Dr. Morgan on Love, Patterns, and Self Worth

In this episode of Stories Worth Hearing, host John Quick sits down with Dr. Morgan for an honest conversation about relationships, self awareness, and why so many people find themselves stuck in the same emotional patterns. Dr. Morgan shares what led her into coaching and relationship work, and how her own experiences shaped the way she helps others today.

The conversation explores why chemistry is often mistaken for compatibility, how unhealthy relationship cycles form, and what it really takes to break free from the emotional rollercoaster many people experience in love. Dr. Morgan also talks about the core ideas behind her book, Love Magnet, and why attracting the right relationship starts with understanding yourself first.

This episode is a thoughtful and practical discussion for anyone who feels discouraged, stuck, or simply wants healthier and more fulfilling relationships moving forward.

Check out her book here: https://amzn.to/44ZyNos

Check out her website here: https://drmorgancoaching.com/

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Welcome to Stories Worth Hearing.
I'm your host, John Quick. Today I am joined by Doctor
Morgan, a relationship coach andauthor who helps people break
unhealthy patterns and build stronger, more fulfilling
relationships. She is the author of Love
Magnet, How to Stop the Relationship Roller Coaster and

(00:21):
Attract the Love You Deserve where she dives into why so many
of us repeat the same cycles in love and how to change them.
In this conversation we talk about relationships,
self-awareness, boundaries, and what it really takes to attract
the right kind of connection. You can find links to Doctor

(00:41):
Morgan's coaching work and her book in the podcast description.
I am glad you are here. Let's get into it.
Well, Doctor Morgan, welcome to the show.
I'm super excited you're on today.
Thank you for having me. Yeah, this will be fun to chat.
You are a bit of a relationship expert, so I think this will be
fun for my audience to kind of get into and and probably learn

(01:03):
a lot from. But kind of first take me back
to what got you into this field in the 1st place.
I know everybody's got a story about how they kind of got into
the field to do their job or to the field that they love.
Tell me the back story on what made you do that.
Yes, like so many people who find themselves in the mental
health field, I had my own relational trauma, childhood

(01:27):
trauma growing up. I lost my mom.
I was age 6. And then basically after that,
there was a lot of chaos in in my life.
And I watched my dad go through relationship struggles and get
married and get divorced and getmarried and get divorced.
And I just became fascinated with relationships and healing

(01:51):
from a very young age. So, you know, a lot of folks
come to you because maybe they're stuck in a relationship.
Tell me about some of those maybe patterns or things that
you see the probably see all thetime.
You know, those big things I think that everybody struggles
with. Talk to me a little bit about
those things that folks come to you for.

(02:12):
Absolutely. So I do a lot of work with
attachment styles. You may have heard of this, but
I think a lot of people are stuck in insecure attachment
dynamic relationships. So either they have an anxious
attachment style or they have anavoidant attachment style and
then they are dating someone whoalso has an insecure style.

(02:32):
And this, this just leads to a lot of pain and heartbreak.
People who are dating based on their unfinished childhood
trauma, the unfinished business from their past, they're dating
based on that instead of compatibility.
It's this thing, I could get nerd out on this, but it's

(02:53):
called, it's called repetition compulsion.
We're, we're repeating unhealed dynamics from our past.
And then the brain has a subconscious desire that we'd
get a different outcome this time.
So I could just get that different outcome.
It'll make up for everything I experienced in the past.
And so many people are doing this, they don't even realize

(03:14):
it. So how does somebody, I mean,
probably people who listen to this and being like, OK, that
makes total sense. Like crap, I've been doing the
same thing for 20 years. How does somebody, you know,
without giving away the farm, how does somebody break a
pattern like that? Because I think that's the, you
know, there's probably very, there's probably a bunch of
tough points in the process of becoming a better you, but one

(03:37):
of them is identifying probably what The thing is.
And then how the heck do you fixit?
So how do you see folks, you know, clients of yours being
able to reach through that barrier and kind of go about
fixing that? Or is it even fixable?
The good news is, is it is fixable.
There, there used to be information out there that said
that it wasn't that your attachment style is just your

(03:59):
attachment style. But we now have so much research
and evidence that you can rewireyour brain and become securely
attached and have a healthy relationship.
Even if you've never had one before.
It is always possible in the first step.
I'm glad you asked this. It's just awareness.
It's, hey, you're listening to this podcast, right?
It's it's radical honesty about you being the common denominator

(04:24):
in your relationships. You are the common denominator.
You know, it's not the day they see, it's not whatever,
whatever. It's taking that radical
ownership and and building that awareness.
Why do you think it's so? I'm, I'm a big fan of counseling
and therapy. I go see a counselor myself
personally. But why do you think it's such a

(04:44):
big deal for somebody just to make that step?
Because I think it's such a, youknow, folks almost see it as
like a weakness, right? And so why do you think that is
such a huge step for people to overcome just being vulnerable
enough to go see a therapist or a counselor or a pastor or
whatever it may be? That's a great question.

(05:06):
I think we live in a world wherethere are endless distractions.
There are so many ways to numb ourselves and distract
ourselves. And as humans, we're constantly
avoiding pain. And there's a lot of pain.
And finally being able to acknowledge and sit with your
past trauma, right? There's there's pain.

(05:27):
So I think just as humans, we'reavoiding pain, we're just not
even wanting to acknowledge thatit's there.
And by doing that, we're allowing ourselves to have a
lifetime of suffering, right? It's like when you would you
admit, hey, I have an issue. There's things I need to work
through. You're saying I'm willing to go

(05:49):
through short term pain so that I can avoid that lifetime of
suffering. But it's just so easy in our
world to distract ourselves and pretend like we don't have
anything to work on, right? There's endless distractions.
So one of the things that's interesting to me is you've
you've taken a route to kind of be out in the public.
A lot of folks that are in psychiatry or psychology or

(06:12):
counselling, you know, they've got their little practice in
their town that they live in andthey kind of keep to themselves.
You've decided to get out there in front of social media and
have a different take and maybe casting a bigger net than most
folks do in this profession. What made you decide to do that?
Kind of like the entrepreneur side of your practice as opposed

(06:34):
to just opening up a small practice in your hometown or
something like that. So there's, there's layers, this
question. I was about 32 and living in La
Jolla, CA, had a private practice.
I could go to the beach on my lunch break.
I'd spent, you know, 12 years higher Ed getting my doctorate

(06:56):
and I remember being there and just thinking, Oh my God, is
this all there is? Is this all that there is for
the rest of my life? I'm going to show up and see 30
clients a week and this is all the impact that I'm going to
make. And it was, it was kind of at
that moment of living my dream life that I'd worked so hard for
that I realized, wait, I have a lot more to give and I have, I

(07:18):
have a lot more people that I want to be able to reach.
And I, I'm an accidental entrepreneur.
I'm absolutely heart centered. I know some people say that and
they don't mean it. I I really AM and I think it's
because of my own childhood trauma.
I just wanted to help as many people as possible.
So I launched a social media account and back then it was
controversial. I had psychologists DME me

(07:40):
saying. They're like, is everything OK
with you? Yeah, this is illegal.
You can't do this. And now you know, it's, it's so
much more commonplace. But I'm incredibly grateful that
I've taken the non traditional path because I've I've thousands
of people I get to help. OK, so you went on to write a
book which I think is awesome. It's called Love Love Magnet.

(08:02):
Tell me a little bit about why you wrote the book and the
premise of the book. There's two things.
There is an existing book calledAttached by Amir Levine and that
was kind of the go to book in the attachment space.
But the issue I have with it is it said that you couldn't rewire
your brain to become secure. It was kind of like, if you

(08:22):
haven't avoided attachment style, good luck and you better
go find someone that's secure. And it pissed me off.
Like, in all honesty, that really bothered me that that was
what people were were, you know,that was the main message people
were getting. So it was partly that and then I
I wrote the book for the youngerversion of me for the person
that was in toxic relationship after toxic relationship that

(08:47):
just needed a no BS clear path to this is how you can heal and
start to have healthy relationships.
So for folks listening in, give us some red flags that people
can look for in a relationship. I'm sure there's like extreme
red flags that everybody knows about, right?
Like if you're getting physically abused or something,

(09:08):
obviously don't, you know, don'tkeep pursuing that relationship.
But give us some folks some things to look out for that
maybe you talk about in your book or that you work with
clients on. And just because I think the
average everyday person sometimes probably doesn't even
realize that there may be an unhealthy relationship.
Absolutely. I think one of the things people

(09:29):
need to realize is you have to pace your emotional investment.
A lot of people are just going way too quick.
You know, they're going 55 in the 25 mile an hour zone and
they're they're getting way too invested without knowing this is
a safe relationship to invest into.

(09:51):
So I always tell all my clients,you have to be the love
scientist. You're gathering the data and
there's something I teach them called reality testing because
we, we have to do this. We have the research that
supports us. Our brain is almost as if it's
on drugs, right? When we're in the early stages
of a new relationship, we have to actively ask ourselves, what

(10:14):
is the reality of this relationship?
How much time have I actually spent with this person?
What do I actually know about them?
What is the evidence? Do they do?
Do they do what they say they'regoing to do?
Are they honest? Right.
So practicing reality testing helps you not get into the the
fantasy world. A lot of us fill in the blanks

(10:37):
of who we want the person to be without actually having evidence
that that's who they are. So slow down.
Secure attachment loves a slow burn.
And then what are your thoughts on let's say somebody's in a
relationship? I think oftentimes it's easier
to say the other person needs tofix themselves, right?

(10:59):
It's easier to kind of point at the other person.
What's your take on, you know, either that person just focusing
on themselves or having a balance of maybe working
together to fix the problem? Do you find it that things
resolve themselves better if youknow the person in the
relationship focuses on better than themselves as opposed to

(11:22):
fixing the other person? I love that you asked this.
I love that you asked this. So in a healthy relationship,
ideally you would have both individuals taking ownership for
their individual stuff. You would have both people
saying, hey, I know that I have things I need to work on.
And honestly, the fastest way tochange your relationship is to

(11:45):
change yourself. You actually can't make another
person change, right? I think so many of us have
tried, but you you can't. So if you want to change your
relationship dynamic the fastestway, change yourself.
When you show up differently, your partner's going to have a
different response and then you're modeling to them, hey,
this is how I want to show up. But one of the worst things

(12:10):
I've, I've done a lot of couplestherapy.
One of the worst things is when you have one partner doing all
of the emotional labor. And I think a lot of us can
relate to that of when you feel like you're alone and you're the
only one that is fighting for the relationship.
For for it to be a healthy relationship, both people do
have to take ownership of their individual healing.

(12:31):
And actually, the work you do asan individual is probably going
to be even more beneficial than the couple's work, in my
experience. What's your thoughts on like
sticking it through just no matter what?
Because let's say a, maybe they have kids or they have joint
bank accounts or like these things in life that happened
that people have together. And I think there's kind of been

(12:55):
a mantra of like, we're just going to stick it through no
matter what. What are your thoughts on that?
As opposed to, OK, these two people just aren't made for each
other. It's better if they just part
ways and go about their life separately.
Oh, such a good question, isn't it?
You know, I would say this, it is so much better for you to

(13:18):
both be healthy individuals. If you can't, if you are causing
each other harm by staying together and God forbid you're
causing your children or other people around you harm by
staying together emotional, you know, abuse what, what, whatever
it may be, then you you can't betogether ultimately.

(13:38):
And we have to set models of, ofwanting to be emotionally well
and wanting to be emotionally happy.
Two people together who are miserable.
It's just not a good model for anyone, right?
And it's, it's so painful. But I, I will say this, I am so,
so, so, so for prevention in everything.

(14:01):
I, I just got married in August,actually.
Thank you. And there was so much work into
building a healthy partnership. And we've actually been together
for five years. So I, I'm all about walk into
marriage very, very intentionally do as much work

(14:23):
ahead of time as you possibly can.
And I think that that goes a long way.
So if there's folks listening inand they want to hear more,
maybe they were like, man, I need to call Doctor Morgan up
because I need to have a coaching session or a counseling
session. Are you accepting new clients?
So they have to be live in your state?

(14:45):
Is it does it have to be in person?
Tell me a little bit about that side of your business and how
somebody could contact you. This is one of the reasons I
love coaching. You know, I'm able to work.
I have clients all over the world.
I'm I'm really fortunate I get to help, you know, so many
people we are, we are accepting clients.
Yes. And honestly, what I would say,

(15:07):
if you're interested in this, goto my podcast.
It's called let's get vulnerable.
There are over 600 plus episodeson all things relationships,
attachment styles. So go start, start there.
And and then if, if it resonates, there will be a link
in the show notes. You can get in contact with me.

(15:28):
Nice. Well folks listening, I'll put a
link in the podcast description not only for Doctor Morgan's
podcast, but also her book Love Magna.
I want to encourage folks to go check that out.
Get a copy for yourself. 20 Minutes here has gone by in a
flash. Do you have any last minute
thoughts here before we head off?
I would just want people to knowthat it's never too late to have

(15:49):
a healthy relationship and also that a healthy relationship is,
is probably something so much better than you can even
imagine. I was just talking with my
husband about this. Healthy, secure relationships
are not perfect. I think we have this idea that
they're perfect. They're not perfect, right?
It's, it's this ability to be with someone that says, I see

(16:11):
you fully for who you are. I see you in the messiness, I
see you in the imperfection. And I want to choose you every
day and, and work with you to build something meaningful
together. And I, I just think so many
people are kind of missing out on that.
And it's never too late. You can always create it.
Hey man. Well folks, listening in, thank

(16:33):
you so much Doctor for your insights and your thoughts.
Nothing changes if nothing changes.
So folks, if you're spurred on by some of these words, go check
out her podcast in our book. You're welcome back anytime,
Doctor. We hope you have a great rest of
your day. Thank you for having me.