I've Gone Back To An Ex Twice... But Not In The Way You Think

It can work if they return to your life in a different capacity. The trick is do you know yourself well enough to not entertain anything further?

Hey friends,

I’ve been watching Love Island for the first time in years. Yes, All Stars lured me in and now I have love on my mind. Specifically the on-again, off-again kind of love and why sometimes it’s easier to go for the familiar. I tried to write about this in The Selfish Romantic and whilst it is in there in parts, it’s hard to capture the complexity and nuance, especially in a culture that is so quick to shame and blame. I’m a believer that there are very few clear-cut rules in dating and this is proof of that!

On set this week. The irony is the times I look most fashionable are the times I have left the house in my pyjamas, makeup-free and unbrushed hair because they are doing hair, makeup and styling when I get there hence the most neutral outfit you will ever spot me in. Felt very chic!

That’s not the only thing we are talking about this week though, this week I am ALSO sharing with you:

• I’ve Discovered The Trick To Getting Back With An Ex

• The Physiological Hack To Calm Your Body Down

• Buy The Nice Chicken Stock

• A New Documentary On Plastic Surgery

• A Book That Is Starting My Day (And Ending It!) With Wisdom

• It’s Time To Declutter Your Inbox

• What You Can Learn From The Comment Section

• We Are Going Old School and Printing Photos Off!

Oh and since returning, I completely forgot about the voiceover so that’s back if you prefer to consume this with your ears, not your eyes!

Why Are You Clinging To Your Ex?

One thing that I don’t like to share is that I have revisited exes twice. I don’t like to share it because it was more complicated than that. Or maybe it wasn’t and that’s the story I tell myself. I reached out to exes twice when I was looking for a one-night stand. And you know what? I don’t regret it. I was never the kind of person who liked having strangers in my apartment for safety reasons and when it’s an ex, you can expect a certain performance level. If it’s one night, they don’t need to be a good person to date, they just need to be good at one thing and it’s a way higher success rate at getting your needs met than finding a random on a dating app. The key difference is that ‘revisiting’ my ex was not a reopening of our relationship. It was simply one night with a very clear goal. With both, it was about two years after we dated and with both, it was genuinely one night and that was it because more would make it murky. I think it worked both times because enough time had passed, we had moved on but we all have needs and who hasn’t wanted to relive an *experience* for one night. The key is one night only. No romanticising it into more. No entertaining the ‘what if?’. They are still the same person who it didn’t work out with. They might have good skills but that. is. it. If you can’t transition a previous relationship potential to a one night fling then don’t do it. You almost have to see the same person in different categories marked by the two different times in your life. Those times were a convenience thing and shouldn’t be confused with a revolving door of situationships.

We have romanticised unrequited love so much that we don’t realise how much it holds us back and keeps us stuck. Ultimately, someone who doesn’t love you back isn’t ever going to be the love of your life because the love of your life as a basic requirement should feel the same way about you. A piece of self esteem is missing when we hold onto someone who tells us that they are uninterested. There is a part of us that believes that we can’t find better and that person who loves us wholly doesn’t exist. You can’t convince someone to want what they don’t want and nor should you have to convince someone that you are good enough and worth the effort of healing the ruptures in a relationship

How To Calm The Fuck Down

If you have followed me for any amount of time, you’ve likely heard me say that before I go on stage to do any public speaking, I do a massive sigh. It tricks your brain into believing the talk is done before you start and if you see the beginning of my TedX talk, you can actually see me sigh before I start speaking so when my life coach Michelle Zelli started talking to me about the physiological sigh, I thought ‘been there, done that’. It’s not what I thought it was though. The physiological sigh is actually inhaling twice and then exhaling longer than both the inhales. I could go into the science behind it but I’ll likely butcher it so here is more of a prompt to look into it yourself. Or even if you don’t, to just use it yourself. I have been using it this week and it’s really helped so now I have two tools in my toolbox: an actual sigh and the physiological sigh.

Buying Nice Chicken Stock Feels… Nice?

I was making a risotto the other day and when I was in the supermarket, I had a moment where I thought, instead of the stock cubes I usually use for my risotto, I actually buy the nice stock. I know there is a cost of living crisis and this is not my everyday advice but there was a micro-moment there when I realised the idea of indulgence need not be big. It could just be buying the nice chicken stock. I would take the time to explain why this makes a difference but it seems too obvious so I won’t patronise you. Did it make a huge difference to my risotto? Probably not, but it made me smile on a rubbish day so I’ll count that as a win!

Olivia Attwood’s Price of Perfection

My boyfriend loves Louis Theroux and his second favourite documentarian is Olivia Attwood. This is likely not as funny to you because you do not know my boyfriend but he hates Love Island with a passion, and he very reluctantly watched Olivia’s first series about Getting Filthy Rich, only to then really love her presenting style. He raves about it. He thinks she gets people comfortable in a way many other presenters don’t and he also thinks she covers the topics really well. I obviously agree but I fell in love with Olivia Attwood way earlier, back when she first graced our screens years ago. This series is all about plastic surgery and if you are squeamish, a word of warning because I was hiding under a blanket for most of it. If it wasn’t Olivia’s show, I probably wouldn’t have watched because it is quite graphic. The amount of money people spend on changing their body made me really sad and of course, the body positive part of me was shouting at the screen that this is what the beauty industry wants. The beauty industry wants you obsessing about what you look like so that you don’t realise that what you look like is the least important thing about you. As someone who has had 15 surgeries, I will personally never understand undergoing an optional surgery of any kind. I will do anything in the world to stay away from all hospitals at all costs but this documentary really takes you into the world of plastic surgery and shows the lengths people go to. .

If I Could Tell You Just One Thing…

A new thing that I do this year is start the day and end it with reading a book and it’s been a brilliant way to relax my mind, get off my phone and prioritise something that makes me feel good. This book was the perfect book for this routine as it meant a tidbit of wisdom to bookmark the day and the chapters are distinct enough that you don’t need to remember where you left off. I also love that the chapters are short so it’s an easy habit to keep and this book is proof that you can learn something from everyone. I must say though, my favourite part was a chapter where CEO of Pepsi gave the advice to never take a holiday and then author says that is the worst piece of advice he has ever heard… and he actually wrote that in the book! I loved it because I agree and it makes another equally important point - don’t take advice from just anyone! Specifically don’t take advice from someone’s life you wouldn’t want to swap places with. It works for the CEO of Pepsi but I do not want to be the head of a massive corporation or have her life. In the book, she talks about how she has a rule that her family has a rule that either her or her partner has to be with the kids so she is taking a private jet back to New York and her partner is taking a private jet back to London that night so they can swap. It sounds like a lovely rule but my first thought is ‘and when is your time together?’. It sounds tiring, exhausting and lonely and most of all, it’s not for me!

A Comment That Gave Me A Goal

I love watching YouTube and I particularly love watching YouTube while scrolling the comments and this one in particular made me stop.

What a way to live! I am an over-reactor and I have been guilty of a few panics that were not worth my time. I particularly love that they say I trained myself and so I guess my training is starting now. As someone who creates personal development content, I know my comment sections are always full of wise people so it’s also a good reminder that comment sections aren’t just full of trolls and could provide you just as much wisdom as in the actual video!

It’s Time To Hit Unsubscribe

When I took my digital detox, one of the things that shocked me the most was that in three weeks of not checking my email, I only missed one of importance. When I first saw the number 325 unread emails though, I panicked. Pretty much all of them though were spam. They were emails from brands I had bought from once who had stuck me on their mailing list and so I decided this year is the year I am going to do the boring manual job of unsubscribing from each one. How many minutes in a day do you think add up from constantly deleting emails you never wanted in the first place. That time must add up and it must be more than the time it takes to actually unsubscribe! Putting that extra bit of effort for the long term gain! They bank on us not doing it, that’s why they stick us on the mailing list and we stay there forever more! But no longer! I’m putting an end to it slowly but surely and I highly recommend you do the same. And if my newsletter is one of the ones that fall victim to unsubscribe, go for it. If you aren’t opening it anyway, it makes no difference to me!

Get Your Pictures Off Your Camera Roll!

One of my favourite hobbies as a child was flicking through photo albums from when I was younger. I know it’s not really a hobby but I used to do it that often that it might as well have been one! So in 2022 when I had to get the photos off my phone to free up space, I decided to create albums for every year I have on my phone. I went back and did them all from 2019 and this year I kept up the habit! I buy the same album that holds 200 (201 including the cover!), I pick out 200 from the year and print them off. The thing that took me a little longer and why I’m only posting about it now was the annotating. So often I would look at pictures of my childhood and I would ask my mum what was happening or even who was in the photo and she wouldn’t remember so as much as it doesn’t seem like you’ll ever forget your friends now, I’m creating this with this realisation in mind. I have written down everyone’s name and sometimes even a cute memory of what was happening! It’s also a brilliant way to realise that 365 days is long and you get a lot done in a year!

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That’s all from me and if you’ve got this far, thank you for reading! I’m loving being on Substack this year and I really think it’s the combination of experimenting a lot last year and that I took some time away to contemplate how to move forward. Let me know how you are doing in the comments! After all, now you know that I truly do believe the comments section can be as valuable as the newsletter itself haha!

Lots of love,

M xx