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LET’S GROW
With tomorrow being Valentine’s Day, a lot of us are thinking about romantic connection.
As someone who has dated a decent amount, as well as coached others,
one of the biggest mistakes I see with relationships is that people don’t take time to heal or analyze what caused the relationship to fail.
I want to share with you my biggest lessons from dating, and maybe it will help you make healthier connections.
Date the person in front of you, not the person in your mind.
This is a super common thing called idealization. You’ll know that you were doing this if you were waiting around for a version of that person to appear.
This is wrong in a few ways. One, you aren’t accepting that person as they are, which is unfair to them. Two, you are putting yourself on hold for a person that may never arrive.
Something I like to do is observe the behaviors that I see in somebody I’m dating and ask myself “as long as we both shall live?”. I’m not dating for fun at this point, so if it’s not behavior I will accept forever, it’s either a conversation about how to grow together or how our relationship is winding down.
Take time to learn the lessons as to why your past connections ended.
Until I went to therapy, there were so many things I didn’t understand about how I ended up in unhealthy connections.
One of the biggest things that I learned was that I did not feel like I was worthy of being treated well, a feeling that I still fight to this day
As I started to heal those issues within myself, I started making better choices.
The more time you take to heal what caused the previous connections to fall short, the more chances you give to your future connections.
Once, at a party the conversation turned to why I went to therapy and I had a really simple answer. “I was tired of my past wounds bleeding onto my future.”
Give that new connection a chance by doing some introspection.
Learn both how to communicate well and how your partner communicates.
Communication comes up pretty often, because it’s the most important thing in any relationship. There are several layers for this
Set boundaries early - so they get a true idea of what being with you will be like. We all put our best foot forward, but make sure you know (and they know) what your boundaries are so they will not be blindsided by them later.
Learn how you want to be loved - So often in coaching sessions I would see a partner say they didn’t feel appreciated or loved. The truth was, that partner was communicating how they feel in a way that the other person didn’t receive. You teach others how you want to be loved. Make sure you know the answer to that question yourself first, so you can tell them as well.
Make sure they are a safe person to communicate with - Feeling nervous about speaking your needs or issues in the relationship out loud, for fear of what your partner will do, is your body telling you that this is not a safe person. Sometimes people act this way because they were never listened to previously and that’s why the healing is so important. It gives this new person a chance to show you something different, if you will allow them.
It’s not all head and it’s not all heart….it’s both.
When I was younger, like most people, I chased passion and fire and butterflies, but those relationships all ended in very similar fashion. Like a supernova, it shone brightly for a moment until it exploded and faded away into nothingness. That was me being all heart…. Well, maybe mostly hormones…
After I went to therapy and started seeking deeper connections, I would find myself intellectually attracted to somebody, but physically not. It’s not that they weren’t beautiful people. It’s that I was so in my head about making the right choices that it was hard to focus on anything else.
A spark is wonderful and necessary. A flame is even better and has some longevity. Stoking that fire is a slow patient process, but ultimately creates more warmth.
Slow and steady breeds success.
This all depends on what you want out of a romantic connection. If you are just playing around, then you just keep doing what you’re doing - but if you want someone to stay and you want to truly know they are, you have to go slow.
A lot of the nervousness surrounding relationships is the fear that someone isn't who they say they are. If they are truly lying, it’s harder to maintain that lie as time goes on. Be open, but see them as they are, and go slow. If they are unwilling to go slow, then that is just not the connection for you and it’s OK to let them go.
This is also a great technique for those of you who are concerned about encountering narcissists. Set boundaries; they hate that.
I’m going to go into further detail in the premium section of this newsletter, as this list can go on and on, but I will continue to share my lessons and hope you take something from them.