Relationships

Is It True Passion, Or Just Drama?

October 21, 2019 // by kimberly// Leave a Comment

How to tell the difference

Ah, that first adrenaline rush of new love. When hormones surge and blood races around your brain and your body, making desire swell and slipping rose-colored glasses over your eyes. It feels so good, doesn’t it? But sometimes in the rush of all that fresh new emotion, it is possible to mistake the drama of a difficult relationship for true passion.

When you’re first getting to know someone, you don’t know what to expect. Unpredictability can be exciting, but if you get addicted to the rush, it can land you on the roller coaster ride of fighting, making-up, and fighting again, just to keep that feeling alive. If you find yourself in a pattern of dating bad boys who break your heart again and again, but the make-up sex is so good that you keep coming back for more, you might be falling into the trap of confusing passion with the adrenaline-fueled flush of relationship drama.

True passion doesn’t make you feel like you are stuck in a repeating cycle of ever-increasing heartache and hurt. True passion, when it manifests in a healthy relationship, is a shared experience that excites and uplifts you both.

So, why do people stay on the roller coaster of relationship drama even when it’s clear that the constant ups and downs are taking a serious toll on their emotional health?

One reason can be a fear of vulnerability.

Fighting feels comfortable because it allows you to keep your emotional walls up. It gives you an excuse to stay in defensive mode and focus on what is wrong with the partner instead of taking a good hard look at yourself. Making-up feels so good because it gives you a temporary respite between the fights, but as soon as another situation arises that requires one of you to open up and be truly vulnerable to the other, it’s easier to start a new fight instead.

Let’s be honest, there are ways that fighting feels good. It feels good to get that rush of energy as the anger builds. It feels good to be self-righteous and defend your stand. It feels good to unleash anger at the other person over the long laundry list of everything they have ever done wrong since you first met. It feels good to push them away or to be the one to walk away. And it feels good to go tell all your friends what a jerk your partner has been over a couple of cocktails. Doesn’t it? Doesn’t it feel good to complain and hear your friends complain about their relationship problems in turn? It feels like bonding. But this can sometimes be what Brené Brown calls Common Enemy Intimacy in her best-selling book Braving The Wilderness. Brené explains it like this:

“Common Enemy Intimacy is counterfeit connection and the opposite of true belonging. If the bond we share with others is simply that we hate the same people, the intimacy we experience is often intense, immediately gratifying, and an easy way to discharge outrage and pain. It is not, however, fuel for real connection.”

In this case, the common enemy would be the partners being complained about, mainly men. Having a strong and supportive circle of friends is important for everyone. We all need those close, emotionally intimate friendships where we can share everything about our lives with the sure knowledge that these people will not hold anything against us because of the long history of trust and love. But when we start bad mouthing a romantic partner to a group of common enemy intimacy friends, it may perpetuate the cycle of fighting and making-up. Those friends will be ready to remind you of any bad thing your partner did that you might have forgotten. When you are getting along with your partner, they might bring up something to upset you again. Not because they want you miserable, but because discord and fighting are what you bond about. It is the foundation this kind of friendship is built upon. And it keeps the drama alive.

Another reason people stay stuck in relationship drama is that it may be so familiar that they don’t believe anything else is possible.

Particularly for those who grew up in an emotionally tumultuous environment, the idea that love can exist without the catastrophic ups and downs might not even occur to them. I recently read an article by Matthew Salis who asked the question, why do the children of alcoholics marry alcoholics? It seems like they, more than anyone else, would know better. But here is one of the reasons that he came to in his research and by studying his own life:

“My wife’s father was an alcoholic, and I am an alcoholic. But Sheri didn’t marry me because of unfinished business. She married me because of the second reason I’ve consistently heard that children of alcoholics marry alcoholics themselves. My wife married me because she wasn’t sufficiently repulsed by my alcoholic behavior. She’d seen it before, so it didn’t shock or threaten her. My behavior as an active drinker might not have been acceptable, but it was familiar to my bride. And familiarity breeds comfort.”

In modern life we see drama-filled relationships modeled everywhere. What popular TV show or movie would be complete without some difficult, heartwrenching emotional situation for the characters to work through before achieving true love? Shows are even made about the pursuit of love and marriage like The Bachelor and The Bachelorette. These shows wouldn’t be interesting at all, much less entertaining, without a whole lot of drama mixed in. How many popular love songs employ language that sounds more suited to war and death than the kind of constant, strong, reliable, and passionate love that most of us claim we someday want to find?

So how do we learn to get comfortable with the discomfort of passionate but undramatic love?

And how do we know the difference between the two? The main difference to look for is how it makes you feel. Does the relationship make you feel insecure, jealous, unloved, or not good enough? Do you ever feel tempted to say or do something to make your partner jealous just to make sure they really care? Those are signs that it’s drama your feeling rather than real passion.

If you feel secure, trusting, loved, and appreciated and still feel your cheeks flush with an adrenaline rush every time you think about this person, then it’s more likely to be real passion.

So focus on bringing your best and happiest feelings to this kind of relationship. When the little hobgoblins inside your head start to make you feel antsy that nothing big and dramatic has happened for awhile, pause and ask yourself what you want to happen next? Try planning a special date or a weekend getaway. Instead of letting the feeling of restlessness push you into picking your partner apart to look for something to fight about, instead funnel those feelings into doing something positive. Your relationship and your partner will thank you.

https://psiloveyou.xyz/i-dont-need-you-to-complete-me-b67ae0b5ffe4

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I Don’t Need You To Complete Me

October 15, 2019 // by kimberly// Leave a Comment

The Myth of Soulmate Completion

Remember that moment in the movie Jerry McGuire when Tom Cruise finally comes around and gives Renée Zellweger the speech in which he tearfully declaims “You complete me”? After he spent the most of the movie adoring her child and being emotionally unavailable to her? And her response was “You had me at hello…”? A lot of people saw this as a quintessential romantic movie that showed how people can change, how love conquers all, and how soulmates are meant to complete each other.

Thanks to popular movies like this, as well as other TV shows, fairy tales, and a few cultural myths, a lot of people think that they are seeking a single sacred soulmate who will fill their voids, fix the damage accumulated throughout life, and who will fit together with them like two perfect halves of something meant to be whole. It’s a nice idea, isn’t it? That somewhere out there, there exists a single person who can do all of that for us, and all we have to do is find them in order to finally feel complete.

But seeking out a soulmate based on your idea of what you lack, to fill an emptiness inside you or to help you overcome addictions or deficits is the wrong way to approach your love life. If you focus on all the things that you think are wrong with you and base your desire for another person on those things, rather than on the kind of joy, fulfillment, and deep satisfaction that a soulmate relationship brings, you end up with a relationship built on all the wrong things.

A soulmate relationship is not some kind of tough-love therapy that brings out the worst in you so it can be changed and ultimate fixed. This is backward thinking and not helpful to anyone involved. Looking at love this way can also keep people stuck in unhealthy, unhappy relationships because people think they have to work through the hard stuff to get to finally get that something special they always wanted. Wallowing in damage while waiting for another person to repair you is a recipe for pain and tears.

Each and every one of us is fully responsible for our own personal transformation, our own healing, and our own journey through life. And each one of us is already a whole being unto ourselves. Putting the responsibility for your healing on your partner is not fair to them or to the great relationship that you could potentially share. When someone does this, it traps them in the unhealthy emotional life script of being The Dependent One, which disempowers them not only in their relationship, but in all areas of life.

Is possible to gain greater insight into your own patterns and healing through a genuine soulmate relationship? Yes, of course, it is. But the misconception that you need a soulmate to fix your broken parts and complete you is misguided and prevents you from finding the kind of relationship you really want. When you’re in a healthy relationship you inspire one another to grow, evolve, and bring out the best in each other. But inspiring positive growth and change is very different from actively trying to fix someone.

So instead of thinking about want parts of you need to be fixed, or what parts of your partner you can fix, focus on bringing your happiest self to the relationship. Give the relationship the best of you and accept the best of your partner. Enjoy what you each bring to the relationship without expecting it to be the fix to all your problems. You still get to do that part for yourself.

https://medium.com/@drkimberlystearnsphd/when-your-love-life-feels-like-groundhog-day-91aa3d89cc12

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Sally’s Orgasm and The Myth of The High-Maintenance Woman

October 10, 2019 // by kimberly// Leave a Comment

How denying our needs, hurts us all.

Remember that movie “When Harry Met Sally”? Most people who have seen it do, and I know exactly why. The orgasm scene in the restaurant was pretty groundbreaking at the time and Meg Ryan was adorable doing it. However, this is also the movie that gave us the legacy of and cultural shorthand for the myth of the “high maintenance woman”.

One of the reasons I feel conflicted about this moment in movie history is because so many women, as well as men, bought into the idea that being high maintenance is bad and being low maintenance is good.

When women talk to each other about a mutual friend with relationship problems, one might say, “yeah, but she is pretty high maintenance. I mean, she really expects a lot of that guy…” This idea of high maintenance, this negative view of having needs, requirements, boundaries, and standards, became just one more thing that women get criticized for.

In my work as a psychologist and matchmaker, I have met women who decided early on that they wanted to strive to be the ultimate low maintenance woman, to have so few needs that it almost seems like they have none. Because that’s what men want, isn’t it? These women require so little from partners that they are barely there at all. A woman like this becomes the ghost of a girlfriend, trying to feel satisfied with her own dissatisfaction in her anemic relationship by complaining about it to girlfriends over drinks once a week. Girlfriends who usually have similar complaints.

It might seem that a woman who wants nothing would be easy to please, but really, the opposite is true.

It may be easy enough to not displease such a person, but it is also impossible to truly please them. Whatever positive thing a partner might do can be all well and good, but none of it will be anything they deeply want. Because they don’t let themselves deeply want anything. Dates, dinner, presents, sex, these women can take or leave it any of it on any given day. And as the initial excitement of being in a new relationship wears off, they may start leaving it all more often than they take it.

What’s so wrong with having needs and goals anyway?

On the one hand, some of this is understandable: you don’t want to scare off a potential soulmate by telling them you want to get married and have children on the first date. But if you find yourself afraid to express even the little things, like where you want to go, what you want to do, and more importantly, whether or not you’re comfortable taking your date back to your place, and once you get there, what you do and don’t like in bed, you could be sabotaging the relationship from the very start.

Having wants and needs is part of being human. We all have them. They are important. They are part of what makes each one of us unique. Denying yours, pretending to like things you don’t or being afraid to claim the things you do, is the kind of dishonesty that grows with time and can eat away at what otherwise might have been a promising relationship.

Most betrayals feel small at first.

Imagine, for example, letting a date think you like eating raw oysters on a half shell because they excitedly ordered two dozen on your first date. They thought you’d appreciate their sophistication and maybe hoped the oysters would have an aphrodisiac effect to get you in the mood. You smile and try not to throw up as you choke down a few and maybe dump a few discreetly into your napkin. But you like this person anyway and they like you. How much can that one little white lie hurt? For your birthday, they get you oysters again. And again, when they take you out to celebrate your promotion. Then, for your anniversary too. Now it feels way too late to say you don’t like them. So, you keep eating them and hating them, while you try not to vomit. How many special occasions will you spend feeling nauseous just to save face? If you eventually get married, how will your beloved feel when they finally realize they’ve been forcing you to eat something you detest on every special date? They may even wonder, if you lied about that, what else have you been lying about all along?

Let’s circle back to Sally and her orgasm again for some honestly in the bedroom.

Sally showed us all how easy it is to fake an orgasm. Even in the middle of a busy restaurant. And everyone laughed. Maybe a little uncomfortably, but they laughed, because it’s funny. And it’s funny because, on some level, it’s true. Don’t most women fake it? At least some of the time? Women who are used to denying or pretending away their needs might tell themselves, it’s not that big a deal. It’s not that bad. No woman orgasms every time. Why make a big deal out of it? Besides, who wants to tell their lover they’ve been missing the mark and might need a little help finding it?

Well, just as with the raw oysters example, the longer you let this something like this go, the harder it will be to ever admit the truth. Some spouses don’t know their partner is sexually unfulfilled until they find themselves on a couch in couple’s counseling, trying to solve a problem they didn’t even know they had. Now they feel blind-sided and betrayed, as well as feeling the shame of not being the attentive lover they may have always thought they were.

If you are nodding your head reading this as you recognize something of yourself in some of these lines, don’t despair. Self-awareness is the first step to positive change. Start to notice anytime you are dishonest about your wants and needs, even in the smallest ways. This includes through omission, by not raising your hand at work or at home to say, I don’t want to do that, or that doesn’t work for me. You don’t have to take the step to correct it right away. Notice it first. Start making a list. Beside each entry, write down the flip side, what you could have said or done to clearly and honestly express your wants and needs. The next time something similar comes up, pause a moment to think about what you could do to be more honest in this situation. They start trying it out.

Having wants and needs that you honestly express doesn’t make you difficult.

It doesn’t make you undesirable. It doesn’t make you “high maintenance”. It means that you are an honest and mature adult who is taking responsibility for their own wellbeing and expects the same of any partner.

So, stop being dishonest about your wants and needs because you’re trying to be low maintenance or you don’t think your needs are important enough. It wastes your valuable time and the time of the person you’re trying to impress. Honesty is the best gift you can give anyone, because only with honesty can you build a firm foundation for a future life you’re both going to love.

https://psiloveyou.xyz/is-self-sacrifice-ruining-your-relationship-2ee77b25a6dc

The Grass Is Always Greener

September 27, 2019 // by kimberly// Leave a Comment

When we treat dating like online comparison shopping we can miss out on the most important things.

In this age of internet dating, many people bring their comparison-shopping habits to the search for love.

It’s so easy to assume that someone better is just a click or a swipe away. Sure this one looks pretty good, nice eyes, good hair, not a bad job, but then you want to check out another site to see if you can find a better deal. Maybe there will be someone with more bells and whistles, bigger muscles, a stronger chin, or maybe a career with more upward mobility? Can you “trade-up” for someone smarter, richer, or better looking? When we treat human beings like the latest electronic gadget or a new pair of shoes, we can miss out on the most important thing, true human and deep soul connection.

This belief that something better is just around the corner, is often a defense against intimacy.

When you’ve been hurt before and are afraid of being hurt again, it’s easier to think of yourself as the one in control, the shopper who sees a potential partner as easily replaceable so you can remain on the look out for a better opportunity to come along. When someone is in this situation, they often have an exit strategy for their current relationship and are quick to end things before they’ve given the other person a fair chance.

But what if the person in front of you IS your person?

It is possible to find something wrong with any living human being. None of us are perfect. All of us can grown and improve. But if you refuse a potential mate because you wish they’d go to the gym and work on shrinking those love handles just a little more, or because it’d be nice if they didn’t have that way of snorting when they laugh uncontrollably at your jokes, you maybe nitpicking against your own best interest. You may also be blind to some of the subtle but very important qualities that a particular potential partner has.

What if the thing you are ready to criticize is actually something that makes this person endearing and unique?

Would you eventually come to love that snort-laugh and do anything to earn it? The way Stephen King did with his wife Tabitha? He once admitted in an interview that with anything he wrote, his highest goal was to make his wife, always his first reader, laugh so hard she snorted through her nose.

I sometimes wonder what would have happened if some of the great romantic couples of history and fiction would have viewed each other’s profiles and each judged the other based on that.

Would Mr. Rochester, a man of means, have swiped left or right on Jane Eyre, a lowly governess? Would Cleopatra, the last of the great Egyptian Pharos, have given Marc Antony, an invading Greek, a second glance if fate hadn’t thrown them together? Would Juliet have considered Romeo for a second if she knew his family name from the start? What if she’d never had the chance to speak to him and see him as the rose before she knew any other name?

This is not to dismiss the value of dating apps. They have helped so many to connect with like-minded individuals and find the lasting love they long for. The most important thing when it comes to using technology in the quest of love is to remember that there are real people behind those photos and words. People with lives and loves and challenges like you. Being too quick to dismiss someone based on criteria that doesn’t reflect the inner person and build toward a soul connection doesn’t serve you or your quest to find your soul mate.

Try stepping back for a bit. Stop scrolling and swiping.

Focus in on someone you like, someone you get a really good feeling from. Carefully read through the things they say. Get curious. Ask the kinds of questions that help you get to know them, without thinking about the next thing you are going to say. Don’t try to impress. Listen. Allow yourself to be surprised. Even delighted, if that should happen. Be open to all the possibilities that getting to know another person offers. Maybe they won’t be the right one, but if you never give them a chance, you’ll never know.

https://medium.com/@drkimberlystearnsphd/delayed-gratification-increases-anticipation-9de045107ac8

Is Self-Sacrifice Ruining Your Relationship?

September 24, 2019 // by kimberly// Leave a Comment

Being a martyr isn’t good for you or your partner

Does it ever feel like all you do is give and give? And instead of giving back to you, all others do is take?

When you are stuck in a pattern of self-sacrifice, of ignoring your own needs for the sake of pleasing others, you’re likely to attract a partner who is selfish and greedy.

We teach others how to treat us with every interaction.

When you insist on only giving without receiving in return, when you make it clear that you will freely offer up everything you have to give with no expectation of reciprocation, you may very well attract the kind of person who wants to squeeze every last drop out of a relationship and then discard the used up partner so they can move on and do it all over again. This person may be charming and charismatic. They may be attractive and even seem kind at first. But the kind of person most likely to be attracted to a martyr tends to be the narcissist who will eagerly take all the martyr has to give.

If you recognize that you are a martyr in a relationship with a narcissist, don’t despair.

Remember that this recognition is a very important first step. It gives you the self-awareness you need to start changing your patterns and your life. If you are in an abusive relationships, whether it be physically, mentally, emotionally, or financially, please seek help immediately from the national domestic abuse hotline, local authorities, or a qualified professional.

But what if your partner isn’t a narcissist? What if they are just a normal person who has fallen into this pattern along with you?

Martyring yourself signals to those around you that you don’t believe your needs are important — that you don’t believe that YOU are important.

And if you don’t believe it, how can you expect anyone else to believe it for you? Even if you are with someone who is good and kind and wants what is best for you, you may be teaching them not to consider you, not to ever put you first because you never put yourself first. You may even be sacrificing yourself to do things for them they never asked for and don’t even want you to do. If this is the case, you may be pushing them away by making the relationship so uneven that they can never feel like they are doing enough. Especially if they are someone with a sense of healthy boundaries.

When you insist on martyring yourself in a relationship, you deprive your partner of the opportunity to give back.

You don’t allow them the joy of learning how to love and take care of you. You may have put them in the role of taking too much, whether they want to or not. They may even feel smothered by the sense of owing you more than they can ever repay. They may feel a sense of guilt that their contribution to the relationship is insignificant compared to yours.

A truly joyous relationships is one based on the free and generous exchange of energies. A give an take that flows back and forth between you. A reciprocal cycle that may not always be exactly even day by day on a score card, but that overall feels equal and good.

Trying to turn around an established relationship where you have been martyring yourself from the start can be difficult.

Once you have been in a situation like this for a while, you will start to feel exhausted and resentful. But because you are supposed to be the kind of person who always puts the needs of others first, you probably won’t express your need for rest and appreciation in a straight forward way. Instead, you become passive-aggressive because that is the only way for a martyr to express dissatisfaction without breaking out of their established martyr role.

However, shifting a martyr relationship into a healthy one can be done if both people want it.

You will have to adjust to the uncomfortable feeling of letting another do things for you, and yes, even expressing your own wants and needs with the intention of letting another fulfill them. You will have to learn how to receive, to allow another to offer you the attention, compassion, and help that you need. Your partner will have to adjust to doing things for themselves that you have been doing for them. They will have to reconnect with their own innate generocity to express their positive feelings for you through action.

Both of you will need to practice self-awareness and patience as you shift the relationship into a healthier balance, but when you get there, the energetic boost you both will experience will be worth it.

When you combine the self-awareness you have now achieved to recognize your own part in creating the self-sacrifice pattern you are in, with the self-love to set healthy boundaries and receive the love you need, and gratitude for all in your life that is good, you have the three keys necessary to change negative behavior patterns in your relationship.

https://psiloveyou.xyz/when-its-better-to-be-alone-1593c1619269

Delayed Gratification Increases Anticipation

September 21, 2019 // by kimberly// Leave a Comment

How to maximize your joy when you have to wait

Planning and anticipation

Thanks to the internet putting so much of the world at our fingertips and overnight shipping of almost anything from anywhere, we have become a society used to instant gratification. We want something, we type a little, click on a couple of links and either get it immediately or know that it is on its way. But what about the things in life that just don’t work that way?

Studies show that people who plan out vacations and events in advance spend far more time reaping joy from the occasion as they pick and choose, linger and daydream about how much they will enjoy each aspect when they eventually get there, than people who do not plan and are more spontaneous with their travel. The planners also tend to be the ones who anticipate nostalgia and respond by taking photos and bringing home souvenirs to remember how much fun they had.

By doing this they spread and multiply their pleasure across the months both before and after their trip. Overall, this tends to make them happier than people who enjoy their vacations only during the time they are there.

This new world of virtual dating can sometimes include a significant delay before potential matches meet in person. Especially if they live some distance apart. This usually occurs after both parties have gotten to know each other well enough to decide that it is worth investing the time and emotional capital in a face to face meeting.

For some, this delay seems frustrating and unnecessary, but for others, the delayed gratification of meeting someone they truly connect with first on an emotional level only heightens the pleasure with days or weeks of giddy anticipation.

Anticipating something pleasurable boosts your mood and can help you feel joy for days or even weeks prior to the pleasurable activity.

So, if you find yourself in a situation where you aren’t able to experience the gratification you seek immediately, try to think about how you can stretch the pleasure out as long as possible with positive anticipation. Make plans. Think about contingencies. Pick out clothes. Look up restaurants and scan menues. Reread the best chat messages. Rewatch that video message or Marco Polo feed when your potential match said that perfect thing. Use the time to center yourself in all the good feelings. Imagine what it will be like when you finally meet. Write poems or manifestoes. Express your feelings howsoever the mood moves you and try to squeeze the joy out of every delayed moment.

Happy dating!

https://medium.com/@drkimberlystearnsphd/accelerate-intimacy-by-traveling-with-someone-you-are-dating-25317619f03c

Scarcity Mindset

September 18, 2019 // by kimberly// Leave a Comment

How to shift into abundance

Scarcity is the feeling that something is in short supply. That there just isn’t enough to go around.

When you are in a scarcity mindset about your love life, you may feel like all the good ones are taken.

That you will never find your soulmate. You might sink into a state of hopelessness. Let’s be honest, we’ve all been there. But feeling this way isn’t going to help you find your soulmate.

Most people have at least one of those friends, the negative Nancy who always complains. When they talk, it is like listening to a litany of hard-luck stories and small daily tragedies. When you leave the encounter, you feel energetically drained. You may love and care about this person, but it is also likely that you feel sorry for them.

Pity and attraction rarely go hand in hand.

Telling yourself and everyone around you how lonely you are and how you can never find the right person can easily turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy. Who wants to be with a sad, lonely person? Hopelessness and negativity aren’t attractive to anyone. You aren’t going to find your soulmate when you are emanating that kind of negative energy.

Shift Into Abundance

This is why it is so important to shift your scarcity mindset to a mindset of abundance. The good thing is that this is easy to do. When you catch yourself having these kinds of thoughts, stop and think about all the positive relationships you already have in your life. These can be with family members, close friends, or colleagues, and mentors. You can even think about the relationships in novels or movies that you admire most. Visualize these relationships and let the warmth and good feelings they inspire flow through you.

Savor and enjoy how each of these relationships makes you feel. Focus on centering yourself in those feelings and carry them around with you throughout the day.

Each time you encounter someone you have a positive relationship with, stop to appreciate them and all the good they bring into your life. Smile at them and say something positive. If someone holds a door open for you or helps you in some way, thank them and let them know they are appreciated. By doing this you not only improve your own mood and mindset you will also probably improve their mood too.

This is how it feels to shift into abundance.

There is more than enough love and happiness to go around.

When you feel positive, happy, hopeful, and full of love for everyone you care about, others can feel it too. They smile back. They return the compliment. They tell you that they appreciate you too. Happiness is contagious and easy to spread around. It makes other people want to be around you because being in your presence makes them feel good.

Is there anything more attractive than that?

https://medium.com/@drkimberlystearnsphd/the-upside-of-virtual-dating-ce9549fe39df

When It’s Better To Be Alone

September 17, 2019 // by kimberly// Leave a Comment

It’s better to be alone than in an unhappy relationship

An unhappy relationship can suck the life out of you. It can also suck the joy out of your life and turn you into someone negative who constantly complains. Relationships aren’t easy. It takes courage and vulnerability to make them work. But if you feel like you are doing all the work and still things just won’t get better, it may be time to step away and spend your time and energy with yourself.

Being alone isn’t easy either. Fear of loneliness can drive people to jump from one unhappy relationship to another with little to no time in between to sit with yourself and figure out what you really want and need from your relationships.

Use your alone time to prepare

When you are alone it can seem like everywhere you look, the world is filled with couples. Couples holding hands as they walk toward you down the street. Couples cuddling on the park benches you pass. Couples kissing in the movie theater two rows up. If you stay single for long, friends and family may start making comments and might even try to set you up with one of the other single people they know. Like their friend Edna’s nephew from church.

When the invitation for a wedding arrives and you have to decide whether or not to bring a friend as your plus one, you might start to despair.

But don’t. Taking time between relationships to be with yourself can be highly beneficial both for you and your future partner. It provides time for reflection on the last relationship, and time to think about what you want in the future. What do you want to do differently next time? What do you need to be truly happy in the kind of relationship you want?

If you find yourself alone when you want to be with a partner, this is the perfect time to employ the Law of Attraction in your soulmate search.

Make a list.

One technique I recommend starting with is to write out a list of the attributes you are seeking in a soulmate. The list may include things like intelligence, sense of humor, charisma, or any number of positive traits.

But here’s the thing that really makes this work: while you are composing this list, do whatever it takes to put yourself in a joyful, even elated emotional state.

Put on music. Dance around. Slip on high heels and a dress that makes you feel fantastic. Get yourself really excited about meeting this potential partner. Visualize what it will be like when you are sharing your life with your future soulmate. How will they look at you? Talk to you? Touch your arm as you walk together? What kinds of things will you do together? Once you have an image clearly in mind and feel joy coursing through your body, then sit down to write the list. Make it as long and detailed as you like. The clearer the vision, the better.

Try doing this on a daily basis for 30 days.

Make room in your day each day to consciously create happiness and contemplate the love you desire. When you infuse your life with this level of joy, openness, and positive expectation daily the effects will ripple out through all aspects of your life. Not only will you feel happier, more hopeful, and ready for anything, you will be open to all the possibilities life presents you. Including the chance to find the kind of love you most want and deserve.

Happy list making.

https://medium.com/@drkimberlystearnsphd/how-to-have-more-to-be-grateful-for-9d0c4f98267

Accelerate Intimacy by Traveling with Someone You Are Dating

September 11, 2019 // by kimberly// Leave a Comment

Some tips to make your trip a success

Adventure. Wanderlust. The romance of travel. The desire to see new horizons and visit new places, to taste new flavors and see new wonders.

While travel isn’t for everyone, when you find someone you want to travel with, it can be an extraordinary, exciting, and intimate experience. It can also let you see sides of someone you might not see in the course of regular stationary dating.

When you travel with someone you are newly dating, you have the ability to get to know them very quickly in a short amount of time.

It creates a sense of accelerated intimacy.

You get to interact with them in a variety of contexts. You see them in the morning. You see them in the evening. You see them all the hours in between. You get to see how they navigate through the small stressors that occur while you are traveling. How do they handle unfortunate but sometimes unavoidable ordeals like delays, lost luggage, unexpected interruptions, and disappointing accommodations? You get the chance to see how the two of you work together in concert to overcome the challenges that arise. You can see what happens when the two of you disagree. How will you come to a compromise.

You can see how it feels to enjoy the serendipitous moments when everything goes unexpectedly well and you discover something even better than either of you could have planned.

If you are thinking of traveling with someone that you have been dating for a short time, stop and think about your hopes and expectations. Think about the best-case scenario, how good it will feel in those moments when everything goes right. Center yourself in those good feelings. Let them soak in and feel so real that it’s almost as if you are already there. This isn’t to set the expectation that nothing on the trip will ever go wrong. That would be unrealistic and you would likely feel disappointed. Instead, use this good feeling as your anchor for the trip. Be ready for everything to go right, but being in a good mood to start with will help you to deal with the small stressors that will doubtless arise with the patience and grace that you hope for from your travel partner as well.

Happy traveling.

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The Upside of Virtual Dating

September 9, 2019 // by kimberly// Leave a Comment

How dating online can reduce anxiety

The trend of virtual dating is on the rise.

It’s everywhere and it seems like everyone is doing it. And while there are some legitimate concerns about dating apps, such as people misrepresenting themselves, using the apps to cheat on partners, or sometimes even misusing the platform entirely, there are also some very big upsides to virtual dating.

For instance, people who have social anxiety or related conditions can find dating to be the most difficult of all social situations.

After all, when do any of us feel more personally vulnerable than when what we are presenting for another’s approval is nothing less than ourselves?

Anxiety is often activated by feeling a lack of control. In real life social situations that involve other people, it is hard for an anxious person to feel in control when there are so many variables at work. In the online dating world, the ability to rehearse, rewrite, and even run a particular message by a trusted friend before hitting send can help an anxious person to feel they have some measure of control. Also interacting with someone online where you can choose to pause before responding, or even stop responding all together at any point, allows for a better sense control than meeting a stranger in a common space where rejection might be not just personal, but public.

In the controlled environment of an online dating app, you can even broach the subject of anxiety and let the potential date gently know that you have a hard time in busy, noisy restaurants and loud bars or clubs and would rather meet in a quiet, coffee shop to continue an online conversation. If the potential date has a problem with this, they probably aren’t the right match and it’s better to find something like that out sooner than later. However, it is also possible to learn that your potential match shares some of your fears and will be only too happy to take things at the pace, and in the place, you choose.

If you think virtual dating might be right for you, start by getting yourself in a happy mood.

Put on your favorite music, a favorite outfit too, and think about the things that bring you joy. Then sit down and write out a list of what are looking for in a potential partner. You can start with the obvious things like an age range, career, and physical attributes, but then think about the subtler things too. Maybe you’d really like to meet someone who shares your love of gardening or musical theater. The point isn’t to get too tied to your list. Stay open to the happy surprises that come along with meeting new people. But having the list as a starting point helps.

Then think about yourself. Make another list of the things your best friends and loved ones appreciate most about you. Now you’re ready to create your profile and start filtering for the kinds of people you want to meet. Think of it as an adventure and don’t be too tied to the outcome at first. Enjoy the process. Give yourself room to explore and learn.

Happy Dating.

https://medium.com/@drkimberlystearnsphd/when-your-love-life-feels-like-groundhog-day-91aa3d89cc12

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