Three Pieces of Advice I've Changed My Mind About

At this point, I’ve created almost 250 podcast episodes. I wanted to update some of the advice that I've shared because there are some things that I don't 100% agree with anymore.

The first one is the concept of overwatering.

If you have been listening to the podcast for a while, you've definitely heard me talk about overwatering the plant.

When you are creating a connection with somebody, it's like you have this little plant between the two of you that needs water, air, and time to grow.

Sometimes we throw a gallon of water on the plant thinking that's going to make the plant grow faster.

What that looks like in dating is thinking that by spending a bunch of time together and talking as much as possible you’ll move the relationship to the next level faster.

But you can't make a plant grow. Plants grow on their own based on the kind of plant that they are, just like some relationships grow more quickly than others.

What I've learned over time is that different people have different capacities for connection. Rather than having some very rigid rules about how much time you should spend with somebody, it is important to learn what the limit is for you personally and also to feel intuitively what it is between you and that other person.

The reason we don't want to overwater our plant is because it often makes things complicated. It can bring up a lot of heightened emotions, make things feel unbalanced, or lower the attraction for both people.

It can get in the way of our little plant growing with that person.

So remember that even if you have very high connection tolerance, you don't want to push to find that limit with that person until you both run out of steam.

The next piece of advice that I want to update is, “if he pulls away, let him.”

When you're in a relationship with somebody who is committed and invested, there's a natural ebb and flow in the connection. Sometimes people just need to reconnect with their independence.

They need to go feel that they are a separate person still and do their own thing. Then when they feel secure and know that they still have their individuality, they tend to come back to you.

There's a big difference between that natural ebb and flow in a relationship versus somebody icing you out for a week and making you feel completely insecure in the relationship.

There are a lot of different ways that people can pull away and some of them are a natural part of a relationship and some of them feel awful and you shouldn't tolerate them.

If you do feel like somebody's pulling away, do you feel that they just want a little bit of space? Or do you feel completely unsettled because of this pulling away behavior, and possibly not even know if the relationship is continuing?

That is something that you don't actually want in a partner. You wouldn't want to let him pull away and continue to tolerate behavior that doesn't feel good to you.

And the last piece of advice that I want to update is about finding security within yourself when you feel jealous in a relationship.

I created a podcast very early on about the topic of jealousy, and I still think it's a very valuable episode.

However, it was focused on you, your thoughts, your interpretations, your feelings, and you dealing with your own jealousy.

One thing that I've learned over the years is that you are in a partnership, and jealousy is something that you figure out with your partner.

It's not something that you need to hide and go through alone.

It's important to have a fundamental sense of security within yourself in general, but a relationship is a structure.

It's kind of like you building a house with somebody and wanting to make sure that the foundation is secure, all the screws are in tight, and all the nails are in the right place.

When you feel jealous, it's as though a little draft comes in and you say, “I feel like a window is open in here.” Your partner might say, “No, no, no, it's fine. I screwed them all in.”

But you feel a draft and it’s uncomfortable.

There are things that you need to do in a relationship to establish trust, and there are specific boundaries that you need to have in place to make your relationship resilient and strong against outside forces.

It's not as simple as just saying, "be secure within yourself."

You can be a very confident person, but if you are lacking trust and specific boundaries in your relationship it doesn't really matter how secure you are. You'll feel drafty, and it will be uncomfortable.

Rather than hiding jealousy, burying it, pretending it's not real, and telling yourself you're crazy, you can address it together as teammates.

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This content was originally published on the Women's Dating and Confidence Podcast. Listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.