What if I Never Find True Love? | Ep. 431

In this heartfelt episode, Kimberley Quinlan and relationship therapist Elizabeth Shaw explore how to manage the anxiety, grief, and pressure that often come with dating and the fear of never finding love.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

• Why the fear of being alone feels so intense—and how to soothe the anxiety it brings
• Two very different ways dating anxiety can show up—and the personalized strategies that help
• How to let go of the pressure to find “The One” and focus on real, meaningful connection
• What to do when you’re constantly being ghosted, even when you’re doing everything “right”
• How to handle the emotional toll of watching others find love while you’re still searching
• Tips for calming your nervous system before a date—even when you’re a 10/10 on the anxiety scale

What If I Never Find True Love? How to Cope with Relationship Anxiety

Relationship anxiety is one of the most painful and common fears people experience—whether you’re single, dating, or in a relationship that feels uncertain. In this episode of Your Anxiety Toolkit, I’m joined by the brilliant Elizabeth Shaw to talk about managing the fear of never finding love and how to cope with dating anxiety, rejection, and hopelessness in relationships.

Why the Fear of “Never Finding Love” Hurts So Deeply

This fear often feels like a core need. Love and partnership are not just desires—they’re tied to our identity, self-worth, and sense of belonging. When love feels out of reach, it can trigger intense anxiety and grief.

Elizabeth reminds us: It makes sense this fear is painful. You’re not being dramatic. You’re experiencing what feels like a threat to a basic human need.

Two Types of Dating Anxiety—and What to Do About Them

Elizabeth breaks down how dating anxiety can show up in different ways and how to tailor your response accordingly.

1. Avoidance & Shutdown Mode

You deeply want a relationship but feel paralyzed. The thought of rejection or being seen is too much.

Try This:

• Take tiny steps. Start by looking at dating apps without creating a profile.
• Try creating a profile but don’t engage—just get used to seeing what’s out there.
• Focus on reducing the intensity of the fear, not eliminating it.
  

2. Overactivation & Burnout

You’re dating constantly, ignoring red flags, and feel stuck in a loop of unfulfilling or painful experiences.

Try This:

• Limit time on dating apps. For example, only check twice a day.
• Shift your energy into friendships, hobbies, or places where you feel meaning and connection.
• Remember: meaningful connection can happen outside of romantic relationships too.

Is There Really “The One”?

Short answer? No, and that’s actually freeing.
Elizabeth shares that while love can feel magical, the idea of “The One” often creates perfectionism and anxiety. Instead, focus on:

• Someone who’s a good partner to you
• Shared values, mutual care, and a willingness to grow together
• Letting go of unrealistic expectations that love should look like a rom-com

You’re Not Too Awkward or Broken—You’re Just Human

Anxiety makes us hyperfocus—on the other person, on ourselves, on getting everything right. But real connection happens when we allow ourselves to be authentic, not perfect.

Elizabeth reminds us: “If we don’t act like ourselves, we might end up in a relationship built on a checklist—not on real connection.”

What If You Keep Getting Rejected or Ghosted?

This is one of the hardest truths: sometimes, you’re doing everything right, and it still hurts. You might be showing up authentically, setting boundaries, and expressing yourself—and still face rejection.

That doesn’t mean you’re doing anything wrong.

When this happens, try:

• Grieving the pain of unmet expectations
• Naming the loss without blaming yourself
• Validating that it’s okay to feel disappointed, frustrated, or heartbroken

Grief and Comparison: When Everyone Else Is Getting Married

Social media can make dating anxiety worse. Engagements, baby showers, and perfect love stories flood your feed. Meanwhile, your own story might feel stuck or invisible.

Here’s how to protect your peace:

• Set boundaries around social media. Limit exposure to announcements that trigger pain.
• Acknowledge the dialectic: you can feel happy for others and sad for yourself at the same time.
• Find community with people at a similar life stage to share the journey with.

What If I’m 10/10 Anxious on a Date?

You’ve worked hard to get to the date—but your anxiety is spiking. What now?

Before the Date:

• Soothe your nervous system: Try deep breathing, progressive muscle relaxation, or a creative outlet like journaling or art.
• Move your body: A walk or light exercise can complete the stress cycle and signal to your body that you’re safe.

During the Date:

• Allow awkwardness to happen—it’s human!
• Practice noticing your anxious thoughts without believing them
• Focus on connecting, not performing

When You’re Feeling Hopeless: Reclaiming Hope & Connection

Elizabeth offers two powerful paths to finding hope again:

1. Self-Compassion First

Let yourself say: “This is painful, and it makes sense that I feel this way.” Be gentle with yourself in the moments of grief or loneliness.

2. Hope Isn’t Certainty—It’s Possibility

You may not know when or how love will happen, but you can choose to stay open. Keep connecting with others, trying new things, and showing up as the real you.

Final Takeaway: You Are Lovable—Exactly as You Are

You don’t have to be perfect to be loved. You don’t have to “fix” yourself to deserve connection. Whether you’re deep in dating anxiety or navigating grief about where you hoped you’d be by now, you are not alone.

And no matter how uncertain things feel, there’s always space for hope.

Want more relationship wisdom?
You can find Elizabeth Shaw at elizabethshaw.com or on Instagram @LizListens. Be sure to check out her books I Want This to Work and Till Stress Do Us Part.

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Transcription: What if I Never Find True Love?

Kimberley: Hello my friends. Welcome back to your Anxiety Toolkit, the show where we talk about how to build a life you love while managing anxiety, OCD, panic and all of the challenging emotions that come with it. My name is Kimberley Quinlan, and today we’re tackling one of the biggest fears so many of us face, which is what if I never find true love?

Whether you’re single or feeling hopeless, struggling with dating anxiety or stuck in a relationship that doesn’t feel quite right, relationship fears can feel overwhelming. The fear of being alone, the pressure of timelines, the exhaustion of putting yourself out there, it’s a lot, and that’s why I’m so thrilled to have Elizabeth Shaw with us today.

Elizabeth is a renowned relationship therapist and author who has helped countless people navigate love, dating, and partnership with wisdom and self-compassion. So no matter where you are in your love journey, this conversation is for you. We’re here to bring you some assurance and tools and maybe even change the way you think about love.

One that’s a little less pressured and a lot more helpful. So thank you, Elizabeth, for being on the show.

Elizabeth: Thank you for having me.

Kimberley: Alright. This has been one of the most requested topics and it’s a topic that I did not feel confident tackling on my own. So thank you for being here.

Elizabeth: Yeah. Well thank you for being here too, because this is a difficult one. So hopefully we can tackle it together.

Kimberley: Um, yeah. Yeah. I mean, I can do all the things anxiety, but this is one where I really genuinely, like, I don’t know all the answers and I feel like I’m not as in touch with the solutions here. So I’m so grateful you’re here. Let’s sort of get to this main core fear that people have, which is that they fear that they won’t find love or true love. How can someone manage the anxiety of feeling like true love—or finding this idea of “the one”—is out of reach?

Elizabeth: Well, I want to start by saying that I think this is… it’s really challenging to navigate the feelings around, you know, what if I never find somebody? What if I’m alone forever? Because number one, for many people it feels like it’s a core need. So with other anxieties—like, what if I don’t get this job? Or what if I don’t… you know, whatever it is—you might be able to navigate around it not being a core need. Right? You might be able to say, well, the worst case scenario is that I never do that or that my boss yells at me or whatever it is. But the “what if” here feels very embedded in a core need for many people, right?

And so the “what if” is: Well, if I don’t meet anybody, then I’ll be alone. And that is truly a big fear for me. It’s something that feels like, if I’m alone for the rest of my life, is that going to meet these desires that I have for life?

So I always like to start when people come into the therapy room by saying: it makes complete sense that this is painful for you. It’s challenging, it’s overwhelming, and it could cause a lot of distress because it might feel like it’s related to a deep core need.

With that being said, there are ways that we can figure out how to manage the intensity of the anxiety that’s related to that fear. So we’re not saying you’re not going to feel any anxiety about it ever, right? What we can say is, let’s figure out how to deal with the intensity. Like your fear that you’re never gonna meet somebody—what is that like for you? What are some of the intense thoughts and feelings that come up for you physically, mentally? Let’s talk about those things first and then let’s talk about some ways that we can reduce the intensity, because I’m never gonna talk somebody out of being anxious about it. If they really want to meet somebody, I’m not going to say, you’re never going to feel anxious. You’re going to be completely zen. There might be a small population of people that say, I could feel completely zen about never having that.

And what we can say is we can feel anxious about something, sad about something, worried about something, and not have it take over our lives.

Kimberley: So how—I love that you’re talking about the intensity, because I think it is, it’s a value-based fear. Meaning like it’s in line with their values to have a partner. It’s what they want. How can someone manage that intensity?

Elizabeth: I think that it also depends on how their anxiety is presenting itself. If we’re thinking about relationships, the way that anxiety presents itself—there’s usually a few different ways.

One is that some people feel completely kind of collapsed and frozen under the anxiety. So you might see somebody who is saying, “I really want a partner, but I cannot put myself out there. Like, I will not put myself on a dating app. I just… I can’t even fathom what it would be like to be rejected or to be seen. That is too scary for me.”

And so you have somebody that desperately wants this thing, but they feel so overwhelmed by the anxiety of it that they aren’t actually doing anything to engage in it. And with this type of person, you want to help empower them. Number one, we can soothe some of these responses so that you’re not feeling so collapsed anymore—so that you feel like even if it’s a little scary, we can control the odds a little bit.

So if we can get somebody empowered, what are some things that are a little less scary to do? I know it feels really scary to go on the dating app, but would it feel a little less scary to just look at a dating app? Like, make a fake profile and scroll through and see who’s there. And give these little steps to this person who feels completely overwhelmed and shut down.

We also have people who feel very anxious about, “Am I never gonna find somebody?” And what happens to them is they’re very activated by their anxiety. And so they are always on the dating apps, and they are going on all the dates, and somebody treats them like crap and they date them for a very long time because, “I’m not gonna find anybody.” And they kind of can’t figure out, “Why am I in all of these horrific relationships?” And their fear is like, “Oh my God, I might just have a lifetime sentence of these horrible people where I’m dating, and then like two months in they ghost me or whatever. But I’m so anxious that I still talk to them the next week,” or whatever it is.

And so with them there’s kind of, “Can we start to think about life in broader terms? Can we think about where else are you deriving pleasure? Where else are you feeling connected?” Because this is a value of connection, right? And are you making any space for that?

And so with one type of anxiety—we’re… and I would love to hear like kind of some of the things that you would tell people to manage the sensation of it—but with one type, we’re like, how do we lean in in very small, very safe ways where we can safety check? We can say, “Alright, I’m very afraid of rejection. So what if I just look at first and notice how that feels in my body, just to see who’s there. I can make a fake account for a little bit and then maybe the next time I make a real account, but I don’t have to engage. I just see what that feels like.”

But then on the other side, it’s “What does it feel like to pull back a little bit? What does it feel like to say, ‘I’m really afraid that I’m never gonna meet anybody, and actually I’m so activated by this I’m putting so much energy into it.’ What would it be like if this week I said, I’m only gonna get on my dating apps twice a day instead of scrolling on them as if they’re Instagram?”

So that’s kind of like an initial answer to this very big question. But there’s a lot of different ways that this manifests, and depending on how it manifests is how we want to look at how do we help people.

Kimberley: Yes. And so I’m in the head of—I know a lot of my clients and my listeners—and I think the question they immediately have to this is this sort of urgency of like, “But is there the one?” Yeah. Like, is that a thing? Is it that there is one person and we have to find them? Sort of like the needle in the haystack kind of thing?

Or is it… because that idea creates a lot of anxiety. Even for me, thinking about like if I had to date and find the one—yikes. Like, how would I trust myself to know who that person would be? Yeah. Especially some of the people ask like they’ve been hurt in the past or there’s… yeah. You know?

So is there—I know it’s a personal decision, an idea—but is there the one? What are your thoughts on that?

Elizabeth: Yeah, I think it’s a great question. And I think when people are suffering under this pressure of “I need to find somebody,” that idea is usually very prevalent. So there’s kind of this layer of perfectionism in there, which we know goes hand in hand with anxiety, right?

So there’s this idea of: if I do this the right way, I present myself the right way, or I read the red flags the right way, or whatever, it’s… I’m gonna find the one. So now I have this meta level of pressure on top of me, and I’ve added a new layer of anxiety. So not only am I afraid I’m gonna be alone forever, but I’m also afraid I’m gonna pick the wrong person. And so you kind of get pummeled under the weight of that.

I’ve worked with hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of couples. So I’ve seen people once, and I’ve worked with individuals who are in the place where the listeners are right now—“I’m never gonna meet anybody.” And then I’ve also worked with them once they meet somebody and they marry them and they’re with them.

And what I can say is: there is not “the one.” There are a lot of different people in the world that could work as your partner. And that takes some of the romance out of it, right? And in those early days, we need that romance ’cause it motivates us and it builds these good feelings that are like, “Yes! I want to be with you forever ‘cause you’re the only one I could ever love.” And that’s not a bad thing to feel that when it’s happening, necessarily.

However, if the idea is giving you anxiety, I think it’s really important to recognize that what the one is—ideally, when I’m looking at couples who come to couples therapy—is a person who’s going to be a good partner to you. And there are so many people out in the world who can be a good partner to you specifically. And there are many people who will not be a good partner to you specifically and will be a good partner to somebody else.

But instead of us hyper-focusing on these feelings that we’re gonna have of excitement and love and da-da-da-da (which I hope for everybody to have—it feels good), what you really want to think about is the vast number of people out there who would be a good partner. Someone who wants to work with you on life goals. How does life feel day-to-day? Someone who wants to accept your love. Someone who wants you to make their life feel better as well. Someone who has some of the same values and goals as you.

And so there’s not the one. And I’ve met with many couples who… they’ve met the one, and—this might add more anxiety—they’ve met the one, and then six years later that person is not the one anymore.

Kimberley: Yeah.

Elizabeth: And there are many people who meet the one and six years later that person is the one. And the more that people hyper-focus on, “Am I getting it perfect?” “Am I having the exact feelings that TV tells me I should have?” or “Did I read enough into their dating profile?” or “Are they giving me red flags?”—the more that you do that and you don’t allow yourself to get to know people and connect with people over Would you be a good partner in a human way? (not in a supernatural way, in a human way), the more you hyper-focus on it, the fewer options you’re going to have.

Kimberley: I’m so relieved that you say this. I was actually worried that you were going to say like, “Yes, there is the one, keep going, find them.” But you know, I’m pretty open on the podcast—like, I’ve been married for 22 years. I love my partner, but we choose to be married every day. That’s why we’ve stayed married—not because it was easy. We just keep choosing to stay married.

And for me, I love the idea of the romance and the fantasy and all of that, but the real safety, I think, is being with someone where you’re willing to be growing together and be curious.

And I think for me, when I take the pressure off them being perfect and just focus more on how can I show up in a way that’s value-based and that is authentic to me, I get less perfectionistic, I get less nitpicky and anxious. Because I’m like, “No, I’ve got to control my side of this lane.”

And I have seen so many clients where, as they’re dating, they’re either so zoomed in on the person they’re dating—on checklists—

Elizabeth: Yes.

Kimberley: Or so zoomed in on themselves—on “Am I being perfect? Acting perfect? Not being awkward?”—and they’re missing the actual connection.

Elizabeth: Yes. I love that you just brought that up, because I think that what gets missed is what is real life actually going to be like?

Like, when you’re dating somebody and you’re zooming in on these checklists like, “Do I look perfect? Am I funny enough? Did I ask the right questions? I read a blog that said I shouldn’t have asked this on a first date—oh my God, what’s wrong with me?”

Or, “This person said something weird in the first text and I read something and it says they shouldn’t do that. Should I never see them again even though I’m interested?”

That’s not real life. You know? You’ve been married a long time. I’ve been married a long time. In real life, we’re dealing with life day-to-day. And I do not have the time anymore to be like, “Am I pretty enough today?” or “Did I ask the question in the perfect way when I was running out the door?” or “Did my partner do that?”

And I think that in some ways, our anxiety and this need to find a perfect partner—which I think is also very much fueled by our information age of like—

Kimberley: Yes.

Elizabeth: Oh gosh, there’s so much out here that’s saying, “If I don’t do it right, I’m going to end up miserable.”

And I think it takes us sometimes out of being real people with each other. Where like, okay, yes, if you’re awkward on a date, let’s just say the reality is that there might be a person who says, “That’s too awkward for me.” That is true.

And I think sometimes dealing with anxiety is actually looking at the worst-case scenario. So you go on that date and you say something real weird, or you ask a question that isn’t “meant” to be asked on a first date—and I’m putting “meant” to in quotes—yes, it’s possible that the person leaves and says, “Oh, that was so weird, I’m never going on a date with them again,” and sends you a text and says, “I didn’t feel it.”

Kimberley: Yeah.

Elizabeth: But does that mean that that person wouldn’t have worked with you in real life anyway?

And so when you say, “My worst-case fear is: If I don’t get it right—if I don’t act right, or I don’t pick them right—then I’m going to get rejected.” That actually shouldn’t be your worst fear.

Your worst fear should be: If we don’t both act like ourselves, to the best of our ability… we don’t want to put anxiety on that either, but if I don’t try to be me and just kind of notice how they feel in my presence and allow them to be them, then I’m going to end up in a relationship where it’s all about us matching each other’s checklists.

Living a life through what Instagram says or a blog says or whatever, or what my anxiety says. But like, can I actually—can I be my real self with this person? Because in 15 years, I’m certainly still going to say something awkward.

Kimberley: For sure. And isn’t that so true—that if we put on this perfect persona, you’re attracting someone who wants that perfect persona, not the imperfect, actual you.

Elizabeth: Yeah. Exactly. You know, like full disclosure—I used to have terrible anxiety in dating, so I can relate very much with this. All I wanted was a relationship and to be married and have babies, and I was hitting my 30s and hadn’t met anybody. And I was very anxious.

And so I was going on lots of dates and I was trying to be perfect. Right? What am I supposed to look like? What are the type of questions I should ask? Being very amenable to them—if they liked this food or if they wanted to go out at a certain time, I’d say yes because I just wanted to meet somebody.

And “What if I never meet anybody?”

And at some point, I started working on my own differentiation. Right? Like, I am me whether I’m with somebody or not with somebody. And how can I feel like me? How can I just be me?

And the second I started doing that, I actually started getting rejected way more. Like the other things—they weren’t like big rejections, right? We would go on a few dates and then maybe it would like simmer out because it wasn’t right.

But as soon as I started to be like, “Oh, I’m going to actually express my real opinion when somebody asks me something at dinner,” or “If they ask me, ‘Can you do 11 p.m. on a Friday because I’m a doctor and in residency and I can’t meet until 11,’ I would say no. Not because I’m just like you or I want to change you, but just it doesn’t work for me. I work Saturday mornings.”

As soon as I did that, I started getting a lot more messages of like, “I don’t think this is going to be a good fit,” or “I don’t know if we’re going to work out.”

And because I had been working on that ability to be differentiated, those messages didn’t sting very much.

And I had been putting so much work into avoiding that rejection before—

Kimberley: Yes.

Elizabeth: That I was like living in this state of pain all the time. Like, these people aren’t rejecting me, but I still feel it. I’m still afraid of it. And it wasn’t happening, but it still felt bad.

But the second that I was able to lean into like, “I’m going to take a deep breath, I’m going to hold onto myself,” I did start getting actual verbal rejections. And the pain wasn’t as bad as my fear thought it was going to be.

Kimberley: Oh, it’s so hard. It’s so painful because it—let me ask this more as a question. Would you agree that it hits on their core beliefs about themselves that they had before they were dating? Meaning like, “My body’s not right,” or “I’m not smart enough,” or “I’m not pretty enough,” or “I’m not girly enough.”

Or do you feel like that is why people are coming with this? Or is it because—I’ve had clients when I’ve talked to them about that—they’ll say, “No, it’s actually harder to date now.”

Elizabeth: Yeah, I think it’s both. I think sometimes the anxiety—and I’d like to hear your opinion too—I think sometimes the anxiety is actually related to… like dating is kind of the symbol.

Kimberley: Yeah.

Elizabeth: But the anxiety is really like, “I don’t look good enough. I’m not smart enough.” Like all of these things that have already been pain points—

Kimberley: Yeah.

Elizabeth: And they show up in this dating situation as like the symbol: “I’m afraid to date,” but really it’s because “I’m afraid I’m ugly,” or “I’m afraid I’m not lovable.”

Kimberley: Yes.

Elizabeth: Or something like that. And so with that, that’s also sometimes coupled—or not coupled—with the other experience of, “Actually, this has been really, really bad, and I’ve developed anxiety because of how genuinely bad the dating world is right now.”

Where I’m—I truly am treated poorly, and I am truly rejected for no reason that I can… I can’t even figure it out. Because I actually don’t have these other anxieties.

Kimberley: Yep.

Elizabeth: And that’s hard in the therapy room. That’s hard—like if I’m talking to somebody, it sounds like you’ve had similar—where it’s like, okay, if this is connected to a sense of “I’m not good enough,” we can work with that a little bit.

Kimberley: Yep.

Elizabeth: Like, okay, let’s focus on that.

But if it’s somebody saying, “I actually feel good enough. I don’t feel like I’ve been withdrawn or too anxious or I feel like I’ve presented a differentiated version of myself, but this experience has been so bad, now I… I just—I’ve lost hope.”

Kimberley: Yeah.

Elizabeth: And I’ve worked with a lot of people who I do believe that that is their experience.

Kimberley: That’s the hardest piece of this—as a clinician and as a friend, and I’m sure as the person suffering with this—is these are truly like the folks listening to this, my anxious, lovely community, like they’re usually all incredibly intelligent, funny—

Elizabeth: Yes.

Kimberley: Complete lovable people. Like, these people are so—

Elizabeth: Lovable! My clients—I’m always like, “I wish that you guys could like see each other in the waiting room and fall—”

Kimberley: I know! I know. I know all of you behind the scenes. And I even like your… you with your deep, dark secrets—

Elizabeth: I still—

Kimberley: I still would recommend you to somebody.

Elizabeth: That’s what I’m saying.

Kimberley: And so in my mind, when they say they’ve been ghosted multiple—a couple times or multiple times in a row—and they’re literally going, “Maybe I’ve talked to a family member or a friend,” and now they’re trying to think like, “What is it that I’m doing wrong?”

And all we can both come up with is like, “I really don’t think anything. I really don’t think you’re doing anything wrong.”

What would you say to that? What do we do when it doesn’t make sense in the dating world? Because I think our natural analytic mind is like, “Okay, there has to be an algorithm here. There has to be—if something has happened multiple times or I’ve been ghosted, or I’ve been rejected multiple times, it must—there must be a solution. There must be a problem.”

What is your thought?

Elizabeth: Yeah, I mean, I think that this is actually one of the hardest types of anxieties to get past because—like I was saying before—if there is something that feels algorithmic, there’s something you can work on, right?

If it’s like, “Okay, the reason I’m having trouble is because truly, my relational anxieties make me push people away. If I can work on bringing it in, having boundaries, whatever it is—maybe things will open up for me.”

Or, “I’m not confident enough in social situations—let me work on that.” That feels like, “Okay, I can change something.”

Kimberley: Yeah.

Elizabeth: But when I’m working with people where we do come to the conclusion of like, “Look, we’ve talked about this. I’ve been with you through it. You’ve shown me some of the messages. I don’t think you’re doing anything wrong, and I don’t know that being on more dating apps, or being on less, or saying it this way or that way is going to give you any sort of certainty…”

First of all, I think just validating: that is really hard. And it’s its own type of pain—to say, “Things are actually out of my hands in this, in some ways. Because I’ve done the work. I’m presenting how I want to be. I’m actually showing up as me—honestly, authentically. I’m not hiding.”

That this is my whole life—it’s just something that I think I’m showing up well with.

I think validating: “Well, that really sucks.” And it’s similar with a lot of different types of loss, actually.

Kimberley: Yeah.

Elizabeth: You’re not responsible for that loss. And so often with clients who are dealing with this, we talk about grief.

Kimberley: Yeah.

Elizabeth: You know, it’s like if somebody is struggling with fertility, for example, you might talk about grief where it’s like: “You aren’t causing this. You’ve done all the things. And I’m not going to be able to tell you some potion that’s going to change this for you.”

Kimberley: Yeah.

Elizabeth: In fact, it makes sense that you feel anxious. It makes sense that you feel sad.

And I think it’s similar in the dating world where it’s like: there’s not much else you can do to make this a certainty.

Kimberley: Yeah.

Elizabeth: And maybe—it doesn’t mean you’re never going to meet anybody. I think that’s important to remember.

But it’s also okay to say, “I’m 32 and I wanted to have kids by this point. I wanted to be in a marriage, and I’m not.”

Kimberley: Yeah.

Elizabeth: “And I want to grieve that.”

I’m not going to grieve that “I’m going to be alone forever,” because I don’t know that.

Kimberley: Yeah.

Elizabeth: But I’d like maybe to let that person grieve now about what they feel like they’ve lost in the here and now. And actually feel that.

I think sometimes when we have anxiety, it can be pent-up other feelings.

Kimberley: Mmm-hmm.

Elizabeth: So you’re feeling that anxiety, but also—what would happen if we just sat with how sad you are? That even though you’re showing up in a healthy way for yourself, for other people—it’s not working.

And that at 28, 32, 45, 60—whatever age you are—you thought things would be different.

Kimberley: Yeah.

Elizabeth: Yeah. I mean, that speaks to so much of this. I do agree that the anxiety and the grief go hand in hand, and often we stay in anxiety and trying to troubleshoot it so that we don’t have to feel the grief.

Kimberley: Mmm-hmm.

Elizabeth: And it brings me to a common question I get asked, which is, “Okay, let’s say we make space for the grief, but I’m constantly seeing on social media this one’s birth announcement, and this one’s engagement announcement, and the gender reveal, and all the things.”

It can be so hard. I think that grief and anxiety go hand in hand when you’re watching other people’s perfect, you know, role—instead of their imperfect role that we don’t see.

How might someone manage seeing other people’s success in this area when they’re struggling?

Elizabeth: It’s so hard because in these experiences, often you’re being pulled in multiple emotional directions. And then there’s this other layer of like how you feel about being pulled into multiple directions.

And so what I mean by that is, let’s say your friend calls you—it’s your best friend in the world. You love them so much. All they’ve ever wanted is to have a baby. And they call you and say, “I’m pregnant.” And you are feeling like you’re never going to meet anybody, and you’ve also always wanted a family and a child and all of those things.

And so in that moment, there’s a part of you that is thinking, “I should be really excited for my friend.” Or maybe in fact, “I am excited and happy for my friend, but it is overshadowed by my pain that’s being reflected in this message being sent to me.”

Like, I’m seeing this kind of mirror of where I wish I was, and I’m not. And it brings up this really incredible pain—anxiety, whatever it brings up. Anger, maybe even toward your friend. Like, “Why are you sharing this with me? You know I was just broken up with,” or “You know I’ve been struggling.”

And so you’re having this tension within yourself of like, “What is it that I’m supposed to feel right now? And should I feel shame about the primary feeling I’m having?”

And I work with a lot of people that are like, “I feel a lot of anger toward my friend for inviting me to another baby shower when they know I’m struggling.” But they also feel shame that they feel that, because they also love their friend.

And if they could step out of the anger or disappointment they feel for themselves, they think they would be celebrating them. And so now this feels really crappy all around.

Kimberley: Mmm-hmm.

Elizabeth: And I don’t like myself for that.

And so you’re having the feelings related to what’s happening, but you’re also then having feelings about yourself. And that is really challenging.

And when I’m working with people on this—and I’d also love to hear what you do because it’s so hard—it’s a lot of kind of dialectics, right?

Like, “Well, let’s peel apart the fact that you can actually feel a lot of different things.” Human nature is to say, “Well, which one am I feeling? I can only be feeling one.”

But what would it be like to say, “I feel angry with my friend and I also feel silly for feeling angry with my friend”?

Kimberley: Yeah.

Elizabeth: “I feel so happy for my friend. I can’t wait to meet their baby, I can’t wait to meet their fiancé—whatever it is—and it actually breaks my heart to think about meeting their fiancé. And I might cry when I go to their wedding for myself.”

Kimberley: Yeah.

Elizabeth: And so getting to that place with somebody—it’s like, you actually can feel all of these things. And what would it be like to just feel them? And let that person—and for anybody listening—let yourself cry that your friend has met a partner.

Kimberley: Mmm-hmm. Yep.

Elizabeth: And then also say to yourself, “Okay, what else do I feel here? Is there other space inside of me? This big space feels so sad. This small space feels happy.”

I think that when that doesn’t totally work, you can also talk about boundaries that you set—not with changing the person, but changing how you take in the information.

So, like, if you keep getting hit with social media—like, people you hardly know anymore—don’t get on and look at your high school friends on social media and then feel kind of sad.

So like, maybe all you can take in is the happiness happening for your best friend, not for the 10,000 people that you follow on social media.

So you might have to put limits on how much you give right now.

I’ve had clients who have had to be honest with their friends—

Kimberley: Yeah. I’m so—

Elizabeth: “I’m so happy for you. And also, I know you want me to be your maid of honor, but I want to be really honest that I’m just so depressed myself, that I don’t know if that role’s going to be perfect for me right now. And I want you to have a happy wedding, and I don’t want to ruin that. But I wonder if I could be in the bridal party instead, or be a guest celebrating you instead.”

But those are also hard conversations to have. But I would love to know your thoughts.

Kimberley: No, I feel really empowered by that. And it’s giving permission again. I think it comes from that perfectionism—this idea that “I’m supposed to handle this beautifully and well and be happy.”

But it’s okay for this to be really yucky and hard and to have grief and anxiety about it—because it is anxiety-provoking and very sad.

As well as that, I’ve also encouraged my patients and clients to find friends who are at the same stage as you. So that you’re in community with other people—

Elizabeth: Yes.

Kimberley: And even if it means you show up lovingly to the wedding, but together you kind of roll your eyes together and joke about it.

And that’s okay. That’s not ill-hearted. That’s just… we’re commiserating on the dating. And we have someone to check in who’s also in this dating pool with me, or is also struggling with similar stresses.

So yes, I always sort of say, “If you can widen your community to having like-minded people, it can feel more validating.” Because I think a lot of this is… you feel alone. You feel like you’re the only one.

Elizabeth: Yes. And I think that’s so important with any life stage—to think about it as life stages. And we all go through them differently.

There’s no timeline. Regardless of the life stage you’re in, you’re going to need to find your people.

And I think that can also be really challenging. Sometimes it’s like, “Well, this friend is getting married and now I’m alone, and they’re with all these married people.”

And it’s like—well, yeah. Your friend probably needed to find other people that understood, or whatever it is. It doesn’t mean they’re leaving you in the dust.

But what it does mean is, you also need that type of community. People who are wanting to do the same things, need the same type of support, need to roll their eyes at the same types of things.

Like, your friend might need a friend they can roll their eyes about their partner with.

Kimberley: Yes.

Elizabeth: You need a friend you can roll your eyes with and say, “Oh my gosh, guess who just sent me a message that they’re engaged now. Another one bites the dust.”

And that friend can say, “Yeah, WTF.”

And then there will be other life stages that you go through, and you will need to meet people that meet you there too.

So just thinking of this as: “This is where I’m at in life, and I need people who are also there,” and trying to find those people.

Kimberley: Yes. This is so beautiful. I have one more question, and I’m sort of circling back, but I feel like we could finish here. But I actually—I think I have two questions.

Okay, one question I wonder if my listeners are asking is like, “Okay, I’m anxious. What do I actually do on the date if I’m 10 out of 10 anxious?”

Elizabeth: Ooh, that’s hard.

Kimberley: So what do you do on the date if you’re 10 out of 10 anxious? Like likely you’ve been amping up since before the date. You didn’t just become the 10 out of 10 the moment you got there. Maybe all day you’ve been thinking about it.

Elizabeth: First of all—really hard, uncomfortable. I think that as you are leading up to it, what are the practices that you’re doing physiologically for yourself before going on the date?

So often, the most uncomfortable part of anxiety is how it’s feeling in your body. Yes, you can deal with the thoughts more than you think you can, because the pain in your body—the discomfort—is telling you that you’re dying.

Kimberley: Yeah.

Elizabeth: That’s actually what’s happening. So whenever we feel that something is threatening—somebody, going on a date—can feel threatening. We are going to have a stress response to that, right?

And so if you feel that the date is so threatening that your body is translating that as, “I could die,” which I know sounds silly but is realistic—because anything relational can make your body think that—

Then what’s going to happen is you’re going to have all these stress hormones pumped into your body, and they are going to put you in fight, flight, or freeze. And you’re going to feel that leading up to whatever this threat is.

And so the first thing I tell people is, “Let’s pay attention to: how do you soothe that stress response first?”

So your body is thinking, “I’m in danger.” Your heart is pumping, your muscles are tensing, and your brain is going to start getting foggy because the only thing it should be focusing on is getting you to survive.

So when you hear it tell you, “Maybe I should cancel the date,” that’s just survival. It’s saying, “Play dead. Don’t go to the lion’s den. Just stay here and maybe nobody will see you and you won’t die.”

So instead, what I want you to try to do is think about just one of those body parts that is impacted by the distress and try to soothe it—heart, muscles, brain, lungs.

You’re going to say, “Okay, my lungs are impacted. I can tell that I’m feeling like I can’t breathe. I’m just going to sit here and I’m going to breathe.”

Because if I breathe, I’m telling my body that a lion isn’t waiting on that date to eat me—that I’m actually safe. I don’t need to run. I don’t need to play dead. I don’t need to fight. I can just be.

So you can breathe. You can do muscle relaxation, which is tensing all of your muscle groups—you can look this up online—tensing all your muscle groups and letting them go.

Or, you know, to deal with the brain, you can do some sort of creative endeavor leading up to the date—drawing, writing, listening to music.

And then dealing with the heart is letting your body know that you are actually moving in some way—exercising, it could be any type of exercise, taking a walk, yoga, going for a run.

So all of these things are helping you to complete that stress cycle. Your hormones spiked, they said, “You’re in danger.” Now you’re going to tell them, “I’m not in danger. Look—I’m breathing, I’m exercising, I’m drawing.”

These are things I would not do when I’m in danger.

So doing those types of things can help with that physiology.

Now the second thing that can be helpful is that as you’re dealing with that physiology, those thoughts are like running amuck:

“What if I say something weird?”
“What if this is terrible?”
“What if I freeze up and I can’t even speak?”

So just noticing those thoughts, and then letting them pass you.

You know, “I notice that I’m really worried that if I go on this date, I’m going to say something weird.”

Okay. I might say something weird.

“I notice that if I say something weird, I’ll never see the person again.” Maybe. And that might be the worst-case scenario.

But my biggest advice is always: deal with the physiology first.

Because the thoughts are there, and they might not go away until after the date. But if you can deal with the fact that your heart is beating so loud it’s in your ears, that’s going to help you feel a little more relaxed.

Kimberley: Yeah. Amazing. Thank you.

Okay—last question.

If someone is feeling hopeless about their love life right now, what is one thing you would want them to hear?

Elizabeth: Well, I think the first thing I would want them to hear is that I understand the pain related to not finding somebody to partner with.

You know, we are a species that likes to be with others. And we go from a primary home to wanting—many of us—to build some sort of secondary home when we grow up, right? Having that person.

And so I think first, you need to have compassion for yourself.

Compassion means telling yourself, “It makes sense that I feel this way.”

And, “I love myself. And I’m sorry that I feel this way. And I’m going to let myself feel sad and be gentle with myself on that.”

The second thing I think is really important though is to work on regaining hope—that you will find connection in life. Because this is about connection.

That feels good for you.

And part of that work is learning, “How do I feel really connected to myself?” Not as a replacement—I’m not going to be like, “Oh, it’s a replacement. You can love yourself, da da da…” You might still grieve that you don’t have that other person.

But how do you feel connected with yourself enough that you feel like, in all of your connections—romantic, friendships, whatever it is—that you’re you, and that you’re showing up as you?

And then second—to kind of regain some of this hope—how do you empower yourself to say, “Although I cannot control who I meet, when I meet them, if I meet them—what I can control is the way that I still put myself out into the world.”

And I can be hopeful because I don’t know the future.

I can be hopeful that if I am connected to me, if I show up as me, and if I keep making friends, showing up for hobbies, being open to meeting new people—that there is hope.

Because hope is not certainty.

Hope is different than certainty.

And you need to be able to lean into: “I feel uncertain… but I also feel hopeful.”

Instead of: “I need to be certain, or I’m completely hopeless.”

Kimberley: Again—that’s the dialectics.

Elizabeth: Yes.

Kimberley: You know, allowing two different things to be true at the same time.

Amazing. I cannot thank you enough. I’m so grateful that you are here to have this conversation. Again, everything you’re saying is in line with what I believe. I could not have articulated it the way that you did, so thank you.

Can you let us know where people can find you? Anything that you want to share about what you’re up to these days?

Elizabeth: Sure. So you can find me easily at my website, which is elizabethshaw.com, or on Instagram @lizlistens.

I have a Substack that goes out every single week that gives kind of relationship tools if you’re interested in that.

I’ve also written two books: I Want This to Work and Till Stress Do Us Part, and those are available wherever books are sold.

Kimberley: Thank you. Probably one of the most painful and difficult topics that seem to be circulating right now, so I am so incredibly grateful for your time.

Thank you for having me.

You guys—this concludes the month where we focus on social anxiety and relationships, and I hope that this recent episode hit exactly where you needed. So good.

If you haven’t listened to the other episodes in this month’s series about social anxiety, please do go back and listen.

Before we leave, let’s do the “I Did a Hard Thing” segment.

This one is from Just Root, which is @justruight on Instagram. They wrote:

“My wife and I went to dinner with friends we hadn’t seen in a while and then back to their place. Constantly I worried that things would get awkward, conversations might drizzle out, or I might do something wrong. I wanted to leave. But I first noted that this was what I was experiencing and then I practiced: maybe, maybe not. It might go bad, but it might not go bad. I value these friends and I’m going to stay. And we had so much warmth and laughter together. We then made more plans to meet up again. I avoided avoidance.”

I love that so much.

And then finally, we have the Review of the Week. This one is from Ari, and they said:

“Your voice and approach is like a warm hug. I love your saying that it’s a beautiful day to do hard things, which is such a kind motivator for me. Love the self-compassion approach because I can be hard on myself.”

I think we all can, Ari. And I hope that it has helped you in so many ways and brought so much joy and openness to your life.

Alright, my loves. I will see you in the next episode.

Please note that this podcast or any other resources from CBTschool.com should not replace professional mental health care. If you feel you would benefit, please reach out to a provider in your area.

Have a wonderful day, and thank you for supporting CBTschool.com.