Top Tips on How to Consciously Create Love
By consciously coupling and considering carefully how you want to connect with your partner, you can create a lifelong loving relationship.
Why We Wait to Feel Desperate?
When I met Shana, an attractive woman in her 30s, she was dating a new guy every few months. She was feeling desperate and frustrated that everywhere she looked her friends were pairing up, but for some reason it just wasn’t clicking for her. When Shana went to parties, she’d either not feel a connection with anyone, or she’d see a cute guy but talk herself out of flirting with him. She’d go to synagogue kiddushes and have plenty of pleasant conversations with people who were nice and well-meaning – yet somehow she just couldn’t seem able to strike up a conversation with the cute guys that she really wanted to meet, or get people to follow up on dating suggestions.
When I talk to people about considering relationship coaching when things aren’t moving for them, they often look at me like I have three heads. I’ve received comments ranging from “You have GOT to be kidding me, normal people go for relationship coaching?” Or, “I would have to feel desperate to do that.”
Sadly, I run into many of those same people years later and they’re often at the point of feeling desperate and beyond hope. Sometimes they do get married but feel they’ve made a mistake or that they were ill-equipped to withstand the challenges of a successful long term relationship.
It makes little sense why we wait to feel desperate, or like we’ve hit rock bottom, before figuring out how to get something we really want. If we want to be thin most of us try and eat healthy and exercise. We go to the dentist to prevent cavities rather than wait ‘til our teeth are ready to fall out. We meditate and do yoga to reduce anxiety and stress, we take lessons to learn how to drive, rather than wait until we get into an accident (fortunately the law doesn’t allow for that). And for those of us with strong career aspirations we work with a business coach to get our careers moving in the right direction.
If we were to wait for our teeth to rot, our careers to fall apart or our heart to pack up before taking action to improve our lives we would most likely be so far down in the dumps at that point that it would take too much effort to then make a change.
Many of the married couples I’ve worked with have said to me they wish they’d taken the time to understand themselves better before even starting to date, because it may have either influenced their choice differently, or they would have entered the relationship with a different set of expectations and they may have behaved in such a way that would have vastly improved the healthfulness and success of the marriage going in.
It’s heartwarming to know that there’s so much research now about what ingredients make a successful relationship, and that we have the power to make good relationship choices right from the very start. It no longer makes sense to wait until a marriage gets shipwrecked before learning how to make it strong and steady.
When I worked with Shana, we identified that hopefulness was not her strong suit and she allowed me to help her uncover some of the reasons why she didn’t feel entitled to talk to the guys she was attracted to. By pushing through her fears and overcoming old baggage that was weighing her down with negative thoughts she was able to shift her approach and finally meet someone she really liked in real life.
5 Tips to inspire you to take a proactive stance to dating, so you don’t feel desperate
Focus on the features you love about yourself and accentuate them.
Clarify the things you love about your relationships with others
Be brutally honest with yourself…then change the things you don’t like, or that aren’t working for you.
Acknowledge the parts of your life you do feel happy about and celebrate them.
Know that you don’t need to do a complete overhaul, but rather just fix the specific areas where you may be getting stuck.
If you may occasionally be feeling desperate, check out this link to hear my interview with Zoe, a single woman living in Jerusalem about how she deals with feeling desperate.
http://jewishcoffeehouse.com/real-relationships-using-sadness-as-a-tool/
How to Get Matchmakers to do the Best Job for You?
The more clear you are about what you need from a relationship, the better able you’ll be to express this to a matchmaker who will then be in a better position to set you up.
Hidden Shame of the Harvey Weinstein Scandal
Men report they feel emasculated and no longer able to flirt and show affection towards women. Women feel less safe about creating relationships with men…We need to create a shift in our thinking and do a reality check in order to heal from this scandal.
Top 5 Ways to Upgrade Your Relationship
When we upgrade our devices we expect a newer better functioning system that works with similar parameters. Upgrading our relationship is no different. We needn’t throw away what we have to get the upgrade we require. By acknowledging new realizations and awareness about what we need from a relationship, we don’t have to throw out the baby with the bathwater and start from scratch. We can just reboot, and incorporate the changes by acknowledging what we need from ourselves and gingerly yet directly, communicate what we need from our partner.
The Torah of Commitment to your Relationship!
The more we take a leap of faith and believe in ourselves, the better able we will be to commit to someone else.
How to Make Sure You Aren’t Settling 4 Love?
Are you concerned about settling for love and making the biggest mistake of your life? Read this article to find out what questions to focus on when searching for love?
Is Jealousy Stealing your Chance for Love?
For some of us, jealousy and pain rear its ugly green eyes when we see someone we know jump with joy as they get engaged. We want to feel happy for other people’s joy, but sometimes it sits on our own insecurities. It heightens our fears about not achieving what others have. It makes us wonder whether we can have that too.
Jealousy is the kind of pain I very much relate too. Who hasn’t?
Shirley, a client, admitted to me that jealousy is all too real for her as she’s been dating for nearly 10+years. She’s on every Jewish dating site known to man. She’s not picky when it comes to going on dates (she described the level to which she’s willing to be open to someone new) and she attends lots of events. She’s out there doing it all!
“So why isn’t it happening for me?” she says. How much do I have to do already to make it happen?
Shirley’s experience with jealousy is far from unique. It’s a painful story I come across regularly…
The thing that’s particularly bothering Shirley, even more than dealing with jealousy and all that she is doing to partner up, is the fact that everyone else seems to find a partner so easily.
What REALLY goes through Shirley’s mind when she sees yet another friend get ENGAGED?
What Shirley’s really saying is, “I’m so scared I’ll be alone forever.”
Some of us go into panic mode as jealousy shoots through us when we see yet another friend get engaged.
For those of us trying to find love for sooooo long, when we see someone we know get engaged we feel further from rather than closer to finding love.
This is actually counter-intuitive and not helpful thinking. If there’s another guy off the market, then that’s one less guy you have to worry about dating, right?
Shirley, like many others, mistakenly feels that if someone else has him than he must be a good catch.
But if he was really meant for her, what stopped her from seeing him as a viable option before.
The real questions are:
- What’s stopping us from being able to see a good potential partner in all their glory while they’re single and available?
Some of us say we want to marry a nice person, but when that nice person actually comes along, we have doubts. We don’t believe they can really be that great, or we focus on their faults. We do this as a way of protecting ourselves from being with someone who may not be good for us. But in reality it only stops us from seeing possibilities.
We’ve been hurt before and we get scared that the good person will suddenly go bad. Like the others who came before them. So we test them to see how much crap they can take
The one’s with gumption, and self-worth disappear (and rightfully so) to find greener pastures.
Those who don’t value themselves and who are used to being used, taken advantage of or worse being abused, remain. Eventually we see them as weak, lose respect and leave.
Some of us, deep down, really don’t believe that we deserve to be treated that well. or
We tell ourselves the good one will get on our nerves over time. Rather than be able to feel rest assured that being treated well is a good thing, and notice and appreciate this is what we want. And gosh darn it, we deserve it!
- Why do some men (or women) only look good once they’re on someone else’s arm?
Some of us always believe the grass is always greener on someone else’s lawn. Or other people’s toys are better than our own.
For some reason we can’t allow ourselves to believe that when we see a good thing and get it, it’s actually good for us.
There’s something in our make-up that just won’t allow ourselves to be satisfied with Good Enough. So we wait for perfection, which of course never comes (because it doesn’t exist)!
Frustration and tension builds as we continue on our own.
The trick is to allow ourselves to be open to possibilities without compromising our values, or going against our own better judgement.
In this case Shirley believed there are a finite number of possibilities. The belief there are only a certain number of available men, and that she’s met them all, was locking her into a negative holding pattern.
Through relationship counselling Shirley soon discovered that what lay beneath these feelings was a lack of belief she was entitled to good things. She also needed to know there’s more than enough to go around.
Even though there might be a slight skew in numbers of available men and women in the world, things are constantly changing. People are constantly coming in and out of relationships. Some people take more time to mature than others. Change in the world is constant. And this means that possibilities for love are countless and endless.
The more we allow ourselves to feel worthy and alive, the more connected we feel to our inner selves. This then enables us to feel more confident that when we see someone else’s joy we can participate in it more fully. We can know that just as others can feel joy we can too!
Does jealousy or envy sometimes get in your way of love? I hear you loud and clear…Drop me a line and let me know about it…mlavinpell@gmail.com.
Freedom: Are you single by choice?
We’re surrounded by people in relationships. But not all relationships are created equal. While some appear to be happily coupled, not all are.
Many of us fantasize that life will be better once we’re in a relationship. But all around the world there are couples who remain unhappy.
Where’s the gap? Are so many marrying the wrong one?
Many who haven’t yet chosen a partner claim they aren’t ready or haven’t met the right one. Few will admit they don’t want a relationship altogether.
Lots of people who are partnered up are ill equipped, or not emotionally ready or prepared for what’s involved. After the sparks and fireworks wear off, they’re left feeling deflated and mistakenly believe they married the wrong one.
Few will look inside and ask what they could have done differently to make the relationship work. Less will admit they really don’t want commitment, and never did.
The reason is because it feels wrong to say I don’t want a relationship, or I don’t have all the answers. Many are too scared to say, for now marriage really doesn’t suit me for one reason or another.
Not everyone is in a position to give up their hectic lifestyle to be in a relationship.
Relationships require time and space. If you don’t have this, it’s probably a good idea not to get into a relationship, because you’ll probably just tick off your partner.
To be in a relationship or not, either one requires a conscious choice.
You can feel free in a relationship, or out. What brings a sense of freedom and peace of mind is the conscious choice involved.
If you’ve chosen to be in a relationship, but just haven’t found the one, or the timing isn’t right yet, feel the freedom that you are on a path towards finding what you want.
The journey to finding a partner is longer for some than others. The decision about whether to be in a relationship is your cup of tea is a shorter but even more essential road.
Too many of my clients suffer because they never took the time to reflect on whether being in a relationship is for them. They get into a relationship or remain alone through inertia, and not conscious thought.
This is a pity and needn’t be the case.
From my experience, WHO becomes less of an issue once you’ve chosen the WHY. When you’re clear about why you want in or out of a relationship, the rest falls into place.
If you remain in a place of ambivalence and fear, this is unnecessary torture.
If on the other hand you have chosen to be single, then own it, and be proud of it. There is nothing wrong with this decision, and don’t let society make you think otherwise.
If you aren’t sure where YOU stand, hit reply. I love helping people with difficult decisions like this.
Post Relationship Trauma- Getting to the Other Side
Post Relationship trauma is a common barrier to forming healthy, loving, romantic relationships. To learn more about Post relationship trauma and how to heal from it, read this article.
