Tiny Buddha

Tag: dating

  • Why My Boyfriend and I Play Like Kids and Are Happier for It

    Why My Boyfriend and I Play Like Kids and Are Happier for It

    “Play is the foundation of learning, creativity, self-expression, and constructive problem-solving. It’s how children wrestle with life to make it meaningful.” ~Susan Linn, Psychiatrist

    We met at a job interview for a summer camp. At the time, I was twenty-two years old and pursuing a bachelor’s degree in English literature and psychology at UBC. On the other hand, H was attending college in the hopes of one day becoming a high school history teacher. He also “liked to promote and support the development of children.”

    During our first date, we grabbed coffee and spent some time at Indigo Books & Music. I was impressed. I had not only found a boy who was willing to tolerate my endless browsing, but genuinely seemed to enjoy it.

    H was funny, dressed nicely, and most importantly, didn’t know much about me. Later, he would learn that I’d grown up a perfectionist, that I became overwhelmed easily, and that I always took life too seriously. I valued the art of productivity and felt self-conscious when acting silly.

    In our early days, we enjoyed sunbathing at the beach and went “playground hopping,” a term coined after spending an entire afternoon going from playground to playground, sitting on the swings, flirting. We climbed the various structures and found out we could no longer get across the monkey bars.

    We had a typical “summer romance.” We sent each other flirty texts at work, and I chased him around the jungle gym during one of our outings with the kids. We played Connect 4 instead of strip poker and went to the candy store to buy samples of all our favorite childhood treats. He loved to make blanket forts and was always to blame for the ensuing pillow fight. We put on music and danced in our underwear in my bedroom late at night.

    He brought out my inner child. We played handshake games while waiting for the bus without caring about the other commuters’ glances. We painted cheap wooden frames from the dollar store and bought a puzzle at Toys R Us. We went to the kid’s arcade and had a playful Skee-Ball competition.

    After a few months of dating, and as a result of my interest into Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), H and I sat down and made a list of what would become our Common Core Values. Out of sixty values, we picked about a dozen. Then, we talked about them.

    Connecting with our values adds meaning to our lives, but clarifying values can be challenging, because most values are words that are vague. Take, for example, the value of respect. Most people I know value respect. But what does it look like? And what does respect look like specifically in a romantic relationship? We recorded our choices in our newly bought couple’s journal.

    Our values included words such as connection (physical, emotional), equality, boundaries, safety, teamwork, gratitude, humility, and kindness, as well as trust, courage, and vulnerability.

    The value that stood out to me the most, though, was play.

    Play has been one of the core tenets of our relationship. When we first met, he had no idea that I was heavily involved in the mental health community.

    I worked at the hospital where I did peer support work and supported children as well as their families navigate the (highly complex) mental health system. I heard devastating stories of families trying to access care.

    I sat on the board of a non-profit organization that held support groups for students every week and spent a lot of my time holding space for others, while at the same time admiring their resilience. Outside of that, I was busy taking classes, and trying my best to care for my own mental health.

    A few years ago, when I fell in love with Brené Brown’s The Gifts of Imperfection, the chapter that stood out the most to me was: “Wholehearted Living Guidepost 7: Cultivating Rest and Play.”

    In the chapter, she introduced Dr. Stuart Brown, a psychiatrist who has studied play. He explained that play is time spent without purpose and can include a variety of “frivolous activities.”

    As a young adult, overachiever, and university student, I spend most of my time working hard, trying to achieve the definition of “success” society has defined for me. At times, there are sleepless nights, two cups of coffee, and skipped breakfasts.

    When H and I play, we lose track of time. We become immersed in our decorating of gratitude jars, tickle fights, and me chasing him down with an ice cream cone.

    My relationship with H has given me one of the greatest gifts: the ability to lose myself in laughter, and permission to focus on leisure without feeling guilt or anxiety. In the words of Brené Brown, it is all about “letting go of exhaustion as a status symbol and productivity as self-worth.”

    I like to refer to H as “Mr. Fun” because it’s the part I love most about him. If it wasn’t for him, I would rarely allow myself to play. I often feel self-conscious and judge myself harshly whenever I feel the urge to do something “childish,” like coloring. I tell myself, “Don’t be ridiculous. Grow up. You’re not a child anymore.”

    At the time of our discovering our common core values, we had only been dating for three months. Since then, we’ve grown enormously as a couple. The wonderful thing about our common core values is that we now have a silent agreement. We have both committed to living by those values, so we refer to them as needed, especially during a conflict. When we make mistakes, we refer to the value of forgiveness. It lessens the guilt and shame while still holding us accountable.

    Essentially, play encourages self-enquiry, social connection, and being curious about the world.

    Play has allowed us to cultivate a relationship that is based on vulnerability and helps us cope with the uncertainty of the world. It has enhanced our intimacy and helped us relax during stressful times. After all, we are realistic, and understand that our relationship will encounter many obstacles in the future, including having to cope with economic and political instability.

    From an outsider perspective, I am described as responsible, punctual, and can be found balancing my budget with an Excel sheet, every month. You are more likely to find me writing professional emails than singing in the shower or expressing my creativity.

    Sometimes H and I argue about the pros and cons of having carpet in our future dream home and sometimes we make lists of supplies to buy, like Play-Doh, or Legos. Sometimes we discuss Canadian politics while drinking apple juice in plastic cups. We eat Kraft Dinner as a snack and calculate the cost of a one-bedroom apartment. We are both children at heart and young adults trying to navigate the world.

    And not too long ago, H surprised me with a heart shape made of colourful melted beads.

  • How I Stopped Chasing Men Who Hurt Me and Found Healthy Love

    How I Stopped Chasing Men Who Hurt Me and Found Healthy Love

    “There are two things you should never waste your time on: things that don’t matter and people who think that you don’t matter.” ~Ziad K. Abdelnour  

    “What is wrong with me?” I asked myself. Crying in the dark of the night. “Why doesn’t he love me?”

    I’d tried to fold myself in all the ways I could to be loved and accepted, but it was never enough. I found myself repeating patterns of chasing men who just didn’t want me. Same cry in the night, different men.

    The more I chased them, the more they ran away, and the deeper I lost my self-worth. 

    I was addicted to them. They were my drug. These men who were wounded and just needed a loving, caring woman to come save them. I wanted to be the answer to their pain so then finally, a man would choose me. Finally, I would get the love I had longed for and chased my whole life.

    I always chased men that were unavailable in some way. They may have been addicts, in other relationships, or just not ready for a relationship. The more they didn’t want the relationship, the harder I would chase.

    I would be up late in the night, full of anxiety, obsessing about them. So preoccupied with trying to make them love me that I forgot to take care of myself.

    I had no boundaries and would accept any kind of awful behavior. It would break my heart and I may pull back for a moment, but then they would notice and come toward me, so the pull-push cycle would begin again.

    I lacked self-love and self-worth, and this pattern was destroying what little I had. I felt like nothing and like there was something fundamentally wrong with me.

    My happiness, my everything, was tied up in receiving validation from these unavailable men. The older I got, the worse it got, and the more obvious it was that something was not right. My friends were getting married, having children, and moving forward. But I was stuck ruminating about my latest obsession.

    I even drove my friends mad! No matter what they said to me, it wouldn’t stop me chasing a fantasy. When they stopped listening, I rang a psychic line multiple times a day for validation that the man I wanted was ‘the one.’ So not only did my self-worth disappear but my bank balance with it.

    It was exhausting and brought me to my knees in my mid-thirties.

    Then I noticed something. If someone was interested in me, available, and wanted to move forward, I would feel suffocated and tell myself there was no chemistry. But if someone showed some interest but was not available, I would want them more than anything.

    I felt like there was something really wrong with me because of this pattern, but I was determined to change, so I could have healthy, loving romantic relationships.

    I read You Can Heal Your Life, by Louise Hay, and decided to change my beliefs.

    Here are the five things I did to heal so I could open up to a healthier relationship:

    1. I adopted a daily self-care practice.

    It became painfully obvious to me that I knew how to love others but not myself. So I began with adding some practices to my day to help me build self-love.

    I listened to affirmations on Spotify and read them to myself looking in the mirror. I tried meditation and hot baths to begin my journey. I was always researching new ways to show myself love. In addition to developing a self-care practice, I invested in support to help me get better, including therapy.

    2. I began doing inner child work.

    I went back to my earlier story through meditation and discovered that younger-me was always chasing after my dad’s unavailable love. Trying to help him, to be seen. Trying to fix him so he would tell me I was enough. Seeking his validation, his connection, because he was unavailable due to his own childhood trauma. My inner child had internalized this to means I was unlovable.

    I began to say affirmations to a photo of my younger self. “You are loveable,” “You are enough,” “You are worthy.” I would literally talk to her and ask her how she felt and what she needed. I would imagine playing with her and showing her love.

    I explored my inner child’s story and learned lots about attachment theory. I realized that I had disorganized attachment from my father’s inconsistency, and that this was not my fault but just part of my old programming. The great news was I could change this! A book that helped me was Healing Your Attachment Wounds, by Diane Poole Heller.

    When I recognized why I sought love from men who couldn’t give it to me, that ache for unavailable love lessened.

    3. I set clear intentions.

    I grew up on my dad’s little crumbs of love. It made me feel starved for love and attention, so later in life, I would accept them from any man who showed me interest. Even if they weren’t the right fit for me. I had no idea what that was!

    When I realized this, I compiled a list of what I didn’t want. I tuned into what brought me pain and unhappiness growing up. Things that made me feel unsafe. These became my red flags. For example, emotional unavailability, anger, shouting, gaslighting, denying my reality, and addiction were a few items from my list.

    I became conscious about what I didn’t want so I wouldn’t blindly go into a relationship that made me feel unsafe again.

    I also compiled a list of things I did want—must-haves like kindness and safety.

    4. I ended contact with unavailable men.

    This was a hard one and felt very uncomfortable. I took a step back from my ‘drug.’ I even unfollowed people on social media to allow myself space to heal. Sometimes I would have a bad day and make contact, but slowly my addiction lessened.

    To support myself through this process, I read books, listened to podcasts, and even trained for a marathon to give me another focus. Books like Father Therapy, by Doreen Virtue, and Facing Love Addiction, by Pia Mellody, helped me to understand my pattern. I also found communities where I could share my story and not be judged.

    I learned how to stop numbing the pain from my past with these unhealthy relationships by learning how to soothe myself and let my wounds heal.

    5. I dated myself.

    I stepped back from dating and focused solely on learning to love and date myself. To start, I took myself on a trip for three days in Italy. I took my books, went on tours on my own, and journaled about my story. I  regularly spent time with myself and even found new hobbies. Before, I had been so obsessed with these men that pleasing them was my hobby.

    I found ways to enjoy my own time and have fun! To feel whole and enough on my own. I took myself to restaurants and treated myself to gifts. I became the person I always wanted. Validating, attentive, kind, and fun!

    Sure enough, in time, I found an emotionally available man who chose me and was everything I wrote on my intention list. He had no red flags, unlike any of my previous partners. He makes me feel safe every day, and most importantly, he gives me space to continue the most important relationship in my life. The one with me.

    If you can relate to this pattern of choosing emotionally unavailable partners, just notice the behavior. It is not you. It is just a behavior you are doing to keep safe. Thank this part and know that it is possible to change and find your healthy love.

  • How I Found Peace and Self-Love After a Toxic Relationship

    How I Found Peace and Self-Love After a Toxic Relationship

    “Bravery is leaving a toxic relationship and knowing that you deserve better.” ~Unknown

    When my marriage ended, it left a huge void that I desperately needed to fill, and quickly.

    Along with my divorce came the unbearable feelings of rejection and being unlovable. To avoid these feelings, fill the void, and distract myself, I turned to dating. And it turns out, it was much too soon.

    What seemed like a harmless distraction soon became what I needed to feel wanted and loved. This was a way to avoid doing the harder work of learning to love myself instead of needing outside validation to feel good about myself.

    The online dating scene was a complete circus that I didn’t know how to navigate with all of my wounding. I ended up falling for a guy—let’s call him Steve.

    Steve seemed nice enough when I met him. He was quiet and seemed like he may have been a little too passive for me, but he was really into me, so I kept coming back for more. It was nice to feel wanted again.

    We had some things in common, and he was handsome and sweet. We had fun together, and he was always texting me to say hello and chat—again, that made me feel wanted.

    Eventually, Steve grew more distant. When I brought it up, it only seemed to get worse. But at this point, I was addicted to the feeling of being with someone again. I was addicted to feeling wanted and loved, so leaving wasn’t an option I was willing to entertain.

    The unconscious programming in my brain that would do anything to avoid rejection kicked in. I began to justify everything that should have been a red flag. I found myself constantly doing whatever I thought I needed to do to keep Steve from rejecting me, but it never seemed to be enough. I became unconsciously obsessed with being who I thought I needed to be to win his love and approval.

    Steve and I had both been through divorces and were both dealing with mental health issues. The relationship became very codependent, and I began putting my own needs aside to be his caretaker. He would never return the favor unless it was convenient for him, so I would just try harder to get him to want to return the favor.

    It never worked.

    As each day went by, I was becoming less and less of myself to be loved and accepted by someone who would never be able to give me what I wanted or needed. He just wasn’t capable of it. There was no possible way that I would ever be enough for him.

    He ended up breaking up with me, but shortly after we resumed our relationship on a casual basis. Deep down, I didn’t feel this was showing myself respect, but I allowed it to happen because again, I was trying to be who he wanted me to be—a casual friend-with-benefits.

    Our relationship eventually started to get more serious again, and it seemed we were headed back to exclusive relationship status when I found out he was dating other women behind my back. I’m so thankful I found out about this because it was the singular event that made me stop and get intentional about respecting myself.

    I realized how completely I had lost myself in this dysfunctional, codependent, and toxic relationship, where my only concern was avoiding feelings of rejection and being unlovable. It was the last straw for me, and I decided I was done tolerating it. I was done abandoning myself to get something he was never going to give me.

    I cut off all contact with Steve that day.

    You’d think that it would be easy to leave a relationship that is toxic. I mean, who wants toxicity? But the truth is, it isn’t easy.

    Why do we get into these tricky situations in the first place?

    My divorce had left me in so much pain, feeling rejected and unloved, that I was willing to do anything to avoid those feelings. Instead of being discerning and heeding the red flags that were, in hindsight, obvious, I jumped in and continued the pattern of proving that I was worthy of love.

    When you’re always trying to feel loved and accepted, you’ll ask yourself questions like, “Who do you need me to be to love me?” You’ll shape-shift to fit someone else’s needs and abandon your own. You may over-give, or shower your partner with gifts and affection, all in an effort to win their love so you can feel loved.

    The end result is similar to being rejected because you end up feeling alone—except this time it’s because you’ve abandoned yourself and your truth.

    You lose yourself, which, in the end, can be just as lonely as feeling rejected and unloved. That’s how it was for me. I spent so much time trying to prove my worth that I lost sight of who I was and what I deserved.

    I didn’t realize at the time that I needed to come home to myself first and love and accept myself before anyone else could ever give that to me.

    It turned out that leaving that relationship was an act of self-love and the beginning of finding peace.

    Was it easy? No. There were so many feelings that came up for me when I left the relationship. There was embarrassment that I had chosen him over myself so many times. There was the loneliness and pain that go along with the end of any relationship. And, of course, there was fear that I would never find that love and acceptance that I craved so desperately.

    So how did I do it? How did I find inner peace after leaving that toxic relationship?

    What it really came down to was finding peace within myself.

    When there is a void of some sort, we naturally want to try to fill it with something else. But when you try to fill the void with something external, it never works.

    If I had kept looking to fill that void with things outside of myself after my relationship ended, I would have likely bounced from one toxic relationship to another until I learned to turn inward and fill myself up from the inside.

    So how do you turn inward? Part of the reason you’ve gotten into a toxic relationship in the first place is that you don’t know how to do that.

    The act of leaving the relationship was the first step for me. It was a huge step. The feeling you get when you decide you’re no longer going to pretend you’re someone you’re not in order to gain someone’s love is empowering, and gives you a little boost of confidence that you’ve got your own back.

    It’s an act of love toward yourself.

    At the time, I didn’t think of it as an act of love, but in unpacking it later, I can see that it was. It was the first step in rebuilding my relationship with myself.

    The next part of the process for me was to reconnect with myself.

    We tend to get our identities tangled up with our partners’, and it’s easy to forget who we are without our relationships. That happened to me after seventeen years of marriage, and bouncing right into an unhealthy relationship didn’t help. I spent so much time worrying about who I was being and if I was good enough to be loved that I totally lost sight of my true self.

    Reconnecting with myself meant spending a lot of time with myself. I had become great at staying busy to avoid loneliness, but I knew I needed to learn how to sit with the discomfort of being alone in order to heal.

    I spent a lot of time connecting with nature. I started taking myself out on solo dinner dates and I went to movies by myself. And when the loneliness didn’t feel good, I sat with it while I cried tears of sadness, learning how to show myself compassion for what I was feeling instead of pushing the feelings away.

    For someone who has spent a lot of time avoiding rejection, being alone can be difficult. But it’s a necessary part of reconnecting with your truth, and you will learn, like I did, that it’s really not that bad. It’s actually refreshing and beautiful to have time with yourself.

    I also reconnected with my support system. When I was in the relationship with Steve, I didn’t make my friends and family as much of a priority as I once had. In my quest for feeling loved, I became so focused on the relationship that I not only abandoned myself but also some of the most important people in my life. I made some questionable choices when I was being who I thought I needed to be for him, and after leaving the relationship, it was time for me to reconnect with my true support system.

    But the most important thing I did to find peace after this toxic relationship was to learn to love myself.

    I started with a list of all of the reasons I didn’t deserve to be treated the way Steve had treated me, written with dry-erase marker on my bathroom mirror. Every time I looked in the mirror, I was reminded of why I deserved more. I also kept a list of all the things I wanted to believe about myself. I wrote a new list each day and eventually, one by one, I started to believe the things on that list.

    I made the decision not to date for a while so I could focus on strengthening my confidence in who I am without someone else. Through therapy and working with a life coach, I learned that my self-love issues were rooted in perfectionism, so I worked to lower the expectations I had for myself to a more realistic level.

    I learned that I was much happier when I was just focusing on enjoying the moment being an average human. In fact, I adopted the idea that we are all just average human beings. We all have unique gifts and talents, and there is no need to compete with one another to be exceptional. Average is a fine place to be, and I found embracing this attitude helped me navigate life with more compassion toward myself and others.

    The most important step I took toward self-love was learning how to surrender and accept the present moment as it is. If I was feeling a lack of self-love, I learned to sit with it and send love to the part of me that was feeling that way. I learned to not get hung up on the what-ifs and to appreciate who I am being in this very moment, which is all I know I have for certain.

    The journey to loving yourself is the most important one you will ever make. Self-love is a work in progress, of course, but knowing where you’re headed helps to know who you are, know your worth, and remind you to always choose yourself unapologetically.

    While the relationship with Steve was traumatic in many ways, I am grateful for it because I learned and grew so much from it. Needing to heal from the codependency and toxicity of the relationship created a beautiful space in which I was able to ground myself and find peace in knowing that no matter what, I always have my own back and I will always choose myself.

    It’s a serene feeling and I wish this for you too.

  • 7 Lessons That May Help You Find a Fulfilling Long-Term Relationship

    7 Lessons That May Help You Find a Fulfilling Long-Term Relationship

    “You, yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.” ~Buddha

    “You’re not in love with me, you’re in love with the idea of being in love.”

    Ouch!

    Kate (not her real name) and I had met online before Internet dating websites—let alone apps—were even a thing, and ours was a long-distance relationship.

    I was twenty-four, and she was twenty-three.

    Initially bonding over our favorite musical artists, we soon found ourselves sharing all kinds of personal stuff with each other—first over AOL Instant Messenger, and then via countless hours on the telephone.

    I remember being startled and confused upon hearing a voice I was now intimately familiar with coming out of a face I had never seen before (save for a few photos) when we finally did meet in person a couple of months later. It was jarring.

    Nevertheless, we embarked upon a “real” relationship, in the flesh.

    Our incompatibilities cropped up almost immediately, however, and became increasingly apparent each time one of us visited the other. Still, how could we deny the substantial emotional intimacy we had established?

    Her declaration to me—“You’re not in love with me, you’re in love with the idea of being in love”—seemed harsh and unfair. Who was she to say how I did or did not feel?

    Yet, there was a ring of truth to it.

    No doubt, I had projected my deepest longings for love and my idealistic vision of realizing it onto her. It wasn’t the first time I had done such a thing, nor would it be the last.

    The relationship with Kate crashed and burned rather quickly, intense as it was. Even though it became clear we were not right for each other, it was a painful dissolution. Disillusionment can be painful!

    I would endure plenty more heartache in my dating and relationship life for years to come, as I slowly learned how to love myself more and matured in my understanding of what constitutes a healthy relationship.

    Eventually, at the age of thirty-three, I met the woman whom—seven years later, to the day—I would marry. A wonderfully compatible, loving, healthy, mutually supportive, and lasting relationship is possible, it turns out. As of this writing, we have been happily coupled for sixteen years (the last nine as spouses).

    My observation is that when it comes to relationships, there are “no rules”—meaning, almost anything and everything can happen within the dynamics of two human beings relating to each other.

    Certainly, there are no guarantees.

    There are many factors at play as to when, how, and why we connect with others in the ways that we do, not to mention how long our relationships (of all kinds) end up lasting, and what kinds of changes they undergo.

    Since we have no control over another person’s feelings and choices, nor over what may happen to our beloved, relationships entail inherent risk and vulnerability. That’s the price of admission.

    All of the above notwithstanding, here are seven key things I’ve learned, with experience as my teacher, that may help increase the chances of finding and maintaining a satisfying relationship with a partner long-term, if this is something you are seeking:

    1. Love and accept yourself.

    Loving and accepting yourself—flaws and imperfections as they are—is paramount. It is also the best way to prepare for loving and accepting another person, who will come with their own flaws and imperfections.

    There is always room for growth, and it is admirable to strive to improve ourselves, but we are all, always, works in progress. And that’s okay!

    If we wait until we are “perfect” before we are willing to love and accept ourselves, we never will.

    It is natural to get frustrated with yourself at times, but you can still choose to love yourself anyway and be your own best friend by recognizing and appreciating the goodness deep within you and doing everything you can to do right by yourself and others.

    You don’t have to be perfect to be worthy of a loving relationship. Be the best “you” you can be and love yourself all along the way—not in a narcissistic sense, but rather in a self-compassionate one.

    2. Find a partner who is “compatibly neurotic.”

    You will get along best with someone who is what I like to call “compatibly neurotic.” By this I mean not necessarily someone who is neurotic in exactly the ways that you are (this might be a disaster!), but rather someone whose neuroses are compatible with yours.

    In other words, the things about them that might drive other people nuts, you find somehow endearing, and vice versa. You appreciate each other’s quirks and can more or less gladly live with them because they are part of the whole person whom you treasure and adore.

    3. Mutual respect is essential.

    This is a no-brainer, but it must be mentioned. No healthy relationship is absent of this. You must not only each harbor deep respect and admiration for the other, but you must demonstrate this consistently through your behavior.

    If you feel disrespected, it is your responsibility to communicate this to your partner calmly and clearly at the earliest opportune time. Own your feelings and express them as such—your feelings—without attacking the other person, passively or otherwise.

    If your partner feels disrespected, it is similarly their responsibility to communicate this to you, and it is then up to you to rectify it to the best of your ability. You want to nip potential resentment in the bud.

    Don’t assume the other person is aware of how you are feeling. It is important to be able to voice your feelings and ask for what you want or need.

    As far as I’m concerned, putting the other person down, especially in front of others, is a serious violation of respect that should be avoided at all costs.

    In my experience, when there is mutual respect there is a natural give and take that tends to occur with very little effort.

    4. Mutual interest is non-negotiable.

    Again, it should go without saying, but you both should want the same things in a relationship and be interested in a relationship of this kind with each other specifically.

    The object of your interest might seemingly possess every quality you find desirable in a partner; they might be attractive, kind, brilliant, share similar interests and values as you, and so on. If they are not interested in you or are not available for the relationship you are seeking, however, all those other qualities are rendered irrelevant. Painful, perhaps, but 100% true.

    Move on and find someone else who is interested, who is available, and who genuinely appreciates you. Don’t settle for anything less. You are far better off single than in a relationship missing this key component.

    Mutual interest is non-negotiable, meaning it’s a must. It also means that it’s not something that can be negotiated into existence; it’s either there, or it’s not.

    5. Learn from previous relationships.

    Previous relationships are some of your best teachers.

    They help you clarify what you do and don’t want in a long-term partner. They also give you practice relating to another human being. And it is often within the context of our relationships that we develop important aspects of our own character and grow as a person.

    In this sense, all relationships can be seen as beneficial.

    See past relationships, if nothing else, as part of your journey toward finding the fulfilling relationship you are now seeking.

    Keep in mind that we tend to have far greater appreciation for that which doesn’t come easily, so if you have struggled in this realm, the potential reward awaiting you may be that much greater.

    6. Take responsibility for your own happiness.

    Realize that you—and only you—are responsible for your own happiness.

    Do the things you love and that you find meaningful, partner or not. Yes, having a wonderful relationship can be one of life’s greatest joys and blessings. But no one else is capable of, nor should be responsible for, making you happy. That is your job.

    Cultivate great friendships, too. (And realize that with these a lot of the same things already mentioned apply.)

    To promote your own happiness, you must make self-care a priority, which includes setting healthy boundaries for yourself. Self-care goes hand in hand with self-respect and self-love and is much more likely to make you an attractive and appealing partner for someone else, as well as to yourself.

    7. Choose explorations over expectations.

    Put yourself out there. Meet people (this is required if you want to ultimately find a partner). Show up. Do your part. Put forth some effort. And, as much as possible, keep your expectations in check.

    Every connection you make is an opportunity to get to know someone, but you ultimately have no way of knowing where any such connection will lead.

    When things don’t work out with someone the way you had hoped, the healthiest thing to do is to presume that it is for the best. You have no idea what potential miseries you are being spared by not ending up in a long-term relationship with this person!

    In sum, the best attitude to have when searching for a partner is one of exploration over expectation.

    This can be a lot easier said than done –we are human, after all. But the more you can approach your interactions with others as explorations (this person seems interesting, I wonder if there is some possibility for connection?) and the more you can let go of expectations about what a given connection will amount to, the better off you will be.

    Be sure to attend to other aspects of your life, as well, including giving yourself other things to look forward to.

    —

    These seven lessons did not all come easily to me; some needed to be learned repeatedly, and some still present themselves as things for me to learn anew, or within some new context. But I find them essential to relating well to myself, my partner, and others in general.

    “Kate” was part of my journey toward eventually finding the lasting and loving long-term relationship I craved, a mutually nourishing and highly compatible one in which both of us could grow and thrive.

    You could say she helped me realize this by being one of the teachers on my path. I hope that I ultimately played the same “facilitator” role for her.

  • How I Stopped Making Men My Everything and Losing Myself in Love

    How I Stopped Making Men My Everything and Losing Myself in Love

    “Yes, love is all about sacrifice and compromise, but it’s important also to establish a limit. You shouldn’t have to throw your whole life away to make a relationship work. If you have to lose yourself to please your partner, you’re with the wrong person.” ~Beau Taplin

    When I was twenty, I fell in love with a man who became my everything. My close friends watched me becoming someone else because I found myself trying to ceaselessly knead myself into someone who would perfectly fit into this man’s world, even if it meant betraying myself in the process.

    I changed my worldviews to fit in with his. I changed my dreams and ambitions to better align with his. I gave up friendships I valued that he wasn’t comfortable with me having. There was nothing I wouldn’t have sacrificed for this relationship and its survival.

    The relationship was only ten months long, but in that very short space of time, it became the center of my universe. When the relationship ended, to me, it almost signaled the end of my life. I did not see any life beyond that man or the relationship I had with him.

    At the end of that relationship I was forced to go into the hard journey of self-discovery. By the time I turned twenty-two, I realized that I would be in grave danger if I continued defining myself and centering my life on men and romantic relationships.

    The end of that relationship and the devastation that came with it made me vividly aware of my tendency toward engulfment. I found myself being someone who allowed romantic relationships to over consume her and take up her whole life.

    And now, eight years later, my idea of what a loving partnership looks like is so different and much more freeing. These are the truths that I had to learn the hard way that have allowed me to love my partners without losing important parts of myself in them.

    1. A relationship or partner will never meet all your needs, so stop expecting them to.

    My relationship broke because I placed a heavy burden on it to be my everything.

    Many of us give our partners a god-like status and expect them to satisfy our every whim and need.

    I looked to my partner to be for me what I had never learned to be for myself, thus putting on to him a responsibility that was always mine to carry.

    I now firmly believe that whatever our partners give us should merely be a drop into what we are already overflowing with because we did the work of nourishing our lives first before looking to a partner to do that for us.

    One is bound to lose themselves in partners that give them things that they don’t know how to give to themselves—like love, validation, and confirmation of their worth.

    2. Controlling your partner is a sure-fire way to lose the love you fear losing.

    I feared abandonment so much that there’s nothing about my partner I didn’t try to control. I wanted his obsession with the relationship to match mine. That was my twisted way of trying to put on a leash his love and affection for me.

    The downside of losing ourselves in love is that when our partners don’t lose themselves in the relationship like we do, we quickly equate it to lack of love, rather than having healthy boundaries necessary for the thriving of any healthy relationship.

    In retrospect, I cannot imagine how suffocated my then-partner felt about my misplaced efforts. The thing I feared most ended up happening because he could no longer take the extreme lengths I would go to in order to have his love.

    3. A healthy relationship will not change you, but encourage you to be more of who you are.

    It’s hard to maintain a strong sense of self in relationships when you don’t know who that self is. If you don’t know who you are, people can easily scrunch you up into versions of who they desire you to be. It’s so much easier to resist a relationship changing you into someone you know you are not when you have a clear sense of yourself.

    I still believe that love should always be transformational. But if love changes us, it should always be for the benefit of ourselves and our life purpose, not to please our partners or to meet their idealistic fantasies of what a perfect partner looks like. Love can only do its work in us when we allow ourselves to be fully seen, loved, and accepted for who we are.

    4. You should never neglect other areas of your life because of a relationship.

    There is nothing as thrilling as meeting a possible soulmate. It’s tempting to lose yourself in the new relationship and change your regular routine so that you can focus on this exciting new part of your life. This never turned out well for me.

    By the end of my relationship, I had enmeshed myself so deeply in this man’s world that I did not have my own world to go back to. My relationship became the most important thing, and I lost sight of every other beautiful thing I had going for me before I had him.

    A healthy relationship should never alienate us from our own lives but should be able to peacefully co-exist with all other parts of our lives.

    5. Your individuality should never be a threat in a relationship.

    I know we romanticize the idea of becoming one with our partners. We know the poems about becoming so intertwined with our lovers that we don’t know where we end and they begin. But love should never mean losing sense of who you are as an individual.

    We don’t have to be spitting images of our partners for love to mean something. When your partner first met you, they fell in love with your individuality, and it would cease to be love if you had to change the very things that drew them to you.

    Sacrificing ourselves for relationships will always be an act of self-betrayal. Loss of self is a cost of love I have sworn to never again pay. A healthy relationship is one where we can find a balance between being independent and interdependent.

    6. Be okay with loving in small doses.

    Love does not have to be all-consuming to be real.

    I struggled a lot with loving at a slow pace; I wanted everything, and I wanted it right now. I gave too much too soon hoping to get my partner hooked on to me. But now I understand that love takes time and it matures with time. It’s okay to keep certain parts of your love to enjoy and share later with your partner once the relationship has solidified and become more grounded.

    We want to stuff ourselves with love and affection and get shocked when we lose our balance in relationships. Love is much more satisfying when we savor it bit by bit, a day at a time.

    For me, surviving a relationship that was my everything, first and foremost, meant learning to develop my sense of self-worth (outside of my romantic relationships).

    It’s easy to lose yourself in a relationship. When you feel unlovable, you subconsciously believe that you need to give yourself up to avoid rejection. You can also find yourself obsessing over this one connection because, “Wow, someone finally loves me,” and you will do anything and everything to try and keep that connection.

    Life had to take me on a journey of learning that happiness can be found anywhere and not only through romantic relationships. When I discovered the idea of “multiple streams of happiness” centering myself, my life, and my joy on a romantic partner became close to impossible. Because now, in my late twenties, I have many beautiful things about my life that bring me great happiness, and should I fall in love again, it would merely be one of the many different streams that fill my life with joy.

    Now, on the other side of engulfment…

    I want my future relationships to be filled with freedom.

    I want a love where we can be apart while being beautifully together.

    I want my partner to have many other beautiful things about their life outside of me without feeling like I am not enough for them.

    I no longer want a love that I drown in but a love that will always let me come up for air; a love that puts me on steady ground, and never a love that I feel lost in.

    I want a love that reminds me that before we belong to each other, we will always first belong to ourselves.

  • How I Stopped Feeling Unworthy of Love (And Finally Learned to Receive It)

    How I Stopped Feeling Unworthy of Love (And Finally Learned to Receive It)

    “I hope you find love, but more importantly, I hope you’re strong enough to walk away from what love isn’t.” ~Tiffany Tomiko

    When I was in my early thirties, I briefly dated someone right after my divorce.

    It was one of those fast and furious things that had no label and left me wondering if I made most of it up in my head.

    It wasn’t the first time and it wouldn’t be the last. How many times had I ended up feeling rejected and abandoned? I was trying so hard to impress a partner, but no matter what I did, I only seemed to push them away.

    Tearfully, I shared my pain with a spiritual advisor and psychic and asked for her guidance.

    She suggested I consider the joy that might come out of pleasurable and easeful partnerships. She asked me, “Briana, why don’t you shift your energy and focus to that aim?”

    But it wasn’t so easy. I was attached and hung up on this guy. Why didn’t he love me like I loved him?

    Another thought popped into my head, which I hadn’t realized was there before.

    Before I could voice it out loud, she said, “Oooohhhh, Briana. I can hear you already. You think if you’re not in pain, then your art and other creative works won’t be any good.”

    I burst out into another round of sobs.

    Because it was true. I did think that way.

    I thought I performed at my best when I was at my most miserable, and if you took away my misery, I would not only be common, but worse yet… mediocre. I would truly be the bad artist I always thought I was.

    Every aspect of creative expression would become cliched, trite, and uninteresting. There wouldn’t be anything special about me.

    And so I would become unlovable.

    The drama proved my worth, one way or the other; the drama of performing well enough to earn love. 

    It wasn’t until four years after that conversation that I finally stopped clinging to my pain.

    Because I realized that pain didn’t make something (love) more authentic—it just made it more difficult.

    Maybe you know where I’m coming from. Maybe you feel that you, too, need to “chase” a relationship and suffer for it to really matter. For you to really matter.

    That’s just not true. There is a far better way to build relationships, and that’s what I would previously have called “boring” and “too easy,” but actually is about respecting your own, authentic self and opening up to love.

    Here’s what I’ve learned about letting go of feeling unworthy of love and finally learning how to receive it.

    1. Take off your mask.

    Like me, you might believe that to attract a lover and be worthy of love, you have to pretend to be a perfect partner, through things like making them feel wanted and desired, looking beautiful, and being funny, witty, smart, and interesting all the time.

    All of these tactics might very well appeal to a potential partner. Certainly, it might make them interested enough to get to know you better, and maybe even date you for a while.

    But none of that means it will soften their heart and make them fall into a soul-shaking relationship with you.

    In fact, while I used to think that I needed to pretend that I was something I wasn’t so that I’d be worthy of love, I just kept deterring the other person.

    Why?

    Because while the glitz and glamour are appealing, it also, on a deeper level, left me completely unavailable.

    In the same way, you are pushing away a partner by performing all the time.

    You see, your partner is going to feel as if they have to perform just as well, and while that may be exciting in the beginning, unless the mask comes off, it also gets exhausting very quickly.

    A loving partner will be less concerned about how many degrees you hold or how much you make at your job and more concerned that you’re passionate about what you’re doing.

    A loving partner doesn’t care how many facts you can recite. They may enjoy your company if you’re a great conversationalist, but that won’t necessarily make them feel something for you.

    The way to a partner’s heart is to make them feel safe enough to explore and experience their own authentic self.

    You do that by feeling safe enough to express yourself—without someone else’s permission.

    Because if you don’t communicate that you’re comfortable in your own skin, this partner won’t feel comfortable or safe opening up to you, either.

    And if a person can’t open up to you, warts and all, they can’t fall in love with you. It’s as simple as that.

    When you put on a performance instead of taking off your mask, you unconsciously communicate a fantasy of reality, because that feels safer than vulnerability. And then you energetically and non-verbally tell your partner that you can’t handle their vulnerability, either.

    And isn’t it freeing? You, in all your vulnerability, are the person they want and need in order to be their own, true self.

    2. Get in touch with your own feelings.

    What many of us do when we feel unworthy of love is numb our emotions and pretend we feel something other than we actually do.

    But a loving partner wants to know you’re angry when you’re angry and why you’re angry.

    Guess what happens if you’re acting one way, while feeling something else? That’s right, drama.

    If they think you’re angry, but they are not sure, because you’re trying hard to plaster a smile on your face, say, “I’m fine,” and stuff it down, you’re not really fooling anyone, just confusing them.

    Your energy and your verbal expressions are going to contradict one another, and that is the seed of dramatic conflict.

    And this type of drama is so annoying because you are effectively keeping a partner at bay, and refusing to connect with them, for fear that they wouldn’t like the “real” you.

    But because they can’t access “the real” you, there’s no real glue holding them there, and they wind up leaving you anyway.

    So show them what you feel, while letting go of the fear that they will reject you for doing so. By reconnecting with your emotions, you show up as your authentic self and make it safe for them to love you.

    3. Be open to meeting someone with the same level of consciousness.

    Around the end of August last year, I started dating someone. He wasn’t originally what I would have imagined for myself, but he turned out to be exactly what I need.

    Right from the get-go, things went really well; we talked for hours on end, and I felt an instant connection.

    There were butterflies, yes, but not the kind of gut-twisting, obsessive sensations I have had in the past, which usually means I should run.

    This was more like, “Ah, you fit nicely… and kinda feel like home. What took you so long?”

    He shows up with fresh flowers, texts me “good morning,” and sees the humor in situations like that time my cat got jealous and bit him when he tried to kiss me.

    While before, I would have instantly dismissed this type of relationship as being too easy (and the lack of drama would have shown me that it wasn’t real love), I now see it for what it is:

    A relationship in which partners join together from a place of inspiration, as opposed to a fear-based need to be filled up with the other.

    This is a partner who already has a higher level of consciousness and is looking for purposeful building. There’s no drama, there’s no chasing, and there are no games or acts.

    This is the key to feeling worthy of and receiving love—finding a partner who is open to the same. The criterion for attracting such a partner, however, is that you are ready to meet them.

    I wasn’t ready four years ago. It took me that long to go from believing that relationships had to be a rollercoaster of emotions to opening up to a loving partnership.

    Ultimately, it’s about you finding your authentic self and realizing that this version of you (the real version) is so worthy of love and should be loved. That’s the premise for a relationship that, instead of being soul-sucking and anxiety-ridden, is the perfect space for self-growth and joy.

  • How to Create Happiness Outside of a Relationship and Enjoy More of Your Life

    How to Create Happiness Outside of a Relationship and Enjoy More of Your Life

    “Remember, being happy doesn’t mean you have it all. It simply means you’re thankful for all you have.” ~Unknown

    For many years I was single. But I wasn’t just a regular single, I was a miserable one.

    Rather than enjoying a time in my life when I didn’t have to care about anyone else but myself and using it to devote my full attention to my purpose and passions, I chose to ride the “woe is me” train.

    I would complain about being single daily and covet other women’s “luck” in dating. I would blame every guy I dated for “just not being ready,” or somehow else at fault.

    I didn’t realize I was the common denominator in all my failed relationship attempts.

    I was the one who chose to spend time with these men and ignore the big red flags that would crystalize themselves early on.

    Instead of taking time to patiently vet and reject men that were not good for me, I allowed my desperation to entertain any man that would show interest.

    My inability to find happiness outside of a relationship was ultimately what kept me single.

    The saying “you attract what you are” was true in my case. I was miserable single, so I kept attracting miserable relationships. 

    I continued down the same path until I decided that something needed to change.

    I realized that I had outsourced the job of making me happy to the many men that I dated.

    Their presence, their commitment, and their interest in me would determine how happy I was. Unfortunately, due to my questionable taste in romantic partners, that would often mean not so happy. So, I decided it was time to change that.

    That is when things started to shift, and I called in the life and love that I wanted. Here is what I did to find happiness outside of a relationship:

    Dealing with the Absence of a Relationship

    One thing I have learned is that in the absence of a romantic relationship I had to find fulfilling activities that made me happy.

    When you are single you have a lot of time. Time to think about everything you feel is missing.

    I would spend my evenings watching romantic movies on Hallmark wishing my life were like the plotline of the movie.

    And more often than not, all it did was make me more miserable. So, I decided to utilize that free time in the evening in a better way.

    I came up with a beautiful nighttime routine that included coloring, listening to music, and reading a book on spirituality or personal growth.

    I would fill the void with activities that filled me up.

    Same for the morning times. Instead of lying in bed and scrolling through Instagram until all I saw were couples and babies, I started running.

    Not only did I get into the best shape of my life because of it, but I also discovered a new passion for running and working out that quickly turned into a hobby I’m now passionate about.

    By dealing with the absence of a relationship head-on I found activities that made me happy.

    Dealing with the Sadness of Singleness

    The second thing I did to find happiness outside of a relationship was learn to deal with the sadness that singleness often brings with it.

    It’s no secret that being single can suck.

    No matter how often single people are made to believe that being single is a blessing, it can be hard to see it when that blessing seems to last forever.

    What I have learned is that rather than avoiding, suppressing, and denying the sadness, I had to learn to embrace it.

    I needed to allow the ebbs and flows to pan out accordingly. By deeply feeling the sadness and despair, I also enabled myself to feel the joy and excitement that followed after.

    Reminding yourself that no emotion lasts forever, and that you will eventually overcome it, is the light at the end of the tunnel that keeps you going.

    Therefore, you must make it a habit to tune into your inner well-being daily. Here are three ways I do it:

    1. Start your mornings with a meditation practice that centers you and puts you in tune with how you are really feeling.

    2. Start journaling your thoughts to better understand your fears and worries. You can commit a few minutes in the morning or evening to it.

    3. Commit to a daily gratitude exercise. Multiple times throughout the day, stop what you are doing and simply list three to five things you are grateful for. They can be as simple things as your home, furniture, or the body parts that serve you well.

    There are many different habits that you can choose from. The only thing that matters is that you create a safe space and routine that allows you to feel your emotions without judging them.

    This will help you deal with the sadness of singleness.

    Dealing with the Uncertainty of Dating

    The last thing I had to learn in order to find happiness outside of a relationship was how to navigate through the dating space without feeling burned out or discouraged.

    Dating nowadays feels like you are entering the twilight zone. With many different terms and stages describing the act of dating, many people are not sure what they are doing anymore.

    Are you dating, hanging out, hooking up, or maybe just “chilling”?

    If you don’t know, chances are you are stressed by the uncertainty. And that feeling of anxiety sucks.

    It’s a constant ride on a roller coaster of emotions controlled by the other person.

    So, how can you learn to deal with the uncertainty that dating oftentimes brings with it?

    The first step is to increase your self-esteem and remind yourself that your relationship status does not determine your worth.

    When a romantic relationship does not progress the way you want, you may feel discouraged and disappointed. These feelings are valid and should be honored; however, you have to remember that they are only feelings. That means they will pass.

    Instead, use affirmations to build yourself up daily and celebrate all your minor successes, the positive impact you have on the people around you, and how far you’ve come as a person. This will help you remember all the great qualities you bring to a relationship and will be a blessing to the person you are with in the future.

    The second step is to focus on the fun.

    In a world of billions of people, it may take some time to find the one person you would like to spend the rest of your life with, who happens to want the same.

    Uncertainty is part of the dating process. Rather than shying away from it, try to focus on the fun of dating. Meet people without any expectations and instead decide to just have a good time and enjoy their company.

    By doing that, you will naturally feel less anxious, because you are not trying to control your date’s experience, only your own.

    Because of today’s societal pressure to be boo’d up by a certain age, it can often feel depressing when you are not in a committed relationship. Which then leads to unhappiness.

    However, by taking matters into your own hands and deciding to create happiness for yourself, you allow yourself to experience life and live in the present moment.

  • My Attraction Experiment: Why I Created a Dating Profile with No Pics

    My Attraction Experiment: Why I Created a Dating Profile with No Pics

    “Being attracted to someone’s way of thinking is a whole different level of attraction.” ~Unknown

    I have been divorced for ten years now and thought it would be fairly easy to find “the one” once I was set free from the ties of the wrong one. To my surprise, it has been harder than I thought it would be. I have found many but not “the one.”

    I have been on Match, Bumble, Plenty of Fish, and blind dates, and even dated a longtime friend to only find myself single going into my fiftieth year on this planet. It has taken me a long time to figure out what I have been doing that has attracted what isn’t right for me.

    I have been in years of therapy, talking out my thoughts and recognizing patterns that don’t serve me. After my marriage, I was in a two-year relationship with a guy who cheated on me. I was in a four-year relationship with a guy who stole a quarter of a million dollars from me, and my fifteen-year marriage was not a friendship.

    With all three partners there was one common denominator: I put a lot of energy into my looks to connect with them. In other words, I wasn’t an innocent party in these crimes of the heart. I got charged when a man was really turned on by me. I was addicted to someone wanting me. I needed to be desired.

    These men were overly visually stimulated and easily physically distracted. They all fixated on my physical and tolerated my mental. I never had a friendship with any of these guys. I had lustship.

    They questioned my deep, soulful emotions. They turned a cheek to my equanimity mindset. They made a face to my immense empathy. They shrugged at my compassion toward others.

    After my last relationship ended, I made an oath to myself. I was going to be celibate and single until I turned fifty. I had been holding onto a really nice bottle of champagne, reserving it for a special occasion. I went to the fridge with a sharpie and wrote, “Drink October 2021.”

    One restless Monday night, I decided to write out who I was and what I was looking for. I started writing with the mindset, “If I were going to go on a dating site . . . this is what I would write” sort of thing.

    As I was writing and reading and editing, I started to really like what I was reading. I thought to myself, “Damn—I am a good writer!”

    I wrote about the good, the bad, and the ugly in a charming, humble way. I was honest to the core about my shortcomings and my endeavors. I left out nothing because I had nothing to lose.

    It became a cathartic experience for me. I rewrote it and reread it until I said to myself, “Damn—I am a really good person!” I got to a place where I wasn’t embarrassed to share the raw truth, yet wasn’t at the total other end thinking, “I don’t give a f*** what you think.” I was in a good place.

    I was proud of myself and wanted to share my story. I felt very accomplished for just being able to put into writing my love life and be able to read it like it was a heartfelt story. It made me smile.

    That Monday night I decided to do an experiment. I got a one-month membership to Match.com and paid extra to only allow people I “liked” to view my profile. I created my profile calling myself “AbbieNormal,” a reference to the hilarious Mel Brooks movie Young Frankenstein.

    I answered all the questions about myself even filled out the random topics Match prompts to help people to get to know you. I typed out the long summary I had created, and when it came time to upload a profile photo, I chose not to. This was the experiment.

    The experiment was to see if any man would be interested in my mind before seeing my body. I was a single woman looking for a single man with a profile that had a novel to read and no photos.

    What guy would read instead of view? What guy would trust without being shown? What guy would take the depth without superficial bait? Who was going to buy the cow without seeing it was a cow?

    There is no doubt that my last guys wouldn’t respond. My ex-husband would think I didn’t post a photo because I was fat. The boyfriend that took my money would think I was some woman trying to get away with cheating on her husband.

    I looked through profiles of over one hundred men and chose about twenty to view my profile, or as Match calls it, “liked” them. I had very little faith that any man would message me. It was an experiment for which I had already fabricated the conclusion.

    My write up started like this, “I have never been single longer than a blink, and I think it’s partially because men are visual creatures. I am taking a gamble with no photos. I would prefer you to read about me and decide if you want to continue than to see me and make my words fit into the pretty little package that I am, emphasis on pretty, not ego :)”

    I went to bed feeling at peace with myself for allowing people to read about the real me, and confident that this experiment would not disrupt my champagne oath. I woke up the next morning, Tuesday, to find three men had messaged me. I was shocked!

    Each one mentioned how refreshing it was to read such an authentic profile. One man did say that a photo would be nice, but no pressure, which I thought that was sweet. Another one mentioned that he too was a big Young Frankenstein fan. He got points for recognizing the reference.

    I wanted to write them back, but apparently on Match you cannot message people unless you put at least one photo up, which is silly because I already gave them money. The site must be owned by men. I was hesitant to post a photo, so I waited another day.

    Wednesday morning one of the three men messaged me again asking to connect. I felt the need to respond so that my intentions didn’t seem like a ruse. I posted a photo and responded to the three men saying the same thing to each one, “Thank you for taking the time to read my profile.”

    On the Wednesday after I posted my photo, I received messages from the rest of the twenty men that I had “liked.” Before keeping track of them became a full-time job, I gave the first three guys my attention. They were my priority.

    Guy 1 – fizzled out after a few texts  :/

    Guy 2 – asked for more photos  :[

    Guy 3 – we texted, talked, and met  🙂

    I did give some time to a handful of the second-round guys that messaged me after the photo went up. One guy didn’t understand how I wasn’t bitter about losing a quarter of a million dollars. Another made a comment that I should post more photos because I am so beautiful. And most of them wanted to meet right away.

    I also kept looking through all the profiles that Match sends daily as their algorithms do their matchmaking. Although I have to say, they always sent me my ex-husband’s profile as a “Super Match,” and he is by far not that.

    The experiment was pretty much over. I had a photo up, and now I was acting like I was dating or something. I needed to focus on my champagne oath and just stop.

    My experiment surprised me.

    I gained a new appreciation for the male species / human race. Who knows what intentions the three guys had when choosing to message me solely on the basis of my words and no photo? I would like to believe that they were genuinely interested in what they read and wanted to ride with faith that there would be a physical attraction. That is my final answer.

    The experiment taught me a lesson.

    I was being hypocritical as I looked at every man’s photos picking out who was going to have access to my profile. As painful as it is to say that I was looking at men’s physical attributes, my attraction always came from what they wrote. I do know without a doubt, if a man “liked” me with no photo and his words moved me, you better believe I would message him back.

    The experiment gave me a new perspective.

    Like I said, I was not innocent in how men viewed me or what type of man I ended up with. I wanted someone to see me for who I really was, but my shell was sparkly and shiny while my center was elaborate and profound.

    I realized I had longed for someone to want, desire, and be turned on by the elaborate and profound and then be happily pleased with the sparkly and shiny.

    For all of my dating life, men wanted me for the sparkly and shiny then tolerated, challenged, and ridiculed the elaborate and profound. The experiment allowed me to feel wanted for who I truly am for just a brief moment, and it was an incredible feeling.

    I will forever remember this experiment as the moment I learned who I really am in terms of a partner. I had been blaming the men or the quality of humans or my poor judge of character, and it wasn’t any of those things. I had to learn who I am to understand who I wanted.

    I bet you are wondering what happened to Guy 3, right? I am still dating him. As for the champagne oath—that I’d be celibate and single until I turned fifty—let’s just say when I told Guy 3 about my oath he said, “That’s not going to happen, you better just drink it.”

  • How Singles Can Come Out Stronger After the Pandemic

    How Singles Can Come Out Stronger After the Pandemic

    “Resilience is all about being able to overcome the unexpected. Sustainability is about survival. The goal of resilience is to thrive.” ~Jamais Cascio

    The pandemic has forced us to avoid people, self-isolate, and keep to ourselves.

    It might seem like you’re in a position where you don’t have many options. You can’t freely hang out with your friends. You can’t have fun like you used to. Your dating and socializing opportunities are limited. These setbacks can bring to the fore feelings of loneliness, deepen the longing for relationships, and highlight your innate desire for connection.

    I know how easy it is to get sucked into a hole of despair, loneliness, and paralysis and to wait for better times to come.

    I am not single now, but my life has forced me to embrace being single in the past. I formerly spent ten years trying to find love online. I created lots of drama, frustration, and pain for myself. I reached the point of emotional exhaustion and needed to rebuild my sense of self and find my own power again. I then went on a dating detox for two years and never looked back.

    During this time, I focused entirely on creating an amazing relationship with myself. I learned how to hold, support, and provide for myself. I learned how to enjoy being single. I embraced feeling lonely and learned how to soothe my uncomfortable emotions.

    All of the methods and techniques I’ve shared below helped me find the inner resources for a better and more fulfilling life as a single.

    As a deep believer in the saying “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade,” I encourage you to turn within to find your resilience. Stop waiting and start thriving now.

    Since finding love might be slightly more difficult right now, use this time to learn more about yourself, deepen your relationship with yourself, and befriend your loneliness.

    Ultimately, we are the architect of our own destiny. We all have the power to decide how we want to feel and what actions we need to take to thrive rather than just survive. If you take these actions, you’ll end up stronger, clearer, and more empowered.

    Here are a few suggestions on how you can use this pandemic to your benefit:

    1. Be gentle with yourself.

    You have valid reasons to be all over the place emotionally right now. One day, things might look bright and easy. On another day, you might feel down and demotivated. Recognize it. Acknowledge it. Have compassion for yourself. Don’t expect too much of yourself. Don’t be too hard on yourself.

    Let’s face it: these are unprecedented times. You need to adjust your expectations of yourself to the current circumstances. It’ll feel hard and challenging at times. Allow it all. Without judgment. It is what it is, and you’re doing your best.

    Take it one day at a time. Have a plan or structure in place every day if that helps you keep going. If the going gets tough, take care of yourself and prioritize your well-being. Through meditation and mindfulness, you can reduce your anxiety and loneliness, find blessings in every day (no matter how boring and limited it may be), and increase your joy and contentment.

    2. Befriend your loneliness.

    Have a date with your loneliness. Let’s call it your “Silence & Solitude Session.” You can do it when you’re having your morning coffee or smoothie, or whenever you feel overwhelmed by loneliness. Just sit down, turn off all distractions (like your phone), and be present with your feelings.

    Find the feeling of loneliness in your body. Feel how warm or cold it is. What color it is. What shape it is. Explore why you feel the way you feel. What triggered this feeling? What is the thought behind this feeling? Does your loneliness have any message for you?

    Treat it like a wave of energy going through your body—energy that wants to be released and transmuted. Like every wave, it comes and goes. Every feeling is transient. No emotion lasts forever. Eventually, they all pass, and much more quickly if you stop resisting and judging them.

    If you prefer to shift your feelings by doing something physical, just drop everything and dance, exercise, or go for a hike. Even a quick cleaning session around the house can quickly change your state by moving the energy. By the end of your exploration, your loneliness won’t have as much power over you.

    When I became intimate with my own loneliness, it didn’t paralyze me as much or feel as scary. I was able to embrace it, release it, and find peace and comfort in solitude.

    3. Take care of your inner child.

    Whenever you feel flat, sad, angry, or frustrated, sit down, close your eyes, and connect with your inner child to help give them what they need.

    You might see them. You might feel them. Get closer to them. Spend a few moments being, chatting, and playing with them.

    When you feel like it’s the right moment, ask them what they need right now. Give them space and wait for the answers. The answers will flow, and you might be surprised by what they are. Then you can reassure them that you’re always there for them and want to fulfill their needs.

    When I did this exercise during a particularly lonely period, I recognized that my inner child needed more fun and connection. She felt lonely because I’d been neglecting her and ignoring her need for play.

    If your inner child also feels smothered by life’s busyness and seriousness, let them out and engage in fun, playful activities. Have a fancy dance party (invite your friends over Zoom!). Have a karaoke session and sing at the top of your lungs. Get dirty with paints or clay. Grab a box of markers and paper and draw how you feel.

    Let them express themselves through creativity. It doesn’t matter what you create or what it looks like in the end. The process of playing and creating will do the healing.

    4. Use social media to create connection, not to numb yourself.

    Limit your social media time and use it with intent. Facetime friends, connect with your family, reach out to friends you haven’t spoken with for years and check out how they’re doing. Be creative. Maybe a cooking session with a friend over Zoom or a dinner with a sibling using WhatsApp.

    These interactions are priceless. They’ll give you a sense of connection and boost your mood. Mindlessly scrolling through FB or Instagram stories won’t. It can create the opposite effect. Often it can make you feel even more isolated and feeling like you don’t belong. It can trigger “comparisonitis”—the feeling that you’re falling behind on your goals/projects when compared to others you see online. It will only bring you down.

    Examine what triggers you to grab your phone, how often, when, and what feelings you try to numb by scrolling through social media without purpose. Then find healthier ways to address your emotions—for example, doing something fun if you’re bored or journaling if you’re feeling down on yourself.

    You’ll stop wasting so much time, and you’ll have more of it to explore new things that bring you joy and pleasure. Perhaps deleting certain apps from your phone is a good idea. Or designating certain times per day for social media rather than doing it whenever you feel like it. Experiment and see what changes in your life.

    5. Spend time in nature.

    You might recognize the healing power of nature but limit yourself to indoor activities because it’s easier, or because it’s cold outside. But even in the colder months, nature can bring you comfort. It can uplift you. It can help you cleanse your energy and emotions. It can inspire you and give you insights, whether it’s a brisk walk in a nearby park or just stepping outside into your garden barefoot.

    Feel the ground, grass, sand, or even snow, depending on what’s available where you are. Look up into the sky. Listen to the trees. Pause for a moment and be present with what is present. Deep breathing while being present will help you oxygenate your body and get the energy flowing.

    If you’re more adventurous, why not travel to a new location and explore something new? Find a forest or national reserve. Pack a sandwich or two and enjoy exploring a new place. Spending a day surrounded by nature will fill your soul up and refresh you mentally. It will move the stagnant energy and bring some new inspiration.

    6. Keep your vision alive.

    I know you needed to put everything on hold, and little is available at the moment. Some of your plans needed to change. Some projects got suspended. But please don’t let your dreams and your vision die inside of you. The pandemic is temporary. You can use the extra time you have to deepen and clarify your dreams and goals or find your purpose.

    Keep drawing your vision of your future in your mind daily. Take a few minutes each day to create your future. Grab your journal or just sit for a moment and reconnect with your dreams. Review your aspirations. Revisit your goals. Check in with yourself and see what’s still important, what you want to let go of, and what new plans you have.

    Here are a few journal prompts to get you going:

    • Has anything changed in terms of your dreams and goals?
    • Do you still want the same things?
    • What do you want?
    • What is not important anymore?
    • What new things do you want to create?

    7. Re-evaluate your relationships.

    Use this time to re-evaluate your relationships, standards, and boundaries.

    If you dare to be honest with yourself and see how you’ve contributed to your mistakes and poor choices in love, you can draw lessons and strength from them—and avoid unnecessary frustration, heartache, and drama in the future.

    Take some time to identify what you want and don’t want in your next relationship and what you don’t want to compromise on. This will help you become the best version of yourself and attract the right kind of partner with your powerful energy and uncompromised standards and values.

    Here are some journaling prompts to help you uncover your strengths and give you more clarity:

    • What have you learned about yourself from your previous relationships?
    • How have you become stronger as a result of your previous relationships?
    • In what way have the previous relationships prepared you for success in your next one?
    • What are you not available for anymore?
    • What will you do differently in your next relationship?

    When I did this exercise while single, I recognized that I was an extreme overgiver and I had no boundaries. No wonder I felt drained after every relationship and needed time to recover. I put some new boundaries in place and balanced my people-pleasing tendencies, and that enabled me to attract true love.

    —

    When you apply the points above, you might improve your relationship with yourself and start enjoying being single more. You’ll also be more ready for successful dating when dating becomes easier. When you get yourself through tough times, you have a new appreciation for yourself, a stronger sense of self, and more clarity about what you’re available and not available for.

    This will, like nothing else, positively affect your future romantic choices, who you date, and who you allow into your life.

    There is some higher purpose to this isolation. Use this time to strengthen yourself so you can be ready for expansion in every area of your life once we’re on the other side of the pandemic.

  • What to Do If You’re Single and Feel Like You’re Missing Out

    What to Do If You’re Single and Feel Like You’re Missing Out

    “Hope for love, pray for love, wish for love, dream for love…but don’t put your life on hold waiting for love.” ~Mandy Hale

    Going to weddings alone, with no plus-one to take along with you. Watching the couples dance, thinking, “Will there ever come a time when that is me on the dance floor?” Going on holidays alone, with no partner to share memories with. Listening to stories of friends’ weekends away, as a reminder of just how solitary your own weekends are. If you are anything like me, you might recognize these signs of single life.

    “Will my situation and circumstances ever change?” I’d think as I struggled to fall asleep at night. I’d hold a pillow as a source of comfort, yet this too disappeared in the morning, when I woke up alone to face the day.

    Many single people think like this, yet rarely voice these thoughts. But sometimes we hit a turning point when we start to see everything differently—and then start to act differently.

    The turning point for me came one Saturday morning. After I had gotten dressed and ready, I sat down on a chair next to my bed. A photo of a couple friends was in front of me. They were on holiday, with smiles on their faces, standing under a bright blue sky with a clear blue sea behind them.

    As I looked at this picture of serenity and happiness, I had a sinking, empty feeling in my stomach. I thought, “God, will that ever be me?” I looked down in front of me and felt a sense of despair, worried about what my future held but paralyzed as to what I could do about it.

    At that moment I thought, “Enough.” I walked to the bathroom and looked in the mirror. I was tired of feeling sorry for myself. I was tired of watching the world go by. I was tired of the sad thoughts going around in my head like goldfish in a fishbowl.

    I asked myself then, “What do I have to be upset about?” I had a roof over my head, clothes on my body, and food in my mouth. That’s not to say it’s not normal to long for companionship when you’re single; it’s just that I had focused so much on what was wrong with my life that I hadn’t focused on what was right about my life. And I’d also focused on what was wrong with myself—as if there must have been something wrong for me to be single for so long.

    Until I became my own cheerleader, how could I expect others to start cheering for me? I decided then and there to take action. If I wasn’t happy with myself, I had to go out and change, and do things to change. Not just daydream and hope life would turn around by itself.

    So, what did I do?

    I’ve worked on enjoying my single life more and joined some dating apps to “get in the ring.” The results have proven mixed. Like with all things in life, there are good days and bad days. But on the whole, it’s been a positive experience because I’ve met some great people in my search for the person who ‘gets me.’

    I’ve realized we can only experience true happiness in life if we focus on ourselves instead of waiting for others to focus on us. People can join us for our stories, but we cannot expect them to complete our stories for us. We make our own paths in life. Walking on paths well-trodden will never be as satisfying as carving paths of our own, however rocky or imperfect they may be.

    So, what helped me move ahead? Here are four things that may help you:

    1. Work on loving yourself and your life.

    Work on yourself before trying to attract somebody else. As a natural result of working on yourself you will exude a glow of confidence. Your zest for life will radiate from your face, and you will naturally look and feel better to others.

    Work on developing positivity in your life. Embrace what you have, not what you wish you had or what your neighbor has. Read more, study more, travel more. Exercise for twenty minutes a day, try cooking one new dish a week, read or watch something every day that inspires you.

    Why should people get to know you? Evaluate the qualities you like about yourself and sing your own praises in your head each time you doubt how worthy you are.

    2. Be proactive.

    Join a few dating apps, take a few chances, take the time to connect with people. Bumble and Hinge are easy to use. You’ll meet new people and engage a new mindset.

    Get active and make the effort to swipe for a few minutes each day. What’s more, enjoy the process. Look beyond the photos. Recognize that there is a whole person behind the photo if you are willing to give that person a chance. Look for the gold in the profiles.

    3. Pay more compliments.

    If you see something you like on a profile, don’t be afraid to say it. You could make somebody’s day with your words. It costs nothing and it could provide just the lift they need. And the beauty of giving compliments is that you’ll likely get some in return—things people may have thought but otherwise not shared if you hadn’t gone first—which can help radically build your self-confidence.

    4. Focus on achieving one big goal a month.

    Write down twelve goals for each of the twelve months in the year. Buy a paper diary and write down how you are going to fill your time for the next week. Do something you wouldn’t ordinarily do. The person you seek should not compensate for all the things you are not; they should be an extension of all the things that you are. The more you live life, the more life you will have to share with a significant other.

    Review your progress once a week. Ask yourself, are you making too much time for people that do not have the time for you? Ruthlessly discard the things that don’t make you happy (people, pursuits, things) and selfishly embrace the things that do. Be generous with others and selfish with yourself.

    So, in summary, what can you do to improve your dating life?

    Treat yourself with the care you would treat a friend, broaden your mind and your approach when using dating apps, compliment freely, and give yourself one big thing to look forward to each month.

    True happiness in life can only be experienced when we focus on inside joy, not when we look for external fixes. Invite people into your life to join your life story, not to build your life story. Be your own cheerleader first to allow others to cheer for you.

  • He Broke My Heart But Taught Me These 5 Things About Love

    He Broke My Heart But Taught Me These 5 Things About Love

    “Sometimes the only closure you need is the understanding that you deserve better.” ~Trent Shelton 

    I’ll never forget the day we met.

    It was a classic San Francisco day. The sky was a perfect cerulean blue. The sun sparkled brightly.

    I ventured from my apartment in the Haight to Duboce Park to enjoy the Saturday. Dogs chased balls in the dog park. Friends congregated on the little hill. They giggled, listened to music, and ate picnic food. Kites flew high in the breeze. Adults tossed Frisbees in their t-shirts and bare feet.

    And I sat, bundled up in my scarf, zippered fall jacket, warm wool socks, and cable-knit sweater.

    This was summer in San Francisco. I had recently moved to the city at the end of May from the east coast with steamy eighty-degree weather, and now in July I sat on a hill and shivered. The famous saying fit perfectly, “The coldest winter I ever spent was the summer I spent in San Francisco.”

    I decided to venture to a nearby café, a French café called Café du Soleil (The Café of the Sun) and warm up with a hot beverage. I loved their outdoor seating.

    When I arrived, the café was packed. Every seat in the patio and the whole place was taken, except for one free stool at the bar next to a tall, handsome man.

    I sat down next to him with my hot chocolate and commented on how crowded the café was. He smiled and agreed, no longer interested in his salad or his glass of white wine. He was interested in me instead. His eyes sparkled.

    Fireworks!

    He was an artist, a photographer. He was a creative like me. Recently, he purchased his first house in Oakland, which included a lovely garden and was close to his work at a fine Japanese restaurant. Our conversation flowed easily, but from the moment I met him, I noticed a dark cloud over his head.

    “Are you married?” I asked.

    He jiggled his left fingers to show an empty hand.

    “No. No ring,” he said.

    “Kids?” I asked.

    “No,” he said, “but I would like some.”

    Our eyes locked. He sighed.

    “But… I’ll never have kids,” he said.

    I pressed my lips.

    “Oh, I think you’ll have kids one day,” I said in a lulling voice, looking sweetly into his eyes.

    He melted.  He really saw me. His eyes were full of adoration, love, and awe.

    We started dating immediately. It was fun and easy. He came to see me perform in Berkeley and I visited him in Oakland (in Fruitvale where he lived), where it was warmer and sunnier. He cooked me meals at his home with fresh fish and vegetables from his garden.

    Hummingbirds danced in the air when we were together. We drove to romantic rendezvous, danced, and he introduced me to the important people in his life: his best friend and his boss.

    The more time we spent together the sunnier and brighter he became, the happier we both were.

    Later, he admitted that he actually made most of his money selling drugs, followed by bartending, and that photography was only a hobby, not a profession. Also, he confessed that he had an alcohol and drug addiction. This was the reason his previous relationship ended even though they were both in love.

    I became sober before I moved to California. I overlooked the red flags because of our remarkable chemistry. Since I didn’t drink, he only drank one glass of wine with me at dinner and didn’t seem to want another. Because I didn’t do drugs, he never did drugs around me and he never talked about missing them.

    Everything was going perfectly, or so I thought. We never fought. Then Malik took his annual vacation to an event called Burning Man in Nevada while I stayed in San Francisco looking for a new apartment. Burning Man was very popular among the San Francisco locals and I was intrigued, but my sublet was up and I had to find a new place fast.

    Described as the “biggest party on earth” or “the only place where you can truly be yourself without judgment,” Burning Man was where people could party all day and night, dress up in outrageous costumes, see fantastic art and performances, and be completely uninhibited.

    When Malik returned from Burning Man, the storm cloud over his head reconvened above him and overshadowed him. He was jittery and paranoid. In fact, I didn’t recognize him; he became distorted and ugly. His eyes were glassy and darted back and forth like Gollum in The Hobbit. Hunched over, he tapped his fingers incessantly.

    “Everything happened too fast,” he blurted. “I told you, I don’t want to fall. I just wanted to have fun. I didn’t want to fall. I can’t sustain a relationship longer than two years. You want more than that. You should have kids. You’re getting older. You’d be a great mother. You need to have kids while you still can. You deserve that. You’re beautiful. There are plenty of handsome men in San Francisco. Why would you pick me? Pick one of them!”

    “Malik… we are having fun. I won’t let you fall. Let’s glide. Why are you talking about marriage and kids?”

    “You want more. I know it. I see it.”

    “We’ve never talked about the future.”

    “It’s not going to work. It’s over.”

    “Why are you breaking up with me? It makes no sense. Things were good before you left. We never fought. You were only gone a week. You mentioned having fun with a girl. Did you meet someone else?”

    His jaw hung open; his eyes bugged, and he took a large melodramatic step backward and gasped. He was shocked by my directness and accusation. But perhaps he was also stunned by my keen intuition.

    Sure enough, over the magical week, he met a beautiful redhead from Arizona, a single mother, who was interested in doing drugs with him in the desert, to escape her demons.

    They had so much fun together, isolated in a made-up city, laughing in the temptress of the sweltering heat. They experimented with Molly on the floor of his tent and “died together.”  Like Romeo and Juliet.

    I was devastated. Malik was no longer the person I thought he was. I had envisioned a life together. I had imagined traveling the world together.

    He told me he didn’t want me to text him any longer, and I didn’t. But the pain seared inside of me. and I held on for hope that he would see his faults and come back to me. How would he maintain a long-distance relationship with someone he did drugs with in the desert for a week? It made no sense. But that was how much he valued drugs over me.

    I never felt closure. I never felt that I was able to express all of my feelings. I wondered if I had been more vulnerable with him, if he knew how much I cared, if he would have had second thoughts and returned to me. He never came back. He never texted. It took me a long time to let him go. He was a big love for me.

    Looking back today (years later), I learned:

    1. Trust a soulmate connection.

    I felt it deep in my heart. I had met a soulmate. There was no denying it. Even though it didn’t work out, he opened my heart to love.

    2. See the red flags.

    I didn’t understand it at the time, but now I know that you can’t help anyone get over drug addiction. They have to want it for themselves.

    3. Don’t cling to love.

    Don’t cling in a relationship and don’t cling once it’s over for it to return. This was a hard lesson for me because when I love, I love hard.

    I have learned if you love someone and they cannot commit, do not hold on. If you love someone and they don’t want to be in a relationship with you, don’t think that in time, they will come to their senses and see how great you were and regret it and come back apologetically. People sometimes move on fast. Set them free. Holding on only hurts you. Allow yourself some peace too.

    4. Value honesty.

    A relationship without honesty is not a deep relationship. One shouldn’t have to drag it out of someone that they are dating someone else or that they have a drug addiction.

    5. Be with someone who has the same vision of the future.

    If you don’t have the same vision of the future, it’s not going to work. It shouldn’t be assumed that you know their wishes or that you have the same vision. It must be communicated.

    Meeting Malik opened my heart. Even though our time together was brief, it changed me forever. After overcoming the grief of losing a soulmate, it taught me not to settle, that I deserve better, and to trust that I will experience an even greater love next time.

  • When Your Heart Is Broken, Just Keep Moving

    When Your Heart Is Broken, Just Keep Moving

    “Hope is the feeling you have that the feeling you have is not permanent.” ~Jean Kerr

    Here’s the thing no one tells you about dating—it sucks. The uncertainty, the inconsistency, the stress. Dating has always been easy for me. Or so I thought.

    The more I think back, the more I see I accepted things I really shouldn’t have in all of my relationships. I allowed my needs to be put last, I took on blame, and I stayed when I wasn’t made a priority.  For what reason I am still not entirely sure. But I can tell you this: When you meet someone in your late twenties that you believe you will spend your life with, you think you have it all figured out.

    And then you find yourself thirty and single.

    Dating in New York is hard. Just watch any Sex and the City episode. But what’s harder is learning how to sit with yourself. Learning how to take the risk of feeling the true depths of loneliness and fear—the fear of being alone, fear that no one will want you, fear of never being enough.

    But this is not about dating. No, this is about heartbreak.

    What do you do when you find yourself single after years in a relationship? You cry. You scream. You fall apart.

    Throughout the past year, I have done a lot of sitting with myself. And you know what? It’s horrible. It is by far one of the hardest things I have ever done. Imagine sitting on the floor, unable to pick yourself up, crying so hard your insides seem like they are coming out.

    That was me. Being picked up off the floor by my parents.

    Every part of me was shattered. Daily functioning was nearly impossible, and I couldn’t go an hour without crying. The man I loved with every part of me wasn’t going to be with me anymore.

    Then came the self-blame. I had been in relationships before, but this was the first man I pictured a life with. This was my fault; I wasn’t what he needed and I needed to fix this. This played in my mind over and over again.

    Anxiety took hold, and I was on a crusade to reach him and talk to him. Every attempt drove me deeper and deeper into a black hole of sadness. Until one day I just stopped trying to reach him.

    Over the past year, we have popped in and out of each other’s lives in some way. You might think that would make this all less painful. I did. But after every time we spoke, I was back down the rabbit hole of darkness.

    I tried everything I could think of to make the pain stop. I read all the articles, I read books, I got a pet, I meditated, I continued therapy, I put my all into going out with my friends, and in the silence the emotions still flooded me.

    The irony to all of this is I am a mental health professional, yet in the deep darkness of sadness, I couldn’t pull myself out. Here’s the biggest realization: You can’t make it stop.

    Severe heartbreak changes you. I don’t remember who I was fully before him. But I know who I am after him.

    To this day whenever my anxiety rises, I pick up my phone to call him. Do something different. Write, read, call someone else. Changing the pattern is hard but worth it.

    I will always have a permanent scar on my heart. I can point to it and show you exactly where my heart broke. Today it is stitched together. There are parts that are healed and parts where the sadness still comes through.

    You have to feel it. The intense emotion, the despair, the elation. It all plays a role in healing.

    I think I may always have moments of what could have been, but here today I am opening myself up to let the light in. To allow the possibility of someone else into my life.

    Here is what I have learned on my journey of healing so far.

    1. Don’t accept less than what you think you deserve.

    2. You will never be too much.

    3. You are enough.

    4. You are worthy.

    5. Some days just kind of suck.

    When you finally have stopped crying, the wind tends to blow thirty degrees to the left and boom, you are standing in the middle of a parking lot, tears running down your face. That’s okay. Accept it, live in it, and set it free.

    I didn’t see how I could go on without him in my life. Sometimes I still have moments of this. The memories flood my mind, my eyes well up with tears, and the pain in my chest makes me feel like my heart will explode any second.

    It gets better.

    Through all of this I have met some truly wonderful people and have discovered my badass inner warrior. I have found myself again and I am nourishing her daily. That means taking a moment to meditate in the morning, going for reiki healing, realigning my chakras, reading books, writing, and just stopping to let myself feel.

    Here I am today speaking my truth. A truth of love, light, heartache, pain and everything in between.

    My advice to you—breathe in, breathe deep, feel all of it, cry it out, laugh it out, embrace every single feeling. One day it all starts to feel normal again, and one day your heart will be open. You cannot wish it away no matter how hard you try.

    Setbacks are part of the process. Allow yourself the space to feel horribly sad and then pick up and keep going. It doesn’t matter what direction you are going in, just move.

    Lean in it. Feel it. Breathe it. Be it. Let it go.

  • 7 Amazing Things That Happen When You Start Loving Yourself More

    7 Amazing Things That Happen When You Start Loving Yourself More

    “When I loved myself enough, I began leaving whatever wasn’t healthy. This meant people, jobs, my own beliefs and habits—anything that kept me small. My judgment called it disloyal. Now I see it as self-loving,” ~Kim McMillen

    I started learning about self-love a long time ago.

    In fact, I started learning about self-love so long ago that when, fifteen years later, a shaman in Peru I told me that self-love was the answer to all my questions, I got really pissed off!

    I had struggled with depression as a teenager. For about two years, I lived a very sad life. I don’t even remember much to be honest. I felt the pain of existence. I avoided people. Every day felt like yet another obstacle to overcome. I existed rather than lived. Eventually, I overcame it and discovered some tools that I still use to help me with any low moments l might have today. One of them was the practice of self-love.

    I found a few helpful books on meditation, the Silva Method, visualization, and the famous book You Can Heal Your Life, by Louise Hay.

    I wrote affirmations daily. I kept doing my mirror work. I started to be more appreciative and kinder to myself. I meditated regularly and gradually rebuilt myself. I thought I had nailed self-love. I thought I had really understood what self-love was.

    I was wrong.

    I was in my early thirties—single and not entirely thrilled about it. Not fulfilled in my corporate career. Living in a converted garage in London and wondering what to change in my life to feel happier.

    When my friend asked me whether I would be up for travelling to Peru, I didn’t think twice.

    It felt like the right adventure at the right time.

    We had a magical time for three weeks. We visited many ancient places, took part in spiritual ceremonies, met and worked with shamans, and visited some old communities living a modest life in the middle of the Andes. We experienced everything that Peru had to offer.

    One day, my friend and I decided to go for a coca leaf reading. It was mainly out of curiosity but as with previous past readings, I wanted to be reassured that my life was going to change and that I would soon be in a better place.

    Now I know better than to turn to a psychic to ease my anxiety. Once during a reading a psychic told me that there are a few future possibilities for us, based on our choices. So, I started to trust my choices more and become comfortable with uncertainty, as there is always a solution to our problems. I also trust that whatever I experience I’m having is for my highest good and the exact lesson I now need.

    Back to my story: So, we went to a back room of a very run down massage place that we’d come across a few days earlier.

    The shaman came and set himself up. He couldn’t speak English and had a Dutch translator.

    My friend went first and asked her questions and got guidance.

    When it was my turn, I started to ask the usual questions: When will I meet the love of my life? When will I find a better job? What job would it be? When will I find a better flat? When will I start earning more money?

    After I asked the first question, the shaman stirred the leaves in his palms and threw them up. When they fell, he looked at them and said to me, “When you start loving yourself.”

    Fair enough, I thought to myself, and asked another question.

    The shaman threw the leaves again, contemplated a little, and gave me the same answer, “When you start loving yourself more.”

    I thought “okay” and agreed silently with him. I still felt I could love myself more.

    I asked another question and got the same answer. And another question and got the same answer.

    Doubts began to appear and I started to feel a bit uneasy.

    I felt like we were a bit naive going to a shaman we didn’t know and that nobody had recommended him to us.

    When I heard the same answer for the fifth time, I lost it.

    I snapped at the translator, accusing the shaman of being fake and not knowing what he was doing.

    The translator started to calm me down and tried to convince me that the shaman was very popular and he knew his stuff. Apparently, many people kept coming back to him because of his accurate readings.

    Somehow it was hard to believe.

    We completed the reading and left.

    My friend tried to help me make sense of this experience but I completely dismissed it.

    I was furious. Not even about the reading but the realization that I thought I had done so much work around self-love and was convinced I knew how to love and respect myself. But here a stranger was pointing out to me that there was yet more work to be done.

    I remember asking my friend angrily, “How much work on self-love do I need to do to actually start loving myself? Is fifteen years not enough?”

    I felt helpless and discouraged.

    It felt like all the work I had done on myself up until that moment in Peru had meant nothing.

    I was frustrated because I assumed that after all the inner work I had done, I should have known better. I should have attracted higher quality men. I should have had a better job. I should have earned more money. I should have been happier.

    My life had a few more lessons for me before I actually got what self-love really meant.

    A few years later, I was even more frustrated in the new job—and still single after dozens of failed dates with men who didn’t even remotely fit the description of my dream man. Not much happier, I had a moment of realization when I was drying my hair.

    It just hit me out of nowhere. I felt in my whole body what it was to love myself. I felt flooded with self-appreciation for no reason. I was overcome by kindness and compassion for myself.

    In that moment, I saw how unloving I was toward myself. I realized that through my entire life I had been betraying and abandoning myself.

    I completely understood what the shaman in Peru really meant!

    Until I truly loved and honored myself, I wouldn’t get a better job, find a loving man, or feel happier.

    I wouldn’t because I didn’t love myself enough to feel worthy of it all.

    It took me a while to integrate my insights and realize how the love I had (or lack of it!) for myself was directly responsible for my unfulfilling love life, draining career, and overall unhappiness with life.

    A few years later, I now have my own definition of self-love.

    I believed for a long time that self-love was merely a feeling toward myself.

    Now I know better. It is way more than just a feeling.

    For me, self-love is a practice. It is a practice of choosing myself, putting myself first when I can, making myself important, and being kind and compassionate with myself. Also, self-love is about choosing things, people, and situations that are good for me, feel right, and serve me.

    Self-love is an on-going conscious choice!

    When I started to practice consciously choosing myself over others, over damaging situations, over unfulfilling friendships and relationships, things changed dramatically.

    To illustrate why you need to practice self-love, here are a few examples from my own life.

    1. You will start to feel more in charge of your life.

    I realized that I had always a choice. I could make poor choices out of fear, guilt, and shame or empowered choices that were aligned with who I was and what felt authentic to me. So, I stopped trying to please people, accommodating men unworthy of my attention, and doing things that didn’t bring me pleasure or satisfaction.

    When you start loving yourself more, you too will realize your wants and needs are important, and you have the choice to honor them.

    2. You will set stronger boundaries around dating and love.

    As a result of honoring my needs, I started to feel more confident and assertive. I became more purposeful with dating. I stopped wasting time on the wrong guys and started making more empowered romantic choices. The final outcome: I found the love of my life after struggling in the love department for years.

    When you strengthen your boundaries from a place of self-love, you too will feel more empowered and you’ll stop repeatedly choosing partners who aren’t good for you.

    3. You will stop seeking approval.

    This was the most liberating thing. As I loved and respected myself more, I stopped worrying about how much others liked or approved of me. I stopped doing things to be liked. This created space for me to be more authentic, less defensive, and more my genuine self.

    When you have your own approval and acceptance, you start caring less about other people’s opinion of you and living a life that’s aligned with your own values.

     4. You will start to make more courageous and conscious decisions.

    I gave up my draining corporate job out of respect to myself.

    I moved out of London after fifteen years to have a slower and more peaceful lifestyle.

    I fell in love again. (This takes lots of courage if you have been hurt over and over again!)

    I got pregnant and had a natural birth. I had no clue how this happened, as I formerly had broadcasted everywhere that if I ever got pregnant, I would be the first to ask for an epidural. But I listened to my body and having an epidural didn’t feel right.

    I became a mama to my son. This is probably the bravest thing I have ever done in my life, since I love my freedom so much. But the love for my son helps me forget how important my freedom was to me before.

    Self-love will give you the courage to get rid of things that don’t serve you and make space for things that will help you grow. When you truly value yourself, you make decisions that honor you rather than harm you.

    5. You will start to enjoy being with yourself.

    I stopped filling my days with meetings, dates, and outings, as I did in the past just so I wouldn’t feel alone. I stopped running away from myself into the arms of unsuitable men. I stopped meeting friends just to have some company.

    Instead, I started to do more things I loved doing: swimming, yoga, writing, watching movies, meditating. When I reconnected with myself deeply, spending time in my own company didn’t feel scary anymore. I stopped being afraid of being alone.

    You too will find that when you become more loving toward yourself, you will start being more comfortable being in your own lovely company.

    6. You will develop a stronger relationship with yourself.

    As I spent more time with myself I deepened the connection I had with myself. I stopped being desperate for a romantic relationship because I started to have more fun on my own. I became my own friend. I started to feel more secure as a person as I tapped into my true inner being. I started to believe in myself more. I started to trust myself more.

    When you deepen your connection with yourself through self-love, you’ll connect on a deeper level with others too. As your relationship with yourself improves, your others get stronger as well.

    7. You will stop seeking happiness in relationships.

    Loving myself helped me realize that I didn’t need a man to be happy. All the love I needed to be happy was within me already. I took more responsibility for my personal happiness and stopped giving my power away to men.

    I understood that happiness was constantly present in my life. It wasn’t somewhere in the future. I just needed to change my focus and learn to appreciate what I had rather than dwelling on what I didn’t have.

    When you start to love yourself more and feel happier, you too will likely feel less desperate for a romantic relationship. You’ll realize you don’t need a partner to be happy. You just need to be happy and the right person will show up in time.

    —

    So how do you start loving yourself more? Start choosing yourself daily and doing what feels right for you.

    Introduce a daily practice of checking in with yourself every time you need to make a decision or a choice.

    First you ask yourself: What would feel loving in this situation?

    Once you have the answer, ask yourself these thee powerful questions:

    Does it feel good/right for me?

    Will it serve me?

    Will it make me feel energized?

    These questions will help you honor yourself and your needs and stay true and loving to yourself.

    There is much more I want to say on this subject, but I will leave it for another article.

    Let me just say this: Self-love will transform your life—so start practicing!

  • The Best Dating Advice I’ve Gotten Was

    The Best Dating Advice I’ve Gotten Was

  • How Casual Dating Opened My Heart to Love

    How Casual Dating Opened My Heart to Love

    “Hopping from one relationship to another is not the way to find love. Slow down and give love a chance to find you.” ~Unknown

    When I was younger, I was a serial monogamist.

    I did the math recently and it turns out that once I started dating, I didn’t spend more than two weeks single at any point.

    Then, after the end of my most serious relationship ever, I had a moment that changed everything.

    My boyfriend and I hadn’t even been together a whole year, but I really thought he was the one, my soul mate. We had so much in common. We seemed to see eye-to-eye on everything. But then a stupid fight about birthday candles somehow blew up and ended our relationship.

    I remember just standing behind the window the morning he left with a box of books under his arm. It was the end of October, and we’d just had the first snowfall of the year.

    I kept thinking about the last Christmas we’d spent together, how he’d taken me snowshoeing for the first time. Our breath crystallized in the evening air.

    Then I realized that that wasn’t actually him. That had actually been my previous partner before him. All my relationships had begun to blur together so I couldn’t tell where I ended and they began.

    The idea of going out there again, into the cold dating world, seemed impossible. Even if it worked out, wouldn’t it just end up the same way?

    I felt trapped.

    When you keep getting what you think you want and you’re still not happy, you have to start asking yourself, what am I doing?

    So instead of firing up Tinder, going to the bar, or texting someone, I made a different choice. I simply waited.

    I realized that what was creating problems in my relationships wasn’t the fact that I couldn’t find my perfect match. It was my attitude.

    I felt like I couldn’t be alone. I didn’t want to deal with life as a single woman. But the real problem was that I looked at life as a search for this idealized perfect partner that probably didn’t even exist.

    Embrace Strength Over Fear

    When I was jumping from relationship to relationship, I was making my decisions based on fear—I was trying to avoid pain rather than trying to embrace love.

    I sometimes wonder how many of my relationships were twisted toward jealousy, insecurity, and conflict. How many people did I date that were simply wrong for me out of a fear of being alone? 

    And how much time did I waste clinging to those men, as if they were my only hope for happiness, when I not only had the power to be happy on my own, I could easily find other people to date if I tried?

    Stop me if you’ve heard this one: There are plenty of fish in the sea. This is a cliché for a reason. There really are so many people out there that you could date a different person every week and never run out.

    That’s not to say that we need to jump from superficial relationship to relationship. It just means we don’t need to suffocate our relationships with fear because we can trust that we’re strong enough to be alone and we’ll always have options for relationships in the future.

    The Casual Dating Difference

    Casual dating was always something I had avoided like the plague, but when I thought about it, I wasn’t sure exactly why. It was one of those things that you put into the category “sounds like fun, but it’s not for me.”

    But after a few months of being intentionally single, I started to get lonely. I was proud of taking the time for myself, and I knew I didn’t want to dive back into a relationship just yet. Still, deep down, I know I thrive when I’m out in the world, meeting people, and getting to know them.

    I knew I wanted to get back out there, but I wanted things to be different.

    What Exactly Do I Mean by Casual Dating?

    One reason that monogamy is the norm is that it’s something we can all wrap our heads around. Casual dating is a lot more vague because it means different things to different people.

    I came at casual dating from a place of complete ignorance. Rather than being a drawback, this allowed me to create a definition of casual dating that worked for me.

    Basically what it comes down to, for me, is non-exclusive, ongoing relationships with one or more people. I’m all about communication, but I prefer seeing people face-to-face. This means no texting, check-ins, or endless social media interactions.

    I sometimes felt rude or callous putting these ground rules out to someone I’d just started seeing, but I place a lot of value in honesty, openness, and mutual respect. I found that, while this may have been a difficult conversation to have, it saved confusion and hurt feelings down the road.

    I made sure the people I was seeing understood that this probably wasn’t going to lead to a more traditional relationship because I still wasn’t ready for that. I wasn’t playing hard to get so that they had the chance to win my heart. I was enjoying their company and getting to know them, without any pressure on how our relationship would evolve—or if it would at all.

    This actually enabled me to be more fully present with the people I was dating. By simply being open to new possibilities without clinging too tightly to any one person or relationship, you’re able to build something beautiful, moment by moment—whether this is with several people, only one, or even just yourself.

    Casual dating can be a path to self-discovery and lead to a deeper, more healthy relationship if you do eventually decide to commit to one person.

    The Casual Dating Checklist

    1. Have clear intentions.

    While many people choose casual dating to avoid having difficult conversations, this can lead to a negative experience for both parties. I advise you to be open with the people you’re seeing about what you’re looking for. This means figuring out what it is you want and what you have to offer another person rather that letting it go unsaid. First and foremost, this means being honest with yourself.

    2. Slow it down.

    Casual dating gets a bad wrap because some people think it’s synonymous with “sleeping around.” While there’s nothing wrong with that, as long as you’re being safe and honest about your intentions, you can date casually without hopping right into bed.

    In fact, when you’re dating someone casually you tend to see them less frequently, so things can unfold more slowly and naturally than with traditional relationships.

    Beyond just sex, adopting a slower pace with casual dating can actually create a stronger and more real bond than strict monogamy. You’re less likely to get caught up in the “rush” of a new relationship and will instead be focused on actually getting to know them as a person.

    3. Explore your options.

    One of the biggest appeals of casual dating is the freedom it gives you to date outside of a narrow type. When we’re looking for someone to spend the rest of our life with, we tend to be less forgiving, accepting, and open to new experiences.

    With that in mind, make sure to date new and different people. Be open to invites and attention from people you’d normally steer clear of.

    4. Understand what you want and need.

    Casual dating is about finding out what you want through experimenting so you don’t have to have things all figured out going into it. But make sure you’re being fair to yourself in these encounters. Don’t settle for people who mistreat you. Just because it’s non-traditional, doesn’t make you any less worthy of respect.

    5. Know when things have run their course.

    Whatever the circumstances, it’s good practice to be clear and honest with the people you’re seeing. Instead of ghosting, tell them how you feel. A lot of the problems that come with casual dating are in how it blurs lines between dating, sex, and relationships. When in doubt, speak out and make your feelings clear. If you’re going to end it, do it without any ambiguity.

    And sometimes, things don’t have to end. I’m happy to say that, after a few years of keeping it casual, I’m back in a more traditional exclusive relationship.

    At first, he was just one of several people I was seeing. We spent more and more time together and before long, I realized I wasn’t interested in dating anyone else. I just wanted to get to know him and only him.

    While we are monogamous now, we did it by choice rather than obligation. This happened naturally and we both agreed upon it rather than it being simply the default.

    What we have feels more real than anything I’ve had in the past. And I know that if it ends, I’ll be able to move forward. While I love him, and I love what we have, it’s finally loving myself and my freedom that has allowed me to be happy.

  • If You Always Date Emotionally Unavailable People

    If You Always Date Emotionally Unavailable People

  • How to Start Dating from a Place of Self-Love

    How to Start Dating from a Place of Self-Love

    “You must learn to love yourself before you can love someone else.” ~Sonja Mylin

    It’s tough being out there.

    I remember myself some years ago embracing the world of online dating. Everyone kept telling me “be yourself” (and I kept telling myself that), but when I was actually on a date, “myself” would fly out the window.

    I’d go hard on the impressing, second-guess myself, drink too much, look for every little thing we had in common (even if the person did not feel right), feel devastated if I was rejected, and utterly lose sight of what I was on the date for in the first place. Perhaps I didn’t really know who I was or how to be her in what I saw as a confronting environment.

    Dating brings out all our fears and vulnerabilities. You’re basically putting yourself on a platter, asking folks to judge you: “Pick me! Pick me!” like someone on a reality TV competition. You forget that it’s a two-way street. That you are looking for a suitable love (or a lover) to be with you, and that is all.

    We get the little brain buzz from being swiped right, from the initial contact message, from a nod of approval when we arrive. All of these microsigns can feel so great that they interrupt our reasonable thinking around who we’re looking for.

    Or, at the opposite end of the spectrum, we’re bombarded with messages from people we’re just not into (and straight up jerks), we go on dates that end up in an awful mess, we get rejected or we reject, which crushes someone, and it all feels terrible.

    It’s easy to lose heart.

    Dating doesn’t have to be like that. There are ways to bring it all back to what you are actually dating for in the first place. I know for myself that love came my way when I dug down a little deeper, stopped adjusting what I wanted from a relationship, gave it some time, had fun, and was really myself—warts, opinions, and all.

    Here are five ways to be out there from a place of self-love and have a much better chance of finding the real love you’re looking for.

    1. You are dating to find someone for you, not just to impress.

    This isn’t a job interview: dating is an opportunity for two people to find out if they like each other enough to keep finding out. No one is in a position of power over the other.

    Try not to spend the whole date putting all your energy into impressing the other person. Remember that you are checking them out as much as they are checking you out, and that you are making a decision too.

    2. Identify your values and then look for a match based on those instead of just shared interests.

    Sure, you want to be able to enjoy spending time with your partner, but contrary to popular opinion, your partner doesn’t need to be your best friend. You don’t need to do every single thing together. It’s far more important that you have similar core values. Interests can change, but values at their very core generally hold.

    What traits and ways of behaving are most important to you? What do you believe in? What world issues really pull your heartstrings? What would you fight for? How will you be able to tell if someone shares your values?

    Spend some time with yourself to drill down into the deeper stuff and then look for matching connections. Shared values will make for rich conversation and bring you back together when times are tough, not the fact that you both like white water rafting or watching RuPaul’s Drag Race.

    3. Stop performing a version of you.

    Many of us filter out the stuff we think might be seen as weird or boring or stupid when we’re dating. Or, it becomes normal to present a curated, cooler version of you. Of course you want to put your best foot forward, but sometimes it’s stripped back so much that who you are becomes completely invisible.

    Dating is not a numbers game. You don’t need loads of matches to find someone. You need matches with fewer folks who are really going to get you. Who will think you’re cute and funny and smart and interesting (even when you’re driving them mad).

    If you love binging Pretty Little Liars and cheap chocolate, painting old furniture, sleeping in until 4pm on Saturday afternoon, devouring true crime podcasts, attending the odd rally, and you wish you were an earth mother but are really more of a city gal who likes to shop, then that’s you.

    And my bet is that you are pretty unique and special with all your faults and quirks. We fall in love with real people, not pretend ones. If someone doesn’t love the real you, why are you with them in the first place? Wouldn’t it be far more wonderful to be cherished even when you are not the curated version of yourself?

    4. Don’t interpret “fun” as just the other person having fun.

    Hands up: Who is fantastic at helping other people relax—so much so that you forget to actually notice if you are having fun too?

    We all have roles we tend to play in life, and if yours is along these lines, then I’d encourage you to swallow that role somewhat and see what happens when you don’t leap into “Make them feel good” mode.

    Live with an awkward silence. Notice if you’re being asked questions, listened to, or engaged in conversation on a similar level to what you’re putting in. Spout an opinion or two. Not going well? Then it maybe this one isn’t for you. And phew! You found out early on.

    FYI: “Fun,” for those who have forgotten (because you’ve been out there way too long) is having a bit of a laugh and feeling relatively at ease.

    5. Yep, it should be pretty easy.

    Myth-busting time: Relationships don’t need to be hard and shouldn’t need to be “worked on” all the time. Are your friendships like that? My guess is that the good ones are not. Sure, they have ups and downs. There are misunderstandings and times of trouble. But ultimately, you really like each other’s company. You can rely on each other.

    The best relationships are fairly easy. They need to be able to stand the test of time. If it’s hard when nothing hard is happening, how is it going to be when something really hard is happening?

    Sure, there are situations that are supposed to be fun but instead can be fraught with issues (like moving in together). When we’re invested in someone and then mesh our lives together, that has some serious weight and it makes sense there will be teething.

    But if you’re on date four and it’s uncomfortable, combative, awkward, and pressure-filled, and you feel bad about yourself, or the other person is trying to control you? This one is most likely not for you.

    —

    Ultimately, dating from a place of self-love is about believing that you are worthy just as you are, and that there is someone out there (maybe several someone’s) who you can and will connect with.

    It’s not just about being loved—it’s about you loving someone else. And if you’re coming from a place of self-love, then you will ultimately run the dating gauntlet with kindness, self-respect, and vulnerability without heaping a load of meaning onto rejection. Rejection means this one wasn’t right for you, nothing more, and thank god they did you a favor! Because you are deserving of the real, luscious thing with someone truly amazing.

  • How to Stop Losing Yourself and Giving Your Power Away in Dating

    How to Stop Losing Yourself and Giving Your Power Away in Dating

    “Daring to set boundaries is about having the courage to love ourselves, even when we risk disappointing others.” ~Brené Brown

    I was a serial dater for a decade.

    Dating can be fun and exciting, but it can also come with lots of disappointment and emotional pain.

    All those rejections, ghosting, and shattered hopes had a huge impact on me.

    They left me feeling exhausted and heartbroken. Probably because I dated too much but also because I didn’t do much to protect myself and my energy on these dating adventures.

    I’d say yes to many men who were not suitable for me, because I didn’t want to be single. I’d do things that I didn’t fully agree with just to keep the relationship going. I’d dishonor my own values and ideals so I wasn’t lonely. I was too available for men. I didn’t realize the power of no in dating.

    I lost faith in love. I lost my confidence and self-esteem. It took me a while to realize that it was unhealthy; but eventually, I did.

    One day, I understood that the price was too high to pay and it was not worth it. I was losing myself—the most important person in my life. I was betraying myself. I was dishonoring my own needs and wants.

    The pain I experienced during those dating years was the greatest catalyst for my transformation, like it often is in life. We want to avoid the pain at all costs, but the pain makes us find strength for making difficult decisions and the motivation for making radical changes in our life.

    I actually bless all the painful experiences I’ve had. They helped me wake up.

    They helped me to re-evaluate my approach to dating and relationships.

    They helped me step into my power and start to respect myself more in order to find men who would respect me back.

    It was the pain that helped me stop dating compulsively and find a better way. One day, enough was enough. I was ready for something else.

    I took a break to reconnect with myself. During these months, I reviewed all my previous relationships, all the dating I’d done and the men I was attracting.

    It wasn’t looking good. But honesty brings clarity, and clarity gives us an opportunity to make some decisions.

    I made many life changes and promises to myself, but there was one obvious thing that stood out to me.

    My boundaries in dating were way too weak. That’s why I was creating so much heartache in my dating and love life. That’s why I was losing myself in relationships.

    I was giving my power away by being way too accommodating and compromising too much.

    Because of weak boundaries, I allowed myself to stay in dysfunctional relationships for far too long. I was attracting men who couldn’t give me what I wanted. I’d accept the crumbs of love and never ask for more. I never stood up for myself. I never said no when I felt like it. I’d ignore red flags and never challenge men who treated me poorly.

    I needed to start to value and respect myself more. And I found the best way to do this was to strengthen my own boundaries.

    This decision changed the dating experience for me, on so many levels. In truth, it changed the course of my love life.

    I learned to say no in dating, and I said it to many, many men before I was able to say yes to my current partner.

    I became much more selective and careful when choosing the men I dated.

    I developed zero tolerance for mind games, commitment-phobes, guys who just wanted to have fun, inconsistency, indecisiveness, and disrespect.

    And it served me very well.

    I believe that I found the love of my life, after dating aimlessly for ten years, due to the fact that I defined my non-negotiables and I religiously stuck to them, no matter what.

    To help you understand where you are with your boundaries, I will begin by explaining what boundaries are.

    Simply put, boundaries are the limits you set for yourself in dating, in love, and in life. Things you are not willing to tolerate, put up with, accept, or compromise on. Your boundaries are your rules! I also interchangeably call them non-negotiables.

    A few signs of weak boundaries are:

    • Over giving and people pleasing
    • Saying yes when you mean no
    • Losing yourself in relationships
    • Overcommitting
    • Prioritizing others at the expense of your own well-being
    • Compromising, accommodating, and justifying
    • Settling for less than you deserve
    • Feeling taken for granted or resentful

    Your boundaries have a few important roles in dating. They protect your personal space, your values, and your sense of self. Weak boundaries leave you vulnerable and likely to be taken for granted, or even abused, by others.

    Here are five reasons why you need to have strong boundaries in place.

     1. They protect you.

    Without healthy boundaries, you will be hurt way too often. You will allow people into your life who don’t have genuine intentions and who are not looking for the same things that you are. Boundaries help you bring the right people into your life.

    You need to identify what you want, what is good for you, and what kind of partner you want to attract. And you need to start rejecting anyone who doesn’t have the qualities you are looking for. Otherwise, you will be wasting lots of time in dating and random relationships. Not to mention the amount of heartache you are going to experience. You need strong boundaries to protect your own heart.

    2. They communicate your value. 

    People who have strong boundaries radiate more confidence and self-respect; hence, they are more attractive. Boundaries show how much love you have for yourself and how much you value yourself. They help you attract the right people—people who value and respect what you do.

    Lack of boundaries is often linked to feeling unworthy and unlovable. Boundaries tell people how you want to be treated based on what you believe you deserve. They also help others understand how you want to be valued and respected.

    3. They save you time, energy, and sanity.

    Your boundaries help others know where they stand with you and what your expectations are. For example, in dating, when you know what you will accept and what you won’t tolerate, and you openly express it with your potential date (at the right time and in a non-aggressive way), you give people an opportunity to decide whether they will respect your boundaries or not.

    If they won’t, they will quickly disappear from your life and will save you time and energy. It will be either too much work for them or you’ll just thank them because they will be too much work for you. Rather than wasting time on the wrong people and relationships, you move on quickly and open yourself up to some more suitable dating opportunities.

    4. They empower you.

    Boundaries help you honor yourself. They help you honor your needs. They help you take responsibility for your own well-being. They help you become more assertive. They help you stand firmly in your own power.

    When you start being more mindful about your boundaries and start saying no to things/situations that don’t serve you or drain you, you will start putting into place healthy limits around dating, work, and people. You will start to feel proud of yourself. You will feel a sense of empowerment. You will feel like you are more in control of your own life.

    5. They help you love and respect yourself.

    There is no bigger act of self-love than having healthy boundaries. Your boundaries reflect how much you love and value yourself.

    When you communicate your boundaries, you let other people know that you know yourself. You let them know what is in your best interest and you are not willing to compromise on the important things in your life. Having boundaries is about loving and respecting yourself. And when you do, you get love and respect back from others.

    How to Strengthen Your Boundaries

    1. Start to say no when it feels like a no. 

    So often, we say yes to things we really don’t want to do, or don’t have time or energy for. We want to be polite and keep others happy. We do it so we don’t get rejected or lose people. But at the same time, we are being unkind to ourselves and making ourselves miserable.

    Bring more awareness to your day-to-day life and start observing how often you say yes to things you want to say no to. After a while, start actually saying no when you truly mean it.

    Saying no is an ultimate act of self-love. Saying no is empowering. When you start saying no, you’ll start feeling happier, your relationships will improve, and your self-esteem will get a boost, because you’ll be honoring yourself!

    A no doesn’t need to be blunt and rigid. You can find a loving way to say no. Here are a few examples:

    • Let me think about it.
    • I am not quite ready for this.
    • Thanks, but it’s not going to work out.
    • I am not sure I really want it right now.
    • I’d prefer not to.
    • I feel this is not the right time for me.
    • I’m okay for now.
    • I’m not able to commit to that at the moment.

    2. Start being more mindful of what you are saying yes to, and why.

    Anything to please others, out of guilt or fear, or because you want to avoid confrontation, is out of alignment. Start saying yes only to things that serve you, bring you joy, pleasure, or happiness, or agree with you and your values in the first place. Often, when you say yes to something that doesn’t feel like a complete yes, it’s really a no.

    A few questions to explore to define whether your yes is aligned:

    • When do you say yes when you really want to say no?
    • What do you say yes to?
    • How do you feel about it?
    • What would you like to say no to?

    One thing to remember: It’s one thing to set your boundaries and know what they are. It’s another thing to actually honor and stick to them. There is no point in having boundaries if you don’t honor them. If you don’t honor them, nobody else will.

    As hard as it can be initially, over time they will make you feel amazing. At the beginning, you will feel fear—fear of being rejected, of losing people, of being perceived as rude, of hurting others.

    But you will need to learn that how people respond and feel about your boundaries is not your responsibility.

    Your responsibility is to communicate your boundaries in the most loving way possible, without accusing, blaming, and criticizing. The best way to do it is to use “I feel…” statements. Just describe how you feel about the situation, or the person, so it’s more about you, not the recipient.

    Healthy boundaries help you take care of yourself emotionally, physically, and mentally. They help you respect your needs, feelings, and desires. They help you eliminate drama and emotional pain from your dating. They help you create healthy relationships with others.

    People will treat you the way you allow them to treat you. You have the power to set the tone for the quality of your dating, and every relationship in your life, simply by putting some healthy boundaries into place.

  • Growing from Ghosting: 5 Things To Consider While Dealing with Silence

    Growing from Ghosting: 5 Things To Consider While Dealing with Silence

    “The important thing to remember is that when someone ghosts you, it says nothing about you or your worthiness for love and everything about the person doing the ghosting. It shows he/she doesn’t have the courage to deal with the discomfort of their emotions or yours, and they either don’t understand the impact of their behavior or worse, don’t care.” ~Jennice Vilhauer

    Let’s get this out of the way first: Ghosting is crappy etiquette. There’s no real, concrete excuse for it, except perhaps pure, unadulterated laziness with a touch of cruelty.

    We take for granted how much technology has changed the way we interact with people. We are humans first, but it seems we may be conflict-avoiding robots second. Efficiency and avoidance reign supreme in this futuristic dating world of 2017, and because of how easy it is to disregard anything and everything, common courtesy has now become painfully underutilized.

    To be frank: it is exceptionally easy to ghost someone who has no connection to your life previous to the one encounter. If you aren’t feeling it with this new person, and you don’t want to use the mental leaps it takes to articulate a rejection to a practical stranger, then more likely than not you won’t communicate at all.

    Access to the ignore button has never been easier, and pressing “unmatch” on Tinder equates deleting the person from your headspace and your own personal universe. Here are five things to consider in the land of ghosts.

    1. What do you really want from the person who’s ghosting you?

    In the land where easy hookups are abundant, polyamory is normal, and ethical non-monogamy sounds like something you’d see at a farmers market, here we all are, trying to figure this new world of dating out. With each generation of dating (and dating apps), we are met with new terminology, new hats to try on for ourselves, and we’re re-focusing our energies on what we are really looking for.

    I am a monogamous person. That doesn’t mean that in my fifty-plus first dates, I haven’t been able to recognize some of my own awful behavior (long, dramatic paragraphs of anxiety-ridden texts to a new potential date, anyone?), so I’ve had to reexamine myself a multitude of times, take a major chill pill, and reorganize my needs and desires.

    That being said, asking myself, “What am I really looking for?” after I get painfully ghosted is seemingly the best question to ask.

    Why exactly was this painful (beyond it being inhuman and previously nonexistent before modern day dating)? Did I just want acknowledgement of my humanity? Closure so I can focus on the next person? Did I even find this person particularly interesting? What other things are going on in my life that are causing me to react so strongly?

    Yes, monogamy is important to me, but getting overly upset about a person who feels no attachment toward me is a new kind of character building experience. Ghosting is a reminder that life is unfair and often severe. Technology has made communicating with each other easier to access, and yet has created a strange isolating landscape in which we are all a part of.

    This feeling of desertion still applies to people who have been ghosted after several dates, or friendships that have suddenly and painfully disappeared; it just becomes more painful and potent.

    2. The sea of excuses don’t feel any better than being ghosted.

    I got on my old OKCupid account a couple years after being off. In a cruel twist of fate, I saw a sea of all of the men that I dated previously. We were all in this together, apparently, like some sort of sad loner club no one signed up for.

    Here we were, the men that ghosted me and the men that like to me too much, and I didn’t feel the same. Somehow, after years we were all still here, and all using the same tired profile pictures.

    After a few days, a man messaged me a lackluster apology that he ghosted me as he was going through “some stuff” at the time. And with that, he walked back into the internet, never responding my follow-up questions. Gee, thanks, I’m glad I could be a vessel in which you exonerated yourself from your strange guilt.

    Does it feel better that he weakly apologized and gave a vague excuse for his behavior three years later? Not particularly. So, expecting any explanation at a later time isn’t helpful in this ghosting journey that we are all on.

    More common than ghosting, here are some boring/obvious excuses I have heard instead of being ghosted, and they feel about the same as the disappearing act itself. In no particular order:

    “Sorry, I’m not really looking for anything serious right now.” (They say, fully aware that I was a monogamous person looking for something serious before meeting.)

    “You lied on your profile. You said you were 5’8”, but you’re taller.” (He says, as he lied about his own height, weight, blah, blah, blah. For the record, I’ve been 5’8” since I was twelve, unless I had a spontaneous growth spurt at thirty.)

    “I didn’t sense a connection.” (He says, as he talked at me the entire time, completely unaware that I actually possessed a personality that he didn’t want to take part in.)

    “You’re too good for me.” (Yes, probably so.)

    People are either desperate or not desperate enough. This ebb and flow of dating is equal parts predictable and surprising. Protect your heart, date whoever you want, but know that you will eventually get your feelings hurt. Whether it’s half-baked excuses, or radio silence forever. You know the saying though: better to buy a ticket to the lottery than never to have played, right? RIGHT?

    3. Know that you may ghost someone yourself.

    Even I, Queen of All Emotions, have accidentally ghosted someone before.

    Have you ever met someone so unremarkable you just simply forgot about them? You sat there during your date shrugging your shoulders, stirring your iced tea, wondering if this person had a pulse.

    He stared at me blankly, asked me what I did, and I felt as if I was in a weird, monotone interview for a job that I didn’t remember applying for. As careful as I am, I accidentally ghosted someone and they were sad about it. I couldn’t even bring myself to apologize in fear I would open up the strange waves of communication with this person again.

    It happens. I get it. It’s a two-way street and I’m human enough to realize my shortcomings. I’m sorry, Kevin. Or was it Brian? James? Steven?

    4. You cannot educate a ghost.

    This may be the most important realization on my journey through ghost country: You simply cannot educate a ghost. There will always be people perpetuating this stereotype of non-consideration (maybe even you!).

    These people are not in your control. Sending them a “wake up call” does not work. It’s not your job to educate them.

    This idea has been the hardest thing for me to accept. I have sent paragraphs of texts to men who have ghosted me. This only solidifies the silence. Obviously the person is not texting you back if you’re going to badger him on his shortcomings.

    Maybe they’re going through something, you’re not on their mind, they don’t care in the slightest, or their phone was eaten by an alligator. Whatever the case may be, they don’t care enough to contact you, so your novel of setting the balance right in the world will go to blind eyes. It will drive you insane if you allow it. Do not allow it.

    As long as you’re honest with yourself about your needs, somewhat earnest in whatever you’re trying to accomplish datingwise, then you can overcome this. It’s all you can do. Getting ghosted means actively becoming a stronger, wiser person, because the alternative is bitterness and never ending frustration.

    Technology is still the Wild West of communication. We know how to correctly formulate an email to our boss, a job prospect, your great aunt Mabel, but to someone who is virtually meaningless to us, it’s becomes considerably more of a gray area.

    In general, people just don’t know how to socialize properly in a digital format, so we have created a culture where we simply don’t. And because this was a casual encounter, saying something at all could put us in a situation where the other person over-compensates with their hurricane of emotions if the feelings weren’t mutual.

    I get it, you don’t want to deal with a hot mess and I don’t want to deal with your issues either, and thus perpetuates the ghosting cycle of life.

    5. In other words, relax.

    Know that you’re putting in the effort. Know that if things are supposed to work out they will work out. Find a mantra, yoga, meditation technique, eat a giant plate of pancakes, do whatever makes you feel better to get over the first few hurdles of the unavoidable ghosting epidemic.

    No one ever promised us that dating was always going to be enjoyable. The funny anecdotes in romantic comedies make it look like a barrel of laughs, but sometimes it simply isn’t. Accepting this is an unfortunate part of the trade off of putting yourself out there is like learning a tedious aspect of your job. You’re going to hate it at first, but if you still want to date, this is part of the job description.

    In other words, be brave, certainly put yourself out there, but also send only one follow-up text, otherwise you will drive yourself into certain madness.

  • 5 Questions To Ask Yourself Before You Start Looking For Love

    5 Questions To Ask Yourself Before You Start Looking For Love

    “Don’t rush into any kind of relationship. Work on yourself. Feel yourself, experience yourself and love yourself. Do this first and you will soon attract that special loving other.” ~Russ Von Hoelscher

    Being in love is awesome. Sharing your life with someone special who gets you, adores you, and loves you for who you are is amazing. Sometimes, though, we need to work on ourselves before we are ready to attract a true love like that.

    Rather than jumping into yet another romantic adventure without thinking, I encourage you to answer these few questions. I know, at the time of my love search, that they would have served me well.

    Instead, I spent ten years dating every jerk under the sun, getting my heart broken on more than a few occasions, and wasting tons of time. I did a lot of growing and learning too, but if you can avoid pain, why not?

    In the end, it was all worth it, but if you want to speed up the process and find the best way to the right person, then I believe these questions can help you.

    Here they are:

    1. Am I ready?

    Readiness is not simply about being ready to give up things like your freedom and independence and devoting yourself to nurturing your relationship and sharing your life with another person. Readiness is also very much about living a fulfilled life right now as a single person. It’s about not needing a partner, but wanting one.

    Readiness is free of desperation. Readiness is about living purposefully and passionately. Being ready means being okay with your life as it is right now. Being ready is not about filling the gap in your life with a romantic partner, but creating a life you love to live. When you are this kind of ready, you attract happy partners and create happy and lasting relationships.

    2. Am I happy?

    You need to be happy before you can find a happy partner and build a happy relationship with him or her.

    It took me years to dissolve the belief that I’d be happy once I met someone and take responsibility for my own happiness. I now know that happiness doesn’t magically show up the moment you meet the love of your life. Happiness has to already be there. Nobody is responsible for your happiness but you. You need to tap into the happiness within.

    How can you do that? To start, shift your perspective and appreciate what you have rather than focusing on what you would have if you were in a relationship. And my number one tool to tap into the happiness within is a regular meditation. This will help you be more present in your life so you can tune into all the many other reasons to be happy.

    The happier you are right now, as a single, the happier a relationship you will be able to create. And this might go without saying, but the happier you are, the more others will be drawn to you.

    3. Are my boundaries healthy?

    It’s nice to imagine that love has no boundaries, and once you have found that amazing person, life with them will be nice and easy. Sorry to burst your bubble, but that is a recipe for a disaster.

    Without strong boundaries, you will lose yourself in any relationship you find yourself in. You will lose yourself in pleasing, accommodating, and compromising to the point where you won’t remember who you are and what you need.

    Healthy boundaries help you build healthy relationships. Healthy boundaries help you maintain a crucial sense of self. Healthy boundaries let others know where they stand with you and what is expected of them. Healthy boundaries give others clarity and make things simple. You need them in dating, in relationships, and definitely in your marriage. You’d better set those boundaries now and stick to them!

    Here are a few examples of boundaries which will help you maintain your sense of self and honour your own needs:

    • Don’t give up things you love doing for your partner
    • Speak your mind and say “no” when it feels like a “no”
    • Regularly do things on your own or just with your own friends
    • Have your own goals and dreams
    • Have your passions and purpose
    • Respect your own values
    • Spend quality time only in your own company

    Sticking to these rules will make you feel more empowered in early stages of dating and relationships. You also get more respect from people because by having boundaries you communicate self-respect to them.

    4. Do I love myself?

    How much love you have for yourself will determine your romantic decisions. If you don’t feel worthy of love, then you will make compromises that could hurt you. If you don’t feel like you are the best thing that can ever happen to a guy, then I reckon you still need to work on self-love.

    Self-love is bold. Self-love is about owning your greatness and uniqueness. Self-love is about claiming your desires. Self-love is about knowing what you deserve and going for it without apologising. It’s only when you love yourself that you won’t sabotage your dating and romantic happiness.

    To go deeper with self-love and recognizing your own worth you can create a list of 100 things you love, admire, appreciate, and respect about yourself. The things which make you feel proud about who you are!

    Also, you can create a little self-love ritual. In the morning, you can say: I love you, so today I choose to… eat healthy food, have some fun, exercise, go to bed early, have a bath, read a book etc. And in the evening, before you fall asleep you can appreciate yourself and say: I love you because… you are an awesome person, you are very helpful, you are fun, you are hot, you dealt with this client at work amazingly well today, you’ve cleaned the whole flat and it looks amazing…etc.

    5. Do I know what I want from a relationship?

    It is not enough to know that you want a relationship. It is not enough to know that you’re done with being single. It is not enough to know that you miss the company of a significant other.

    You need to know what kind of person you want to share your life with. You need to know how you want to feel in your relationship. You need to know how you want to live your life once you are in a relationship. Most of all, you need to know the type of person you want to be in this relationship.

    Take a piece of paper and journal about it. Gain clarity and explore what kind of relationship you want to create, and don’t forget to determine your non-negotiables! Knowing this will help you navigate \dates and avoid painful mistakes with people who can’t give you what you want and need. And for that, you need to know what you want in the first place, right?

    Be honest with yourself while answering these questions, and don’t judge yourself for going after what you want. Knowing what you want can save you lots of heartache and time. If you want your next relationship to be with someone who’s right for you, so your love together can last and thrive, it’s important to spend time getting to know yourself first.

    If some of your answers indicate that you’re not ready for the love search yet, don’t be afraid to take time off to deepen your relationship with yourself. This will only serve you long term. It is an investment into your amazing relationship, and investments do take time.