PDM 009: COVID Make Me Love Again

Narrator: Welcome to the home of Project Dream Mastery. Here at PDM, we are challenging the status quo of what it means to follow your dreams, and how to unlock the power those dreams will bring to your life. The show experience will be unscripted, authentic, and transparent. So now sit back, relax, and get inspired with your hosts Lucas Johnson and Patryk Labuzek.

Lucas P. Johnson: COVID-19 has really crushed hopes and dreams during the last few months, but I think it is safe to say that one craving that is skyrocketing is desires. Desires for love, relationships, and social interaction. This episode is going to be juicy, so stay tuned for the details.

Lucas P. Johnson: Welcome to the ninth episode of the Project Dream Mastery show, where we help inspire you to follow your dreams, defy expectations, dream big, and love deeply. My name is Lucas Johnson, and I'll be your host today while Patrick is out. We originally planned to release an awesome episode with two incredible guests by the name of Sam Adonis, a professional wrestler, and Corey Johnson, a highly experienced professional with unique skills, and also my brother. Unfortunately we had some technical difficulties and that episode has been postponed until a new recording day can be set. So with that said, you are now listening to this awesome episode about relationships.

Lucas P. Johnson: This episode will be deeply personal and probably will make you think about your life and what you want for your future. So don't forget to subscribe to the podcast to be the first to receive new episode releases, and if you have any questions that you would like answered on the show, please tag us on Twitter or Facebook @ProjectDreamMastery. Just in case you were interested in the full experience, this episode is available with video, so check out our website at projectdreammastery.com to watch now.

Lucas P. Johnson: Due to the nature of how this episode came to be, and the current climate that we're facing, I couldn't have thought of a better topic to have an open and honest discussion about. So our topic will be called COVID, make me love again. Now, what does that mean? COVID, make me love again. I think in these times we are potentially facing that thought of, am I loved? Do people love me? Am I someone that truly has an impact on the people around me? We don't have any social interaction, we don't have these things that are going right for us right now. It's just because of COVID. Is that because of COVID?

Lucas P. Johnson: Is your daily life outside of COVID much different? I hope it is. If it isn't, then we really need to have a talk about what's going on. Now, what used to be somewhat a little... I don't know, the millennials, I'm a millennial, using these dating applications, Tinder, Bumble, Hinge, even direct messaging, you know, as they say, slide into those DMs. They have now become the norm.

Lucas P. Johnson: In 2020, we are facing this incredible pandemic that has caused an immense amount of life to be lost. Just incredible amount of lives that have been lost to COVID-19. 2020 has now become a year that people were stuck inside, people are wearing mask on the daily, people are staying six feet apart, or at least attempting to, or maybe not attempting to. People aren't going up to others and making small talk.

Lucas P. Johnson: We have a camp, a family camp, that we go up to a couple of times a year, and some of the older guys that go up, they make a joke of, when you're sitting out on that front porch, it's watching a movie. Why? Because there's no phone or internet service, there's no television, there's no wifi, nothing. It's just people having interaction, having a conversation with people. Now we can do that from our phones. We can have that relationship from our mobile devices. Some of us may even have two of these things. Two of these things sitting around.

Lucas P. Johnson: And it's crazy to think that we have all these connections around us, but we never actually truly connect with people until we meet them. Tinder, Bumble, Hinge, DM, all fantastic resources nowadays, in 2020, not always used for the best things. I'm sure that if you're listening, you know what I'm talking about, but they are a resource for people that are stuck inside right now, they're able to go and meet these people. Maybe they're all looking for something a little bit more than just meet, but hey, who am I to judge.

Lucas P. Johnson: The part about finding love in today's society is you really need to understand what you want from your life, you need to understand who you are. I think you need to understand what, who, where, when, all these questions about yourself before you can even start to love someone else. But as you sit there, in COVID life, as you sit there and you are immersed in your Netflix and all of a sudden you get this thought, wow, I really could use just someone to lean on, or the love language, the words of affirmation, the acts of service, the receiving gifts, quality time and physical touch. Those love languages.

Lucas P. Johnson: Unless you have a significant other already in the picture, this episode first off may not be for you, but second off, you may be facing that am I loved question moreso now than you were in the previous five years ,or the previous year, or the previous, I guess, seven months ago. Am I loved? First off I want to say, yes, you are loved. Second off, the person that needs to be loved is you, you need to love yourself. And if you're looking for love, you're doing it all wrong.

Lucas P. Johnson: The only love right now that you need, and if you're questioning yourself, is your own love. You need to figure out truly deep down what is causing you to have those feelings that you aren't loved. Is it emotional, or is it due to something happening in your past? We all have our story. Maybe it's abandonment issues, maybe you have mommy or daddy issues, or maybe you have family issues. The list goes on and on.

Lucas P. Johnson: But if you're questioning whether you need someone to be in your life for intimacy, or you need someone to constantly tell you that your loved, that starts with you, my friend. That starts with you. You need to wake up every single morning and just say, "Hey, this is me. I love myself, I know that I can achieve what I'm going to achieve today. I'm going to go out there and reach for my goals and my dreams and my desires, I'm going to achieve them, I'm going after, I'm going to chase them. I'm going to chase them as if my life depended on it."

Lucas P. Johnson: Your relationship doesn't just have to be with other people, it has to be with yourself, it has to be with your faith, your family, your friends, and if a relationship can come about and blossom, phenomenal, fantastic, incredible, because you've mastered those three components. Once you've mastered those, and at least get some sort of an understanding, you can move on to that next step, that's loving someone else. Loving someone truly, truly loving them, truly wanting to build that intimate relationship. Because you understand yourself, you understand your family, you understand your faith, you understand everything that kind of makes up who you are.

Lucas P. Johnson: In the time of isolation, our emotions are skyrocketing. And now I'll tell you, I was sitting here watching Netflix... I was sitting here working, actually, on something for Project Dream Mastery as well, and I catch myself looking down at my phone like, all right, did anyone text me? Am I feeling loved today? And it jumps out to me, if I don't get a text message in week on my personal phone, it makes me think.

Lucas P. Johnson: All those people that I had in high school that I thought were really, really good friends that are... all my best friends from high school are still in the picture, but the people that I thought were really good friends, I thought eventually might fade into oblivion, but I thought we'd stay in touch. Even those friends in college, I thought those people would still stay in the picture, and there are a few. But sitting here during COVID, and everyone pretty much not having anything to do because the bars are closed, events are closed, sporting arenas are closed, and so forth and so on. The only real thing you have is a mobile device, or a laptop, or a landline, or video camera. A lot of folks nowadays are stuck inside, and this thing has become their best friend.

Lucas P. Johnson: Who is your best friend? Why are they your best friend? Do they love you? Do you love them? This episode is about love. COVID. Make Me Love Again. COVID, make me love again. The reason why we started off with the dating applications, the love languages in isolation, it's because we really haven't figured out how to love ourself again, if we're focusing on those other people to fill that void. You should be able to live your life and have that void filled by you.

Lucas P. Johnson: Now, it's great to share your life with others, it is great to share your life with someone else. I've had my fair share of relationships and, don't get me wrong, I've been in love maybe once or twice in my life. And I'm grateful for this one or two folks... I've probably been in love once my entire life, truly in love, and other one was kind of a little bit of love, a little bit of lust, that kind of thing. But the one thing I learned from that, even though it was back in high school, is you have to figure out what the hell you want before you can love again.

Lucas P. Johnson: So when I say COVID, make me love again, you spent the last probably seven months cooped up in your house, six months, seven months by now, cooped up in your house, or cooped up in your family's house, or cooped up on a hotel couch, or wherever you're cooped up, I'm sure you're locked down as well. The point of this is, you've had six or seven months to figure your shit out. Plain and simple. You've had five or six, or seven months, to figure your shit out. Does that mean that you've connected with friends that you told yourself that you were going to connect with a year ago, or five years ago?

Lucas P. Johnson: Have you had the chance to talk to your loved ones and say, "I love you, I'm so grateful for you. Being stuck in quarantine has really changed my perspective, and I want to spend more time with you." It has for me. I've spent six months in quarantine, I've spent six months keeping myself distance from others because one, I want to keep others safe and I also want to keep my family and myself safe, but it gave me that time to think and for personal growth.

Lucas P. Johnson: Over the last six months I've realized how important family is. I've even had the conversation with each and every one of them, about how I want to spend more time with the ones I love. I want to do more family events, more family gatherings. I want us to come closer together. I don't want us to have all this distance, I don't want to see my brothers once a year, or my niece and my nephews once a year, or my grandparents once a year. I don't want to do that, my cousin, I don't want to see them once a year, and sometimes I don't even get to see them once a year.

Lucas P. Johnson: I want to see my family as much as I possibly can because, first off, and I think we all know this, what I'm about to say is, we're not going to live forever. You have to really find the people in your life that love you and you want to make those sacrifices for.

Lucas P. Johnson: So what have you learned in the last five or six months about love? Think about that. You've been sitting here for six months, what have you learned? If you've just sat in front of that TV for six months and didn't learn anything from the shows that you were watching, what the heck? TV episodes, Netflix episodes, and so forth, movies, they all are meant to inspire you or provoke an emotion, a response. Every time I watch a movie, or I watch a Netflix show, or I binge, I come out with six, 10, 15, 20 takeaways, action items, next steps.

Lucas P. Johnson: And they might be fantasy, but just because they're fantasy doesn't mean they're not built on reality, they're not built on a norm. People have to be able to relate or they're not going to want to watch it. They're not going to be able to want to build that vision and give it five stars when it's all said and done. Five or six months, think about what you've done. Think about what has really made an impact on you. Even isolated, what emotions have been provoked?

Lucas P. Johnson: So for me, memories, connections of better times, even with the principle of neuroplasticity. When you keep on thinking and thinking and thinking about those memories, they don't want to disappear. You can give your brain so much food, and so many nuggets, and it will just consume all that and replace all that old outdated information. The theory behind neuroplasticity is incredible. But those memories, the ones that still relate, the ones that have shaped you, and shape your connections nowadays, the ones that you actually made those memories, they stay there. So COVID, make me love again.

Lucas P. Johnson: I've spent the last six months changing my life. Sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worst. I've spent six months focusing on my body. I've spent six months focusing on my mental health. I've spent six months figuring out what I desire. I've spent six months figuring out what's best for, not only my future, but my families. What have you done? Simple as that. You've had a half of a year to think about these things. Remember those times where you were sitting there, probably, I wish I just had a day. I wish I had a minute. I wish I could just go to the gym, because I don't have time. Now you have so much time, and some of us have went back to the office, or are going back to the office soon, but that doesn't mean that you can't find the time to think about those things.

Lucas P. Johnson: We have so much hate in this world, we have so much hate just in general going on, it's crazy. It's crazy to think that we could just love ourselves, which could result in us loving others again. Elevated stress levels, anxiety, severely nervous about what's going on in life. These are all the emotions that have been provoked just in the last few months, six months of being in COVID, of being in quarantine. Elevated stress levels. Why? Seriously, why? I'll tell you, because we're stuck inside. Family, friends, and so forth. We have all these people that we're used to seeing on a daily basis, but not for the same amount of time that we're spending with them.

Lucas P. Johnson: I think it's crazy that there's just so much going on in this world, and we hear about it on a daily basis, we see it on a daily basis, but we don't take the time for ourselves. We don't take the time to hear ourselves, to see ourselves. I really, really wish they could find a way to love yourself, and find a way to make yourself love again. It shouldn't be COVID that gives you the time to think about self improvement and personal growth. It really shouldn't.

Lucas P. Johnson: This is a deep topic for me, because I've seen how many people have went through their life and just haven't been happy. And Tinder, Bumble, Hinge, direct messaging, I've seen the relationships that have come from those, mostly positive, but I've also seen how people's psychological mindset has changed, their landscape has changed, their environments changed, from those applications. It's not directly from those applications, it's how they're used. People are on there to hook up, or they're there to find a relationship.

Lucas P. Johnson: I tend to see firsthand that you don't get the best of both worlds. You go in there to hook up with someone and you also in a relationship, those hookups kind of fail your relationship, or you fail your relationship because of this hookups. Because you don't give yourself time to understand who they are, you don't give yourself time to really grow an emotional attachment, you're just there for the physical attachment, first off.

Lucas P. Johnson: Our brains are tricky, they really are. When you want something physically, and you're able to get it, it's instant satisfaction. You have that hunger, that craving, and when you finally get it, oh, is it good. But then afterwards, was it truly fulfilled? You want something more. Oh man, I had that giant brownie with hot fudge on top and ice cream, oh, it's so good, oh my gosh, it was so delicious. But you finish it, and half an hour after that, maybe an hour after that, you want something more. Oh, I'm craving a giant chicken thigh, or something. I want a burger, a hot dog, I want a blizzard, I want something that is more than what I just had.

Lucas P. Johnson: That's the same thing, it applies to you having that instant satisfaction from your physical connection. You don't build that emotional connection, because that emotional connection lasts longer. Now I'm not perfect and I don't know everything, but I do know that most of those physical connections that start off just like that, physical connections, they typically fail. And I wish that that emotional connection was built on that, but you just don't give yourself enough time to really understand them, to want that.

Lucas P. Johnson: They're really... I don't know. I'm just going to change that. With that said, go out, find yourself again, find your love, find your passion, find things that are really going to inspire you to be the best version of yourself. Don't let others change the way you think about yourself and think about the way you love. It's crazy times we're living in, so go out there and find a way to love yourself again.

Lucas P. Johnson: With that said, I really appreciate you joining us for this episode. Go out and do something crazy this week. Do something incredible. Do something for yourself. And when I say crazy, I don't mean crazy, I mean just radically different in your life. Do something that's going to provoke thought, inspire, and allow you to love again.

Lucas P. Johnson: With that said, we just launched out Patreon membership community, where you can become one of our elite supporters and gain exclusive access to early releases, live streams, and Q&A. We have a few different tiers available with some pretty sweet perks, so make sure to check them out. Go to projectdreammastery.com and click the red button that says, become a patron, to learn more.

Lucas P. Johnson: If you have not already, please make sure to review the show. Subscribe, like, and share, so that we can reach more amazing listeners like you. All of our shows are available in both audio, video, and written form, so make sure to check out our website to access the full experience. Again, thank you so much for joining us today, we look forward to seeing you on the next episode to come, talk soon.