337: The Queen Bee Phenomenon: A Delightful Love Story!

Amy and her "fab fiancé," Randy Kolin! Secrets of Flirting, Sex Appeal and True Love! Today Rhonda and David interview Amy Berner, who has fallen in love and has quite a story to tell! Today is Valentine's Day (we recorded this on February 14, 2023), so we thought a love story would be a ray of joy for all of you, whether you are in a loving relationship or still looking for one! But first, Rhonda and David briefly interview Jeremy Karmel, the co-CEO of David's Feeling Good App. Jeremy tells his dramatic personal story that led to the creation of the app, and solicits for people who might want to join us for beta testing, which has gotten very busy of late. David also present some amazing data from a small, four-week beta test in December involving around 45 beta testers. The findings appeared to indicate that beta users experience far greater warmth and understanding from the app than from the people in their lives, which is on the sad side, since at the time users applied for the app, they only estimated 55% (on a scale from 0 to 100) warmth and understanding from the people in their lives, and roughly 85% from the digital "David" they interacted with in the app. We'll see if those amazing findings hold up in two larger replication studies now in progress. If you think you might be interested in being a beta tester, please sign up at www.feelinggood.com/app. Rhonda also gave an endorsement for the upcoming second World Congress on TEAM-CBT in Warsaw, Poland this year, March 30-April 2, 2023. It sounds exciting. I will be there is a variety of capacities including conducting a personal session with Jill Levitt, PhD. Please check it out! And, as usual, she read a compelling comment from one of our regulars, Irish Brain, who wrote: "Another amazing podcast for the collection!" Amy Berner is a licensed marriage and family therapist who works with adults and teens online in California. She loves helping her clients heal from heartache, depression, and anxiety. You can find her at the FeelingGreatTherapyCenter.com. Amy's love story started at a women's group that Rhonda was also in more than a year ago. It turns out that Rhonda is quite the match-maker, and has arranged dates for large numbers of her friends and colleagues, including Amy. However, Amy was feeling insecure, as so many of us might, before this date. To help her, Rhonda suggested the Feared Fantasy Exercise, and asked Amy to list some of the things she was afraid her blind date might be thinking, but not saying, when they met. When you do the FF, one person plays the role of the "Date from Hell" who not only thinks these awful things about you, but gets right up in your face and says them. This list of awful things the Date from Hell might say included:

• "I'm just doing Rhonda a favor in dating you."
• "You look a lot older than your picture!"
• "I haven't gotten over my last relationship yet."
• "You're not smart enough."
• "You're just not very interesting."

We demonstrated the FF on the podcast, and Amy knocked them out of the park, using humor plus the Acceptance Paradox. She said that when they'd done that at the women's group, in greatly reduced Amy's fear and trepidation prior to their first date. Amy said she was also greatly helped by being in my small practice group the following Tuesday at our weekly psychotherapy training group. We were working on the "Interpersonal Downward Arrow," a technique I developed that quickly illuminates the roles people play in problematic relationships. Amy discovered that she was playing the role of the inadequate, inferior, insecure person, and this was illuminating. One bad thing about this role is that it quickly becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy because if you see yourself as inferior, you will chase, and come across as insecure, and that will cause the other person, in most cases, to reject you. David suggested a technique he described in his book, Intimate Connections (which you can see below). called the Queen Bee Phenomenon. Instead of playing the insecure role, you give yourself all kinds of positive messages about how sexy and awesome and desirable you are. Once you get into that mind-set, this mind-set can also act as a self-fulfilling prophecy. That's because of the Burns Rule, which states that in any relationship, especially at the start, one person will be the pursued, and the other person will be the pursuer. The pursued person has all the power, and the pursuer is usually rejected. So why not utilize the Queen Bee Phenomenon and let the guys chase you? This idea was transformative for our wonderful Amy, who is now happily, giddily, engaged, and she tell her story today with her typical wit, humor, and charm. She emphasized another important concept from Intimate Connections. Self-love has to come first. Once you chose to love and like yourself, your fear of being alone disappears, and you discover that you can be incredibly happy when you're alone. Then, you will no longer "need" men; and as a result, men will need and chase you. That's another expression of the Burns Rule which states: Men (all people actually) ONLY want what they CAN'T get, and NEVER want what they CAN get. So, if you don't "need" other people, they will have to chase you! And that's what happened! Rhonda, Amy, and David also reviewed the principles of effective flirting. 1, Be playful, and not heavy or serious. 2. Have fun. 3. Give playful, specific compliments. Amy has developed a game called "Flirty Dice" which helped her and many others. It is suitable for anyone 14 years or older and can be obtained at the Feeling Great Therapy Center. At the same time that her love life zoomed into orbit, her clinical practice did the same. This is common—when you become a source of joy, others just naturally are attracted to you. Kind of like human magnetism. Amy sees people virtually from all over California. She practices TEAM-CBT and specializes in the treatment of depression and anxiety, and of course, dating and relationship issues. So, if you want to give your love-life a kick-start, or recovery from rejection, contact her at babyfreud@gmail.com Thanks for listening today! Last month, (January 2023), we broke our one month download record (>182,000 downloads), so thank you for that. We will surpass 6 million downloads shortly. Rhonda, Amy, and David