Discussing the 5 signs you are ready to start dating again, is one of my most favourite topics to write about! I intimately know the difference between being terrified to love again, and having the absolute joy and blessing to be an empowered Thriving Dater!
I know many of you may feel nauseous even at the thought of it … But please let me explain.
When you know how to date, and what it takes to prepare yourself for healthy dating, then your dating experience will change forever. It will shift from being scary, annoying, painful and icky to becoming exciting, inspirational and more than hopeful.
Not only will you become a magnetic force to attract healthy and wonderful potential partners into your life, but you will also enjoy the growth, and further empowerment that dating brings you. Not just regarding potential love partners, but in every area of your life.
(I hope I have inspired you to further read on …)
However … this is my word of caution … and something that I experienced profoundly myself. If you ignore these 5 signs that you are ready to date again (which in my humble opinion are crucial), then dating is likely to be traumatic and extremely disappointing for you.
In fact, your dating experience will usually confirm for you the unhealed broken and painful beliefs that you are still carrying inside you. Meaning the exact people who you are trying to avoid and not hook up with, are the ones that seem to continue infiltrating your dating experience.
Of course, this will cause you to lose faith and possibly even retreat from dating forever,
Okay … so let’s get started with what I believe are the 5 ABSOLUTE signs that you are ready to start dating again.
Number One – You Love Being In Your Body And In Life
Please don’t ever think someone is going to come into your life to grant you happiness. A successful relationship baseline foundation is someone coming into your life who is already happy with themselves, sharing happiness with you, from a state of your self-established happiness.
Otherwise, you are looking at sharing a highly co-dependent and toxic relationship – where you will both look to the other for you own wholeness.
If you have a history of abuse, and you have not yet healed within to claim your confidence, love and joy for being yourself, then this means you are feeling unhappy, lonely and like you don’t have a fulfilling life. This leaves you highly susceptible to a narcissist who identifies where you are hurt, have something lacking and then pretending to be the provider of these things.
That is what creates the powerful and instant bonding with narcissists – they seem to fill the “gaps” within ourselves. They seem to be the saviour of our pain, loneliness and unrequited love – the love we haven’t yet learned to generate within ourself.
They know exactly how to do this!
I promise you that this used to be my “normal”. I thought that we all feel “incomplete” and “empty” without partners, but since my beautiful inner Thriver Healing journey I know how false this is.
Before I met my wonderful partner, I was FULLY in life. I travelled, socialised and did all the things that I wanted to do ALONE. I also took full responsibility for my own expansion, investments and generation of my future.
I was way passed the belief “I need a partner to do this!” One of the healthiest things about our relationship is that I still have a full relationship with life whether my partner can join me or not, and he is the same. We want to be with each other, but we don’t need to be. There is a massive difference. There is room and space for the relationship to breathe, grow and be healthy – a far cry from previous narcissistic relationships.
If you are whole and happy, then you are not needy, not presenting your gaps and not susceptible to being duped. You also won’t cling to someone when red flags (and worse) appear because you “need” this person to provide you with “this” or “that”.
As a child you had no choice – you were reliant on your parents to care for you (whether they did or not). As an adult this is a highly precarious position to put yourself in and means you are prone to tolerate abuse if it appears.
Think about this metaphor – if you go to a supermarket after eating a fulfilling nutritious meal, you are full, content and satiated. You are not likely to put junk food in your trolley.
If you go shopping when you are starving or craving toxic food to ease the pain, what do you think ends up in your trolley.
Dating is the same.
Number Two – Be Prepared To Love Dating
Let’s check out the second of the 5 signs that you are ready to date …
Enjoy dating for dating’s sake.
If you do, you get the incredible personal gains of experience, empowerment, setting boundaries, healing your triggers and becoming confident, empowered and magnetic with potential dates.
This means changing it around from, “I hate dating, it’s such a waste of time, I just hope I meet someone quickly so that I don’t have to go through this” to “Every person I meet is an experience to heal, empower and develop myself beyond my previous relationship fears and the places within myself where I was handing my power away.”
Yaya!
Know this: multiple dating is healthy – platonic multiple dating. This is about valuing yourself, your worth and your Soul.
It is foolhardy and immature to fall straight into bed with someone before assessing WHO this person is. Apart from the STD health issue, there is also a grave danger of connecting chemically and being swept away before knowing WHO you are connecting to.
Additionally, this is a recipe to being used and abused and not creating a truly foundational committed sexually exclusive relationship – which many women find out the hard way – “I thought I was in a relationship and now my calls are not being returned.”
By holding off with sex until you have an exclusivity understanding after having assessed over time if someone’s values match yours, then healthy suitors know you value yourself, and will present themselves in droves to you, eliminating other less valuable options.
With your shift from the former neediness of, “How can I appeal to you so that you like me” you have become a sought-after person who inspires good people’s interest and attraction by conducting yourself as, “Are you someone who matches my values and truth and could be a life partner?”
It’s intoxicating. It’s a turn-on for healthy people.
Brilliantly, it’s also a turn-off for narcissists (I’ll get to that later…).
As a healed-up Thriver Dater you can enjoy EVERY dating experience. You are learning to be comfortable in the presence of others, ask questions, be investigative in a powerful yet unobtrusive way, observe others, have boundaries and know that you are growing at an incredible rate by healing triggers that arise, learning to define who you are, and who and what is a true match for you.
You also begin to love feeling magnetic, safe and powerful in your body, knowing you have the ability to be valued and sought after!
All that panic of, “Please God this next one HAS to be the one!” Or, “Just show me how to identify a narcissist, because I hate wasting time dating the wrong people” is gone.
Thank goodness! Because now you can just enjoy being and developing yourself … which brings us to the next section.
Number Three – Be Yourself
I used to think that I was too much for any man.
I used to believe that as a powerful, intelligent women I needed to dumb myself down so that men were not threatened by me.
When you deeply heal within and let go of the painful limiting beliefs of your past, I promise you that you will KNOW and FEEL the truth, which is – the right person for you will love you as you are.
If you pretend to be someone who you are not, then you will get a False Self in your life. How do you know when you are trying to be loved and approved of rather than loving and approving of yourself?
By ignoring your inner intuition, when something feels off, and not speaking up and not aligning with your values. By responding in ways that you think someone wants to hear in order to like and accept you. By going along with someone even when it’s not your truth.
Then of course lying to yourself with justifications such as, “Oh, that will be okay … I know I can handle that.” Or, “I’m sure I can change this person’s mind in the future.”
This is neediness. It’s Wrong Town. It’s a recipe for disaster.
I know, because before Thriver Recovery I used to do it all the time.
If you have not established the boundaries of your truth and values, and IF you let people get past these, then the fox is in the hen house.
Who you accept, is who you get.
If you don’t listen to your intuition, can’t show up, speak up and lay boundaries – then you won’t be respected and you run the risk of being abused. There is a price to pay for our unhealed wounds and lack of personal healing and development. We stay the same on the inside and just try different strategies, such as, “I’ll just learn how to identify these toxic people better”.
It doesn’t work – narcissists do not wear a T-shirt with, “Hi, I’m a narcissist” on it. Rather, they show up as lovely, charming, compassionate people. They are con-people. They are in the business of duping people so that they can suck their life-force and resources.
How do you avoid getting ensnared again? By powerfully being yourself. Trusting your gut, confronting things that feel off, watching the responses you receive. Do not get sucked in and pledge your time and emotional investment to ANYONE before investigating over time.
Retain your Thriving established life and boundaries, and do NOT drop everything to let ANYBODY hook up with you in a flash to get into your body, soul, home and finances.
Let’s consider this in easy to understand ways – you need to know your truth, your values and BE them.
If you are not ready to be this level of power, love and grace to yourself then do the inner work diligently, so that you know that in no way will you ever be susceptible to a narcissist again.
Then you couldn’t care less if you end up on a date with one, because you have NOTHING to fear. In fact, you will be punching the air with joy when you realise that they are a narcissist but that they can’t ensnare you and must move on to much more susceptible and easier to pick off supply sources.
It’s no insult to you, it’s a massive compliment to your development that you now effectively repel them.
Number Four – Take Your Time
I jokingly tell people that I used to put more thought into buying a pair of shoes than choosing a future love partner.
For me, it used to be, “You are cute, intelligent and tall with broad shoulders!”
Now I know how dangerous and reckless it is to just be attracted by chemical and physical attraction.
Knowing your necessary values for ANY partnership – like honesty, compassion, personal responsibility, ability to find solutions, have care for others and so on and so forth is essential. You need to get very clear about the values you live by and what you would like to receive in your life.
It takes time to ascertain and get to know someone’s values. People think common interests are essential. No they are not! Interests are negotiable, values are NOT!
Imagine this, you let someone straight in to your heart, body, bed and life then wake up one morning thinking, “I really don’t like you as a person” because you realise they don’t have a nice character. Then of course you are already hooked and have embarked on a quest to try to change this person.
We all know how badly that turns out!
A person’s character is their character. If they are not kind, honest, caring and don’t take personal responsibility for their actions, and don’t have the capacity or desire for true union and teamwork then there is ZERO possibility of a healthy relationship with this person.
The same goes for choosing an addict or someone who doesn’t want to commit to you. You have to stop KIDDING yourself!
Would you purchase a car with an irreversible hopeless chassis or motor issues? Would you buy a house that is built on a swamp and is sinking?
Of course not, and this is why you need to get VERY CLEAR about what constitutes the real-life fundaments for a relationship to have any chance of success, and stop making excuses for yourself and other people by making choices that are not healthy.
If you don’t heal and wise up in these areas and embody these truths, then it’s likely you could have more wasted years, another broken heart, Soul, finances and health disasters – having to start all over again.
How many times do we need to do this … until we stop doing this?
You don’t have to keep doing this. (I’m going to talk to you about HOW you can start reversing this at the end of this article.)
Number Five – Be Prepared To Lose It All To Get It All
This is my question to you, “If someone steps over your boundaries and won’t meet you at your values with REAL responsible, humble and truthful action … would you leave them?”
What I am really asking you is this, “Do you love and value yourself enough to walk away? Are you prepared to LOSE it all to GET it all?”
If you can’t honestly and powerfully say “yes” to both of these questions, then in my humble opinion it is not safe for you to date yet. Getting back out there will be like Russian Roulette.
Let’s get very clear, the emergence of narcissistic traits in a potential partner like pathologically lying, cheating and being malicious and abusive are UNACCEPTABLE no matter WHAT someone professes to do to change for you.
For these, it is “There is the door and do not re-enter it.”
Anything else is abusing yourself.
What I am really talking about, in regard to clear boundaries is this – everyone can have a bad day. Humans are not perfect, they can screw up and do something careless, clumsy or hurtful. Decent people, when you explain that they have hurt you, have the ability to be remorseful and take responsibility and not just say the words that mean sorry but also engage in the actions that show mean they mean it.
That is a normal, healthy expectation for you to have.
That is not expecting anyone to fly to the moon.
You need to get very clear about what are deal breakers and what are not.
When I first started Thriver Dating 100% there were relationships, I needed to say a big, fat “NO” to. If I didn’t, I would only be signing up for more of the same. Was this terrible or meant that these relationships were a failure? No.
This was meant to be, because this was my graduation to prove to Myself, Source and Life that I finally loved and valued myself enough to be my own generative Source of love. I was no longer trying to be loved and rescued from external sources, I was completely and utterly aligned with healthy choices and actions for myself.
This is why I broke through and had success with love, because I was absolutely prepared to lose it all to get it all, and you may need to do the same. Hence why it is so important to understand that every relationship you have is a roaring success, even if it ends, because it is always granting you exactly what you need to be true to yourself and create REAL love.
In Conclusion
I hope that you found these 5 signs that you are ready to date again extremely helpful! Please let me know in the comments below, where you’re at regarding dating again.
I also hope that you know my work and the information that I share isn’t about dancing around what True Recovery or True Love really means.
Personally I experienced what it is like to lose years and years in pain, suffering, distraction, wrong turns and then having to repeatedly rebuild all over again. This is why I am SO passionate about you healing for real, in a STRAIGHT line, so that you CAN have the beautiful love, joy and intimate relationship that is your Soul Truth to have.
I know you don’t have to hide out in your home for the rest of your life. I know that you don’t have to give up on love, and I know that you don’t have to go through another abusive relationship, IF you are prepared to invest in and put the time, effort and self-devotion into healing yourself.
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