Live LOVE Empowered
Brought to you by Live Life Empowered By Nancy Gass
1. Dating (like dieting😉) does NOT work!
Let’s face it. Dating, especially online dating, USUALLY does not work. Why?! Well, first of all, it is intentional. Love rarely happens intentionally. It is more like lightning striking you when you least expect it. At least, that is the way it happened to me the first time.
More importantly though, dating is like a JOB, ugh! If you have ever tried online dating or dating apps, you know EXACTLY what I am talking about. So why does it NOT work when it is like a job?! Well, if you are a high functioning AKA high value woman in today’s world, you take your jobs seriously and you give 110%. The problem with doing that in the dating world is that makes you appear needy, clingy, lonely, desperate, and like you are chasing the man. That naturally pushes him away. It turns him off which increases the likelihood he will become emotionally unavailable to you, especially if he himself is emotionally healthy, and that will likely create a “situationship.”
Why?! Because even though he is turned off and given the impression that you are not emotionally healthy, men still want the physical if they can get it, especially if it is easy, and if you want him, he automatically is led to believe it will be easier to “get you.” The thing is, this may not be what you want or intend, and he may not be the “bad guy” we portray him to be, and yet the dynamic still happens over and over again. Ugh.
2. Not dating makes it far MORE likely that you will find TRUE love
While it may seem like playing games, it really is not. When you give up looking for love, you are truly submitting to the universe, God I believe, and letting things fall into place. This is how it happens. People always say “it happens when you least expect it” and yet, it is SO hard to let go of wants and expectations. We live in a world where we assert control, fight for what we want, say what we believe, and empower ourselves.
We also live in a world that gives us WAY more instant gratification than is good for us, and yet it continues to entice us with the idea we can grab love and get it when we want, where we want and how we want. Yet that is just NOT true. It leads to all kinds of problems and frustrations; unhealthy dynamics and unwelcome advances.
The harder we try, the more we are vulnerable to attention-seeking which only leads us further astray. I mean, let’s face it, if we are a female with a female body, men will want us. That is just biology. And yet, when we go about attracting them the wrong way, we receive the wrong result. And we go downhill in all the ways. But what if it did not have to be like that?!
If we truly understood our feminine power, we would own the fact that we really do not have to do anything; men NATURALLY want us. If you let nature play out, it will sort out on its own. Which is when love happens that feels like magic. Agh, it is SO good. The key is patience, letting go and learning how to TRULY be happy on your own. This is easier for some than others.
One way is identifying gratitude; all the reasons it is BETTER that you are alone (single). For an introvert like me, when I realized this, it was actually super easy. For an extravert, it is more challenging, but the good thing is they can fill their time and energy with friends and family, this is how life is supposed to be. It is about support and community. If you feel lonely and isolated, especially as an extravert, you will send all the wrong signals because you will be seeking this in your dating life, seeking support and sociality, but you do not NEED a man for that; you just need to find your community, your people, and support will solve itself in that experience. Done.
I have spent nearly NINE years of widowhood lacking the support system to do this effectively. Until I finally realized the problem. In my case, part of the problem was I had unwittingly been absent a support system BEFORE my soulmate came along, so he became THE ONE in more ways than one, and when I lost him, man, did I lose it all! UGH! I lost my soulmate, my support system, my community (in my mind), my career, my partner, my best friend, and I damn near lost my mind.
It was never right for him to be EVERYTHING to me. It was totally codependent. I could not see that though until all these years later. I had idealized what I had so much and just begged God to bring me a chapter two that would be the same for me as you probably want for you. But no, God KNOWS better! If we get emotionally healthy first, love can be SO much more than codependency. It can be SO good because when we are better, we attract better, and when the two of us are better, the love is exponentially better.
3. Dating takes time and energy away from YOU!
If a man wants you, he will chase you. He WILL pursue you. He will see your value, admire you, and do whatever it takes to make you his. You do not have to give your time and energy at your own expense. This is a HUGE gift because it means you can focus all your time and energy on YOU. You can spend your time on your own personal development, emotional health, physical and mental well-being, and pursuing your hobbies and what brings you joy or sets your soul on fire.
Now I have to address one element of working on yourself. I do NOT mean dieting, losing 10 pounds, losing 50 pounds, toning up, etc. You do NOT have to do any of that to find the right man. I mean, being healthy matters right?! Well, yes, work on being physically healthy, but do it for YOU, not to meet the right man. And do NOT do it through dieting. Dieting in my mind has always stood for “die today” whereas the best way to pursue your best self is to “die living.” I love that phrase. It means so much to me because we truly never know how much time we have left. In the words of Muhammad Ali, “Don’t count the days; make the days count!” When you truly live life this way you become highly attractive. You raise your vibrations and feel good in a way you might never have imagined before.
In order to do this though, you have to accept yourself NOW. Not when you lose 10 pounds, but today! You have to realize you are already worthy; you are already enough, and very importantly, you have to realize that it is not your weight or your appearance that is holding you back. When you really soak in the fact that your weight, dress size and appearance are not what is stopping you, then you can focus on other things; the things that truly make you happy. This will make you happy which will make you attractive because in the end we are not really searching for a partner, we are searching for happiness.
Men only want the same. So when you are happy, men will naturally be attracted to you and then you can peruse the playing field for the men that add to your happiness instead of seeking a man to give you happiness. And you can no longer get anxiously attached to men who do not treat you right because you will very quickly feel if they are not making you happy and if they are not, they never will so pursuing them is no longer a helpless habit that ensnares you.
It took me nearly a decade to understand that I have body dysmorphic disorder; I am malignantly struggling with my self-image, my obsession with keeping my body size small, my dress size down, and searching for the number on the scale that will make me “lovable.” UGH. And yet, when I met my soulmate, I weighed 157, the same as my current weight, and he thought I was AMAZING. I thought he somehow was tricked into thinking I was pretty because I just could NOT see it for myself.
The problem with my false thinking was not just that it was shame-based, self-deprecating, insecure and unattractive. It was also “outcome-based thinking” which leads to all kinds of problems. Outcome-based thinking leads to expectations and expectations lead to resentments. These things lead to unhealthy relationship dynamics that just fuel MORE shame.
Obviously more shame fueled more of my inner dialogue encouraging the idea that I had to change BEFORE a man could fall in love with me. This has created a vicious and self-destructive cycle that has lasted years. Yet with social and cultural influences and the deep-rooted habits and insecurities I carried in my rearview mirror, I continued to live this life. Until one day, clarity came and I could finally see the truth. It was never what I looked like that really mattered; it was what I THOUGHT about what I looked like.
This is why men often fall in love with and chase terrible women who are takers, losers, not very bright and often not even very attractive. It is NOT because these women actually hold a candle to us; it is that these women BELIEVE they are something special.
When will it be time for you to THINK and BELIEVE you ARE special?! You ARE beautiful?! The time is NOW (Not One Wasted moment more of thinking you are anything less than AMAZING!)
Now let’s look at the alternative in its’ best case scenario: say you don’t believe me and you continue to aspire to lose weight, improve your appearance and make yourself “enough” for a man to come along and love you the way you always wanted him to, what happens then? Is it a “happily ever after” fairytale? NO!
Why you ask? Shouldn’t it be? It is only logical in our mind when we think this way. However, the problem if you get to the goal is that you will start receiving all sorts of attention, but not because you are necessarily hotter than you were before, but because you BELIEVE you are hotter than before, you believe you are now worthy and special and sexy ENOUGH. And yet, the attention you receive will be emotionally linked to your “perceived superficial success” which means that all that attention you are getting is only for physical reasons and therefore it is really empty and over time becomes boring, demeaning, and unsatisfying in a way you never would have expected until you got there yourself.
Then what are you left with?! A whole bunch of attention from the wrong guys seeking the wrong things. That leads you to wishing and hoping for someone who would come along and want you for who you really are, underneath your appearance. And then you realize, you don’t want someone who wants you for superficial reasons; you want someone who sees the real you, but when you go on dating apps and really work to date, all people seem to see is the superficial; and for this reason, success seems to elude us. So what is the solution?!
Once again, give up dating for good. Develop your friendships, relationships, support system and presence in your community. When you do this, people will get to really know you for you and that is when the right man will make his appearance, and he will fight for you; he will pursue you because he will know that you are not just special; you, my dear, are MAGIC!
By the way, what exactly is it about those women who are actually NOT that great, that makes them so irresistible to men and how can you become irresistible?! It is the secret truth that men are actually JUST as vulnerable as we are, and when a woman believes she is highly valuable the man cannot help but believe she is highly valuable. If this feels like a head game to you, let me tell you why exactly it is NOT at all: 1) You have to actually believe it, not just pretend, and 2) It is ACTUALLY true, you ARE high value and not like those worthless women that men chase mindlessly so you are not playing games, you are owning your feminine power and inherent worthiness. And 3) Whatever man falls for you because of your newly acquired irresistibility is not being toyed with because, given who you are, when he pursues you and wins your heart, you know you will treat him better than anyone ever has so trust me, you are doing him a favor! Unlike all the girls that came before you, you, my dear, will never take him for granted!
So, what happens if you give up dating for good? You are FAR more likely to meet your soulmate and have the life of your dreams. Why?! Because you get out of your own way and get to enjoying life the way you are meant to which will make you highly attractive to the men around you; the key is being ACCESSIBLE. Men have to be able to see you, to know you exist, to admire you either from close up or afar, because if they do not know you exist then yes, you will never get anywhere in the love game. That is pretty obvious. In closing, quit dating, quit chasing any men, learn to live and love your life and yourself, enjoy each day, pursue healthy relationships with friends and family, hobbies that make you happy and just wait: Your dreams are all about to come true! Remember, YOU are magic!
