Is it possible to have too much hope? 

This was a question I had posed rhetorically on Instagram a few weeks ago—and one I got to ask today’s guest. I’m someone who believes things will always work out for me, and so far, my track record is strong. Sure, things don’t always unfold when I want them to or exactly how I imagined they would. But I’ve come to accept that that’s part of the deal with manifestation.

Sometimes I question whether I need to be more “realistic” (yuck) when it comes to love. Even with a challenging romantic landscape—yes, there are a lot of questionable dating stories out there—I still believe there are more good people than we want to believe. I still wholeheartedly desire love and partnership. I don’t think having a crush or a boyfriend is embarrassing or a humiliation ritual. But do I need to prepare myself for the possibility that I’ll never experience some great love story? I don’t think that’s my story. Still, I’m an overthinker who likes to have all my bases covered.

Of course, there are things I want that I haven’t yet received. I sit with that while still holding gratitude for all that I do have. A sense of lack in one area of my life does not cancel out all that is good in it. 

But if believing that things will always work out for me is a core tenet of my personal belief system, though, then why is it still so hard to have compassion for past me? The version of myself that didn’t know better or didn’t choose better. The part that wonders: if I had all the knowledge I have now back then, would things have turned out differently?

I’m sure I’m not alone in this thinking. Maybe for you it’s, If I had figured out my career sooner, left that relationship earlier, stopped spending so much time with the wrong friends, asked for help sooner… the list goes on. We convince ourselves that life could’ve been better if only we had figured it out.

Thankfully, this isn’t Sliding Doors—and we only get this one version of life, and ruminating on any other version is ultimately a distraction, as marriage and family therapist Vienna Pharaon reminded me in our conversation. You may remember Vienna from our first conversation back in May 2024 about her debut book, The Origins of You.

Vienna and I also unpack some of today’s most stubborn dating advice that just won’t seem to go away, “if he wanted to, he would.” We also talked about pop psychology’s latest buzzword, limerence, and why you probably don’t want to be completely “detached” when it comes to dating and relationships.

Hi, Vienna. How are you? 

Vienna Pharaon: I'm so good. I'm happy to be here. I'm excited to chat. 

You're the second person I've had as a repeat guest. Gonna keep bringing you back. You're basically just my resident go-to-therapist for FWD JOY.

Vienna: I like being the resident for FWD JOY. I feel called upon. I accept the position. 

If you could give your 20-something-year-old self advice about relationships, what would you tell her? 

Vienna: I've been asked that question a few times before, and I don't know that I would disrupt her that much. I feel like we all have to walk the path, you know? Could I save her from a couple of things I could've learned a little earlier? Maybe. But she needed to walk and learn what she needed to learn. She needed to break the unwanted patterns that she kept engaging in. She needed to live it out in order to experience it. When I look back, I pretended like I was fine and unaffected all of the time. So maybe I would just give her a little elbow nudge to be like, "Hey, it's okay to have a boundary and not like something." But the reality of it is that a 20-something-year-old me didn't have the capacity to hold that. She didn't know how to say something upset her or that she didn't like a certain behavior because the consequence of that would have meant maybe being left, the relationship ending, somebody being upset. My nervous system at that time didn't know how to tolerate that.

I actually wanna dig in a little bit. That's something I still struggle with, I'm like, I just wish that I could have figured things out sooner for myself. I wish that could have healed my anxious attachment earlier. It feels like I was stuck repeating patterns, and I think there was a part of me that had the awareness but didn't understand how to integrate the lessons. You need to integrate so you can act from that place. I knew better, but I couldn't do better for a while. But that was also part of my story. There was this part of me that felt like I needed to wait around. There were times where I really did have boundaries if I didn't feel attached. But once I was attached…

Vienna: Yeah, the drop-off is higher. I think the question is, what’s the function of you giving yourself a hard time? It doesn't change anything. That attention to understanding what kept you from integrating it sooner and finding some compassion and grace there was really helpful for me because I think we can all sit here and be like, I am smart. I see this stuff now. What's the matter with me? And I think when we move away from that, it's quite helpful. That's a distraction. It keeps you in your head. It keeps you thinking, What's wrong with me? How could I not have done this? I could have gained back five years. Here's where I could be in my life right now had I not...

I mentioned the capacity piece before. What am I actually able to tolerate? I know I could see my patterns. I could connect the dots. I think you probably could at a certain point, too, and then you're like, "Okay, next time." And the next time comes around and you're like, "Shit." We're back to the same dance.

Part of that is because our nervous system is familiar with something else. It is familiar, or the thing that we are trying to do differently is a bit too unknown or too scary for us. So it's going to operate in a way where even though we know better we can't do it differently because our nervous system is smarter, faster, quicker, all the things than anything that our brain can do. So yes, we need to slow it down and take micro-steps in the direction of expanding the tolerance. Practicing or trying things out with people who are really trusted sources. Like, practice with your friends before you practice with a partner, you know?

What are your general thoughts on the dating and relational landscape right now? 

Vienna: I personally have not been in the dating scene for a decade, but I hear about it all the time from clients and friends. It doesn't sound great out there, and I think it can get quite hopeless and then it puts people on opposing sides, right? I wish I had the answer for how do we fix it. I don't know if there's a clear answer. 

I still think that the majority of people, underneath it all, crave to be loved and to love, right? It’s just we've been injured so much along the way. I get why people are like, this is awful. Screw this! It feels like a gymnasium at middle school dance. I'm just gonna stay on the other side of the gymnasium and y'all stay over there. 

There are a lot of women who are like, I'm just gonna forgo partnership, or even looking for it because of the stress of dating. They're constantly disappointed. I just turned 40, I'm single, and the only thing that there is to do is to just really build a life that you can be proud of. Someone had actually recently asked me on Instagram, "Do you have any advice for women 35+ who are still looking for love?" And I'm like, I think we've exhausted the dating advice. What more is there to say that hasn't been said already? We're no better off. 

At some point you have to give in to the fact that love is still one of life's greatest mysteries. We don't know what's in store for us in this lifetime. I'm someone who very much does believe in fate, and that things work out the way that they're meant to, even if that means that we're going to be alone. That's the path for us to walk. Also, people fall in love everywhere at every age. So again, it's like you just have to focus on you and creating a life that you love and hope that things fall into the place where they're meant to. 

Vienna: It's a beautiful message, Chrissy. To build the life that you love, and to just keep putting energy into that, because that is so reciprocal. To build a life that you love, whether it's the things that you do every day that create passion for you, whether it's friendships that are incredibly meaningful. Whatever it is the service work that people do that is reciprocal. I think the trying to figure it out piece is the part that we set down, you know? It's like you said, love is still this thing that is unsolvable. I know people have lots of little one-liners, like, it finds you when you're not looking. It doesn't always work out that way, right? So can I put down needing to figure this out, and can I just live vibrantly? Can I just live in love even if that's not romantic love right now? We don't know when it's gonna show up. My gosh, I have seen chronically single people find love in their 50s. Again, being 40 now, I think back to when I was 30, and I also had gotten to the point where I was like, "If I don't get married…" 

I wanna talk a little bit about this hopefulness piece because I'm someone who is eternally optimistic. So I'm like no matter how bad things are, I still am of the mindset of like, "Well, things are gonna work out for me.” But I do think that there is a part of me that also maybe needs to hold just, like, a little bit, that there's a reality that maybe there isn't this soulmate for me. So is it possible to have too much hope? That's the question that I'm sitting with. Even at 40, I'm like, "Well, I still have plenty of time." 

Vienna: In this case it sounds like you're hopeful and you're keeping your heart open and that's not a problematic thing. I think when a relationship has ended and the person is gone, and you're like, “I think they're gonna come back, and if I just—" Engaging in hopefulness where it causes more suffering for a person is where we need to be really careful. But if your hopefulness doesn't cause you suffering, it causes you to stay positive…

Yeah it's not attached to anything. I just have hope. 

Vienna: Which I think is beautiful. I would encourage you to keep that. Obviously it's nuanced, in every scenario it can be a bit different, but not being positive also doesn't have to mean that someone becomes negative. You can just connect to truth or to neutrality. For example, for people who are asking that question you don't have to just go from positive to everything is not gonna work out for me. I don't think that really serves much either. Can I be connected to truth? If that's what it's calling for? Maybe there is a neutrality in which I need to feel and experience. I also need to check whether my hopefulness is actually causing more problems for me or not.

While I was at Milan Design Week I was out and flirting with guys, and nothing came of it, but it just felt so energizing to my soul. I was like, "Oh, my god, I need flirting like I need oxygen." 

Vienna: Well, it creates an aliveness. Right? You feel alive in your body even without there being an outcome connected to it. 

I’m just in it for the love of the game.

Vienna: How beautiful. Like, I don't need to cling to something. I get to just be. Again, it's like putting the mind down and allowing oneself to be and enjoy and find the pleasures in, in this case flirting. In some other cases, just talking to people. An intellectual conversation with somebody without it needing to mean something or go somewhere. Loving life, enjoying the moments, making your mind sort of hit pause and letting the being really come forward. So I love that you had that experience.

When it comes to dating advice on the internet, there's one phrase that won't die which is, "If he wanted to, he would." Can we unpack that a little bit? 

Vienna: I'm not a fan of that sentence. We fall back on that too much. Let me flip the script for a moment, okay? So, if she wanted to stop dating emotionally unavailable men, she would. 

There you go. 

Vienna: You could flip that script to make it work for any single person who is listening to this show. What we were saying is that sometimes a person desperately wants to do something. They wanna show up better. They don't wanna disappoint someone. They hate that feeling, and yet there is some within their capacity, what their nervous system is able to tolerate that moves it from “don't want to,” to “can't.”

I remember the first time a therapist of mine said—we were talking about a family member—and I kept saying, "He just won't.” She was like, "Vienna, he can't." 

I remember something shifting internally for me in a really big way. I said, "What do you mean he can't? What does that even mean?" Well, if your nervous system cannot tolerate doing the thing that you are asking them to do… why can't you just be vulnerable for me? Why can't you just open up and share? Why can't you just do that? I don't think you want to because if you did, if you cared about this relationship, you would just do it. Okay, but then if we go back into that person's history and we look at their childhood, maybe what we'll find is that they grew up in a family system where any time they shared any emotion, they were mocked or ridiculed or any time they shared emotion, another person in the family would kind of one-up them and be like, "Well, I have it worse." 

When you have these experiences it moves the sharing of the vulnerability into an unsafe space. So I just override it. If you cared enough you would, is not actually how it works. Now, can that person go to therapy and work on healing the stuff from their childhood? Yes, if they want to. But also they have to have the capacity to do that too. 

It's not about saying, oh we have to have all the grace and compassion in the world, and there's no accountability, responsibility or ownership. I'm a middle of the road gal, and I really think we need to touch on both. But yes, I'm a strong believer that sometimes, probably more, more likely than we'd like to give it credit, people can't. It's not that they don't want to. 

I think capacity being the key word. It’s something that I think is lost on the masses right now. And that's why a phrase like, "If he wanted to, he would," is allowed to flourish because people don't realize that just because someone likes you and cares about you doesn't mean that they are able to show up for you in the way that you need or that you want them to.

Vienna: Or the way that they want to by the way. Sometimes I'll listen to people and they talk about who they want to be in the world. I wish that sometimes people could listen in on therapy sessions where you really hear the ache, the pain. Some people don't care, and they'll go around hurting people. But, most people are in terrible pain seeing the way that they cause others hurt and pain. Building that tolerance of being able to sit with, "Okay, I have hurt this person. Let me excavate this. Let me really dissect this and build. What do I need to learn how to tolerate more of in order to be a better partner to this person? Let me start there." So it's easy to categorize people and throw everybody in one bucket. I don't think that that helps us much. It's also just not psychologically true either. 

I don't know that I can generalize this, but I'm going to anyway. I think a lot of times for women it feels like, if we really like someone, we will move mountains for them. We will transform ourselves to be with someone, but men don't really seem to be able to do that. And that could also largely be connected to the way that men have been socialized. So I think a lot of times women are like, "Well, I'm able to show up and do this and do this and do this for him, but, like, he can't do that for me." So then it gets tied up in their self-worth. Even for me, something I used to struggle with so much was like, "Well, if he really liked me, he would do this. If he really liked me, he would do that," because I was constantly looking for proof that I wasn't worthy. 

Vienna: I know. It's so painful. You know, girls have historically been socialized to please and do and fix. There's just so much of that. I think we can sometimes get trapped in the narrowness of it at times too. I'd be so curious to hear what men have to say about like, "Well, I'm doing all of this for you." Well, are we actually giving you what you (in a heterosexual relationship) actually want? I think sometimes we're like "I'm doing all of this." And guess what? 90% of it is not what they care about at all. 

So we're like, "Look at how much I am doing. Look at all of this," and they're like, “Yeah ... that's great, but I could do without it and actually be totally unaffected by it."  So I think sometimes we're swinging for the fences in the wrong ways, and we are overextending ourselves. "Look at how much I remembered about this, and you know I'm doing this and this and this." They're like, "That's not what I look for in a partner," you know? 

Of course, this is relational, so we need you over here to communicate and share what it looks like to love you well. We also need you to open up and understand what it looks like to love us well, and be in conversation around that so that we're not just swinging the bat and not really hitting it. Otherwise we're just holding this story of like, "I do so much for you" and they're like, "Yeah, but I don't care about the majority of that." 

I think that happens so much because women are just trained to think that the more you do for them, the more they will feel like they can't live without you or that they need you because you've showed up in all these different ways. I think that's something that I was very mindful about not doing in my last relationship. I don't need to go above and beyond. But I am a very considerate person, and I think that was also a little point of contention for me. I feel like I'm very considerate and you're not really returning it. 

Vienna: It could be interesting for people who are in a relationship to take that inventory with a partner to say, ‘Hey, look, I'm doing all of this. What of these things do you actually care about?" I would be curious to hear what your followers report back, because I don't think all that we do is actually landing and making a splash. What happens if you can earn back some of that energy and time? Granted, I think also some of it is that we enjoy doing it. I know I'm doing this for the collective we, but you don't care at all. Take that inventory and see, because maybe there is a place that you can pull some of that back.

Next time I wanna have you and your husband on. Can you talk a little bit about what he does? 

Vienna: So Connor runs a men's mental health organization called Man Talks, and he works with one-on-one clients, but he also leads men's weekends and has an online community of about 1,000 men. The work that Connor does is beautiful. I'm biased, I know, and I've just never seen somebody work the way that he works with men. It's a lot of deep shadow work, Jungian work. But what I think is so powerful is that it's a group of men who are really interested in being great fathers and being great partners and being good men in the world. There's a lot of accountability, there's openness, and vulnerability to talk about where they are struggling in their lives and to actually have community and support because we know that men tend to be quite lonely and have really high rates of suicide. So it's a really beautiful space for men to come together and not walk the hard alone.

Another thing on the internet that I would love to unpack with you is limerence, because that is the buzzword du jour. Everyone is talking about it. Everyone wants to conflate having a crush with limerence. I'm like, "Why are we doing this?" I have experienced limerence, and I'm like, "You don't want this." 

Vienna: No, a crush and limerence are different. Crush is just a strong attraction, and we don't wanna conflate the two, because we wanna be able to have strong attractions with people. It's fun to have crushes. Limerence is an intense, involuntary state of romantic and emotional obsession. It's very different from a crush, and it involves iintrusive thoughts, a lot of emotional highs and lows. It's a lot of idealization of the other individual, especially very quickly into the relationship or the meeting with the person. Then a lot of sensitivity to small signals, like trying to make sense of everything, and I think I saw somewhere you were like reading people's charts, trying to do a deep dive into that person to figure out what our compatibility is, and doing everything in your power.

Or just wanting to understand them. Because if I understand them, then maybe I can be what they need. Romantic obsession is something I really struggled with in my 20s and a very tortuous situationship I had on and off for three years. There was this strategy that if I just stick around long enough, if we just hang out one more time, if this little thing happens, then maybe he'll see. Maybe he'll choose me. That was actually 10 years ago. So that was the complete catalyst for me becoming who I am today. It took a long time. But I don't know what would've happened or how I would've gotten here without that. 

Vienna: Totally, it circles us back to where we started today, which is, I don't know that I'd save her, you know? Is it actually saving a person if they need to walk the path that they need to walk? Sure, can I pull back on this little area and save you from this one disastrous night or something like that? Okay. But a lot of times, the majority of us need to hit a rock bottom moment that wakes something up, that shakes something, that says, "Okay, no longer." Of course, if we had the magic wand, we wouldn't need to hit the rock bottom moment, but, you know, most of us do. So it sounds like it was a very important teacher for you, and you credit so much to that time. 

Completely. When I had crushes, I spent so much time fantasizing about a relationship, a life with them, that since I've healed a lot of that stuff, now I don't fantasize if I'm dating someone. I realized that you have to fantasize because it's not real. So you have to fill in the blanks because you don't really have anything else to go off of. And I remember actually last year I met this guy. It was one of those moments where it’s this instant connection with someone. We exchanged numbers and talked about seeing each other, and when I went to bed that night, I found myself falling back into the fantasy. And in the back of my mind, I was like, "Oh, it's not going anywhere." And I never heard from him. 

Vienna: It's important work to catch ourselves when we're aware of it, to catch ourselves doing it. We can accept that limerence is a psychological state and not a truth. We have to reality test things. Look, sometimes fantasizing about a future with someone gives you hopefulness and all that. But you can't love someone without knowing them. Loving someone is knowing someone. And there's more to it, of course. It requires choosing and et cetera. We don't know people when we first meet them. We don't know people even in the first couple of months. Some of it moves faster than others, of course. Some of us come to love sooner, we have open hearts. But we can't love someone in the beginning because we don't know them.  So I think reality checking and testing these things that say, "Oh I feel a spark here," or, "I'm physically attracted to this person," or, "This conversation was so deep, and I've never really felt something like that with that person before. I am intrigued." 

Can I hold myself? Doing some nervous system regulation to not run off into that fantasy land of what it means when I just had a deep conversation with someone. All it means is that you had a deep conversation with somebody that you never had before. That's actually all that it means. You have to let the rest of it unfold. Whether that means this is gonna be my partner for life, TBD right? We gotta date. We gotta spend time together. We gotta get to know each other. So, just connecting to the facts, connecting to the truths that are in front of you, instead of becoming the meaning maker of what all of these things are. I get it, the hopeful part and the part that wants to be in a relationship or whatever it is wants to masterfully put these details together to say, "Okay, I never experienced that, and then this happened, and then that happened, so this is what this has to mean." I hate to pop the bubble, but I'm gonna do it. It doesn't mean any of it. All it means is what is factual about the experience. Let the rest unfold or not unfold. 

I'm glad you mentioned self-regulation because I really feel like my life has changed in the last, like, three years, because I learned how to self-regulate. I really built a trust with myself that I can support myself, and I can hold myself through difficult moments. How do you help someone learn how to self-regulate? Are there techniques and tips that you generally suggest to people? I've obviously experimented and know what works for me. 

Vienna: It's so personal, right? What works for me might not work for the next person. I think sometimes it's a good place to start with a mild dysregulation. So, even thinking about what dysregulation feels like in my body. If you are afraid of spiders or heights, or there is a really annoying thing that a partner does or a friend does, even just bringing that into focus for a moment. Does your heart start to beat a little bit faster? Are your palms sweaty? Irritation in your throat or your chest? Maybe your foot starts to tap. Just notice the sensations in your body that start to happen when you are in dysregulation.

Now, I wanna say, dysregulation gets such a negative rap. My favorite reframe of dysregulation is that it is active self-protection. We don't have to look at it as bad or we gotta get away from it as quickly as possible. It’s information. Sometimes we actually need to stay in the dysregulation. Ideally, not for long, but sometimes our anger needs to come forward. Sometimes the betrayal that we're feeling—we need to sit with it. 

Of course we don't want to stay in that forever. We want to move to a state of regulation where there's more calm, peace, and anchoring in our bodies. One of my favorites is a visualization of your favorite place in the world: a beach, a forest, or a hike. Transport yourself there. Close your eyes. Feel the breeze on your face, the sunshine on your skin, hear the waves crashing, the sand beneath your toes, and the birds chirping. Take yourself there and notice what happens to your state. Maybe you feel like there's less tension in your chest, your hands open, and they're no longer gripping. You feel this anchor from your core down to the ground, into the earth. Being in nature is incredibly regulating for us. Moving our bodies. Sometimes it's a workout, a walk, stretching. For some people, listening to grounding music does the trick. Picking up the phone and calling a friend who's really a source of grounding for you. Not somebody who's gonna stir the pot or who's also chronically dysregulated. Cuddling your pet. You can sway from left to right, right to left, ever so gently. There are a number of different regulating tools that we can enlist. We want to try to stay connected to ourselves, as opposed to disconnecting from ourselves. 

Yeah, I remember one time, my best friend, who pratices IFS therapy, was on the phone with me while I was dysregulated, and so she was instructing me to lay down, and she was like, "Where are you feeling it in your body?" It's always in my stomach. And she was like, just acknowledge the feeling and just sit with it. As soon as I really acknowledged just within myself what I was feeling, it started to dissipate.

Vienna: Our pain often wants to be seen. When we can sit with it without the judgments or the critiques of it and just sort of pull up a chair to it and get to know it for a moment. It's really powerful. Anything that wants to be seen can be released. Just sitting with these younger parts of ourselves is a beautiful, kind, generous, compassionate way to, not say the pain has to go away, and this dysregulation needs to leave immediately.

I see a lot of people online talking about being detached when it comes to dating. I think that's a lot easier said than done. What do you think about that as an approach to dating? 

Vienna: I don't love it. I think it's nuanced. You know, it's like creating emotional distance from the unhealthy dependence, great. But you have to be so careful about it tipping into this space where you're like, "I don't care about anything," you know? And it's like, oh, we, we don't wanna swing the pendulum. As you said, easier said than done anyway. You're sort of, like, faking it. 

Wait until you get activated!

Vienna: Love ask us to risk things over and over and over again. There's no way around that. Now, can you pull yourself out of something, if you notice the limerence, if you notice an obsession, practice, "Hold on. What are the facts? What is true here?" Like, that could feel like you are detaching from this other story. Great. But my advice would be to really try to let yourself be and feel what is there when it's within the realm of healthy. Your heart starts to beat around someone. If you close yourself off and you're like, "I don't care.” I'm gonna play it cool," Gosh, I did that for so long. 

It doesn't work. 

Vienna: If your goal is to protect yourself, and that's the only goal sure, go for it. But if that’s not the goal, you're gonna need to pull yourself back in ever so slightly. If you felt something, try that on for a moment and see how that works. “I would like to see this person again.” Try it on. Maybe you don't see the person ever again, and you're like, "I'm a little disappointed.” Okay. Maybe you see them again, and you're like, "That was great. That was a fantastic decision." Just try to inch your way back in a little bit so that you allow your heart to stay moderately open, and to trust yourself to get through these things. I know some stories are awful and absolutely horrific. Again, probably the majority of our stories are hard and tolerable. We gotta tolerate that a bit and be able to keep that heart open and notice, am I needing more safety? Protection? Or can I inch in a little bit more? So just noticing that and naming that with yourself.

In line with that, cut-off culture has become so rampant. I just saw someone had posted on Threads, like, "I'm proud of myself for blocking this man after he disappointed me once." Of course, we don't know exactly what he did, but as one of my favorite therapists in the past said to me, "Humans are inherently disappointing." You're never gonna meet someone who never disappoints you. 

Vienna: If you're with somebody long enough, you will undoubtedly walk through the flames many, many, many times over. I think it's the reality of what a long-term relationship entails. You will face hardship together, and you'd better be able to tolerate some stuff because it's not going to be a walk in the park. I do think that we're quick to cut off. Of course, we have no clue what this person's experience was. But I would say that we don't know how to tolerate or even communicate or see how the person responds to this, it's like we are gonna have hardship and disappointment after hardship and disappointment throughout life. Sometimes it's between the two of you, and sometimes it's things outside: losing a parent, fertility issues, financial challenges. We need to be able to hold that and move through that together. But we're also looking for the capacity in the other to do that as well, of course. 

So many gems today. Final question, what's bringing you joy right now? 

Vienna: I'm looking out the window right now, and I'm in Upstate New York, and everything is starting to bud. It's one of my favorite times of year up here, because the birds are chirping, and all the leaves are coming out, and some of the flowers are flowering. That brings me so much joy to just live in nature and to watch it all unfold every year. 

This week’s giveaway is only open to paid subscribers.