Divorced Playbook

A listener shared with us one of their biggest fears. Dating. And, specifically, the Fear of Dating Again, after an extended amount of time being alone, sequestered, quarantined or otherwise out of the dating scene.

F.O.D.A., in this case meaning Fear Of Dating Again, is a real thing, and the Levy Bros. do their best to tackle this difficult subject. 

How get over F.O.D.A.? 

• Put the weight of carrying the conversation on the other person. Ask questions about them if you think you don’t have anything to talk about. You’d be surprised at how engaged you will become once you relax and get involved in the conversation more naturally.

• Be open about your fear and anxiety. No better way to break the ice than to be honest about your nerves, because the other person is probably just as nervous.

• Focus on the people who ARE interested in you, not those who validate your fears of rejection.

Also, Scott talks about how much he likes working moms, Dan talks about how he's become a safe first date back for women with F.O.D.A. and this hilarious exchange takes place. 

"I would just like to say that I think moms are sexy."

"Alright."

"I do."

"You get enough action. You don’t need to be using the show to be getting matches." 

"I’m not interested in trying to get matches. I’m just saying that I know what it’s like to be a mom and do everything that you do. That, in and of itself--" 

"Wait, wait, wait. You can’t say that."

"Why?"

"You just mansplained motherhood!"

This episode is solely focused on being positive, which includes learning how to not just accentuate the positive, but to find it.

We discuss some methods for being — and staying — positive. 

"Today was good. Today was fun. Tomorrow is another one."

Ask your kids, "What is the best moment of your day?" Even if all you can think of is  a juicy apple, try to find something positive about every day, and share that with those you love.

The Butterfly Effect - How you act impacts others. Your kid gets in a fight with your ex, then picks a fight with you. You're angry, and now have to run a meeting, where you snap at employees, putting more people in a bad mood. That demeanor will expand exponentially. But it works with positivity too.

How to be more positive: 

• Mindfulness & Meditation. Reframe your thought process for 5 or 10 minutes on something else. Put all your focus into hearing specific sounds — waves crashing, birds chirping, each individual instrument in a song you love. Focusing on one thing allows you to let the other stuff go, even just for a minute. And if you can do it for one minute, you can do it for five. Do it for five, you can do it for 30. If you can do it for 30, maybe you can do it for the entire day.

• Find the positive things in your environment and focus on those. Finding the positivity in even what you would consider a terrible situation is challenging but rewarding.

• Use of Affirmations. Don't be hard on yourself for not doing something in the past. Be proud of the fact you have decided to do something about it now. And when using positive affirmations, it's important to speak in the PRESENT TENSE.

"There is no future, in a way. It’s all just a series of moments. If you live in every moment, and every moment you are present, then you don’t have to worry about what’s going to happen down the line. You worry about what’s happening now. Reframe when you’re feeling bad about yourself, or bad about the world. This is the moment that matters."

• Focus on yourself: "If you try to compare yourself to others you will always fail, because you can always find someone who seemingly has it better than you or is seemingly doing more than you. "

• Remember, you are the only one who has to live with you 24/7.

Scott is back. We get a full recap of his disastrous two months recovering from back surgery, how Covid has played a part, and maintaining a balance of physical and mental health.

"There you are, sitting there with your own thoughts, and that’s a scary place to be when you’re not yourself and you’re not feeling right and the world is different."

We go in deep on the mental toll of isolation as well as the difference between being depressed and having depression. And, in this time, is it really that different?

This is a pretty raw show. It's good to be back.

In this episode...
• Dan gets BANNED BY TINDER
• An update on Scott
• SERIOUSLY, BANNED! BY TINDER!
• A "Date Race" challenge is made
• Is Dan getting catfished? Again!? (And how to spot a catfisher.)
• BANNED! AND REFUNDED!
• Some very important online dating Don'ts
• Normal is a four-letter word 
• The 5 Categories of Swiping
• How a limerick about cheese can get you a date

An episode in which we ask the question that was a central theme of The Good Place: What do we owe to each other?

Dan just procured nearly 200 of his parents' old records, and in piles and piles of hidden gems, one album stood out: Tammy Wynette's "Kids Say The Darndest Things," a compilation of the First Lady of Country's biggest hits about divorce, co-parenting and the traumatizing stigmas that come with a family splitting up that, two generations and half a century later, we're just starting to destroy.

This album is terrifying. So we break it down. 

(This is 30 minutes you won't get back. Sorry and you're welcome.)

Scott is still recovering, but he did set up a fundraiser to help people with addiction. Donate here: https://www.instagram.com/linking/fundraiser?fundraiser_id=1372978096406079

Dan isn't flying solo, however, as Nicole Grey makes her second visit to the show. She isn't talking about interior design, though. She's talking about the perils of online dating! And she brought a friend!

Dan, Nicole and Kate Finlay have a spirited conversation about the most do-and-don't topics around online dating. What are some tell-tale mistakes people put in their dating profiles? What stands out in a profile, and does it translate into a date?  What's the worst date they've ever been on?

And what's the 25 Percent Boyfriend?

Leave your thoughts in the comments. We imagine after this conversation...you'll have some.

We're back! Well, one of us is.

Dan is flying solo on this episode. Unleashed. Untethered. Un...der an hour by a few seconds!

First, an update on Scott's recovery from back surgery. All your best wishes are appreciated so keep them coming.

Key moments from the show:
• Which is worse: someone telling you that they’d rather hang out with no one, or someone telling you they’d rather hang out with a dog?

• Guess which newsworthy politician this is about and you could win money for "ice cream", or "school" or "tuition": "You look at that guy’s face and you think he’s either trying to stick something in me or take something from me. That’s it."

• "In terms of morality, everyone’s got their own level. What are you willing to do? What can you live with? Not what are you willing to do, excuse me. What can you live with?"

• "I play GardenScapes for Christ’s sake. I’m like a grandmother." 

• "It’s been a long, long time since I’ve been in a situation where I care about someone this much…as a human, but also in a romantic sense."  

• "I mean, I can pay for Top Golf, but I can’t buy a house." 

• "I felt less than my wife and then resented her for it and she did nothing. Cognitive distortions." 

• "Is part of someone better than none of them?" 

• "Am I setting myself up to feel less-than again?"

Today's episode focuses on #15 of our 21 Tips for Spring Cleaning Your Life.

Distress Tolerance - S.T.O.P., which stands for:
Stop/Stay in control, (23:00)
Take a step back, (27:30)
Observe, (35:30)
Proceed Mindfully (44:10)

With Easter coming up, and possibly being the first time in 18 months that families can gather for a major holiday, we discuss the importance of limiting stressful situations, and dealing with conflict when it arises.

We talk about the idea of Wise Mind, where the Emotional Mind — thoughts we have based on emotion and feelings — intersects with the Reasonable Mind — the area of the mind for rational thoughts.

Wise Mind is a combination of knowing and feeling something is true and valid.

Download our guide. Here are some quotes:

14:00 - "When you feel like you’re self aware, and you realize you’re not, it’s like devastating. Because then you have no idea. Then you question everything."

17:00 - "I’m constantly asking people in my life, ‘how am I doing? How am I coming across?’"

18:00 - "The idea of being right and being righteous are not the same. You could be right, but you have to play along with other people. But when you’re righteous about it, it’s like, ‘no, this is the way. Everyone follow me. This is the way,’ and some people aren’t going to follow you if you say that."

50:00 - "Just because we don’t have the loudest platform or voice box at this moment doesn’t mean we can’t change the world. And by changing the world, it doesn’t necessarily mean you have to change the entire world. It doesn’t mean that you have to have millions of people following you. If you’re affecting one other human, you’ve changed somebody’s world."

59: 30 - "I’m going to look at it and say, ‘did I make the world a better place in my time?’ And, again, my point is I’m focused on making THE world a better place, instead of making MY world a better place. And that’s a mistake."

1:01:00 - "I think the goal in life is to make THE world, whether that’s the world you can see and you interact with every day a better place, or slightly larger, whatever it is — it’s the definition of what you want it to be, which is the world. 

Our job, in addition to just being parents, is to try to make the world a better place when we leave it than when we got here. It doesn’t say you’ve got to impact millions or billions. It doesn’t say you’ve got to have a whole pile of cash in the bank, or whatever it is. You’ve just got to leave the world a better place than it was when you got here. I don’t think that that’s so overwhelming, and I think a lot of people think they need to do more. 

If I leave the world a better place than when I got into it, then I’ve done something right."

Do you feel like you're sitting in the waiting room...of life?

You are not alone. With more people getting vaccinated and the weather allowing for more outside activities, it's a good time for people to take stock of where they are in life.

But what if you feel like you're in the same place as when the pandemic started? What if you feel like you're in stasis? What do you do?

On today's show:
• Scott follows up on the story about his grandfather coming back as a bird to watch over him, the belief in spirits, reincarnation and religion.

• More detail on our 21 Tips for Spring Cleaning Your Life.

• Dan remarks at the number of people he's matched with or gone out with who are on Instagram now, celebrating #Love with some other guy.

Some quotes:
26:50 - "I am in stasis. This whole year feels like, for everyone, your life has been put on hold. But for me, specifically, it’s been the culmination of three years where my life has sort of been on hold and I’m just starting to try to find my footing again to get myself back into this existence and it’s not easy."

35:50 - "I feel like I’m being hung by, like, a hook and just floating, and I’m waiting for someone to come around with a giant stick and a blindfold and just whack the shit out of me until stuff falls out. Because that’s the feeling right now. That I’m just waiting for my guts to fall out on the floor. And yes, I just turned myself into a piñata. I don’t know how, but I felt it was apt."

37:50 - "Social media...it’s all bullshit. It's controlled. People put out there what they want you to see."

38:50 - "I’m at the point where I’ve seen people that I’ve gone out with in the past do this three or four times with dudes. So now I realize what people are doing. I want someone that is there for me. I think the love that I want, and that you are now just beginning to talk about, is the kind of love that…I don’t care if anyone knows. I’m not trying to find love to broadcast it to the world, I’m trying to find love so I have peace with me."

39:25 - "We need to help the people that want to be helped. We need to love the people that want to be loved. We need to keep that feeling and that love to ourselves."

41:55 - "You have a tendency, Dan, to focus a little bit more on the negative than on the positive and I just think that’s something you are working on. Correct? Yes?"

"Anyone who has ever met me or listened to this show once is like falling on the ground laughing. You needed to say that? Is that something you felt you needed to explain to the audience or to me?"

45:00 "That's where I'm focused. If you give up on being the best, what's the point?"

45:30 - "I’m always focused on being my best. 'The' best? I don’t know what that means."