Your Full Life Will Lead You to Your Dream Man

Dating over the years, I got undesirable outcomes when I was living from an empty cup.

It looked like a hot guy who made effort at the beginning—Good morning texts, plans to go mini-golfing and dinner, curious about my favorite vacation, told me I had a cute smile and then at the end of the date when I was feeling tingling and hopeful, the subtle sexual innuendo started. While he couched it in the middle of a talk about his favorite sports team, I’d brush off the discomfort in my chest because I’d just discovered him as the best thing I had going in my life.

He didn’t have that much to compete with. I was working in a job where the boredom drove me to waste my after hours scrolling social media or giving my time to friends who always seemed to be one decision away from a major life crisis. Which, in comparison, made my problem of putting my own dreams and desires last, seem relatively minor.

When men asked me what my hobbies were I told them I used to like playing the piano or baking a cake, but the honest truth was that I hadn’t done those things in over a fifteen years. When they asked me why I didn’t do them, I’d explain how long-term chronic illness led me into self-pity parties that I had a hard time leaving because they made such reasonable excuses for why I needed to avoid new or fun things and just survive the next day.

So when Mr. Rico Suave entered my dating options with a few interested questions, he was it—life itself!

When you are not living a life that makes you feel alive, full, or engaged, your dating process will feel like you’re stomach’s been empty for days, and a crumb of attention feels like the promise of a 5 course meal.

When I went out with a guy and he’d start to make physical moves before I felt comfortable, I’d go along because subconsciously I thought, “this is the price I need to pay for the food I need.” I’d let him cross my own boundaries and mistook his physical desire for serious interest and capacity for a long-term relationship.

Until his texting turned completely sexual and when I changed the subject, he’d turn my comment about loving fruit salad into something much less innocent. My stomach twisted into knots and at the same time I felt a rush of excitement that I didn’t normally feel in my regular life, which made it all so confusing.

Then came his last minute invites, late arrivals, lack of planning, Crumb. After. Crumb. He lured my heart into his force field with the promise of his attention. When I gave my time to him for so little investment, he realized how little he needed to give in order to benefit from the situation.

The hard truth I faced when those connections came to painful endings, was that I was looking for another person to fill up my unfulfilling life. If I was going to feel nourished, alive and loved, I needed to create my own sense of fullness in my life in very practical ways.

Positive affirmations are helpful, prayers, meditation, counseling and therapy groups—-are all very helpful but they will be like flushing your money down the toilet if you don’t take actions that communicate to yourself that you love yourself in the most practical of ways—by creating a great life—full of friends, community, goals, little ones, family, creative projects, missions, great environments, etc.

Can you imagine a man verbally proclaiming his undying love to you day after day, but he never keeps his word to you, nor introduces you to his family or nor stops seeing other women? Yet, we ourselves can nod yes to the fact that we love ourselves, but our actions don’t show it in our lives. And men take cues on how to love us by our own good self-treatment.

If you can relate to your life not being as fulfilling as you’d like right now—-what steps can you take to turn that around?

There are a million things you can do, but I’d like to offer you 3 areas where you can start:

1. Beautify - What is one “clean up” project that you’ve been putting off for a long time that you can take care of? This could be your garage, your bookshelf, your toenails, your car—-you name it, but having it done will make you feel better!

2. Ignite Passion - What is one hobby that you used to love so much that time would fly by without you noticing it? Sign up for the class, interview the mentor, get the supplies or equipment—-it’s not a waste of time!

3. Create a Thrill - What is something you’ve been thinking about doing, but it scares you a little bit (or a lot!) and it makes you very curious at the same time? It could be jumping out of a airplane, joining Toastmasters, starting up a side business, creating an online profile, or having that hard conversation with a friend. Take the risk!

Do something from each of these categories and you’ll start to notice how your emotional range begins to increase—you’ll start to feel a sense of pride, pleasure and the excitement of getting out of your comfort zone (and not dying!) All of these feelings will increase your sense of happiness, purpose and pleasure in your life. (Which become very attractive to a good partner for you!)

And the next time Mr. Rico Suave calls you up for a 9pm booty call, you’ll tell him you can’t because you’re auditioning for the musical Annie in the morning (or your new project). He’ll get that he needs to make more effort to see you and will step up or show himself to the door. Then surely, better quality men will show up to compete with your full life, with the intent to make it even better.

Kristen loves supporting women as they walk through dating or a breakup process. f you would like specific support to create a life you love so you can improve your love life, schedule a free 30 minutes chat here to learn more.

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.

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.

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.