Maybe you’ve built your life around your career to the point of ignoring your personal life? Or forgotten you can create personal goals to attain a work/life balance?

If you answered yes to any of the above, it’s time you reclaim your relationship with yourself and start a practice of Inner Child Dates™.

Most people are never taught how to truly care for themselves emotionally. You may have learned to go after your goals, be tenacious, take care of others, or go into sacrifice, but were never shown how to tend to the most important relationship—the one with yourself.

Instead of being supported to express your feelings, you may have been told to “grow up,” “be strong,” or “get over it.” These messages create emotional patterns that follow you into adulthood, often leaving you stuck in burnout, resentment, or emotional numbness.

One of the most powerful ways to reconnect with your emotional life and interrupt this destructive pattern is through reparenting—learning how to show up for yourself in ways your caregivers didn’t.

An Inner Child Date™ is a weekly ritual that builds self-worth, confidence, and connects you with your emotional life so you can create connection with other people. These regularly scheduled events give you a simple, practical way to heal from emotional neglect and create trust in yourself and a new emotional foundation that grows your self-esteem.

When you’re running on empty you cannot be of service to others because your cup is empty. With a weekly practice of Inner Child Dates you can fill your cup, not just to full—to overflowing. What’s in your cup is for you, and what’s in the saucer is the overflow that allows you to give to others you care about. This practice teaches you to make yourself a priority.

The Inner Child Date™

An Inner Child Date is a once-a-week appointment, scheduled in advance on your calendar, to spend two to three hours engaged in an activity with your inner child.

The commitment to consistently set aside time for an Inner Child Date is a key pillar of this practice that allows you to reparent yourself. Engaging in an activity with your inner child occasionally, or on a whim is not effective.

Children love to have something to look forward to, so booking an Inner Child Date in advance is imperative. The activity itself is not as important as being consistent.

Having fun may or may not occur during an Inner Child Date, what’s more important is to discover about yourself. Is your inner child happy or sad? Do they trust you or are they suspicious? Do you find it uncomfortable or selfish to take time for yourself each week?

As a child you were in the care of other people and the capacity of those who raised you may not have been sufficient for you to feel loved and safe. A regular practice of Inner Child Dates is your opportunity to reparent yourself, so you no longer make decisions limited by your upbringing.

Creating a connection to the younger parts of yourself can connect you with your creativity, spark more joy, and allow you to be more productive at work, more focused, and a better communicator.

How To Do An Inner Child Date

The instructions for an Inner Child Date™ are as follows:

Once a week for 2-3 hours engage in an activity selected by the little child inside of you. This activity is done by yourself and for yourself—there is no multitasking allowed. For twelve consecutive weeks the activities must be unique. At the end of twelve weeks reflect on which activities refueled you the most and you may repeat the ones that your inner child is fond of.

These dates must be a top priority and treated as if they are the most important event scheduled on your calendar with the most important person. There are severe repercussions for cancelling an Inner Child Date.

If you have an actual emergency and must reschedule a date with your inner child you can only do so if you had to interact with a doctor, policeperson, or firefighter. If you did not have to engage with one of these types of people during the time of a scheduled date, it was not an emergency.

1. Schedule the date in advance with a specific activity with a reminder as you would for an important meeting or a doctor’s appointment.
2. Do it alone (no guests allowed). This is about building a relationship with yourself.
3. Choose something playful or restorative — a coloring book, flying a kite, browsing a toy store, walking barefoot in the grass, etc.
4. Don’t turn it into self-help or being productive. Skip the gym, errands, or reading a book on trauma recovery.
5. Observe what feelings arise. Not all Inner Child Dates will be fun. Guilt, discomfort, or resistance are all signs you’re interrupting the old patterns and creating a new connection with yourself.

Who Should Consider An Inner Child Date?

Anyone who may be feeling burnt out, stuck, stagnant, resentful of responsibilities, blocked creatively, time challenged, over-worked, over-burdened, and/or stressed out to name a few.

If you are easily connected to your thoughts, but have trouble identifying your feeling state, a regular practice of Inner Child Dates will reconnect you to your emotional state. By knowing how you feel you can more easily create connection with others.

Ideas For Low Cost To No Cost Inner Child Dates:

Draw with crayons.
Make paper airplanes and fly them.
Spend time in nature – beach, mountains, river.
Lie on grass and look at the sky. Do you see animals in the clouds?
Take a train ride.
Make a fort with blankets.
Dress up your pet.
Go to the beach.
Go bike riding.
Make a sandcastle.
Go to a park and swing on the swings.
Send postcards to friends.
Make a collage.
Visit a museum.
Go to the bookstore, hang out and read in the children’s book section.
Make a list of 50 things you love.
Go to an aquarium.
Visit an amusement park.
Go to a petting zoo.
Buy balloons.
Write a story about your pet.
Compliment strangers.
Make a lemonade stand.
Go ice-skating.
Go roller-skating.
Play solitaire.
Take a pottery class.
Sing in the shower.
Take a dance class.
Sing into your hairbrush and dance around the living room.
Buy “lucky socks.”
Drink a chocolate malt.
Wear a fake tattoo.
Make jello.
Dress up for no reason.
List 100 people you love.
Read a joke book.
Put glow-in-the-dark stars on your bedroom ceiling.
Write a letter to Santa Claus.
Buy and complete a puzzle.
Watch The Wizard of Oz or any other children’s movie.
Dress up like a Rock Star and sing your greatest hits.
Write a love letter to yourself.
Make a card for someone you love.
Speak in rhyme or pig-latin.
Paint with watercolors.
Make hand shadows.
Make a sock puppet and create a character.
Buy a goldfish.
Make a mask.
Dress like you’re going to a masquerade ball.
Make a book of quotes from your friends.
Look at your old photo albums.
Go to a toy store.
Buy a squirt gun and squirt things on a walk.
Go fly a kite.
Collect beautiful leaves.
Bake homemade cookies.

Why This Works

The Inner Child Date allows you to reparent yourself and heals your childhood wounds. It teaches you to trust yourself and stop patterns of self-sacrifice or self-abandonment. It sends a direct message to your subconscious that your joy matters. Over time, it rewires your subconscious to know that you count and you matter.

You learn how to fill your cup to overflowing so you’ll never serve from an empty cup again. You’ll become someone who shows up for yourself and that changes everything about how you show up in relationships.

Ready To Fill Your Cup To Overflowing?

If you’re tired of feeling depleted, stuck, or emotionally neglected — the answer isn’t to work harder or give more. It’s to start giving to yourself. Begin with one Inner Child Date and let it grow into a weekly ritual of joy, play, and restoration. A habit that changes the who you choose to spend your time with and who you choose to partner with. You’ll be in the driver’s seat to create a relationship that honors your needs and creates lasting love and joy.

For more transformational tools like this, pick up our book Getting It Right This Time: Break Free from Your Hidden Blocks to Lasting Love. This book is your guide to healing from the past and learning how to love yourself, so you can create the kind of love that lasts. It contains our life’s work of teaching you how to create the long-lasting, soul-satisfying love you desire and deserve.

This kind of love starts with the relationship you have with yourself because it is the love you have for yourself that is reflected back to you in your beloved’s eyes.

Great relationships don’t just magically happen when you meet the right person. There are basic skills that will improve your romantic relationship and increase your overall happiness.

Whether your relationship status is divorced, single, widowed, or it’s complicated, you may be struggling to get the love you want. You might perceive the problem as outside of you, like where you live, dating apps, or your age.

Or you could look into the mirror and discover how your strategies and beliefs contribute to your struggles and make a commitment to getting better at communication, conflict resolution, and ultimately love.

The myth of accidental love is that when you meet the right person it just effortlessly works out. Love may feel magical at the beginning but magic is not a plan for lasting love.

Sex is instinctual, but long-term monogamy isn’t. Procreation is built into species survival. However, monogamy is a social construct that provides many benefits with the right partner. Sharing your life with the love of your life is a worthy relationship goal, one that benefits every area of your life!

The secret to success in every part of your life is a fulfilling long-term intimate relationship. This relationship goal is attainable by upgrading your skills and learning to create and maintain an emotional bond.

Ultimately, approaching love and relationships with a plan better guarantees success. Without relationship goals, you’re left with leaving your love life to chance — like winning a lottery ticket. No matter your age or circumstances you have the power to get in the driver’s seat of your love life.

11 Relationship Goals For Grownups Ready For True Love

1. Communicate Authentically

If one of your relationship goals is to be loved for who you really are, you have to show up as who you really are. This means speaking how you feel regardless of the expectations (or perceived expectations) of others.

If you’re twisting into a pretzel trying to earn love from someone, or you’re afraid to speak up and ask for what you want you’ll struggle to find an ideal mate. You can’t abandon yourself and go into sacrifice by constantly putting your partner’s needs first. You’ll become angry and resentful over time.

Show up authentically, speak how you feel, and make requests — this is how you can evaluate another person’s capacity to meet your needs and wants.

You teach people how to treat you, so be authentic from the beginning and you’ll never wonder if you can rely on someone through challenging times.

2. Practice Slow Love

If one of your relationship goals is to quickly find an ideal match, then take things slowly to speed up finding your soulmate. This may sound counterintuitive, but taking things slowly through the dating process allows you to cultivate discernment and select an ideal match over time.

Most people date backwards and give the benefit of the doubt to a stranger. You let your feelings of attraction and chemistry cloud your judgment and ignore red flags or excuse away bad behavior.

It takes time for someone to prove that they’re worthy of winning your heart. Don’t rush to exclusivity. Proceed with caution and date more than one person at a time. The right match for you will be patient with you and will stand out from the rest.

3. Set Healthy Boundaries

If you have a pattern of abandoning yourself when you’re in a relationship then creating and enforcing healthy boundaries is on your list of relationship goals.

Do you neglect your friendships when you start a new relationship? Stop doing the things you love because your new person doesn’t share your interests?

When you struggle with boundaries, it’s easy to lose your sense of self. You merge with your new partner and feel insecure when they’re not around. All your wants and needs take a back seat to your partner’s desires. UGH! You need a Love Intervention!

The truth is you don’t get love from another person — you share love with them. Know how to refuel and identify your own needs and wants so you can express them. Take time to fill your own cup and then you can be of service from your overflow.

4. Own Your Half Of The Equation

Taking too much responsibility or abdicating your responsibility in relationship will eventually drive a wedge between the two of you. Knowing what’s your responsibility and what isn’t helps create a healthy relationship dynamic.

If you’re in blame, then your partner is always wrong and on the defensive. If you’re taking too much responsibility, then you’re sacrificing your own needs and wants fostering anger and resentment.

When you blame each other, you’re stuck in a power struggle. Let go of the rope. Your ego desire to be right is pushing you apart. It only takes one person to change the dynamic in a relationship.

Take responsibility for your half and you’ll create the space for your partner to do the same.

5. Let Go Of Judgment

If one of your relationship goals is acceptance, then let go of judgment. Of all the blocks to love, judgment is the biggest one because love cannot coexist alongside judgment.

Your partner will have different strategies for dealing with life and its challenges. Their family circumstances are different from yours. They’ll have had different strategies for dealing with the same situation.

Judging your differences leaves you both feeling alienated. Instead, get curious about your partner and seek understanding. Allow your partner to be different from you and learn to defer to one another’s strengths. This leads to creating harmony in your home and allows you both to shine.

6. Treat Your Partner With Kindness And Compassion

Is one of your relationship goals to be loving and to feel loved? Start by treating your partner with kindness and compassion.

Speaking harshly, criticizing your partner’s flaws, or judging their behavior are all ways that you create distance between you. Instead, create connection by imagining your partner as a little child who is struggling to get love from their parents and access empathy for them.

Practicing kindness and compassion for your partner allows you to give them the benefit of the doubt. As the person closest to you, they’ve earned it.

Have compassion for both, the little child inside of your partner, and the little child inside of you. Speak with kindness and love and you’ll create an atmosphere where it is safe to make mistakes allowing love to flourish and deepen.

7. Learn To Fight Fair

Does one of your relationship goals include the ability to grow love deeper over time? If so, then you’ll want to learn how to approach an argument or disagreement in a way that creates a deeper connection between the two of you.

All couples fight, even soulmates. Some couples escalate while others simmer in a cold war. It’s common to judge and blame your partner when you’re triggered. Learn to take a break when things get heated and then calm your own nervous system.

Once you’re both calm you can come together to repair and reconnect. A conflict can be a doorway to a deeper connection by focusing on communicating your feelings and concerns, instead of trying to determine who is right or wrong. Emotional intimacy does not come from agreement. It’s created when the two of you are authentic about your own emotional stories and take responsibility for your triggers.

Offering an apology and amends when warranted allows you to regain trust and build a stronger bond.

8. Look For Shared Values

If one of your relationship goals is for long-lasting love, focus on choosing someone who shares your values. Many people look for someone who shares their interests and hobbies and overlook the importance of shared values.

You can survive almost any challenge with your partner when you know that the two of you are on the same page. Just because you both like traveling or country music doesn’t mean you’re in agreement about the importance of communication or family.

Taking your time through the dating process allows you to discover how they spend their time, energy, and resources. This lets you know what is important to them. Having hypothetical conversations about values won’t reveal the truth. Their actions are a better indication of their values, and these are discovered over time. You cannot rush this process of getting to know another human being.

9. Commit To Lifelong Learning And Growing

Do your relationship goals include the desire to grow together? Make a commitment to your own lifelong learning and growth.

Relationships can stagnate when you stop being curious about each other and don’t put effort into learning new behaviors and strategies for dealing with recurring conflicts. Be willing to learn, grow, and remain curious about your SO. This will keep the two of you on a path to creating a deeper and more fulfilling relationship.

Relationships are a living, breathing system that requires attention to stay vital. Growing apart over time only happens when the two of you stop being curious about each other.

10. Set Aside Time For Just The Two Of You

If your relationship goals include keeping the spark alive, then you’ll want to set aside time for the two of you outside of your occupations, kids, and other responsibilities.

Your desire for your partner can fade over time if you don’t nurture physical intimacy. Set aside time for just the two of you by setting a weekly date night. Make the bedroom just for sleep and sex. Leave the TV watching for the den or living room, and don’t talk about work, kids, or your problems in bed.

Connect in bed each night before turning the lights out for sleep. Have a gratitude practice of listing five things you’re each grateful for that you share with each other. These rituals allow intimacy to flourish between you.

11. Make Having Fun A Priority

Having relationship goals can feel like your relationship is a lot of hard work with no play or fun. Make sure to focus on laughter, adventure, and play. The more fun you have together, the more time you’ll want to spend together.

If you’re demanding that your partner is present with you every moment you’re together, you’re setting the bar too high — no one can give you that. Setting realistic expectations allows you to have space for fun and to enjoy one another’s company instead of constantly having difficult conversations and working through your issues.

Don’t let the struggles of life and the tendency to fall into habitual ruts cause the two of you to drift apart over time. Outside forces can only drive a wedge between the two of you if let them.

Regularly update your relationship goals and make them a priority in your life. You’ll create a relationship that’s a refuge from the stresses of the world and gives you the strength to overcome whatever struggles come your way.

Do you doubt you’ll find a partner who is as committed to you as you are to him? Understanding the natural progression that all relationships go through gives you the road map to creating love that lasts. Download our free report, The 5 Stages of Relationship, and discover the path to a lasting partnership filled with co-creation and bliss.

It makes sense to feel helpless and hopeless after a divorce or break-up. No one goes into a relationship expecting it to end so when it does it can throw you for a loop. You can second-guess yourself and lose your self-esteem.

If you’re struggling to even make a connection, you might feel like there’s something wrong with you. You might even believe love is for others but not you. The longing for a meaningful connection with another human being can cultivate feelings of depression or cynicism about love.

What’s even worse is when you feel down, it’s likely you’re not motivated to do anything, right? However, nothing changes until you take action!

Sitting around hoping that you feel better is okay in short bursts. You can throw yourself a pity party, but just know that’s not how to feel good about yourself for the long term.

Give yourself a deadline to stop moping and take action — then you’ll feel better. Life is full of challenges you can’t avoid, but you can approach them in a way that empowers you.

Don’t wait to feel better before you make changes. Tak action and you’ll start to feel better about yourself. Stop obsessing over past events (whether they occurred yesterday or decades ago) by taking these actions and you’ll feel better right away!

How To Feel Good About Yourself And Leave The Past In The Past

Forgive Yourself, Forgive Others, And Move On

Forgiveness is not about the other person; ultimately forgiveness is for you. A well-known saying of The Buddha is, “Holding onto anger and resentment is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.”

Practicing forgiveness frees you from the energetic dance you’ve been doing with the people who have wronged you.

Forgive but don’t forget. Forgetting leaves you open to being hurt or being taken advantage of again. You can always reevaluate depending on the person but never allow a toxic person back into your life. This is a hard boundary that you should never bend so you can feel good about yourself.

Forgiveness allows you to free yourself and move on with your life. Without forgiveness, you are energetically stuck in the past, connected to the person who hurt you.

Imagine there are strings and ropes of energy keeping you connected to each hurt that you’re still holding onto. This energetic network holds you back from moving forward in your life. It’s like trying to drive forward while pressing on the gas and the brake at the same time.

Forgiving someone who hurt you doesn’t require you to reconnect with them, or to have any level of contact. You can forgive from afar so you can be free of those past events.

Beating yourself up for the bad choices you’ve made or taking responsibility for others’ unacceptable behavior also drags you down. Forgive yourself. You were doing the best you could with the resources you had. Now you know more and can make better decisions moving forward.

How to feel good about yourself and leave the past in the past? Forgiveness is the first step. It allows you to get unstuck, freeing you from people and events that poison your soul and damage your well-being.

Honor And Value Yourself By Speaking Authentically

What is your relationship to your emotions?

Do you ignore them and put your focus only on the positive ones?

Or do you only see the negative and believe nothing good will ever happen to you?

Do your emotions build up inside of you until you can’t take it anymore and explode like a volcano?

Or are you so disconnected from your feeling state that it would be difficult to identify your feelings in this moment?

You’re here in human form to experience the full range of human emotions – positive, negative, and everything in between. When you’re disconnected from your emotional life, you’re disconnected from yourself.

It may feel like you won’t ever feel better when you’re stuck in a negative spiral, but your emotions are temporary. Only by allowing yourself to experience and express them can you create the space for a new emotion to appear.

Your emotions are momentary, they’re important because they’re valuable information. Being in touch with your emotions gives you access to your own personal compass so you can navigate through life grounded in your body.

How to feel good about yourself no matter your circumstances? Don’t get caught in toxic positivity. Instead feel and express the full range of human emotions.

Speaking How You Feel Creates Connection And Intimacy

Being able to identify your feelings is the first step. Speaking up and sharing them is how you create emotional intimacy with another person. It’s an essential ingredient to form a deep connection in an intimate relationship.

In contemporary society, your intellect is prized, and your emotions are all too often discounted. The only way to connect with others and create a deep meaningful bond is to share how you feel.

Speaking how you feel is like sending out invitations to a party. Some people will be able to meet you at that high vibration and some won’t be available to attend your authenticity party.

Whether the other person is able to attend isn’t a reflection on you, it’s only information about them.

Speaking how you feel is also how you honor and value yourself. You’re saying that you count and matter when you speak your emotional truth. When you discount your feelings, you diminish your experience.

Being authentic means one thing, and only one thing: Identifying and sharing your feelings with another person.

How to feel good about yourself and leave the past in the past? Speak your truth and then evaluate how it lands on the other person. If they want to discount or downplay your feelings MOVE ON! If they meet you at the high level of authenticity and share their feelings you can work on the relationship.

Find Gratitude For All The Bad Things That Have Happened

Q: Why do bad things happen to good people?

A: To make them better.

This isn’t to diminish the tragedies in your life, that you deserved them, or that they were your fault. However, reframing your challenges as opportunities to grow helps you build resilience and brings deeper meaning to your life. It also motivates you to make the changes necessary to improve your circumstances.

You’re not motivated to change when times are good; instead you grow when there’s a struggle or challenge to face. Just like you need resistance to build muscle, you also need resistance to overcome your negative programming.

Would you view your challenges differently if you considered all the negative experiences that have occurred as spiritual training to become a better person?

Can you look back over your past and find the Golden Nugget of learning that allows you to finally feel grateful for what you went through?

Feeling bitter about your struggles only keeps you stuck in them, sucking away your happiness, and fostering feelings of hopelessness.

Challenge yourself to create some wiggle room in your emotional life. Stretch to find the learning in your failures or foster a feeling of appreciation for the obstacle blocking your path. Find the spiritual lessons in your problems by changing your perspective.

Embracing a gratitude practice will change your life. You can start with the small things, the tiny daily frustrations you experience, and then work your way up to the bigger things like heartbreaks and soul-crushing disappointments. Decide now that all those things happened for you, not to you.

How to feel good about yourself and leave the past in the past? Find gratitude in the difficulties so you become resilient and able to overcome anything that gets in your way.

Laugh Your Past Troubles Away

You can’t change the experiences you’ve had but you can change the meaning that you give them. When you struggle to stay positive, you’re stuck in a negative emotional story that leaves you feeling disempowered or like a victim.

Troubling memories sometimes haunt you and leave you open to re-experiencing the situation in your mind over and over again. Being able to transform your memories of troubling events puts you back in your power and connected to the present moment.

You may think that your memories are accurate recollections of past events, but your memories are colored by your emotional state. They’re malleable. You can’t change the plot points of the past but you can reclaim your power from the past by transforming your emotional connection to specific incidents.

This Laughter Exercise Transforms Your Emotions In The Moment

Here’s a laughter technique to lighten the load of your past and reclaim the present moment. This technique works because all emotions trigger chemicals to flood the body, and faking an emotion does the same thing.

Fake laughing will give you the benefits of real laughter so get ready to fake it until you make it!

There are 3 sounds that make a laugh: Ho, Ha, and He. Rotating them 3 at a time will give you something easy to work with. Place your hands on your low belly and focus on taking a breath into your lower stomach where your hands are resting and then begin to fake laugh:

Ha Ha Ha!

Ho Ho Ho!

He He He!

After a short amount of time, you’ll find that you’re actually laughing. That’s because laughter is infectious and contagious. Once you get a good laugh going speak the horrible event/memory out loud while laughing hysterically. Retell your story as if it’s the funniest story you’ve ever heard.

It may take some getting used to (just like learning to do anything) practice makes perfect.

How to feel good about yourself and leave the past in the past? Practice re-telling your old wounding stories like they are the most hilarious skits you’ve ever seen and you’ll no longer be haunted by the past.

Focus On Progress, Not Perfection

As long as you’re striving to move forward in your life, learning from your past mistakes, and making corrections along the way, you are a success!

Don’t let some mythical idea of perfection get in the way of celebrating all of the small, medium, and large successes along the journey. Perfectionism, or even the striving for perfectionism, chips away at your well-being and happiness — because you’ll forever fall short.

Each night before bed write out five successes for the day in a journal book. Remind yourself of what you accomplished and leave what hasn’t been finished for another day. Beating yourself up because there’s more to do leaves you exhausted and facing an empty gas tank the next day. Instead, focus on filling your tank by acknowledging your successes.

Successes each day are relative, they need not be lifetime accomplishments. If you’re sick with the flu, making toast and tea for yourself goes on the list. You can take things right off your To Do List including household tasks like doing the laundry. Just write down five successes every night and end the day feeling good about yourself.

How to feel good about yourself and leave the past in the past? You release your unrealistic expectations and allow yourself to make mistakes. You’re a human BEING, not a human DOING. Your self-worth doesn’t come from what you do, but who you be.

How To Feel Good About Yourself As A Regular Practice

Feeling good about yourself isn’t something that will just happen when your outer circumstances change. The saying “no matter where you go, there you are” appropriately explains how important it is to nurture your inner self and to create a regular practice of self-care.

Knowing how to feel good about yourself and leaving the past behind you is a lifelong practice. Most things you want to excel at you need to practice, but you also might want a tutor. If you think we’re a good fit to mentor you to create a life alongside your beloved apply for a Breakthrough Call by clicking here to book time in our calendar.

The fear of rejection is the biggest reason you don’t want to risk your heart. Love is always a risk, even in the healthiest of relationships. Being open and vulnerable to another person is a gamble, but if you want to be loved for who you really are you have to take that risk and show up as who you really are.

Having healthy confidence and self-esteem will give you the assurance you need to take those risks. But what if you don’t feel very confident? It’s not like you can flip a switch and suddenly feel confident, assured, and ready to tackle dating again.

Confidence grows from taking small actions regularly to ultimately create a larger change. Build your confidence BEFORE you’re ready to date so you’ll have a better shot at finding lasting love, and not giving up before accomplishing your goal.

How To Be More Confident So You’re Ready To Date Again

Confidence not only helps you to risk your heart; it’s attractive to potential partners. A person who is comfortable in their own skin and clear on what they want is attractive. Going from feeling insecure and full of self-doubt to being confident on a date can be as easy as taking a few simple actions.

Remember, no one is born confident. How to be more confident through the dating process comes from taking action and practicing new skills.

1. Know Yourself And What You Want

When you know yourself you’ll naturally feel more confident. Get clear on what you like and don’t like. What makes you feel good and what causes you upset? How can you ever expect to get what you desire if you don’t know what you want?

Don’t worry about what you don’t want, and instead create a clear and focused vision of your desired outcome. When you have clarity about who you are and what you want, you won’t take it so personally when you meet someone who isn’t a good fit. If you show up authentically and your date decides you two are not a match, they’re doing you a favor. You don’t want to waste your time with someone who doesn’t get you and doesn’t want to win your heart.

How to be more confident so you’re ready to jump back into dating? Create the vision of your ideal relationship BEFORE you start dating or browsing dating apps for a match.

2. Asking For What You Want

The top two reasons people don’t speak up and make requests are the fear of rejection and feeling undeserving. You don’t have to justify your desires. You can ask for things you want simply because you’d like them. No justification is necessary.

You’ll never get what you want if you don’t ask. It may feel uncomfortable to speak your truth, but it’s worth the effort. Even if you don’t get what you want, you’ll feel better about yourself for speaking up and your self-confidence will grow.

If you’d like your date to travel across town to pick you up rather than meeting in the middle, you could simply ask for that. Do you want him to open your car door or call you instead of texting? Ask. When you risk and ask for what you want, you’re taking actions that tell yourself that you’re worthy of receiving and that you count and you matter.

You’ll feel more confident when you start speaking up and asking for what you want. You may discover that it’s easy to get what you want.

3. Stepping Through Warm And Hot Doors

Taking an action that feels scary or risky is like stepping through a warm door. A cold door action is a comfortable action, something that you do every day and doesn’t have any risk. A hot door action is a big leap into the unknown.

Taking a new action can feel fearful, but that fear is ultimately a paper tiger because there is zero risk of physical danger. An emotional fear can’t kill you. You won’t even break a nail asking for what want (LOL). Facing an emotional fear and stepping through a hot door will bring you a reward every single time.

This doesn’t mean you’re guaranteed success. You may not get what you want, but you will be rewarded in some way, as well as develop the confidence that you can speak up and ask for things that you desire.

The more warm and hot door actions you take, the more confident you’ll feel and the more comfortable in your own skin. Don’t take our word for it, instead run the experiment.

You don’t have to risk it all and jump into taking a hot door action right away (unless you want to move things along quickly). Take it slow by choosing a few warm door actions and build your confidence one step at a time.

Don’t wait and wonder how to be more confident, take actions now that scare you a little bit and watch your confidence grow.

4. Changing Your Inner Dialogue

How you speak to yourself has a direct effect on how you feel about yourself. If you repeatedly say to yourself, “I’m so stupid!” every time you make a mistake you’ll feel worse about your mistake and your self-esteem will plummet.

If you say, “I’ll get it next time,” then you’ll feel your confidence grow and you won’t keep repeating the same mistakes.

First, identify your inner dialogue by paying attention to what you say to yourself about yourself. Notice if you are kind and compassionate with yourself or if you are critical and judgmental. Pay attention to how you feel when something doesn’t go your way or when you’re afraid to speak up.

Once you’ve identified your inner dialog, begin the process of saying more useful and empowering things to yourself. Use in-process language like, “I’m learning to feel more confident each day.” Affirming that you’re learning and growing gives you a feeling of hopefulness and willingness to change.

To be more confident, speak to yourself in a way that empowers you to keep moving forward. You don’t have to do things perfectly, instead, give yourself permission to acknowledge your efforts to create positive change.

5. Looking For Evidence

Humans are wired to focus on the negative. It’s a survival strategy that was much better suited to living in caves and hunting wild animals than it is to our modern-day world. Your mind highlights negative experiences to keep you on alert for danger.

But trying something new isn’t dangerous and it isn’t useful for your mind to highlight experiences that confirm your fears and insecurities. Instead, relax your nervous system by focusing on the belief that you are safe and free from immediate harm.

Look for evidence in areas of your life where you do feel confident to remind yourself you’re a competent person. Everyone is an expert at something, even if it’s as simple as folding laundry or staying within a budget. How did you become good at that? How do you feel when you do that activity? What do you say to yourself about yourself when you’ve completed that activity?

By regularly finding evidence that you’re confident in certain areas of your life, you’ll help bolster your overall sense of self-esteem. You probably weren’t born feeling confident in that area of your life. You had to practice to get good at it before you felt like an expert.

If you want to feel more confident in your dating life, identify where you do feel confident and use that as fuel to build up belief in yourself.

6. Keeping A Success Journal

Highlighting areas of your life where you have accomplished something helps build your confidence. You can do this by keeping a daily success journal.

At the end of each day, write down five accomplishments or successes for each day. These successes don’t have to be life-changing. They’re relative to your day. For example, if you have a fever and are suffering from the flu, making yourself toast and tea is a success for that day that you can write down.

You can build your confidence even quicker by also keeping a journal of lifetime successes. In this additional journal, you will write down the biggest accomplishments in your life. You can use this list to remind yourself of how amazing you are and all that you’ve overcome to arrive at this moment.

Start your lifetime success journal by writing down “learning to walk” and “learning to talk” because not everybody gets to do that. If one of your daily successes is a big accomplishment you can add it to your lifetime success journal when appropriate.

When you want to be more confident, writing down your daily successes and focusing on your accomplishments will help build self-assurance.

7. Learning Something New

Nothing builds confidence like learning something new. If you don’t feel confident with online dating, research how to write an effective profile or how to take a great photograph. Feeling insecure about what to say on a first date? Investigate good questions to ask to get to know someone better.

Anytime you learn something new your confidence grows, and you feel better about yourself. Ask anyone who has mastered swing dance or learned public speaking and they’ll tell you how it has changed their life and how much better they feel about themselves.

You’ll be more confident just by going through the process of learning a new skill. Just remember to be patient with yourself as you go through the learning process.

You can decide to make mastering dating a new goal. That way you’ll grow more confident as you embrace the learning progression.

8. Stop Twisting Into A Pretzel

Nothing chips away at your confidence like needing someone else’s acceptance or approval. Wanting someone to like you can cause you to twist yourself into a pretzel trying to win their love and approval. Eventually, it becomes exhausting because you can never relax and be your authentic self.

You’ll never feel good about yourself if you believe you have to change to be loved. Notice how you feel when you’re with someone you care about it. Do you feel relaxed and comfortable? Or are you always on the edge afraid you’ll do or say something wrong?

The people who truly love you, love you because of who you are, not who you pretend to be. Stop worrying about what is pleasing to someone else and focus on showing up authentically and speaking your truth.

You don’t have to prove yourself worthy of love or get caught up in what you think your date finds attractive. The more you relax and show up authentically the more confident you’ll feel just being yourself.

9. Putting Blinders On So You See Your Goal Clearly

Comparing yourself to others is detrimental to your self-confidence. It’s too easy to focus on someone else being better than you. Stop comparing yourself to others and put blinders on. The only one you need to worry about being better than is your younger self.

A horse that wears blinders can only focus on what is in front of them. If you want to be more confident, keep your focus on your progress and improving yourself. Telling yourself that it’s easier for someone else doesn’t help you.

Like a marathon runner, you are only trying to beat your previous time. You are only trying to be better today than you were yesterday. Track your progress, let your efforts count, and continue to foster an inner dialog that is supportive.

Successful dating doesn’t require you to be the most confident person in the room. It doesn’t even require that you feel confident every day of the week. Successful dating requires that you show up authentically and take a risk with your heart. When you are willing to take small risks then you’ll build confidence over time.

Are you struggling to feel more confident about yourself? Do you believe that you aren’t worthy of the love you really want? Personalized support can be exactly what you need. If you’re ready to change your dating strategies and get the love you want, join us for a complimentary Breakthrough Call and we’ll help you create a custom plan for the lasting love you desire and deserve.

The most important decision you’ll make in life is who you choose to share your life with. The desire for a partner who supports your dreams and goals can seem like a fantasy if you’re unsure of how to choose a life partner and just leave it all to chance.

The right partner brings fun, security, and companionship as you face life’s challenges together. They’ll help increase your joy, and comfort you during times of sorrow.

Choose badly, and your self-confidence, self-esteem, and happiness could suffer. You may end up feeling lonelier than you did when you were single.

Rushing through the dating process and into the bed of the next person who gives you butterflies is likely going to repeat the same pattern of disappointment and heartbreak that you’ve been trying to break.

Instead of leaving the most important decision you’ll make up to something as fickle as a feeling, remember that in order to choose a life partner, your head and your heart must be in harmony.

Knowing how to choose a life partner begins with uncovering the source of your struggles, being willing to learn new strategies for giving and receiving love, and understanding the qualities that lead to healthy, lasting love.

Your Past Experiences In Love Are Keeping You Stuck

The limiting beliefs you hold about love and dating were cobbled together from your past experiences. Most people refer to this as their relationship baggage.

They try to avoid past mistakes by being hyper-focused on what they do not want. They rely on chemistry over common sense and go exclusive with a stranger who ticks the boxes on their list and lights them up without taking time to find out if this person can meet their needs.

So, how do you choose a life partner when you’ve been hurt and disappointed too many times?

How To Choose A Life Partner When You’ve Struggled In Love

1. Discover The Source Of Your Struggle

The problem with love is that you weren’t taught the skills for selecting a mate, or for how to make love last. Instead you cobbled together limiting beliefs and behavioral strategies that you learned from your family of origin, or from negative experiences that you vowed you’d never repeat.

You made decisions about yourself long before you knew who you are and how the world works.

You may not be aware that you have a belief system about love that’s driving your choices and behavior. This hidden love blueprint highlights people who feel familiar to your childhood wounding patterns and can make a good match difficult to identify.

Your Love Imprint^® is the unconscious patterns and strategies for giving and receiving love that are shaped by early childhood experiences (particularly the relationship with your parents) which determines who you are attracted to. Think of it as your GPS for love.

Your Love Imprint is the source of your struggle to find lasting love. How to choose a life partner begins with identifying this core wound from childhood so you can be set free from your negative patterns and strategies.

2. Healing Your Heart

Choosing a life partner isn’t possible until you take time to heal your heart. As healing is not a straight trajectory, most people rush the process of getting over a breakup. They rush back into dating long before they’re ready and end up repeating their negative patterns and many become cynical about love in the process.

Your emotional baggage can also get in the way of making a wise choice for a partner and hinder your ability to create emotional connection with someone new. Rather than looking outside of yourself for comfort and support place your attention on inner healing so you can feel complete on your own.

Having your heart broken is a normal part of life, it’s a necessary aspect of growing up. Learning to bounce back after disappointments in dating builds your love resiliency. Without it you’re left feeling dependent on another person to feel whole.

Utilize our 5-step Golden Nugget process to move through all the steps of healing from heartbreak so you can move forward to find your forever person. When you learn from heartbreak you’re not destined to repeat it.

How to choose a life partner when your heart is broken? Take time to heal your heart so you can choose more wisely moving forward.

3. Beware Of Instant Intimacy

Don’t let your feelings in the moment decide your future. When you commit quickly because you feel a strong connection and attraction, you’re more likely to ignore red flags and repeat old patterns.

Instant intimacy is a false positive. That sudden, intense feeling of chemistry isn’t a good indicator that you’ve found a good match. It’s actually a signal from your subconscious mind alerting you to a similar pattern from your past relationships or childhood wounding. It’s your subconscious altering you, saying, “This is familiar! This is familiar!”

The intensity of that signal is easily confused as excitement and attraction when it’s really a warning sign. If you have a pattern of selecting toxic or abusive partners the familiar signal can feel obsessive and compulsive.

It takes time to get to know someone and discover if they are an ideal match for the long term. Don’t let excitement cloud your judgment, instead be cautious of people who want to move quickly. This can be an indication of someone who has issues with boundaries.

How to choose a life partner when there’s an intense feeling of attraction? Realize this signal is a warning sign, not a green light to move forward quickly.

4. Practice Slow Love

Slow love is the antidote to instant intimacy. Delaying exclusivity, physical intimacy, and commitment gives you time to discover whether you’re a values match (which is a necessary ingredient for love to last). Moving slowly through the dating process also gives you the opportunity to observe your own behavior and avoid repeating past strategies.

By slowing down while dating you can evaluate whether your potential match can meet your needs. You can discover if you can navigate conflict and work through your differences. Slow love gives you the opportunity to discover whether your date is a good match for a long-term relationship.

People tend to give the benefit of the doubt too quickly, especially when there’s a strong connection. Don’t give a stranger the benefit of the doubt. Take your time and let them earn your trust and win your heart.

How to choose a life partner who you can trust? Practice slow love before committing your heart to discover if they’re a good match.

5. Know The Difference Between Your Wants And Your Needs

There is a difference between what you need to feel safe, happy, and loved and what you want your partner to be like. Focus on finding someone capable of meeting your needs versus looking for someone who matches the long checklist you made.

You may find a partner who has a good income, is kind, and enjoys the same activities you do, but if they aren’t capable of meeting your needs, then you’re not going to have a happy life together.

Make it a priority to find someone interested in what makes you happy, and who is also willing to take actions that leave you feeling loved and safe. Your needs are not negotiable, however you can compromise on other desires.

How to choose a life partner who will make you happy? Only commit to someone who meets your needs along with some of your wants.

6. Choose A Life Partner Who Shares Your Values

Shared values are the glue that holds any group together. Whether it’s fans of a sports team, co-workers, or partners in a marriage, shared values are how you stay on the same page even though you have different strategies and backgrounds.

When you share values you have the ability to weather the storms of life together. If you don’t value the same things, when times get tough you’ll grow apart or even break up because you can’t get on the same page.

You can’t determine what someone values quickly, nor can you by asking them questions about what they value. Values are revealed through how someone spends their time, their energy, and their resources. These are only revealed over time so don’t rush or make assumptions. Observe their behavior, especially when there are disagreements.

How to choose a life partner so you can weather the storms of life together? Take the time to discover whether you share the same values.

7. Choose A Life Partner With A Compatible Lifestyle

Having compatible lifestyles ensures that you’ll enjoy spending time together. Shared interests, goals, and activities are the foundation for quality time spent together through every stage of life.

Having great sexual chemistry is wonderful, but if you don’t want to spend time together outside of the bedroom then your relationship won’t be very fulfilling or long-lasting.

While your shared values are the why, a compatible lifestyle is the what. It’s how your shared values manifest into shared hobbies and activities.

It’s easy to spice things up when you enjoy the same lifestyle as you can seek ways to create new adventures and hobbies together.

How to choose a life partner so that your quality time together creates a lasting bond? Make sure to choose someone with a compatible lifestyle.

8. Don’t Leave Out Chemistry And Attraction

Oftentimes people who’ve been burned in love by a hot and heavy romance try to forgo chemistry altogether. The concept of marrying your best friend may sound appealing but in practice it grows stale over time.

Sharing your life with a partner must include physical attraction and intimacy because without it there’s no reason to stick together through the inevitable curveballs that life will throw your way. Mutual desire keeps your relationship healthy.

Chemistry is only an issue if you leverage it as the only important ingredient. Like yeast in bread, it’s only one of a list of other important elements.

How to choose a life partner that keeps your relationship spicy? Think of attraction as one ingredient to a recipe for long-lasting love.

9. Foster Healthy Communication

Every relationship will include misunderstandings and conflict. This is an inevitable part of sharing your life with someone. Without kind, respectful communication you’ll have difficulty working through your differences.

Couples grow apart over time because they don’t talk about their differences and don’t have the skills to repair and reconnect after conflict.

Keep the doors of communication open in your relationship by finding someone who’s capable of kind, respectful communication. When you can discuss issues and resolve conflicts, they become a doorway to a deeper connection.

How to choose a life partner you won’t grow apart from? Speak your truth respectfully to see if they are capable of hearing you and matching your ability to be authentic.

Rather than seeing your struggles in love as a life sentence, be open to learning new strategies for how to choose a life partner. Leaving your love life to chance and happenstance only reinforces the likelihood of repeating negative patterns.

The first step in changing your struggles in love is to identify Your Love Imprint. When you identify your core wound in your family of origin, you put yourself in the driver’s seat to make lasting change. It’s the “You are here” spot on your map to long-lasting love.

Instead of continuing to repeat the same pattern over and over again or becoming cynical about love, book Your Love Imprint session. You’ll fill out a brief questionnaire and be sent directly to our online calendar so we can support you in ending your negative patterns for good. If you want something you’ve never had, you may have to do something you’ve never done.

With no guarantee you’ll find someone, dating again can feel dreadful. Before diving back into the dating game decide to do things differently. First take inventory of where you are currently to make a conscious choice about why and how you’ll get to your goal of lasting love.

Are you ready for a relationship? Evaluating why you want a relationship might be the key to figuring out whether being in one is a good idea. A healthy relationship can greatly enhance your happiness, however, if it’s dysfunctional it can drain your self-esteem, destroy your confidence and rob you of joy.

Am I Ready For A Relationship? 7 Signs You’re Not

Feeling lonely and yearning for a companion doesn’t make you emotionally available for a relationship. Nor does the desire for a partner mean you’ve developed the skills to select an ideal mate or to make love last.

Instead of finding yourself in short-term relationships that don’t pan out, or repeating negative patterns, take time to discover whether you’re ready for a relationship (and gain those essential skills to make it last this time).

Are you ready for a relationship? Here’s how to know if you’re in need of some healing before jumping into the dating pool again.

1. You Have Unrealistic Expectations

Are you expecting someone to change your life for the better overnight? Do you disregard or reject 98% of the people you see online because they don’t meet your specific criteria? Frustrated that you can’t find any quality matches?

These are just a sample of the many signs you have unrealistic expectations about dating that are blocking you from long-lasting love. You won’t find your soulmate in a profile. Setting too high a bar for a potential date is a way of protecting your heart instead of being open to love. Stop guarding your time as an excuse for guarding your heart. At the start of the dating process you’re just looking to meet someone for coffee or a cocktail.

Am I ready for a relationship? No, not when you’re expecting a stranger to swim through an alligator filled moat, break through the castle gate, and find their way through to the high tower you’ve locked yourself in. No one will be in it to win it with you from the start. And if they are, look out because that’s a love-bomb red flag warning.

2. You’re Carrying A Torch For An Ex

If you’re still hung up on the one that got away, or you’re still pining to be moved out of the friend zone, your heart is not available when it’s tied to someone else (even with a tiny thread). In order to move on take time to heal your heart before dating again. You’re not doing yourself (or your dates) any favors by dating to distract yourself from your broken heart.

Am I ready for a relationship? No, not if you’re healing from a breakup or carrying a torch for someone. Your heart must be open in order to date and find a beloved life partner. If someone else is occupying your heart, there isn’t room for someone new.

3. You’re Afraid Of Rejection

If you’re twisting into a pretzel trying to earn love, or you’re just going along to get along through the dating process you’ll never find an ideal match for love to last. To have love you must be able to risk your heart. Fear of rejection blocks you from love because your ability to discern an ideal match is compromised.

Am I ready for a relationship? No, because fear of rejection can set you up to partner with someone who isn’t interested in meeting your needs.

4. You Dislike Dating

Dating is a necessary process to evaluate a potential partner. If you’re opposed to dating you’ll rush into a commitment too quickly and end up repeating your negative patterns. This creates limiting beliefs about love, like “All the good ones are taken,” or “Only scammers and losers are online.”

Rushing to exclusivity with the first acceptable person you meet is a recipe for a short-term relationship and dating burnout. Technology may have changed the way people meet, but it’s still necessary for dating to be a selection process long before committing your heart. Slow down the dating process to speed up meeting your forever person.

Am I ready for a relationship? No, not if you’re unwilling to go through the dating process to evaluate an ideal match.

5. You’re Struggling With Being Alone

When you ache to share your life with someone feeling lonely and alone can cause you to choose a bad match or even worse, a toxic relationship. It’s important to feel whole and complete before partnering up.

Your beloved won’t complete you they will complement you. If your side of the equation is lacking there’s no way to identify a life partner. Having a full life and being okay on your own doesn’t mean you’ll never feel lonely, however chronic loneliness is an internal issue, and won’t be solved by a relationship.

Am I ready for a relationship? No, not if your loneliness keeps you from making a wise selection.

6. You’re Not Good With Boundaries

Boundaries are a key ingredient for a healthy relationship. Love doesn’t mean that you can say or do anything to your partner. It doesn’t mean that your partner can treat you badly and get away with it. Respect comes with a boundary, and learning to love another person respectfully is a crucial skill for healthy love.

Without boundaries, you’re open to manipulation, abuse, and co-dependence. With boundaries, you can take responsibility for your triggers, learn to communicate respectfully, and become a master of your emotions.

Am I ready for a relationship? No, not if you have trouble setting and keeping boundaries.

7. You’re Conflicted About Your Desire For Love

Do you struggle with the fear of losing your independence and also desire a relationship? Are you feeling stuck between choosing either a particular lifestyle or a beloved partner? Do you believe you have to sacrifice something you value to have a partner love and accept you?

When you have an inner conflict that’s tied to a limiting belief about love it feels impossible to create the love you desire. You may even become apathetic about love because you feel stuck and can’t seem to sustain the motivation and effort required to find your person. As long as you’re stuck in this way a relationship will feel elusive.

Am I ready for a relationship? No, not if your inner conflicts are draining your motivation and leaving you feeling cynical about love.

Am I Ready For A Relationship? 7 Signs You’re Ready For Love

If you’ve done the work of healing your heart, released resentments, and transformed your limiting beliefs about love, you are ready for a relationship. Now that you’ve fallen in love with yourself it’s time for you to stop casually dating and get serious about searching for your beloved.

1. You’re Not Looking For Someone To Complete You

A healthy relationship is when one whole and complete person comes together with another whole and complete person, together they form a third entity — the relationship. This doesn’t mean that you’re perfect or you don’t still have places you can grow. It means that you can accept yourself as is, and choose to love someone else warts and all.

Am I ready for a relationship? Yes, you’re ready to share the love you have for yourself with a partner.

2. You’re Not In A Rush To Meet “The One”

You’re comfortable dating and taking your time with no need to rush into exclusivity. You’ve become aware that dating is a process, you can approach it with curiosity. When you finally meet “The One” you’ll have the rest of your life to spend together, so you might as well enjoy the journey.

Slow down the dating process and wait before making a commitment. Make sure to take time for yourself throughout the stages of dating. Patience is the key to choosing a partner who can meet your needs.

Am I ready for a relationship? Yes, you’re ready to embrace slow love.

3. You’ve Worked On Your Communication Skills

You’re able to communicate your feelings and make requests of your partner. You’re speaking your truth and showing up authentically. A healthy relationship is a safe space to have uncomfortable conversations. Being able to talk about anything with your partner means you can grow together rather than apart.

Am I ready for a relationship? Yes, you’ve acquired the skills for emotional mastery and can speak your truth without fear.

4. You’re Open And Curious

Judgment is the biggest block to love. When you find yourself constantly judging potential dates it’ll be difficult to meet someone appropriate. Dating with an open and curious mindset allows you to discover about yourself and your potential partners without judging them. Curiosity is attractive and serves you well throughout the dating process and beyond.

Being open and curious allows you to use dating as a tool to discover more about yourself as well as develop new strategies for giving and receiving love.

Am I ready for a relationship? Yes, you’re ready to use dating as a discovery process about yourself, not to rush into a commitment.

5. You’ve Healed Past Wounds

Heartbreak is a rite of passage that everyone experiences. When you can learn from your disappointments you become more resilient and able to navigate life’s challenges. Healing your heart is the process of growing through the heartbreak.

Grief and disappointment are part of life. Releasing the myth that love will magically happen one day when you least expect it allows you to become resilient in love.

Am I ready for a relationship? Yes, you’re aware that finding a match requires effort, just as keeping love alive through many years together.

6. You’re Clear On What You Want

What you desire in love isn’t the opposite of what you do not want. You can’t create from lack. Becoming clear on the type of relationship you desire is an essential step to creating it. How do you see your ideal relationship functioning? What is the desired dynamic between you? How would you like them to behave when you’re upset?

Connecting with someone who has the same values as you lets you know that person is a candidate for a long-term match. When you know what you want, it makes it easy to identify someone who is on the same page as you.

Am I ready for a relationship? Yes, you have a crystal-clear vision of your ideal relationship.

7. You’re Happy With Yourself And Your Life

When your life is full and you’re not expecting someone else to make you happy is the perfect time to start dating. You’re able to embrace slow love, evaluate your potential partners, speak your truth, and simply enjoy the process of dating. Being happy and comfortable with yourself allows you to show up authentically.

Additionally, happy people are generally more likable and more attractive to potential partners. Take your time and enjoy meeting new people while expanding your social circle on and off the apps. You’re in an ideal place to find lasting love.

If you’re not ready for a relationship but would like to be, purchase our debut book: GETTING IT RIGHT THIS TIME: Break Free from Your Hidden Blocks to Lasting Love from Penguin Random House. This step-by-step guide will take you on a journey to identify your blocks to love, transform them to develop confidence, and manifest the long-lasting love relationship you desire and deserve.

Rebound love is a relationship that’s not love at all. Love takes time and a rebound relationship is when you start a new relationship before you’re even over the last one.

Rebound love is when you’re deluding yourself after you meet someone new to distract you from the pain of your breakup. Your new crush may have you fantasizing the two of you are meant to be, but rather quickly you’ll see that the relationship isn’t the meaningful connection you’d hoped for. It’s just a passing fancy to keep your mind off your ex.

The problem with rebound love is that you aren’t emotionally ready for real lasting love. Your heart is broken and your emotions are raw. You’re feeling vulnerable and not making the best decisions for your emotional well-being. If you’re not careful you could end up hurting your self-esteem even more. You could also hurt the new person you’re dating.

Whether you’re going through a divorce or blindsided by a breakup, the appeal of a rebound love relationship is that it can boost your self-confidence and keep you from spending your evenings lonely and alone.

But can a rebound relationship lead to real, lasting love?

If you take an honest look at what happened in your last relationship, what’s really going on in your new relationship, and are clear on your desires moving forward then the possibility of a lasting relationship can begin as a rebound relationship.

Rebound Love vs. Potential Lasting Love

How do you know if your rebound relationship has the potential to last? It depends on how you responded to the end of your most recent relationship.

If you’re clear that your ex wasn’t right for you and it was time to move on your new relationship may have staying power, especially if you’ve been mindful to select them differently from past relationships.

Also, if you initiated the breakup it’s possible this new relationship could be “The One.” Moving on from a relationship that wasn’t right for you could be the catalyst that cleared the way to your soulmate.

However, it’s different if your last partner initiated the breakup. It’s one thing to come to a mutual understanding that the two of you were not a good fit, however, it’s entirely different if you didn’t want the relationship to end, and you weren’t given a choice.

With the latter, rushing into a new relationship may give you a temporary boost to your confidence, but until you heal your heart from the breakup you’re not emotionally available for someone new.

If the rebound relationship is delaying your healing and distracting you from your heartache it likely isn’t an opportunity for a lasting connection.

How Serious Was Your Last Relationship?

Were you married for 20 years and the two of you grew apart over time? Or did you find out via social media that your significant other wasn’t as significant as you hoped? The level of commitment and time invested in your past relationship, as well as who initiated the breakup influences whether you’re now in a rebound relationship or one that could lead to lasting love.

When you’re in a marriage that deteriorates over time and ends with the two of you married in name only, you’ve probably taken the time to emotionally move on. Many people are officially separated and just haven’t moved forward to a divorce even though their hearts have moved on long ago.

If this is the case, you can likely move forward with your new love without the worry that it’s just a rebound relationship.

The same is true if your relationship with your ex hadn’t moved to a more serious stage yet. If it ended before the two of you really had a chance to become enmeshed in each other’s lives, then you probably aren’t in a rebound relationship either. You’re just moving on to your next relationship.

However, if you were heartbroken by your ex ending the relationship, whether you were married or just dating for a short duration, then you’ll want to take time to acclimate to your single life before jumping back into dating or another committed relationship.

After a breakup it’s appropriate to feel vulnerable and you’ll need time to grieve. Rushing into a new relationship with someone new may exhilarating in the moment, but it’s not a recipe for lasting love.

Don’t start a rebound relationship to feel better after a breakup. You aren’t helping yourself to move forward, and you’re out of integrity with your new partner.

7 Signs You’re In A Rebound Relationship

1. You’re Afraid To Be Alone

If you’re with someone just so that you don’t have to be alone with your feelings, then you’re in a rebound relationship. Avoiding heartache does not make it go away. Whether you use alcohol, sex, or any other distraction to avoid your pain, you aren’t helping yourself heal your heart so you can move on and put the past behind you.

2. You’re Still Hurting Over Your Ex

Are you constantly thinking about your ex and going over in your mind what went wrong and wondering why it’s over? Do you talk about your ex with your new love, sharing your hurt and frustration? These are signs that you’re still grieving and shouldn’t be dating or in a relationship.

3. You’re Looking For A Savior

If you met someone new and they seem like the answer to your prayers, like suddenly all your problems are solved, then you’re in a rebound love relationship. Hoping that any one person is going to be everything for you is an unrealistic expectation. No one is going to save you but yourself.

4. It Feels Oh So Exciting

It feels great to fall in love. Your body is flooded with feel-good chemicals, and everything seems new. Like you’ve never felt this level of euphoria before. If your rebound relationship is obsessive and knocks you off-balance then it probably isn’t something that will last. Watch out for being addicted to falling in love and avoiding the mundane aspects of a long-term relationship (or it might be you that’s emotionally unavailable for long-term love).

5. Lost In A Fantasy

Real love is about discovering a new person and getting to know them over time; it’s a process. You accept their flaws as much as their strengths. If you’re more interested in the idea of the person than the actual person then you’re caught in a rebound relationship. When you’re in a rebound love situation you’re too caught up in the fantasy to notice the truth.

6. It’s All About Sex

If the two of you don’t really talk to each other but you can’t wait to take each other’s clothes off, then you’re definitely in a rebound relationship. It may be a lot of fun but it’s not going to develop into something deeper and you’ll still have to deal with your broken heart. On the other side of this temporary rebound relationship, you may even find you’re becoming bitter and cynical about love.

7. The Relationship Is Moving Lightning Fast

If your rebound relationship goes from 0 to 100 in just a few days, then you’re probably reacting more to your breakup than to your new love. Healthy relationships take time to develop, and deeper commitments are earned. Real love that lasts doesn’t magically happen between two strangers who barely know each other over a few days. Beware of instant intimacy, it usually means you’re in familiar territory, which means it won’t last.

How To Go From A Rebound Relationship To Lasting Love

Most rebound relationships are not a long-term solution, but they can help you move forward on your path to lasting love. If you take an intentional path through a breakup, you can make sure that you don’t continue to repeat your same mistakes.

1. Be Honest With Yourself

Don’t mistake a rebound love situation for real lasting love with an ideal partner. Be clear why you’re in a new relationship and pay attention to who this new person really is. Don’t let your mind slant things toward the positive or just go along to get along. Also, avoid using your new love as your therapist and avoid talking about issues with your ex.

2. Be Honest With Your New Partner

Share where you are in the grieving process, but don’t do the grieving with your new prospect. Give this new person the respect they deserve. If you’re ready for new love, then move forward with an open heart. However, if you’re still grieving, then keep them at a distance or take a break before moving into a commitment.

3. Move Slowly

If this new relationship has a chance to grow, there’s no reason to rush things. Take it slowly and get to know each other. Don’t let chemistry move the relationship forward quickly. Take time to find out if you are a values match and have what it takes to survive long-term. There are four tenets you need for lasting love: chemistry, compatible lifestyles, shared values, and communication skills.

4. Use Your Last Breakup As An Opportunity To Grow

If you approach your last breakup as an opportunity to discover your beliefs, behaviors, and strategies for love that aren’t serving you, then you can make adjustments and avoid repeating past mistakes. Make sure you’re growing from one relationship to the next in order to find the lasting love you desire.

Evaluate your rebound relationship to discover what’s driving you. Bringing your conscious awareness to the choices you’re making allows you to grow so you don’t repeat past mistakes.

It takes time to heal your heart so that you can be open to love again. Choose to be kind, compassionate, and loving with yourself through the healing process and give it time.

If you’re constantly rushing from one relationship to the next, then you’re caught in a cycle of rebound love situations and it’s time to learn a new approach to create lasting love instead.

Are you unsure how to evaluate which strategies are serving you and which are blocks to love? Join us for a complimentary Soulmate Strategy Session so we can help get you unstuck and on the path to your soulmate relationship.

These are clear examples of behavior that stem from a lack of self-respect. Wondering what self-respect has to do with creating lasting love?

Excellent question! One key element to having a healthy, loving future with your beloved is having a healthy, loving relationship with yourself. In order to break the pattern of unhealthy, unsatisfying, or even toxic relationships, it’s imperative that you learn to take a stand for yourself.

A relationship without respect between partners lacks harmony, fosters anger and resentment, creates an atmosphere of distrust, and ultimately dooms the relationship. You will never have a respectful partnership if you don’t respect yourself first.

What Is Self-Respect?

Self-respect is defined as:

1. A proper respect for oneself as a human being
2. Regard for one’s own standing or position
3. A confidence and satisfaction in oneself

Self-respect means believing in yourself and behaving with character and integrity. It is part of a triad of self-love and self-confidence. They all blend together to give you a solid foundation to move through the world and interact with others.

To behave with character and integrity, you have to believe in your own abilities and your capacity. You have to believe that you are worthy of taking the uncomfortable steps to speak up for yourself.

You may not have grown up in an environment that led you to believe that you were worthy of standing up for. You may have done some things in the past that you are not proud of, or regret. None of this means that you can’t begin right now to create self-respect and change your relationships for the better – particularly the one you have with yourself.

No one is born with self-respect; it is something you learn and develop over time.

What Does Self-Respect Have To Do With Love And Relationships?

Self-respect is the cornerstone of healthy, lasting love. Without it, your happiness will be constantly at the whims of whomever you are spending time with.

Without self-respect, you will allow other people to take advantage of you. You will find partners who don’t believe that you are worthy of being treated with kindness or respect, and do not value you.

All your relationships are a reflection of the relationship you have with yourself. You don’t recognize this fact because the image is distorted – it’s like looking in a Fun House mirror. If your relationship with yourself isn’t one of respect and love, then you will allow people into your inner circle who don’t treat you in a loving and respectful way.

Do You Sacrifice Your Self-Respect For Love?

Are you often angry and resentful that you don’t get your needs met? Have you tolerated partners that treat you badly? Are you constantly feeling guilty or walking on eggshells, worrying that you’ve done something wrong?

Lacking self-respect opens you up to being mistreated, feeling undervalued, and unsure of how to communicate when your needs are not being met.

All too often, the pattern of sacrificing self-respect for love comes from the false belief that if you had stronger boundaries then you would lose love. If you believe that you can’t do any better, or that what you have is good enough, then you will twist yourself into a pretzel from fear that if you stood up for yourself, no one would love you.

This false idea of love means that you need to get love from another person. The truth is that you share love with another, and therefore imperative that you love and respect yourself, so you have these qualities to share with a partner and have them reflected back to you through the relationship.

Respect Has A Boundary

Self-respect is one of the keys to creating and maintaining healthy boundaries in your relationships. Loving someone isn’t about merging into one person. It doesn’t mean that you can treat each other badly. Love comes with a boundary and that boundary is created by respect.

When you lack self-respect, you find it difficult to have boundaries in your relationships. You allow people to speak to you unkindly. You may ignore your partner’s manipulative behavior or have the belief that you must tolerate it.

Knowing what your deal-breakers are can bring some clarity and a sense of direction through the dating process. Dating is a way for you to cultivate discernment so you can deselect those who are not a good match rather than commit to the first person you have the spark of attraction with.

What Happens When You Lack Self-Respect?

• You allow others to take advantage of you.
• You overcommit your time and energy to helping others.
• You don’t speak up and ask for what you need or want.
• You settle for much less than what will bring you happiness.
• You undervalue yourself and your gifts.
• You concern yourself too much with what others think of you.
• You twist into a pretzel attempting to convince someone to love and accept you.
• You often feel guilt and shame regarding your actions.
• You feel angry and resentful that your needs are not met by those you love.
• You put up with disrespectful behavior from those you love.
• You are reluctant to ask for help or to receive it from others.
• You lose yourself in your relationships.
• You’ll do almost anything for validation.
• You overindulge in food, alcohol, drugs, or sex.
• You punish yourself for your perceived shortcomings.
• You tolerate mental, emotional, or physical abuse.
• You go along to get along all too often.
• You constantly break the rules you set for yourself.

How Do You Develop Self-Respect?

Self-respect isn’t something you are born with. You learn and develop self-respect through your actions. It comes from how you feel about yourself and your own worth. Here are some actions you can take to develop your self-respect and transform all your relationships.

1. Forget The Past And Focus On The Present

You can’t change the mistakes of the past. You can’t go back and fix what went wrong. You can, however, forgive yourself, and focus on doing better now, in the present moment.

Say to yourself, “I forgive myself for judging myself for (fill in the blank with past behaviors you are still judging). Commit to doing your best moving forward.

Your future is not determined by your past. It is determined by what you do today, right now. It’s not only acceptable to stand up for yourself, it’s required to do so in order to feel good about yourself. Don’t fret about the past. Instead, do your best in the moment.

2. Change Your Inner Dialog

If you are constantly criticizing yourself, and putting yourself down, you will never believe you are worthy of being treated any better. You’ll want to change your inner dialog to a more positive and supportive one.

Affirmations work when you realize that everything you say to yourself about yourself is an affirmation. You’re affirming your negative qualities every time you say something like, “I’m so stupid. I can’t believe I screwed that up again.”

Start affirming and reinforcing your positive qualities. Create affirmations that affirm what you want to create and believe about yourself.

Here are a few affirmations to get you started on changing your inner dialog:

“I am worth loving respectfully.”

“I love, approve, and accept myself.”

“I only attract people into my life who value and respect me.”

3. Focus On Taking Small Daily Actions

You’re not going to develop self-respect overnight. Attempting to change everything about yourself all at once will only set you up to fail. Small consistent changes can have a dramatic effect in a relatively short period of time.

If you forget or make a mistake, start again. Every day is a new opportunity to respect yourself and stick to the commitments you have made to yourself.

You never have to be perfect – as that is an unrealistic expectation. Take into account your best efforts as that’s all anyone can ask of you.

4. Respect Your Beliefs And Values

When you don’t respect your beliefs and values, you constantly end up feeling like you’ve let yourself down. This causes you to lose respect for yourself and leaves you vulnerable to people who want to manipulate you.

When you make changes in your behavior, you may get pushback from people who are accustomed to getting what they want from you. Those who truly love you will make an adjustment and appreciate your new behaviors and boundaries.

The only way to break this cycle is to take actions that are in alignment with self-respect. Be sure to walk your talk as that is the way to show others how you would like to be treated by them.

5. Keep Your Heart Karma™ Clean

Integrity doesn’t come from whether you make mistakes; there is no way you can do everything perfectly. Integrity comes from how you behave when you do make a mistake.

Keep your heart karma clean by having clear communication when you make a mistake, or hurt someone’s feelings, and offer amends when appropriate.

Take responsibility for your actions and apologize when appropriate. The more you take responsibility, the better you will feel about yourself.

Self-respect grows when you don’t fall into blame or shame, and instead, work to fix your missteps.

6. Treat Others With Respect

If you want respectful love, you have to learn how to give respectful love. You can’t expect to be respected if you aren’t respectful.

Honor your word and if you are unable to honor it, communicate a new agreement. Make your best efforts to honor the requests made of you, and do not take on more than you can comfortably manage.

Own your half of a disagreement and communicate with kindness and compassion. Pause before you lash out in anger.

Treating others with respect builds your own self-respect.

7. Respect Your Body And Your Choices

You won’t be loved because you’re really good at sex. You won’t be loved because you’re willing to drop everything when someone calls to hook up. Casual, meaningless sex is not the path to long-lasting love with an ideal partner. (If you do enjoy sex without strings attached, there is nothing wrong with that, as long as you’re communicating clearly with your partner/s.)

Never think you have to do things with your body to earn love or connection. You are worth the wait.

The person who wants a relationship with you will be willing to wait for you. Have clear boundaries and clear communication about sex and what it may or may not mean to you.

8. Fill Your Own Cup First

Going into sacrifice is not a good strategy for finding and keeping love. It is emotionally draining and leaves you feeling angry and resentful. You can’t give love to get love.

Instead, schedule time for yourself to refuel and stick to those appointments like they are the most important ones in your calendar. If you don’t make yourself a priority, you can never expect someone else to make you one either.

9. Love, Approve, And Accept All The Parts Of You

You are worth loving, even with all your flaws. You are worth loving because you are human and unique (and all humans are flawed). Your flaws are not less lovable. You are not broken or unfixable.

Judgment of self leaves you feeling bad about yourself, which reduces your motivation for changing. Judging yourself creates resistance inside of you. This resistance leaves you feeling stuck. If you believe you are broken, then there is nothing you can do about your flaws.

Instead, love your flaws because they are part of what makes you special. Practice radical acceptance. When you stop resisting who you are, you free up your energy to make new choices.

When You Have Self-Respect, You Enjoy Healthy Relationships

There will likely be some people in your life who will resist the changes you make on your journey to cultivating self-respect. They will try to get you to behave the way you always have. These people don’t really love you.

Someone who truly loves you will support you in your growth. They will cheer you on when you make healthy choices in your life. You will see that you get to be loved and accepted for who you really are.

You are worth loving and you are worth taking actions to create the healthy loving future you desire with your beloved by your side. Start building your self-respect today by committing to simple daily actions and sticking to them no matter what.

You deserve a life partner that will value you, respect you, and stand by you, no matter what. This is what we call a Soulmate Relationship. This partnership lasts a lifetime not because you don’t have any problems or conflicts, but because you’re both committed to working through the tough times together.

If you are tired of going from one relationship to the next, feeling unloved, or undervalued and you’re ready to find a new way to date for your soulmate, join us for a complimentary Soulmate Strategy Session. During this call, we’ll help you with an action plan for building self-respect and creating the lasting love you desire and deserve.

No matter where you are in the world, we are living in an interesting time. The news cycle is obsessed with doom and gloom. There are always events and issues that can keep you outraged about something. In times of uncertainty, it is most important to remain grounded and centered within yourself, and practicing gratitude will support you in doing so.

When you’re single it may feel extra difficult to practice gratitude. It’s up to you to manage your feeling state without being buoyed by a significant other. Utilize the magic of the holiday season to brush up on or create a practice of gratitude. The season of winter itself is by design a time for introspection and going within. (If you’re reading this in the Southern Hemisphere, please continue and perhaps bookmark it if you’re running off to the beach.)

Other than sharing the things you are grateful for with those you love, what does a practice of gratitude really look like?

The Benefits Of A Daily Gratitude Practice

Feeling grateful for your life and the people in it is key to living a happy and fulfilling life. Focusing on gratitude instantly changes your mood and shifts your perspective about your circumstances. It also connects you to heart and to all the love in your life in its many forms.

Some benefits of a gratitude practice include:

• Building self-worth and self-esteem
• Getting more enjoyment out of life
• Helping you cope with the stress of life
• Encouraging you to reach out to help others
• Making relationships stronger and helping build new ones
• Decreasing the desire to compare yourself to others
• Preventing you from taking the good in your life for granted
• Generally feeling more positive about your life and your circumstances

With all of these benefits, you’d think everyone would be practicing gratitude as often as they can. But what does a practice of gratitude look like? What does it really mean?

We’d love to share a few of our regular gratitude practices so that you can develop your own and cultivate the benefits in your own life.

How To Practice Gratitude No Matter Your Circumstances

1. Five Things…

Every night right before we go to sleep, we each share 5 things we are grateful for from the day. We speak them out loud to each other, and we save one another for the last item on the list – like the grand finale. (We do this even on the rare days we’ve had a conflict.)

This practice started long before knowing each other and began by writing down 5 things in a Gratitude Journal every single night. Pro Tip: Writing down your 5 things each night offers you the opportunity to refer back to your journal on difficult days.

It is important that this practice is done right before going to bed as you will take these suggestions into your sleep, your dreams, and integrate a feeling of gratitude into your subconscious mind. You can keep your journal book on your pillow to remind you to write in it before you switch off the light for the night.

The list can be different every night, or you can repeat some or all of the items, it is really up to you. You don’t even have to limit your list to just 5 things – we suggest 5 as the minimum, and you can add as many things to the list as you desire. Feel free to focus on people, objects, your pets, events, your car, home, or clients… whatever you want to put on the list. The key is to do it nightly and right before going to sleep.

Some of the things on your list can come right out of your To-Do List such as: Clean clothes if you’ve done the laundry, or a yummy meal you cooked for yourself.

Knowing how to practice gratitude daily adds up over time. Creating a ritual and cultivating an attitude of gratitude creates an exponential change over time.

2. Our Annual Thanksgiving Practice

Because every night we focus on all the good in our lives, we do something a little differently for our annual Thanksgiving tradition. While we do give thanks for all the abundance in our life: our family, our friends, our clients, etc. We also take time to appreciate everything that has gone wrong, and all the bad decisions we’ve made.

This may seem a little strange but stick with us here and please continue reading as you may have an Ah-Ha Moment that will change your life for the better.

Most people don’t change or grow when they are happy. The good times are their own reward. Human beings change and grow through struggles and challenges.

Like a butterfly that struggles to fight its way out of the cocoon at the end of its metamorphosis, it is the fight to break free that builds enough strength in its wings so that it can fly. If you were to help the butterfly out, it wouldn’t survive because it won’t have the ability to fly away and live.

Struggles and challenges are important to shaping who you are. Without them, you wouldn’t be motivated to change your life for the better.

Think about the example of the wealthy, spoiled child who has everything handed to her in life. She doesn’t learn to develop the strength of will and character in order to create success and a feeling of accomplishment all her own.

When you are grateful for the difficult times in your life, by putting the focus on who you have to become in order to overcome the challenge, you can turn a crisis into an opportunity.

Another benefit to this practice is that it puts you in the seat of your personal power instead of feeling like a victim. Have you ever wondered why bad things happen to good people? We believe the answer is: To make them better!

Are you looking to feel better this holiday season? If yes, here’s a suggestion for you this Thanksgiving week:

Make a list of the challenges and struggles you’ve gone through over the past year. Take time to reflect on each one to see how it has shaped you in a positive way. If you can’t find a positive result gained from the challenge, journal about it. Who would you need to become to release the negative emotions attached to the event and step back into your power?

How to practice gratitude when you’ve experienced a lot of difficulties? Turn your challenges into growth experiences. It is one of the most important and rewarding practices that will serve you for the rest of your life.

3. Express Your Appreciation

Speaking up and sharing your appreciation expands gratitude out into the world. Acknowledging and appreciating the special people in your life gives you an opportunity to create a deeper connection with others so you don’t feel lonely. It also opens the door for them to reciprocate and speak their gratitude for you.

The wonderful thing about expressing your gratitude is that it has double benefit. You feel better about yourself, increasing your happiness, and the recipient feels their mood brighten too. Shared joy becomes double joy.

You can share your appreciation with a small gift, a card mailed to a friend, a quick note to a family member, or a word of thanks to someone who helped you. You can appreciate someone’s smile on a busy day, or a quick wave from your car when someone lets you merge in front of them.

Cultivating a regular practice of gratitude and appreciation will lessen judgmental and critical feelings. Rather than creating isolation, you open yourself up to connecting with others in a positive way.

How to practice gratitude to spread love to the people around you? Express your appreciation in small or large ways and create a deeper bond with people in your life.

4. Act As If…

Expressing gratitude for what you desire is a simple way to attract what you want into your life. By doing this, a gratitude practice can be a tool to manifest the things you want.

Another way to say this is, “Fake it until you make it.” However, we don’t want you to really fake anything – instead, cultivate the feelings as if you have what you desire.

By aligning yourself with the feelings you would like to have you step into the role of the creator in your life.

Start by expressing gratitude for what you desire to manifest. It is important to place the desire just outside of your current circumstances.

In other words – you cannot lie to yourself.

Being grateful for a million dollars when you’re living paycheck to paycheck won’t magically bring the money to you. However, if you express gratitude for discovering new ways to make more money, and earning it with less effort, you are opening yourself up to possibility in your mind thus creating new opportunities out in the world.

The same is true for love. Start by expressing gratitude for all the love that exists currently in your life in all its many forms. Then grow to the next step and express gratitude in the direction you would like to create more love.

You can imagine feeling grateful for all the new people you’ll meet through online dating, or by going to a holiday party where you don’t yet know anyone very well.

You can be grateful for things that you are working toward, or that are possible with some planning, opportunity, and luck.

Put some emotion in it, open your arms high and wide with a big smile loudly proclaim, “I am open to receive all my good!”

Your emotional state counts when acting as if, so be sure to do this practice when you really feel it – don’t attempt to fake it.

Acting as if will create within you a sense of possibility and put you back in the seat of your personal power. This practice will allow you to develop a positive outlook and give direction to your subconscious mind to lead you toward your desires.

Please feel free to take these suggestions, tweak them a bit, make them your own, and put some or all of them into a gratitude practice for yourself that you utilize year-round.

We are truly grateful for you’re part of our Creating Love On Purpose^® community. Wishing you wealth, health and love this Holiday Season and beyond!

Desire a soulmate but not sure where to start? Download our special report, “7 Steps To Soulmating™.” You’ll receive our top dating strategies that have helped thousands to change their love strategies and finally create their soulmate relationship.

Fear can spread faster than any virus. Take these steps to nurture self-love and self-care and you’ll find it is easier to access love and faith when everything around you seems to be falling apart.

To emotionally survive times of fear and chaos, think of yourself as a spiritual warrior bringing love to the world around you (even if you are home alone). Take commonsense actions to protect yourself, your health, and keep a positive attitude. Place your faith in the love and protection of God/Goddess/The Universe/Jesus/Moses/Allah (whatever higher power you pray to).

Affirm to out loud, “Whatever I fear, I am protected. I will use my reason, will, and action to keep myself safe. I trust in the universe to take care of the rest.”

Keeping a positive outlook while being realistic about your current circumstances is the key to getting through chaotic times.

Use this time to introspect, meditate, renew your spiritual practices, brush up on a hobby or start a new one. Keep informed but don’t get caught up in the hourly drama of the news cycle.

Now that your normal routine has been scrapped, you can create a new one that puts your own self-car on the front lines so you can develop new habits that stick with you once the crisis is over.

Self-Care Is Not Optional

Whether times are chaotic or relatively calm, self-care is not optional and it’s not all bubble baths and mani-pedis. Self-care means you put your well being first and foremost.

This is often the toughest lesson for people to put into consistent action.

One of the most insidious myths of accidental love is that Love = Sacrifice. If we are selfless enough and focus on the needs of others we will get the love we want.

We’ve heard from countless women in our community that they gave and gave in their relationships, hoping that would lead to their partner reciprocating in the same way.

Unfortunately, they discovered that all of their giving lead to feelings of anger and resentment, wondering, “When is it my turn to get my needs met?”

We’re here to remind you of the truth: Love does not equal sacrifice.

In order to create soul-satisfying and long-lasting love, you must treat yourself as you wish for your Beloved to treat you. Right now with the state of the world, it is imperative that you treat yourself with loving-kindness.

Comfort Is Overrated

No one ever changed their life by staying comfortable. You must first take new actions – ones that are in alignment with your heart’s desire. This is how you create the positive changes that you are looking for.

Treating yourself with self-care and self-love may not always be sexy or comfortable. Actually, for most people, it is incredibly UNCOMFORTABLE as they create new habits and release the old ones that keep them stuck.

We have a client currently who is getting used to having what we call “the uncomfortable conversation” with family members and friends. Ever since she was a little girl she was taught to bite her tongue and not speak up about her needs and wants. This left her feeling discouraged, anxious, and oftentimes depressed.

Now, as she is willingly having uncomfortable conversations with her friends and family members, she is discovering a new level of inner peace. She is no longer spinning in her mind about what she should have said, how she should have said it, or why someone is unable to be there for her.

Being authentic has allowed her to create the emotional intimacy that she wants with the people in her life instead of walking on eggshells and running a zillion scenarios through her head of what to do to please others. Her overall level of anxiety that she thought was just the way life had to be is MIA and replaced by an inner peace she had only before only glimpsed.

Expecting that someone will come along and treat you better than you treat yourself is an unrealistic fantasy.

Take New Actions In Order To Change Your Circumstances

Here is a list of actions you can take to increase your self-care and break old patterns so you can create a life you love:

1. Wait Before Replying To Any Requests

How often do you agree to something in the moment only to regret it later and wish you could get out of the obligation?

It is perfectly appropriate to respond to all requests with, “Let me think about it and get back to you.” Instead of answering right away, take time to check-in and observe how it feels to agree to the request or to decline it. Your emotional guidance system will always steer you in the direction of your highest good.

2. Fill Your Cup To Overflowing And Be Of Service From Your Saucer

When you are constantly giving without taking the time to re-fuel or re-connect with yourself, you will feel tired, angry, and resentful. Your giving will no longer be coming from a place of true service. Instead you will be giving in hopes that you receive what you need.

Just like on an airplane, if masks drop you will need to put your own mask on first. If you can’t breathe, then you are of no use to the person who needs your help.

If you are empty, then your service will not be helpful to the person receiving it. Make sure you take time to refuel, recharge, and recommit to taking care of yourself. Your overflow will be more than enough for those in need in your life.

3. Connect With Yourself And Your Emotions In Order To Ground Yourself In Your Own Body

You cannot connect with others if you are not connected to yourself. Take time throughout your day and drop into your body and complete the sentence, “I feel ___ [fill in the blank] ___.” You’ll soon become aware of your default emotional habits that are driving your behavior.

When you are disconnected to your emotional life and your needs, then you can mistakenly project your discomfort and frustrations onto others. Instead, when you are aware of your emotional patterns, you can create clean healthy boundaries between yourself and the ones you love.

4. Set Up A Weekly Schedule For Yourself That Includes Self-Care Actions Like Meditation, Journaling, Or Exercise

Life will return to normal in the coming weeks. Now is the time to create new habits that can carry over when your regular schedule resumes.

Having intentions to make positive changes in your life is good. Taking actions on those intentions is even better. Instead of waiting to feel better before you take those actions the opposite is true: You will feel better when you take new actions. Create a schedule, track yourself for accountability, and commit to sticking to it.

If you miss a day, be forgiving with yourself and start again. Perfection is not required, only regular consistent actions that move you toward your goal.

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5. Address Issues And Problems As They Occur Rather Than Letting Them Build Up Over Time

Unfinished projects, unspoken conversations, and neglected issues clutter your mind and your emotional life. You will not find the peace you desire by ignoring the problems in your life.

Find the courage to face up to the small, medium, and large issues in your life. The sooner you tackle these problems the happier you will be. Self-care requires that you pull your head out of the sand and address what needs to be addressed.

If you’re worried about becoming a selfish person – please note that only people who are NOT selfish worry about this issue. Selfish people are not concerned with how they are perceived by others. You will never recalibrate 180° from where you’ve been your entire life.

Instead, become a person who no longer carries anger and resentment that your wants and needs are never taken care of by others. You’ll find you have the resources available to take care of your own needs and wants rather than expecting someone else will do that for you.

Being quarantined with your family, roommates, or a stressed partnership can put everyone’s nerves on edge. When you master the uncomfortable conversation you can turn a conflict into a deeper connection.

Self-care often requires that you do things that are uncomfortable or inconvenient. You may find that you experience resistance and that you don’t want to step through that hot door and do the thing you know you must.

Be kind, compassionate, and loving with yourself through the process.

Love is limitless so refill yourself with your own love and self-care. You are more resilient than you give yourself credit for.

This challenging time in our world can shape you into a beacon of light. Through every situation, there are always gifts to be received.

A disruption in your regular schedule is a great time to re-evaluate your life, make new choices, and create a plan.

Having a plan for self-care will give you the resources to focus on love instead of fear. And love can be just as contagious as fear!

If you’d like some help creating your self-care plan, or you’re ready to prioritize creating a beloved relationship, join us for a complimentary Soulmate Strategy Call so you can receive our expert guidance. We want you to know you’re not alone.