Dating Fears: How To Identify and Overcome Them

What is life coaching? 

Generally speaking, life coaching is a practice that helps people identify and achieve personal goals. Coaches can help clients set and reach these goals using a variety of tools and techniques. 

Who can be coached? 

Well, anybody CAN be coached, but in order for it to result in beneficial change, the client has to be WILLING to be coached. 

To determine if you’re a good coaching candidate, answer the following four questions. 

1. Are you willing to take on a challenge? 

If you’re already feeling overwhelmed by your professional and personal obligations, are you willing to make the time to take on a new challenge? 

2. Are you willing to accept feedback? 

Coaches can offer feedback, but in order for the client to hear it and implement change, he/she must release self-protective mechanisms such as rationalization, justification and blaming others. 

3. Are you willing to be emotionally honest? 

A tendency exists to tell others (and ourself) what they want to hear rather than what they need to hear. 

4. Are you willing to be innovative? 

Rather than just trying a variation on your usual method, are you willing to risk feeling “unsafe” while you look for new ways, or out-of-the-box methods, to accomplish your goal. 

EXERCISE: IDENTIFYING YOUR FEAR

There is a lot of fear around dating, so a good exercise to complete is one that identifies the specific fears around this activity and allows you to release them. Normally, you would be led in this exercise by a coach, but you can try it yourself. 

1. Imagine a fear you are harboring and how it is keeping you from your goal. 

2. Clarify and describe the fear/obstacle in detail. 

3. Take several deep breaths and release any physical and emotional tightness you’re experiencing. 

4. Close your eyes and focus on your fear/obstacle. 

5. As you’re focusing on the fear, can you imagine that there is some way for you to become aware of your goal, which lies on the other side of the obstacle? 

6. With this visualization in place, continue to see that your goal is waiting for you on the other side of the fear/obstacle. It’s your job to figure out how to get around it, get beyond it, or move through it. 

7. With your eyes closed, imagine a way that you can remove this obstacle. 

8. Once you have opened the space, imagine taking the necessary steps to move closer to your goal. 

Additionally, it can help to clearly identify your fears on paper. You might find out that you’re getting tied up in your head and listening to negative or defeatist self-talk. Once you hear it outside of your head or see it in black-and-white, you might realize it isn't really the truth.

Here are some open-ended statements you can use to start this process. 

1. I am afraid that __________________________________ 

2. If this happens, I believe that ________________________ 

3. If that happens, then I believe that ____________________ (this can have multiple responses) 

4. The truth is ______________________________________ 

Of course, a coach can help you with these types of exercises and make you accountable once you commit to an Action Plan to accomplish your goals.


Visit me on my website, if you're interested in relationship coaching.

Three First Date Mistakes

Without risk, or allowing yourself to be vulnerable, there can be no great reward. Of course, there is the proper time and place to reveal your innermost thoughts and the minutia of your life — and it is not at a first meeting! 

A common mistake made by newcomers to the dating scene is to pace a new relationship improperly. 

REVEALING TOO MUCH 

Perhaps due to nervousness and not wanting there to be any awkward pauses in the conversation, daters may find themselves talking too much and feeling obligated to tell their life story. Try to keep a first meeting light and not turn it into a therapy session where old romances are rehashed. Possible talking points are current events, activities that interest you and the world around you. 

GOING TOO FAST 

Do not look for a commitment on the first date or, for that matter, the first few dates. Relationships take time to develop, and it is over this time that all things can become known. A person can only project a false image for a finite time, and true personalities eventually shine through. 

PLAYING TOO HARD 

Try not to meet a person with a preconceived agenda in mind. Don’t rush it. Courtship and the slow discovery of the other person is more than half the fun. Don’t overwhelm the other person by calling repeatedly the next day or showering the other with gifts immediately.

If you go to my Author Page on Amazon, you will find a video where I discuss the preceding three items. (It's the second video)

In all, there are 4 videos posted: How To Tell When You Are Ready To Date; Reinventing Yourself; Thoughts on Suicide; and 3 Dating Mistakes.

The preceding is a short excerpt from Love After Loss: Writing The Rest of Your Story, which is now available as a Kindle book for $9.99 (in paper at $14.95). Remember, you don't need a Kindle to read it. Just download a free reading app to read on a variety of devices.

Understanding Love

Drama Queens and Kings need not apply here! They tend to complicate the simple, as do a lot of others. In fact, as Charles Mingus said, “Making the simple complicated is commonplace.” On the other hand, he continues, “Making the complicated simple, awesomely simple – that’s creativity.” 

I am a very big fan of simplicity and have found an easy way to be “creative” in dissolving any drama in my life is to embrace the principles of K.I.S.S., which helps to Keep It Super Simple. 

Love tends to be a complicated subject, especially when you're alone and can't figure out how to secure the love you desire to share with another. 

Additionally, some find it hard to define because it has multiple manifestations and, thus, is expressed differently with a partner, a parent, a child, a friend and so on. 

I suggest, rather than holding onto one finite definition of love, look at this deep emotion as wearing multiple faces and accept that these faces are manifested through numerous and different types of relationships. 

 In truth, what you know about love is instilled in you as a child. Your familial home is the place where you learn how to love and be loved (or not). 

When you view love through the language of your childhood, your understanding of this hard-to-define emotion can have varying degrees of meaning. This is because the dynamics of your upbringing colors how you see everything in your life. 

So, if you have experienced difficult and abusive relationships in your lifetime, you might confuse (emotional and physical) pain with love. This type of love (or what you think of as love) is of the conditional sort. 

If you recall, in last week’s blog, I asked if love can truly be unconditional. The conclusion was that there are always conditions, even in the best of relations. That’s what makes them work! Those conditions, or the most important ingredients for a successful male to female (or soul to soul) relationship, include respect, allowance and non-judgment. Without these essential emotional aspects being present in a relationship, love (no matter how you define it) can still fail. 

Unfortunately, the “human condition” allows for the idea of love to be present even when there exists a high disregard for a partner. Accordingly, a person can believe that disrespect, control and manipulation are a form of love, while, in actuality, they are only comfort zones or simply actions to which he/she has become accustomed without knowing any better. 

Furthermore, these kinds of relationships can be repetitive throughout a lifetime and can perpetuate the idea that all connections cause pain and suffering. Until your childhood dynamics are examined and you allow yourself to be released from faulty beliefs, you will continue to draw dysfunctional partners to you. 

In the most successful of relationships, both individuals respect the other’s personal soul growth. Also present is a mutual respect of each partner’s ability to adapt to the various situations encountered. This is demonstrated by restraining from projecting feelings that would make a partner feel inadequate and his/her actions feel inappropriate. 

Granted, this is an especially hard task to do since human frailty and ego are built on the “right” way. However, if two people can give each other the boundary space to adjust to a mutual experience, and accept that there may be a trigger back to an inner child response, then the relationship can flourish and both can share with one another to create a balance. 

HERE'S THE BOTTOM LINE: the most important person to love on this planet is you. Unfortunately, due to the competitive energy that runs through society plus the various challenges met in life, people find this to be the most difficult type of love to preserve. One reason is that self-talk is often completed in the negative with statements such as the following. “I feel stupid.” “I look too heavy or too thin.” “Why can’t I be more like my parents or my siblings?” 

This self-defeating and disapproving language is hard-wired into your thinking patterns. It creates an energy of its own and is very hard to remove. Only through the proper use of affirmation can this energy be transformed. 

Remember .... you are what you think. Consequently, it is imperative to utilize your thought processes to their fullest potential and, at the same time, release your fears. This allows you to take responsibility for your personal power. Once this power is harnessed, you have the ability to change your life. 

By KEEPING IT SUPER SIMPLE, you can begin to peel away the layers to get to the core of any issue. This allows you to come to the conclusion that the answer to any problem is always love. 

There are some preliminary questions to be answered before you can embrace love and life. So, here’s your task. 

1. Figure out what love means to you and why. 

2. Discover from where your language of love stems. 

3. Think about how the way you love has affected your life. 

If you can learn to love yourself, as well as place yourself first (although not in a negative selfish mode), you will be successful in sharing your love with others. 

For more Keeping It Super Simple tips, purchase the K.I.S.S. book.

K.I.S.S. Principles on Spirituality: 

30 Ways To Find Clarity by Keeping It Super Simple 

http://amzn.to/L9imWj 

It’s available on Amazon.com as a Kindle book at the above link, for which you don’t even need a Kindle to read. Just download a free reading app to read on another device.

This book is part of the Kindle Select program for the months of June, July and August. As an Amazon Prime member, you can borrow it from the Kindle Lending Library.

Additionally, I will be offering this book as a free download on June 8 and June 9, 2012. Three more promo dates will be announced to take place in July/August 2012. 

Can Love Be Truly Unconditional?

We've all heard the pleas for unconditional love, but you must understand what unconditional means. It doesn't mean that one person can do or say anything he or she wants to another and still expect to be loved. 

The following poem addresses what unconditional means. It is an excerpt from Love After Loss: Writing The Rest of Your Story, which is available via my website.

GROWN-UP LOVE 

I believe that unconditional love is a fairy tale

that does not co-exist with mature love. 

For love to flourish and eventually deepen there are unspoken promises

 ... To treat each other with respect 

... To speak to each other with words of caring 

rather than those that carry hurt 

... To show each other one’s best side rather than the worst

... To continue be the same person one presented to

the other once the “honeymoon is over” 

... To make time spent together a priority 

... In discussions, not to make the other person wrong, even if you disagree

... To consciously decide not to reach a point

of anger or defensiveness with each other

... To not expect anything of your partner that you,

yourself, can’t or won’t do 

... Above all ... to be nice to each other and 

make each day a celebration of having found each other

If you recall, in last week's blog I wrote about how our collective consciousness has also taught us that romantic, or true love, equals neediness. In fact, the opposite is true. 

Keep in mind that, in order to have a healthy relationship, there must be a boundary space between the two individuals. After all, if two people agree on everything – one of them is unnecessary!

A Final Reminder:

Love doesn't happen within the confines of a fairytale, although you and your partner can live happily ever. You simply must be willing to continue to write your story over each day as you encounter new obstacles to overcome and new opportunities of which to take advantage.