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Stop Waiting For People To Love You

most precious person-painting

Painting by Connor Brothers

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the things we do for love. The knots we twist ourselves into, the hoops we jump through. In the pursuit of love (affection, acceptance, and approval too), we compromise our standards and abandon our identity. We work too hard, wait too long, and people-please the hell out of ourselves.

As a dating coach, I see this happen with my clients, and not so long ago, I used to see it in myself. In my 50-year span of singleness, disappointments were plenty, and self-worth was often in short supply. I wanted to be in a relationship. I wanted to be married. I wanted to be in love. That it was taking so long had me convinced I wasn’t enough, and it confirmed my fear that love was out of reach. But it didn’t stop me from trying. During those days, I thought if I worked hard enough and waited long enough, I’d eventually become someone’s most precious person.

I eventually got married and became someone’s most precious person, and not because I waited for him to love me. Love happened because we both honored our authenticity and were honest with each other. Neither one of us had to twist ourselves into knots or jump through hoops. We accepted and loved each other exactly as we were. The key to all this was learning to accept and love myself first.

When you wait for people to love you, you wait for them to recognize, appreciate, and validate you. You wait for them to affirm and determine your worth.  Sometimes we go to great lengths to win people over, but in doing so, we risk losing our power and authentic selves.

In my coaching practice, I see people struggle with feelings of inadequacy, insecurity, and self-doubt. Add in chronic rejection and you can see how their fears are confirmed. It’s a vicious cycle I wrote about in my blog post “Put Yourself On Your Own Damn Pedestal.” In it, I talk about the danger of trying to be something you’re not for the sake of being loved.

When you wait for someone to love you, you end up handing over your dignity to the person whose approval or acceptance you so desperately seek. And it’s not just in love. People contort themselves in the name of friendship too. We bend over backwards and cross our own boundaries to be liked, or to be in certain circles. It’s exhausting and ultimately very demoralizing.

Out of curiosity I did a Google search on “How To Make Someone Love You,” and much to my dismay, I found over 1,480,000,000 search results. Apparently, there’s a whole industry devoted to being loved, by any means necessary.

Here’s a few titles I came upon:

  • 6 Scientifically Proven Ways To Make Someone Fall For You
  • How To Use Psychology To Make Someone Fall (and stay) In Love With You
  • 19 Ways To Help You “Make” Someone Love You
  • 12 Ways To Make A Woman Fall Deeply In Love With You
  • 15 Tricky Psychological Ways To Make Someone Love You
  • 6 Sneaky Ways To Get Him To Say I Love You
  • 15 Science-Backed Tips To Make Someone Love You

Reading all this broke my heart because not one of them suggested the way to get someone to love you is to simply be yourself.

Waiting for people to love you is a complete waste of your precious energy and time, not to mention a complete slap in the face to your self-respect. Dating or wanting to be friends with people who don’t feel the same way is a constant reminder of what you can’t have, even worse, that you’re unlovable–which isn’t true.

If you keep trying to be something you’re not, if you keep trying to be what you think someone wants, you will become unrecognizable to yourself, which to me, is more painful than not being loved in the first place.

So don’t hold back your truth or stifle the real you. Don’t be so fearful or self-conscious that you forget who you are. The only thing you need is conviction about who you are, and what you have to offer. Practice honest self-reflection and embrace your lovely, charming, decent, kind, intelligent, authentic self. Above all, make sure you’re connected to your worth at all times. That alone will win people over.

At the same time, dump the people-pleaser and let the approval seeker go.

It shouldn’t take long for people to see your magnificence, but if it does, you’re with the wrong people. Move on, don’t wait around. As dating advice writer Shani Silver reminds us: “Anyone you have to convince to want you is a prime candidate for deletion.”

Don’t wait to be someone’s most precious person, start right now and be your own precious person first.

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A Bad Relationship is a Terrible Thing to Waste

“You don’t develop courage by being happy in your relationships everyday. You develop it by surviving difficult times and challenging adversity.” – Epictetus

*  *  *

I have a client who just broke up with her longtime boyfriend, and even though she’s heartbroken, she knew it had to end. The relationship wasn’t healthy, nor was it empowering her emotionally. For reasons having mostly to do with her own attachment issues and codependency, she ended up overstaying her welcome, and not leaving when she should have.

After a “come to Jesus” moment with herself (and tough love from me) she managed to break it off. But unfortunately, she’s now left feeling shame, anger, and regret.

Her self-recriminations were swift and stern:“Why did I stay so long? What was I thinking? Why didn’t I see it earlier? How could I have been so stupid? What’s wrong with me?”

There’s a million questions she could’ve asked herself, and a million ways to kick herself, but there’s only one thing she really needed to do: Understand the lesson in it all.

A bad relationship is a terrible thing to waste if:

  • There were no takeaways.
  • You didn’t take responsibility for your part.
  • You didn’t take time to heal.
  • You forgot about compassion and forgiveness.
  • You didn’t recognize possible patterns.
  • There was no growth or reflection.
  • You chose another bad relationship right after, OR
  • You take the anger from your last relationship into your next one.
street-art-mural-diogo-fagundes

Beautiful things can come from bad relationships. Photo credit: Diogo Fagundes

A bad relationship can undermine your confidence and wreak havoc on your self-esteem, but if you grew and evolved because of it, or if there was something redeeming in it, then it wasn’t a waste at all.

As blogger Jessica Wildfire says:

“Every relationship trains you for the next one.
We like to write off failed relationships as a total loss. Kick ourselves for wasting time on something that doesn’t work out.
Someone who wasn’t good for us after all.
Someone who took advantage of us.
Someone who never loved us. Or just thought they did.”

I was single until I was 51, and had lot of relationships during that time—mostly good, but some bad. And by bad, I mean they didn’t go anywhere, no matter how hard I tried. Think square peg, round hole and you get the picture.

When I think about how much time I wasted on these go-nowhere relationships, I could kick myself, but I’m not going to. Instead, I’m going to congratulate myself. I managed to get through them all while learning a ton about my self-worth in the process.

Failure became my best teacher, and it can become yours too if you look at it that way.

Bad relationships may break you, but not for long. Photo credit: @anniespratt

After a bad relationship, you will feel shame, anger, and heartbreak.  You will hate yourself and your ex (or maybe still love them?) and be in so much pain you wish you could go to bed and wake up in six months like it never happened.

Hard knocks are inevitable in life, but hard feelings towards yourself are another thing. Accept that you screwed up, or got played, or made bad decisions, or stayed too long, or chose the wrong person, and be done with it.

And if you’re going to kick yourself, at least kick yourself in the right direction.

Let bad relationships guide you, not define you. Let them train and prepare you for the love that comes next. Let them build resilience, and improve your emotional fitness, because you WILL bounce back and be in better shape for it.

Then one day when that bad relationship is over, and you’re healed and healthy, happily single or partnered up, looking great and feeling strong, you’ll realize that it wasn’t so terrible after all. That bad relationship, and all the bad ones that came before it, could have actually been worth it.

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If you need help navigating the dating world, conquering single life, staying empowered, or moving forward in life, check out my private coaching services. I’m an ICF-certified life coach/dating coach with all the tools and strategies you need to achieve your personal best in life and love. Contact me here and let’s get to work.

For faster wisdom, follow me on IG @trevabme.

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Blog,Surviving Singledom,Tough Love Dating Advice
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Put Yourself On Your Own Damn Pedestal

There was a time in my life when love was so elusive, when committed relationships felt so unobtainable, and marriage so out of reach, it had me convinced I wasn’t good enough, and that everyone was too good for me.

I was in my late 40s, still single, and on a horrible losing streak. Nonstarters and strikeouts characterized my dating life, and disappointment ruled the day. The worst thing about that time is the damage it did to my self-concept. Repeated rejections got into my head and messed with my mind. They made me question my attractiveness, doubt my desirability, and lose my ability to be my authentic self.

At 51, I finally tied the knot, and now at 57, I look back on those years and know exactly what went wrong. My need for approval was so misplaced, and my desire to get married was so ridiculous, it clouded everything, especially my priorities.

I put guys first. Big mistake.

When you worry too much about someone liking you, you forget to like yourself. You forget how to be yourself. You lose yourself. You forget where your power is, and why you were giving it away in the first place. When you put someone on a pedestal, you lower yourself; when you make someone more important, you diminish your own importance; when you come from a place of inadequacy, everyone seems better than you.

Insecurity + intimidation = inhibition. It’s unsustainable for dating and relationships.

There’s danger in believing negative narratives about yourself, especially because it can become self-fulfilling. Here’s what it looks like: your fear of not being attractive/charming/smart/whatever enough undermines your confidence, which in turn sabotages your relationships, which makes your worst fears come true.

I told you, it messes with your mind.

Hear this and believe it: YOU’RE ENOUGH AS YOU ARE. No one is ever too good for you, and no one is out of your league. Furthermore, don’t think for one second that guy or girl you like doesn’t have flaws and problems and issues that make them not so hot. No one is perfect, so stop handing them your power and making them boss. There should always be balance and equal footing, and if there isn’t, you’re in the wrong relationship with yourself.

Because it’s so easy to get down on yourself when you’re single–especially if you’ve been single a long time—it’s crucial that you take stock of your greatness. And by greatness, I mean every little wonderful thing about you, every little thing you’re proud of, every little thing that makes you fucking great. Remember, there’s no one like you. And when you know what you’ve got, no one, not even your own mind, can mess with you.

The question shouldn’t be: “Do they like me?” It should be “Do I like them?” The question should be “Are they worthy and deserving of me?” Not the other way around. It’s a privilege to date you, know you, be with you, but you need to be convinced of that first.

This brings me to the subject of self-acceptance vs. self-improvement.

As a life coach and former fitness professional, I’m in the business of self-improvement. I believe in it, preach it, and practice it. I’m a big fan of doing the work. There’s always room for improvement, always room to get stronger, fitter, more confident, productive and empowered, but there’s also room to be more accepting of yourself. Being able to love yourself, even if you don’t lose a pound, make more money, find a boyfriend, or get married. The truth is, there is nothing sexier than self-acceptance, because when you have it, the people you date feel it.

If you want to improve, do it for your own sense of accomplishment, not because you think it’ll make you more lovable. Remember, the only approval and validation you need comes from you first. And it shouldn’t be hard, because you’re already pretty fucking great as is.

But if you forget, I’m here to tell you: it’s time to put yourself on your own damn pedestal.

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Falling In Love Is Scary AF

Falling in love is a death-defying act.

You’re head-over-heels, topsy-turvy, with zero gravity, zero certainty, and no way of knowing which way is up.

When you fall in love, you have no control, no grip, no balance. You’re vulnerable, powerless, dizzy, exposed. You don’t know how you’ll land, where you’ll land, or if you’ll land safely.

You take a chance when you fall in love. You throw caution to the wind. You leap and hope the net shall appear. You open your heart, cross your fingers, and hope not to die.

Falling in love is risky business and scary as fuck.

For a control freak with an anxious attachment style, falling in love always caused too much stress. Were those butterflies in my stomach or gastritis? Was my heart aflutter or was it anxiety? Was I high on life, or was it the weed calming me down? Don’t get me wrong, I love LOVE, but I hated falling into it.

Love fucks with your head, and it’s not my imagination. According to science, falling in love causes all kinds of crazy changes in your brain chemistry, which Dr. Rosemary Guerguerian MD explains:

“When you first fall in love, your heart may also be pounding. You might have sweaty palms and nervous butterflies. You might feel exhilarated, elated, and full of energy. This is the effect of norepinephrine, a neurotransmitter closely related to increased levels of dopamine. Norepinephrine controls the fight-or-flight response. It makes us hyperalert during times of stress–so you may notice you feel unable to eat or sleep. Love is a stress we actually crave and search for the world over.”

I’ve been in love enough times to know it’s an exquisite experience, but it also triggers fear of rejection. This lead me to OCD-level worry and rumination: I wonder if he’s into me? I wonder if it will last? I wonder how he feels? I wonder if he’ll call? I wonder if I’ll ever stop wondering?

Even as the relationship started to develop, there’d be a whole new list of things to worry about: What if he loses interest? What if we don’t share the same goals? What if I’m honest and he thinks I’m nuts? What if he finds out I’m not perfect?

What I should’ve been wondering is: Where the hell was my self-worth?

Why was I so worried about someone liking me, when it should’ve been the other way around? Why was I allowing a guy to determine my value? Why was I waiting for someone’s approval, when all I had to do was give it to myself?

It took me until I was 51 to get married, and it took me about that long to understand the problem: When you lack confidence, when you question your worth, and when you look outside of yourself for validation, falling in love will always be frightening.

And if you’re still nervous or fearful after the initial love high wears off, if you’re still in fight or flight mode and your heart’s still pounding as the relationship goes on, you’re either with the wrong person, in the wrong relationship, or you need to book an appointment with me.

Falling might be scary as fuck, but love should be as uneventful as hell. It took work on myself and finding a good man to tell me this is true. You shouldn’t feel unsafe, and your palms shouldn’t still be sweating beyond the first few weeks of a new relationship.

Whether you’re dating, in a relationship, married, or in the middle of a break-up, having a strong safety net of self-worth underneath you will save the day. Having your own sense of security is what will bring calm and stability into your partnership, or single life.

The truth is, there are no guarantees when it comes to love. We all take our chances; we throw caution to the wind and leap.

Falling in love shouldn’t feel like a high-wire act. It shouldn’t give you gastritis or anxiety, or make you need a bong hit just to deal. It shouldn’t make you question yourself or worry incessantly. When I finally met someone who accepted my neuroses and imperfections, it all became clear AF:

If you accept yourself first, and your partner does too, you know you fell for the right person.

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I’ve Co-Hosted A Podcast About Love For A Year, Here’s What I’ve Learned

It began five years ago when I got married for the first time at 51. My husband, also a marriage first-timer, was 57.

I thought it was an interesting story. Here we are, two people in our 50s, with no exes, no kids, no baggage (emotional, maybe) manage to find each other after a lifetime of looking.

To tell the story, I created the blog The Late Blooming Bride, which documented my journey from single life to first-time midlife wife. It included dating tales, my relationship fails, bad choices, breakups, dating advice, and menopause. I shared my pain, triumphs, night sweats, and never skimped on honesty.

A year ago, the VoiceAmerica Talk Radio Network contacted me to see if I’d want to turn the blog into a podcast. I agreed, but only if my husband Robby could join me. “Dating advice podcaster” seemed to fit with the other hats I wear as life coach, dating coach, and fitness professional, so we said yes and they said yes.

So began “Done Being Single,” a podcast that covers all aspects of dating, being single, and finding love later in life. I like to joke that between Robby and me, we have a combined 107 years of single life under our belt. We were pros at being single, and we know our shit.

After being in the dating trenches for so long, Robby and I come to the podcasting world with tons of knowledge and wisdom about love, but we’ve had help along the way in the form of top notch therapists, relationship experts, personal development influencers, and thought leaders of all kinds, who’ve come on the show to share their wisdom. All of our guests have given us incredible insight, for which we are grateful.

In the year we’ve been on the air, we’ve amassed over 80K active listeners, and recorded close to 50 episodes, ranging from sex tips to self-improvement, prenups to personal growth, manscaping to money, dating intervention to dating single parents.

The following is a snapshot of what I’ve learned from some of our guests (included are links to their full interviews):

Gay & Katie Hendricks, personal growth pioneers, authors

“Everything You Want Is On The Other Side Of Fear”

http://bit.ly/2P8iLAJ

Love is a fear-based emotion. People have a fundamental fear of getting close, a fear of criticism, and a fear of not being enough; they despair and feel helpless. Gay & Katie describe limiting beliefs about love as “Upper Limit Problems,” self-sabotage when things start to go well. When you feel unlovable, think of someone you love–a friend or a mate–and love yourself just like that.

Arielle Ford, relationship expert, author, personal development teacher

“The Magic Is In You”

http://bit.ly/2uXcr5K

Arielle, one of the original practitioners of the “Law of Attraction,” believes our ability to love matches our state of being. We draw people, places, and experiences that align with our vibration. If you think you’re a loser or unlucky, that will be your experience, and you’ll manifest those unconscious beliefs and thoughts. You need clarity about what you desire, believe that it’s already yours, then take action steps to manifest it.

Lori Gottlieb, psychotherpist and best-selling author

“Is Good Enough, Good Enough?’

http://bit.ly/2UM5dQo

Our episode with Lori was about settling, not lowering your standards, but having higher standards about the things that matter to you. People need to change the way they think about settling. If you settle for less, you’ll not only compromise to be with another human being (because humans are imperfect) someone’s going to compromise to be with you. There is no perfect person, but there is someone perfect for you.

Guy Finley, self-help writer, spiritual teacher

“Admit It, You Suck At Relationships”

http://bit.ly/2Gcuw61

Guy believes love is about fulfilling expectations, and seeing our partners as a special kind of mirror. The things we see in them that disappoint us–their faults or limitations–are actually things we see in ourselves that we blame on them. No one can disappoint you without your permission. No relationship can grow when blame is the game two people play. We get too attached and dependent on our partners for our happiness.

Dr. Karin Anderson Abrell, psychologist, author, podcaster, fellow late blooming bride

“The Best/Worst Dating Advice You’re Ever Going To Hear”

http://bit.ly/2Uch5qw

Love can’t fix people, nor can you heal people with your love. It’s not your job, and it’s not sustainable. If someone is a project, they’re not your partner, and they will never be emotionally at your level. If you’re thriving in terms of your own growth and development, that’s the kind of person you will attract. “Water seeks its own level,” as she says. Fixing someone never works, because once you fix the fixer upper, the dynamics aren’t going to work anymore.

Ken Page LCSW, psychotherapist and author

“Forget New Years Resolutions, Make Valentine’s Resolutions”

http://bit.ly/2IosFMV

People are victimized by dating advice that says you’re not sexy enough, feminine enough, confident enough, etc, Fixing those things in order to find love is just a path to hell, as Ken says. It looks like self-help, but it’s really self-hate. If you really want to find love, you’ve got to work less on your attractiveness, and more on your attractions. Ask yourself: With whom does my heart feel safe? With whom does my heart feel right? When that becomes your question or filter, your search for love will change.

Lou Paget, sex educator

“Everything You’ve Always Wanted To Know About Sex But Were Afraid To Ask”

http://bit.ly/2IkghyA

The best partners aren’t the best looking, or have the best so-called body parts, the best partners are secure with themselves. Everyone wants to be loved, they want to love, they want to be heard, they want to be understood, and they want to know they’re making a contribution. Be honest with yourself, and about what you want. Honesty is your most seductive behavior, nothing has more magnetic appeal than for someone to see you as you are.

Allana Pratt, intimacy expert

“Too Picky, Or Not Picky Enough?”

http://bit.ly/2VxYJBP

Allana says love can’t happen if we’re not in communion with ourselves. We need to be present, secure, and have a connection with self. We wear masks, create limiting beliefs, put up obstacles, and make excuses not to get vulnerable. When we seek love and approval, we give our power away, and hold people responsible for our happiness. We need to let go of judgment of self, and feel the divine on the inside.

Of all the lessons I learned about love though, here’s the biggest:

How you love and who you love, all comes down to SELF-WORTH.

No shocker there, but after interviewing the best in the business, and hearing the stories, complaints, and experiences of our listeners, I can confirm that love is all about how you value yourself, and what you feel you deserve.

No matter what we talk about on the show, no matter who the guest is, no matter where the conversation goes, it always circles back to self-worth.

Another thing I’ve learned about self-worth? You can never have enough of it. So go love and have love, just start with yourself first.

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Tune into Done Being Single www.donebeingsingle.com.

To learn about Treva’s coaching services, visit www.trevabrandonscharf.com.

 

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Blog,Late Blooming Wisdom,Midlife Musings,Surviving Singledom