In today's podcast, we take you through what we have found to be the 5 essential elements to creating a happy and healthy love life.
We discuss the many things that get in the way of love and we show you how to clear the blocks to allow love to flow more freely in and out of your life. Or rather, how to be your own love factory!
Listen in, try out some of the exercises and let us know how you get on!
x Selina and Vicki
One of the mistakes we make in relationships is that we assume others show love in the same way we do. And if they don’t, we wonder…
Where did the love go?
We know that good communication is absolutely essential for a happy and healthy relationship but while this is relatively easy to understand, it’s not so easy to put into practice.
Why? Because we all express love in different ways.
And according to Dr Gary Chapman (who helps millions of couples find the love they thought was lost), there are exactly 5 ways that we express our love. He calls these love languages. And just like with language, there are many different dialects or iterations within those 5 too (which explains the various articles that claim there are 100’s of ways to express your love!)
So if we think about how we learn languages. Most of us grow up learning the language of our parents and this becomes our primary language. Let’s say this is English. Now, further down the line we may learn a secondary language like German. Now even though we can speak both English and German, we’ll find it much easier to speak English and we’re way more comfortable speaking it over German.
If we then hang out with someone who speaks Chinese but we don’t speak Chinese then our conversation will be limited. And it will all be a bit awkward to try and talk to them (pointing, gesturing. mumbling - you get the gist).
If we wish to communicate with the person who speaks Chinese, we must learn to speak and understand Chinese.
In love it’s similar. We all have our own emotional love language. Now your love language and the one of your lover, friend or any kind of relationship in your life may be as different as English to Chinese. If that person only understands Chinese and you keep speaking to them in English then you’ll never understand how to love them.
So what can we do about it?
Well we can learn our lovers primary love language and adopt it as our secondary love language. All we need is curiosity, willingness and an open heart and mind to experiment with it.
In love, the languages are:
Any of these sound familiar?
If not, you can take the test and find out what your love language is here
Rarely do we have the same primary love language as the people we have relationships with. We tend to speak our language and then we get frustrated or confused when that person doesn’t understand us.
Let me give you an example…
If you absolutely LOVE to be showered in compliments and to receive gushy text messages from your loved one and that makes you feel like you’ve been showered in gold (which is how Project Love's Selina Barker likes her love to be delivered!) . Then your primary love language is “Words of Affirmation”. But, if the way your partner feels love is when you give them your undivided attention and spend quality time with them, their primary language is “Quality Time”. So in order for you to express your love, you need to give them this time, so phones and laptops away, TV off, just listening to them, empathising, asking questions and really engaging with them with no distractions.
So don’t assume the love language that others speak is the same as your own. And I’m talking about any relationship in your life, so not just romantic ones but also friendships, family relationships and even work relationships.
When you’re speaking their language, think of it like you’re filling up their emotional love tank.
So keep the love tank full and see what a difference it makes to your relationships!
V x
Challenge – find out what your love language is and the one of your lover, friend, family member and try speaking their language for 30 days. Let us know how you get on, over on FB or Twitter - we bet it will transform your relationships!
Why are you still single?
Really why?
I bet people say to you that they are amazed you’re still single. That they can’t believe men aren’t banging down your door to get a date with you.
So why aren’t they? Why are you still single?
Stop and have a think about it
Are you too intimidating to men?
Have you left it too late so that all the good guys have now been taken?
Do you only seem to attract assholes?
Are you not what men view as ‘relationship material’?
Are you just not the kind of woman guys fancy?
Are men too spoilt for choice and don’t seem to want to commit?
(insert your reasons here)
My main one – one which I didn’t much like to admit to, but deep down knew was true – was that I just wasn’t the kind of woman that guys fancied.
How did I know this? Because there was a LOT of evidence to back it up.
I never got asked out on dates, never got chatted up, I never caught guys checking me out and I had been rejected by enough guys to convince me of this fact.
And I wasn’t alone in feeling like this.
Ask most women why they’re still single, what they think the real reason is and the answers they give will either see it being a problem with them (not being enough or being too much) or a problem out there in the world (either with men or modern life), that’s making meeting-the-right-guy almost impossible for someone like them.
And that is why, when we first start working with women to sort out their love lives, we head straight for this list of reasons and start our work there.
Because here’s the thing: as real as these reasons might really feel to you when you’re in this situation and as much as you might think you have plenty of evidence to back them up, THEY ARE NOT THE REASON YOU ARE SINGLE.
None of them. They about as real as suggesting you are single because you like apples or because your favourite colour is blue.
It’s nonsense.
The real reason you are single isn’t actually any of the reasons you’ve listed.
The real reason you are single is because you believe those reasons to be true.
And the chances are, you’ve conveniently chosen reasons that leave you believing that you’re almost entirely powerless to be able to do anything about your love life.
It’s full-blown self-sabotage.
You’ve wrapped yourself up so firmly in a web of limiting and negative beliefs about yourself, about what’s out there and about men as a whole that you wouldn’t see love if it was banging on your door trying to take you out on a date.
Because you’re already committed.
Committed to being right about not being enough, about not being loveable and about circumstances being pitted against you.
And it is THAT that is screwing up your love life.
Those limiting and negative beliefs that you are stubbornly believing in are having a huge and negative impact on your actions, your choices and your behavior around your love life. They are determining the kind of person you’re attracted to and the kind of person who is going to be attracted to you.
And not in a good way.
Think about it. If for example you think guys don’t fancy you or are intimidated by you, how are you going to be acting, what body language are you going to be giving off, what signals are you going to be putting out there?
And so what do you think you’re going to get back?
It’s something we seem to forget: that our beliefs create our reality
If you want to change anything in your life then you have to take a look at your mindset and the beliefs you have running the show.
And your love life is no different. First you have to take a look at the beliefs you’re living by: the reasons why you believe you are still single and haven’t found love yet.
And then challenge every single one of those beliefs. Flip them on their head. You’ve been brilliant at finding evidence to back those beliefs up. Now be brilliant at finding evidence to the contrary.
I’ll give you an example: let’s say you think you’re still single because ‘men are intimidated by strong, confident women’.
Now think of all the friends you have that are in happy relationships with guys you like. Are all these women weak and unconfident? You can’t think of a single person you know or who you have ever met who is strong and confident like you and in a happy relationship?…
Exactly.
See how full of holes your argument is?
And yet you’ve been living by that belief. And it is THAT that has been getting in the way of you finding your way into a happy and healthy relationship and not your strong character or whatever else you thought was the problem.
So now you’ve busted through your first limiting belief you can move onto the next one and do the same with that, until you’ve been through every reason on your list and busted through the lot of them.
As you do this you create the space to now fill with new beliefs that actually support you in finding the loving partner you’re looking for.
You do that by finding lots of inspiration and evidence that proves that finding love absolutely IS possible for someone like you. Focus your attention on all the women like you who ARE in great relationships. Listen to real love stories of how people like you have met their loved ones in all manner of different ways and focus your attention on all the good quality men out there (regardless of whether you fancy them or not) who are also single, reminding you that there are still plenty of good guys out there (who could be just around the corner!)
Because as soon as you start to believe in it, as soon as you start to realize how possible it really is, then your actions, your choices and the whole vibe you are giving off will shift from hopeless, frustrated and powerless (which will be attracting the wrong kinds of guys) to positive, relaxed and ready.
Once you do that, you probably won’t be single for much longer…
X Selina
This week, we're joined by Helen Johnson from Goddess Acumen, who gives us an insight into how we can unleash our inner goddess to experience more freedom in our love lives. And she's offering Project Lovers a special discount of 25% off her Goddess Discovery Sessions (just mention us when you book)
When you imagine finding a partner, do you really know what you’re looking for? Do you sometimes feel stuck or frustrated by not having your needs met or by not even knowing what they are in the first place?! Goddess Acumen aims to help women to connect with different aspects of their femininity in order to find more clarity, balance, and focus.
Goddess Acumen is all about understanding, exploring and balancing the different aspects of our femininity through the mythology of six Greek Goddesses. Each of these Goddess energies resides within us and combines in a way that is unique to the individual. By helping each aspect to thrive, we thrive ourselves.
Each Goddess has a different style of loving, different desires, and a different way of relating to her man. So if our Goddess energies aren’t fixed then this means that the way we relate to men may also shift and change… (I’m pretty sure no one will be shocked by that idea!). The question is, which Goddess is ruling your love life right now and what does she need?
If you don’t know which Goddess is strongest in you, head here and take the quiz or meet the goddesses below and see which one speaks to your heart…
Are you looking for a meeting of minds? Someone who can match you and tackle the world head on - a comrade in arms? Someone who respects your independence and helps you to succeed in the world of work? Well, this is the Athena in you – the Goddess concerned with career, social progress, and the intellect. In her men, an Athena woman will seek out someone who can stimulate her mind, sometimes at the neglect of (ahem) stimulating her body. Finding balance will mean letting in some romance and sensuality… but never at the expense of a beautiful mind.
Do you like to bring out both the macho and softer side of your man in equal measure? Do you lead with your heart? Do you thrive on the emotion and sensuality of relationships? Well helloooo Aphrodite - goddess of love, beauty, sexuality and pleasure. Your sensuality is intoxicating but your willingness to give away your heart can lead to pain when your lover backs away from building something more lasting. Finding balance for Aphrodite means to embrace the aspects of life that are less about seeking pleasure and more about constructing a solid partnership (Aphrodites out there probably want to yawn right about now!).
Do you really look after and nurture the people you love? Deep down, are you looking for a provider? Is home and family where you truly feel at peace? This is the Demeter in you, the earth mother and nurturer. You make a great partner because you are so good at looking after people and making them feel your love. However, sometimes you can be more like a mother than a partner, or focus too much on your home and family at the expense of other aspects of life. Finding balance for Demeter means to allow yourself to step out of this caring role and embrace aspects of true partnership with your chosen man – cultivate a friendship and a sense of adventure outside of the home.
Do you sometimes prefer solitude? Would you rather be traipsing through the wilderness with your man than getting to know his heart and mind? Do you want someone who matches your sense of independence and freedom? If you’re feeling the call of the wild, this is Artemis - the lone huntress, at one with nature, and sometimes disconnected from relationships and people. Woes betide any man in your life who does not treat you as an equal. In fact, you’re not really one for putting up with any vanity or nonsense and so will choose the most down-to-earth man you can find. Finding balance for Artemis means allowing yourself to soften a little and let people in.
Do you know how to get people to listen and do as you say? Are you always pushing those around you to be the best? Do you like men with influence and power? If you are answering yes then you probably already know that you are channelling the Queenly Goddess of power, influence and social prestige – Hera.
You want a man who can offer you the kind of social position and community that you crave. Time wasters and drifters need not apply. You want to see your family achieve and expand, creating a strong structure around you – with you at the heart of it. Finding balance for Hera means to take the focus off the community and structures surrounding you and instead to focus on relating to your partner from the heart.
Are you looking for someone sensitive and aware? Is love for you something mystical, beyond just two individuals? Do you want someone who will help to expand your soul? Soul searching is the realm of Persephone, Goddess of the underworld, the mystical and the departed. Persephone’s sensitivity and depth can mean that you have problems with boundaries and you may find yourself getting too enmeshed with your partner.
You could also be attracted to broken souls and may subject yourself to a lot of pain as you try to bring out the best in a man who may simply not be capable. Finding balance for Persephone will mean to learn to separate both yourself and your feelings from those of your partner (or desired partner) – to encourage individuality within the relationship.
The Goddess energies within will shift and change over time, demanding attention and understanding and challenging you in your relationships – and some may always remain stronger than others! My tips for finding healthy Goddess intimacy are:
1. BALANCE. It’s been mentioned plenty of times throughout this post – the best way for love to thrive is to keep an eye on each of these energies and work towards finding balance.
2. COMMUNICATION. Figure out what energies are at play and then communicate your needs to your partner (and if you are alone, to yourself). Simple but effective…
3. GROWTH. Choose a partner who is curious and up for working at a relationship. As these energies shift and change, you want a partner who is up for the adventure!
At Goddess Acumen, I work with women who are feeling stressed, stuck, out of balance, and maybe a little lost or uninspired,
Many women who come to me want to make positive changes in their lives, are going through transitions, or wish to release old ‘stuff’ that no longer serves them. I help them to find a greater sense of freedom, purpose and balance.
Please get in touch if you would like to discover tapping – a remarkably effective technique for releasing negative thoughts, beliefs and emotions – and unleash your Inner Goddess. If you mention Project Love, I will give you 25% off a Goddess Discovery Session.
When there is a big change that you want to see happen in your life then setting clear goals are incredibly powerful to help get you from where you are to where you need to be.
But when it comes to your love life, isn’t it a bit un-romantic to plan your future in this way?
Well think of it this way, how can you hit your target when you don’t know where you’re aiming?
Or to put it more eloquently:
“If you aim at nothing, you will hit it every time”
Maybe goals are just dreams with deadlines?
And by setting deadlines, it helps to focus our energy in positive directions
So when it comes to love, what do you dream of, deep in your heart?
Is it a partner in life who you can have never-ending adventures with? Is it a partner that you can grow a family with? Is it a loving and healthy relationship that you feel both safe and free in?
Now daring to dream and getting clear on what it is you really want is incredibly important when bringing about a change in your life. However, you can have all the dreams in the world, but if you don’t act on them, how will you get to where you want to go?
Well consider goals to be your stepping stones to get there.
Ok, so how do you actually set those goals?
Well this exercise is one that we give to all of our clients when we start working with them.
Go through all of the different levels below and note down where you want to be at each stage. Dream big! It doesn’t matter if they sound wafty because big dreams can be broken down into smaller chunks. We’ll show you how…
Meet Lara, she’s 32, bit of a high flyer in her career, enjoying her success but the stress that comes from the job is starting to become unmanageable. The sense of purpose that came through work just isn’t enough anymore and it now feels like something is missing. She knows something needs to change. She’s had a history of non-starter relationships and worries that she’s running out of time to meet someone, settle down and start a family…
Where do I want to be in 25 years?
I’ll be happily married with three kids, living in the countryside / by the sea. I’ll be working from home part-time with some side projects. My free time would be spent with my husband and kids, pursuing hobbies and seeing friends.
Where do I want to be in 5 years?
I’ll be married to my best friend – my partner in crime. We’ll be getting to grips with being new parents and enjoying the adventure. I’ll be working less hours and starting to wind down in my career. We would be thinking about moving out of the city for a less hectic life. We’d be in a good place financially
Where do I want to be in 1 year?
I’ll be with someone who really “gets me”. He shows me love and respect. The relationship is healthy and I’m incredibly happy. We don’t yet live together but I think it will happen soon. I’ll own my own place and work will be fulfilling and exciting.
Where do I want to be in 3 months (June)?
I’ll feel positive about my love life and that it’s not a matter of if I meet someone, it’s when. I’ll be enjoying dating and meeting people and I’ll be open to see who I’m attracted to. I’ll know what I want and I’ll feel confident to get out there and start attracting awesome men into my life.
Now the next part is the fun bit and it brings it all to life..
What can I do NOW to put the conditions in place (to get me where I need to be in June)?
I will make a commitment to myself to make love a priority. I will start to figure out how this self-love thing works! I will look at the ways in which I can focus on getting in the right mindset for love and working out what I want from a relationship.
What can I do to get those conditions set up as soon as possible?
I’ll go and find people who can help, coach and teach me about getting into the right mindset for love and all this self-love stuff. I’ll go and see what workshops, coaching programmes, talks etc are out there for women like me who are ready to do something about their love lives and I’ll choose one to attend in the next two weeks!
And that is how you take a dream, bring it out of the realm of fantasy and very much into the real world: by making goals and taking action.
Now as luck would have it for Lara, our Get Ready for Love workshop in London is coming up on the 17th March. A perfect way for her to get started on getting her love life on track!
So if, like Lara, you’re also feeling ready to kick start your journey of love then come and join us. All it takes is turning up next Tuesday evening with an open mind and heart.
We've designed the Get Ready for Love Workshop to share with you what we've discovered to be the most effective and powerful tools to help you get ready for love and transform your love life in 2015.
We can’t wait for this workshop and we’d absolutely love you to join us. To find out more about the workshop and book your place, head over here
And if you have any questions at all that you want to ask us about the workshop and what to expect from it, then shoot your questions over by replying to this email.
x Vicki and Selina
P.S. We might not be running this workshop again for a while so if you really want to come but you have something else on that date, then reschedule your other commitment and come join us!
Today's podcast show is inspired by Women's Day and takes a look at the power of writing letters to your younger self. We take some inspiring examples of letters written by formidable women to their younger selves from the beautiful book 'What I Know Now', we have a go at writing messages to our own younger selves and invite you to do the same. It's powerful stuff!
Have a listen in and let us know below what message you would write to your younger self...
x Selina & Vicki
This book was given to me by a friend as we lay on a beach in Goa, while I was single and Project Love was in its infancy.
That same copy is now sitting by me as I write. It's now dog-eared with half of the corners turned down, paragraphs underlined throughout and notes in every margin.
It had a profound effect on me.
And since reading it I've recommended it to almost everyone I know.
And now I'm recommending it to you.
The book?
Zen and the Art of Falling in Love by Brenda Shoshana
So what makes this book so special?
Well for me it totally transformed my whole understanding and approach to love.
It offers a deep wisdom about love and the nature of it that I believe we all instinctively know, but have forgotten.
It showed me that I had been doing it all wrong: I had been looking for love on the outside to fill me, when what I actually had to do was to open up to the love that already existed within me, so that it filled me up with love and flowed outwards to connect me with other loving people. It was about opening up to love, not finding it.
It introduced me to so many subtle, gentle and profound new ways of looking at love that's it hard to really summarise it, but what I can say is that it shifted me into a whole new space when it came to love and I've remained there ever since. That is the power of the book.
Throughout the book Brenda Shoshana, a psychologist, relationship expert and Zen practitioner, draws on the principles of Zen practice in a way that offers new insights to love, relationships and communication. You don't have to know anything about Zen practice and she's not telling you to go on a silent retreat to change your love life (although by the sounds of it it does seem to help!). What it does is offers a totally fresh way of looking at love and relationships, grounded in the lessons of a wise and ancient practice, that sets you free from the limited and fear-led way we're brought up to approach love and relationships in modern society.
It's no exaggeration to say that this book set me free. And I have seen it do the same for numerous other people that I've recommended it to.
Here's a little quote from it to leave you with, but what I recommend is that you just order it right now and get stuck in. And if you've read the book, or once you have read it, please come back here and let us know what you think by leaving your comments below!
"Now with a little patience it's only a matter of time before the person who knows how to love starts emerging from within. This person knows how to discover the 'right relationship' and how to thrive in it completely. Isn't it time you let her free?"
x Selina
To celebrate this special day, we've got a juicy real love story as I interview our very own Selina Barker!
Listen in to hear Selina share her beautiful love story as she reflects on Valetine's Day this year to the two preceding Valentine's Days.
Woven into her story, she reveals the lessons learnt along the way with advice for single women who want to find a happy and healthy relationship.
Plus a very exciting piece of news!!
Leave your comments below and if you loved this podcast please share the love on Facebook, Twitter and beyond!
V x
Valentine's Day. It's a bit like Marmite - you either love it or you hate it. If you're in a relationship, it can be a wonderful time to spoil the one you love or it can feel a little cheesy / OTT to celebrate it. And if you're single and wishing you weren't, it can be a painful reminder of the big relationship-shaped hole in your life and the whole day is spent trying to pretend like it's not happening.
So to be honest, over at Project Love we're not actually big fans of the traditional Valentine's Day.
We do it a little differently...
For us it's THE DAY OF LOVE: A day to celebrate love in all its forms.
In the English language, there is only one word to describe love, but the Greeks had 7 different words for love: romantic love and erotic love (eros), love for family (storge), deep friendship (philia), playful affectionate love (ludus), love for everyone (agape), long-standing love (pragma) and love for self (philautia).
So this Valentine’s Day we want to invite you to join us in ditching the usual focus on romantic love and instead celebrate all forms of love.
Above all, self-love.
Do something this Saturday for you - treat yourself with love.
Buy yourself flowers, take yourself out for brunch at your favourite cafe, buy yourself a little gift, treat yourself to a massage, take yourself off to an art gallery or snuggle in and have a date in with yourself and your favourite film.
Last year Selina, who was single at the time, really embraced this new approach to Valentine's Day. She sent me this message with a photo of a Mexican heart necklace that she bought for herself:
So join us and make Valentine's Day YOUR DAY OF LOVE too and let us know what you get up to by leaving a comment below, share photos with us on Instagram or tweet us!
x Vicki and Selina
P.S. if you haven’t watched it already check out the video interview which Selina did with the fabulous Addictive Daughter on '3 steps to transform your love life’ - she tells the story of her Valentine’s Day ‘Day of Love’ last year and what all that self-loving led to…..!
Selina met up (well virtually) with the gorgeous Addictive Daughters this week to shoot a Valentine-special video.
She shares the story of the transformation of her own love life over the past 2 year, the 3 steps to transform your love life which are at the heart of Project Love and, together with the AD ladies, has set a challenge for you to do this Valentine's day: doing Valentine's Day the Project Love way...
Visit our gorgeous friends at addictivedaughter.com and let us know what you're going to do this Valentine's day.
And if you enjoyed this then share it!
No-one likes rejection. Whether it's not landing your dream job, your dream house falling through or not hearing back from that guy you fancy, it feels pretty shitty when someone tells us "no".
When we experience something that makes us feel bad, our lizard brain (the most primitive part) will make a mental note for us to avoid stuff like this in the future. Because it wants to keep us safe. It wants to protect us from the hurt we feel when we don't get asked out on that second date or the slap in the face when the guy you've been seeing just mysteriously goes off radar and you never hear from him again. Nice.
But is this fear of rejection holding you back? Do you sulk for ages before getting back out there? Or vow never to text back first next time? Or tell yourself to never ever be the one to ask him out on a second date next time - "wait for him to come to you"?
We can wrap ourselves up nice and cosy in cotton wool but there’s no getting around the fact that rejection is inevitable. It's happened to us before and it will happen to us again. No matter how hard we try and avoid it, we can't control it. Grrrreeeeat I hear you say…
But wait… what we can control is our relationship with it. Because it's not the rejection itself that's the problem, it's how we choose to perceive it.
It all starts with our mindset...
Our mindset affects our behaviour and our behaviour determines our outcomes.
So by thinking differently about rejection, we can actually change the course of our lives.
That's why we've pulled together our top 10 alternative ways of looking at rejection.
So the next time you get rejected. And it's not IF it happens it's WHEN it happens, try one of these on for size and see how it makes you feel...
1. Rejection is redirection
2. Rejection is feedback
3. Every rejection is a stepping stone towards my ideal outcome
4. Rejection is setting me free
5. Rejection is my hearts way of saying no
6. Rejection is my future self thanking me for creating the space for my future to show up
7. Rejection is a part of life
8. Rejection is an invitation to something better
9. Rejection is honesty
10. Rejection is necessary
Tweet your favourite from this list and - as a bonus exercise - ask someone you love if they've ever been thankful of the rejections they've had? We'd love to hear your stories - share them with us on Facebook / Twitter
V x
There are a lot of visualisation exercises out there that encourage those of us looking for love to conjure up our future partner to help attract him into our lives.
The idea being that the clearer you are on what you're looking for, the easier it will be to spot him. In fact some suggest that that vision alone has power enough to draw him into your life like some kind of magical love magnet.
I bought into this idea for years and even when Project Love started out we were playing around with these kinds of visualisations.
I loved them. I'm a great visualiser and being able to picture the man I felt sure I'd end up with was both comforting and gave me a sense of control. I felt that the more I could picture him the closer I was getting to him.
But while it might have felt good, like fantasies so often can, spending all your time getting clear on the profile of the guy you're looking for and waiting for him to cross your path is actually working against you and massively limiting your chances of finding the love you long for.
Because here is the thing: the more women we've spoken to and interviewed who are happily in love and partnered up, the more we've found that the majority of them did not end up with the kind of guy they imagined they would end up with. Far from it.
And that very much includes me.
I did a LOT of visualising and mood boarding of the kind of man I thought I wanted to end up with. For years.
And I can safely say that the man I actually am utterly in love with and wake up to every morning is nothing like any of the partners of my visualisations or mood boards. Not only that, he actually ticks a lot of the boxes on my 'not' list.
Had I met him a year before, when I had yet to go through my own Project Love journey, I probably wouldn't have even gone on that first date at all. And all because he didn't match the picture I had in my head.
But luckily by the time our paths crossed I'd dumped those mood board images of the man I was supposed to end up with and had quit the visualising. Instead, having heard from so many happily in love women that they'd ended up with a guy they would never have imagined they'd end up with, I had fully opened up to being surprised at who I could be attracted to and what kind of guy would turn out to be perfect for me.
And with that I opened up the door for true love to enter into my life.
So consider that you don't know what your type is either and that thinking you do could be the very thing preventing you from finding love.
If you've got a clear picture of the kind of guy you think would be perfect for you, if you've got a list, mood board or an image in your head of what he's like, then it's time to dump him.
LET HIM GO.
Instead be clear on what you want in very basic terms: eg. a man that you are attracted to and who is attracted to you, who is open and available to having a relationship and who is emotionally healthy, loving and respectful.
Be clear on how you want to feel around him from the offset: eg. safe, relaxed, valued.
You can visualise plenty around that - visualisation is a powerful tool when done in the right way.
But scrap any ideas of what that guy looks like, what he does, what his character is like, where he comes from.
Drop the fantasy and let the real thing show up.
x Selina
P.S. If you liked this, don't forget to spread the love! Share it on facebook or twitter
Research shows that most of what we reveal about ourselves comes from our body language. We give clues to what we think and feel through our body postures, use of space, facial expressions and eye movement. And this affects how others see us and it influences their judgement of us. Sometimes, what we communicate is pretty accurate to what we're feeling and the messages we want to give off.
But sometimes it's not accurate and we give off mixed messages. So take a second to stop reading this and just check-in with your body. Maybe you're hunching at your desk, or maybe you're folding your arms on your phone. Whatever you're doing, ask yourself whether this is the kind of message you want to give off? Do you look open / closed? Welcoming / stand-offish? Worried / relaxed?
So we convey what we think and feel through our body language, but this is nothing new. What's interesting is that our body language can affect how we think and feel, leading to changes in our brain chemistry. So it goes both ways. For instance, we smile because we're happy but it's possible to be happy because we're smiling. Even if we don't feel like it, just by faking a smile tells the brain that we're happy.
Amy Cuddy reveals some incredible research findings in this moving TED talk. Her line of study is in power dynamics and she found that tiny tweaks in body position can lead to hormonal changes which influence confidence and our response to stress. So knowing this, we can use our body to configure our brain to be more confident and less stress reactive. And all it takes is two minutes.
So start being mindful of how you use your body and notice what signals you're giving off. Because if you're feeling ready for love then you need to switch on your green light and show you're available. The simplest way to do this is by smiling and opening up your body by relaxing the shoulders and holding your head high. And this isn't just limited to the usual bars / clubs where you think you might meet people. You can do this anywhere - walking down the street, the office, the gym, shopping, on the tube... the list goes on. So the next time you're in a public space and there's some eye candy there, show them you're available. Practice on your journey home from work tonight and have some fun with it - you never know who you might meet...
And if you already have a hot date lined up and you're nervous, then try the Wonder Woman pose for 2 minutes before you go - in the loo / at your desk (not on the date itself, obvs). It might feel ridiculous at first but if you fake it, fake it and fake it then one day you'll become it.
V x
We've all been there. Incredibly overwhelmed by that lurking feeling of not being enough.
"I'm not liked enough", "I'm not loved enough", "I'm not popular enough", "I'm not thin enough", "I'm not asked out enough", "I'm not promoted enough at work"....
You get the picture, you feel that something is lacking.
Leo Babauta of the fabulous Zen Habits, asked his Twitter friends “What fear is holding you back?”. Their responses included:
According to Leo, the fear of not being enough is actually at the root of all the others. And we tend to agree with him.
We're living in a culture of scarcity, focusing on what we lack rather than what we have.
In her book, "Daring Greatly", Brene Brown shows the extent of this on a daily basis. We start our morning thinking that we didn’t get enough sleep, we go through our day worrying about how little time we have to get everything done and then we fall asleep feeling anxious that we failed to tick everything off our to do lists. And it goes on and on.
What if we could wake up and go to sleep with a feeling of gratitide instead? Well we're starting just that with a 30 day gratitude exercise. The Gratitude Journal App is designed to make gratitide a habit, which is perfect because we love our habits.
Basically, you write down 5 things that you're grateful for each day to train your brain to be happier, By practicing awareness of the things we're thankful for (the good stuff), we fight off the brain’s natural tendency to spot the bad stuff. As a result, we train our brains to be more positive and thus happier.
Give it a go and let us know how you get on!
V x
Over the past year we have been digging and delving deep online to find the best articles and thought leaders when it comes to finding love and making it last and these are our top 5 favourite articles:
This article from waitbutwhy.com is so rich in wisdom, it's worth ready over at least 3 times and taking notes. We did!
We can become obsessed with wanting to be in a relationship and find that special person but many of us, when we take a closer look, aren't actually ready for love. This article is short and sweet but makes the point well
While it's not about love, this is all about happiness and one of our key lessons is that if you want to find yourself in a happy relationship with a happy person then you have to learn how to make yourself happy first.
This article is rich and intelligent and a great starting point if you want to learn how happy people stay that way.
This is actually an extract from the book 'Mastery of Love' by Don Miguel Ruiz. It's a wonderful and powerful analogy of why, when we don't love ourselves enough, we are prone to attracting and inviting people into our lives who are looking to use and control us.
There is an entire blog post coming soon, dedicated to the book Zen and the Art of Falling in Love by Brenda Shoshanna. We can't recommend it enough. Here she pulls out some of the key messages from the book and some exercises to go with them.
x Selina
We are huge HUGE fans of Brene Brown. Her work has a way of opening you up and reminding you of what it is to really feel alive and human in a way that has long-lasting effects. Just watch this 20 minute TED Talk and see what it does to you.
Let us know below how it made you feel by leaving a comment for us below.
