that has nothing to do with you anymore. And that is okay. We can move forward with a combination of gratitude and excitement to see what will come next.
At its core, letting go is about seeing reality, about no longer projecting, about letting go of the attachment to Both outcome, which is imaginary, it's a projection, and our illusions of who people are and what they're going to do for us, which is also imaginary. Letting go is about being authentic and real. And this is a common issue that a lot of people have is how to open up, how to be vulnerable, how to connect with people authentically.
I've had a lot of conversations with my coaching clients about that. More information in the description if you are curious. The final thing that will make all of this easier is to change that relationship with life itself.
We need to understand our fundamental insecurities, understand the areas we are trying to compensate, the areas we're trying to avoid, our deep fears that we are covering up and trying to work around and dive into them. And if you want to know how to do that, I have a video right here on inner child wounds and healing them. It's one of my most popular videos. People really seem to like it.
It's offered a lot of help to people. To free ourselves, we need to understand why it is we're trapped. And we talk about that in that video. Thank you so much for watching. We will see you next time.
Bye bye.