For love to last it’s imperative to work at it. Countless people have met someone they believed was their soulmate — their meeting was serendipitous, they felt an instant connection, and it seemed like destiny was at work behind the scenes — only for the relationship to come to an early end.

This experience often leads to the school of thought that says a soulmate is a person who inspires you to grow but doesn’t stay. Here’s the modern day conundrum: Is a soulmate your other half, or are they here to shake you out of your comfort zone? Why can’t it be both?

Soulmate relationships are difficult because they bring different expectations and therefore various pressures than other intimate relationships. These expectations become burdens that are too difficult to overcome if your assumption is that it’ll all just work out between you if it’s meant to be.

To get out of this trap, a new understanding of soulmate relationships must emerge.

What if a soulmate is someone that feels magical and special, and the two of you choose each other again and again as you grow together rather than apart? This brings a new perspective into why soulmate relationships are difficult and gives you a new framework for finding and creating long-lasting love.

5 Reasons Why Soulmate Relationships Are Difficult

1. Unrealistic Expectations

The most common reason why soulmate relationships are difficult is because they’re burdened with expectations.

From a young age, you’re taught to believe that when you meet The One you’ll just know. The chemistry will be undeniable, the timing will be perfect, and your life will be transformed. You’re told to look for butterflies in your stomach and a feeling of instant intimacy. But those intense feelings aren’t reliable indicators of a lasting connection. They’re simply signs of attraction—not compatibility.

This fantasy—what we call the myth of Love by Accident—sets you up for disillusionment. It tells you that love should be effortless, so when challenges arise you  assume this must not be your person.

When your experiences don’t meet the imagined illusion, you question the relationship itself. But even soulmate relationships require effort. They challenge you to communicate clearly, take responsibility for your emotional responses, and grow outside your comfort zone rather than hoping chemistry and attraction will carry you through.

Hope is the first thing that comes into a relationship (usually the moment you lay eyes on their profile pic) setting up unrealistic expectations for a realistic future. This fantasy doesn’t stop at the first date, it continues throughout the relationship.

The belief that a soulmate will anticipate your needs, understand your moods, or instinctively know how to make you feel better without having to ask, are causing you to make poor decisions in your love life.

The myth of love by accident has you convinced that when you meet the right person everything will work out because it’s meant to be. The problem is the reluctance to address issues as they arise, release the fantasy, and to move slowly through the dating process. Long-lasting love isn’t effortless, and emotional intimacy doesn’t occur because of destiny.

2. A Soulmate Relationship Does NOT Complete You

Soulmate relationships are difficult due to the persistent false belief that a soulmate will fill in what you’re lacking. You’ve been sold the idea that a soulmate is your other half, someone who will rescue you from your loneliness, heal your wounds, and make you feel whole.

But a healthy relationship isn’t comprised of two incomplete people trying to fix each other. Eek! Handing over your well-being to another person is a recipe for co-dependence. A soulmate relationship is created by two whole people choosing to walk through life together.

The expectation that a soulmate will complete you sets up the relationship to fail by creating an emotional imbalance where one person is constantly trying to give what the other refuses to develop within themselves. Soulmate relationships are difficult because you must take responsibility for your choices, actions, and behavior.

Your bad mood belongs to you, and no one else. Your triggers belong to you too. And you are responsible for your own happiness. Instead of assigning blame, each partner in a soulmate relationship accepts responsibility.

The masterclass of personal growth is done in an intimate relationship with a soulmate partner. You inspire each other to become the best versions of yourself day after day, year after year.

When you know who you are, what you need, and how to take care of yourself emotionally, you’re not looking for someone to save you, you’re looking for someone to build a life with. That’s the foundation for a relationship that grows stronger over time, not one that crumbles under the weight of unrealistic expectations.

Your soulmate isn’t your other half. They’re your partner, not a replacement for your therapist or your purpose in life.

3. Most People Avoid Conflict Instead Of Learning From It

Another reason why soulmate relationships are difficult is that most people are never taught how to navigate conflict in a healthy way. Instead of seeing conflict as an opportunity to grow closer they avoid it altogether, or expect their partner to handle it the same way they do.

Plus, as most people are conflict avoidant, taking personal responsibility can feel daunting. Your soulmate will be a completely different person than you­­—they will have their own beliefs, mental/emotional patterns, and relationship strategies.

When conflict arises the differences between you come into sharp focus. Without the skills to navigate your differences a small disagreement can grow into an unresolved issue that breeds anger and resentment over time.

The healthiest relationships don’t just experience conflict, they use it to their advantage. It doesn’t matter that you have disagreements, what counts is being able to repair and reconnect. Avoiding conflict doesn’t prevent problems, it buries them and creates distance between you that can lead to bitterness.

If you don’t deal with conflicts (from tiny to extra-large), they become landmines in your relationship. It’s always best to address issues as they occur. There’s no shame in seeking professional help. Doing so should be commonplace because good relationship skills aren’t instinctual, they’re learned.

Learning to repair and reconnect is the key to turning conflict into a bedrock of safety and trust. Rather than avoiding challenges learn better communication skills that allow your love to grow over time.

4. A Soulmate Relationship Requires You To Be Authentic

Meeting your soulmate doesn’t give you mind-reading powers. Another reason why soulmate relationships are difficult because of the expectation that your life partner will intuit your needs.

There’s no magic spell that gets cast on a person to make them understand you. A soulmate relationship requires you to speak up, be authentic, and make requests.

Sharing how you feel and what you need is the foundation of a loving partnership, and a soulmate relationship is no exception. Since your partner doesn’t have mind-reading powers, it’s important that you speak up through the dating process and share your likes and dislikes.

If all you do is go along to get along, you’ll never find your soulmate relationship. By embracing your authenticity and speaking your truth while dating, you’ll find a person who accepts you as you are and doesn’t want to change you (and you feel the same about them).

A soulmate relationship is one where you accept each other As Is, and that only happens when both people show up authentically.

5. Soulmate Relationships Are Designed To Heal Your Wounds

A soulmate relationship can trigger your unresolved pain, not because your partner is not an ideal match for you, but because the trust between you has made room for healing.

Another reason why soulmate relationships are difficult is that they’re designed to heal your childhood wounds. Together you’ll heal one another’s fears as you stick by each other. You’ll choose to love one another despite the triggers and conflicts that arise.

It’s easy to call it quits when the journey gets rough. Divorce is no longer taboo, and couples are quick to throw in the towel. A soulmate relationship doesn’t require you to overlook your dealbreakers or put up with toxic, or abusive behavior. (If these behaviors are present, the relationship would not qualify as a soulmate relationship).

Life will always throw you curveballs whether you’re partnered up or not. A soulmate relationship calls for you to work with your partner to resolve your differences, and in order to live in a harmonious home together, to defer to one another’s strengths.

Soulmate relationships are difficult because they challenge you to step up and become the best version of yourself. The effort you put into your relationship is worth it because every part of your life gets better when it’s shared with a beloved life partner. You’re happier, you live longer, and you’re more productive.

Instead of looking for magical signs of destiny or expecting your dates to be effortless and without conflict, approach your search for a soulmate with a new mindset. Release the fantasy and look for these signs you’ve met someone capable of creating a soulmate relationship with you.

5 Signs You’ve Found Your Soulmate Relationship

1. It’s Easy In The Beginning

The first stage of a relationship is the Romance Stage. This falling in love stage is very intoxicating. When you’re with your soulmate it’ll be easy in the beginning. There won’t be drama or extenuating circumstances. Meeting your soulmate will feel magical and special, like you’ve met a long-lost friend whose clothes you can’t wait to rip off.

In this initial stage any conflicts that arise are simple to navigate. The ease of the relationship creates a feeling of safety and security.

In a soulmate relationship, the Romance Stage lasts a long time, putting gas in the tank of the relationship for the inevitable Power Struggle Stage.

2. You Fight For The Relationship

In a soulmate relationship, you’ll find yourself fighting for the relationship instead of each other. You’re both willing to work through your differences so that you can thrive together.

By coming together you’ve created a new entity: the relationship. Your relationship will be balanced energetically with each of you stepping up for the other when necessary.

In a soulmate relationship, you’ll keep growing together, and your love for each other deepens with each passing year.

3. You Share The Important Things In Life

Your soulmate may not like the same kind of music or hobbies as you, but when it comes to what’s important in life you’ll be on the same page. You’ll value the same things, have similar life goals, and share a vision of the future together.

In a soulmate relationship, you’ll support each other in achieving individual aspirations and create the space for each of you to blossom. You may have different strategies for achieving those goals, but you’ll respect each other’s differences and defer to one another’s strengths.

In a soulmate relationship you’ll work as a team to create a life together.

4. You Accept Each Other As Is

Just because your soulmate inspires you to grow doesn’t mean they need you to change. Your soulmate will accept you as you are, and may love your imperfections as much as your strengths.

Your differences become the foundational strengths of your relationship. You’ll balance each other energetically and emotionally. Instead of competing you’ll celebrate each other’s successes and mourn each other’s losses.

Overall a soulmate relationship will be filled with ease. You’re relaxed because you’re accepted as your authentic self.

5. You Both Choose Love

Through the challenges life throws your way, you’ll face them together, and you’ll choose to navigate them in a loving way. You’ll communicate with respect, be on the same team, and be an ally to each other. Choosing love means that even during a conflict you don’t withhold love.

A soulmate relationship requires making a conscious choice to be loving. Whether you’re being considerate that your partner is having a bad day, or your partner is encouraging you to have an uncomfortable conversation with a friend, the two of you are consciously choosing to be loving and kind.

You’ll each put an effort into reducing stress and anxiety for one another, not add to it. Ultimately, the two of you are in it to win—the relationship is always a priority.

If you’re ready to heal your heart and find your forever person order a copy of our book, Getting It Right This Time: Break Free from Your Hidden Blocks to Love. You’ll gain access to our 3-part Soulmating System™ that guides you to create the long-lasting love you desire and deserve.

This dream is a fantasy that’s undermining your ability to maintain harmony in your intimate relationships and could possibly be keeping you from identifying an ideal match to share your life with.

When you’re ready to accept that even happy couples argue, then you can become curious about happy couples and what they know about arguing and making up that you haven’t figured out yet.

Unhappy as well as happy couples:

• Sometimes raise their voices at each other.
• Sometimes say things they regret.
• Sometimes freeze each other out when they are upset.
• Sometimes disappoint each other.

So what’s the difference between happy couples and unhappy couples?

Here’s the deal: It’s not one thing. The difference is in how happy couples perceive each other and the actions they take when conflicts arise.

7 Secrets Happy Couples Know About Arguing & Making Up

1. Happy Couples Take Responsibility Instead Of Assign Blame

Relationship is like a funhouse mirror. At the carnival, you look in a funhouse mirror and see a distorted image of yourself. You might have a long head, a tiny torso with big giant feet, or some other odd image staring back at you. And sometimes what you see is so weird that you don’t even recognize yourself.

This is what happens when you’re in an intimate relationship. You aren’t looking at your partner. You’re looking at a distorted image of yourself. And all your flaws and frustrations with yourself get projected onto your partner.

Happy couples realize this and take responsibility for their projections.

It’s much easier to blame your partner when things go wrong and to judge your partner’s strategies for dealing with stress. Their behavior makes you uncomfortable and you’d probably handle things differently. If only he/she would just do things your way the two of you would get along so much better.

Ultimately blaming and judging your partner leads to a power struggle between the two of you. Just let go of the rope.

Happy couples take ownership of their discomfort whatever it may be and allow their partner the freedom to make his/her own choices. It’s this acceptance that creates harmony between you and a bond that lasts over time.

2. Happy Couples Don’t Require Agreement

One of the biggest causes of a power struggle in a relationship is the need for your partner to agree with you. The need for him/her to agree with your desires, your opinions, and your strategies will cause a lot of conflict between the two of you.

Instead, happy couples understand that intimacy doesn’t require agreement.

Agreement won’t bring you closer together, but authenticity will. When you share your truth and take responsibility for your emotions, you open the door for your partner to share his/her truth. Authenticity is a high vibration, and its expression creates intimacy between the two of you.

You both feel seen, heard and understood. You may both still disagree, but it suddenly isn’t that important because you feel connected. That’s the magic of intimacy.

Happy couples know the importance of being authentic. They don’t have the unrealistic expectation that they’ll always agree with one another. Being authentic and speaking up to share and express feelings allows a deeper bond to grow over time.

3. Happy Couples Fight For The Relationship, Not Each Other

The only way out of a power struggle in a relationship is to fight for the relationship instead of each other. When you choose to fight for the relationship, you put aside your ego desires to be “right” and commit to finding understanding for each other’s experience.

Letting go of the need to be right isn’t about giving up what you value or what’s important to you. It’s about letting go of the rope and listening to your partner so you can understand his/her point of view. You can have empathy and compassion for your partner’s upset and also share your experience.

If you believe you have to give up something you value just to get along, it won’t feel like love. It’ll feel like you’re constantly sacrificing your needs to have peace.

Happy couples don’t sacrifice their needs thinking it’ll make things better. Instead, they fight for the relationship and understand the importance of reconnecting and repairing after a fight.

4. Happy Couples Don’t Accept An Apology Until They Are Ready To Let It Go

Rushing to forgiveness can cause a lot of problems if you aren’t ready to let the argument go. It’s great that your partner is willing to take responsibility and apologize for his/her behavior.

This does not mean that you’re ready to let it go. If you find yourself still arguing in your mind about what was said or done, you aren’t ready to accept the apology that has been offered.

When you accept an apology, it means that you’re ready to let the argument go. You’re committing to not bringing it up again. Don’t accept an apology because you want the fight to end. Accept an apology from your partner because you’re ready to let it go and reconnect with your partner.

Happy couples make the effort to clean things up entirely rather than rushing to forgiveness and avoiding the uncomfortable conversation.

5. Happy Couples Don’t Forget To Repair

Mistakes happen. Words get said that you wish you could take back. Sometimes you take actions that you’re not proud of. This is all part of the human experience.

Happy couples are different because they never forget to repair when arguments occur. They take responsibility for their behavior, apologize, and they offer amends when necessary.

When an argument hasn’t been repaired, it’ll fester, and flare up without warning. You may find yourself in a fight cycle that feels like it’ll never end. This is what people mean when they break up because of irreconcilable differences.

They never took the time to repair the fight so the space between them feels insurmountable. How could you let go of those hurts if you never did the work of healing them?

Happy couples know that the most important step in any argument is to repair and reconnect with each other.

6. Happy Couples Have Clear Ground Rules About How To Fight

Creating ground rules about arguments gives you a feeling of safety when there’s conflict. You know that an argument won’t end the relationship.

Happy couples create clear rules and boundaries so that they fight fair. These rules may bend sometimes, and ultimately, they do the work of taking responsibility and repairing and making best efforts moving forward.

Happy couples have clear communication and a system to take a break if things get too heated, and for letting their partner know when they’re ready to reconnect and repair.

Creating ground rules for disagreements can be an uncomfortable conversation, however, they give you a structure so that you and your partner can make it through the challenging times that’ll inevitably come your way.

No one would bring a baby home from the hospital without a plan of what to do with all the dirty diapers. Make sure you plan the same way for the crap that will show up between you and your partner.

Happy couples know the importance of having clear ground rules that allow for mutual respect even when there is conflict. The secret sauce is having clear communication and a plan rather than the fantasy that fights will never occur.

7. Happy Couples Clean Up As They Go

Holding onto little frustrations can lead to them building up and eventually exploding into a much bigger argument. It’s like a volcano that has built up so much pressure that it spews lava and ash all over the place.

When this happens, you feel terrible, and you decide that you don’t like conflict. So you keep things to yourself until they blow up again.

Happy couples know how to release the pressure by cleaning up the little frustrations as they go. This doesn’t mean that you nitpick everything with your partner. It does mean that you regularly share how you feel and make requests for adjustments.

We call this process “keeping your sink clean.” When you tell your partner that you have a dirty fork you need to clean up, your partner can relax knowing that you aren’t going to mention half a dozen things you’re upset about.

This open line of communication allows you to reconnect again and again with your partner so that you don’t find that one day you’ve grown apart. It also means that you’re not going outside the relationship to complain or seek comfort elsewhere.

Clean your sink as you go and you’ll have a happy and healthy relationship.

Happy couples may fight and behave like any other couple, but it’s what they do after the fight that makes all the difference in creating long-lasting, soul-satisfying love.

Are you struggling to find common ground with your partner? If you are looking for more tools to navigate your disagreements, download our free guide: The 5 Stages Of Relationship. You’ll get a map to move past any power struggles to create a lasting partnership filled with co-creation and bliss.

Isn’t this the perfect romantic fantasy? You meet cute and live happily ever after. There’s no need to explain what you want or need because it feels like you’re already on the same page.

There are rare times when people are magnetically drawn together, and love happens easily. However, it’s the exception and not the rule. So what’s really happening in this situation? Is this feeling a sign from the universe that you’ve finally met The One, or is there something else going on?

Perhaps being magnetically drawn to someone may not be a signal you’ve met your match. It could be tied to your past wounds about love.

So, how do you know the difference? How do you know if being magnetically drawn to someone is kismet, or if this is once again that frustrating lather-rinse-repeat cycle in your love life?

What’s Going On When You Feel Magnetically Drawn To Someone?

You could argue that everyone has a relationship homeostasis. Similar to the way your body regulates your internal temperature, blood pressure, and heart rate, your subconscious mind constantly reverts your behavior back to a familiar pattern. If your habitual behavior in love is based on healthy strategies and good communication skills, then your relationship homeostasis supports recognizing an ideal life partner and long-lasting love.

However, if your subconscious strategies for love are corrupted by outdated or faulty “relationship software programming,” then your internal GPS for love may be guiding you to repeat and recreate old patterns that will never take you to your goal of long-lasting love.

If you identify as one of the latter do not despair! It’s not that lasting love is not in the stars for you. It’s that you’ll have to create a plan for lasting love rather than expect it to magically occur without any effort or adjustments on your part.

Your subconscious mind regulates your relationship homeostasis by using the Law of Association. Essentially, your subconscious evaluates information based on past experiences and highlights anything familiar to you.

This means that when you’re magnetically drawn to someone, it’s because your subconscious highlights an energetic match that feels familiar to you. This familiarity extends back to your early childhood. It encompasses your relationships with parents, siblings, and caregivers, as well as the strategies you developed for giving and receiving love.

Your Internal GPS For Love Was Formed In Your Family Of Origin

Your experiences in your early childhood (before age 8) created your unique imprint for love. As a child, you had two emotional needs that must be met to survive and thrive in the world. You needed to feel loved and safe. To have these needs fulfilled, you took on any belief, behavior, or strategy necessary. That’s how important they were to your survival.

Unfortunately, you were raised by flawed people who had their own issues and couldn’t meet your needs to feel loved and safe all the time. You developed specific beliefs, behaviors, and strategies to deal with the fact that your parents did not love you in the exact way you desired.

This childhood wound has a significant impact on how you interact with others in your adult relationships. This is particularly true when it comes to selecting a romantic partner.

Your subconscious mind recognizes a match to your childhood wounds and highlights them for you. It’s as if a signal goes off in your mind and body saying, “This is familiar! This is familiar!” Unfortunately, your subconscious cannot tell you if familiar is good or bad because its job is to remain aligned with your relationship homeostasis.

Ultimately, you’re often magnetically drawn to someone who matches your childhood wounds and thus won’t make a good life partner for you.

Is That Signal Of Familiarity Excitement Or Fear?

Your physical experience of fear and excitement is the same. Both emotions trigger adrenaline that causes your heart to race, your breath to become shallow, and your palms to become sweaty. The difference between fear and excitement lies in your internal dialogue while experiencing these particular body sensations.

Many motivational speakers will encourage you to take your fear and turn it into excitement. If you’re terrified of speaking in front of a group, you can change your inner dialog and tell yourself that you are excited to share your expertise. Those body sensations are occurring simply because you care.

However, the reverse is also true. You could confuse a fear response for excitement. Your subconscious is yelling, “This is familiar! This is familiar!” and you feel magnetically drawn to someone who will never be able to fulfill your desire for long-lasting love.

Your subconscious mind cannot judge, so it has no idea if the familiar is good or bad for you. Its job is to steer you toward what you already know – this is built-in for your survival.

To determine if you are being magnetically drawn to someone who matches your wound or your soulmate, ask yourself, how did you feel when you were with him? What did it feel like in your body? Did it affect your ability to focus or concentrate on your daily tasks? Did you find yourself obsessively thinking about him?

When your love GPS is faulty, then you’ll misinterpret those signals of fear and danger and confuse them with excitement and attraction. You’ll need to understand the differences between healthy attraction and unhealthy attraction.

Healthy Attraction Vs. Unhealthy Attraction

Just because you are magnetically drawn to someone doesn’t mean that you’re fated to be together. It also doesn’t automatically mean that the two of you are bad for each other. It’s what happens after the initial attraction that’s most important and will inform you whether this person is an ideal match for you long-term.

The key is to take things slowly so that your emotions don’t cloud your judgment.

Signs Your Magnetic Connection Is Not Healthy

1. Your Magnetic Connection Becomes An Obsession

Being magnetically drawn to someone can feel intoxicating. New relationships trigger the chemical high of falling in love. However, if you’re feeling obsessive and consumed with the relationship, then you could be with someone who is triggering your childhood wounds. If you can’t stop thinking about your partner and are unable to focus on other things in your life, then it’s a clear sign there is an unhealthy dynamic between the two of you.

2. The Relationship Moves Super-Fast

Pay attention if you or your partner takes steps to move the relationship forward quickly before you really know each other. It can feel romantic when you decide to run away together or jump into an exclusive relationship after only a couple of dates, but when fantasy meets reality, the relationship won’t survive the inevitable Power Struggle Stage.

3. You Don’t Have Healthy Boundaries

Love does not include merging into one being. True love requires respect, and respectful love always includes boundaries. You’re two separate people with different strategies, habits, and temperaments. Just because you’re magnetically drawn to someone doesn’t mean that they complete you. You are not half a person who needs to find your other half to be complete (by definition that’s a co-dependent relationship).

4. You Keep Your Love A Secret

Part of coming together in a new relationship is that you become part of their group of friends, and they become part of yours. Eventually, when the time is right, you introduce each other to your families.

When you are magnetically drawn to someone, do you wish to keep your relationship in an isolated bubble away from other parts of your life?

A relationship isn’t more exciting because it’s a secret – and if it is, it’s part of a detrimental pattern.

5. You Are Filling In The Blanks

When you are magnetically drawn to someone the many feel-good chemicals that are flowing through your brain can easily cloud your vision. The hope that you’ve finally met your soulmate can further confuse your judgment.

People who get scammed by someone catfishing ignore obvious signs. They get caught up and invest emotionally in someone they barely know or have never met.

Beware of filling in the blanks and only seeing what you want to see. Verify facts and use your discernment before you commit your heart.

6. You Lose Your Sense Of Self

If you isolate yourself and your friends complain that you disappear every time you feel magnetically drawn to someone, you may have a harmful pattern of sacrificing yourself in a relationship.

Merging quickly and allowing your needs and wants to take a backseat to your partner’s is a clear signal that you have a distressing strategy that needs to be addressed before you can find lasting love.

Signs Your Magnetic Connection Can Lead To Lasting Love

1. You Know How To Stay Grounded

Sharing your life with someone brings with it many challenges, as life will sometimes throw you a curveball. Staying grounded when you feel magnetically drawn to someone keeps you from falling for the fantasy of perfection. Your soulmate will not be a mind-reader who just gets you. You’ll have disagreements and miscommunication. You don’t need to idealize your partner to love them.

If you can enjoy and appreciate your strong connection and still stay present to see this person as they are without rose-colored glasses, then you can make things work long-term.

2. You Feel Accepted As You Are

Being magnetically attracted to your soulmate allows you to feel loved and accepted as is. You won’t have to change for your soulmate (although you may make some accommodations for one another, especially as you grow together over time).

You know your magnetic attraction is true because your soulmate gets you. They’ll love you because of your quirks and flaws, not despite them. They’ll understand your wounds and triggers, and they’ll support you to live at your highest and best self.

Your soulmate will choose to love you no matter what–yes, even when you make mistakes or disappoint them.

3. You Can Be Authentic

Being magnetically drawn to someone is a good sign when the two of you are authentic with each other from the start. You don’t hold back or keep your heart closed. You speak how you feel and clearly ask for what you want.

Your soulmate won’t be offended or put off when you speak up. They’ll be excited to discover what you need and will step up to honor requests. Authenticity holds a high vibration, and you’ll find it easy to connect with your soulmate when you’re not walking on eggshells or evaluating how you should or shouldn’t communicate.

4. You Respect And Value Differences

A relationship with someone who is just like you would be boring and lack chemistry. It’s the differences that make two people come together and last as a couple. An introvert ends up with an extrovert. Someone quiet and reserved connects with an emotionally expressive partner. One of you is a saver, the other a spender. The magic of differences means that in a soulmate relationship, you defer to each other’s strengths.

Being magnetically drawn to someone who respects and values the differences between you instead of getting stuck in a power struggle is a sign that your connection is true. In a soulmate relationship, you can let your partner take care of the things that you aren’t good at, and you can be appreciated for your areas of expertise.

5. You Work To Repair And Make Amends

Being magnetically attracted to someone doesn’t mean that you won’t experience disappointment. Life is full of challenges and part of a thriving, balanced life is having someone to navigate those challenges with you.

This doesn’t mean that your soulmate won’t occasionally let you down or disappoint you. Your soulmate is a flawed human just like you are. The difference is your soulmate will do what is necessary to repair and make amends when they mess up.

6. You Share The Important Things

You may not like the same kind of movies or music as your soulmate. The two of you may have very different hobbies. But you both know that these are not what is important. When you are on the same page with what is really important then you can trust your magnetic connection.

When you both value the same things in life and can respect each other’s strategies for achieving your goals, then your attraction can lead to lasting love.

It takes time to discover if someone is capable of being your ideal match. It’s easy when you feel magnetically drawn to someone to miss the signs that the relationship isn’t healthy for you. Take your time, no matter how strong your connection is, and you’ll be open to discovering if your love can stand the test of time.

Being magnetically drawn to someone is no guarantee that you’ve met your soulmate. Slowing down the dating process speeds up the opportunity to discover an ideal match for you for the long term. Not rushing into exclusivity ensures that you won’t fall into the unhealthy patterns embedded in your unique relationship homeostasis.

If you are tired of feeling duped by falling for someone you’re magnetically drawn to, pick up a copy of our book, Getting It Right This Time: Break Free From Your Hidden Blocks To Love. It’s your guide to healing your heart so you can find your forever person.

What if your divorce was actually one of the most profound things that you’ve experienced and that coming out the other side you’d be able to create a relationship that stands the test of time? Whether you’re still holding onto hope from your marriage or feeling hopeless about your prospects moving forward, you can forge a new path to a more fulfilling and lasting partnership.

The secret to finding love after divorce is using the end of your marriage as a powerful tool for learning and discovery.

The Gift Of Your Divorce: 9 Secrets About Finding Love After Divorce

1. It Is Perfectly Okay To Feel Like A Failure

You didn’t get married thinking that it wasn’t going to last. At the time you believed that person was your partner for life. That’s one of the reasons you got married in the first place.

It’s perfectly normal to feel like a failure when your marriage doesn’t work out. Whatever the circumstances that caused the two of you to call it quits it’s likely you believe that you did something to contribute to your divorce. Maybe you weren’t committed enough. Or you didn’t try hard enough. You missed seeing the obvious signs that something was wrong.

Whatever happened, you’re no longer the same person you were before you married, and you have to reconcile your hopes and dreams with this new reality.

Allow yourself to feel sorry for yourself. Take time to grieve and feel all your feelings. You may wonder if you’ll ever feel happy again. The only way out of these icky feelings is to go through them. Feeling bad is temporary and it’s part of the grieving process. Allow yourself to feel the full range of your emotions.

Finding love after divorce requires you to move through your feelings so you can release yourself from the guilt and shame that the marriage you had hoped would last didn’t.

2. Compassion And Forgiveness Are Your Friends

If you knew how to do things differently, you would have. You did your best with the resources you had at the time. Going through a divorce will change you and it’s up to you to ensure those changes make you a better person.

Being stuck in judgment about your divorce will only keep you connected to your ex. The only way to release judgment is to develop compassion for yourself — this is the first step toward forgiveness.

Forgiveness releases you energetically from the relationship. It requires a conscious choice to release your hurt, anger, and resentment, whether your partner deserves it or not. It doesn’t condone or excuse bad behavior (nor should you just forget what happened).

Forgiveness and compassion for yourself allow you to accept that you aren’t perfect, but that you’re perfectly human. Accepting yourself as you are opens the door to changing what no longer works for you moving forward.

Holding onto anger, resentment, and judgment keeps you stuck in the past and blocks you from finding love after divorce. When your heart breaks, it breaks open to hold more love. Compassion and forgiveness are your tools for expanding your heart so you can let love in again.

3. Your Struggles Make You Stronger

Anyone who lifts weights at the gym knows that without resistance you can’t build muscle. Maybe you’ve heard an entrepreneur’s success story of overcoming poverty growing up. Talk to anyone who has struggled with addiction, and they’ll tell you they’re a better person for overcoming their addiction and creating new coping skills.

Emotional strength and resilience come from overcoming difficulties. Courage comes from facing the issues in your life and not backing down or giving up.

Life will always have challenges and divorce is one of the greatest challenges you’ll go through. The internal strength you develop gives you the endurance to continue the search for an ideal life partner. Finding love after divorce requires that you learn and grow from your heartbreak.

4. Allow Pain To Motivate You

Discomfort can be a powerful motivator. No one begins a new exercise program because they already feel energized and strong. They’re motivated to make changes because of bad news in their latest blood work, or feeling sluggish and uncomfortable in their clothes.

Your divorce can motivate you in the same way. Finding love after divorce requires that you look closely at your patterns and strategies in love and make some upgrades. Use pain to motivate you to get it right next time.

Upgrading your dating strategies allows you to find love after divorce with a new partner that will last a lifetime.

5. Taking Responsibility For Your Half Gives You The Power To Change

You are not 100% responsible for your marriage ending. However, you are 100% responsible for your 50%. Whether you’re taking too much responsibility for what happened, or you’re blaming your partner, owning your half of the equation gives you the power to change for the better.

You aren’t responsible for someone else’s behavior, but you’re responsible for the choices you’ve made. Beware of justifying your behavior because your partner hurt you. Instead, take responsibility for all your behavior even if some of it was ugly.

If you’re having trouble knowing what’s yours and what belongs to your partner, use the responsibility equation. It goes like this:

“When someone has a problem with you, it’s their problem. When you have a problem with someone, it’s your problem.”

Own your stuff but don’t blame yourself for your partner’s failings. When you take responsibility for your behavior, finding love after divorce becomes a journey of growth and courage.

6. Discover What Your Marriage Can Teach You About Love

All your experiences in life can be valuable teachers because they can show you where you need to develop better skills or strategies. They reveal areas that require growth so you can become more emotionally mature or resilient. They also shine a light on areas in which you’ve already grown and become a better person, and therefore a better partner.

Examining your marriage and what you learned from it (or what you still need to learn) will move you forward on the path to the lasting love you desire. You’ll open up to feeling gratitude for your ex because without those experiences you wouldn’t have become the person you are today.

This is one of the most empowering steps you can take to finding love after divorce. It keeps you from feeling like a victim and empowers you to create meaning from the events that motivated you to change for the better.

It’s a natural human tendency to look back on past events and find patterns and meanings in those events. When you focus on learning and growing from those events, then you can never be a victim of your circumstances.

7. Get Clear On The Type Of Relationship You Want

By now, you’re probably clear on what you don’t want. You don’t want to repeat mistakes you’ve already made, however, this is not a good blueprint for manifesting a new relationship.

What you truly want is not the opposite of what you don’t want. Instead, create a vision of love and relationship that inspires you and brings you joy. Become crystal clear on the type of relationship you desire. This way you can deselect anyone that doesn’t fit your vision.

Focus on how the relationship functions and the dynamic you desire between the two of you. Don’t get caught up in unimportant details like physical appearance or common hobbies. Your heart doesn’t care about eye color, or whether they like the same books as you do.

Finding love after divorce requires that you use different criteria for selecting a partner.

Make sure the two of you can navigate through conflict together. Chemistry is required, but it shouldn’t be the most important factor. Just because the two of you have a lot of chemistry doesn’t mean that you’ll share the same values.

8. Approach Love And Dating In A Whole New Way

You’re not going to find a new dynamic in love by using the same strategies that lead you to select your ex. Dating after divorce is a different experience altogether because you’re no longer the same person.

You’ll want to become a student of love and upgrade your dating strategies. The best way to uplevel your strategies is to date a lot of different people. This also gives you the opportunity to practice your new relationship skills. Don’t dive in too quickly and never give a stranger the benefit of the doubt. Use dating as a tool to discover where you still have room to grow and improve.

Slowing things down and dating more people will actually speed up the process of you finding a new love that can last. Take your time before jumping into exclusivity and get to know someone before making a deeper commitment.

If you rush to exclusivity, you’ll spend a lot of time in short-term relationships and feel like you have to start over again and again. Slow love doesn’t give you a guarantee, but you’ll be in a better position to select a long-term partner in a much shorter amount of time.

Utilize both your head and your heart when selecting a life partner and you’ll increase your chances of creating long-lasting, soul-satisfying love.

9. Remember That Love Is Always A Risk Worth Taking

Love requires you to take a risk. There are no guarantees, but utilizing these strategies to become better at love and relationship will pay off in all areas of your life. You’ll become more resilient to the challenges in life, and you’ll have clarity about what brings you happiness and how to create it.

Human beings are social creatures by nature. Your soul craves connection with a special person. Don’t let fear stop you from opening your heart and taking a risk on love. You can certainly be single and happy, but if you really want to thrive in life, you’ll want to share your life with the love of your life.

Finding love after divorce is possible for you. To make it last be sure to take the steps to heal your heart, learn from your past stumbles, and discover gratitude for your divorce. This way the divorce won’t be a failure, instead learning from your divorce and becoming a better person will be the greatest gift you’ve received.

If your goal is to share your life with the love of your life, but you still haven’t recovered from your divorce, or are unsure of your next steps to start dating again, we can help. Our process for healing your heart and finding your forever person is now available as a book: Getting It Right This Time: Break Free from Your Hidden Blocks to Lasting Love. We’ve helped thousands of clients around the globe with our unique Soulmating System™.

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.

You’re in a situationship if you’re spending time together in a romantic or intimate way but have not yet defined the relationship or made it official. This undefined stage where you’re unofficially dating has been called many things over the years – friends with benefits, booty call, or fun buddy.

Unfortunately, many people who want an exclusive relationship find themselves in situationships because they don’t date with intention, and just go with the flow. They don’t evaluate if they’re a good match in the beginning of the dating process and end up in a lot of short-term situationships that eat up valuable time.

You can get stuck in murky relationship situations because one or both of you are making assumptions instead of sharing your needs and wants. Another common mistake of situationships is becoming physically intimate and emotionally attached before clarifying what sex means to you, and what you expect from a committed relationship.

The strategy of love by accident keeps you stuck in a lather, rinse, repeat cycle of short-term relationships that never go anywhere and leave you with dating burnout, frustrated, and apathetic that lasting love hasn’t magically happened for you yet.

If you find yourself stuck in a pesky situationship look for these signs you’re unofficially dating.

11 Signs You’re Unofficially Dating

1. You’re Planning Future Dates

One of the signs you’re unofficially dating is when you regularly make plans for the future. Whether it’s a concert that’s weeks away or a trip together, making plans for the future is a huge sign that your situationship is actually becoming a relationship. If your calendar is booked with your new crush weeks in advance, it’s time for the two of you to admit you both want more.

If you’re not talking about or planning future dates and instead are just getting together when it’s convenient, then it’s still casual. Nothing to see here.

2. You’ve Introduced Each Other To Friends Or Family (or both!)

Another one of the signs you are unofficially dating is that you’ve met their friends and family and you’ve introduced them to yours. If this is the case, it’s time to spill the beans and admit your feelings for one another.

If the relationship is kept secret from important people in your lives, then you’re in a grey undefined situationship. Not including other people in your time together means there’s no level of commitment — even unspoken. An integral part of a budding relationship is meeting one another’s friends and family.

3. You’ve Made It Through Your First Conflict

Disagreements and conflict are inevitable in every relationship. Being able to navigate through a bump in the road and create a deeper connection is key to lasting love. If you’ve had a disagreement and found your way to the other side, then that’s a good sign you are unofficially dating.

If you both avoid the uncomfortable reconciliation after a conflict, you’ll never create an emotional bond. You’ll excuse bad behavior, and your relationship will always lack trust and commitment.

4. You’re In It For More Than Just Sex

It’s easy to have great sex with someone who isn’t a good match for you. If you spend a fair amount of time together that isn’t just about hooking up, there’s a good chance there’s more than just mutual lust going on.

The classic sign of a situationship is getting together only for sex. There’s nothing more going on here than pure animal attraction. No one will fall in love with you because you’re great in the sack. It may be fun at first, but it’s not going to be satisfying long term.

5. You’re Each Other’s Plus One

Another one of the obvious signs you’re unofficially dating is counting on being each other’s plus one. Whether it’s a wedding, a dinner party, or any celebration that requires an RSVP, you’re willing to be seen at significant events together.

However, if you’re going solo when your sister gets married, then your situation isn’t ready for the next step. You’re free to play the field at the reception.

6. You’re Comfortable With Emotional Intimacy

An evident sign you’re unofficially dating is being comfortable enough to be emotionally vulnerable with each other. No one spills their guts to a stranger, so when you both share your innermost thoughts and feelings then whether you admit it or not, you are unofficially dating.

If you’re both still guarded and monitoring the topics you discuss, then you’re not ready to make things official. Keep your Match profile active.

7. You’re Talking/Texting Daily

When you’re talking daily and sharing your ups and downs together, then maybe it’s time to make things official. You wake up to a good morning text and a sweet goodnight at the end of the day, it sure appears to be one of the signs you’re unofficially dating.

If you only talk or text to confirm your next date or hookup, then your connection probably isn’t that strong. This situationship doesn’t have much potential for growth.

8. You’ve Left Some Belongings At Each Other’s Homes

Whether it’s a toothbrush or an extra sweater because it might get cold, leaving your things at their place or vice versa is one of the signs you’re unofficially dating. You’re comfortable enough with each other to not worry you’ll lose your favorite sleep shirt.

Sneaking out in the early morning so you can rush home and brush and shower before work probably means you’re still just hooking up. Probably best to keep this one to yourself.

9. You Can Count On Each Other

Maybe they’ve rescued you from a flat tire or you’ve helped them pick out the perfect shirt that matches their eyes, you can count on each other and go out of your way to be supportive. This is one of the sweet signs you’re unofficially dating that brings a smile to your face.

If they’re the last person you’d call in an emergency, then don’t invest your heart. You don’t know each other well enough to ask for a ride to the airport.

10. You’re Sharing Inside Jokes

When you both find yourselves giggling at the same things, and you share knowing looks between you when you’re out in a group, it’s one of the signs you’re unofficially dating. You’ve crossed over to having a secret language unique to romantic couples (and best friends) — the inside joke. If you’re having this much fun together, it’s time to take the next step and make it official. You’re dating, just admit it.

11. Neither Of You Is Interested In Seeing Anyone Else

Look, if the two of have taken down your profiles and aren’t interested in seeing anyone else, then what are you waiting for? This is one of the more apparent signs you’re unofficially dating and it’s time to make things official already!

Taking that next step can feel a little uncomfortable and scary. Love requires you take a risk, so maybe it’s time to risk your heart and turn your situationship into a budding relationship.

How To Have The Talk To Define The Relationship

When you see enough signs you’re unofficially dating and it’s clear you want to make your relationship official, then it’s time to have the talk. You don’t gain anything by keeping your situation murky and vague.

If your situationship has grown into something more, you’ll want to know if they feel the same way. So, how do you have the talk without asking them directly? You don’t want to seem too forward, and you don’t want to just sit back waiting and hoping that they feel the same way about you.

Asking them outright forces themm to respond to you instead of stepping up to claim you. They may like you but feel unsure if they want to make it official. On the other hand, they might agree to make it official because they’re not ready to lose you, or they may feel pressured and back off. Either way, you’ve lost a great opportunity to know their heart.

Instead, let them know how you’re feeling and share what’s important to you. Let them know what you desire and that you’re looking for someone who shares that vision. They won’t necessarily pick up your subtle hints so don’t be coy. Be clear about who you are and what you want and most importantly leave space for them to either see their future with you or be willing to set you free.

Avoid Situationships To Find The Lasting Love You Desire

You’ve got to be ready to move on if they want to leave things in the gray. If they don’t share your feelings, you don’t want to waste your time hoping that someday they’ll come around. Someone who isn’t clear about their feelings for you now may never be ready. If they share your feelings and want a relationship with you, they’ll want to take you off the market and claim you for their own.

Do you find yourself in vague situationships looking for signs you’re unofficially dating, and constantly feeling uncertain about your status? Then it’s time for a new approach to love and dating, one that brings you clarity and a plan for lasting love. Join us for a complimentary Breakthrough Call and we’ll help craft a custom plan for you to get the long-lasting love you want.

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.

What does being in your integrity in your intimate relationships really mean?

Let’s explore how being in your integrity leads you to show up authentically, keeping your heart karma clean, and ultimately attracting the type of partner you’ve been longing for.

Being in your integrity gives you the tools to build lasting trust with your partner. It gives you a solid foundation to cultivate deeper intimacy and connection than you knew was possible. It also provides the knowingness that your relationship can survive any challenges that come your way.

You may not even be aware of the ways in which you are out of your integrity and how they are sabotaging you. These hidden blocks show up when your relationship is under duress and often lead to the relationship crumbling. You can’t build a solid foundation on sand, so it’s best to build from the ground up with authenticity.

Let’s dive into why being in your integrity is one of the quickest ways to find a true soul partner.

Being In Your Integrity Guides You To Show Up Authentically

Everyone wants to put their best foot forward early on in the dating process, especially when you find your date particularly appealing. This can cause you to be overly agreeable, iron out conflicts, and keep your true feelings to yourself.

All of this twisting into a pretzel in order to get the other person to like you is exhausting. And leaves you feeling resentful of the person you’re dating.

If you want someone to love and accept you exactly as you are then you have to show up authentically from the beginning. This doesn’t mean that you expose all of your faults and struggles, or that you share your opinion of your date’s behavior. It means that you share how you feel in the moment.

When you show up authentically you let your date know how you feel in the moment. You share with how your date what you like and don’t like. You can even redirect your date if he isn’t offering what you prefer.

Showing up authentically means that if something is a problem you speak up about it. You’ll learn a lot about how this person is able to handle conflict and whether the two of you can find common ground. This doesn’t mean that you attack your date for his behavior. Instead, you share your feelings (not your opinions) starting with yourself, as in, “I feel _____[fill in the blank]_____.

This is how you know your date is really interested in you and not just looking for something convenient because you’re making it easy by going along with whatever he wants.

Being In Your Integrity Will Inspire Those Who Are Not A Match To Deselect Themselves

It’s easy to dress the hot guy up in groom’s clothing and leap into the future imagining how your kids will look. Unfortunately, if you’re looking to keep the hot guy at all costs you may find that you’re angry and resentful, or burned out from dating, depressed, and heartbroken.

What creates longevity in relationship is being a value’s match. So being in your integrity means that you are holding to your own values. This means you’ll be a turn-off to Mr. Wrong and a magnet for your Mr. Right.

Too much time is wasted in the dating process trying to make things work despite red flags and obstacles. The time it takes for you to connect with your soulmate is quickened when you are authentic from the moment you first meet.

Being In Your Integrity Helps You Avoid The Bait And Switch

One of the biggest issues that show up in marriage counseling is the complaint that your partner no longer seems interested in doing the things you did while you were dating. Now that you’re married you don’t have to ______[blank]______ anymore.

This is a classic bait and switch and leaves your partner feeling duped and resentful.

If you don’t like the outdoors do not go on a single’s hike up in the mountains just to see about meeting someone. The same goes for bowling or swing dancing – if it’s not something you’re actually curious about or interested in don’t do it.

Being in your integrity means that you don’t fake it until you get the commitment, and then reveal your true self after the fact. This variation on twisting into a pretzel can be really damaging to a relationship and very difficult to overcome.

During the romance phase, you may find yourself more willing to take risks and behave in ways that are not in your nature. As the chemical high wears off you find yourself sliding back into your normal habits and less likely to explore something new. This is a natural part of the ensuing power struggle every relationship goes through.

Be upfront with your partner about who you are and what you like. Go on those adventures but also take time to be a couch potato if that is what you really want. Don’t give up your morning alone time or forget to take time for yourself early on while dating or going exclusive.

The chemical high of the romance phase can produce a false expectation of what the rest of your lives will be like together. No relationship is always amazing. There are natural highs and lows. You won’t feel that excitement of falling in love in every moment, but there is a much deeper connection you can cultivate over years together knowing you two can stand up to any curve balls life inevitably throws your way.

Being authentic throughout the relationship allows you to cultivate trust and certainty that your partner truly loves and adores you.

Being In Your Integrity Keeps Your Heart Karma™ Clean

Everyone has heart karma. When you don’t cleanly end a relationship you tie up your heart karma and block yourself from creating your true soul partnership.

Have you told someone you broke up with that you wanted to remain “friends” so that you didn’t feel guilty about breaking his heart?

Did you pick a fight so that you could more easily segue into the breakup?

Perhaps you didn’t know how to tell someone you didn’t want to see him again so you ghosted?

Keep your heart karma clean by ending relationships with kindness and respect.

Respectful breakups and clear communication allow you to have the same mirrored back to you when you’re on the receiving end of a breakup.

Release the need to offer friendship when you initiate a breakup. There is a big difference between being friends and being friendly. There is no need to have animosity between you, but being friends means that when you’re with your beloved you’d have that person over for dinner or go see a movie with them. That’s what you do with your friends.

Certainly, if you were to bump into him at Starbucks you can smile and have a quick catch-up – this is being friendly with someone.

Otherwise, it is an imbalanced relationship. He wants more than a friendship and might be willing to accept the crumbs hoping that you’ll change your mind. It wouldn’t be cool for someone to do that to you, right?

Treat your dates with the respect they deserve and you will receive that in return.

Being In Your Integrity Attracts Another Person Of Integrity To You

Water seeks its own level in relationship. Ultimately like attracts like. When you are in your integrity you attract someone who is also in his integrity.

Roaches flee when you turn on the lights. Being in your integrity is like shining a bright light that scares away those who are uncomfortable being authentic or who are attempting to manipulate you.

If you have a history of attracting narcissists, the best way to avoid them altogether is by being authentic. They won’t like to be with someone who isn’t just going along for the ride and letting them drive.

This sets a boundary in your relationship and repels people who want to become enmeshed in a co-dependent relationship.

Setting a standard for your partner to meet you in integrity allows you to bond over the things that really matter like your life goals.

When you are in your integrity you won’t tolerate being in a relationship with someone who is not willing to be in his integrity.

Being In Your Integrity Keeps You From Dating Backward

Most people date backward. They give a stranger the benefit of the doubt and overlook potential conflicts because of the rush of feel-good emotions

Then, when the chemical high of the Romance Stage eventually wears off, they find themselves in a relationship with a human being who has faults and behaviors they don’t care for.

Speaking up for yourself may be a risk, but wouldn’t you rather know as soon as possible that you can work through some bumps in the road of life and he won’t bail at the first sign of conflict?

The stranger you’re just getting to know hasn’t earned the benefit of the doubt. Paying attention to his behavior throughout the dating process, while also being in your integrity, will show you what he values and will inform your decision to proceed or to deselect him.

Remember, conflicts will arise with anyone you’re partnered with. Save yourself time by discovering early on if he’s interested in navigating through difficulties with you.

Being In Your Integrity Becomes The Glue For Your Relationship To Last

A true soul partnership is a relationship where two people come together to create something greater than the sum of its parts. This kind of relationship can become a beacon to others to show them that a long-lasting loving relationship full of respect and kindness exists, and is possible for them too.

This means that you want to keep your problems within your relationship. Sharing your complaints about your partner with others in your life is disrespectful of him.

If you have a problem with him then you need to talk with him about it. If you need some insight into how to have that conversation then you should talk to a professional (not your mother or your BFF).

Showing your partner this kind of respect and consideration is the ultimate loving compliment. It says you feel safe talking about anything in your relationship.

Honor your partner by not holding onto his past mistakes or keeping score. Instead, you clean up your messes as you go, and when you accept his apology you really mean it.

There is only so much growth you can do on your own. The real joy of being in a true soul partnership is that you can inspire one another to become the best version of yourselves.

Your soul desires connection. You can create lasting connection, trust, intimacy, and meaning in your true soul partnership by being in your integrity.

Being In Your Integrity Means You’ll Spend Less Time With Mr. Wrong Freeing You Up For Your Mr. Right

If you are looking for the fastest way to a true soul partner say, “No” to everything you do not want allowing space for what you really do.

Showing up authentically and being in your integrity means you will automatically spend less time dating the guys who are just not ready for a relationship, or who simply are not emotionally available for the kind of relationship you desire.

When you go car shopping you first decide on the make and model you’re most interested in. You wouldn’t drive around aimlessly from one car lot to another hoping that you’ll just find something you like when you see it before you.

If you went out car shopping for a 2-door sporty coupe it’s unlikely you’ll drive home in a mini-van because you’d tell the salesperson exactly what you are looking for.

The same goes for dating. Tell the guy from the start what you desire and what you expect. The right man will be willing to step up and claim you and take you off the market.

Being in your integrity means you are speaking up about how you feel and what you want. Ultimately this shortens the dating process to allow the cream to rise to the top so you can identify the potential for a true soul partner.

If you’re tired of going into sacrifice to make a relationship work, or if being in your integrity feels too risky and you’d like some guidance schedule a complimentary Breakthrough Call so we can share some strategies with you to quicken your pace to the arms of your beloved.