If You Spot It, You've Probably Got It

One of the fascinating ironies about humans is that we often think it’s easier to change other people, rather than change ourselves. When actually it’s completely out of our control to ever change other people.

Take for example, while dating, a man shares about how often he works with a woman. The woman concludes this man is a workaholic and she sees it as an invitation for her to help him to stop working as much. She fantasizes that her love will inspire him to change so that he’d spend more time with her. While this sounds well-intentioned—it’s actually setting herself up for major disappointment, because she will never be able to make him change.

This woman will most likely experience disappointment because one day her fantasy that she’ll be able to change him will burst. Yet if she uses the pain to become self-aware, she may realize that the very issue she saw so clearly in her partner, is actually the work she needs to tend to in herself.

Personally, I’ve stared at myself in the mirror a handful of times, while judging an ex’s problem, and saw a similar ugly problem looking right back at me. Sure it may not have looked the same as their XYZ issue, but I recognized that I got the same root of their issue, with a different manifestation.

It can be alluring to try to change the other person, because it helps us to avoid the uncomfortable feelings of facing our own “not so pretty” problems. For example, If a man gets caught up in “Miss Drama’s” world where she’s always running out of money or mismanaging her schedule or reacting in excessive outbursts, it can make him feel good to think that he can try to rescue her. But he ends up looking like a juggler that tosses all 5 of their balls in the air and scrambles to catch none. While scrambling after balls, he thinks he’s avoided feeling his own depression.

This rescue mode feels good in the moment because we are creating a connection through that person’s dependency on us. And if they become “dependent” on us to meet a responsibility that is theirs alone to meet, then it seemingly lowers the risk of them rejecting or abandoning us.

It is a way of protecting ourselves from the fear of not being lovable enough so we make ourselves worthy by rescuing. This way the connection is formed based on one-way give and take, not on mutual giving or risking vulnerability. The one being rescued may stay for a while because you’re making it easier for them, but they don’t offer genuine love—and you end up resentful—becase you never see the change or “payback” in the relationship for all the investment you’ve made.

If you can relate to this pattern in your relationships, there is hope that you can stop the pattern in order to create mutual, supportive, and emotionally available relationships. When you recognize the pattern, there’s hope of creating a relationship where you are worthy of being loved for exactly who you are and both persons have a vested interest in meeting the needs of the person, instead of trying to change them.

If you’re in one of these relationships or have a past relationship with this dynamic, here are 3 tips for starting your change process:

1. Notice Where You Are Rescuing Them and Stop - What’s common in many healing processes is the first step to acknowledgement the problem. Do you notice when you tend to rescue someone? What prompts you to do it? What makes it hard to stop? How is it serving you to try to rescue them?

2. Identify What Feelings You’ve Been Avoiding When You Stop - What comes up for you emotionally when you decide to change the behavior you’d normally do? What kinds of sensation do you feel? What kinds of compulsions do you notice?

3. Use the Problem(s) that You Spotted in Them to Discover Your Own Work - What are the problems that you normally are drawn to fix in others? —-Lack of presence, over-working, substance abuse, criticism, manipulation, avoidance, anxiety, depression. See if you have a similar manifestation of the same problem. For example, someone could be drawn to very self-centered people and while they don’t seem selfish, they use their sacrificial serving others as a selfish way to win approval.

If you’re feeling down on yourself because you’re currently facing the disappointing reality that the person you’ve been with will never change to be the person you need in a relationship, it may be a good time to let all the issues you spotted in your partner be a starting point for you to explore your own areas of growth to make this or your next relationship even better.

If you’re noticing these patterns and would like outside support to get clarity and help on your next steps towards healing and growth, set up a complimentary hour coaching conversation here.

Tune into the Most Important Heart This Valentine's --Yours

I know you’ve been feeling it—-those cringes of resistance, sadness, regret, fear, or mourning. If you’re not in the place you’d like to be in your relationship space, it’s no surprise that all the heart mugs, sweethearts candies and gushy pink cards in your face start to bring on a variety of feelings as our culture celebrates Valentine’s.

As a single I’ve felt for a minute like Valentine’s transports me back to a middle school dance, when people are partnering up and you’re looking around to wondering if there’s someone there choosing you. This time of year the awareness of a single’s relationship status goes on hyper drive; the amount of online dating activity surges, ex-boyfriends may come around with a HYD text, you start to consider whether you should give that guy that you’ve had a crush on at work a nice note in a variation of red that day.

In many ways all the color and candy and affection can be fun.

It also can be tempting at times to want to distract yourself by planning a dynamic Galentine’s event with your friends or burying your face in a bush for the day.

SO if that’s you, trying to ward off feeling any challenging emotions coming up, then maybe it’s time to tune into the most important heart—which is Yours.

The heart is the wellspring of our emotional life and therefore our romantic life. If you’re not in a place where you’d like to be romantically, I challenge you to try connecting to your heart first.

Here are three good ways to tune into what’s up for you in your heart space this Valentine’s season:

1. Give Yourself a Set Time of Silence - Set aside 10, 20, 40 minutes with a timer to just be silent and listen. Close your eyes, focus on your breathing. Notice sensations you’re feeling, notice your compulsion to distract yourself, notice what emotions come up, notice what desires or visions or ideas come up.

2. Write Down What You Noticed - Writing is a way we can “listen” to ourselves. Write down what you noticed in the silence. Tell yourself what you heard. What is your heart trying to tell you?

3. Ask a Friend to Give You a Time of Solid Listening - Call a friend to see if they’re up for meeting for coffee because you need to process through something. Ask them to listen to you for a set amount of time, no interruptions, so that you can talk out what is going on in your heart. If they can, ask them to reflect back what they heard you say. We can learn a lot about ourselves and what’s going on in our hearts by simple reflective listening.

These are great practices for anytime to prepare to make your love life better. And when the day comes that you discover that your crush likes you back. Then you’ll be able to go deeper with another as the currency of love is our heart’s ability to offer and receive love. You will be all the more rich in connection to yourself and your ability to communicate to a partner in a way that will set a great foundation for your future relationship life.

If you’d like more help tuning into your heart or finding out what may have you feeling blocked or stuck. I’m happy to support you on your journey to love. Schedule a time to talk here.

Why It's Best to Let a Guy Pursue You

Have you ever experienced a guy pursuing you that you weren’t that attracted to at the beginning, but as he took a sincere interest in you and showed you a good time, you developed more attraction and interest?

It happens like that for a lot of women. Poll your married friends.

However, the opposite can be true for most men. If a woman approaches a man, gets his number, asks him out, then he may take her up on the offer because he is flattered, wants to have sex, or he is bored—but she took out all of the risk factor for him to connect with her and his interest level is going to go down, if there ever was interest there at all.

Because for men this risk factor in pursuing a woman is key for creating a connection.

Men biologically have higher levels of testosterone that they use to take risks and when they use their testosterone, it lowers their stress levels so they feel better. If a man thinks that he can win a woman over and anticipates success with her after taking a risk, he literally gets a hormonal payoff that helps him feel better—more “like a man.”

Women on the other hand, want safety to feel love. That’s why so many women feel the urge to define the relationship earlier on then men because they are seeking the security that his love is only for her before she gives of herself more completely. So when she feels a man coming towards her with consistent pursuit, it helps her to relax, feel safe, and open herself up to be more vulnerable. So if a woman approaches a man, she is giving him the kind of love she would want (minimizing the risk), when actually he needs to take a risk to feel more connected and interested to continue.

It may feel old fashioned though to “wait” on a man. After all, we women are making stuff happen in all areas of their lives these days!! So it can get really tempting or just seem like the right thing to do when Mr. Perfect Face seems to be dragging his feet a bit to start the ball rolling off with you.

Keep in mind, if he’s really interested and has his B—s on straight, he’ll do what it takes to pursue.

Plus here are five more benefits to holding off when you are tempted to do things like text a man to “check” on why he hasn’t texted you back for another date:

1. Knowing that He’s Into You - When a man pursues you without any effort on your part, you will know that he’s into you. There won’t be a lot of room for doubt and anxiety. You can feel more relaxed and able to decide if this guy is for you without overthinking it too much.

2. You’ll Get Turned On By Pursuit - When a man focuses his attention on you and takes action to show his interest, it is a turn on for women. When he takes action to plan a date, drive, make decisions, bring gifts, buy food, it allows women to literally to build Oxytocin—which is the bonding hormone that helps women to relieve stress and to eventually enjoy sex.

3. He’ll Value You More - When a man has had to put in a good amount of effort for you and he wins you over, he equates the pride of his success with you. And as with any kind of valuation, the more investment we’ve had to put into something, the more we value it. Standing in your own value and knowing that you are worth being pursued allows a man to sense it and treasure you in a relationship.

4. You’ll Keep His Interest - A man won’t get bored with you, but instead he’ll be unsure about whether he can keep your interest and will be consistent with his efforts to attract and win you over.

5. Men will Gain more Self-Assurance that It’s You They Want - When women give men the space to pursue them—meaning they aren’t always contacting them or they are busy with their own interests so they’re not always available, then this gives the man space to determine that his life really is better with you in it. Like the song, “Sometimes You Don’t Know What You’ve Got Till It’s Gone”

Women, you have the ability, the smarts, the desire to take the lead in a relationship - but the big question is - will it allow you to have the kind of experience that you want to have with a man?

If you would love to be in a relationship with a man that gives you no doubt that he cherishes you, loves you and makes you a priority in his life, but you find yourself experiencing streaks of anxiety around the lack of action from a certain man, then it can be good to explore what feelings and beliefs are coming up for you that make it tempting to pursue him even when you get unwanted results. Somewhere along the way, you’ve probably lost your own sense of worthiness in love and it’s necessary to heal and rebuild your inner strength.

When you do this, instead, you will settle into a relaxed confidence while you’re getting to know men and find that as they are pursuing you, you only need to choose them back.

If it feels challenging to let a man pursue you and you’re not getting the results you want in love, schedule a time below to explore how relaxing into your feminine energy can give you more results in love—-and ultimately have a great man moving mountains to see you.

Seeking Lasting Love? How to Use Cuffing Season in Your Favor

You’ve pulled your favorite sweaters out from the back of your closet, bought yourself a pumpkin spice latte, baked a batch of your favorite spicy treat, cranked up the heat and sat under a velvety throw blanket as you watch your favorite show, but something (or someone) is still missing in that lovely single life of yours.

If you’re feeling an extra pull to do what it takes to put yourself out there this season so you’ll be a little warmer and have a cute date to bring to Thanksgiving dinner, then you’re certainly not alone.

Welcome to Cuffing Season.

The Urban Dictionary definds Cuffing Season as:

During the Fall and Winter months people who would normally rather be single or promiscuous find themselves along with the rest of the world desiring to be "Cuffed" or tied down by a serious relationship. The cold weather and prolonged indoor activity causes singles to become lonely and desperate to be cuffed.

If you follow me here, it’s probably not your goal to find a short-term hookup or casual relationship, but there is a real biological drive (testosterone goes up in the fall) and social influence (to not be alone at the holidays) that motivates people, more than other times of the year, to partner up.

So what if you could take advantage of this trend to help you in your search for lasting love, the same way a fisherman makes his way to the river when he knows the salmon are running?

Cuffing Season creates opportunities because more people start to look to partner up in October/November. They will stay partnered until the season culminates around the peak of winter, often melting off by spring where a lot of people will break it off.

However, if you are looking for something long-term, I want to share with you three reasons why using this season to your advantage, could help you reach your goals.

1. YOUR biology is Motivating you Towards your Goals - If I’m honest with you, a large part of my single life, I lost motivation to find a relationship. Things became comfortable for me to choose my own place to live, get lost in a passion project, to not have anyone to consider in my spending or to be able to drop everything and travel when I wanted. Yet, it was so easy to slip into this comfortable mode of living and as a result push out dating by saying things like:

   “I still needed to heal.”

   “I don’t have any good options.”

   “I’d date when I get my X, Y, Z together.”

   “I don’t have money/time etc. to spend on online dating.”

   However, if you can relate and find this season is motivating you towards companionship —-then gosh by golly——Go with it!!!

2. More Options are Open - You may not be the only one who is waiting until they get that project done at work or end their tax season or finish up their round of travel for the year, before they start investing in their social life. So that cute guy you see at your gym every week that you’d love to share more than small talk with may be more open than before to connection. Flowers blossom in a specific season. So you putting yourself out there while people are “blooming” opens up more options for you.

3. Filter Out the Casual for Great Options - While many people may be open to relationships in this season because they aren’t expecting them to last, our biology and social influences can equally inspire long-term relationship minded people to pursue something new. Only be careful when you are meeting people online or in person. Ask them what they are looking for early on. Hold off on any physical intimacy that doesn’t align with your values so that you can discern their true motives and character. Set the pacing of the relationship at a pace that is comfortable for you in getting to know a new person. Avoid diving into deep emotional intimacy from the beginning that is unsustainable with the amount of trust that has been built. If you use discernment of character and good communication to weed out casual minded folks, you could find yourself a great catch.

While you might not fit the exact description of someone involved in Cuffing Season, I believe nature often inspires us to behave in certain ways that are ultimately good motivators towards the goals we already have for ourselves.

If you’ve been feeling like you’re in a rut in your dating life—-let this season inspire you to take action. Because when the time is right, you just might love the extra company under that throw blanket for years to come.

If you’d like support to change some of your normal patterns and get out of a rut, when it comes to dating and finding a relationship, I’d be happy to offer you a coaching conversation. Find a time here.

Won't Our Soulmate Just Find Us?

From the time we’re able to understand a bedtime story, we learn that one day “our prince will come”. He will find us and climb mountains to reach us and rescue us from all that might harm us. While this story is called a fairy tale for a reason, I believe there is something deep inside the female psyche that longs for love to find her.

Not only with Fairy Tales, but also, if you’re a spiritual woman who believes the Creator of the universe brings partners together, then it can be easy to settle into the mentality that my soulmate will just find me because it’s “meant to be”.

All the while in the year 2019, we woman are discovering and being challenged to go out and make things happen like never before!

So when it comes to our dating lives - which is better? - to take massive action to find and get a man or to recline in our modern castle tower waiting for our prince to make his ascent?

Well, let’s talk more about these ideas.

If we let our fairy tale mentality bleed into our dating lives, it can start to look like a lack of taking risks. We can play it safe and surround ourselves with good women friends, watch chick flicks, babysit our nieces, do our jobs well, meanwhile giving ourselves that one slim opportunity that the Amazon delivery guy is “Mr. HeavenSent”.

We may pride ourselves on how patient we’ve been in waiting for the right man to come, but blame the lack of results on the fact that there aren’t any good men out there. With this mentality we can have the subconscious belief that we’re somehow adding to the cinematic climax of our love story by not taking much action, so that the grand ending will be that much more amazing when our prince comes to save us. This mentality however, can actually be a subtle cover up for the real fear that lies underneath our inaction - often fears that prevent us from opening ourselves up to love and be loved by a man.

On the other hand, if we use the same approach as what’s led us to be successful women at work and take focused action to make a relationship happen, then the results can start to feel shaky. We may find ourselves acting out of insecurity, jealousies, or uncertainties. We can start to take on manipulative strategies. We may start to be more concerned with an outcome, like getting a ring on it, rather than feeling truly cherished and feeling respect for the man we are choosing. Doubt may start to creep in about whether a man truly loves us if we’re making all the moves and securing all the plans and he is just going along for the ride because we’re an easy catch.

I’m talking about both of these mentalities as extremes, but is there a healthy balance in the middle?

There is a fine balance, between taking action in our dating lives and trusting in an element of mystery when it comes to success in romance. What does it look like to trust in a divine process that’s actively working in our favor and all the while not give ourselves over to living passively comfortable lives?

To approach this process with balance, let’s consider for a moment the common dating advice you’ve probably heard before from your married, well-intended friends:

“The moment you stop looking for your husband, he will appear.”

While it may not feel like the most helpful advice, because the moment I ask you to stop thinking about the color orange, right now the color orange is flooding your conscious. However, there is evidence to support why people share this advice. I have seen this concept play out over and over again in my own friend’s and client’s lives. It does commonly happen, that when a woman decides to go travel the world or foster her own children or wait until she’s 50 to get married, that a good man for her shows up proposing she let him join her.

If we stop focusing on finding a relationship, then we may stop taking certain dating actions to make things happen. Or maybe we date, solely for the enjoyment of meeting new people and having fun experiences. Either way, in letting go of outcomes for a relationship, we feel freer to actively create fulfilling lives.

I believe that when we start to focus on our own pursuits, it releases all kinds of pressures and expectations—So that any man who shows up feels that sense of freedom to choose us because he wants to add to the fullness of life a woman’s already experiencing.

We find balance because we are actively making things happen in our own lives—practicing risk, vulnerability and self-love—all the while we are better prepared when love shows up, even if it looks nothing like what we expected. Surprisingly that “boy next door” type who was always nothing more than a friend suddenly becomes hotter than you ever thought. His interest in you is more consistent, sacrificial, and cherishing than you’ve ever experienced before.

So how can we be more active in making our lives better and open to being surprised by love?

1. Actively Pursue Dreams - Not for the purposes of attracting a man, but for the purposes of living your best life. If you take some time to get really quiet this week and give yourself permission to tune inside to that one thing you’ve been avoiding doing because it’s too scary—-listen and then take one small step to start towards that dream!

2. Clear Out Any Blocks - Explore if there could be past hurts, fears and feelings of unworthiness in your life. Do you lack of confidence, have a tendency to hide who you are and not open up, or keep a hard exterior because you’ve been hurt before? For your own mental and physical health, find a safe person or group to explore these blocks so you can create better connection in all of your relationships.

3. Hang Out an “Open Sign” - Are you open to people you are meeting in the world? Not just for small talk, but do you regularly open up in appropriately vulnerable ways? The key to being open is trusting yourself to create connections with people who are good for you and being able to walk away from those who aren’t. You are honoring your desire for connection without letting it rule you. Actively work through emotions or habits that cause you to show up as “closed” so instead you can start to display your “Open Sign”.

Attracting a partner is by no means a hard science. There is a je ne sais quoi element to every romance story that no one can give us the step by step directions for. Whether we are stuck in our own excessive waiting mindset or we are using all hands on deck to carry out “operation relationship”, I encourage you to take action to create your best life—whether that means doing personal growth work, opening a school for orphans in Africa or cleaning out that bedroom to make an office. Then stay open to various social connections, resting fully in your own womanly worthiness, knowing that mysteriously your action will prepare you to attract a surprisingly good relationship.

If you’d like support to explore how to create your best life or open yourself up in places where you know you’ve closed down. Schedule a time for us to talk here.

Love You, and He'll Follow Suit

Years ago I made a commitment to myself to buy as much Organic food as possible. Even though I felt the pain as I looked at my grocery bill, I considered it a long-term investment in health. My housemate watches me eat Organic food day after day, so the other day when I asked her to grab me a spice from the store, she comes back with the top of the line Organic version.

At first I thought how nice of her not to skimp and come back with the cheapest one. Then it occurred to me that since she sees me buying Organic food all the time, she just followed suit and got the kind she assumed I’d buy for myself.

I thought about how this concept works when it comes to dating and relationships too.

The truth is we are informing people all the time about how to treat us, by the way we treat ourselves. And this is never more obvious than in the process of dating.

Let’s say you’re out with a guy and it’s getting late. You have to get up early the next day for a work meeting. You told him that you need to be in bed at 11pm. It’s 10:30pm, he asks you if you’d be up for catching a last drink at a great place just down the block.

How do you handle this? - Do you stick to your own curfew knowing that you’ll feel much better the next day? Or do you notice how excited he is to show you this other place and cave into his energy, telling yourself that you’ll just let your curfew slide this time?

The thing is, that if you already mentioned earlier in the date that you want to be in bed by 11pm, it can feel like he’s rude because he’s inviting you to something after the time you said you needed to go home. But the fact is many times men will test a woman early on in the dating process, whether consciously or subconsciously.

He’s testing her to see how she sticks to her own boundaries. He’s finding out what she will allow him to get away with and what she won’t. He’s watching you to inform him how to treat you.

So I wanted to share a few key areas that you can focus on practically loving yourself during (or in preparation for) the dating process:

1. Share your honest Preferences - You may want to be an easy “go with the flow” kind of woman and there are times that is a valuable trait. But if he’s inviting you to go 4 wheeling in a mud field and it seems like something that would give you a panic attack, by all means, tell him that and communicate that you’d love to spend time with him, but that you’d feel better with X, Y, Z kind of activity. He will learn to consider what you enjoy and want to make you happy.

2. Speak Up About Your Feelings - Did he shut down something you said in front of your friends that made you feel hurt? If it’s bothering you and getting in the way of relating with him, you should speak up! At an appropriate time, share how what he did impacted you and how you felt. Sometimes people in our lives unintentionally hurt us and they get to know how they can love us by sharing how their actions impact us. He will learn to respect and care for your feelings.

3. Don’t Give All of Your Time and Energy Away Too Soon - Let him earn a place in your life. It can be tempting when you find someone that you are very attracted to or could talk with all night, to want to spend hours and days with them right away. But the fact is you give trust to every other person in your life over time. Make it no different with a guy you just met. He will learn to honor your time and value your sharing from your heart.

4. Guard Time for Yourself - Often the activities you love are part of what draws a man to you. Whether it’s an afternoon coloring with a warm cup of tea or traveling to the beach with your best friend each year. Don’t let the whirl of emotions in getting to know a new man keep you from the things you love. He will learn to cherish your differences and encourage you in what makes you shine.

Making choices like these to love yourself—-even minor choices like honoring your own bedtime—will challenge him to step up to treat you well. Also, when you treat yourself well certain men you date will not be up for the task (because they’re operating as self-centered/low-value/disinterested) and they’ll quickly show themselves the exit when they realize you won’t tolerate bad treatment. And that’s one less man you need to filter out yourself!

If you find it challenging to honor yourself in certain areas of the dating process and would like another person in your court, I’m glad to set up a time for a conversation here.

Advantages to Slowing Dating Down

“Jeff just liked you. Send him a note.”

I open this email and look at his picture. I like the color of his olive skin. It stirs my interest to read his profile. “Kayaking, coffee shops, days out with his daughter, hiking, looking for something serious. Love to travel and would like to have you with me?” I see a picture of him and his daughter, she is cute and he looks tender. He reports to share my faith and likes drama movies too. So I click the pink heart.

He asks me how I’m doing.

I tell him.

He wonders if I’d like to have coffee.

We have a good conversation, he leans in for a kiss after walking me to my car.

I’ve just opened my time, energy, heart and lips to a complete stranger and after we say goodbye there is a 50/50 chance that I’ll see him again. And this, my friends, has become a common experience in modern dating.

With many people using online dating to find a relationship, it can be a lot of pressure to figure out if someone is for you from a profile and a 60-90 minute visit. If you were to meet someone in the workplace or at an acting class every week, you’d have the chance to observe how a person interacts with his cube mate or how they express their creativity, without necessarily sizing them up for romantic potential right away. Maybe you’d have a few conversations with them over time and sense romantic tension building. The question of whether or not you’d go out with them may be a slow build towards that moment when he nervously asks you at the water fountain if you’d like to continue talking over dinner Friday evening.

I think online dating can be a great tool for finding a relationship, but the nature of it tends to speed things up. So if your goal is to create a lasting relationship, built on a good foundation, then one tip I’d give is to find ways that you can “slow things down” and mimic some of the real life dynamics that have been happening for centuries in offline dating.

Here are five ideas for how this could look:

1. Avoid Stream of Conscious Texting - If you met online and exchanged numbers, it can sometimes be easy to start an ongoing chain of texting with this person throughout the day. So you can end up giving a large chunk of your concentration and energy to someone who hasn’t yet proved to you they’re worthy of your time. You can always get back to him later. Let them wait for an answer. Or tell them you only like texting to firm up plans. Everyone has their texting style, but consider avoiding on-going texting.

2. Spread out Your Dates (especially at the beginning) If you have a full life, this one will probably happen naturally. But if your weekend happens to be wide open on the Friday you meet, consider waiting a while to meet again. Give yourself sometime to feel into how you felt with the person. Give them space to contact you again, so that you can really gauge what their interest level is when you’re not around.

3. Do Different Kinds of Dates and Sometimes Include Others As you know it’s good to get to know a person in a variety of settings; out kayaking together, watching them give a presentation, going out with their friend group, visiting your grandma, a walk on the beach. etc. Mix it up and see if the the way they interact with you is consistent with how they treat others. Anyone can put on an act to treat you well if the two of you are always alone watching Netflix.

4. Choose a Person Who Has Their Own Life Too If you or the guy you’re dating is always available because they are still looking for a job or they have very few outside interests, it can be hard to slow things down. This happens because if nothing else in your life is making you “light up!” then it can be very easy at the beginning of a relationship to want to be around this person all the time, because the attraction to them makes you feel alive. Be filling your life with things that light you up and find a person who does that in their own life too.

5. Communicate Your Boundaries When you know what will or won’t work for you in the dating process, especially early on, it can grow attraction with the right person and it can filter out those who aren’t for you. As you communicate what time you are available until, how much you will or won’t talk about your Ex, or what your physical boundaries are—that person is getting to know the real you and you are setting a precedent for your own value in the relationship.

The reason I believe there are advantages to slowing down the dating process, is that I’ve seen many relationships go South when they started fast and furious. In the heat of physical attractions our brains tend to go offline. In not communicating our boundaries in an effort to be easy to be with, people take advantage. Those who are seeking a relationship, right NOW!, are often coming from a more desperate place—-maybe struggling with co-dependency, trying to forget an ex, or wrestling with addictions. So with a slower build towards something serious and lasting, you are more likely to rule out those who won’t respect you and vet those who are able to sustain a relationship for the long haul.

If you’re at the beginning stages of dating right now—consider taking a few actions to slow things down—and meanwhile keep focusing on your own life. Let me know how it goes!

If you struggle to slow things down or would like support navigating any stage of your relationship journey, reach out here for a complimentary session where I’m happy to support you with an outside perspective and new insights for the process.

Make the Most of Singleness So You'll Have the Best Relationship

Human beings love to peek through the rails of our neighbor’s fence, assured that their grass is most definitely softer, lusher, greener than ours. As single women it’s easy to gaze longingly at your best friend’s life while she kisses her husband and proceeds to snuggle with her baby.

While we long for a good partnership to be ours, it can be easy to forget to take advantage of the moments we have now. In fact when we live in the certainty that the partnership we want is only just a matter of time, we are more likely to prepare ourselves for the best love possible.

But how can we prepare?

Here are five powerful ways that single women can prepare right now to draw in a great partnership. (and often it draws a man in more quickly!)

1. Invest in building and deepening your current social network. Do you have friends that you really enjoy, but haven’t seen for a while? Do you have a conflict that you’ve been putting off addressing with someone? Are there invites that you are turning down because you’re just “too tired”? Sometimes we’ve gotten lazy in the amount of effort that we’re investing in our current relationships and as a result we may feel more isolated and out of touch. Often the strength of the relationship we attract in a partner can be similar to the quality of the relationships we have now. So if you’re not happy in your friendships or family/community connections—start making those relationships better now. They will be the people who will support you too as you are dating and prevent you from jumping into a relationship that isn’t good for you or encourage you when there is a good opportunity to continue with a good prospect.

2. Take advantage of the time you have now (that you’re not spending with a partner) to invest in your personal growth. While relationships can bring up our issues in a way not many other things can, we can do more self-reflective work on ourselves by way of counseling, reading growth oriented books, attending support groups or seeking out coaching. These kinds of outside perspectives can help you gain insight into tendencies or patterns of behavior that could be shifted in order for you to attract and create a good partnership. The less baggage we carry into a partnership, the more energy we’ll have to love and receive love from a good man.

3. Start dating and see it as a means of gaining experiences. Dating is a great opportunity to gain so much experience in relating to people. Though it may be tempting to want to just jump into a relationship and skip getting to know different people, we can learn so much while navigating our preferences about what we like in a person, knowing what our boundaries are and practicing communicating them, as well as practicing enjoying the moments with a new person without clinging too tightly to a specific outcome. All of those kinds of skills will play out over and over again in a long-term relationship, so why not start practicing now.

4. Seek out experiences that you couldn’t do as easily if you had a partner/family to be responsible for. Did your friend invite you to go spontaneously to Egypt next week? You’re excited about it, so why not go because you can! Take sky diving classes, learn to dance, pursue that dream of what you feel called to do while you have less strings attached. Doing these kinds of things will make your life richer and you will give off that “Happy” scent that men love. (it really can’t be bought in a bottle=)

5. Seek out ways that you can serve others that is meaningful to you. As singles, it’s easy to slide into a somewhat self-centered lifestyle. Entering a partnership means not only having the love you want, but also learning to give in ways that serve the other person. So you can start now and build those muscles. What area of the world stirs your heart where you’d like to help make a difference? Who in your circles could use some help this week? What church, club, group, class might benefit from you stepping up to offer your gifts? Stretch yourself and you will see how you’ll gain more than you give.

Putting these five things into practice will prepare you to be the person who creates an amazing partnership. And it will give you more confidence to show up as a sexier you —so go get ready girl!

Confusing Our Catch

At a business networking meeting I took my turn to give a one liner introduction. “I’m a Dating and Relationship coach that helps women over 30 to uncover their blocks and become authentically themselves so they can attract a good man.” Everyone in the group nodded at me. I felt self-conscious for 30 seconds wondering if anyone there even fit that demographic.

After the meeting I introduced myself to the man next to me with salt and pepper hair and kind eyes set in a face that told me he had a few years of life experience under his belt. After chit chatting, he seemed comfortable enough to ask, “So when you mentioned that you help women to be ready to attract a man, I’m wondering if you can help me to know what are the signs that a woman is ready?” I gave him a few ideas and then he said, “Yes, I know those things are encouraging to me when I see women doing them. But I’m interested to start dating and the problem is that I don’t find many noticeably available women doing those things.”

Boom. I felt like in that moment he was speaking for many men. Here was a man actively looking for an “open net” so he could swim up for “the catch”, but there weren’t any open nets in his view.

I asked him more about what he saw.

He talked about women looking busy, on their phones, body language closed down, not necessarily wearing rings to know if they are taken.

I appreciated his viewpoint, because I think this gave me some insight as to why I so often hear single women say things like, “There aren’t any good men that I’d want to date approaching me.” “I often attract the unavailable men.” “I don’t know where to find the good single men in my town.”

I know that a lot of my single friends and the women I work with—-if you asked them—would say of course they want to be in a good relationship! However, I believe some women are sending out signals that don’t match what they want.

We are confusing the man we want to catch.

Some women argue though, “Well shouldn’t the man be the one with the balls to overcome any obstacle to take the risk to approach us?” (Rom Coms have taught us well)

Yes, men do well by taking a risk.

But the thing is,

Good men who want to respect you, look for an opening.

So how are we sending confusing signals? Well here are a few that seem so commonplace it’s almost funny to mention them.

1. We are very busy with little time for anyone. - We race from one activity to another with very little breathing space for conversation in our day.

2. We can do it ourselves. - We like to feel independent that we can do it all, but this leaves little opportunity for a man to lend a hand to open a conversation.

3. We say no, when we mean yes - whether it’s our body language or a literal no, we can take the safe route to not go out with a guy because we distrust who he is

4. We love our phones - I’ll say no more.

5. We smile less - Especially in a big city we are less likely to connect in general to the people around us and instead we mind our own business, missing out on the simple pleasures of acknowledging someone, especially someone cute, with a smile.

So how can you start welcoming in better catches? Well, maybe it’s time to start sending clearer signals. By smiling more, making eye contact, opening body posture, putting down your phone for a few minutes, it may feel a little counter cultural these days. But you will see that those good men looking for an open net, find you noticeably standing out far above the rest!

If you’d like more support and feedback in this specific area, join my FB group here. This month we’re doing fun exercises together to get us to send clear signals of availability in public. Also, my upcoming group course will be a great way to really take the time to explore how you can authentically captivate a good man.

If a Man Hands You Crumbs, Do You Take Them?

What surprises me in the dating life of women is when I see the following story line:

This talented and hardworking woman is successful in her work.

She has many good friends and knows how to throw an awesome dinner party.

She meets a man.

The man gives her a great compliment,

and buys her some flowers,

and then gets physical with her.

Afterwards, he slows down from calling.

So she reaches out to him.

She offers to bring him soup when he’s sick.

She asks him where this is going.

He gives her a kiss infrequently and forgets to ask her about her day.

He’s likes some of the attention and sees her maybe once a week.

She hangs on to him because of the hope that this is heading towards a

real relationship, with so little investment.

I see a version of this story often. What surprises me is that the women in the story are high value in so many areas of their life. They dress well, exercise and take good care of themselves. They’ve handled their finances well. They’ve worked hard to achieve great things in the world and they are often loved by many people. But for some reason in the area of their love life they are willing to accept crumbs.

The mystery in all of this is that if they bought a blouse at the store and saw a snag leading to a hole, they’d take it back. Why then can it be so hard to “return” a man that’s not showing himself to be high quality?

When you are dating, and especially if you are getting to know a high quantity of men online, it’s not a matter of if you’ll be offered crumbs from a man, it’s a matter of when. When a man’s behavior leads the dating process with low effort or when his behavior downshifts from previously putting in a lot of effort, it can easily feel disappointing or hurtful.

While we may not say these thoughts exactly, our feelings can stem from thinking things like, “Am I not that interesting to him?” “Maybe I’m not worth the effort?” “Maybe I need to be giving more in the relationship to earn his love?”

And so, instead of speaking up and asking for what we’d prefer or waving him along to get yourself ready for the next man - you accept the little he gives.

You are hungry for a meal, yet you sit down and tell yourself you’ll be ok with crumbs.

The key to shifting this pattern is very simple - yet it can take consistent work to walk out it out.

This key is this: you must believe that you are worthy of the full meal. You must give yourself that value, like in every other area of your life.

Often we need the support of another person to help us to truly shift and stand in the kind of value that enables us to communicate with confidence what we need to a man. Or to rally the inner strength to let a man pass by that’s only offering crumbs.

If you’d like to start welcoming better quality men into your life, then reach out! I’d love to support you on your journey towards getting the full meal of love that you’ve been craving.