Why Is Dating So Confusing?

Dating? What is it? Why is it so confusing? Dating is a form of courtship that focuses mostly on social activities between two people for the sole reason of accessing whether they are suitable for each other as an intimate partner or potential mate. Dating as an institution is a relatively recent phenomenon which emerged in the last few centuries.

During the Middle Ages in Europe, weddings were seen as business arrangements between families.  While romance was something that happened before and outside of marriage, discreetly in covert meetings.  Can you imagine being in a loveless marriage that was a business transaction?  The only way that people were able to pursue love and intimacy was by having affairs.   A 12th-century book, The Art of Courtly Love, advised that “True love can have no place between husband and wife”.  Can you imagine?  I think that we are still at that place given the number of divorces we are experiencing in this time.

Dating is two people together in public, exploring if they should become romantically involved. Each person is in chorus evaluating the other as a possible future partner, and at the same time is being evaluated. Dating is stressful. Some of what happens on a date is guided by a mutual understanding of societies rules. In my opinion, dating becomes scary because of a set of mythological rules from our reptilian brains and how its effect on our emotions.  Dating is not based on logic.  It turns smart successful people into confused bumbling idiots.

What is dating anyway? Why does it catch us off guard? Why do we have all of these negative conversations surrounding dating, most of which we make up in our heads?  What is it that has so many people confused, frightened and upset?   I’ll tell you what I think. It’s because we are all trying very hard to avoid the experience of being vulnerable.  We do not want to be responsible for what we really want in relationship and we have a fear of rejection.

We believe that being vulnerable is a weakness, when being vulnerable is actually one of our strengths.  Being vulnerable allows us to be truthful with ourselves and our feelings. Vulnerability does not operate on the side of logic.

My personal experience with being vulnerable was when I was trying avoid my feelings.  I was feeling anxious, worried and outside of myself.  I do not like these feelings.   So, I do not dwell in them for a long time.  The moment I shared my vulnerability and what I was afraid of, I felt like I rebalanced myself.  I experienced a sense of relief.  It gave me power and the self-awareness of how I was shutting myself down and not being open to my feelings.  I found out I was resisting my emotions by constantly complaining to anyone who would listen.   I discovered that I was creating the same problems in every relationship that I encountered.  I didn’t express my feelings and wasn’t vulnerable, then I became distant or resentful.

When you are considering dating, it is important to know what it is that you want to create for yourself.  What is the intention of dating? Be honest and clear with yourself.  Take nothing personally.  Accept that your date is having their own variation of what it is you are going through.   After you gain clarity about your needs, wants, and expectations, be courageous enough to share them, knowing that not every person who wants to date might be on the same page as you.

proscar

Own The Bitch Within

“What a Bitch!”   “I cannot believe she’s so Bitchy.”  “She is one hard Bitch.”

Have you noticed when a woman is confident and feels truly good about herself, knows what she wants, has clear concise boundaries and is developing her personal power in a healthy way, she is often referred to as Bitch. Some of her friends might even say things like “she has changed.”  Of course she changed.  Everyone changes over time.

Who wants to stay the same? Who wants to remain ignorant and insecure?  I don’t think any woman wants that.  Life is a series of choices and so we change.

It is time to stop seeking external validation, by being “nice”, living in guilt, feeling afraid, being people pleaser, or by downplaying your needs and by putting yourself last. It’s time to own your personal power and deal with yourself by:

•    Owning the Bitch Within
•    Learning to be Selfish
•    Going for your desires
•    Playing a bigger life game
Bringing forth your personal power

The word Bitch might have negative connotations; but in some areas of life if you’re a woman on a mission and up to big things, at some point you will be called a bitch to your face.  But more often than not, it’s behind your back.  It’s important to become okay with yourself the way you are and not feel you have to defend yourself against stupidity.

Gossip, is a part of life. When people don’t know you they will make up all kinds of stories about you until they find out the truth.  I have a saying, if no one is talking about you, you really not up to much.  But, when you’ve learned to deal with fear and yourself, the term bitch, will no longer have control over you.  You’ll experience major growth and personal power.  Then any comment made about you, will no longer produce a negative feeling or result, it will be like water off a ducks back.

A Woman Owning the Bitch Within

In order to love the bitch within, you have to know and own that bitch.  In this blog,  the bitch I’m referring to is a strong, confident loving person that has healthy boundaries.  She knows that nothing is personal.  This Bitch accepts herself for all she is and all she is not.  She is grateful for her mind, potential and life and is willing to create anything she wants to experience. She knows that mistakes are a part of the journey of growth and development.  She knows that nothing is ever really wrong.  She is 100% responsible for her life, the way it is and the way it is not.  She is open to living a joyous life knowing that things happen for the greater good.  She knows she has choices and can complain, or be a victim in a continuous cycle of negativity and righteousness.

Learning to be Selfish

This Bitch she is very selfish.  However, the reason why she is selfish is because she knows she does not come from a deficit in any area in her life.  She is abundant in her way of being.  She gives 100% because she coming from a place of self-love, abundance and generosity.   Self-love is a heartfelt experience.  This is not the kind of Bitch that is aggressive and negates other people’s rights.  She is empowered and thus empowers others.  She is willing to take responsibility for her life and gives up making excuses.  This is not the kind of selfishness that does not care about the effects of her actions on other people.  This Bitch is not aggressive or controlling.  Being Selfish means that you make sure that you are taken care of. When you are completely taken care, you have an abundance of self to give away.   When you say yes, you mean yes.  When say no, you mean no. There is no questioning of choice.  Everything is sent out for the highest good and everyone receives the highest good back.

Going for your desires

This bitch goes for, knows and asks clearly for exactly what she wants.  She also knows that clarity is one of the keys to having it all, so she does not settle for less than what she wants.  She also knows that if she has the right to go for her desires, so does everyone else.  She knows that the universe is abundant.  Being fulfilled in all of her desires is important. Her desires are important.  She will ask as many times as it is necessary to get what she really wants.  She knows when she stops asking for her desires, it not that she cannot have it.  It’s that something better has shown up and taken it place. Desires are continuous and so we keep on asking until old desires are met and new ones are created.

Playing a bigger game

This Bitch knows that playing a bigger game in life does not have anything to do with size or amount, it means being authentic and honest with one’s thoughts and feelings.  Having the freedom to live one’s dream.  Being happy with her choices so that her energy can be directed where she would like it to be.  She believes in herself and she believes that all things are possible.  She knows to achieve the life she wants.  Believing in herself is a choice.  It’s an attitude that she has developed for herself overtime.  She does not blame her family for the hand that she was dealt, or the race, physical size or class that she was born into. She knows that she is responsible for her own concepts and she can change them.  Her game in life is personal to her and no one ever has to agree or want to play.  She is okay about other people’s opinions, as she knows their opinions are none of her business.

Bringing forth your personal power

The Complete Bitch has personal power.   She needs no reason, she just is.  It is her very own.  The Bitch that I speak of knows that if she is going to be successful in her life in her own right. She knows that it’s the way she handles herself and owns the Bitch within.   Personal Power is within us to create the lives we want.  The life we dream about and the life that we were born to live.  You have to claim your personal power.

What would you life look like if you owned the bitch within and gave up complaining? If you took responsibility and started being a woman and owning the Bitch within? I invite you to add your comments in the box below.

You Can Become An Olympic Champian

“But right now, I have no goals; I’m just like a bum.” Usain Bolt.

They came, they conquered or were conquered.   They all achieved their goals, some will play again.  Some will never compete at this level again. Some will go onto to train others by giving away what they have accomplished becoming coaches or leaving the sport of their passion entirely.    However, all of them are winners in their own right.

Michael Phelps, is still the fastest man in water, and now to add to his list of accomplishments breaking the all-time Olympic Medal record.  The old record was 18.  The most medals were won on land by a gymnast, Larisa Latynina. Michael record was won in the water with 19 medals.  Her record took 70 years to win. Michael’s record, who knows where or when it will be broken?

Phelps came and accomplished everything he and his Coach Bob Bowman set out to accomplish.  His coach put him through many rigorous tasks.  His coach readied him to be able to swim blind only being able to count his strokes in previous last Olympics.  Who knew?

The fastest man in the world “All Day Everyday” Usain Bolt ran for 36.84 seconds for the 100 meters.  What makes Usain Bolt so amazing?  Well, he has all the physical skills possible to attain his goal.  Actually the bigger question is what makes anyone of these athletes so amazing and powerful?  Yes they have the drive.  They’ve developed the skill, and they have the passion.  There is one thing that they also have.  They have coaches. Their win is also their coaches win.   They have coaches that help them plan what’s next.  The coach is in the background.  Very rarely is the coach in the foreground.  However, the drills that get done, the practice over and over again are planted and take root in the athlete mind, bodies and action are planted there by their coaches.  The Coach,  who each and every one of the players love and respect.  Their coaches are the muscle behind the curtain.

A coach will go to any length to train you to be number on in your level of performance. A coach will stretch you in ways that you can never stretch yourself.  Your coach is able to have you be all and more of what you want to be; always in the background, knowing your game, making sure that you know your game.

Usain Bolt has conquered all his current goals.  He came to be a legend and he is now a legend.  He say’s pertaining to what’s next for him “Right now nothing. I’ve done what I wanted to do. My coach and I will discuss what we need to do. But right now, I have no goals; I’m just like a bum.”

“I’ve done something that no one has done before, which is defending my double title,” Bolt said. “Back to back for me, I would say I’m the greatest.”  So would say that kind of confidence is arrogant.  I would say that is a person that knows what he came to do and did it despite the media comments.  He fulfilled on the measure.  Confidence is something that gives you a sense triumph.  A Coach is someone that makes you triumphant.

What do all of these Athletes have in common?  Yes, they have coaches and they take the coaching. The coach keeps them out of their head and in the game.  Who keeps you out of your head and in your games in your life?  When things are not working, or working the way you want them to do?  What do you do? How do you win in the games that your create for your life?  Do you quit at the slightest incongruence? Or do you just give up at the mere thought of what you think will take place?   Who helps you build the weak muscle in areas of your life that you would like to transform?

Having a coach will help you transform old patterns and limiting behaviors.  Find out more and read my testimonials of the successes that I have helped my clients accomplish and more.
•    What area of life are you tired of recreating over and over again?
•    What is the result that you’re not getting?
•    Are you waking up exhausted at the mere thought of another day being unfulfilled?
•    What are the wants, needs or desire that are not being fulfilled?
•    Are you doing the same thing over and over again looking for a different result?

Take Action! Get a coach that can have you be accountable and have you develop the confidence to go after your very own personal Olympic dream.

Relationships Take Work

Thank God I can read. I am reading a wonderful little book called A Fine Romance, The passage of Courtship from Meeting to Marriage.  This book was written in the 80s, but it’s quite motivating. It describes how we experience life and relationships. 

Everything that is important takes work.  Your career, growing your money, your health, getting in shape, it all takes work. The book explains that you are conscious of all the work life takes, but are not aware of how much work it takes to be in a successful relationship. 

The writer is bloody right. When it comes to matters of the heart, I personally want my relationships to be thunder bolts and lightening.  I want it to be like a fantasy that happens in a Lifetime movie. My lover plants a gentle kiss on my mouth and my eyes shut and next minute, life cuts to me being married, living in the perfect house with the perfect life. The end.  Yeah!  Wake up.  Duh!  None of this is going to happen unless I work at it. 

Relationships takes work because the dating process takes effort. It is not just one step. You have to go through many steps: the dating process, the courting process, getting to know each other, being present with your feelings, thoughts and everything else in between.  Being confident enough go through the process of creating of partnership without getting aggravated requires you to discover what you really want in a relationship. In order to do that, you need to monitor your own behaviors.

What I discovered is there is a challenging universal structure to courtship.  In a nutshell, there are many experiences that can occur. You may one day feel ambivalent or you may have deaf stops where you only hear your own thoughts and ignore anything anyone else has to say. You also have the challenge of dealing with your own personal theories, worries, limiting beliefs and triggers, as well as a list of what your partner should and should not do. There are dramas within ourselves which relate to a complicated array of drives, feelings, expectations and assumptions. Each one determining our individual responses to love and relationships. All along the way, your self-esteem gets battered and bruised. Your confidence gets shattered and you wind up swimming in a world of unhappiness. Your feel like you are glowing one moment while in the next, you feel like an abandoned baby on the steps of a local church, not knowing what the hell happened.   

At times you feel ambivalent. One minute you dig the person and the next minute you wonder what you ever saw in them. Then back again.  Either you’re dumped or you’re dumping them out of exasperation and frustration.  One of the things to be excited about and to know is this is all a part of the relationship experience. It is normal. The important thing to remember is to build a solid foundation within yourself that is separate from the relationship. This will allow you to be like a rock that won’t be swayed by every step of the courting process. If not,  the fears of your past relationships will leach into your new relationships, whether your aware of it or not.

I had the liberty of dating a man I thought was wonderful. In the end, we did not work out. The main reason is because his old relationship filtered into my relationship with him. He may have left his last relationship but it did not leave him. How do I know that he did not truly get rid of his last relationship? He said he had the utmost disdain for his ex-live-in-girlfriend. As time went on, the same concerns and worries from his old relationship filtered into the relationship I was having with him. He had a fear of entrapment. His language was about me trapping him in a cage. He did not want to be in that same type of situation again so all relationships were scary to him. There was no opportunity for me in our relationship as his unconscious behavior made him behave as though all relationships were going to end in the same way. 

The book describes this as the fear of entrapment.  I made his anxiety worse. He feared being locked in an emotional cage. He thought when he was with a woman, he’d lose his freedom.  No matter what I said, it made no real difference.  It was over before it was even allowed to begin.

I could have felt bad about it. I could have blamed myself. But because of a healthy amount of confidence and self-esteem, I know that the end of our relationship does not mark me as a failure or a bad person. I know I can give and receive love. The end of a relationship is not a rejection of me and my worth as a person. It is not personal. It is a personal relationship but the behavior is not personal. The thing that is personal is the love I share in any relationship which I will continue to give freely.

Flying By The Seat of Your Pants

You have a fear of something, so what do you do? What is your Trump card. By Trump card, I mean the way you behave when your back is up against the wall and you are being called to take action. Do you pretend and charge into denial? Do you hide out, stay out of communication and ignore calls? Do you shut down emotionally? Do you become defensive and get into fights? Do you strut around and tell everybody in your best cocktail voice that its’ marvelous darling, or do you speak in your loudest voice and assert that you are fine? Or do you just get colloquial say “I got this” when you don’t have anything? The best one yet is that you’re okay and that you do not need any support.

Then something out of the ordinary happens- you lost a job, a relationship, your money. Flying by the seat of your pants does not allow you to make real commitments. This lack of commitment has you live in the place of fear which has you isolate yourself from your feelings and disconnect you from people. A side note about feelings, I want you to know that feelings are fleeting. They come and go like clouds.

Your Trump card is how you have been being for a long time. With your way of being, you are not aware that it is destroying things that are important to you. Using any one of these actions is surely a way of destroying relationships. I have had people tell me that they are not loveable and cannot be loved. They don’t want anyone to love them. They are not committed to anything or anyone when that kind of communication is launched into the world. They have all these beliefs tied into ways that can be loved, like how long they know you. They just have limiting beliefs about love that only makes sense to them. Furthermore, when I say world, I mean the persons individual world where is occurs as though their putting seeds on a Formica counter top and demanding it grow without the right conditions. Their commitments cannot grow, they cannot form relationships and they are never present. They are like drifter’s on the planet not experiencing life’s wonderment, and they wonder why life is not going the way the want it to. They become upset, and people who love and support them find themselves working hard to support these people without anything coming back. Their actions are not personal. It is just difficult to be with these people. It just take waiting for these people will one day take themselves off the Formica counter top and plant themselves in the earth. Figuratively speaking.

With that fixed way of being, one cannot fully experience anything that life has to offer. Commitments become hard to accomplish. Fear of failure can be a fixed way of being that has you fear anything that calls for you to put yourself into action. Your internal conversations that you are constantly creating show up all the time. Thus you win at the game of being unlovable. So what shows up are people who also feel unlovable which creates more of the same in your life. This leaves you with a feeling of not being present to what is possible in life. Fear as is common to everyone. False Evidence Appearing Real.

What is your trump card? Your way of being that comes up for you when confronted or experiencing fear?

Do you have commitments that you fear?

Do you find yourself making commitments and avoiding them?

What are the limiting beliefs that are always stopping you in your life?

Are you flying by the seat of your pants with no plans?

Do you really know what possible for you in your life?

Do you have a fixed way of being that cause you to be fearful and you would like to shift it?

How Do You Think I Got So Fat

Well really how do you think I got so fat? Consistency. Consistency is everything, I ate consistently and I sat on my duff and watched television every night while eating not exercising. The fat did not arrive all at once, it was a little bit at a time. Here’s the back story. I was always thin, that also took consistency. The kind of consistency that I did not think about I ate what my mother made, yuck! at the time. Lots of vegetables, salad and balanced meat and starches I rode my bike every day and walked a lot. Then I moved to America and got married I went from 145lbs to 160lbs, large New York style dinners that at first I scoffed at and then started to indulge in. This was consistency number one. Spending nights indoors, with my new husband and eating ice-cream. My exercise became zero, as I was a little afraid to ride my bike in NY.

No exercising and eating food for 4 people, my weight slowly crept up through consistently. Now, I say this to say that I didn’t have a chemical imbalance. I didn’t have a slow metabolism or anything medically wrong with me. What I had was the consistency of not being consistent with my order of life. Eating large portions, eating late at night and no exercise.

When we desire change in your lives, it takes work to go out and get it. I am obsessed with success and I have learned that success takes a huge commitment. A commitment to transform your life, success with anything takes the form of consistency. If you desire to release fat from your body, it takes a consistent full blown effort. I love listening to people talk as I go about my daily business. As I was walking down Clinton Ave in Brooklyn the other day, I had the liberty of listening to a woman talking on the phone about her weight, the story went a little like this. “I don’t know what happens to my weight. It seems as though I lose a lot of weight then I have some macaroni and cheese and my weight just seems to pile back on.” Girl, I don’t know. I’m not exercising, and I’ve been eating yams and stuff and I cannot seem to lose the weight. Giggle!” Well, we have all been this woman, maybe not eating what is healthy, desiring to lose weight. At the same time believing that they can do it through osmosis. I have been her. It was not until I developed consistency which is a habit which became automatic that I was able to get the results that were possible.

Now, it was not easy. It was painful building muscle and working out doing pushups and running because I heard all my internal conversations running around my head telling me “this is hard”. “You could do 3 laps and stop.” “That’s enough, oh my legs hurt, I can’t breathe.” What the bubble wrap is going on. “It’s too dark outside. I cannot climb another step. Please Dr. Evil no more pushup. I can’t do it.” Wanting to cheat myself, I heard all my internal conversations. Say I did 3 when I know I have only done 2. My favorite excuse was my butt is to heavy I cannot run, I don’t like that feeling. Hello!

However, consistency had me listen to my internal conversations and see all my distractions and keep moving. Successful people keep moving. They keep asking, get knocked down and ask again by creating and then taking responsibility time and time again inside of the world of consistency. Anything that is new and different is within your personal grasp it is usually difficult and calls for constituency. The Beyonces, Oprah, Jay-Z, Ben Carsons, Michael Critchtons, Elma Blints are all the people that are successful. They include anyone with a dream they believe in and who are committed to their personal success. It takes great effort of consistency to be successful in your life. Anything you would like in you life share it, tell it to people who will support you in being your best self and achieving your goal. Release people that put you down or try to make you feel consistently bad about yourself. Always pay attention to the fact that no one can make you feel bad about yourself. They say what they say and you can take it into you space or you can choose to ignore it and move on knowing that statement doesn’t work for you. Keep creating more and more goals for yourself, break them down into bite size pieces and accomplish them one bite at a time each time remembering to celebrate your achievement.

Consistency is the key you success.
Consistency is not “I will do it tomorrow.” Consistency is creating a platform for yourself and sharing with others and setting yourself up to win.

How to Overcome Fear and Limiting Beliefs

Fear is an emotional response to an impending threat or danger.  It is one of our most basic responses.  Most of the fears that we experience today in our society are imagined. We experience the fear of rejection, fear of failure, fear of success.  All kinds of fears – many of which are attached to our belief systems.   

Photo courtesy of ia7mad

I used to have a fear of going to the movies by myself.  While I longed to go to the movies, I refused to go alone.  I had a fear of being molested by a man wearing a beige raincoat that was cinched at the waist.  This was something that I had heard as a child and added to my belief system.  How ridiculous!  However, as I grew older I realized that I had this fear of going alone, but I could not remember why.  It wasn’t until I accepted that I was afraid that I was able to see what my fear was, where it came from, and how it came to be. My older brother used to take me to the movies when I was younger and in order to keep us in line he would tell us about the old man in the beige coat that would take us away and do awful things to us. What I realized was that I had internalized a lot of that story and it followed me for years.  I was 30 years old when I finally went to the movies by myself.  Yep, 30 years old.  Some people might say that’s crazy. However, in my mind I was still young and very afraid. Consequently, that was what my limiting belief looked like.  It was an old condition that kept me from succeeding and going to the movies by myself.   
 
Limiting beliefs interfere with many aspects of our lives.  There are all kinds of limiting beliefs that stop us from succeeding. Fear of Failure is a huge limiting belief.  I recently had the opportunity to meet a woman who was raised middle class, but because of her experience attending a school with children who were not middle class, she developed the limiting belief of not deserving. Because her friends did not have, she stopped asking her parents for the things she wanted. She did not want to feel like a show off because of her nice clothes and her toys and gadgets.  If she did get something she used it at home and refused to wear clothes that were better than her peers.   

Fast forward into adulthood. Her limiting belief manifested into not having made enough money to live on.  She always squeaked by with just enough money for her basic needs, but never enough for extras.  As a result of her limiting belief, she has never developed the confidence to ask for the salary that she wanted and conditioned herself to not have any idea about the amount money she wants to make.  So she lives in a world of not enough and not deserving.   

Photo courtsey of _Blippo_

Limiting beliefs can show up in lots of different ways and if the limiting belief is something that you developed as a child. It grows up with you into an adult-sized limiting belief system. In order to succeed and clear your limiting beliefs, you have to submerge and focus your mind with positive thoughts.  You have to starting creating the reality you want.  You cannot for one moment allow old limiting beliefs to enter your mind and re-root themselves.  It takes effort, courage and knowing in your gut that limiting beliefs can be overcome.