Love Hasn't Been Canceled

I'm Carrie Brett and this is shot at love, the first motivational podcast around online dating. Today we're going to talk about dating trends and how online dating has changed tremendously. Jared coven 19 I'm also going to be offering some strategies to manage loneliness and how to cope with your feelings during this difficult time.

Before I get started, I first wanted to make a correction to my last episode. I told a story of how the book skinny bitch went viral because ultra thin Victoria Beckham was photographed holding the book and the LA bookstore. Well, the reason I told that story was to give you a shot in the arm to get you out of this state of worry. Most people are feeling stuck, pretty paralyzed in fear, feeling like, now what? I can't leave the house, so how am I going to date? We're going to get more into that topic later. Anyways, back to my correction Victoria. Becca is posh spice, not sporty spice. I'm sorry, I misspoke calling her the wrong spice, but how am I supposed to keep all the spice girls straight? Aren't there five of them and there's two mouths. Mel B and Mel C. Come on. I'm a one man band and I'm playing a lot of instruments. Let's be honest. What we really, really want is a shot at love. If you want to be a mother, today's episode, I'm going to focus on the many changes I've seen in online dating. I actually went on a social distancing walk with one of my best friends, Maureen Hancock, who's on a previous episode match made in heaven. We were talking and she was like, why do I feel like so many relationships are ending? Why do you think that is? And I said, well, there's a lot of different things that people fill their time with to make themselves happy. Maybe they travel, they go shopping, they're fulfilled from their job, they go out to dinner, they do lots of things and when all that stuff, all those things are stripped away. You're just left with, okay, we're lucky to go on a walk. Let's be kind to each other. Is this person supportive of me? Do I still love this person? People have had to adjust in a big way and we're seeing not even relationships falling apart, but we're also seeing people reevaluating their priorities and who they're choosing. An online dating, which this whole episode is about. I'm going to focus on all the changes I've been seeing. I know there's been a lot of suffering in this. Pandemic has been in comprehensible, but I want this show to be a break and I want to remind you there is hope for better days. This pandemic will eventually go away, but love hasn't been canceled. Love is here to stay. I never want my listeners are anyone for that matter, living in the state of fear or loneliness. Before I talk about this difficult subject of loneliness, I just want to say that everyone's feelings of loneliness is valid. I've lived all those feelings many times in my life and I'm very empathetic to those who are suffering. If you've been having a tough time lately, then take a break. Even if it's for 15 minutes while you listen to this podcast, I want you to stop the negative thinking negative patterns and reclaim your life. I know it's a really hard time for single people. Some of the feedback, I've heard this from Andrew, living alone is easy, but being alone and isolated is hard or other things I've heard from Lauren, my clock is ticking and I'm losing time or even more extreme from Jeff. I feel like I'm always going to be alone or worse. I feel like I'm going to die alone. I understand having these fears and I know thoughts run wild and it can really affect how you feel, but just realize these are just storylines. Acknowledge these thoughts for what they are. You can't catch me bad knots and instead of falling back into these old patterns or indulging and thoughts that don't serve you, stop yourself and yell, not today. Satan. These thoughts aren't in our best interest, so let's pivot and take some positive action instead. How high of a priority is joining online dating? How high of a priority is carving out the time to text new people? I want you to really ask yourself, are you the priority or are your fears of the priority? We all battle demons. I had to wrestle my own fears down to the ground like alligator recently, last week I was interviewed on a live radio show. It's called nightside with Dan Ray. I was fine to do the live interview because I knew the topic, which was digital dating during Cova 19 I didn't get nervous until Dan Ray veteran radio host for WBZ radio called to have a quick discussion about the format of the show. He's like, Carrie, I'm going to interview you for 30 minutes and then you'll take calls and offered advice to live callers and that's when it hit me. I'm like, life. What if I get angry callers online dating makes people pretty angry. What if I have a bad experience? What if I get, what if Dan does laughed and he said, Carey, I just listened to your podcast about fear and you need to write down all your fears and then take out a Sharpie and put a big X through them and then light your list on fire. I had to laugh that he used my own line on me, but he was pretty good. So I pretty quickly put down my fares and the show went great before I went on air and did something I've never done before. I told my boyfriend my fears and my concerns about taking live calls, and he said, Carrie, what's the difference? At the end of your swiping soiree, you always take questions live in front of a large group and you always do great. You speak from the heart, you make people feel heard and you make people feel better. So give yourself some credit. And I thought to myself, it's so easy not to give yourself credit. It's normal to have doubts and fears, but you simply can't give into to them because you're going to miss your whole life. It's important to address fears or feeling lonely so we can call them out by name and then find better feeling thoughts. I'm not minimizing these feelings and I understand that we've all been in quarantine for months and it's insanely isolating, but loneliness affects your mindset, your overall wellbeing, your happiness and your health. It's proven that people who have dogs live longer, people need to feel that I'm around them, get that Pat on the back or have that hug to Excel in life. Men do better professionally when they fall in love. Statistics prove that men go into overdrive to succeed and provide for the people that they love. Bumble recently posted this on Instagram and I thought it was pretty powerful and worth sharing. You can be alone and be lonely. You can have friends and be lonely. You can live with someone and be lonely. You can be with your family and be lonely. I remember when I was overcoming a bad breakup, being with friends or being with my family really and truly amplified my loneliness. I never left my house unless it was for work or a date. It was a lot easier to hide from the world that way. I didn't have to pretend to be happy, pretend to be doing well or alarm the people who cared about me that I was a walking train wreck. Unfortunately, there's no way around loneliness. It's this awful feeling that causes a pit in your stomach, but I think it's time that we give the suffering, arrests. All of that suffering I entered was absolutely pointless, didn't help my cause. It only hurt me. Well, stripping of all my power, all I was doing was walking around feeling bad in every present moment. My mom even got me a magnet to put on my fridge. It said every day I choose happiness. She was trying, I couldn't even look at the thing, but I was willing to try anything. So I put it on my fridge. I didn't need a magnet I needed every day I choose happiness tattooed on my forehead. That magnet didn't do one thing for me other than remind me that I was choosing heartbreak, pain, or feeling bad. Then just simply choose other thoughts, stinking thinking. As my friend Luke always says, until the suffering got so bad, I'd be forced to turn on some Tony Robbins unleash the giant within or Wayne Dyer the shift. And I remember my daughter Morgan, when she was little, she, she's very funny and she had this low little sarcastic voice. And the two of us were weighing in Taka for the weekend and I was crying because I had just found out that Wayne Dyer had died. This is how important these motivational speakers are to me and will always be to me. So I'm crying over Wayne passing and I hear this little voice from the other room whispering to my mother. I can just hear my mom now. Hi Morgan, how's Nantucket? What's mom up to? And then I hear Morgan's little voice, Grammy mom's crying because Wayne Dyer died. And then I don't hear anything else and I hear a voice again, if something happens to Tony Robbins, mum's going to throw herself in front of a bus. Not sure how appropriate the story is, but it just shows that I absolutely depended on these self help books is the key thing that got me through. When things got really tough, I would throw in these audio books and get busy taking action. I did things like washing my floors, organizing cabinet, literally an attempt to physically push out the negativity. So now we're all living in unprecedented times. Everyone's home alone, just like Macaulay Culkin. So we're home alone and in most cases without a job, the positive. Please God let there be something positive on this podcast. Being home alone allows single people to spend time they wouldn't normally have to swipe right. Dating apps are up 30% and the amount of video chat time on these apps are up 93% the quarantine won't last, but romance isn't going away. So when do people find love? People find love when they have time. Check your screen time on your phone. It's alarming how much we waste on our phone. Do a reality check. How many hours are you truly on your phone? Are you watching tick tock videos? You would be astonished the amount of time you waste on social media watching other people's lives. There's honestly not much happening on Instagram. All these people who had all these amazing things happening, where's their highlights? Now this pandemic is either splitting up couples or tearing families apart. So remind yourself that everyone's struggle is deeply personal and difficult to them. The struggle is real. It's just different for each person. I believe this is the time to go within. Get emotionally healthy. Take care of yourself physically and get on a healthier path. Instead of that, spend at a liquor store. Have a spin on your Peloton. When we come back, I'm going to talk about all the silver linings, but for now this week's Tinder, Tufts. Number one, life is good. Find a plaque to hang on your wall or find a magnet to put on your fridge. As a reminder every day, choose happiness over fear, loneliness, or despair. Number two, never lose confidence in your abilities. You are more capable than you think. Your happiness is your responsibility. Don't give up and trust in this redefining moment. Number three, there's a big wide world out there. There are 7 billion people on the planet. Did I ever think some random Tinder date would bring me so much happiness? Be open because that frog you're reluctant to meet could be a Prince and the biggest part of your life. Welcome back. Now let's talk about those silver linings. People are doing things they never did before. This is the first time I've had that. I can work solely on the content for shot at love without juggling the demands of running a full time studio. I'm utilizing this time to bring as much information while planning upcoming episodes. I know this is a unique opportunity. It was sheer passion, dedication, and drive that I was able to pull both off. A lot of people are using this time to get creative. During this free time, I was able to help my friend Jill launch her podcast cosmic scene by Jill Jardeen, which actually gained her radio show on w ATD. I'm going to be her first guest on may 26 talking about dating, even taking live callers. The point is people are doing things they never dreamed of and they're getting amazing results. I'm seeing who would never swipe right on someone who has more than 25 miles away. I'm guilty of this or one would call me lazy. After a few weeks of dating my boyfriend, I was like, buddy, you're going to have to move in with me cause I'm not driving 25 minutes back and forth all the time to see you. Men and women are both swiping on people further away. They're thinking, what the hell? I'm never going to see them anyways. What I'm seeing is a playing field is really being opened. People are making strong connections with people they never imagined. I think about all those people I texted on Tinder. Those individual relationships didn't work out, but I made new friends. I gain new clients, listeners, even Facebook friends who still wish me happy birthday and it sure took away the loneliness and despair I was feeling at the time. What if you did give more people a chance? People have either fast tracked a relationship or cut things off quickly. It's make or break time for everyone. You're seeing quickly where people are at. Are they in it for the long run? People are showing you their true colors to a beautiful Lego ring. They're showing you what they're made of. This is the biggest reset possibly in your lifetime. People are changing their priorities, eliminating superficial things that were originally important to them. They're tossing that checklist aside. Things like, I want this person to be wealthy, have a heartbeat, be six feet tall. Have dark hair, have a job, went to an Ivy league school, has a car, not just skateboard, whatever. They're all reframing what's important. They want things now like I want this person to be solid. Someone who has my back listens to me, comforts me if I'm afraid, is kind, caring, loves me. For me, do your best to try to be optimistic. Be more open. Put on a fresh shirt, throwing some lip gloss. Pour yourself a glass of wine and go on that virtual date. What if you were pleasantly surprised? It only takes one. Taking action. Putting yourself out there, it feels a lot better than loneliness. And guess what? You've got this. This is what shot at love is here for to help you find love.

Stay the course. Be positive and believe you can't buy love because you're worth it. Remember to stay safe and stay tuned for more episodes. Follow an Instagram shot at love podcast. I'm Carrie Brett and we'll see you next time.[inaudible].