Choose Love & Quarantine Courtship

CHOOSE LOVE

They say that choosing love is a revolutionary act. Especially now, with this global pandemic, we need to be reminded that there’s a lot of love to give in the world – virtually in times of quarantine of course.

That said, how is everyone holding up? Don’t give up on love. It may be bleak right now but we believe there is a light at the end of this tunnel.

via GIPHY

Today we’re going to spread some love and a little romance. We’re talking to Tenisha Nicole, host and producer of the Choose Love Podcast. She’s here to convince us why we should all be hopeless romantics.

More on that later, first we have headlines! 

DATING DISH 

A Different Kind of Coronavirus Casualty

The divorce rate spikes IMMEDIATELY after couples in China get out of quarantine. Coincidence? Definitely not. Damona and Tenisha break it down.

via GIPHY

Courtship Now

Here/Now has invented a new way to date in spite of the pandemic: virtual hang out group dating. WAIT! It’s actually kinda cool, don’t knock it until you try it.

via GIPHY

 

CHOOSE LOVE (14:60)

  • Choosing Love is a revolutionary act
  • After losing her mom to breast cancer, she set out to create a life worth living
  • Hopeless romantics are revolutionaries
  • digging into life’s big questions about love because they enable us to better understand ourselves and the world around us.
  • Love Stories are an unconventional therapy method

via GIPHY

Check out the Choose Love podcast on all your favorite podcast platforms!

TECHNICALLY DATING 

via GIPHY

Submit your questions Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook and hear our answers live on the show! Here’s what our listeners asked about this week:

  • If a man wants the both of you to get healthy (lose weight) because he’s thinking long term (marriage, kids, etc) should that be taken as a positive thing or negative?
  • What are clear signs that a guy is leading you on or playing games rather than a guy who is trying to put all the ducks in a row first ?

 

WANT TO GO EVEN DEEPER? HERE IS A TRANSCRIPT OF THE SHOW IF YOU WANT TO FOLLOW ALONG!

Damona  0:12  

Hello lovers, welcome to dates in mates. How’s everybody holding up? I have to admit hasn’t been the easiest week for me. Not so easy to be mom slash teacher slash running both of my podcast slash serving clients slash checking in on parents and friends and family. And oh, yeah, me time. What about that? I’m sure you’re going through the same thing. But I just want to remind you just take it one day at a time and don’t give up on love. It may be bleak right now, but I believe that there is a light at the end of this tunnel and I think a lot of great things will come for daters out of this time of having to relearn New dating techniques having to slow down the rapid speed of dating, to actually get to know somebody to filter properly and make sure there’s someone you really want to go out with before we just swipe, swipe, show up and just throw caution to the wind. No, I want you to date strategically and mindfully, I want you to practice slow love. And I want you to be able to be as present as possible in your new relationships. And hopefully today, I can give you a little bit of inspiration on some of those new relationships or maybe the inspiration to start a new relationship, even if it’s virtually. Today we’re going to spread some love and a little romance we’ll be talking to tonisha Nicole, she’s the host and producer of the choose love podcast, and she’s here to convince us why we should all be hopeless romantics. Let’s give big smooches to to Nisha Nicole.

 

Tenisha Nicole  1:57  

Hi. Thank you so much for having me. It’s It’s an honor to be here. Oh, I’m so

 

Damona  2:02  

glad to have you. We need some inspiring stories today. So thank you for sharing a little bit of light and joy and spreading some more love in the world. And we’re also going to be handling these headlines including the biggest casualty of coronavirus plus a totally new way to date in the time of quarantine, then we’ll be answering your questions like should you lose weight with your man? And are there clear signs that a guy is leading you on tonisha? How are you ready to do this? Let’s do

 

Tenisha Nicole  2:35  

  1. These dating dish.

 

Damona  2:39  

Well, I told you I was going to cover the biggest casualty of coronavirus. Maybe it’s not the biggest casualty but in my business it is because now that China has sort of turned the corner on handling new cases and I just heard actually then move on. There were no new cases. So that’s Really, really good sign that that things are moving in the right direction. But the effect that it’s having on people’s love lives is pretty, pretty treacherous. Turns out that divorce appointment requests have skyrocketed. Since the quarantine ended around February 24. One office saw over 300 couples applying for divorces in the last three weeks. And this it’s just insane the number of people that are coming forward and being like, I’ve been on quarantine with him. And I can’t do one more day to Nisha, what do you think about this statistic? And do you think it’s the quarantine that that accelerated this or do you think this is something that like those couples would have probably probably been filing for divorce this year anyway?

 

Tenisha Nicole  3:49  

Yeah, I don’t know if they would have filed for divorce this year. But one thing I have noticed when listening to folks love stories is that I should be in things that really You know, makes you realize what’s important to you. And on top of spending so much time with each other, like you really can’t avoid those things that you annoy about that annoy you about your partner. So I think just in this time of, you know, just so much time being spent together, they’re, you know, there are things that you can’t ignore anymore. So, I can’t say that I’m surprised by the statistics, but I do truly feel for those folks who who are going through this right now.

 

Damona  4:29  

Well, it does intensify feelings when you can’t get out and you have to deal with it. I saw one one post on Twitter that was like, this is the time to air all your, all your dirty laundry and like force your boyfriend to face the music and deal with whatever’s going on in your relationship because he can’t run away and hide right now. I don’t know if I recommend that philosophy. But I do know that it’s really it is challenging. Like I can even say, from my own perspective. Usually my husband and I have no friction and we We’ve had to have a lot of like, like nightly sit down conversations just to keep the sanity and make sure that one another feels heard in the relationship. Do you have any other tips for any of our listeners, based on what you’ve heard from people in successful relationships of how they can navigate this time if they are living in close quarters with their boo?

 

Tenisha Nicole  5:23  

Yeah, I mean, I would just recommend I’m actually building a tiny home right now and thinking about how me and my partner are going to live in that space together, but it’s really about making sure you can still have your alone time and like have your own space. Even though you may be in a room together. You don’t really have to be together like you can be doing your own thing. But I do as an introvert believe that it’s so important to just carve out time for yourself and and your partner just so that they can have a moment of rest.

 

Damona  5:54  

Yeah, that’s so important. And I’ve often talked about each partner having their own space in the in the home even if you just have a desk that’s that’s your workspace and that’s your sacred space or a chair that you meditate in. I’m curious though how you would do that with a tiny house maybe you should go for a slightly bigger

 

Tenisha Nicole  6:17  

I mean you can really design homes and ways that you know, it feels like a separate space even though it’s not really but you can still go outside and take a walk. Same with the coronavirus. You can still go outside take a walk with your by yourself or with your dog or with your partner six feet away.

 

Tenisha Nicole  6:34  

But you can still enjoy nature.

 

Damona  6:37  

Yes, I’ve been I’ve been doing that and getting getting out in the world and just like also figuring out the things that make you get centered. Whenever you are starting to feel triggered. Do something that gets you centered because you’re going to lash out it’s all going to come towards your partner and the people closest to you. And we have to choose love, don’t me. Well, it turns out single people are also choosing love during this time. We talked last week about how dating apps are still seeing a surge in new users in communications. But y’all do not go out and meet that person face to face right now. It’s just too big of a risk. If you ask me. You could try something new, like a bunch of folks that joined up with a dating company called here. Now they are doing virtual dating events. And basically, it’s like speed dating on zoom. And they have it very well organized. They have 10 singles log on and they get I don’t know if Have you ever done speed dating Tunisia?

 

Tenisha Nicole  7:42  

I’ve hosted an event but I did not participate because I was in a relationship.

 

Damona  7:46  

Oh, how nice of you to continue to, to share the love. I have both participated. And I have hosted events actually. And I always thought it was a really fun way to practice dating like Those people may not end up being your, your be all and end all. But we have to keep these dating skills fresh throughout whatever long whether it’s two weeks, two months, hopefully not two years, but during this period, we cannot let the dating muscles atrophy. So I think that this is a really great way for people to connect. They just basically time, their conversations just like speed dating, so they get five minutes or something with a person virtually. And then a little message pops up on the screen that says your chat is about to end and at the end, they get a survey and they can see whether they vibe with someone on a platonic level or like a friendly level, or romantic. I like that, that it gives them the option because there are some people when I did speed dating, where I was like, I marked them as like a Yes, because I thought they were cool, but they were not necessarily somebody that I would actually date. But I like that you can say like I think I did think you were cool.

 

Tenisha Nicole  8:59  

Just Not

 

Damona  9:00  

I wasn’t feeling the vibe, but sometimes the vibe can it can expand if you give it time.

 

Tenisha Nicole  9:06  

Yeah. When you say Don’t think like most people don’t know that it’s the one after the first meeting. So I think having those options, those variations of yes is actually a great idea.

 

Damona  9:17  

Absolutely. And while we’re self quarantining, or whatever we’re doing, and we have to be distanced, from other socially distanced from others, that could be a really great way to let the connection develop over time. I’ve talked a lot about the speed of dating going so fast today. Maybe this is a good little speed bump for people to take a step back. And maybe there’s somebody that you had a friendly connection with, that if you continue to talk with them over zoom or Skype or WhatsApp or whatever, for the next few months, maybe something will develop maybe your feelings will change.

 

Tenisha Nicole  9:54  

I have not

 

Tenisha Nicole  9:57  

but I don’t know that it very well could happen. For sure,

 

Damona  10:01  

I’m sure well, I’m sure you’ve heard stories of it happening and in a moment, we are going to lighten the mood. And here are some of these love stories here. Tunisia’s own love story and some uplifting advice and and stories about love in just a moment so stick around and we are back with tonisha Nicole of the choose love podcast. So in choose love you tell these extraordinary love stories to Nisha about people that have found love in different ways and how their romances have evolved. I’m curious what gave you the idea to start this podcast?

 

Tenisha Nicole  10:45  

Yeah, well, I would say it was a series of unfortunate events that led me to start this podcast, but I a little bit of background about me. I have not been in that many relationships. But I have dated quite a bit and I am one of those people who is like a fan of dating. I feel like I’ve had the most fun on date. Like I’ve had some incredible dates with some incredible people. Although those did not lead to relationships. I still had an incredible time meeting that person getting to know them, sharing about myself and things, which I think people should partake in actively. A quick fun note, I’ve never online dated. So I am so interested in all of the things that you do Dimona, in a lot of the guests on our show actually have met their partner through online dating. So I know maybe one day I’ll have that opportunity, but I just haven’t had it yet.

 

Damona  11:45  

Well, but let’s hope not. Because you are dating someone now when you started the podcast. You were single, though.

 

Tenisha Nicole  11:53  

No. So I was actually in Well, yes, sorry, I wasn’t. I was single at the time

 

Damona  11:58  

where you were in a situation What was going on,

 

Tenisha Nicole  12:01  

though? So I was in a relationship for five years. And towards the end of that relationship, my mom passed away. And it was at that time that I realized that that really wasn’t the relationship for me. The guy was a great guy. But we were really in two different places. And he really wasn’t set up to provide the kind of support that I needed at the time going through, I would say, you know, the beginnings of the grief cycle. So I had broken up with him. And that’s when I started questioning love. So that’s why I kind of hesitated like, I was thinking I was in a relationship. But after I dated him after I broke up with him, I was single for two years. And during that time, is when I just got really curious about love and started reflecting about my love life. And I realized that I suck at love. I was like, I probably should get some professional help. So I sought out some things And then I started literally asking strangers about their love stories to give me insights into their experiences, what worked, what didn’t work for them. And then what blew my mind was the different types of love that exists that I had no idea about,

 

Damona  13:17  

Oh, you’ve piqued my interest. What different types of love are there?

 

Tenisha Nicole  13:22  

I mean, so I would, I don’t know, maybe I’m giving that a little bit too much hype. But for me, I had always believed in this, like fantasy love that you see in the movies. And it’s false.

 

Tenisha Nicole  13:34  

It doesn’t happen like that. So fake.

 

Tenisha Nicole  13:36  

And I had always been waiting for that to happen to me and looking for that in these people that I was dating. And I’m wondering why it’s not happening to me. So I think I think just talking to real people about their relationships, it was just like, oh, wow, sometimes, love just unfolds. You know, just day to day but there is something so magical about it, you know, unfolding, but I think we have to start to look at it differently are magical is actually pretty ordinary, but it is still magical.

 

Damona  14:10  

Yes, I agree with you on that. I want to go back a minute to something that you said and I’m sorry to hear about your mom’s passing. But you know, sometimes those moments like when we are we are challenged. And we have to, we have to face things like mortality and these big questions like, what are what am I doing with my life? Who am I bringing into my life, they make us look at all of the other choices that we’ve made and realize that some things don’t don’t ultimately line up with what we want in life. And it sounds like that’s what happened with your relationship. But I did hear that you were together for five years. And that is a pretty long time. That’s a pretty long time. Was there any indication before that point? That The relationship was not heading the direction that you wanted it to go or that, you know, you visualized in this fantasy romance that you had.

 

Tenisha Nicole  15:10  

I would have to say like I was in total delusion, like I was so in line with where I was going, and I was I was like an active partner in shaping it. But it was going to be a relationship where, you know, we both had advanced degrees, we worked in the corporate world. We went to, you know, we went to buy a house, and then we got, you know, we got married, we had a baby, it was going to be that story. But like you said, it wasn’t until my mom passed away that it made me question if I wanted that to be my story. And I realized that I did not and that is never who I was, but I had kind of became that. I became that person in those five years. And I just looked in the mirror and I was like, Who the hell is looking back at me? I didn’t even recognize myself. So I don’t think I realized until, like, you know, I had that aha moment. Yes,

 

Damona  16:04  

yes. And you mentioned a lot of things that are like the box check things like, we have advanced degrees. And we, you know, we, we fit together in these ways. And he’s this and that. And a lot of times people date based on that list on paper. It’s this, but in reality, and we talked a little bit about this on last week’s show, it’s about how do you feel with that person, right? And where are you headed in the future if you continue on the path that you’re going, so you made a change, you made a big change, and then you started hearing other people’s stories and started to look at love differently, and then continued to evolve and change and something else happened.

 

Tenisha Nicole  16:49  

And so, I mean, this kind of really, I feel like happened overnight. But I mean, it was another series of events, but I think these were positive ones. So it led me to quit my job. I moved from the state that I was living in, I went to pilot school, which was something that I had always dreamed of. And then I finally got the courage enough to do it. And then, while I was in pilot school, I actually fell in love. I really didn’t plan any for any of that to happen. But things just started unfolding and doors opening. And I just took every opportunity that came my way.

 

Damona  17:28  

Wow. And you were following your passion. It sounds like doing the thing that really made you feel good about the path you were on in life, and then everything else sort of fell into place. It sounds like

 

Tenisha Nicole  17:40  

Absolutely, and I would say that I didn’t realize it was my passion because I was so afraid of, you know, taking the leap to do it. But it wasn’t until I took the leap that I was able to really embrace it and like realize, oh my god, I love flying planes and I love being in the sky like this is is an amazing, incredible feeling.

 

Damona  18:02  

Yeah, since amazing you found love as well. And so now you’re continuing to share other people’s love stories. I would love to hear from you. You’ve called choose love an unconventional therapy method. Right? What are some of the things that you learned that you’re now applying to your relationship?

 

Tenisha Nicole  18:21  

Yes. So there are so very many things. But I mean, I think the biggest one is, we talked a little bit about it earlier, is just there really is no, you know, there’s not a thing called love a box that we have to check for that we can attain after we’ve done X, Y, and Z. Like our love stories are going to be as unique as the two individuals or more that are in that relationship. And I think that we have to stop trying to make it something and just allow it to be us, you know, allow love to be us. So That was, I would say that would be the biggest takeaway for me. The second one would really be, it was it came from an episode. I remember recording it, we were literally at a conference in the corner, crying our eyes out, as this woman is telling me about her love story. But she was telling me in essence, how, you know, in the beginning, she took love so seriously in the beginning, like of her relationship with her at the time, it was her boyfriend, but she was taking love so seriously. And it wasn’t until he said, like, you know, I love you so very much. But I really cannot. I cannot today promise you that in 30 years, we’re going to be together and then I’m going to feel the same way about you. And I think that’s a really hard thing to hear. But that is also the reality and the nature of life. I feel like going into a relationship. I was always wanting someone to promise me the world and promise me forever. But really, when you start to think about all those things, you lose sight of what’s here and now right in front of you. So, definitely a lesson for me has been to enjoy the present. And yes, of course, I want to spend the rest of my life with someone, but there is no way I can tell what’s going to happen tomorrow. So just be present and enjoy it.

 

Damona  20:28  

Yeah, you absolutely have to do that. And that’s something I’m always telling daters, like, don’t think about where you’re going to go on your next date or when he’s going to meet your mom. Like, think about what’s happening right now. And how do you feel when you’re with that person? But the other thing I love about that story you just told Tunisia is that she also was brave enough to get the answer to the question she was probably scared to ask. And, you know, maybe she didn’t ask it. Maybe she did. But she heard. She heard the answer she needed And she took action from it. And sometimes it’s so hard to hear those things like I don’t see us together in 30 years. And it’s brutal in the moment. But what it does is it frees you up to be able to find somebody that does see themselves with you in 30 years if that’s what you want.

 

Tenisha Nicole  21:17  

Right. And the crazy part about that story, it just, I think it freed up her expectations of you know what it had to look like. And they’ve been married for 12 years, and they’re still going strong. They have two beautiful children. They’ve lived in France and La like, they have created a life for themselves. So just because you don’t you know, you can’t promise the future doesn’t mean that you’re not going to have a future.

 

Tenisha Nicole  21:41  

Wait, so they’re still together.

 

Tenisha Nicole  21:43  

They’re still together. Yes, they got married.

 

Tenisha Nicole  21:45  

How about that?

 

Damona  21:49  

So that’s a good lesson as well. But sometimes hearing the truth doesn’t mean that it’s headed in different directions. But sometimes if you know the reality, then you know what you have to do to to recommit to your relationship so that’s a beautiful story. I’m going to have to download that episode and all of the episodes I hope all of you are checking out. Choose love right after this, but tonisha you’ve heard so many amazing love stories from daters, from couples on your podcast. I know you must have some great advice to share for our listeners. So let’s keep it moving with the next segment with our questions in technically dating. We are back with dates and mates. I am here again with tonisha Nicole, who is the host of choose love which is a podcast all about romantic stories on love. So she’s she’s heard the ups. She’s heard the downs, she’s heard downs that sounded like downs, but then they ended up being ups. So we have questions from our listeners. This one comes So as from Instagram, this person says, If a man wants the both of you to get your health, ie lose weight together, because he’s thinking long term marriage, kids, etc. Should that be taken as a positive thing or negative?

 

Tenisha Nicole  23:15  

So, I mean, whenever I hear advice about love and relationships and dating, I always like to put it in the context of my family. Because I think your partner does, eventually, you know, become a part of your family. And so when I hear that, I think back to the time when I was on my health kick work first starting my health cake, and I asked my sister, I was like, Look, you have two young children. Like I want you to be here for a long time for them. So I’m like trying to get her to come to the gym with me. So I’m like to me when I hear you know, a partner asking another partner to join in the health journey. I’m like, I don’t see that as a negative because I think health is such an important aspect of living a long life and health health reasons can bankrupt families. It can devastate families in so many ways. So I think if you just hear about you know, the intention of the of the question, and not just the shallow I think, you know, things we want to think about it, it can, it can come off a little bit differently.

 

Damona  24:24  

That’s a good way to look at it. I, I just get I kind of bristle whenever I hear someone saying, saying that they want their partner to do something for them, like lose weight, especially. But then I keep rereading this one because initially, I was like, that’s not his business. And then then I was like, well, he wants both of you to get your health together. So that’s saying, I’m not telling you to do something that I’m not doing. I’m saying let’s do this together. So that kind of puts me on the side of actually it’s a good And I think it’s a good thing that he’s showing. He’s thinking long term marriage, kids, etc. It’s just a really tricky thing to try to describe to another person, why you want why it’s important for them to be, you know, healthier, and make them feel the need from them themselves, make them feel like that’s important. Because if you’re just like, you should do this. And then they’ll never stick with the plan. Right, and they’ll resent you for it.

 

Tenisha Nicole  25:28  

Exactly. You really, I mean, I think it’s better to share your intention, like really where you’re coming from so that someone can understand, you know, is it because you don’t find them attractive anymore? Or is it because you’re concerned about their health, now that I wouldn’t be able to answer so

 

Tenisha Nicole  25:45  

easily.

 

Tenisha Nicole  25:46  

I’m assuming that they have good intentions.

 

Damona  25:50  

So we’ll just go back to the simplified version of the question. Is it a positive thing or a negative thing? It’s okay.

 

Tenisha Nicole  26:00  

He’s gonna let you off the hook saying it’s positive

 

Damona  26:04  

it does depend there there are there are definitely follow up questions that we would have but it sounds like overall, he is thinking long term he is thinking about both of your health and he wants to be in the future with you. So that’s that’s, that can only be a good thing. Okay, we have one more question. This one comes from our Patreon group. This person says what are clear signs that a guy’s leading you on or playing games rather than a guy who’s trying to put all the ducks in a row first? What have you heard I wonder what have you heard from cheese love or what have you experienced

 

Tenisha Nicole  26:41  

that great question. Um, I’m like trying to go through my memory Baker, this one because I don’t feel like we’ve addressed this specifically.

 

Damona  26:52  

Yeah, well, I I would say, when someone’s playing games, generally, you know, it’s just we don’t want to hear it. We don’t want to hear it because we’ve told ourselves a story just going back to that fantasy story that you were talking about in the last segment. You know, you you want it to be, you want it to work out, and so you hear the thing that you didn’t want to hear. And then you’re like, well, I’ll just ignore that.

 

Tenisha Nicole  27:19  

Just keep going.

 

Damona  27:21  

So, you know, definitely signs of game playing. I’ve experienced, like people not returning calls or texts in a timely manner. Like if he wants to text you back. If he really wants to talk to you, he’s gonna text you back. Why are you making excuses for him like 234 days later? If he’s only available at certain times, like you can only see him on the weekends. That’s probably that’s probably a big red flag like he’s maybe in a relationship with someone else.

 

Tenisha Nicole  27:58  

What What else have you seen? Yeah, like those are the big red flags for me.

 

Tenisha Nicole  28:05  

Yeah, I mean, just obvious signs of dis dis interest? Like, I don’t know, I can recall a few girlfriends who are just way more over enthusiastic about the relationship than the guy who tended to be. And I think it was those sounds like you’re reaching out to them more than they’re reaching out to you. Those are like the big ones that I can think of for sure.

 

Damona  28:25  

Yeah. And I wonder like this idea of putting all the ducks in a row first, I’ve scarcely met a guy who was relationship ready, who was just like, hold on one second, like, let me let me align my ducks. Like we still have this drive for a relationship or for sex or intimacy, and he’s still going to pursue you. It’s just maybe, maybe he’s not proposing if you are looking for a serious relationship. Maybe that’s not happening fast enough because he’s getting his finances in order. But in terms of dating you, I don’t know that anyone would would be pumping the brakes on a relationship they really want to be in just because they’re getting their ducks in a row when you say,

 

Tenisha Nicole  29:06  

but I do think it can be confusing because some guys will make you feel like you’re dating them.

 

Tenisha Nicole  29:13  

They’re not really dating you. So I think you really have to be careful with that one.

 

Damona  29:20  

Yeah, well, it’s gonna be a lot harder right now for people to play the field. Yeah, because

 

Tenisha Nicole  29:26  

we can’t even

 

Tenisha Nicole  29:28  

it said if they’re not texting you back, right? It’s because they don’t like you because we know that everyone is it.

 

Damona  29:36  

Yep. So let’s just get let’s just air it all out. Unless they have kids like me. They’re just like, how there’s a reason I did not become a school teacher. And here it is. And here it is. But yeah, we just need to air everything out right now. Let’s just let’s just get everything out in the open. Let’s deal with what’s really going on. So we can move forward in truth and hope. Hopefully in love. Thank you so much for joining me to Nisha, thank you so much for having me. It’s been a joy and a pleasure. Same here. I hope all of you will check out the choose love podcast. It’s on all your favorite podcast platforms and you can find tonisha and some more love stories on Instagram at x tonisha. Nicole t n is h A and IC o l e Of course we will put the link in the show notes along with the link to the stories that we talked about in the dating dish. Thanks for being here.

 

Tenisha Nicole  30:31  

Thank you.

 

Damona  30:32  

I hope you enjoyed Episode 302 of dates and mates. I’m at damona Hoffman on all the socials. I know a lot of you are going crazy right now with this quarantine dating situation. I’m here for you. So you can DM me anytime at damona Hoffman on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and I promise you I will give you some advice, a little bit of an uplift to keep you going as we are all social distancing, but still craving that connection. I will be here again next week with more dates and dates. Until then, wash your hands and happy dating

Dating During Coronavirus & Healing Powers

LOVE IN THE TIME OF CORONAVIRUS

The Coronavirus panic is spreading and the world needs some healing right now. Today we’re using our intuition to heal our love lives as well as learning some ways to continue dating during this time.

This is an uncertain time but love conquers all. 

Even though we are in the midst of social distancing, the tools that we have available now could still help you lay the foundation for a future relationship. 

Today’s co-host is Clarissa Silva, love coach, behavioral scientist, and former infectious disease specialist. She’s the most qualified person I know to tell us why love is not lost during this time.

Our co-host for today is Clarissa Silva, Behavioral Scientist and Clinician. She is the creator of “Your Happiness Hypothesis Method” which helps people understand their relationship patterns and gives them a roadmap to romance.

This revolutionary approach is based on an algorithm she created and used to meet her husband.

She was trained as a scientist and researcher at the University of Michigan where she received the prestigious National Institutes of Health Ford/Fogarty fellowship. 

You’ve seen her on Fox, NBC, HuffPost, ABC, CBS, and so much more!

DATING DISH (2:00)

Love in Time of Coronavirus

Coronavirus is a HUGE issue right now. As the world ventures into various states of quarantine, we at Dates & Mates are wondering: what about love?

Clarissa walks us through the latest trends in dating during quarantine.

via GIPHY

What You Can Learn From Love Is Blind

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last few months, you know that Netflix’s latest love reality show is sweeping the nation. Have they ACTUALLY solved all modern dating dilemmas?

via GIPHY

HEALING POWERS (10:00)

We are still finding Love in Times of Coronavirus, people!

Now, since you may have a little more time on your hands here’s an exercise I want you to try: visualize how your ideal mate will make you feel when you’re around them.

Imagine waking up on a lazy Sunday with the love of your life. What is your gut feeling when you’re with them?

It’s hard to put into words, right? But it’s something a lot of people overlook when they’re dating with intention. Even if your ideal match is perfect on paper, they can’t be the right fit if it just doesn’t feel like home.

Cheesy? Maybe. True? Without a doubt.

Enter my guest for today: Laura Powers, celebrity psychic and host of the Healing Powers Podcast. She teaches how to tap into your intuition and find that “feeling” you’re looking for. 

Laura covers:

  • Understanding what you bring to a relationship
  • How to read the feeling and energy you get from your date
  • How to use intuition to break your bad dating patterns
  • and so much more!

Make sure to check out Laura Powers’ “Healing Powers Podcast”!

via GIPHY

 

TECHNICALLY DATING (34:49)

Submit your questions Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook and hear our answers live on the show! Here’s what our listeners asked about this week:

  • IG – I’ve been dating this attractive, successful guy for about 3 months. He’s dealing with some family drama and has been asked to help out with his grandma as well as financially support his parents which has been emotionally weighing on him. He has opened up about all of this to me and he’s said that he doesn’t think he can take being in a relationship right now. Right now we talk daily and hang out 1-2 times a week. I’m happy with how things are but worried that 6 or 9 months down the line, nothing will change and he won’t commit to me. He knows I want to be married and have kids which may be why he’s bringing this up now versus later. Any thoughts?
  • Patreon: Is it good or bad if you hold out from going all the way?

via GIPHY

 

WANT TO GO EVEN DEEPER? HERE IS A TRANSCRIPT OF THE SHOW IF YOU WANT TO FOLLOW ALONG!

Damona  0:12  

Modern love Made Simple. This is dates and mates with damona Hoffman. Hello lovers Welcome to dates and mates. Today we have two very special experts joining me. My guest for today is Laura powers. She’s the host of the healing powers podcast, and she’ll be talking with us about how using intuition can impact your love life. But first, let me introduce my guest co host for today. Clarissa Silva. She’s a behavioral scientist and clinician and the creator of the your happiness hypothesis method which helps people understand their relationship patterns and gives them a roadmap to romance. This revolutionary approach is based on an algorithm that she created and then used to meet her husband She was trained as a scientist and researcher at the University of Michigan. And you’ve seen her on Fox and on NBC, huffpost, ABC, CBS, and so much more. Let’s give big smooches to Clarissa Silva.

Clarissa Silva  1:14  

Oh, thank you, Tamara. I’m so honored to be here in such a pleasure to be on your show again. Welcome back

Damona  1:20  

with Clarissa, we’re going to discuss this week’s news like how is coronavirus affecting dating? Sorry, not sorry. We got to talk about it, y’all. And what can we learn about romance from the hit TV show? Love is blind. Then after our interview with amazing Laura powers, Clarissa and I will be answering your questions in technically dating, like, how long should you hold on if a guy isn’t ready to commit yet? And is it good or bad to withhold sex from a guy you’re dating?

Clarissa Silva  1:52  

Clarissa Are you ready to do these headlines? Yes, I’m excited. These dating dish

Damona  2:00  

Well, I was excited to read on thrive global, which you have written for for a while, but you give this different perspective on dating and relationships with your background as a behavioral scientist and you’re Clarissa wrote this article on coronavirus and dating that you have to read. So this is going to be our jumping off point for the conversation today because the article which was written last week, looked at the the the behaviors of people right now, dating in the time love in the time of coronavirus, and according to the experts that she spoke to including Michael Kay who’s Okay, Cupid’s global communications manager he is saying that everything is like all systems go and 88% of people that they surveyed were like, No, I’m not stopping dating just because of Corona virus. Clarissa I am curious to hear first of all, do you think That anything has changed in the last week, I’m feeling an increase in anxiety. But are you seeing people still looking to date and connect face to face right now?

Clarissa Silva  3:11  

Hi, everyone. Thank you. I’m a former infectious disease specialist. So everything that I am looking at this from the lens of epidemic, this is just like anything else. I mean, we lived through HIV and it was the same thing you were told you couldn’t touch, hug, do all the stuff. And we lived through that right but as we go through heftier quarantine periods, it’d be interesting to see like, how much how much in real life connection Are you going to be doing? Right? I still say that video communication will be the primary vehicle of how people will continue to date.

Damona  3:46  

Yeah, it’s interesting how that that drive for love is really so strong. I actually talked about video chat dating last week on our masterclass or 300th episode. I said, for those of you who haven’t heard it, I said Mark my words, we’re going to see an increase in video chat dating, and that’s going to become now the primary pre date filter that you’ll be going through. Now this was all before the quarantines and before like, we record this before that even happened, I believe that this is going to accelerate the use of that being a commonplace replacement for the phone call. And people have heard me say on the show before, I have not been a big fan of video chat dating before, but I believe that’s the direction that we’re heading in because we are craving authenticity. And I think we have missed that crucial step of the pre connection before you go out on the date. That’s why we have so much ghosting. But now we when we layer it with also, meeting face to face could mean risking your life. I think that video chat date becomes even more crucial. Do you see people using it as a Still a primary filter? Or do you see people maintaining long term relationships over video chat before they ever even meet in person.

Clarissa Silva  5:10  

So that was one that was one of my main drivers of talking to the vet DJ. NET local for love. So local for love is, is built on the premise that hey, this could cut cut the BS and dating have a video chat as your first date. Right so when I asked Vivek Jane Have you seen an increase and he was like yeah over 60% increase as occurred think of the worst case scenario. So the people that are going to go crazy, like the extroverts, right that needs like now you know, not be contained to their space or have some kind of entertainment video format does relieve some of that anxiety. So I think greater use of video and hopefully maybe they transition to to life. You actually mentioned in the article, a quote about people who are staying home and binge Netflix are still matching people online. So that brings me to our second topic for today’s dating dish. The Netflix hit reality show love is blind. I’ve been asked for for,

Damona  6:11  

for quotes from so many different outlets about love is blind. It feels like it’s all that’s in my social media timeline other than coronavirus. So everyone is talking about love is blind. What I’m interested in as a dating and relationship coach is what we can learn from love is blind. And I know you you’ve seen the show as well. Right, Clarissa Yeah. Okay, I find this fascinating and spoiler alert for anyone who has not seen the show yet because all the episodes are now released. So it’s fair game for me to talk about the results. But overall, there are 15 women 15 men, six proposals, right six or was it Seven, six or six? proposals, six proposals, ultimately, two marriages that are still together today. And it makes you wonder what it what was the secret special sauce in those pods where they couldn’t see one another and they could only date through hearing one another’s voice. What do you think that was as a behavioral scientist that bonded those people in a way that they were able to build a relationship apart from even the physical connection? I mean, some of them saw each other in person and then weren’t able to really build the physical connection over time. But to the two out of two couples out of 15 potential couples is a pretty good batting average once you say.

Clarissa Silva  7:47  

Well, I the only criticism that I have is that I think the show took took the concept a little too literally, right? Yes. Like there are aspects of love that are completely irrational, and that defy logic. Right? That’s, that’s what makes this this emotion so interesting as a sciences, right? If you notice all like majority of, of the couples, the ones that finally hit that final round, but all of them were connecting on like a very emotional level,

Damona  8:22  

right? For the two couples that well there’s three couples still together but two couples that were married, what can we learn from their experience in the pods? And, you know, as a reality producer, I thought there should have been more of the conversation in the pods. I felt like I don’t really know the people. But that aside, that aside, something was happening in those pods that really made them feel bonded enough to one another that they would propose sight unseen to spend the rest of their lives with another person. So what can we take from that? And what can we apply to our own dating experience to ask the kind of questions have the kind of experience that they had in the pods and recreate that in our dating life?

Clarissa Silva  9:06  

Well see, I think part of this experiment is that we have to remember that these these were people that were of a mindset, right. So with my clients, probably 80% of them are already marriage minded or long term commitment minded. So to get on the show, you had to agree to go through a real marriage ceremony whether you know what I mean, like, so you already had to want and desire marriage long term, right?

Damona  9:36  

So it’s intent. You’re saying intent was the secret sauce of the of this particular of this particular experiment that that was the primary filter. Right? Right. I should have learned something from talking to you. And I know you, you have a lot more insight to share with us. So those are the headlines of the week, but we’re going to be taking a different direction. Talking to Laura powers after the break about how you can use intuition to guide your love life. Stick around. We’re here with Laura powers. She is an entertainer, author and celebrity psychic. She also hosts the healing powers podcasts, get it powers powers, she’s going to share some of her powers with us. You may have seen her before in BuzzFeed or on NBC, ABC, CBS or Fox she also was recently interviewed by Will Ferrell on his podcast, the Ron Burgundy podcast, so please help me give big smooches to Laura powers. Thanks so much for having me today. I am excited to get into these powers to like unite powers with you. And I know in on your show, it does tap into your work as a celebrity psychic, but you also talk a lot about health and wellness and the way that different aspects of your life impact other systems. Do people are listening to the show because they want love and you’ve kind of been through this journey yourself to have of needing to address health before love could come your way? Yeah, so

Laura Powers  11:14  

our spiritual health and what we can have in our life, our intuition, they’re all really connected. So I feel like we can’t really silo things. So sometimes when people come to me and they’re looking for help with love, it’ll come up Wow, we need to work on your work life balance or your health or something else. Anything that is bringing your energy down will also impact what you can allow and receive in other areas.

Damona  11:37  

Okay, so let’s break that down for people because I know there are some folks that are listening that are like, I’m good. I have a great job. I work out all the time. And the only thing that is not flowing for me is my love life. And they may call a celebrity psychic powers and say, what’s going on for me in love? What would you first have them do to kind of tune in into different areas of their of their wellness and Life Center.

Laura Powers   12:04  

Well, first thing I do is look at them in particular to see what’s going on, because everyone has a different kind of karmic path and different things that are going on. But a lot of times there’s something in our life that maybe we’re not aware of, maybe we have some boundaries that are not being honored. And when that happens, it’s like sending a mixed message to the universe. So if we’re saying we want one thing, but then another life area, we’re accepting something different, it can basically send a message to universe like, what I want doesn’t really matter.

Damona  12:32  

Okay, so you’re saying, if you are you said accepting something, like, let’s give an example. You are at work? Yeah. And you are always the person that they go to? Because you’re always available and you’re always taking on town. Exactly. You’re feeling overwhelmed. Yeah. Is that what

Laura Powers   12:54  

you mean? Exactly. That could be one or maybe you have like a really needy friend. You’re always rescuing or

Laura Powers   13:00  

You know, girls, you know, and

Laura Powers  13:02  

yeah, or maybe you are not taking time for self care, maybe you go to the gym but you’re not giving yourself kind of loving, nurturing energy. If you don’t give that energy to yourself, you’re basically kind of rejecting it and not sending the message to the universe that you want that loving, positive nurturing energy, and then it’ll be hard for you to receive it from someone else as well.

Damona  13:23  

And I know you do this when you’re working with clients, you can assess and, and do a scan of what’s happening in different areas of their life different, probably different chakras different messages that you get. I know everyone at home is going, how could I start to do this myself? Is there a way that you can train your clients to get so far on their own before they come to you?

Clarissa Silva  13:49  

Absolutely. So I actually do a lot of training. I teach classes, group classes, and then I do one on one training. Certainly learning to tap intuition and understand whatever your gifts are is really important because you know, if you’re a clairvoyant if you’re an empath, and clairvoyant means seeing an empath is someone who feels energies and emotions from outside their body. So for empaths, it is super, super important to really get an understanding what’s theirs and what’s not theirs. Oh, yeah,

Damona  14:13  

not I have been through that. Yeah, I’m an empath as well.

Laura Powers   14:16  

Yeah. And

Damona  14:18  

sometimes, you know, I’ll go into a situation where I’ll go into a new space. And I’ll just feel really overwhelmed. And I’m like, what’s going on? Like, I don’t know why all of a sudden, my heart’s beating fast. And I. And, you know, I’ve done some of this psychic development work too, and getting in touch with, where’s that message coming from and sometimes, like you might sit across from a date, and you feel this energy from them and you don’t know why, like on paper, they seem really great, but you don’t know why. And I really have my clients get into the feeling of being with someone new and what does it feel like when you’re with them? Because that will that will unlock a lot of information for you. Oh

Laura Powers   14:58  

my gosh, I’m so glad you brought that Because I think this is true for everyone, but it’s especially true if you’re an empath, if you have that kind of sensitivity. So one of the things that happened with me is I attracted a lot of like very, I would say, successful in terms of societal kind of norms. narcissism in talking about, like, really wealthy men very successful, and then I’d be around them. And I was like, wow, I feel so insecure like, and I used to think when it first happened, I was like, Oh, I just feel insecure because they have so much and I don’t know, but what I realized after a period of time was that I was actually as an empath. They were really insecure as a person and I was picking up on that. So that’s, that’s something to pay attention to. When you’re around someone, how do you feel when you’re around them? If you’re an empath, it’s very likely that you’re feeling what they’re feeling and if you don’t feel good for whatever reason, then it’s probably not a great situation. Do you believe that

Damona  15:57  

everyone has an element of psychic ability or empathy. I mean, yeah, everyone has empathy, but empathy on that sort of level,

Laura Powers   16:05  

not everyone does have empathy, actually, I mean, I think it’s kind of a shock to a lot of people, but I think it’s definitely a range and that, you know, kind of from zero to 100, or whatever. And I would say everyone has a little something. But what that is, varies greatly. And also, we don’t have any kind of psychic training in our society automatically. Like you don’t when you’re a kid, you don’t learn your psychic. ABCs. Yeah, that’s, you know, and

Damona  16:33  

they’ll say, like, trust your gut.

Laura Powers   16:35  

Yeah,

Damona  16:35  

but no, but nobody really knows what that means.

Laura Powers   16:38  

Exactly. No one knows no one has learning. You know, there’s no learning system where people can access that. And I found, for example, when I teach classes and do trainings, it’s amazing to me how many people will come in and they’ll be like, well, I’m just kind of curious. I just wanna explore and then we start doing some psychic exercises. I’m like, Oh my gosh, you are super psychic, but they’ve literally just never practiced it. So I think a lot of people have that. And even just having a few psychic tools can really help. And I was telling you before we started the interview that one of the reasons I got psychic training was because I had a horrible divorce. And I basically was like, I don’t want to ever go through that again. So I got training, I started to look at the guys that I was considering dating,

Laura Powers   17:19  

to try to get a better sense of what was really going on.

Laura Powers   17:21  

Right? Well, that’s,

Damona  17:23  

that’s a high level skill set that you that you’ve developed, but even at the beginning, just assessing what what you have attracted before. I mean, that’s, that’s so much of this process is like and that’s why I begin every program that I do with mindset. Yeah, and with with assessing like who you are, what you want, what have you attracted in the past? What are your patterns? What are your predominant thoughts because also, like there’s a lot that a lot of work that I’ve had to do in reducing the chatter we all have that that inner critic that chatter in our brains and that really blocks Any psychic ability for me any tuning in?

Laura Powers   18:02  

And I think a lot of times it’s actually connected with your psychic ability. That chatter is actually different beings talking with you.

Damona  18:08  

Sometimes Yes. But like that inner voice that is like talking you out of things. Yeah, judging things. Like a lot of my clients will will come to me, I’ll say, What is your What? What’s your love mantra right now? And a lot of times they’ll say to me before I even ask like, well, there’s no single guys in my city. Well, all the women that I date or after my money, and then the more that you repeat that thought, the more that thought becomes your reality. And then the more you’re attracting, it’s kind of like what you were saying before. Then you start attracting, you attract what you don’t want, because the message is just amplified.

Laura Powers   18:49  

Yeah, completely. I agree that we definitely have our own thoughts, but I believe most people are actually basically picking up on thought forms ideas from others. other beings could be other humans could be non human entities. So just like they’re beings of the light, you know, I believe in angels, they’re helpful they will send you positive messages, but there are non helpful beings that will also share negative thoughts. I think of them as like energy parasites, and they will, you know, feed on fear, anxiety, stress, pain, anger, etc. And they will go wherever there’s food, so if we have a lot of negative mind talk, that they are kind of feeding us and they just keep kind of keep that going. Yeah, eat on it. Yeah, that’s

Damona  19:34  

true. We don’t want that know, from happening. One thing we haven’t talked about before on the show, and that is something I know you’ve addressed, is past lives. And this is like this is such a, you know, we’re playing on today’s show and looking at what is possible and and so many there’s so many theories of like the love that you attract is somewhere That you have had a history with in the past? I don’t know, I’ll just be like, totally upfront, even as someone that believes in a lot of these things I literally do not know on past lives. But I’ve had a lot of funny coinkidink What is your feeling on past lives?

Laura Powers   20:15  

Yeah, I think most of us here have had quite a few lives. And a lot of times when we have some kind of close relationship with someone, it’s it’s very likely that we’ve had past lives with that person. So whether it’s a parent or a spouse or a child, and we are helping each other learn various lessons, and we learn a lesson two degrees. So let’s say this is something came up with a client where she came in and she was having a hard time in her marriage and didn’t feel comfortable. And when I looked at their past lives, she had been the slave of her. Oh, my husband in a past life. Yeah, yeah. So you know it. I looked at her psychically and so she was basically she was wearing a color and like, you Kind of at his beck and call. And it was like when I like the passive was like No wonder, like her lesson was to have stronger boundaries and do what she wanted and not just, you know, do someone else as well have her own sense of power. And just helping her understand that she cried during the session. And she felt this relief but also helps confirm for her why she felt this way because she did feel like controlled and disempowered in the relationship. And then just even knowing that sometimes will help you just have comfort and then be better able to move forward instead of a lot of people will have these feelings but they’ll just dismiss it because it’s not

Laura Powers   21:36  

logical.

Damona  21:37  

Yeah, I’m sure a lot of people come to you from the logical

Laura Powers   21:41  

point of view.

Damona  21:43  

How do you get them past that point to see see other perspectives of things that you know, there’s no empirical evidence one way or another about any of this stuff that that you’re talking about? And that and yet, I know you’ve experienced I know I’ve experienced it. I know many of my, my clients, I’ve experienced it too. How do you get people over that hump from like skeptic to believer?

Laura Powers   22:09  

I would say most people that come and work with me are already there. But there are people that are just curious. And I think the best thing is just to be open and then see what resonates. And just see what unfolds. You know, I have one client that came in, and he was just kind of curious, started listening to podcasts. And I could talk about this because he’s talked about it publicly. He was on my podcast, and then he booked a session and in the reading, I said, you’re gonna write a book. And eventually that book is going to be your work and you’re going to tour around the world and, you know, talk about it. And at the time, he was like, I don’t know, then he, you know, a year later wrote the book year later was the bestseller. So just being open and just, just sometimes it’s just this information that comes in and also there is more and more evidence about some of these things. So his book is called an To upside down thinking so if you’re very scientifically minded, that book by Mark Ober is all about the scientific aspect of consciousness, and there’s quite a bit in there that’s specifically talking about psychic abilities and intuition.

Damona  23:12  

Oh, wow, you’ve inspired him. Yeah, you come here. I’m sure. You’ve inspired a lot of people through your work. Thank you. Yeah, that’s my goal. Well, you and you’re doing the healing powers podcast, talk to me a little bit more about that, and about some of the themes that you’ve addressed and that you aim to address going forward that that would be relevant for dates and mates listeners.

Laura Powers   23:36  

Sure. So I think you know, if you’re wanting to improve your love life, whether that’s to find a partner or to improve your relationship, intuition is going to be extremely helpful because it’s basically like the learning the easy way to go. Like what you’re being guided to do is going to help you have less pain and suffering, which I think is ultimately what we all want and and have more love in our lives. And on that podcast, we talk a lot about intuition. Access then then we also talk about the physical aspect because the mechanisms that we are using quite a bit for our intuition and psychic abilities are in the gut, and the heart and the brain. And especially in our society, we have a lot of like gut health issues.

Laura Powers   24:16  

Yeah. Talk to us about Oh, just

Laura Powers   24:18  

eating poor food. Our microbiome is messed up from antibiotics and our immunity and everything is there. Well, what’s bad for the gut is bad for the brain. Like we have the second highest number of neurons in our gut as we do in the brain. So basically, if your digestion is messed up, your brain is messed up. And your brain is where you know, our third eye is and that area is believed to be in the pineal gland. So if you are physically not doing so well in those areas, you are not going to be able to tap into your intuition, which again, is to help you just navigate better in your life and you experience that yourself as well. You are on a

Damona  24:55  

less healthy path. Yeah. Talk to us about your story.

Laura Powers   24:58  

Yeah. And so In my case, I was about 55 pounds heavier than I am now I was on sleeping pills. I was diagnosed as depressed. I had PCs, which is polycystic ovary syndrome. I just I was a real mess and was trying to heal it sort of the sort of standard way I was eating the standard American diet. And like, you know, everything was not bad enough to where I was getting a lot of headway and sort of the traditional way. So I started going some alternative health practitioners and addressing my diet. And once I did that, you know, things started to really shift for me. So I, before you move on, you would also mention you had a marriage that ended was this happening simultaneously. Yeah, so that was all intertwined. It was all intertwined. And, you know, I left my marriage, I mean, some big health changes. I started taking psychic development classes. So that’s why on my podcast, we talked about all of these things together, because I don’t think you can just isolate You know, one area of your life, it’s all connected. So if you have, you know, A major health issue immune disorder, maybe your relationships actually are being that come into, you know, view because I think a lot of people, for example, when they have a chronic health condition, there’s usually some kind of a relational issue that’s at its core.

Damona  26:15  

Oh, wow. That’s deep. That’s deep and and I think also sometimes when you are so consumed with what’s happening in your health issue, or in another area that is not being addressed, then, like, how can you even begin to think about finding love if you are if you don’t feel well, or you are, you’re stressed from you know, work, family, friends, anything, if you’re not addressing those things, then it’s just overwhelming to even think about opening yourself up to love.

Laura Powers   26:51  

Absolutely. And the other thing I’d like to bring in as it relates to love is the importance of following your soul plan or purpose which might seem disconnected from life. But there’s a lot of people when they incarnate they’ve basically decided on a soul level. I am not going to have relationship until I kind of do XYZ.

Laura Powers   27:07  

Hmm.

Damona  27:08  

Wait, I hear this all the time from the guys that listen to the show. Yeah, they’re not ready for a relationship until they get their finances together until they get such so far along in their career, is that what you’re talking about? Or something even

Laura Powers   27:22  

I’m talking about that but maybe not necessarily dark, tied with finances, but your soul’s desire. So let’s say you’re like, Hey, I really want a relationship, but your soul is like, well, until I write that book or I do whatever. I’m not that doors closed. Because maybe on a on a personality level, you know, as a soul that once you get a relationship, all your focus goes on that relationship. True. So I think this is all different from person to person, but these are some of the patterns and things that I see people so just checking in like, what is it that you came here due to so what does that lights you on fire? Are you doing that? Maybe you have a stable Good job. But it’s not your purpose. You’re not excited. It’s not driving passion in you, and then you’ve kind of shut that door down for yourself.

Damona  28:06  

Yeah, yeah, that’s, that’s so true. And you know, the same thing in relationships. Like there may be some people listening right now who are in a relationship that doesn’t really excite them, you know, and it’s sometimes there’s a feeling that it’s easier to stay the course than to go through all of the I don’t want to say the drama or the chaos, but you know, to go through that experience of reorganizing your life. But you’ve done it. You’ve been there. Yeah. Through the tough stuff.

Laura Powers   28:37  

Yeah.

Damona  28:38  

And you were able to rebuild your life in a more, more passion filled way, right.

Laura Powers   28:44  

Yeah. And I do see one pattern that comes up over and over again, is just boundaries and whatever you allow, is what you get more of. So the analogy I give to people is that it’s very much like a Netflix cue, which may sound funny, but like Whatever you watch on Netflix, it kind of suggests other show like here’s, yeah, you know, here’s some other shows like that. And the world is like that. So whenever you’re accepting something, if it’s not what you what you want, say no. Yeah, say no. Because otherwise you’re just gonna keep getting that. And sometimes you, you know, it’s like there’s a memory in the queue. And let’s maybe you haven’t watched a horror movie for a year. But you watched that one A while ago, and it just kind of keeps showing up for a while. Yeah, so you have to say no, for a while sometimes because for fully like, the new thing starts to show up that you want.

Damona  29:31  

Yeah, I feel like my Netflix queue doesn’t even know me. Like, sometimes it suggests things and I’m just like, really, you think that but in a way, like if we use that analogy, sometimes you’ll you’ll get things that you’re just like, how did this even come into my head, especially you know, I talk a lot about dating apps, online dating. And when you’re in that space of swipe, where you really don’t know that much about the person if you’re not Keep queued into your intuition, and you’re just swiping based on looks or something superficial or something. Like, you know, people will tell me Oh, well, he asked to be over six feet like that is my main criteria. Like, what? There’s so many other things that are much more important than that. But if you continue to swipe it, same thing, algorithms, just like Netflix, it will bring you more of the people that you shouldn’t be swiping right on, or that you don’t really have that, that deeper connection with. If you were to advise a client on tapping into intuition for swiping, how would you do it?

Laura Powers   30:38  

Gosh, Well, the first thing I’d say take a look and see what you feel. And then just take a moment pause and like, see what you feel in your body when you think of that person? Mm hmm. Because our bodies tell us so much and most people are just completely ignoring it. Because they don’t understand it. They just don’t even think to do it. But yeah, do you feel excited? Do you feel upset In your stomach, do you feel a sense of dread? Like these are all things that most people are just not even pausing to listen to what their body is telling them. And it’s so important for safety, obviously, with something like, you know, dating where it’s a complete stranger, but also just is this person able to connect with you in the way that you want to?

Damona  31:18  

Yes, in a lot of times, we do get the message, you guys get the message, and then we shut it down. And we say, oh, but I’m gonna give him the benefit of the doubt. Or, well, I don’t really know what if I’ll just go out with him and see when we’ve already heard the message.

Laura Powers   31:37  

Oh, absolutely. I love that. Maya Angelou quote, you know, when someone shows you who they are, believe them, you know, this is the biggest problem. And I think on a deeper level, a lot of this comes from this but there’s a lot especially a lot of women it can happen with men but as I see a lot with women, where they are in the sort of martyr pattern of trying to heal, save or rescue And what I say to anyone is in that pattern is you don’t have to sacrifice yourself to help someone. And if you do, that’s not actually helping. Because I believe the universe is benevolent. And it can be a win win. You can help someone and be good. Yeah, you don’t have to suffer or die. You know, at this point, it’s usually not someone dying, but maybe they’re, they’re sacrificing their emotions, or they’re being treated poorly. And that is a kind of sacrifice.

Damona  32:28  

self sacrifice. Yeah. And you also don’t have to, you don’t have to save everyone. Like I had a bit of a pattern for that before I met my husband, like, I would always attract guys that I thought I could help. And then I was like, I don’t want to date all these guys that, you know, is working as a casting director, like I don’t want to date these actors that need me to help them but at the same time, I would then date these actors and I’d be like, Can I help you? Right? So it’s like you were saying before, like attracting the same thing that you say that you Don’t want. And that’s really not the relationship that you want where you’re, you’re in it to save the other person or to help the other person. Right? It really should be a reciprocal support system for one another. Right?

Laura Powers   33:14  

Absolutely. And if that feels like a driving motivation behind the relationship that I’m saying that that’s not a healthy relationship, and that it’s sometimes the hardest thing is to keep saying no, even when the thing you don’t want isn’t showing up.

Damona  33:28  

Say that again. For me, Laura, because I think that’s really important.

Laura Powers   33:31  

Yeah, it’s sometimes the hardest thing is to keep saying no, even when what you want isn’t showing up. So basically, don’t accept something that isn’t what you want, just because it’s the only thing there because if you keep doing that, the thing you want will never show up because it’s like that,

Damona  33:45  

please. Vain cold. Yes. Yeah, that’s exactly it.

Laura Powers   33:49  

That that is. That’s

Damona  33:51  

the perfect place to end this conversation. Because sometimes there’s this feeling of, well, I don’t want to be alone. So and people say to me, Well, are you telling me I should just settle? No, I’m not telling you to settle. I’m telling you the opposite of settling. I’m telling you to keep that space open until you feel it. Right.

Laura Powers   34:12  

Yeah. And spend that time doing things that bring you passion and joy in other ways. Focus on yourself, you know, improving your life, and then you’ll be in a better place and you’ll automatically attract more of what you’re looking for anyway.

Damona  34:25  

Yes. Well, those are wise words to end this interview on. I am so excited that you were finally able to join me on the show here in LA. And I’m really excited for what’s next with the healing powers podcast. So thank you so much for being here.

Laura Powers   34:39  

Thank you so much for having me. It’s been my pleasure.

Damona  34:42  

We have more dates in May. It’s coming right up, so stick around.

Damona  34:49  

Welcome back to dates and mates.

Damona  34:50  

I am here with my co host, Clarissa Silva. And it’s time to break down your modern dating dilemmas. Clarissa you You know so much about dating from not just the dating coach perspective that I offer, but from a behavioral science perspective and you you have this happiness hypothesis, that tell us a little bit about the half happiness hypothesis and how you’ve how you’ve used that to not only meet your husband, but to help other people.

 

Clarissa Silva  35:20  

So when I was when I was single, and going through dating, I was frustrated and I was using online dating and in real life dating, and I felt like I was completely failing myself. I kept you know, following the same pattern. So then I kind of re engineered a lot of the stuff that I thought was ideal, right? So you you tell yourself, okay, these certain things are, are what you need, then you test it, right? So I was always treating dating like it was a social experiment. So once I put myself through the rigor of Hey, if you if you seriously think that these are the reasons that that your family Right, start start looking at this on a broader scale. So then we started testing out the model. And for two years in a row, we have 97% efficacy, and we reduce anxiety and depression risk and we increase brain health. It’s a decision making model to help you explore based on like five factors of decision making that impede your ability to find love.

 

Damona  36:25  

Well, I know you have a line out the door, people wanting to work with you, but I have a line of people wanting to ask questions. So I’m going to read a couple of them to you and hopefully people can get a little touch of the Clarissa Silva magic. Here’s our first question. This one comes to us from Instagram. She says I’ve been dating this attractive, successful guy for about three months. He’s dealing with some family drama and has asked has been asked to help out his grandma as well as financially support his parents, which has been emotionally weighing on him. He’s opened up about all of this to me. And he said that he doesn’t think he can be in a relationship right now. Right now we talk daily and hang out one to two times a week. And I’m happy with how things are but worried that six or nine months down the line, nothing will change. And he won’t commit to me. He knows I want to be married and have kids, which is, which may be why he’s bringing this up now versus later. Clarissa, is there any hope for this lady on Instagram? Is this a relationship she should be patient with? Or should she cut and run since he said that?

 

Clarissa Silva  37:33  

So there’s only two ways to go about this. He’s already exiting. Right? So I would take that as you’re exiting the relationship, and I don’t think that there is going to be any point where six months, nine months, three days down the line where they’ll evaluate because if they felt like you were part of that whole evaluation, then they wouldn’t let you go because they are going to be confronting different issues that go Grandmother, you know what I mean? And those are not times where people want to be alone.

 

Damona  38:06  

That’s true. I just wonder it’s only been three months. I just wonder if it’s too early. Like if maybe the conversation came out of him feeling pressured? And it’s like, well, if you want me to give you an answer right now, the answer is no. But if, if she continued to be a support system for him, and became someone that was trusted, so that he didn’t want to be alone and didn’t feel judged for having to, you know, contribute to his parents financial well being and help out his grandmother, then maybe he would see you in a different way. But I wonder if it’s just too soon to make a call or to put any kind of ultimatum on a person that essentially you just met?

 

Clarissa Silva  38:45  

Wow. Three months is not a short time. I mean, it is a short time, you know, but it’s enough. It’s enough data for you to know what you know. I mean, like, it’s, that’s enough time for you to figure out which way you feel about a person or which For you.

 

Damona  39:00  

Absolutely. I think the bottom line though is don’t force an outcome.

 

Clarissa Silva  39:03  

Right? To say that absolutely not. And that’s that’s probably what she’s trying to do. But she’s already been exited. So he exited A while ago. But she’s, she’s enamored and wants, wants it.

 

Damona  39:14  

But what do you say to those people? I know there are other listeners that are like, they feel like they’ve been exit exited. But he’s still calling her daily. He they’re still meeting up once or twice a week. So how can she deal with him having exited or opted out of being more serious, but still being in her life?

 

Clarissa Silva  39:36  

Yeah, they’re exited, you’re still you’re helping some optional queue. And that that seems normative to people where you know, it, we would see a difference if people just started saying, well, it’s a mutual exit at this point.

 

Damona  39:53  

I’m not gonna allow this to keep going on top not what I want.

 

Clarissa Silva  39:56  

I draw the line out right people, please. My

 

Damona  40:01  

All right, how about this question? Going kind of a different direction. This one came to us from our new Patreon group, which all of you all can join by going to patreon.com, slash dates and mates if you want to support the show and have more access to get your questions on the show. This person says, Is it good or bad if you hold out from going all the way? And this is from a lady. So withholding sex from someone that you are at the beginning stage of dating? What do you think? Clarissa?

 

Clarissa Silva  40:39  

Good, bad, ugly? Well see, these are the two arguments that are made to me all the time. So we have sex a screener happening amongst certain populations, right? When you when you talk to people that use sex as a screener, they say, Well, I’m not going to be in the game if I don’t have sex with them immediately. Right? And if I hold out the outcome is still the same, right? I’m holding out for whatever timeframe you hold out on. And you still get ghosted, right, like so. So the data point is am I compatible? Is this person going to ghost me? Should I hold off on doing like anything more committal on my ends, and hopefully prevents ghosting, hopefully find a decent person and the end result is ghosting. Anyway. Yeah.

 

Damona  41:28  

So it so the answer is doesn’t really matter. Like you’ve seen it work out if people have sex right away or not, it’s more about the substance of their connection beyond that,

 

Clarissa Silva  41:40  

right? So as long as it doesn’t have any impact on your self esteem, and you’re able to draw clear lines about what people are and what people aren’t in your, in your mind, or you’re getting some actual compatibility data, from the sex of screener then continue to do what you’re doing.

 

Damona  41:58  

Yeah, just to add myself two cents I think, obviously, everything you said is right. But I think also, sometimes now people look at sex as a screener, like you said, like if we’re not sexually compatible, and my perspective is that your connection with someone can grow. And once you and once you have like clear communication with them, if they’re willing to grow with you, in, you know, sexually and experiment and meet your needs in that way, then you can make any situation work. That’s my perspective. Obviously, there are other medical situation, but we won’t get into this. I’m just talking more generally right now. But the problem right now is if you’re using it as a tool, like Well, I’m gonna withhold sex, because then I’ll get the result that I want. That is not the way that you want to think about it. But if you’re like, I’m going to Hold on, because I just love that magic moment when you’re starting to get to know someone and you haven’t crossed that line and there’s all that anticipation before you’ve had sex and you won’t get that feeling back not in that way. And so my feeling is why rush it if you are living in the magic, and it’s not so long where they’re like, this is never gonna happen. It’s not like a Kenny Kelly was blind situation, then why are we in such a hurry? I don’t believe in sex as a as a primary screener because it tells you nothing about the emotional content of that person and their willingness to really commit to you and grow with you. Oh my gosh, we could talk about this forever. But I know you have lots of people to help. lots, lots of behavioral analysis to run. I so appreciate you being able to join us and I appreciated your article, which we’ll link to, and of course, if anyone wants to try the happiness hype This method or work with you personally, then Clarissa silva.com is the best place to go to get hooked up. Thank you for being here. Clarissa Thanks so much to Clarissa for joining us. You can find Clarissa at Clarissa silva.com and you can find Laura at Laura powers 44 healing powers dotnet and of course on the healing powers podcast, this has been Episode 301 of dates and maids. I’m at damona Hoffman on all the socials. We need your questions. I know this is a crazy time. And there’s probably a lot going through your mind about whether it’s cuffing season, whether it’s social distancing season, how you can FaceTime a date and keep the connection going strong whatever it is, that’s on your mind. I’m here to help you with it. So you can DM me on all the socials at damona Hoffman or visit us at dates and mates calm and you can submit your question there. And we would love to have you join our community of love and support on this show on Patreon, you can see which goodies you’ll get from being a trusted friend with benefits of dates and mates if you check out our page patreon.com slash dates and mates. Next week we’ll be talking to Noel corto on how your brain chemistry might be leading you astray in love. That is a not to miss episode. Until next week, I wish you good health and happy dating

Healing Heartbreak & Baby Mama Drama

HAPPY NEW YEAR, LOVERS!

According to some data from Facebook, it turns out that this is the season for both heartbreaks and hookups. Apparently, the period from Christmas day to New Years has one of the highest rates for breakups. This is probably due mostly to stress and pressure from the holidays.

Even some divorce attorneys like to call January divorce month because of the spike they see in divorce filings continually this month!  So if you’re just coming out of a breakup or have ever dealt with heartbreak, this episode is for you.

More on that later, first we have headlines!

 

DATING DISH (2:30)

Everything you need to know about dating if you’re participating in dry January

Can you even go on a first date if you’re not going for drinks? We think actually, this might be a good thing for first dates and maybe we should all do it more often!

The New York Times wants to know, “is divorce month even real?”

Divorce is definitely seasonal according to the New York Times, but March and August are some other months you need to look out for when it comes to relationship turmoil.

We need to have a conversation about former senior Royals Harry and Meghan

I’m sure you heard that Harry and Meghan have stepped back as senior royals. Is Harry making a mistake?

LOVE STORY (14:60

Joining me as my today is Claire Byrne, a Heartbreak Coach who helps women stop wanting Mr. or Ms. Wrong back, as well as help them find the right kind of love. She’s a regular contributor on Kourtney Kardashian’s Poosh.com, and the creator/host of the podcast, How to Stop Wanting Him Back.

Find Claire The Heartbreak Coach on Instagram @clairetheheartbreakcoach and be sure to check out her podcast, “How To Stop Wanting Him Back!”

TECHNICALLY DATING

Submit your questions Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook and hear our answers live on the show! Here’s what our listeners asked about this week:

  • I’m a 32 women with a 6 year old and the guy I was seeing is 29 with an 18month old and baby mama drama. We were together for only 3.5 months, but were exclusive. I realized a couple of weeks ago that I am pregnant. He took two weeks to process the news and then he broke up with me because he doesn’t want the baby. I don’t believe in abortions but he told me to go as in he was done and didn’t want to be with me. I know he’s scared, but I’m so scared, and mad, and heartbroken at the same time. Any advice would be appreciated! Should I try to reach back out to him?
  • From Pamela – I was raised to pray, do ministry, and go to school and I just thought the right man would appear in my life. Not true. I’ve no real dating experience & I’ve never been in love. I’m an extremely late bloomer! I’ve two Master’s degrees and take my eduation seriously. I’m now a very liberal Christian. How do I find the right man on dating apps? The men I talk to are either judgey because I’m too religious or not religious enough.

WANT TO GO EVEN DEEPER? HERE IS A TRANSCRIPT OF THE SHOW IF YOU WANT TO FOLLOW ALONG!

Damona  0:12

modern love Made Simple. This is dates and mates with damona Hoffman. Hello lovers Welcome to dates and mates. I’m certified Dating Coach damona Hoffman here to simplify all things on modern love. You may have heard before on the show according to some data from Facebook, it turns out that the period from Christmas day to New Year’s has the highest rate of breakups happening. Maybe this is due to the stress and pressure pressure from the holidays people don’t want to get presents people thinking about the new year and wanting to start fresh. I don’t know the answers but today I have the person who does know the answers to these questions. Her name is Claire burn she is a heartbreak coach who helps women stop wanting Mr. or Mrs. Wrong back as well as help them to find the right Kind of love. She’s a regular contributor to cart Courtney Kardashians poosh calm and she’s the creator and host of the podcast how to stop wanting him back please. Let’s give big smooches to Claire bird. Thank you for having Oh, thank you so much for being here. This is the time of year where we really need to work through heartbreak and and start the year fresh, right everybody is is coming into this new year wanting to to create new patterns and behaviors for themselves. So this is a perfect time to clear the state slate and to let people know how to how to get into a relationship differently this time and how to stop going back over back over that old history.

Claire The Heartbreak Coach  1:42

Right? Absolutely. This is definitely anything just now more and more especially we live in LA so it’s just a mecca for self personal growth but there’s nothing like cleaning the slate and really evaluating and looking back on your year and Just asking yourself, is this partnership serving me? And am I showing up as my best self? And if not, then no better time to cleanse and kick off the new year. Absolutely. Also just healing what didn’t work and then really getting clear on the relationship with yourself before you create space for the right person to come back in. I can’t wait to talk to you about that.

Damona  2:25

And speaking of cleanses, we also have headlines today including what you need to know about dating if you’re doing dry January. Plus, the New York Times wants to know is divorce month even real is January really divorce month. New York Times has something to say about it. Plus, we have to talk about the former senior Royals, Harry and Megan and then we’ll be answering your questions like where are all the men who match your religious values and how to deal with heartbreak as a single mom, Claire, are you ready to do these headlines? I’m ready

Claire The Heartbreak Coach  3:03

to do the headlines. All right, let’s dish these dating dish

Damona  3:09

askmen was nice enough to give us a guide to dry January dating. If you guys have not been hearing about this dry January trend, apparently one out of five people said January I’m not drinking and that may mean that you’re doing a physical cleanse but it doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re not dating as well. And this can cause some challenges if you’re going out on dates which usually revolve around drinking alcohol or involve alcohol in some way. I’ve got to know Claire how to set ourselves up for success. A little birdie told me you’re doing dry January

Claire The Heartbreak Coach  3:47

and I am 100% Irish so I like my drinks.

Claire The Heartbreak Coach  3:53

The holidays I always build up and I just know January. We just got to detox

Damona  3:57

so you just like you go hard all year. And then you just have to stop. Rewind refresh.

Claire The Heartbreak Coach  4:03

Yeah, I like to do cleanses. 30 days I’ll probably do one or two more this year. I like to do them every few months, but definitely after the holidays and I’m currently dating someone right now. So we’re doing that together, but I have been single and dry at certain points, not necessarily in January. And I’m not gonna lie It absolutely is more challenging, but I would challenge anyone out there who is taking the best care of him or herself and wants to reset and cleanse their body. Why does alcohol have to be the thing to make you feel comfortable on the date? Right? Like why would you stop yourself from putting yourself out there just because you’re cleansing your body because I’m hoping that you’ll also want to be sober with your future partner so I think it’s a pretty cool thing like if someone said that to me, Hey, you know i’m i’m doing a cleanse right now. I’d still love to meet up and my whole thing too is Look, I’m going I’m on a cleanse But please, by all means drink. Whatever you want to drink, I’d still love to meet. I’m just letting you know.

Damona  5:03

I want to know though, do you tell them before you get to the day that I do be drinking? I do.

Claire The Heartbreak Coach  5:08

And you know, I have a health coach friend and she said, Why do you even have to tell them that? Why do we have to make drinking such a thing? And I see her point, but for me, I do want to let the potential future partner know right? I do enjoy drinking alcohol. I’m a social drinker. I like my wine like my skinny Margarita is. I’m just not drinking them right now. But it is a part of my life. And I think that is something that I love doing that with my boyfriend going out for a cocktail at 5pm and enjoying the sunset, right? Like that’s something that we enjoy doing. So I think if it is something that you like to do in your life, let that person know

Damona  5:47

what if you’re sober longer than then January I do have a number of clients actually who have been non drinkers nondrinkers. Yeah, and they’ve run into some challenges of people that Absolutely I will not date a non drinker or how do you even bridge that conversation? Do you think a drinker and a non drinker can have a successful relationship? Absolutely,

Claire The Heartbreak Coach  6:09

yes, I’ve definitely fallen for sober people. And I definitely think that that can work. I don’t think if you’re someone who likes to get wasted and have five, six drinks, you know, I’m someone who enjoys like two to three and because of my Irish blood, I’m not like slurring my

Damona  6:27

words. I’m like, I like to have one and I’m totally wasted. Yes, I think you need to know like,

Claire The Heartbreak Coach  6:33

literally your tolerance

Damona  6:34

level. And I always tell my clients to set your maximum like for me, I knew I was not making good decisions on dates. This is not just in dry January. Yeah, I was not making good decisions after one drink. Yeah. So I set a maximum of one drink because I want to be present on the day absolutely want to be able to make good decisions and be able to really assess is this somebody that I want to spend more time with and Am I going to be proud of the choices that I make into this date? If I’m with this person, months down the road?

Claire The Heartbreak Coach  7:07

Exactly. And I think too, if you are permanently sober, that should be something that’s shared on your profile, so that the people who are going to write you off for being sober all the time, aren’t your people. So just make it math, not drama. Like, okay, good to know, I have that information out there because I’m not changing that this is a part of who I am. This is a part of my lifestyle. And, and and also, I think you could say, you know, I’m sober. I’m open to dating people who do drink, right? Because some sober people don’t want to date drinkers. Right? So just make that clear, so that you’re not wasting anyone’s time.

Damona  7:41

That’s what it’s all about. Well, so we call it divorce month, because really, there was some data that supported divorces happening in January, Facebook said they have all of these status changes happening between like November and January. But according to the new york times they’re saying maybe January actually isn’t divorce month they were actually seeing a lot of divorces filed in the state of New York between March and August. I guess August is end of the summer and you start thinking about going back kids going back to school or the fall and the new cycle starting. What are you seeing as a heartbreak coach? Do you think divorce month is real? Is there a cycle to I mean, relationships ending if

Claire The Heartbreak Coach  8:30

statistics are showing what they’re showing, I think that that’s interesting. It would make more sense to me that you that a divorce would be happening post the holidays because I think it’s like I can’t do one more holiday with this person anymore. The summer is surprising to me, but I’m a heartbreak Coach 12 months out of the year and people come to me regularly all the time. And I don’t know if it’s time that is you know the time of year. That is the cause of the decision making, but also I think there can be events or people or, you know, if your spouse has a dying parent, are you going to leave them then?

Damona  9:08

Right. So you’re going to wait until August.

Claire The Heartbreak Coach  9:12

So I don’t know, I don’t know, if I would. But you know, indulge the trend or the statistics too much like your time is your time. There could be so many different reasons and so many different factors. There can be finances, it finance issues, kid issues, job issues, sex issues, and I think that any of those issues can happen anytime of the year.

Damona  9:35

Yeah. And especially in January as we are reassessing. As I said at the beginning of the show, what we want for the next year, I’m thinking about Can I actually be announced to me in this relationship and other year, right, right. Well, we’re talking about splits though. There’s a split of a different kind that’s happening. You all probably read about it. Megan, Markel, and Harry are stepping back from the royal family. They’re now saying They’re going to split their time between North America and the UK, and they want to become financially independent from the royal family. This is big news. And I know it’s like it feels sort of tableting like, Oh my god, they’re stepping back. But this really is, is a statement in their relationship together. And I’ve always said to my husband, we are on the same team. And once you partner with someone in a way that becomes your team, and they become in first position, not that your family is no longer important, but this person now becomes your family and your number one in a relationship that’s working. I’ve seen relationships not work where they were the mother or Yeah, still number one. So I think this is this is a statement of, of Harry saying, I first Yes, I am committed to this to this family. I don’t know how he’s gonna do for a man that has never worked a day in his life and probably has never had to do anything for himself. I don’t know how he’s really going to be like, so grown and financially independent. So you might see things shifting on that. But what do you think overall of this move? And is it as significant as the media is making it seem?

Claire The Heartbreak Coach  11:13

Uh, is it as significant as the media? I think

Claire The Heartbreak Coach  11:15

it is pretty significant. I mean, they’re really, you know, breaking a historical pattern. Right. So I think it is pretty major. It will be interesting to see how he financially supports himself. But I also think he’s going to have all kinds of crazy opportunities where people are just going to be like there with a bunch of money for him to thrive. But

Damona  11:37

yeah, I think it

Claire The Heartbreak Coach  11:38

is a pretty big deal that they’re making this big statement, and it’s a test dementor how devoted they are to each other and to their child. And I gotta say, I’m not surprised. Like when I read it, I do think it’s a big deal. But I was like, that makes sense

Damona  11:54

to me. Yes. Well, it seems to have been a gradual progression, right? Yeah. They’ve been She’s there been a lot of reports of her doing things different than the tradition they didn’t give their son, a traditional royal title. So I think it’s been coming for a while. And you know, the story is and I don’t have any insider information, people that listen to the show, know that I actually I knew Megan from college and I know her mom. And so I don’t have any insider information, you guys. I do not know anything. But I really wonder if it’s actually them fully making this decision. Or if this is a little bit coming from the royal family of like, you’re doing things a little too differently. And why don’t you go ahead and and make your own choices.

Claire The Heartbreak Coach  12:39

Interesting. Oh, no.

Damona  12:41

I heard also that that Charles had been saying he wanted to take some people off with the Royal payroll. So maybe, maybe Harry just like fell off. I think

Claire The Heartbreak Coach  12:52

Harry’s mother’s looking down being like, amen, kid.

Damona  12:56

You’re right. I really did things

Claire The Heartbreak Coach  12:57

differently to and really And I think he’s really stepping into her shoes right she’s he’s his mother son.

Damona  13:06

Exactly in this new classy way. Yeah, well we’re stepping into the break girl because we have so much more to talk about about heartbreak and and getting over a relationship ending and moving on and finding the love that’s going to really fulfill you in this new year. So we’re going to take we’re going to take a quick break but when we come back, we’ll have more with Claire burn. lovers, we are back with Claire the heartbreak coach talking about how you can heal your heart this January 1 clear I just want to acknowledge this the beginning of this process. It’s tough, right? Once you’ve made a decision, just to assess this person is not is not the right person for me or this relationship is not moving in the direction that I wanted to go. That takes a lot of courage. Just to be able to to admit that and have that conversation, even if it’s happened to you to have that conversation with yourself, if it’s happening to you, or if you are the one making the choice, it’s not your person. And there there’s a period of mourning that in a way that has to happen from that.

Claire The Heartbreak Coach  14:16

Absolutely. I think sometimes clients come to me and they’re like, you’re the heartbreak coach. So you’re just going to make me feel better. And I think a huge part of the process and the biggest first step that you have to take is to grieve, grieve the pain grieve the loss, even if you know it isn’t right. It’s still grieving what you hoped it could have been. And then also really being with the fear of well then is my person really out there like really consciously moving through all of that to then shift your perspective on it so that again, you can create space for falling in love with yourself before and getting really clear about what didn’t work in that relationship to then go eyes wide open into the next one, and not the The next one has any guarantees, right? But to just really consciously look at what didn’t work, move through the pain, move through the loss, move through the fear of what’s next. And, and not numb out and escape those emotions and feelings, which is what we really want to do.

Damona  15:16

Yeah, and what I think our society has been trained to do, like you don’t feel good, take a pill for it. And even just as a dating coach, a lot of what I have people do is feel their feelings on the date. I was just on the phone with a client earlier and she said, it’s been so helpful to her in working with me through that, because she would go on these dates and just like check the check the list of like, does he have that is he that and she was in her head the whole time. And I said, Stop, stop, stop. We’ve got to get into the feeling of what does it even feel like to be with this person? We already know you’re on the date with them. He hits the basic checked the basic boxes, he hits the basic criteria, but how how does it feel to be with them and so it’s how Like what you’re telling people to do is to really feel their feelings of this loss, rather than just sweeping it under the rug and just moving on into the next relationship.

Claire The Heartbreak Coach  16:11

Absolutely consciously processing your pain. I am big into committing to a mindfulness practice meditation, yoga, breath, work stillness, just like coming into the body and locating where you’re storing the emotional pain and breathing through it and being with it and honoring it because loss is a part of life. And at some point, you’re going to live sorry to get super morbid, but we’re going to lose people who pass on right? We have to learn how to be with our negative emotion and to your point, I think today more than ever, pop a pill, go shopping, and get get a massage, take a trip, get a new job, change your hair and like all those things, right when you’re inspired to kind of do a big shift or, you know, redesign your poem or something like that, because you’re inspired to do something different and step into a different way of expressing yourself. There’s nothing wrong with that. But just be really careful that you’re not using those things to cover over the pain that you’re experiencing. Hmm.

Damona  17:13

And once you’ve done that, what is the next step?

Claire The Heartbreak Coach  17:17

I think you have to get clear on what you really want. Is this a time to Are you ready? Like get really savvy? Are you really ready to date someone else again? Are you healed and clear from that past relationship? Or is this a time for you to really start dating yourself? I have a lot of clients who just they want to find their person and don’t want to be alone with our feelings I just recorded for my podcast, the last episode, it’s coming out next week. It’s called befriending loneliness. You know, when when my clients say to me, I’m lonely. I’m like, What’s so bad about that?

Damona  17:51

Well, there’s a difference in my book between alone and lonely and I spend a lot of my my time I’m single before I met my husband, and I had to really get comfortable with being alone. And this is an exercise I have my a lot of my clients like date yourself for a while and I know we’ve here that like date yourself date. What does that mean? That means be okay, going to a restaurant without another owner and not being immersed in your phone or having some way to distract only if a creeper is approaching

Claire The Heartbreak Coach  18:27

you?

Damona  18:30

Yeah, yeah, you have to have strategies and tactics like plan. Expect the best plan for the worst. thought it’s very important, but it’s amazing what you experienced when you just like get up and out and look around and look people in the eye and feel I used to feel bad when I see people sitting alone in a restaurant and be like, Oh, that sounds sad. They don’t have anyone to eat with. Yeah. But then when you choose to be alone in certain moments, and you let yourself Sit in that awkward place of like, Who am I? What do I love about myself? How do I feel in my own body? How do I feel in this space, you start to figure out things that you never could figure out when you’re in that relationship, and you’re always bouncing your own ideas and feelings and thoughts off of another person and in what they want. I mean,

Claire The Heartbreak Coach  19:22

I totally agree with that. And I also think that we’re going to have uncomfortable, lonely moments. I’m crazy about the guy that I’m with. He lives two hours away. But I think even if we were living in the same town, I’m going to have pockets of loneliness at certain times. He has a very full life. I have a very full life. There are moments where I’m alone, where I’m just like, wow, it’s just me right now. Whoa. And when I moved into a new place in, in LA, I’ve lived here for six years, but I moved in. There was an unassembled coffee table at the bottom of the steps outside my apartment waiting for me and I thought it was going to come assembled The way it was and I looked at it and I had that moment and And to your point I’ve really gotten so comfortable being alone. And when that coffee table showed up I just had that like my stomach just dropped and I was like if I had a man this is pre being in my relationship like there’s there were moments where I’m like, Whoa, this loneliness factor this desire for someone to just help me right there’s and then and then on the flip side of that, it’s like Claire, you’re a badass you just did this and I flipped the thing. up the steps into the apartment, of course I called TaskRabbit

Damona  20:35

TaskRabbit changed my life. Like that moment of

Claire The Heartbreak Coach  20:39

Oh, it’s like it would just be so nice to be like, babe this

Claire The Heartbreak Coach  20:43

unassembled coffee table Can you help

Claire The Heartbreak Coach  20:44

me do that? Right there little moments that surprised me. But I’m like, okay, and I move through that. It doesn’t have to be this like,

Damona  20:51

Oh

Claire The Heartbreak Coach  20:52

no, I felt lonely. We came into this world alone. We’re going to leave this world alone but majority of us right so Get comfortable with being lonely. I just had a client say this, she finally ended this this gray area of vague relationship. And she said, I’m noticing I love that she really caught herself. Like I’m noticing. I’m going to bed and I’m going to bed later and I’m just outside of myself. I’m on my phone. I’m watching Netflix, I stay up later to escape what I don’t want to feel like even closing my eyes to go to sleep and feel sad. And I’m like, What if you shut off all your screens, and you got into your bed and tears fell down your face because you missed him and you felt lonely and you move through that and she was like, scary. It’s so scary, but I think it’s so necessary. You have just circling back to what’s the first thing to do when you’re moving through the loss of a relationship feel your pain.

Damona  21:49

How much do you recommend reassessing the relationship and going back and figuring out where did things go wrong because usually that ends point was not that was not the endpoint, even though like some of my clients

Claire The Heartbreak Coach  22:03

come to me, they’re like, I had no idea was coming. And then you look back and then you’re like, oh,

Damona  22:09

how much of your process involves that assessment of what what happened?

Claire The Heartbreak Coach  22:14

It really depends. It’s a good question. I think it really depends on each individual situation. Some people it’s just so clear, and some people are like, I’m completely blindsided. But I never believe the blinds. I mean, I believe that they’re blindsided when they say they are. But then as we unravel and go over things, like I have one client, where she she was completely blindsided that he ended it but then ultimately, she was saying, I love you. And he hadn’t said it back yet for months. I’m like, so you were way more invested in this relationship than he was and then he ultimately ended it like you and she said, You know, he was traumatized from a previous relationship, divorce and all of that, so she wanted to just love him enough and, and I said, that’s a beautiful thing, but you were missing That it wasn’t a reciprocal relationship

Damona  23:03

we get caught up in stories

Claire The Heartbreak Coach  23:05

is, I’m still guilty of that.

Damona  23:09

We all do we all do. We want the happy ending. And we, we impose our narrative on what’s happening. And there’s a process of just flipping the perspective. And like you said, just really seeing Well, what am I getting back here. And even, I was talking with a client recently about just creating enough space to hear what the other person thinks, and being brave enough to accept whatever outcome you got. So I mean, we’re getting a little bit away from breakups, but this is a place where I know a lot of a lot of our listeners are of just just being willing to put out what you want and what you need, and letting in where you are and letting it be okay if that person can’t meet those needs, and knowing that there will be someone else out there that could do that. But as long as you stay in that relationship that’s not doing that, that every time you say I love you, he’s like, you’re cool. It’s actually it’s actually doing damage to you, and it’s preventing you from being able to experience something greater.

Claire The Heartbreak Coach  24:18

I totally agree. And I think that those are the two hardest parts, right? It’s healing from the pain of the person not reciprocate, reciprocating how you feel about that person, and then carving out space to believe that there is someone out there who will give you that I think, I actually think my clients move through the healing of the heartbreak quicker than they move through the belief that that the right person is out there because the healing the heartbreak is shifting the story of what already happened. But then the next level of the work that I do with them is being the woman in their ideal relationship before the partner appears. And that’s what the mindset Work and that’s what the belief work. And that’s how I truly believe I created the relationship I’m in now,

Damona  25:06

can you give us a little taste of that mindset work we talked about? We talked about doing meditation and breath work. And, you know, we ran through

Claire The Heartbreak Coach  25:17

the body where it were, yeah, possible options. Then there’s a tool that I use that was designed by a coach named Brooke Castillo, she created a thought model tool called the model and she breaks down showing you how your thoughts create your results in every area of your life, your relationship with your health, with your money, with family members, with your partner with your ex with yourself. And it’s just a genius tool. And I really just show my clients, their minds with this model. What are you thinking about your ex? How does that make you feel? And then what actions are you taking and then what results are you getting? So if a client is thinking, let’s call him john, right circumstances, john, the thought is, I mean, this is just an example from a first session that I had with a client yesterday. She said, Why wasn’t I enough for him? Right? And so when you’re thinking the thought I wasn’t enough for him that makes you feel unworthy, inadequate, insecure, unlovable. And then what are the actions that she’s taking? She said, she’s not getting sleep. She’s not really living her best life. She’s not really present in all the other areas of her life. She goes over all the things that didn’t work, all the things, all the ways and then thinking of all the time that she quote, unquote, wasted with him and all the time she put in fighting for the relationship, right? So she’s still very much in her brain about him, and then the result is still heartbroken. Right? So then we jump into a new model. The circumstance is always going to be the same and it’s totally neutral. Just this one person, john, right. And then we skip the thought live. For a second and we go to the feelings instead of unworthy, unlovable, inadequate, how do you want to feel about him? And here’s the tricky part because everybody wants to be like neutral over it. I don’t care, right but your brain is currently very charged around the person. So you’re lying to yourself to think that you can all of a sudden plug into a new model that you’re going to be completely neutral. So it’s so I offer and also you’re not going to go from unlovable to totally lovable, right? You have to be really savvy with what can feel a little bit better, a little bit more freeing, and still true for my brain to wrap your head around. So we come up with

Claire The Heartbreak Coach  27:37

I came

Claire The Heartbreak Coach  27:38

I came up with this particular one. How does clarity and peace feel?

Claire The Heartbreak Coach  27:44

Just clarity and peace.

Damona  27:47

And that’s specific to so first example was sort of vague just like over it. But clarity knowing this person is not right for you and peace knowing that I’m going to be okay.

Claire The Heartbreak Coach  28:01

Yeah, peace with the situation in peace with how she showed up and, and she was great. It was her first session and she came up with a better feeling thought and I had the same one in my brain, but I always like to let them try first. But in the beginning, it’s kind of hard to get out of the tape, the old tape that you’ve been playing, right. And the thought that she came up with was, I was a really amazing partner to him. And when I love I love hard, and now I’m showing up in a different way to really love me just as much and learn how to show up differently in relationships, right? Like that relationship that five and a half years that she was with him, brought her to and I don’t mean this be like brought her to me. She’s Welcome to then sign up for coaching to really do an overhaul of how she was showing up not just in her relationship with him, but her relationship with herself. And she wants to find love and so how does she healed the relationship and then build her own self esteem and know that Really getting all of my clients to a place that whether someone stays or goes has no reflection on her worth,

Damona  29:07

right. And like you said she was a great partner to him. And she has to acknowledge that some element of it is just history.

Claire The Heartbreak Coach  29:19

If we had time, like the story, it was totally all it was clear as day for me hearing the story. And she can. She’s in

Damona  29:26

Yeah, she could be a great partner to him. And it can still not be the right fit. But that tells me she could be a great partner to someone else who could be a great partner to her as well. There’s so much in here, Claire, and we could talk about this for ages but we also have specific questions from our listeners that they’ve submitted. So we’re going to take a break, but if you want more if you want to explore this heartbreak coaching, this is really like just the beginning with surface. Yeah, there’s on Instagram at Claire. heartbreak coach and people can also find Claire online at Claire the heartbreak coach. com So more with Claire in just a moment and we’ll be answering your questions.

We are back with Claire the heartbreak coach and we have some really, really interesting questions in this this week’s episode. And first I just want to thank all of the listeners who have been submitting questions lately. We’ve been getting a lot of questions. So far this year, everyone, I guess everyone’s looking for a new relationship clarity on their relationship. And we love helping you so you can always send me your questions on Instagram at damona Hoffman or at damona Hoffman calm there’s an easy way to submit there and it can always be anonymous, if you would like it to be. We do have an anonymous question that was sent to us from Instagram from a longtime listener. She says I’m 32 year old I’m 32 year old woman, and I have a six year old and the guy I was seeing is 29 with an 18 month old and baby mama drama. We were together only three and a half months, but we were exclusive. And I realized a couple weeks ago that I’m pregnant. He took two weeks to process the news and then broke up with me because he doesn’t want the baby. Now she says I don’t believe in abortions, but I told he told me to to go as, as in he was done. And he doesn’t want to be with me. I know he’s scared, but I’m so scared and mad and heartbroken at the same time. Any advice would be appreciated and she’s wondering Should I try to reach back out to him?

Claire The Heartbreak Coach  31:39

Oh, that is a huge resounding no.

Damona  31:41

Yes. So you’re the heartbreak coach. So I’m going to have you talk talk from the perspective of loneliness heartbreak too.

Claire The Heartbreak Coach  31:49

Absolutely. I mean, but just even as a heartbreak coach, I really do try to keep stay tight lipped, but just because we’re having a conversation here. I don’t tell my friends Clients what to do. But I also do think here a man when he tells you he does not want to be with you, and he does not want to be involved in the child and if he has a change of heart and he comes back and hopefully he’s done some work and some soul searching, right? Never say never, we don’t know. But I think that just going back to what you and I were talking about in the beginning, you fall apart, girlfriend, fall

Claire The Heartbreak Coach  32:25

apart,

Claire The Heartbreak Coach  32:26

let yourself grieve, this is a super painful time. This is a super scary time. You’re a single mom already and about to have this other kid and I also think my hat is off to you that you’re going to still have this child. I think that’s super brave and commendable. And you 100% can do this and you can figure this out, but you have to grieve, you have to fall apart, and then you’ve got to figure out your life. I don’t say this to sound harsh, but I use this term of this little phrase earlier and Brooke Castillo offered at her coach Frank Kern offer this phrase and I use it all the time. Make it math, not drama. Like what are the facts what needs to be taken care of. So first fall apart, feel your feelings and then Okay, you’re about to bring a second child into this world so single

Damona  33:19

mom already

Claire The Heartbreak Coach  33:21

as a single mom already, but those are all neutral facts. You are a single mom, you have a kid and you are now about to have another baby. You can let your brain go oh

Claire The Heartbreak Coach  33:31

my

Claire The Heartbreak Coach  33:32

god, how am I going to do this? This is so scary. This is so painful. I can’t believe he did this. Where did he go? I’m heartbroken and moving through and all the drama or you can say okay, I have made this decision. I am bringing this child into this world. My heart is still going to keep hurting. I’m going to lean into that again. I I highly recommend talking to a coach or a therapist and moving through this for sure get professional help. we all we all need someone I work with coaches. So I’m a big fan of coaching and I’ve worked with a therapist for many years. So whatever, whoever is the right fit for you. So so you know, have someone in place for yourself, move through the the motions. And also what I always want everyone to remember is that moving through heartbreak is not a linear process. So some days are going to be okay, I’m doing this I’m a badass, I’m bringing a second baby into this world. And I’m standing on my own two feet. And I’m doing this like, I’m amazing. And I’m a warrior woman. Yes. And then you can go to bed and be like, Oh my god, how am I going to do this? Right, your brain is going to go all over the place. And so you just have to meet yourself where you’re at and then you’re pregnant. So your hormonal so things are going to feel

Claire The Heartbreak Coach  34:45

much heavier. So

Claire The Heartbreak Coach  34:47

not only having a professional in place to help guide you through this, but also leaning on solid loved ones who can support you through this time as well. And then what what’s it going to take? I don’t know what you’re doing. ob situation is your financial situation is but then like,

Claire The Heartbreak Coach  35:02

go take care of business to prepare for this second child

Claire The Heartbreak Coach  35:06

to come into the world. And, and you know, I have never heard of someone say, Well, I’m so upset I had that second kid. And it sounds like you’re not that person either, right that this is also a beautiful thing that’s happening. Maybe this man came into this life, it came into your life for this new jury, you know, and I know that that might be hard to hear right now because you’re just devastated and gutted over the loss of him. But you have this new, precious little human coming in and you’re committed to this little human and this family that you’re creating, and, you know, jury’s out on whatever happens with him. But 100% He has made it clear, don’t go chasing after someone who said he’s out and it they were together just three and a half months.

Damona  35:52

So the reality is, as much as you may have felt bonded to this person, you really didn’t know who he was. And this is event is showing you who he really is. And I also I commend her for deciding to keep this baby. But I also want to remind her or anyone listening who has been in the situation are going to be in the situation in the future. There are other options too, even if you don’t believe in in terminating a pregnancy, there are other people who really are desperately desiring a child to raise in this world. And there there are open adoption situations and there are a lot of options available to you that might not be apparent at the moment. So I completely agree, Claire, that if you get Greenpoint into a therapy, arrangement or coaching arrangement, someone that can help you find resources in your area just to help you work through it, and look, he can say I don’t want to be in this relationship. That is his prerogative. He could also be responsible for he is respond Yeah, he is financially responsible for this child.

Claire The Heartbreak Coach  36:58

So you can That wasn’t clear in the message if, if he’s willing to, it doesn’t

Damona  37:03

sound like you can go as it done like, guess what Honey, you don’t get to be done. Because you, you are part of this and you made this decision to. So 100% if you keep this child, he needs to, he needs to be held accountable for his choices. And he needs to be financially responsible for this child. So Promise me that you are going to pursue the actions that you need to to make sure that your children are taken care of, if you do decide to raise to raise this boy and then also remember your mom of six year old, I’m a mom, too. And it’s it. I find it’s a lot easier to get through that step you were saying of like, what do I need to do when you have a kid there that doesn’t fully understand what’s going on and still needs to be taken care of. So take care of the baby that’s in your tummy, take care of the baby that you already have. And that keeping the focus on what is really important right now in kids. Yes. raising these kids is probably something that will also help you move through this.

Claire The Heartbreak Coach  38:04

Absolutely and I, I say this with caution because I, my heart goes out to you. But really be careful to not indulge your victim story like this is an opportunity for you to be the heroine of your story and yeah, fight for those babies and to your point make sure that you are financially capable of taking care of them and make sure that he is responsible I think that’s an excellent point. And and if you have made those this choice, then own that choice and grieve the loss of him. I also think you make an excellent point. It’s funny because I’m just over three months dating my boyfriend and it’s pretty serious and and real and it’s been different from many other relationships. But we still do honor that we are still getting to know each other and learning how to communicate and me being vulnerable and asking for what I need and vice versa. Like those are hard things so you can feel I feel so in love with my boyfriend. And still be aware that we don’t fully know

Damona  39:03

each other yet.

Claire The Heartbreak Coach  39:04

And so really recognizing that like you didn’t know this person and not that that should be an opportunity to shame yourself. But yeah, now you’ve learned who he really is because this could have happened at six and a half months or nine and a half months or two years and he could have bounced, and, you know, that to me is showing that he’s not emotionally available and it’s a testament to his character, right? So is this the person that you think you’re so madly in love with because that the person who I’m madly in love with and I don’t mean my boyfriend specifically, right? When I think about the person who I want to attract in my life, he’s just a stand up human and like, rises to the occasion in times of crisis and not that a pregnancy should be crisis, right but it’s a crisis if your baby Daddy’s going to leave,

Damona  39:51

right yeah, it’s a serious event. Yeah, I’m actually get a little bit yeah, yeah. So we wish we wish you the best and you

Claire The Heartbreak Coach  39:58

keep please I would love to updates on how she’s doing. So I hope she will

Damona  40:03

I will send you updates. If she sends me updates. I will keep doing dates and mate. So as things evolve, please continue to ask us questions. We have one more question that came to us from Pamela. Pamela. I had to like, paraphrase this a little bit, so don’t get mad at me girl. But she is a she’s a black woman. She’s 39 she says I was raised to pray, do ministry and go to school and I just thought that the right man would appear in my life. Not true. She’s She’s also highly educated. She has two master’s degrees. And she she also takes her education, obviously very seriously in her career very seriously. But she says she’s never she has no real dating experience. She’s never been in love. She’s a late bloomer. And now her Christianity has evolved to be a very little liberal Christian, and she’s having trouble finding people that are at her same level of, of, of religious, you know, commitment. Yeah. And she said many of the men that she talks to her either judgy because she’s too religious or not religious enough. What would you recommend that she do at at age 39 to finally find that love that that she desires?

Claire The Heartbreak Coach  41:28

Well, what I’m hearing is that she has lots of thoughts about what’s not working in her love life, right? It’s I’m that I’m highly educated, and I’m this way and so therefore, it’s making it hard for me to find the right guy and they’re either too judgy or what was the other?

Damona  41:45

There are two. They’re judging because she’s either too religious or not religious enough. Oh, yeah. Yeah, right. Right.

Claire The Heartbreak Coach  41:52

It’s just, it’s like, she’s in indulging her story of what isn’t working. Hmm. And I do think it’s hard because I’m curious where she lives geographically. Because I think, you know, if you’re looking to date only Jewish people like you, right, LA, New York, a lot of Jewish people, right, cool. Yeah. Right. So it’s like I’m hearing her that that religion is important to her with a liberal angle on her Christianity. Right. So then I do want to just be clear, it’s like, on the one hand, I’m hearing her mindset is all off. But I’m also hearing like, for me if I I mean, I was raised Irish Catholic. I’m not I don’t practice now. But like I would, if that mattered to me, I would go find that community because I mean, here in LA, there are definitely liberal Christian groups. Sure. There’s, I mean, there’s a liberal Catholic Church in Santa Monica that I used to go to years ago. And so I mean, go to go find them. And if that means you have to move. If it’s that important to you, like how badly do you want to immerse yourself in a community where you find your people to read the That I’ve definitely heard people say I live in. I’m thinking of one person in particular, I live in rural Michigan, and it’s just impossible to find, like the kind of guy okay, then you might and she’s very cosmopolitan and stylish and high end and all the things and I’m like, you might need to

Damona  43:15

move right,

Claire The Heartbreak Coach  43:16

you’re looking for a particular type. So I will give you that that’s the only the action step if you go back to the thought model that I was talking about, right, that a line so again, you have a circumstance, my dating life, the thought is, I can’t find a guy who is you know, the perfect blend of my Christianity, right? And then the feeling is frustration discouragement, and then the action is just keep dating and you’re believing the story that there to judge you that I’m too religious or not religious enough. And the result is you keep finding that your thoughts create your results. So I would just want to make clear, move to a place where you know that there’s there’s a population of people that are practicing what you preach. Right.

Damona  44:01

But even like getting immersed in those, those worlds like I had, I had a client actually, who is Christian, she came to me saying, I’m looking for a Christian man. And I want somebody who will pray with me. And she had a very clear idea of what that looked like. And so I said, Okay, well go to church, go to these kind of organizations, do this philanthropy work with these Christian organizations and be in a place where you’re around other Christians. She’s online for two weeks, Claire, and then she ended up meeting someone who she has fallen madly in love with. They’ve now been together for seven months. He’s not a Christian. He’s not a Christian, but he respects her beliefs. And he is willing, he’s open enough to he’s not judging of what she is important to her. And that’s, I think the thing finding and yeah, I’m not knocking anyone who, who puts religion at the top of their list I used to write for jadeite. I have a lot of clients who are Christian. My mother is a devout Christian. A lot of people in my world that is it. Yeah, that is number one on their criteria list. But it’s exactly what you said clear. Don’t make that don’t make that the story of why you haven’t met that person. Yeah. And I will say as a black female There is also this feeling of we read stats like black women send out the most messages on dating apps and get the fewest responses that’s a stat from okay Cupid. Black women aren’t getting married, highly educated black women aren’t able to find a match and there’s some truth to the statistics that highly educated women overall if they’re only open to dating someone at the same or just got two masters.

Claire The Heartbreak Coach  45:47

Why she was sharing that information. What is her education has to do with finding her man that was another thing that popped out at me. Like who cares what you do, really, but

Damona  45:57

it’s because that that’s how a lot of women are made. That another primary criteria, so she’s only dating someone that’s at her education level or higher than her pool will be limited and does feel

Claire The Heartbreak Coach  46:08

absolutely. But so it’s funny because the way I interpreted that was like, I’m this great catch. I don’t understand why I’m not meeting. And that’s how I interpreted that. And I think that and so your interpretation could probably be more accurate, but just know it’s

Damona  46:23

a good point, though to like, so so why

Claire The Heartbreak Coach  46:25

I mean, congratulations on your Yeah, I mean, you sound like an amazing catch. I’m not saying you’re not but just careful with like, I’m these things. And so this is what I’m looking for, and it’s not working, right. You’re you’re thinking your dating life isn’t working. So what’s your result? The thought, my dating, life isn’t working. And the result is it’s not working, you’re still single, right? And you said, I’ve never been in love, like you have this whole painful story that needs to be unraveled. And so I think when I attracted my boyfriend, and My life, I created something called the belief man plan. And I thought about all the way so I got my business to where I wanted to get it and last year like I wanted to hit 20 clients and have my podcast off the ground and was just in this great place. So I put all my energy and focus into my career I got it to where I wanted it to be. And then I was like, Okay, now we’re not messing around the it’s time to welcome love into my life. I thought to myself, well, if I created 20 clients with my mind, I can create one man with my mind. And I thought about how I would feel really how I would feel with this. Oh, sorry, let me back up. I thought about who he is. Yes. And I didn’t get into what he looks like. The only superficial criteria I have is height because I’m very tall.

Claire The Heartbreak Coach  47:50

But other than that, I noticed

Damona  47:53

for those of you that don’t know,

Claire The Heartbreak Coach  47:55

other than that, I don’t have coloring. I don’t have I like I literally Just Just Who is this man and I, I wanted him to, I want it to be crazy attracted to him. But I didn’t have all these like physical requirements. I wanted him to be emotionally available. I wanted our senses of humor to really click, I wanted him to be ambitious and thriving in his own area of whatever his career is. I did not need him to have money, I do very well for myself. I care more about his ambition and his purpose in his life versus how much money he can make. Because I believe if I want to have financial abundance, I can create that I care way more about emotional availability, connection, commitment, loyalty, monogamy, kindness, trust, honesty, those things matter values so much more to me than money. And again, going back to your point of all the different boxes to check, and I’m turning 39 in a month, so I’m really just like, I’m not messing around and like I’m very clear of what I thought mattered to me back in the day and what It doesn’t so I got so clear on all of those qualities that he has. And then I thought how would I feel being with a man that just like the physical connection, the emotional safety, the fun, the calmness, the relief, the relaxation, just like oh, like even when I just say it my whole body just like melts and relax, I see it and then I and then it’s like, well, what would I be thinking in my relationship with him? What are the thoughts that I would think right thoughts create results right? And so what thoughts what I think to feel emotionally safe and sexy and relaxed and happy and giddy? right and and so I came up with a list of things that I would think if he was here in my life, and just just random different ones like it so basic, and then some are way more specific, but I’m a huge fan of the bachelor and so am I One of the thoughts that I had is I love coming home at the end of a long run well I coach from home but I love at the end of a long day, him coming home and us curling up with a glass of red wine and watching the bachelor and him kind of eye rolling me but tolerating my 12 year old obsession, I identify as a 12 year old trapped in a 30, almost 39 year old woman’s body with my obsession with the Bachelor. And just like him getting a kick out of my ridiculous emotional investment in these characters, right? Just just painting the picture and imagining what it would look like now I don’t have as a requirement to be clear, my man needs to watch The Bachelor with me just little tidbits like that. And then another thought that I had was whether we’re together or separate or out with friends, I love just knowing that he is mine and I’m his. And another thought that I had was every single heartbreak and event in my life had to happen to lead me to him and same for him with me.

Damona  50:57

Like what and then it all happened

Claire The Heartbreak Coach  50:58

and then it all happen and I I would read these every morning with my meditation with my other mindset work. And I would just like read it and feel that in my body and move through my day. And then like one random night, I’m literally like Swiffer in my apartment swiping on Bumble and I match with him. And I was just like, he lives two hours away. He mentioned he lived two hours away. And so then I like dropped off because I’m like, I’m so over these guys have come in and sex with a girl for our night.

Claire The Heartbreak Coach  51:27

And then he was called back and he was just like,

Claire The Heartbreak Coach  51:30

so I know, we’re not exactly neighbors and I, you know, head back home tomorrow, but I would really love to meet in person at some point if you would be up to it. And I was like,

Damona  51:37

Oh, that’s really nice. I like it all happening.

Claire The Heartbreak Coach  51:43

Yeah, but I committed to being the woman in her ideal relationship. And I think the feeling and I didn’t have this like criteria on paper, it was values and connection and wanting the same things. I love this. This is actually you don’t know what that you’re doing this but you dovetailing really perfectly into all of the steps in for anyone that attended the webinar I did yesterday on the five steps in the dating funnel. mindset is the first step. And

Damona  52:10

everything that Clara saying you guys do it, everything that you’re saying really do wet because

Claire The Heartbreak Coach  52:17

I do this with my coaches. They’ll be like, well your belief is off, right? Or your you know, I’m a business coach and a personal coach. And she’s like, what are you believing? And I’m like, I’m bleeding this insistence. She’s like, yes, you need to really carve out the time and I’ve done a ton of belief work and I did it to attract my man and I did it to create the business to where I got it. But sometimes I would like hey, I believe work, whatever. mindset work, whatever, right? And it’s, it’s not just right, don’t just do it once, actually, like you said, practice right? When you go to the gym multiple times a week to keep your body strong. Download your thoughts shift your mind. I do it almost every day five out of seven days. And like not just write it out and be like that’s a better thought to put in because that sounds better. It’s like No Do I feel that in my body does that feel real for me? Is that something that my brain can really shift into believing because again, your thoughts create your results. So don’t don’t be asking yourself just to be a good student, like really implemented into your body. I love you commit to it. I love it

Damona  53:17

for anyone that is still working through this step and would like heartbreak coaching, please reach out to Claire, she is at Claire the heartbreak coach calm or you can find her on Instagram at Claire, the heartbreak coach, thank you so much, much for having me. demonte This was so much fun. I enjoyed it too. And I hope that everyone got what they needed for the new year. By the way, no pressure, but Valentine’s Day is in 30 days, no pressure. So if if you are ready to date differently, you want to do some of these exercises and and go a level deeper and go through that entire dating funnel to figure out where you keep looping and where you keep getting stuck in love. I Do have a solution for you. And it’s a 30 day dating playbook. And you can find it at 30 day dating calm and who knows, maybe by Valentine’s Day, you might be in the arms of your new boo like men. But it just takes 30 days to begin a new habit and to to commit to yourself. So I’d love to help you out at 30 day dating.com. I hope you enjoyed Episode 292 of dates. And again, I’m at damona Hoffman on all the socials. I want to hear your questions. I want to hear updates if you submitted a question, and I would love to keep helping you on this journey to find love. Thank you so much for being here. Until next week. I wish you happy dating

Dear Damona: DTR Conversation & Dating Dry Spell

CAN’T STOP, WON’T STOP!

Happy holidays, Lovers! 

If you’re anything like us, you both love and loathe this time of year. It’s a time to connect with loved ones but it’s also a time of major stress. Which gifts to get, who to spend the holidays with, how to bring in the new year and when you add being single to the mix that adds a whole layer of anxiety and stress for many of our listeners and maybe for you, too. 

But we want you to remember that we’re here to help you at all times of year and when the going gets tough we’re not taking a break. We’re doubling down!

So this week we’re answering some listener questions!

 

DEAR DAMONA

Can you date someone who doesn’t share your political values?

Hi Damona, I have a dilemma. I’ve been dating a white guy for about 3 months. Last Saturday we had a conversation about politics and he has opposite viewpoints on subjects like immigration and border politics (topics that are dear to me). Since our conversation, I am completely taken aback and haven’t answered his texts because I honestly feel like i can’t date someone who doesn’t share my values or ideas. What do I do? 

 

How do you start to date after a 6-year dry period?

I’ve been single since I was 19 and I’m now 30. In that time I’ve hooked up with one guy once when I was 20 and then another guy that I like a lot but it didn’t work out for maybe once a year from when I was 22. Altogether, I haven’t had sex for 6 years. I would like to get back out there but I think right now I’m dealing with a mix of fear and because I’ve been self partnered for so long I don’t have the desire to really deal with having to consider someone else. How do I deal with getting over this fear and getting back into dating?

 

How to be better at texting?

I’m so bad at texting. I wish I knew how to text a woman to make her more interested in going out with me. I seem to always have the opposite effect. 

 

Do you think men and women, who used to date, can be friends? 

 

When should I have the DTR conversation and how should I do it? I’ve been going out with a guy for a little over a month that I met through Bumble. 

 

How should I feel about my new bf having a preplanned 2 week trip to Mexico in January with an ex? They are going to a wedding from someone in her family. He stressed that she’s just a friend and a lot like a sister. He could tell I wasn’t happy but I told him that I don’t have a reason to not trust him since this is new. Did I do the right thing?

 

WANT TO GO EVEN DEEPER? HERE IS A TRANSCRIPT OF THE SHOW IF YOU WANT TO FOLLOW ALONG!

Damona

Happy Holidays, Loves! If you’re anything like me you both love and load this time of year. It’s a time to connect with loved ones, but also a time of major stress, which gifts to get, who to spend the holidays with, who to bring with you to holiday events, how to bring in the new year. And when you add the anxiety and the stress of being single to the mix, that adds a whole other layer for many of my listeners, and maybe for you too. But I want you to remember that I’m here to help you at all times of year and when the going gets tough. I’m not taking a break. I’m doubling down. And maybe to the dismay of producer Leah over here who’s been busting her buns to make this show for you every week. I’m still going to give you shows all throughout the holidays. How are you hanging in there?

 

Leah Schell  0:57  

Honestly though, I’m having fun. I love doing Dates me. 

 

Damona  1:02  

Oh gosh, this show’s loving you. And honestly, you guys, I just have to give credit to Leah. She doesn’t know I’m going to say this but I just have to give all the credit because she is the reason that this show gets to you every week on time when you need it. She’s the one that helps me funnel all the questions that you send. She brings so much so much joy to this show. She brings so much heart and I just really have to say this holiday season how grateful I am. Oh my god. I’m like, I’m like blushing over here. So I don’t make my show before I get all teary eyed but I I really just do appreciate Leah. So maybe give her a little shout out when you comment on this episode The next time please. Thank you. And I also just want to shout out I had the great pleasure of meeting one of our longtime listeners, Catherine Hey girl you out there. Catherine recognize me out in about an La and we had a good long talk about her love situation. And honestly, I left feeling really excited for her. And for the possibilities that lay ahead, not just because she’s listening to the show, obviously I love that but because she’s really walking the walk, she’s hired a matchmaker, she works on herself care. She’s on dating apps, and she’s showing up in a big way for herself and for her relationship future. And that’s what it takes to make a change. First, you get clarity on what you want, and then you show up, and then you keep showing up, no matter how dire your dating or relationship challenge seems for you right now. It will shift if you put in the effort to make it shift. And that is a wonderful thing. I have one of my former clients who was expecting her first baby. I have another client who was in a new relationship. I have someone from my 30 day dating playbook program, who let me know she’s celebrating her her second anniversary this month. And I want all of that for all of you that are listening to this podcast right now. And if you’re ready to make a change for the new year, I will, I will tell you about how you can join my upcoming free webinar on changing bad dating patterns, and how you can get live coaching from me at the end of the show. And for you overachievers that already know you want to be in that you can go right now to the show, show notes and sign up. But first, I want to address your questions so many of your questions have been submitted this fall and every once in a while we like to do a special episode dedicated to you and dedicated to giving you the advice in love that you need. So without further ado, I bring you

 

Leah Schell 3:43  

Dear damona What does his text me so frustrated? He’s just not that intonation. I’ve always been battle. I’m ready for miracles.

 

Damona  3:57  

Modern love Made Simple. This is day two. mates with damona Hoffman. So producer Leah has been cataloging your recent questions. And Leah, I want to hear what is on everyone’s mind.

 

Leah Schell  4:10  

First we have a question from Instagram. She says, Hi damona I have a dilemma. I’ve been dating a white guy for about three months. Last Saturday, we had a conversation about politics, and he has opposite views on subjects like Immigration and Border politics or topics that are near and dear to me. Since our conversation, I am completely taken aback and haven’t answered his tax because I honestly feel like I can’t date someone who doesn’t share my values or ideas. What do I do?

 

Damona  4:38  

Ooh, ciao. This is this is complicated. Obviously, you guys know I come from a cross cultural cross religious background. We just talked about that last week. But at the same time, I’ve been coaching people on navigating cross cultural challenges for the last How long have I been doing this? 15 years and I What I’ve seen is a big shift towards politics. Being a bigger source of contention and relationship, frustration than race, religion, anything that used to be such a major divisive issue. And the data really supports this. Now we are divided on political issues. We are divided on things like immigration. And I have to say it’s not something to be taken lightly. You know, I’m super optimistic. I’m going to show I believe that many relationship challenges can be worked through with communication. But I wonder if this challenge speaks to a fundamental difference in value systems, and the way that you look at the world, which you also know if you listen to the show regularly, that’s one of the major tenants of long term compatibility, shared values and I don’t know specifically what the fight ended up being about or this heated conversation. But if you’re feeling like you are really diametrically opposed on different sides where you can even have a conversation about these issues and come to some sort of an understanding, you don’t have to agree on everything. But you just have to have enough space to understand the other person’s point of view, and to be able to accept and allow that their experience is different than yours. Their perspective is different than yours. And that’s okay. You can each hold one on one another’s point of view in consideration, while also still strongly believing in what you believe. here’s the here’s the answer. Is there a way to move forward with this? It’s been about three months. Yes, there is a way to move forward. This is where the going gets tough. I find relationships work in threes. You’ve heard me talk about my three date rule. You need to decide, wait until the third day to decide if someone is worth investing more time. And I also find that at three months, that is when most relationships either take off or fizzle out. Because this is when you’re really being yourself. This is now he’s letting down his guard, he is being authentically the person that he is. And he’s sharing with you his authentic thoughts, which, in a way requires a lot of vulnerability and especially at a time when we know it’s so divisive. The fact that he wants to share that with you does speak well of his his trust in you to be able to share that perspective. However, if you’re at the point where you cannot see his point of view, and you feel that his point of view is somehow challenging your own, then that is a major here A major turning point in the relationship and you have to decide if you play this relationship done in down the road, three months, six more months a year. Could you be a part of this person’s world? Could you be a part of their family if you decided you wanted to move forward with long term partnership or marriage, or maybe having children. And so these are the tough conversations that need to be drawn out. The difference in opinion itself is not enough to spell the end of the relationship. It’s how you deal with that information once it comes out. And how he deals with it and whether you can still communicate through the difference in opinion produce really good you have anything else you’re a Texan. So I imagine you deal with

 

Leah Schell  8:43  

Yeah, actually it says like this a lot. Yeah, this reminded me of my first like long term relationship. In college. I come from a like a very, very conservative background, being from Texas and I think like when I started college, like my friends litical views were like really like opposite of what they are now. And the guy that I dated, he was very, very liberal. And like, it was like a whole like four year relationship of like him, teaching me and just like exposing me to like different, like political points of view. And dude, thank you, if you’re listening to this for like teaching me all those things and putting in all that effort, it must have been awful. But even though that, like relationship didn’t end up working in the end, like I know that, like, you can definitely, like, have conversations and like teach people about your point of view. And, like, it doesn’t have to be the end of the race relationship. But

 

Damona  9:42  

did he come at you like, my perspective is right. And let me show you the way.

 

Leah Schell  9:49  

Yeah, I mean, you know, we were in college and very politically active and so like, there were lots of really heated arguments. But I feel like the times that were most impactful to me It was just more through like actions, not words. And that makes sense. I don’t know exactly how to explain it. But it was more just like three experiences and just like showing me exactly what his life is like, well, and we form our opinions based on our experiences.

 

Damona  10:17  

So sometimes someone might have one perspective, because that’s what your parents told you, or that’s what you’ve experienced. Right? And if you’re in the right partnership, it should open up your horizons, right? Total. I mean, my politics haven’t really shifted. But I’ll say one thing I really appreciate about my husband is he’s he is able to consider someone else’s point of view, even if it is 180 degrees opposite his own. Right. And I, I really appreciate that and I’m working to can you guys see how hard I’m working here. I’m working to be able to understand that and not not automatically shut down the conversation because that’s what we’re doing right now. No and in love, but also just in life. We’re just shutting down the conversation. And that’s pushing us all further apart. So this is a invitation for deeper discussion. Yeah, totally. More questions, more questions. What else is in the hopper?

 

Leah Schell  11:15  

More questions? Okay. This one also comes from Instagram. She says, I’ve been single since I was 19. And I’m now 30. And that time, I’ve hooked up with one guy once when I was 20. And then another guy that I like a lot, but it didn’t work out with for maybe once a year from when I was 22. altogether. I haven’t had sex in six years.

 

Unknown Speaker  11:35  

I was a lot of years. So a lot of years.

 

Leah Schell  11:38  

I would like to get back out there, but I think I know I’m dealing with a mix of fear because I’ve been self partnered for so long, and I don’t have the desire to really deal with having to consider somebody else. How do I deal with getting over this fear and getting back into dating? I like this to use all partnered.

 

Damona  11:56  

Yeah, thank you for it. Maybe we inspired you When we were talking about Emma Watson being self partner to use that term, or maybe that’s a term that you’ve used for a lot, but a long time, but I first want to just acknowledge her bravery and vulnerability with even asking this question. I know there are a lot of people listening right now that are dealing with some challenges like this and some things that they might have embarrassment over like not having sex for six years, some for some people, that’s a source of source of embarrassment and not being able to share that with anyone you know, you might not even be able to talk to your best friends about that. So first, I just want to say thank you for sharing that with me and with my audience, anonymously, of course, because that’s the first step in changing patterns or in getting help is just acknowledging what your story is, what your situation is, and then learning how to move through it. So thanks for your bravery with that. Yeah, girl, that’s a long time to be celibate. And in some respects, it sounds like not celibate by choice. I really want to focus in on the part where she’s talking about being self partnered for so long, that she doesn’t have the desire to really deal with having to consider someone else. Again, this person is extremely self aware, because she already knows what the challenges for her. And I have a lot of clients, particularly clients that are out of long term relationships or that are older, that have their life set and have their social circle sad have their patterns and beliefs and behavior set. And they want someone to just fit into the groove. It’s like these are the holes in my life. I want you to be available. At this time. I want you to believe these things. I don’t want you to require too much extra time for me and I want you to enjoy the same things that I enjoy doing. And that’s a really tall order. That’s very hard to To find someone that just fits and meshes with your life. So I’m glad that she’s acknowledging that. But I have to say, if you don’t want to deal with having to consider someone else, you are choosing to stay in a static point of your life, you are choosing to stay there. And, yes, you could have sex, you could probably go online right now and have sex with somebody tonight if you wanted to. But that’s not really what you’re looking for. And I also appreciate that she acknowledges that she has this fear of getting back into dating. But you have to just start at some point you have to start and you have to be willing to expand your life. And I wouldn’t think of it as not wanting to deal with considering someone else. It is a joy to consider someone else and I do hear this a lot like I don’t have to tell someone where I’m coming and going. I, I was super independent person, but the fact that somebody cares, where I’m going to be at a certain time that someone is expecting me to be somewhere or to, to, to communicate with them, or to consider them in my actions is actually a real gift. And that’s an opportunity for growth and for expansion of your life. Think of all the things that this potential partner that you haven’t met, could actually bring into your life could teach, you could could expand your world over. So when you look at it that way, maybe you’re actually depriving yourself of an opportunity. And it’s not about this considering someone else. Or Or maybe it’s the history that you’ve had in the past with relationships, that is making you feel like it’s going to be repeating that again, but it doesn’t happen. You’re rewriting the rules of your life and the rules of your love life. This is your opportunity to do it again and do it differently. So do it mindfully and do it with the intention of having your world get bigger. Instead of keeping your world in the same in the status quo. Don’t stay in stasis, stay in a period of change. More questions, more questions, questions before the break.

 

Leah Schell  16:25  

Okay, cool. One more question from Instagram from a guy. He says I’m so bad at texting. I wish I knew how to text a woman to make her more interested in going out with me. I seem to always have the opposite effect.

 

Damona  16:38  

Oh my gosh, texting. That’s a whole other thing. I feel like I should run the texting trap again as a webinar.

 

Leah Schell  16:48  

Yeah, we get a lot of questions about texting. Do

 

Damona  16:50  

we get a lot of questions about texting? Look, texting is not a natural state of communication. I know for many of my listeners, That that grew up on phones. It It is because that’s all you’ve known. But when you really think about it, it’s a very new mode of communication. And it’s very specific, short form, short form volleys back and forth with emojis, and gifts and stickers and what it means emoji all these. There’s just all of these mood modifiers you’ve had me heard me talk about how adding things like emojis can change the context. But the I’ll just give you the basic rules of texting and then I will do a whole episode on texting. Feel like I had an episode until I have Oh, how to communicate go back to last season and episode on how to communicate. But I’ll give you the cliff notes. Don’t write too much, you’re probably writing too much and these tax if you’re, if you’re meeting women online and then you’re moving into the tax And she seemed interested in all of a sudden she’s not you have said something that made her run away so you’ve probably said too much or you’ve said something the wrong way and she didn’t know how to interpret it. So keep it short and sweet. overtaxed definitely use an emoji. Not a whole. Not like my kids do a home run of emojis. I don’t like that too. It’s the cutie what is that my granddaddy, your granddaddy? Oh my gosh, that’s, that’s both charming and frightening at the same time. But just one emoji can be very effective to to state your intention because when you’re communicating with someone face to face, you have all of these other inputs of information, you have their intonation, you have their facial expressions, you have their body language, you have so much more to tell you what that person means by it. But when we’re talking about text that’s all stripped away. So first, I would just shorten shorten your texts and try to get offline more quickly. Don’t try to build a report over text because that is something that is really a learned skill and try an emoji or two, but don’t go overboard with it.

 

Leah Schell  19:14  

I have a questions kind of related to this. More recently, I’ve seen kind of a trend towards doing like voice messages like sending like an actual voice instead of text. Like, what do you think about that? Especially like in the early stages of dating?

 

Damona  19:30  

It’s funny you would say that because many times when people DM me on Instagram, I respond with a voice message. And everybody like freaks. Oh my god, it’s really you you’re actually sending but sometimes for me, just because I’m used to communicating verbally, sometimes it’s easier and sometimes I think my message is clear. If I actually leave the voice message because they can hear how I’m intending To say what I’m saying. Sometimes I don’t love receiving voice messages personally because if I’m with my kids, I can’t always listen to it right? But I think it’s it can be a good way. Then you at least have intonation you have another layer. So I think that’s that’s a good point. Leah. Adding voice to the mix. I wouldn’t do every one a voice message but adding it to the mixed mix maybe with it the animal Geez.

 

Leah Schell  20:28  

Yeah. Don’t do the animal

 

Damona  20:30  

Jesus to hear the technology hasn’t caught up.

 

Leah Schell  20:33  

Especially not the owl. Don’t do that. Don’t do the owl.

 

Damona  20:36  

But yeah, I think a voice message short voice message can be very effective in building rapport, particularly before you’ve met. Because sometimes it’s like I just need to hear their voice and know their real person and really hear what they sound like to feel that connection. Look at you, Junior dating coach. I love it. Can we do one more before the break? Yeah. Of course,

 

Leah Schell  21:01  

um, this one. She says Hi, damona I love listening to your podcast. Thank you. I have a question. Do you think men and women who used to date can be friends,

 

Damona  21:12  

too? I think men and women who used to date can be friends. Yeah. I’m friends with pretty much all of my exes. That’s awesome. I mean, so I’m not in touch with someone like Facebook friends with but um, it’s really important to set up what the boundaries and the rules are of the relationship so that it’s clear you’re not going to whoops a daisy catch feelings and end up in a weird situation ship again. But absolutely, I think men and women can be friends and I have a ton of guy friends that are platonic and always have been. And I think I’m just the fact that used to date someone that doesn’t necessarily say You are still attracted to them. That just means that at some point in your life, you felt a connection and it’s very common. I mean, how many axes do all of us have? It’s very common for you to confuse that feeling of I like this person. I enjoy their company. I find them funny I find them to be intelligent. We like the same things whatever with I should date this person. Yeah, so to answer a broader question with a real specific answer,

 

Unknown Speaker  22:27  

yeah, I don’t

 

Leah Schell  22:29  

think it speaks to like the maturity of somebody who can be friends with their exes. I

 

Damona  22:36  

What, are you calling me old? No, no,

 

Leah Schell  22:39  

I’m calling myself image here just because I I don’t know the relationship though

 

Damona  22:45  

right

 

Leah Schell  22:46  

now. Okay. I definitely know that I’m 100% at fault in this situation. That’s why I’m willing to admit it or not like at fault, but I know that I was being immature. I was just like, Oh, never talked to me again and moving to California by like, you know,

 

Damona  22:59  

over time. Again, sort of,

 

Leah Schell  23:02  

but yeah, like, just like we’re not friends like 100% not friends. So like, but that was something that I just decided, um, and I think it was a really immature decision. So,

 

Damona  23:16  

but sometimes that’s what you need. Sometimes you need to close the door. Yeah. First completely close it, shut it lock it. Like most of my exes that I’m friends with now there was a period where I was like, please don’t talk to me, right? Yeah, where you have to get distance from it. And then the next time you see them, you’re like, Oh, I don’t feel anything anymore.

 

Leah Schell  23:35  

Right? Yeah, I totally can see that. But like in that situation. Did you leave the possibility open for them to be friends with you? in the future? in the future?

 

Damona  23:43  

Yeah, but I would say right now. Not a good time. Right.

 

Unknown Speaker  23:49  

Right. Yeah.

 

Damona  23:50  

Yeah. So I feel like in general, though, do you think men and women can can be used today can be friends? And yeah, absolutely.

 

Leah Schell  23:58  

Totally. Just don’t What I did

 

Damona  24:02  

if you learn nothing else from the show, no, I, we all look, we all have these experiences that teach us how to be better in relationships. If you have the missteps, then you wouldn’t have the the, the learning that you need rate continue to evolve and relationships. So that’s true. We are continuing to evolve and we are continuing this show after the break. I just want to thank the longtime listeners and supporters of dates and maids. And even though it’s holiday time, like I said, we will continue to make these episodes for you because I know your love life doesn’t stop just because the holidays are here. And if you’re starting to take stock of your year and make plans for 2020 about how you want to date differently, we should talk and that’s why I am doing a webinar on January 9. It is called why online dating doesn’t work for you. And I will be doing a presentation plus a live coaching and q&a. At the end so if you have a dating dilemma that you want to talk to me about live, this is your chance to live, live, live, live live, and you will get free coaching from me on your specific problem should you be brave enough to share it and join me? You don’t have to ask a question you can just come for the presentation and figure out why online dating doesn’t work for you. and sign up at the dating secret.com that’s th e dating secret.com and I will spill all of my dating secrets with you. The link will also be in the show notes and on our blog at dates and mates. com We have more dates and mates coming up. I want you to stick around for more questions from our listeners including how to have the DTR conversation. All that and so much more right after this. lovers, we’re back you asked I answered and there’s more dear damona Producer Leah, what else you have in the hopper?

 

Leah Schell  25:58  

Okay, this one is from an email. She says, I’ve been going out with a guy for a little over. I’ve been going out with a guy for a little over a month that I met through Bumble. When should I have the DTR conversation? And how should I do it?

 

Damona  26:16  

This is a big question, Leah, because it’s different for everybody. There is no set time that you need to like, Oh, it’s five o’clock on on January 1, and we haven’t had the DTR conversation and we have to do it now. That is a recipe for disaster. You have to feel out where you are in the relationship. Does it feel like you’re moving towards exclusivity? Are you seeing each other more than once a week? Are you having conversations about the future? Are you feeling like you don’t want to be swiping online, this happens a lot of times to my clients. They’ll get in the program. And then within I don’t know four Five weeks, they are dating someone that they want to be exclusive with. And then they think, wait, it happened so fast. Maybe I should go back and date more people. But like the idea now that I have a burden hand, and I really like this person, the idea of going back and swiping feels exhausting, and it feels like you can’t focus on the person in front of you. And it just feels if swiping Do you feels on, appealing, uninspiring because of this person that you’re with, and maybe this is the person that you should focus on. So when do you have the conversation, if those feelings are becoming more and more intense for you, and if you’re having more and more conversations about the future, then it’s worth just checking in and seeing how they’re feeling and it doesn’t have to be a whole thing like this is this is not a bank binding contract. This is not a marriage proposal. You don’t have to say like, I I feel that way. We are destined for marriage. And I want to know where we are. And let’s define the relationship. So I could track you on the timeline trajectory of my relationship future. That’s too much. You could just say, I am feeling like, I want to focus on just the two of us and just eating you. How do you feel about that? But here’s, here’s the hard thing. You have to be willing to accept whatever answer you get when you’re ready to do that. So if you’re not ready to accept whatever answer you get, without trying to control the outcome, then it’s too soon to have the conversation. If you feel like you could have that conversation, and if they say, only really like you, I’m not sure where this is going. But I like seeing you. I’m not ready to take my profile down. Then you have information that you have to catalog and say, Do I want to continue dating this person knowing that they’re not sure when I feel very, very short? Or do you say like, oh, man, Maybe I have been moving a little bit fast and I don’t really know this person that well? Or do you need to redefine how you are, how you are moving forward in this relationship. Or maybe you need to go online again and see, maybe if I date one more person, then I can determine if this is someone that I still think is special, but it’s information. It’s crucial information that will allow you to move forward or move out of the relationship. But you can’t have this conversation lightly. You can’t have this conversation when you’re not sure. So wait until you really have clarity for yourself. And then make it as painless as possible. Don’t Please don’t do the We need to talk. How many of you have had that conversation like we need to talk about where this is going dramatic? Right, we get into harsh robbing. Yeah. I hate that. I hate that. Like even my husband will be like, we need to Talk. It’s like something about the kids. Like, I don’t want an appointment, have a conversation. Let’s just talk. We need to talk. Just talk. Yeah. So don’t do that. Not that he does that that often. But just just begin the conversation at a time when you’re both comfortable and casual and you can speak openly. Don’t do it over over new the New Year’s party, like while the ball is dropping, and all of your friends around, do it somewhere when you can both be vulnerable, authentic, clear, and speak with clarity and openness. And it it’s a hard conversations a very hard conversation. You know, and I remember when I had been dating my husband like six weeks, and it’s funny because he had a birthday party, and then he invited me to the birthday party. But then I was like, I don’t know how I’m going to be introduced his birthday party. I was pretty sure that we weren’t dating anyone else. Uh huh. But we hadn’t had the conversation. So I showed up to the party and he was like, This is damona. And all of his friends were like, Oh, damona like it was clear that they had. But I still didn’t have a title. We hadn’t had the conversation. So then I asked him later, where where do you?

 

Where do you? Yeah, what is this? And he was like, Well, I’m not really sure. And then he like backpedaled. And I went, Okay, I get this, like, this is not my first rodeo. Okay. So I was like, Oh, it’s gotta be his idea. You know? Like, the guys that are listening. Y’all have to think it’s your idea. For the ladies, just just let it be their idea. You can’t You can’t push it, you can’t force it. You will not get the outcome that you want. So I just backed off. I was like, okay, that’s fine. You know, I’m really enjoying hell. Yeah, I’m enjoying this, but whatever. And I’m like a week later, he was like, so do you want to be my girlfriend? Oh, this is the funniest part. He was like, I was going to ask you before my party, but then like he kind of chickened out. Oh. And I’m like, wait, then why did you act when I asked you You acted like you weren’t really sure. Can he just needed it to be enlightened by him? Okay. Oh, yeah, like I needed to not emasculate him.

 

Unknown Speaker  32:24  

Worked out. Okay. And yeah. Do you have any other questions this week?

 

Leah Schell  32:27  

Yes. One more actually. Tell me. Okay, another one from Instagram. This person says How should I feel about my boyfriend having a pre planned two week trip to Mexico in January with an ex Oh, oh, wow. They are going to a wedding from someone in her family. He stressed that a she’s just a friend and a lot like a sister. He could tell I wasn’t happy but I told him that I don’t have a reason not to trust him. Since this is new. Did I do the right thing?

 

Damona  32:58  

Okay, let’s break this down. It’s two weeks. In Mexico, who gets two

 

Leah Schell  33:01  

weeks off in January anyway, couples vacation not that this is a couple of couples vacation, but like a huge vacation. Wow,

 

Damona  33:09  

that is a huge vacation. Um, but it’s for a wedding, okay for someone in her family, okay. I mean, there are definitely people that have a certain place in your life that you have dated in the past. We’re talking about this a little bit before the break, that there is not the like, if he’s telling you she’s like a sister, then he probably doesn’t have the desire to be with her again. And this sounds like this is a new relationship. This is our new boyfriend, she said. So she can express that she’s not happy about it. But ultimately, this is a test of her trust of him and of where the relationship can go. And you cannot build a relationship without complete trust. And this could be a test of The relationship. So there’s a saying, If you love someone, let them go. Or if you love something, let it go. And it comes back to you, then it’s meant to be, yeah. Yeah. And again, you can’t just like he’s got to think it’s his idea. You cannot squeeze the situation, too, so tightly that you you cause him to actually want to rebel against that. And if it’s so new as well, that’s your new boyfriend, then let them know you’re going to be chill because this is a long distance run. This is not a sprint. Yeah. And this will not be the last time if you stay in the relationship with this person. This will not be the last time that you question who he’s spending time with or where this if this woman is that good of a friend, where her role is in your relationship, so you have to give him enough space to be able to show that he’s trustworthy,

 

Leah Schell  35:01  

right? And I like that she was honest about her feeling so those resentments didn’t build up and they could have a conversation about it.

 

Damona  35:08  

Yeah, yeah, I mean she said she wasn’t happy but you know, you got to make yourself happy then. Why don’t you go on your own trip to Mexico don’t like Shadow them. That would be awkward. Oh, hi. I didn’t know you were going to be at the moon palace resort.

 

Unknown Speaker  35:25  

I just happened to stay here to

 

Damona  35:29  

vacation. No, don’t do that. But do something. No for real though. Do something that is going to make your soul flourish during the time when he’s gone. I know I said that kind of flowery. But do something that will fill you up whether it’s maybe it’s a maybe it’s a trip with your girlfriends or maybe it’s a going to the spa and having a massage day or self care day or doing meditation every day or yoga or working I don’t know, whatever you do read a book, whatever it is do it with intention. I’m doing this for the with the intention of keeping my mind occupied and my heart full while he is away. Because if you are calling him every day going, what are you doing? Who are you doing it? Have you seen her? You’re you’re just going to squash this again. So you’ve got to have your own stuff going on. So that he feels like you trust him. You’re giving him the space that he needs. But you’re also taking care of yourself. I mean, not what is sexier than someone who can take care of themselves. I’m hearing that more and more for my male clients and the listeners of this podcast. They want a woman who has her own stuff going on, has her own career, her own life, and isn’t reliant on a man. prior generations. That was that was a societal construct that we were stuck with it. We had to we had to be reliant on a man for our financial and emotional well being Now you don’t have to. So you can have this relationship. You can have your cake and you can eat it too. I am spent. We it’s a holiday season. And I will go back and recharge. Because like I said, we are not taking a break for this holiday season. I can’t believe this is Episode 289 of dates and mates. If you have a question that you want answered, and you’ve been too shy to share it with me, just know that I don’t fight. And if there’s a question that you’re having, just like you were listening to this episode probably heard something that resonated for you if you have a question, just know that you could be helping out thousands of other listeners by sharing your question with us, and we will make it anonymous. We will make it safe and secure for you to share your question. You can dm it to me on any social media platform at damona Hoffman or email me damona at damona Hoffman calm we also have a forum on our website, data mates com basically it’s so easy Easy to get in touch with me I just need you to reach out and take the first step I heard we got a review a new review yes we did Who’s it from?

 

Leah Schell  38:10  

It’s from sure door them

 

Damona  38:13  

to join me that’s what their that’s their name

 

Leah Schell  38:15  

dr them okay the door them what it what is your door them say just adore them said excellent dating guidance or advice is wise current and she is engaging and positive thank

 

Damona  38:26  

you thank you she door you I try to stay current y’all I’m reading all these headlines trying to stay up on the trends for you and yes, I try to keep it positive. There’s a lot of stress out there in the world and I want data mates to be a fun experience for you. Thanks for the five star review Joe door them if you want to shout out on future episode, leave us your five star review on the platform. You can leave us a four star review if you want but I’d really like a five I’ll still read it was four star but review on whatever platform is bringing This podcast to your ears right now and then make sure you’re subscribed to the show and that you’re sending the episodes that your friends need to hear to them. This is probably one of those episodes so go ahead and share it and you do those three subscribe, review and share dates and mates we will keep it free. like clockwork will be back again bright and early next Monday morning to ring in the new year with a masterclass episode on how to change the bad dating habits that aren’t working for you. And in the meantime, Registration is open now for my webinar coming in January on January 9. It’s called why dating apps aren’t working for you. And I will also be doing a live q&a and coaching as a part of that call. So if you want to be in on that it’s free to sign up at the dating secret.com Until next week, I want to wish you Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Kwanzaa and of course, happy dating

 

Love Story & Dangerous Dating Apps

LEARNING FROM LOVE STORIES

We’re all trying to navigate our own love story, but the question on everyone’s lips right now seems to be: Are dating apps dangerous?

This week, Rene Lynch, LA Times writer and editor for the LA Affairs column, talk about the best love stories that teach us the best lessons. Also we break down all of the recent bad press surrounding dangerous dating apps.

More on that later, first we have headlines!

DATING DISH (2:30)

Why aren’t people having sex?

According to Financial Times, there is a huge decline in the amount of sex young people are having- especially men. Damona and Rene break down what this means for you.

Are free dating apps dangerous?

A recent investigation showed that predators are free to use free dating apps. Should all dating apps use a dating app registry

Is cheating the norm?

Recently Anna Ferris and Kat Von D talk about their history with cheating exes. Is this the new normal?

LOVE STORY (14:60)

Rene Lynch, lifestyle writer and editor at the LA Times, proves that we learn a lot from other people’s love stories. We talk about:

  • Compelling love stories
  • Big Takeaways from love stories
  • Our stories make up who we are, whether good for bad
  • Write your won happy ending

Make sure to find Rene Lynch at the LA Times or on Twitter (@ReneLynch).

TECHNICALLY DATING

Submit your questions Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook and hear our answers live on the show! Here’s what our listeners asked about this week:

  • Email Question: Hi Damona. I recently started internet dating & I have met some nice guys but no one that really blows me away. I have been asked by one of the men to stop seeing the other men to see if this relationship can work. I am in my 40’s & the endless dating cycle is tiring, but I do not want to settle for the man that is giving me the most attention and who is the most demanding. Any advice?
  • Lately I’ve been really struggling in my relationship. He’s a great guy and we share a lot of the same values. The thing is I was never really attracted to him and never felt the spark, I thought I could get passed it bc we do share similar values for the future and in life but I’ve been nit picking and criticizing him for a few months now. I’ve tried changing but biting my tongue feels impossible. Do you think I should stay and work it out even tho I’m not exited bc he is so nice and loves me so much? Hanging out with him feels more like an obligation than something I enjoy and it’s so hard bc he’s everything I want on paper and loves me so much.
  • How can I understand if a guy has serious intentions without asking directly?

 

WANT TO GO EVEN DEEPER? HERE IS A TRANSCRIPT OF THE SHOW IF YOU WANT TO FOLLOW ALONG!

 

Damona  0:17  

Hello lovers, welcome to Dates & Mates. I’m your host certified Dating Coach damona Hoffman. And I want to thank you for making this show your source for modern dating and relationship advice. Whether you’ve been listening to Dates & Mates for all seven years, or if you’re new to the show, you know, you can learn a lot about dating from hearing other people’s stories. And today we’re going to take a deeper look at how love stories and our quest for a happy ending can change a romantic future. In studio with me today is Renee Lynch. She is a writer and editor for the LA Times Saturday section and features. She works across a variety of coverage areas including wellness, design and food and lucky for us She’s also the editor of the weekly la affairs column, please Give big smooches to Renee Lynch.

 

Rene Lynch, LA Times  1:02  

Thank you very much. I’m happy to be here.

 

Damona  1:04  

I’m so happy that you’re here. I’m a big fan of the column. And you know, I love a good love story. I love a bad love story. I love all love stories, because I think you can really learn something from hearing other people’s stories. So I’m excited to get into the details of what you’ve learned from your years of editing the LA affairs column. All right. But we also have headlines and we’ll be talking about why young people really aren’t having sex anymore. And what you can learn about cheaters from Kat Von D and Ana Faris, plus, our free dating apps dangerous, huh. We’ll cover those headlines and we’ll be answering your questions, including What if he’s ready to be exclusive? And you’re not? And should you break up with a guy who has everything on paper, but just doesn’t excite you? All that and more on today’s date and mates? Renee Are you ready to do this then? I am ready. I’m so excited. Let’s dish Financial Times published a new study on how dating apps are changing relationships. And there was a lot of interesting data in this study that some of which we’ve covered before, like the marrying age is going up and people are waiting longer to actually tie the knot or deciding not to tie the knot at all. But all but what I thought was really interesting was the research on sex. It I know I have. Yes, men apparently are reporting they’re having the least amount of sex. This is a major decrease in recent years. 28% of men have not had sex in the past year versus 18% of women. And the article posits that one of the reasons is that women are the younger men are really struggling in the dating market. They’re not having sex. much because women are looking for older men. So like there’s this gap in the market where they have a high sex drive, but they’re not getting any. What did you think of this article? Renee?

 

Rene Lynch, LA Times  3:10  

Well, I find it very surprising because the media image is that we are kind of bombarded with daily seem to suggest that everyone is having sex all the time, which makes a lot of people wonder whether there’s something wrong with them, right. I mean, we’re, you can’t drive down the freeway without seeing some kind of sexually charged image. But when you dig deeper to it, I think it, it’s not all that surprising. And it does reflect that I think it is harder for men to kind of like, meet and connect with women. I think there are variety of reasons behind that. I also think there’s an interesting parallel to this Instagram world that we see that we think everything is so perfect out there, and everybody is having so much fun, and we’ve got this fear of missing out. And yet, there’s also this incredible loneliness that’s going on in the world. And I think some of those statistics really reflect that, that there’s an emotional disconnect in a variety of ways. It’s weird as the world gets a little smaller through technology, we can reach and connect with people more than ever before. There’s still a sense of, we’re not connecting.

 

Damona  4:16  

Yeah, I definitely see that with dating apps. And you all know, I’m a huge fan of dating apps. I think it has opened up a lot of possibilities for connection. But there’s a lot there are a lot of people that are on dating apps that aren’t actually connecting. They’re either doing it just just to waste time, or there are the people that are on the dating apps, specifically out for sex. And I feel like there’s been a pushback to people, especially women rejecting the idea that they’re on a Tinder or a hinge because they are looking to hook up. They’re like people and we actually you’ll see this in the questions from this week to people are really craving a deeper level of connection and We’re not getting it on the dating apps. But I think that has to do with the way that we’re using the apps and the mindset that you, you show up with when you’re there.

 

Rene Lynch, LA Times  5:08  

I think that’s totally accurate. I think the dating apps kind of give us this idea of like, dial up a date, and you can just, you know, get on and in five minutes have a date. And in some cases, true, that’s probably true. But if that’s all you’re looking for, your you may find it. But if you’re looking for anything more, it’s far more complicated than that. That’s just a simplistic view, you’re not going to dial up a husband or a wife or partner, it’s just not going to happen. And so you’re you’re you we kind of have that we live in a society where we kind of get whatever we want whenever we want it. And yet, of course, there’s this huge hurdle between dialing up you know, whoever on a dating app and actually meeting and connecting so I used to call it man shopping, right?

 

Damona  5:52  

But I did it with a clear intention. But I know a lot of people out there are getting more than they bargained for when they’re using dating apps there was a an article that hit people calm and a number of other outlets, criticizing match the parent company of many dating apps, including Tinder, and OkCupid. And plenty of fish for not doing thorough background checks on their free sites. Actually, they don’t do any background checks at all. Match itself does scrub their roles, and it kicks off anyone that does have a match to the sex offender registry. But they don’t do it for OK Cupid and plenty of fish. And there was a new investigation that revealed that sexual offenders are looking for potential victims on these free apps. Here’s my take, Renee, I think that the dating apps are not we’re making them too responsible for our choices. Like if you went to a bar and you met a sex offender, you wouldn’t go and sue the bar because you met them there and You might, you might, you probably wouldn’t win. But I, I feel like it’s unfair to put this kind of pressure and burden on dating apps, especially the free dating apps, like you didn’t pay anything to be there. And now you’re expecting all of these, all of these resources to be provided for you, but you don’t want to actually pay for them to be to be given to you. Now, I’m a little bit biased. I do work with match on content, and I’ve worked with them for many years. But I’m saying this more as a dating coach, and someone that has done this for over I’m almost embarrassed to say, for nearly 15 years, I’ve been coaching people on dating apps, and I’ve always said you have to do your own research.

 

Rene Lynch, LA Times  7:41  

What do you I think that you make a great point. And I think in a lot of ways, you’re you’re totally right. But there’s also a reality that situation. Most people have no idea you’re sophisticated you are working in this area, you understand what it means to try to track somebody down and get some background information on them. A lot of people Just don’t have that I think about, you know, I’m a journalist. So my first reaction is if I’m going to date you, I’m probably going to look you up in our database. And but a lot of people don’t have access to that. And they might do an easy Facebook search, but they’re not going to go beyond that. I think a lot of these dating apps are in a tough situation, because they did not go into this business to be investigators. But I think on the other hand, there’s an argument to be made that just as we’re demanding more accountability from Facebook and from Twitter, we, these, these businesses realize that they are potentially putting people in the path of the sex offender, and they’re certainly not advertising that, but at some point, we do expect them to take some responsibility for it. So I think if I’m coming at this from a we are all responsible for our own actions, position. I agree with you. But I mean, at some point Do they really not have any accountability or responsibility in some ways by knowing that you You have this problem and you’re not doing anything about it. They’re there. They’re acknowledging their role and trying to step away from it. Yeah, I need to do more.

 

Damona  9:07  

They certainly could do more. And I think they have in recent years done a lot to shore up. Just general dating data. Potential faults in their in their data sharing like it used to be when you would go search for ok key, but you could you could search the profiles were actually indexed by Google. And you could find them you could find anybody and search by their photo and it would come up as associated with Ok, Cupid. So they have since they’ve since shored that up, and it gave a lot of my clients more, more of a sense of security, that their information wasn’t all out there. But I think we also have we have to accept responsibility. Like you said, you brought up Facebook and Instagram. We have to accept responsibility that when we put our image out there and when we put our information out there that it could be used in many different ways. But you’re absolutely right that a lot of people don’t have these resources. And that’s why I’m glad that people are listening to this podcast right now. Because I’ve said for a long time you have to do you have to do your research, like do a google check, do a phone call before the day and see if anything doesn’t match up with what what they’ve said. And if if they’re, if they’re a registered sex offender, or if they have a criminal record, you might be able to find some of that information just from a basic Google search. So that at the very least you should be doing if you have any concerns about this, or go to match and pay for it. Like maybe what they should be doing is adding an like an app an add on service that you can pay to have background checks. I know, Bumble lets you verify your account. But maybe there’s an added level of security they can give to people that aren’t willing to pay for the service because not free.

 

Rene Lynch, LA Times  10:56  

Right. Right. That’s a very good point. I mean, we shouldn’t expect that this is all going to be handed to us for free. I think this also speaks a bit to a generational divide. Millennials, they know their way around all this stuff. They’re much more savvy. But I think if somebody like my mom who is widowed, if she were to go on a dating app, she would fall for every anything because she doesn’t use a computer she doesn’t know. You know, it would be it would be a hard asset to just get her on a dating app. But some people are just not that sophisticated there. And I shouldn’t say sophisticated because sometimes people are just not interested in living their life connected to the internet and a computer. And should those people be more susceptible to, you know, a bad actor? I would say no, but I do think that we have, we can’t expect that this is all going to be handed to us for free. I do think that a pay option. That’s something that seems fairly reasonable.

 

Damona  11:49  

Well, we’ve given them all the all the information they need. Hopefully they’ll pick it up and run with anyone credit for it. But one thing that’s a little bit harder to tell when you’re on a dating app is whether someone is in a relationship or not. I’ve read in some of the LA affairs stories people find out later on that the person they thought they were madly in love with was already madly in love with someone else and in a relationship with them. And Kat Von D and Ana Faris, normal normalize to the the phenomenon of cheating on the unqualified podcast and you look at these two ladies and you think who’s gonna cheat on Kat Von D. First of all, she’s gorgeous. Second of all, I feel like she like she she would cut you your life. But she says she’s dated nothing but jerks and has never been on a real date. She claims a past boyfriend cheated on her Renee 18 times while they were together she she looked in she saw in his email and messages that there were 18 different women that he had she verified He had had sex with while they were together. What is going on? You’ve been editing this column for a long time. Is there an increase that you see in submissions? of Cheaters or do you think it’s just like now we’re talking about it more before it was just so taboo that people wouldn’t discuss if it happened to them?

 

Rene Lynch, LA Times  13:21  

I don’t I can’t say that I see an increase in it I can tell you that a lot of the submissions we get have to do with cheating. But before I get to some examples, on a Ferris we had I had the pleasure of meeting her once in studio she came into the LA Times. so incredibly nice, incredibly, you can always tell them Sure, you can bet your shares celebrities, you can always tell how they treat everyone else. She was so pleasant and when I heard that story, I thought who would cheat on Anna you be getting me It’s horrible. What What luck to the rest of us have? But we we you know, it’s not.

 

Damona  13:55  

It’s not about that it’s not about even reading this week, Justin Timberlake I was holding hands I was like Justin and like you like you’re not going to do better than Jessica he’ll it’s not going to happen john What is going on?

 

Rene Lynch, LA Times  14:11  

But it’s it’s really shocking how often that happens and I am sure there’s you could do a whole show on the psychology of cheating but people I think go into relationships expecting that the person is if they are in a monogamous relationship they’re expecting that the person is going to be honest with them. And my god the LA affair submissions just show time and time again that that is not the case. And and it sometimes just seems so, so surprising that the person didn’t catch on one of our more popular columns had to do with a woman who was I can’t exactly remember all the details of this, but she found out that her boyfriend had her phone number in his phone, but under a guy’s name and she did not Real that’s how she found out red flag right? Somehow his phone rang or she would she called the phone Oh, they were looking for his phone or something. And the phone rang and she’s like, why do you have me in here as Tony? Take it all fell apart. It was funny about that, as so many people did not understand who were read the column that that is a common practice that people do. They’ll hide the person’s name and their phone under another name so that if the phone rings and their partner says, Oh, it’s Tony from work or Joe from work, it’s not another woman calling.

 

Damona  15:29  

So in that situation, she was the other woman.

 

Rene Lynch, LA Times  15:32  

Yes. She found that’s how she found out that she was the other woman. I know.

 

Damona  15:36  

That is just the worst. What are some other other other red flags that you’ve seen? Or, or patterns that you’ve seen that cheaters will do? Because I know people are listening like, I gotta take some notes here from Renee because I need to know because I think a lot of people have suspicions like, what if my partner is cheating on me or has cheated on me? But are there any things that You should really be on the lookout for like, like, is only being able to see you on the weekends like, Is that an automatic red flag? Are there any other things you’ve seen? Well,

 

Rene Lynch, LA Times  16:10  

I think it particularly in LA some of those rules that might apply elsewhere are difficult in LA because when I was dating my husband, I, we lived about 40 miles apart. We only saw each other on weekends. So he could have had an entire other family and told her that he was going on business trips for the weekend, and I wouldn’t have known it. So those rules do not always apply. I would say, to step back a little bit further before you try to figure out if somebody is cheating. Have you had the conversation? Are we in this together? And it’s just us too? Are we monogamous? Are we? You know, is it just as to we published a story not too long ago by a woman and I have to tell you, I had a hard time editing the column a little bit because I was struggling to understand her point of view, she met a guy, they hit it off, they go on their first date, and then after their First Date she does her due diligence and starts googling him and finds out I believe through Facebook, that he’s in these photos with another woman and kids and she’s trying to figure out what this is. And she calls him in a fury. And he says, we’ll wait a second. I’m Yes, I’m married. However, I am in the process of getting divorced. I have a great relationship with my wife. She knows I’m dating, and we’re separated and we’re in the process of getting a divorce. I don’t know is that is that a problem? This woman went through the roof over that, but I don’t know.

 

Rene Lynch, LA Times  17:32  

I don’t know about disclosing all that on your first date. I feel like I kind of felt for him.

 

Damona  17:38  

I feel like he should say before the date, just so you know I am. I mean, you have to say that you’re separated, not divorced. And that’s a really common. That’s a really common cheater move. Right right to say, oh, we’re in the process. I mean, how many times we heard that I’m leaving my way. But tomorrow,

 

Rene Lynch, LA Times  17:59  

but It’s true. It’s true. I mean, I guess I

 

Damona  18:03  

was like, so, so jaded.

 

Rene Lynch, LA Times  18:05  

Should you have to reveal everything on the first day? I don’t know. I personally would have appreciated that being revealed on the first day. But I think sometimes people find out that their quote unquote being cheated on, and maybe they haven’t had the conversation about are we monogamous?

 

Damona  18:20  

No one else such a good point. I also read a recent la affairs column where a woman was talking about her dating patterns. And she said that in all of the, the, the relationships or the date she she had the intuition, she had the gut early on, that they were not a good guy or they weren’t, weren’t right for her. And so many times, we just squash that and we put our intuition aside. And those of you who’ve been listening to the podcast for a while, know that I’m really big into using that intuition and trusting your gut. Because we could we can do all the steps but ultimately, we can do background checks, but I think the best background check is it starts with how do you feel when you’re with them? And what are the signals that you’re getting? Yeah,

 

Rene Lynch, LA Times  19:07  

you’re totally right. I i in particular loved that column because I worked with her on that for quite a bit. It had a very different tone to it. In the very beginning, she was very down on herself that this was never going to work out. And, you know, this is all horrible. And then as we work through it, ice center will it actually seems like you’re, we need to play up that idea that you have listened to your intuition and it ended up being a much more I think inspirational column because, you know, think about how many dates you’ve gone on in your life. You’ve had far more dates that did not end up in you being married then the date that got you married, right, so are you a dating failure? If you look at the statistics, you are right, you are more bad dates that didn’t go anywhere today. True. And so I think we have to not take the bad date as like a sign of that. Some thing is horrible. It just didn’t work out. It didn’t work out if you went shopping, and you didn’t find the black pair pants that you were looking for you and be like, I’m a failure to shop another day, right? Like you would just be like, I’m ready to get back in the hunt and look for those pants. I think we need to approach dating a little more like that. It’s not the end all be all, you know, referendum on who you are as a person. You’re just trying to find your match, trying to find your person. And that takes time. And it’s not a big deal. It’s like calm down. It’s all going to be okay. didn’t work out the Saturday, maybe next Saturday is your day. So uplifting

 

Damona  20:34  

and I totally agree with you. Speaking of time, it’s time for us to take a little break. And first I wanted to just acknowledge our listeners that have told their friends about the podcast and that have told other podcast listeners about the podcast through reviews. Special thanks to Nicole who just left us this review. She said I enjoy listening to this podcast on my way to work every Monday. Not to sound arrogant or anything But she’s the host is funny and engaging. And she always has a wide variety of love and dating themes to themes to address you won’t be disappointed. Thank you so much, Nicole for listening. And thanks to all of you who are dedicated to listening to this podcast. Please take a moment to review the show on the podcast platform that is bringing it to your ears right now. So the more people can get the help and love that they need and we can keep making Dates & Mates a free resource for you for seven more seasons. We will have more with Renee Lynch of the la times in just a moment.

 

We are back with Renee Lynch of the LA Times. She is the editor of the LA affairs column which I’ve been a fan of for a long time. Renee, people love a love story. They love a good love story. And we’re sometimes really addicted to happy endings. I’m curious because you read a lot of love stories What’s your favorite kind of love story?

 

Rene Lynch, LA Times  22:12  

I you know, I love a good love story where there’s a lot of drama and obstacles before you get to the to the wonderful payoff. I just think that I love the story where it slowly revealed itself kind of like When Harry Met Sally story the way we knew it slowly revealed itself that Wait a second, the person I’ve wanted all along, or the perfect person for me is right here.

 

Damona  22:39  

So much more like people are like, how did you know your husband was the one and I’m like, I don’t know cuz I just wanted to keep seeing him and not seeing anybody else. It wasn’t like, all of a sudden whiz bang like the music change and I swept off my

 

Rene Lynch, LA Times  22:55  

feet and we danced off into the sunset.

 

Damona  22:58  

I don’t know. Did you hear you’re married. Did you know when you first met your husband? He was the one No,

 

Rene Lynch, LA Times  23:05  

my husband, I’m a very silly person. And my husband for is also very silly person, which that’s why I love him. I always say he’s the goof to my ball. Our first few dates, he was so serious, and just so kind of like this kind of commanding and control very serious personality. And I was like, No, like, No, no, no, no, no. And we actually went on a date we went golfing and I told a friend I go he doesn’t know this but he’s got one shot like this date. This is about to be over

 

Damona  23:38  

way this was your this is your first

 

Rene Lynch, LA Times  23:41  

No, this is like your this is the person I’m married to now

 

Damona  23:43  

but how many dates and more dates Okay, so this is like the date it and

 

Rene Lynch, LA Times  23:47  

I was like, This guy is just too serious. And it because I felt like I couldn’t be my ridiculous silly self because I felt like he was like disapproving and like why are you being loud or silly or whatever. And so we go coughing and we are in the parking lot at the end of the night and we’re about it we were two different cars are about to go our second way and somebody starts playing Britney Spears hit me Baby One More Time started doing the dancer, Brittany’s my god parking lot and I was like, will you marry me?

 

Rene Lynch, LA Times  24:20  

That is a bold move or a guy

 

Rene Lynch, LA Times  24:22  

I couldn’t like I wish I had a camera on my face because the shock of like, is this guy really doing this right now? And he had the whole like he was doing the whole thing. And I thought okay, well you just one date number five.

 

Damona  24:35  

But it’s I like hearing that story because it shows how people really reveal themselves over time and I talk on the show a lot about slow love and how people are not usually themselves right away and true. Like people get so caught up in chemistry and what am I feeling on the first date, but it’s really the second, the third, the fourth and the fifth date. Yeah, that really tells you who that person is? I’m curious what made you stick with it beyond the first or second day because there are a lot of people that after a soso or a bad first date might just be like,

 

Rene Lynch, LA Times  25:13  

you know, there was enough there. He’s very handsome. There was no is there? Yes, that always helps. And we we kept finding weird things in common. Like we were reading the same book at the time. And you know, just like an odd little thing. And it wasn’t a new book. It was an old it was Lance Armstrong’s book. It’s not about the bike. Before Lance. Yeah, youngsters, Grace. And he knew, you know, so he was able to talk about that. And then we would just find these like weird little things in common. And I just found this he is he’s Puerto Rican, he’s very close to his family. And that’s something that I really admired. And there were just little things that I thought this is a really a stand up guy. I was just really worried that I that I wasn’t I was like, maybe not measuring up, it was really this kind of like weird thing where I thought, I’m kind of like, you know, I’ll say silly stuff, I’ll just I’m kind of a very relaxed person. And he just seemed like a little too uptight. And I thought, Oh, this is not gonna work out

 

Damona  26:13  

the best behavior with you. Right?

 

Rene Lynch, LA Times  26:14  

Well, that said he was really nervous. And so it took us a while to I think, I think a slow burn is such a great way to describe it, that it took a while for it to unfold and reveal itself. And that was the relationship that really made me understand that I would say if you have two things that you need in a relationship, it’s compatibility. And also attraction. I mean, you need to have some attraction to the person that you’re with. But if you are not compatible, I think that the media image that we often get is that you need to have a fiery tempestuous Lake relationship. And I’m like, Girl run on and run late. I do not want that. Like, maybe that’s great for a hot summer romance, but that is not what you want when the roof is leaking. Getting in the kid is crying and the bills need to be paid. You want slow, steady compatible somebody who who your spending habits are similar. Somebody that you know that you can rely on, you don’t mean that that you know exactly.

 

Damona  27:16  

What’s interesting about the LA affaires column and the work that you do with it, you get submissions, you get like hundreds of submissions every month. And I’m guessing

 

Rene Lynch, LA Times  27:28  

No, it’s true. I tell people, I could run the column if I stopped accepting submissions today, I could run it like through 2015. I mean, I have it literally in my quote unquote short stack. I have probably 150 columns in the short stack.

 

Damona  27:41  

Wow. So this is anyone in LA that has a love story that wants to tell something about about their journey. And I’m curious when you have all of these stories, I’m sure everyone feels like their story is the most important one to be told. But what is it that makes you pick one out over the other and then talking about A little bit about your process of how you take this core idea. Like we all tell the story from our point of view, like this happened, and he did this to me, but like, like the example you were telling about before the break, how you shape it to almost give them new perspective on the story that they’ve lived.

 

Rene Lynch, LA Times  28:16  

I feel like doing this job is kind of being a little bit of a therapist for people, always, because I’ll see something in their story. And they don’t see it because they’ve lived it, right. It’s, it’s staring them in the face, and I’ll start to ask them about it. And then it’ll slowly fall away that this the story isn’t over here. It’s actually on the other side of the room. It’s over here. And part of that is the editing process. When columns come in, first and foremost, I’m looking for a really great story. I tell people do not worry about filing a perfectly polished, edited manuscript. That’s not what I want or need, because I’m the editor. I can guarantee you that whatever you file, no matter what shape it’s in, I’m going to find some changes because the style changes for the paper. Like for example, we don’t use profanity. So just like maybe that makes us old school but you know, changes will be major columns. So first and foremost, I’m just looking for a good story. Tell me a good story. Pretend you are you and I just met, we’re sitting next to each other having coffee and they say so you know, tell me about your last date or your partner, whatever. Start typing. That’s what I want. Just tell me a good story. And then from there, I’m looking for something original. I’m, you know, if you if you read the column, I’m just looking for something perhaps offbeat. I love a story that ends up happening an inspirational aspect to it like that woman who I think is like so many of us, we think, Oh, I went on another bad date. There’s something wrong with me. And we were able to finally get to the point where she already understood but she wasn’t fully embracing it. That when you walk away from a bad day, you’re walking towards yourself. You’re that is a victory. You put that in the win column sister You do not walk away from that feeling bad. about that. And so I loved that I’m working on a column with a man right now, it’s probably going to take a while it’ll run early next year, and he and his partner broke up because of his drinking. And when they get back together, you know, it’s it’s very difficult challenge for them to recover their relationship. But he, he really comes to the idea that so many people do who struggle with substance abuse that he had to say no to that in order to say yes to the relationship. And it’s just a really beautiful inspirational story. And I’m fully convinced that somebody will read that column. And he was very upset with his partner because he felt like his partner was rejecting Him and not accepting him. But the partner was saying, I cannot have this alcoholism in my life. And so I’ve seen enough of right

 

Damona  30:47  

intervention to know that line.

 

Rene Lynch, LA Times  30:50  

And so I’m sure that people will read that column and somebody somewhere will read that column and say, You know what, I’m going to stop drinking today. And so that to me, I want to Love that I get to do something like that it’s an honor and a privilege.

 

Damona  31:04  

You just gave me chills honestly to know that you’re impacting people that are reading this on on such a deep level and even just the people that you’re writing that you’re editing the column with, to know that they can get new perspective because our stories really sometimes trap us in a pattern. Like all the time when I’m working with clients, I, I help figure out what is that story that’s playing in your head about why you’re still single, maybe it’s you’re telling yourself every day there are no good men in LA or I can’t trust my gut or they’re all cheaters whatever that story is. Sometimes you have to take a step back from it and maybe even in writing it out. Like not everyone listening to this podcast is going to have their their story published in LA affairs, but maybe they can get started by just writing down their story on paper, getting the story out of them. And then almost distancing it Yes, it’s yourself from it to just read it and say Okay, where How have I grown from this? What can I learn from this? How can I become a better person myself through this experience, and then maybe that will lead me to?

 

Rene Lynch, LA Times  32:12  

Well, I think you have just hit right on it that I sometimes think that we think like life is just supposed to be perfect and unfold. But we all know we come with so much baggage, and then you’re meeting somebody else who has baggage. And we’re both trying to see if our baggage will fit within it, each other’s baggage. And if you’re coming from the perspective of like, I can’t find, you know, there are no good women in LA or I can’t find a date or there’s something wrong with me. In some ways, I would encourage people to do exactly what you said, which is, instead of using this as a negative use it as an opportunity for personal growth. We are in the land of of personal growth, right? There’s no place in the world that encouraged us to look within like LA, we should take advantage of that. And maybe it’s seeing somebody maybe it’s talking to somebody maybe it’s trying to journal or Right about it there are plenty of free online resources. But why not delve into? Why am I finding it hard to meet a woman in LA? Do I really believe that all women are bad look, let’s push back on that belief and see what happens when I start digging into it is what happened in my background that has led me to believe that and then what am I going to move past that? I mean, be the hero of your own story right? Every good hero needs an obstacle. You gotta like go around it or through it or under it or whatever just in

 

Damona  33:28  

the third act

 

Rene Lynch, LA Times  33:31  

it’s not the end but but I think we can often give up right we can often give up just before the breakthrough so I think we the way you put it is just perfect. We just need to push through that and sometimes for some people writing it down and submitting it to a column like Ella fares or or someplace else or maybe even writing it down and burning it in the backyard and being like I’m now done with that. I’m ready to move on.

 

Rene Lynch, LA Times  33:51  

Oh, yeah,

 

Damona  33:52  

right. I did that. Actually. I had a I had a group of girlfriends over in in the I guess it was in the summer, spring or summer, and we got a fire pit and we all we burned our stories. And this woman had this relationship that she was still holding on to a lot of negativity around it. And she was still processing it, even though she was in a healthy, positive relationship. Now she still had unfinished business. And so she took all of these photos, all of these letters, all of these things that were tying her to the past and she burned them. She burned them in my backyard. And it was just so cathartic.

 

Rene Lynch, LA Times  34:36  

Okay, now you’re

 

Damona  34:38  

just to see, I mean, y’all like fire safety, like don’t like make sure you are doing this in a way which I didn’t do that but you know, like, have a professional or water or something, I don’t know. But just just seeing her go through that and, and be able to, to release that. Like we carry around all these feelings that we attend. To the stories that we’ve had,

 

Rene Lynch, LA Times  35:01  

right, and you know what it’s okay to have a wonderful relationship that for whatever reason, didn’t work out, it’s totally fine. And it’s fine to reflect on that and maybe remember that person and think about him or her fondly. But that it’s think sometimes things just don’t work out. And that’s just the way it is. And it’s okay. It’s not a reflection on who you are. It’s just a reflection on that moment in time. And that can actually be a beautiful thing, right that you had a, you know, a summer boyfriend or summer girlfriend, and it was great, and then it didn’t work out. But that’s a wonderful memory to have not baggage to kind of like drag into like your next 17 relationships. Exactly.

 

Damona  35:39  

You are so wise, Renee. I’m like, I’m getting all of the chills and all the fields here. And all of our listeners have submitted questions to all of our listeners. Some of our listeners have submitted questions that I think our listeners would really want to hear your insights to the questions that they’ve submitted. So we’re going to roll right into our next segment. Alright, Renee, we have questions from our listeners that people have submitted all kinds of ways. We get questions through email, through Instagram, through Facebook, through Twitter. And today I have a question that came to my inbox. That said, Hi damona I recently started internet dating and I’ve met some nice guys, but none that really blow me away. I’ve been asked by one of them to stop seeing the other men to see if this relationship can work. I’m in my 40s and the endless dating cycle is tiring, but I do not want to settle for the man that is giving me the most attention and who’s the most demanding? Any advice? Ooh, that is a hard one. That is a hard one is a burden hand.

 

Rene Lynch, LA Times  36:45  

Yeah, she has a burden. And I guess I I would wonder, first of all, I’d love to know a little more about her dating history. How she got to this point, what is your story? What is your story? But I mean, what about Giving it a certain amount of time so that you’re not putting too much into it but maybe four or five more dates or say, I mean, I can kind of understand somebody saying like, can we make this monogamous or at least make it about us? For now, I think I would be so anxious if I knew my boyfriend were leaving me and dating somebody. Like, I just think that would just ratchet up my anxiety.

 

Damona  37:24  

But in the beginning, you were you were online. Right? Right. And you knew in the beginning the chances chances were he was dating other people.

 

Rene Lynch, LA Times  37:32  

But once we started dating a few more dates, and once he did his little bit,

 

Rene Lynch, LA Times  37:39  

you know, we never actually had the conversation of are we is this are we exclusive, but we just kind of knew we were exclusive. But Had I known that he were out dating other women. I think that would have been, I think I would have at some point said can we make this just about us? I think that would have been a little hurtful, so I can understand somebody’s asking for that. I mean, if he says I need you to never date another man again for the next 10 years, I think you say you got to get out of here. But saying if let’s put our emphasis on this and see if we can work six, eight weeks. I don’t know that doesn’t seem that doesn’t seem unreasonable.

 

Damona  38:15  

You’re giving me food for thought running because my initial reaction was if she’s not excited about him, and he’s already at the point where he’s saying, Let’s be exclusive, that maybe they’ve given it enough time to see if it’s working or not. And for her, it’s just not working. And

 

Rene Lynch, LA Times  38:32  

well, that’s why I wondered about her background because I wonder if she I wondered if she is a little bit like me who was like, Wait, you’re not bringing fireworks and like 3000 roses on our first date? She this isn’t very exciting. Yeah. I

 

Damona  38:48  

Well, there’s a clue in here. She says the endless dating cycle is tiring. And I know a lot of our listeners struggle with that. Especially she says she’s in her 40s we have a lot of listeners in their 30s and Does it feel like I’ve been doing this, I’ve been like, on this in this rat race of dating, and it’s like wash, rinse repeat of I’m going on this date, I’m not really connecting with a guy I’m this far in, I don’t really want to break up with him because I don’t want to start over. Right? Like that fear of starting over can keep people in the wrong relationships. But by the same token, I totally hear what you’re saying, like you have to be looking at the bigger picture of what, what you need out of the relationship. And maybe if it’s not, you’re not checking all the boxes. But if you’re checking enough of the boxes, you know, maybe it is worth just just focusing

 

Rene Lynch, LA Times  39:39  

and committing for a little bit and saying like, if you are invested in this relationship, what would that look like? I can guarantee you that if you and I are in a relationship, and we’re totally committed to each other, it’s going to look very different than if I’m dating five other people. And so I’m not giving you my all I’m not giving you all my attention. That person is going to feel that but again, I’m a little curious as to what it what are her expectations about a relationship? I guarantee you that I do not check all of my husband’s boxes, I’m sure. He would be like, I would like somebody who’s maybe a little more organized. There’s there are definitely things that he will be like, I wish I could change about her. But if you’re, you know, checking most of them. He’s the person who, if he is my desert island person, I want him on that desert island. Is he perfect? No, he’s not perfect. But at some point, you just get to that point where you think this person is very, very special to me, and I want them in my life more than I don’t want them in my life.

 

Damona  40:41  

Okay, that’s a good segue into our second question, which is similar but different. This one came to me from Instagram. She says I’m a 20 year old female. She said I just listened to a podcast you were on. I’m not sure which one but thank you for listening. Maybe horrible decisions or maybe kind of dating but thank you for Much. Lately I’ve been really struggling in my relationship. He’s a great guy and we share a lot of the same values. The thing is I was never really attracted to him and never felt the spark. Never felt the spark, Renee. I thought I could get past it because we do share similar values for the future and in life, but I have been nitpicking and criticizing him for a few months.

 

Surviving The Holidays While Single

A Few Dating Dangers For Singles To Avoid This Holiday Season

Navigating the holidays can be hard when your parents keep asking why you’re still single. Top it all off with dating app fatigue, and Millennials & Gen Zers are ditching dating apps more than ever. But mostly, holiday dating app fatigue comes around due in large part to awkward questions from relatives.

How many times have you heard something on the order of, “Why are you still single” or “when are you going to settle down?” Be prepared for all of the awkward questions because you’re going to get them. 

If you don’t want to talk about why you’re single during the holidays, share all the accomplishments that you want to share instead of focusing on the negative. If all else fails and they just keep asking, tell them some of your bad date stories.

Here are a few tips on handling awkward conversations with relatives:

1. Stay optimistic about dating apps.

Dating apps are the most powerful tool in your dating tool box. If you’re feeling down about dating apps just remember this:

Now more than ever daters are finding love online. But regardless of this shift, people do tend to get down on dating apps around the holidays. Often parents and relatives don’t understand that online dating is the norm now. The latest news may not have helped that…

2. Tell your parents the dating apps aren’t dangerous.

You may have seen in the news that the safety of some of the best dating apps has been called into question. A recent investigation proved that registered sex offenders are finding victims through free dating apps and websites such as Tinder, OkCupid, Plenty of Fish, and more. 

This is terrifying. But, it’s also an opportunity to examine 1) which dating apps you are using and 2) how we are filtering potential dates

On episode #287 Dates & Mates, Damona discussed this with Rene Lynch, editor of LA Affairs in the LA Times. They break down this controversy: 

  • If you’re concerned about your safety, certain dating apps automatically use background checks against the sex offender registry – like Match. These are typically paid subscription dating apps that have the resources to filter for dangerous situations.
  • Do some research on your own! Before you meet your date in person:
    • Schedule a pre-date phone call or video chat & make sure that everything checks out.
    • A quick search on all social media platforms can tell you all you need to know about your match.
    • If something feels off to you, follow your intuition.

3. Think about dedicating some extra time to dating.

Damona always encourages daters to be proactive in finding love. And since we’re all on holiday, let’s take advantage of all the free time! A good rule of thumb is to dedicate five hours a week or more to your dating process.

4. If you’re experiencing dating app fatigue, take a break!

We have all been there. Sometimes you get tired of the seemingly endless and monotonous game of swiping. But once you take a step back, you realize that the dating apps are more than just swiping at faces. 

If you’re in a dating rut, make sure you take some time to regroup. As Damona says, it’s better to take a break than to bring the wrong energy into dating.

5. Revisit making IRL connections.

While you’re taking a break from dating apps, make an effort to meet people in real life and be more conscious about the kind of person you are looking for. You can actively search in relevant spaces where you can find potential matches with common interests. 

6. Where’s your match hiding?

If you’re looking for someone that has a professional career, you might want to go downtown at happy hour and chat up the people that work in those office buildings. Or if you’re looking for someone who has a big heart, try attending a charity event and places with people who make philanthropy a part of their lifestyle.

Do you have a dating resolution for next year? Reach out to us on socials (@DamonaHoffman on all platforms). Happy dating!

Sun Signs & Zodiac Compatibility

IS LOVE COMPATIBILITY WRITTEN IN THE STARS?

It’s Thanksgiving week, the last thing we’re thinking is dating, right? Wrong. It so happens that this week is also Damona’s birthday week and we thought we’d take some time to explore love according to the stars. 

People always ask Damona: Can astrology help you find the one? 

And the answer is… a lot more in-depth than we expected. So Damona brought in Astrologer Rachel Lang to explain Zodiac compatibility in honor of her birthday week!

More on that later, first we have headlines!

DATING DISH (2:30)

The Real Deal with Pick Up Artists

Screenshot Mag asks, Is the dating industry failing daters? Pick up artistry seems to be a very popular sector of the dating industry and it gets a lot of criticism. Damona explains. 

How do you explain “it’s complicated” to your parents?

Another year, another round of explaining your relationship status to your parents over Thanksgiving. How do you explain more complicated relationship terms to your parents? Damona and Rachel have thoughts. 

A little twist in Mr. Rogers’ love story

Mr. Rogers is one of the most wholesome men in history. It’s not surprising that the story of how he proposed to his wife, Joanne, is just as sweet as you would expect. Story time!

ZODIAC COMPATIBILITY (14:60)

Love in the stars

Rachel is an astrologer, psychic medium, and healer who  has been developing her spiritual gifts more than 20 years. She helps her clients maximize the potential of their natal charts as well as upcoming transits and progressions. You’ve seen her work in publications like Bustle, Well+Good, Brit + Co, Romper, PopSugar, and more.

So basically, she’s more than qualified to answer your questions on astrology.

We go in-depth on:

  • Astrology Basics
  • Sun signs, Moon signs, rising signs, etc
  • Transits, transitions, and progressions,
  • Natal charts
  • Compatibility
  • How to try this at home

Make sure to find Rachel Lang on Instagram (@rachellang11) or online at rachellangastrologer.com.

TECHNICALLY DATING (37:00)

Submit your questions Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook and hear our answers live on the show! Here’s what our listeners asked about this week:

  • If a guy brings up “the bedroom” in a text before you’ve even met – is that a red flag? 
  • Is it possible today to meet someone without dating apps? What is your advice for people who want to date but don’t want to do it online?

 

WANT TO GO EVEN DEEPER? HERE IS A TRANSCRIPT OF THE SHOW IF YOU WANT TO FOLLOW ALONG!

Damona  0:00  

Hello lovers, welcome to Dates & Mates. I’m your host certified Dating Coach Damona Hoffman and we are here to handle all of the challenges that you’re dealing with in love as I have on the show for the last seven years and hope to do for the next seven years. This week is a really special week. I know it’s Thanksgiving, and you’re thinking this is going to be a Thanksgiving-themed show. And that was initially what I was thinking about. But then I realized it’s also my birthday. And people ask me all the time about astrology and compatibility and I thought why not let my birthday be the reason to look into compatibility, in love according to the stars. People are always asking me how to know if the person they’re with is the one and whether astrology can tell them the answer. 

 

And I don’t know the answer. But as usual, I do know someone who does. And it’s my good friend, Rachel Lang. Rachel is an astrologer, psychic medium and a healer who has been developing her spiritual gifts for more than 20 years. I mean, she looks like she’s 20. But she’s been developing years, I guess, more than 20 years as well as knowing the ins and outs of astrology. And there’s so much to know she helps clients maximize the potential of their Natal charts as well and their upcoming transits and progressions. If you don’t know what that means. We’ll talk about it a little bit later in the show. You’ve seen her work and many publications including Bustle, Brit + Co, Romper, Pop Sugar, you’ve seen her on the Dates & Mates show. It’s been many mercury returns since then, it is time for you to return again, please give big switches to Rachel Lang. 

 

Rachel Lang  1:57  

Thanks so much for having me on the show. I’m excited to talk about two of my favorite subjects, astrology and love.

 

Damona  2:03  

This is such a hot topic. And people ask me all the time like how do I know if this person is the one? How do I like people want to know more about themselves in love and and I’ve studied with you in classes I am nowhere near I am like a zygote infant in the world of astrology and you know so much I was like, we just have to have Rachel to tell us what all of this stuff means because the birth chart really is it is a window into your path your soul. 

 

Rachel Lang  2:35  

Absolutely, yes. And I would say that you know more than you let on that you know. So give yourself a little bit of credit pat yourself on the back. 

 

Damona  2:45  

I did study I studied very hard at your astrology one on one course. But you’re the master. I’m really glad that you’re here today. 

 

And I’m glad you’re here to talk about the headlines with me including the real deal about pickup artists and how do you explain your it’s complicated status To your parents. Plus, a surprising twist to the love story of Mr. Rogers and his wife, Joanne. 

 

And then we’ll be answering your questions, including, is it a red flag if he brings up the bedroom before you’ve even met? And is it possible to date without dating apps? We’ll talk about all of those things on today’s Dates & Mates. Rachel, are you ready to do this? 

 

Rachel Lang

I’m Ready

 

Damona

Screenshot Mag is wondering: is the dating industry regressing now, as a dating coach, I have seen a lot of evolutions. I’ve been doing this for 16 years, starting out as a profile writer and then becoming specifically a life coach and dating coach. But I have seen the number of dating coaches in dating coaches increase. But according to this article, while the dating coach industry is growing, the pickup artists industry is growing faster and for those of you who aren’t quite up to speed on what that means. It’s like Have you heard of the game? Or like any of these terms like negging where a guy will sort of put down a girl to lower self esteem and make her more receptive to his advances? there? It’s a lot of strategies and manipulation that get someone to say yes to you to fall for you, but it’s not really it’s not what I do. I really coach people more for relationships for for life partnerships, that’s my expertise. And I don’t want to knock pickup artists because I think there is a value in having someone to help you build confidence, but I don’t think it should come at the expense of someone else’s well being.

 

Rachel Lang  4:47  

Absolutely because I think when someone’s approaching, dating or approaching, attracting someone to be in a relationship, if you’re starting from a place of inauthenticity, then they’re really Relationships not going to ever start on a solid ground. Plus, I think we’re moving out of this paradigm this like hetero normative paradigm that we’ve been in, where men are stereotypically acting a certain way and women are, are a certain way. And we’ve expanded our consciousness is expanded as a as a culture as a, as a human body. We’ve expanded beyond this. So I think some of those ideas that these pickup artists are, you know, talk, you know, the, that they’re like, Yeah, well, I can’t find the mode and some of those ideas are really steeped in, in an old model of relationships. And an old model of, you know of male and female gender norms. 

 

Damona  5:54  

Yeah, I wasn’t even actually thinking about that. So I’m glad that you brought up like this, this whole heteronormative like a man’s supposed to act this way a woman supposed to act that way? The part that really bothers me This is a huge industry. According to this article, the pickup artist community, not the dating coach community, specifically, artist 100 million dollar a year business. And I see these advertisements. What it does is it, it really preys on people’s weak spots.

 

And I’ve seen,

 

I’ve seen it sort of, it’s the marketing that bothers me. I’ve seen an evolution actually with a lot of people that were really entering the industry as pickup artists, they’re starting to move into my lane, and they’re like, we’ll hook you with all of that, you know, get her to sleep with you. But then when you get there, it actually is a lot of the personal development and wellness. I just wish we didn’t have to do that kind of messaging to get people to be invested in personal growth.

 

Rachel Lang  6:58  

Hmm. as a as a Dating Coach, do you struggle sometimes with that those kinds of people kind of coming into your territory or, or some of the the gray area around that

 

Damona  7:10  

I have abundance mindset, Rachel, which you could probably tell from my charge areas in your chart. So I’ve never thought this person is taking possible clients away from me, I think there are clients that are going to be attracted to that sort of marketing and their clients. I it’s very clear, that’s not what I’m about. So the men that listen to the show, and the men that work with me tend to be tend to be looking for something different. So I think everybody can have a seat at the table. Everybody can come to the party, as long as we’re like treating one another with respect, right, right. And coming from a place of authenticity is big for me, like you just said, Yeah, well, if you have, maybe you followed some of my strategies, and now you’re you’ve moved into a relationship, but sometimes there’s this gray area where you’re in Relationship maybe you’re in a situation ship, maybe you’re in a no labels relationship. And that gets complicated over the holidays, doesn’t it? Rachel? Yes, it does. Now, I will say I have not actually been in a situation where I brought a no label relationship home to my parents elite daily talks about how to discuss this relationship with your parents and the factors that make them either accepting of it or rejecting in if if they have strong feelings about it. You know, a lot of people still have very traditional families that want the heteronormative relationship, the these certain trajectory of now you’re dating and now you’re engaged. Now you’re getting married, and now you’re having kids. And I just find now so many people want to follow a different path, but I haven’t experienced that that I haven’t experienced before. Moment of needing to say, Hey Mom, this is my friend, but not having a label to it. Have you been in that situation before?

 

Rachel Lang  9:09  

Well, you know, I have so and I, you know what I came I came out of the closet pretty early in my late teens. And, and there were times when I had friends who were sort of were friends, but there was always like this, you know, and often I would just avoid the whole topic. I mean, I would just categorize the person as a friend and I wouldn’t tell my my family that that there was something more. So there was for me it was a there was a double layer of this is uncomfortable the subject matter is is is touchy. So I understand that the dilemma of how do you how do you how do you tell your parents that, you know, because I think what it all boils down to is when you’re in an undefined relationship. It’s perhaps a sexual relationship. And you might not want to tell your parents that you’re sleeping with this person. And so I think just keeping the whole sexual keeping the relationship and the sexual aspect of the relationship separated in your mind, in your conversations with your parents, I think that’s one way to approach it. Like, we don’t have to tell them everything that we’re doing

 

Damona  10:23  

know. And as a parent, I’m like, there’s some things they don’t get to know. Yeah. But I also think why put yourself in an awkward situation. Hmm. If you know that you’re going to get questions from your parents that maybe your no labels relationship can exist in your world. And if it’s not going to be accepted by your parents,

 

Rachel Lang  10:44  

just don’t even get up through it. Exactly. Exactly.

 

Damona  10:48  

Well, this was a surprise to me. You know, there’s this new Mr. Rogers movie coming out with Tom Hanks playing Mr. Rogers. I watched the documentary not that long ago. And you know, I thought They’re going to find some deep dark things and Mr. Rogers closet like nobody is that nobody is that nice and kind and altruistic. According to the documentary according to like l the biographers, Mr. Rogers, just a nice good guy, nice good guy. And there was a new article that that revealed the details in biography calm or revealed the details of his proposal to his wife and the I didn’t realize they had been together since college days. He was transferring colleges and she was like, going to welcome this new perspective student and they they hit it off and but then they were different year they were finishing a different year so they kind of had this long distance on again off again relationship. So we had to propose to her by letter, which shows I think is the sweetest thing and the funny thing you think like Mr. Rogers, it should be like a total claimed she was like in a she called him from like a phone booth. Yeah. And there was like graffiti scrawled. And the only answer she could get out when she, she accepted was we don’t really swear on the show but it was like sh It was like not at all what you would think of Fred Rogers wife saying right to his proposal. Yeah, this is a really sweet story

 

Rachel Lang  12:22  

so sweet. So I did his birth chart. Yeah, of course because I you know, I wanted to I wanted to find out what What’s the story behind the story. And he is just a total romantic. He’s got a Taurus rising. He’s a Pisces with the Pisces moon. And for our Pisces listeners out there in Pisces moon listeners, Pisces men have hearts of gold and can be very sensitive. But it’s not always it’s not always comfortable for men in our culture, and especially at that time, to be to be so sensitive and to be so in touch with their emotions. But he had this really this really beautiful chart total romantic and I could see him just being a faithful, loving husband and a loving partner.

 

Damona  13:05  

Yes, the only criticism that his wife Joanne had was he was too patient with the kids. So she had to be the family disciplinarian. And again, going back to like traditional gender roles. I appreciate that they worked through that. And they let that be their norm. Because it’s kind of the same thing with with my husband and I we don’t have we don’t have traditional gender roles, and I have no interest in that. I’m just more interested in finding out what works for my family. Absolutely. Yeah. Well, we’re going to tell you what works for you based on your birth chart and what is in the stars for you in love. And we’ll dive deeper into astrological compatibility in just a moment. But first while you’re here, make sure you do three and keep it free. Number one, subscribe number two, review and number three, share this episode with a friend I know astrology is super shares So I’m sure there’s someone that you know that will want to hear the information that Rachel is about to share on astrology and compatibility. So stick around this is Dates & Mates.

 

Commercial Break

 

We’re back with Rachel Lang. She’s an astrologer, a psychic medium and a healer, who’s here to talk to us about astrological compatibility in love. Rachel, I am so so so excited for you to be here for my birthday week talking about astrology. And it’s something that I’ve I’ve always been curious about. And I think the entry point for a lot of people into astrology is just like, this is your sun sign like this is yours. Like what people know of as your sign. Hey, baby, what’s your sign? That’s just your sun sign? Yeah, there’s so much more to astrology

 

Rachel Lang  14:53  

so much more. And I think that’s one thing that that that gets it gets tricky when we’re talking about compatibility because so many People know what sun signs they’re compatible with. But your chart is a reflection of so many different aspects of yourself. The sun sign is just one aspect. We have at the time of your birth the moon was in a certain place Mercury, which is how you communicate and relationships was in a certain place. Venus which is how you flirt, how you attract your love. Mars is kind of your your sex drive your passion, you know, what, what, what turns you on. And so we have all of these different aspects in our in our chart that make up our personality. And so when you’re looking at compatibility, you want to factor in everything and not just the sun sign.

 

Damona  15:44  

Mm hmm. And now, how do you I know the answer to this, but I’m sure a lot of our listeners are saying, okay, that’s nice, Rachel. But how do I find that out? Other than going to Rachel C. Lang calm and and getting a real With you, which I hope you will all do. How can they figure this out

 

Rachel Lang  16:04  

yet? So there are so many great apps now that are available. Time passages is a good app. costar is a great app. And are these free these are free. Yeah. So yeah, just plug in what do you what information do you need? You need your your birthday, the time and the place. And if you don’t have your birth time, this is what a lot of people say. I don’t have my birth time. How do I know? There are ways to figure it out. It’s there’s there’s a process called rectification. And there are certain astrologers who are great at this and it costs a little bit of money. If you don’t want to go that route, you can call the hospital that you were born in there often hospital records, birth certificates. So so there’s there’s always there’s always a way to figure it out. Yeah.

 

Damona  16:52  

And once you have your your chart like will put in the Dates & Mates blog what I can put my chart up there. It’s like It’s like putting like a naked selfie. So you’re all dizzy. But it’s a lot of symbols and lines and graphs and graphics. And it can be a little bit overwhelming for someone to just read on their own. What are the most important things for you to look at once once you’ve gotten your your birth chart? Yeah,

 

Rachel Lang  17:24  

great question. So the sun sign is the most important The sun is your essence, the moon is the second most important and that is your emotional self. So it’s more of your unconscious, subconscious self. So it’s your emotions. It’s how you relate to people. It’s what you need in relationships. And then the ascendant is your rising sign, and it’s what it what sign is on the eastern horizon at the time of your birth, and that’s how other people see you. And, and so often those are the three most important aspects to look at. And then after that, then you can say start exploring where the other planets are in your chart and how they relate to one another. And it shows your complexity that shows like where you get hung up some of those patterns that you just can’t get out of that you that make you feel stuck in life. And it also shows your potential and what you’re capable of achieving and your purpose in your destiny, all of those things.

 

Damona  18:21  

I’m going to ask you a very skeptical question, even though I’m what I classify as a skeptical believer. Why Why do you think this works? What what it like scientifically or spiritually? Why does astrology matter? Hmm? Well,

 

Rachel Lang  18:40  

scientifically,

 

all of the planets in our solar system have certain electromagnetic frequencies. There are actually even minerals and and chemical compounds that each one of them have and to say that we’re not affected by the Cosmos to say that we’re not affected by the moon by the sun, I mean you can see the the tides moving with the moon cycles we are all part of a bigger, bigger picture. And so in astrology we have until on a spiritual level we have saying As above, so below and that which is the microcosm is like that of the macrocosm. So we are all intricately connected to one another to the earth to the cosmos, in ways that we can see in ways that we can’t see. And this information has been in our collective unconscious for thousands and thousands of years. So, we, we we live based on the archetypes and and we have these mythological stories that inform this the structure and the creation of our of our universe in our cosmos. And we’re all a part of that. So, so I think it works, you know, it works on physical levels and it works on on more esoteric levels as well.

 

Damona  20:13  

And we see astrology in in other cultures as well. It’s really

 

baked into the fabric of interpersonal dynamics and communication. I also know

 

some people who do vedic astrology, which is not the same you’re doing Western astrology, right? Yeah, the explain the difference.

 

Rachel Lang  20:33  

Sure, sure. They’re different. They’re different calculation systems. And, and then there’s Chinese astrology too. So so different cultures have different astrological frameworks. But these are but astrology has been around since the beginning of of recorded history for thousands of years.

 

Damona  20:55  

Wow. Okay. I know what everyone’s thinking. They’re thinking well How do I know who’s going to be right for me like I I go I know you’re right for for a number of publications and bustle has like a whole section now on astrology so people scan through and they’re like, Who am I compatible with? This is my sun sign? Who should I be with? What do you say to that? Is that is that a real marker that we should be looking at?

 

Rachel Lang  21:24  

Yeah, so, again, sun sign astrology is great. It’s often an entry point to other to astrology to deeper levels of astrology. But the sun sign alone isn’t what we should be looking at for compatibility. Now, what I will say is if you don’t know the other factors in your chart, then then sun sign is a good starting point. And often what what you’ll find is that elements get along really well with similar elements.

 

Damona  21:55  

So let’s break that

 

Rachel Lang  21:57  

will break it down the elements and astrology In Western astrology, our earth air fire, water, and earth signs are Taurus Virgo Capricorn. And they tend to relate really well to other earth signs. And water signs are Cancer, Scorpio Pisces, and they tend to relate really well to one another as well. And fire signs and air signs are the same or similar. What with with the elements, each element features a specific set of goals a specific set of personality traits look for earth signs, it’s they’re very practically based. So they’re really interested in the material world. And in in, in taking, you know, in having good solid material security, building a life in that way. air signs for example, are more about intellect and communication and Id And sharing thoughts and those kinds of knew that your sons again, they’re Gemini, Libra and Aquarius, okay? And then our fire signs which you are

 

our throw all that out the wind.

 

fire signs are Aries, Sagittarius and Leo and fire signs are there, they’re passionate they want to they want to inspire people and they’re very active, and so they have a lot of energy that they need to exert. And so you can see how certain elements really relate well with other elements. And, and, and you can think about the elements themselves and, and to think about compatibility. So for example, water extinguishes fire. So if you’re a fire sign and waters water signs emphasize emotions, and there, they tend to be more intuitive and, and and so a lots happening beneath the surface and fire signs ready to go. And so there can be. And that doesn’t mean that fire signs and water signs can’t have amazing, wonderful relationships. It just means that you have to that you have to understand your, your particular needs and your particular personality differences in order to relate well with one another.

 

Damona  24:22  

Okay, so let’s talk in specifics. I’ll be the guinea pig. Yes, you have, you know everything about me, you have all my birth chart there. And then I also gave you my husband’s birth chart.

 

Much to his dismay.

 

He’s not so sure he’s it. He’s like into all it but he likes he supports the exploration for me. So I have had a pattern as a Sagittarius and whatever. I have a rising sign of cancer rising and a Scorpio moon. I know. I know my basic three. Yeah. I don’t know why I don’t think it makes sense. But you’ll probably tell me why it does. I’ve had many, many relationships with Virgos. And my husband again is a Virgo. Is that something where like cosmically, I keep Connect I keep pulling like pretty much everyone I every boyfriend I had was Virgo in an except for one who was like almost on the cusp of Leo Virgo.

 

Rachel Lang  25:21  

Hmm, interesting. Well, well so Virgo so your Saturn Saturn is we’ll talk about Saturn in a second. Um, I would say that there are two reasons why Virgo, why you tend to attract three brigand reasons why you tend to attract Virgo men. First of all, I’m a great big mess and

 

Damona  25:41  

they put it all together totally

 

Rachel Lang  25:46  

No, so Virgo. So Sagittarius and Virgo are Sagittarius is fire Virgos Earth and they’re what we call square one another both mutable signs, and I’m getting mutable signs. It’s okay we can okay. Okay, go ahead. Okay. So, so mutable signs. So there are three. In addition to elements. There are qualities. And qualities are Cardinal fixed and mutable. Cardinal signs are Aries, cancer, Capricorn and Libra. And they’re all about initiating taking action. You have some Cardinal in your in your chart, but you’re primarily mutable and mutable signs follow Cardinal. And I’m sorry, they follow fixed. mutable signs are, are kind of like what’s next? What’s going to happen next there, they’re more adaptable. They’re more flexible. And our fixed signs are Tell that to my house.

 

Well, you have a you have a perfect match of fixed and mutable in your chart. So fixed signs can be a little bit stubborn. And and they’re the ones that stick with it. And they’re the ones who don’t give up and they’re great in relationships. If it’s a good healthy Relationship he’s got a lot of he must have a lot of fixed. He doesn’t actually he does not. He’s primarily mutable. Oh my god. So two mutable signs can be like squaring one another meaning your your sun signs actually form almost an exact 90 degree angle away from each other. Now, wait, wait, wait, wait.

 

Damona  27:19  

You’re saying looking at my chart and my husband’s chart? Looking at the geometry of it? Yep.

 

Rachel Lang  27:25  

Yep. They fit together. They fit together. Yes. But here’s the thing. So some people were born to need really easy, really like no stress relationships. And some people need a little bit of excitement. You and he are the type of people who need a little bit of excitement. And we’re each just exciting enough for one another. Exactly, exactly. Wow.

 

In addition to that, so the 90 degrees gives a little bit of tension, but it’s healthy tension because you stretch and you grow. Neither one of you are going to be okay and In a relationship where there’s not growth, or there’s not like, you know, you’re not going to be in a complacent relationship, you need to put pressure on one another to evolve to expand. And so this is a relationship with a tremendous amount of creative potential. Ah, yeah. Now, Virgo is really significant for you in your chart, because there’s a sensitive point called the north node. The North node is a destiny point and everyone has one. And it is what you’re reaching toward in this lifetime. What what you’re here to experience, but it’s not your comfort zone. Your comfort zones, the opposite point. And that’s often what’s familiar. What’s, you know what we have in your pad? Yes, it’s comfy. Exactly. old pair G. Exactly. Yes. Yes. So your North know that that uncomfortable place is in the place of Virgo and the sign of virgo.

 

Damona  28:58  

Stop that Yeah, yeah. So like what let me like amateur astrologer this so that means like basically he’s here to create the challenge that I need to drive me push me further and yes drive to evolve to grow to be your best self. Yeah rejoin know it’s kind of emotional

 

actually when you do this, especially when we’re talking about love and compatibility like when you really understand yourself and that’s what I always say with relationships. You’ve guys have heard me say this on the show before your job is to find the person that is your highest possible match for you. And so you’re if you’re in one of those comfy jeans, relationships, and it’s not it’s not your ideal match. You are doing two people a disservice you’re blocking the person that you’re with from being able to find their best match and you are not getting you’re not growing to your your best self.

 

Rachel Lang  29:55  

Absolutely. And I think when when I work with clients Who are in those comfy jeans relationships, it doesn’t mean that you have to leave the comfy jeans relationship. You just have to rock the boat, you have to change the comfy patterns. And so if that means that you you never fight, and this is your thing, you never fight and everything’s good, but it’s boring, there’s no passion, then speaking honestly and saying, I don’t like this or you know, rocking the boat a little bit creating some conflict might actually be healthy conflict, not just unnecessary conflict, productive conflict. But that could be the thing that that drives you to stay together and to reinvent the relationship.

 

Damona  30:37  

Are there things that people need to understand about their chart? Obviously, we’ve talked in specifics about a lot of different things from you know, fixed, mutable, mutable, and Cardinal and fire and air and earth and water. Are there certain guidelines that people should always be looking for when They’re talking about compatibility. A lot of the listeners of the show are they’re dating. So they don’t necessarily, like have the ability to say, and tell me again, what was your birth date and time and place? It’s a little bit too much for early dating. But are there certain signals or signs that you should look for more know in yourself before you go on a date?

 

Rachel Lang  31:20  

Great question. So I think knowing your sun, your moon and your rising, really important and again, you can get you can get this information free on the internet, you can get it free on apps. That way, you know, what you need in relationships. If you have a cancer moon and and you’re going out dating, cancer moons actually need someone who’s a little bit more sensitive, and they need someone who can talk about emotions, who’s not afraid of getting who’s not afraid of getting close. They also need emotional security. And so for someone with a cancer moon knowing What sun signs might best resonate with that? You know, other water signs, for example. That’s something that’s important. So I think knowing yourself first can can really help. And then just knowing sun signs actually can be helpful. Sun signs tend to get along really well with complimentary sun signs.

 

Damona  32:21  

And then how do you bridge that conversation? Like, Hey, baby, what’s your sign? Like? How do you get the information? I find a lot of people don’t even know what their sun sign is like that. You if you go on a date with someone, or they think you’re weird if you ask, how can you get it out in a way that’s like, kinda sly?

 

Rachel Lang  32:40  

Cool. Well, you there’s, you know, you can you can talk about like, oh, for my birthday, I did this when it’s your birthday. You can

 

Damona  32:50  

like slip it into conversation. Did you always when you were dating, did you always ask people you must listen? Yes, yeah, but

 

Rachel Lang  32:55  

here’s the thing. I also got myself into big trouble doing this. So There, you might take the alternative approach and just not find out and not know until you get to know the person. When my wife when I first did our charts together, I saw some things that were like

 

Damona  33:12  

red, I was like, nope, this will never work not going to happen, just in terms of like who you were or in terms of your compatibility in

 

Rachel Lang  33:21  

terms of just just looking at our charts, but I realized now that I was really, I was kind of I was kind of blocking I was I had my own relationship commitment, things that I had to work through first,

 

Damona  33:31  

right.

 

Rachel Lang  33:34  

But I think I think Um, so yeah, so I do I did. I used to do it, but I used to do the whole chart and understand every aspect of it. But I think when you’re first falling in love, you want the magic of love, you don’t like astrology can get really analytical, and so can I. And sometimes that’s good. That’s helpful because you can see the red flags before you go into a relationship or invalid In, in your any more of your precious time. But I think keeping a real balance between knowing what you’re getting into and understanding how your how your astrology, astrological compatibility works or doesn’t work. I think you have to balance that with letting yourself experience love and letting yourself experience the connection, whatever it happens to be.

 

Damona  34:25  

Yeah, that’s great advice. As an astrologer, and just generally in in life and in love. If people want to explore further with you, you kind of have two options, right? You have someone can come to you for reading, but you’re also still teaching Yeah, teaching astrology and helping more people be able to do this great work. Can you tell us about what you have coming up and how people can can get a session with you? Yeah,

 

Rachel Lang  34:52  

thank you. So yeah, so I do, I do sessions one on one. I do couple sessions. If you’re just starting a really friendship and you want to know a little bit about your compatibility, I do have those kinds of sessions as well. And I’m teaching classes three classes starting in actually four classes starting in 2020. Doing astrology one on one, just the basics, then advanced for transits and progressions, so you can you know, so for the first three months of the year, I’ll be I’ll be teaching all kinds of astrology.

 

Damona  35:27  

All right, let’s, let’s bring it down to the earth plane, right? People that are just learning about sun signs. When you say transits and progressions What’s up,

 

Rachel Lang  35:36  

so transits so our natal chart, a birth chart shows our personality, of kind of a roadmap of our lives. And transits are the planets that are moving around in the heavens today and how they’re affecting one another. And how they aspect your birth chart. So it’s kind of a predictive tool. It shows us a little Bit of a forecast of what’s coming up of what’s happening for us in the collective but also what’s happening for us personally.

 

Damona  36:07  

So that’s how you get the difference between this is my birth chart. This is who I am. And this is my day to day horoscope Exactly. Yes. What you read in the paper all that exactly and what you read you also write for idea. Tell us where we can read your your horoscope horoscopes. Thank you. Yeah, I write

 

Rachel Lang  36:26  

horoscopes for life box magazine, and also for the Omega Institute, their monthly newsletter, and they’re also on my website. I also do articles about Mercury Retrograde about full moons and new moons rituals that you can do for those.

 

Damona  36:43  

Okay, we’re going to put the links in the show notes. I have done the classes you guys and again, I’m not good at it. But I it was really valuable information in even just the one on one is a ton of information that you can really use and I get you Your email every month with the horoscopes, the monthly horoscopes, and it’s one of like very few emails when my inbox is, is clogged up, I still will go to your email first and be like, Okay, well what’s Rachel saying that’s coming for the month. So thank you for being here to share all this. I hope everyone will get get whatever they need, whether it’s the one on one support or even learning how to do this themselves. We also have questions from listeners. So if you can stick around one more segment, okay.

 

This one comes to us from Instagram. This person says if a guy brings up the bedroom in a text before you’ve even met, is that a red flag now without knowing what’s in their birth chart, or their birth time and place? Do you think it’s a red flag? If somebody is like, I would love to see what you’re like in the bedroom and you haven’t even had a first date?

 

Rachel Lang  37:58  

That’s a good question. Think it depends on the on the person on the person receiving the the text because there are some people who might be more inclined to wonder those things as well you know the the different personality types need different things. So for some people it’s going to be a red flag for other people it’s not

 

Damona  38:19  

I just wonder if for that person to have that bold approach it says a little bit about them and because it’s so likely for that to backfire and makes me wonder if they feel comfortable saying that that early on, if they have either a lack of awareness of just social norms because you know, there may be some people’s or not but turned on by it, but it’s sort of like dick pics like it’s it’s sort of a 200 to one ratio like, might send 200 dick pics and one person is like, thank you so much for this dick pic and then 199 people go, I hate this. Why did you send me this? Yeah, block and report? Yeah,

 

Rachel Lang  39:10  

I know I can tell you for me it would probably be a red flag. Yeah, just because you know they’re there. There’s it’s kind of like if you’re if you’re in an if you’re if you’re flying, you’re you’re going to want the airplane to kind of take off gently and then reach a cruising altitude and then land it. It’s like if you go straight into the air, it’s like startling. Yeah,

 

Damona  39:33  

yeah. And I actually she sent me the text. So I read in contacts. And I will say like, it didn’t seem completely out of the norm. It was kind of like, mixed in with a lot of other things. But it just feels to me unnecessary. So if you’re including that in your early text, I would say maybe just pump the brakes a little bit until at least after you’ve met. But I find especially for women, it tends to make them feel a little bit crazy. Being like creeped out if you do that too soon,

 

Rachel Lang  40:03  

but she was she’s sending any other. She’s sending any messages like Okay, so that’s another thing too I think read the read them.

 

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah.

 

Damona  40:14  

Totally. Okay, let’s see if we’re psychically connected. Okay, one question comes to us from Facebook. And this lady is wondering, is it possible to meet someone today without dating apps? What is your advice for people who want to date but don’t want to do it online? Hmm. What do you think I know you’re a married lady. Now.

 

Rachel Lang  40:31  

I know I am. And happily, so. I, I think that you can I think definitely, people meet if two souls are are supposed to meet and if you’re, if you’re, if you’re really you know, manifesting love and your persons there, I think it’s possible to meet. I think that going online gets you into the dating realm. It can Kind of speed things up. But it’s, I think it can help. But I have a lot of clients, I work with a lot of clients who who do manifest relationships or get into relationships where they’re not going online.

 

Damona  41:13  

Yeah, yeah, I think it is. You guys have heard me say this on the show before, but it’s the most powerful tool in your dating toolbox. But it shouldn’t be the only thing that you’re doing. I think it’s like you said the manifesting, right. It’s the focus on love, the strategy, the way that you go about it more than it is about the tool. But just for a lot of people that are busy, or coming out of relationships or just haven’t dated. It’s an excellent tool for ramping up your dating options very quickly, and also giving you the practice exactly today. So maybe not think so much about the end game, but what is the experience that you want to have and if you think that experience is not online, then just know that you’re going to have to triple down on your effort in other areas, if that is your ultimate goal,

 

Rachel Lang  42:03  

right, right. And also, I think some people going online for the first time can get overwhelmed with all the choices. And I, you know, I’m sure that you know more than I do, but when I, when I talk to clients who are doing online dating, I say be very discerning. And don’t just go on a bunch of dates just to go on a bunch of dates, like filter filter exactly before,

 

Damona  42:26  

get their birth date, their birth time, and where they’re born, and then you can really figure out the date with them or not. Thank you so much for being here, Rachel, for having me. And we’ll put all the links in the show notes, but you can find Rachel at Rachel Lang astrologer calm she’s also on Instagram, and we will tag her on lots of posts this week at Rachel lang 11. Thank you so much for listening to Episode 285 of Dates & Mates. All of the links for the stories in the dating dish and everything else will be on our website datesandmates.com and I’m at Damona Hoffman on all of the social so you can join in on the conversation, you can send me questions for future episodes. We will be back again next week with a deer Damona episode and you know what that means? It’s all questions from you. And you know the best way to get me questions for a dear Damona episode is by messaging me on social media, or by emailing me Damona at Damona hoffman.com. I hope you enjoyed today’s episode all about love and astrology. celebrate my birthday with me. It’s on November 27 this week right before Thanksgiving. And I also wish you a very happy Thanksgiving. I hope you and your family and your friends giving is everything you dream it will be and I wish you lots of luck and love. Until next week. I wish you happy dating

 

Should you bring your partner to Friendsgiving?

SIGNS THEY ARE COMFORTABLE AROUND YOUR FRIENDSGIVING FRIENDS

I love the idea of Friendsgiving. If your friend group is anything like mine, we love a good sit down meal. Now, I’m usually out of town for Friendsgiving Day, but I’m always there in spirit.

Even after the kids, the spirit of Friendsgiving still lives on! 

One of my favorite things about Friendsgiving is the unique safe space it affords newly serious relationships to tip-toe into the deeper waters of intermingled family holidays. 

It’s basically THE stress test for all relationships that get serious right around this time of year.

You want to know that your boyfriend or girlfriend is cool with your chosen family of friends before you bring them home to a potentially much more stressful full-blown family Thanksgiving. 

How is this new person going to react to the environment around them? Are they going to get along with your friends? If some drama happens, will they have your back? Hopefully, no drama happens. Let’s keep Friendsgiving fun. 

But how do you know that your partner is cool with your friends? Here are three super sure signs that your partner has passed the stress test: 

Your partner asks questions about your friends

This might seem like not such a big deal, but the best partner is one that is interested in all aspects of your life. Even the lightest of polite questions is a good sign. 

Your partner is positive about your friends and they give compliments where they are due.

Something that insecure or manipulative people do in relationships is to attempt to separate their partner from their friends – either intentionally blocking you from spending time with friends or otherwise discrediting or undermining friendships so that you become reliant on your relationship for all of your emotional needs.

Okay.. maybe not this compliment. But I like the spirit.

You can go to an event with your friends without you partner attached at your hip. 

If your partner can have independent conversations with the people close to you, that’s a great sign. If your partner isn’t comfortable yet, perhaps don’t start on a full-blown Friendsgiving. 

For situations like this, perhaps begin with small dinners or group events with only 1 or 2 other friends at a time. It can be very overwhelming for a partner – especially someone who is shy – to be introduced to all your friends and to be expected to feel as comfortable with them as you are. 

Pro Tip: 

Prep your partner on the people they are going to be meeting so they have easy jumping off points for conversation. You don’t have to make them flashcards and stand behind them with conversation prompts á la Devil Meets Prada – 

But it’s nice and it might ease the pressure of walking into a room full of new people. 

Good luck on your Friendsgivings Lovers! Tell me how it goes!

Manifesting Magic & Marriage Pacts

MANIFEST YOUR FAIRYTALE

Damona usually says ditch the fairytale, but the concept of fairytale ending always seems to manifest in different ways.

Everyone is looking for a magical fairytale ending. They want to be Cinderella and find a Prince who sweeps them off their feet and then live happily ever after. 

But when we talk about fairytales, we usually skirt over the fact that before any of these princesses found their princes, they had to do some hard work to find the magic. Cinderella didn’t just wish on a star and get a whole kingdom handed to her, she had to sweep some chimneys and clean some dishes before she could manifest love.

Stephanie Dawn Elizabeth, an Intuition + Manifestation Mentor, speaker, and host of Made of Magic: The Podcast joins Damona to talk about the magic in our lives. Stephanie helps us awaken, embody, and amplify our magic so we can invite the next level in life, love, and business.

 

DATING DISH (2:30)

Do you and your boo need a marriage pact like William and Kate?

According to Katie Nicholle, author of “Kate The Future Queen,” Kate Middleton decided she needed to a marriage pact amidst her on again off again relationship with Prince William. What is a marriage pact and should you consider one?

On a scale of 0 to 100, how “textpatible” are you?

Have you ever been in a situation where you need to change the way your partner communicates over text? We’ve got some suggestions.

What Millennials can learn about flirting from older generations

According to Business Insider, millennials hire Amy Nobile to “ghost banter” – or flirt in their place on dating apps – to learn how to flirt better. What’s up with this? 

MANIFESTING MAGIC (14:60)

Put in work to find your fairytale

Stephanie Dawn Elizabeth has a great love story. In the middle of a two year long engagement, she realized that she didn’t feel the magic. Now she’s teaching women how to find the magic in their lives so they can attract the best 

We go in-depth on:

  • What is magic? 
  • How do you find magic? 
  • What does it mean to manifest what you want? 
  • What you want and how you get it doesn’t always add up
  • How do you clarify manifestation methods that work for you? 
  • A huge part of manifesting has to feel good
  • Magic Mornings!
  • Are you settling? How do you know?

Find Stephanie Dawn Elizabeth on Instagram @StephanieDawnElizabeth and make sure to listen to Made of Magic: The Podcast!

TECHNICALLY DATING (31:00)

Submit your questions Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook and hear our answers live on the show! Here’s what our listeners asked about this week:

  • What do you do if you can’t be intimate with your wife, but you still have needs?
  • How to navigate dating as a young professional who doesn’t want kids?

 

WANT TO GO EVEN DEEPER? HERE IS A TRANSCRIPT OF THE SHOW IF YOU WANT TO FOLLOW ALONG!

Damona  3:32  

Hello lovers, welcome to Dates & Mates. I’m your host certified dating coach Damona Hoffman here to help you navigate all of the challenges of modern dating and relationships. You know, I usually say, ditch the fairy tale, but the concept of a fairytale ending keeps coming up. Everyone is looking for this magical fairy tale story of love. They want to be Cinderella and find a prince who will sweep them off their feet and then live happily ever after. But when we talk about fairy tales, we usually skirt over all that hard work, all of that, that manifestation, all of that effort that these princesses are putting out to find their princes. You have to do some work to find the magic. And that is why my guest today Stephanie Dawn Elizabeth, an intuition and manifestation mentor, speaker and the host of the Made of Magic Podcast is here to help me help you get on your mission to make the magic in your love life. Today, Stephanie is going to help us awaken embody and amplify our magic so we can invite our love lives to the next level and maybe it will also impact your other areas of your life and also your business. Please help me give big smooches to my guest, Stephanie Dawn Elizabeth.

 

Stephanie Dawn Elizabeth  4:57  

Hi. Thank you. As you were talking about like, Oh, is she talking about me?  

 

Damona  5:03  

Yeah, we’re making fairy tale magic here. And your podcast is made of magic. So we want the goods girl. We want to know how we can make this magic happen.

 

Stephanie Dawn Elizabeth  5:16  

Okay, well I’m here to share.

 

Damona  5:18  

Great and we’re also going to do the headlines including, do you and your boo need a marriage pact like William and Kate? And how to improve your partner’s texting style. Plus what millennials can learn about flirting from older generations. And then we’ll be answering your questions like how to make an LDR work and what’s up with women on dating apps? All that more today’s Dates & Mates! Stephanie, Are you ready to make this magic?

 

Stephanie Dawn Elizabeth  5:47  

So ready

 

Damona  5:49  

All right, I was checking out the book “Kate to the Future Queen” by Katie Nicole and turns out Kate Middleton And Prince William may have made a marriage pact. You may recall that back in the day they were dating, they met at university – I almost in college, but I have to go English for this. They met at the university. And then it was on again off again. They broke up for a few months. And Kate was like, it doesn’t matter if she’s dating the Prince of England. She’s like, “Listen, I need to know what your intentions are. If we’re going to get back together. We need a pact we need to make sure that this relationship is headed towards marriage.” So according to the book, they actually agreed to take the pressure off their relationship. They didn’t have a timeline, but they said we’re going to end up together if we’re going to get back together. I want to know Stephanie, what are your thoughts on doing a marriage pact? Is it too much pressure?

 

Stephanie Dawn Elizabeth  6:53  

Yeah. So okay, did they have a marriage pact and not a proposal or did he also propose?

 

Damona  7:00  

No, it was not a proposal. It was sort of like, it was a verbal promise ring.

 

Stephanie Dawn Elizabeth  7:08  

I feel like this is so hard because I wouldn’t say I’m against it. Like, I actually love anything unconventional. So, like eloping or just deciding we’re going to get married. I don’t know how I I’m like, kind of torn. Where are you at with it?

 

Damona  7:26  

I think that you don’t know the trajectory of the relationship. And yeah, pressure on it, when you’re just getting back together to me seems like a little bit much like I had not a marriage pact with my husband, but I had, I had an understanding before. Before he moved in, I said, I need to know that this relationship is headed towards marriage. Now if you move in, and it doesn’t work, and we end up hating each other So be it, I’m not going to force you to propose, but I just need to know that’s where your head is at. So we don’t really know the terms of Kate and William’s marriage pact, but if it was something like that, then obviously I’m for it. If it was, we must get married and don’t waste my time, William. I love how it’s just, it feels so ordinary, right? This is what we’re all dealing with. And you think you would think that if you’re going to be the future Queen that you’re above all of this, but no Prince William was acting like a fool and you know, being a dumb single guy way back then he’s he’s the prince, but he’s just, he’s just like one of us.

 

Stephanie Dawn Elizabeth  8:39  

Yeah, like when you were first telling, like that whole scenario, I took it a totally different way of like, they just kind of decided, Okay, we’re going to get married. We don’t know when but it’s going to happen. But which I think is cool. Like, I think obviously, you should have a conversation that you’re moving the same direction you want the same thing, but then the way you just said it, the second time is like you that pressure of like you must marry me, which is totally different energy.

 

Damona  9:05  

Yeah, especially if there’s the whole kingdom is at stake!

 

Well, let’s bring it down from the 30,000 foot level to what people are really dealing with in dating and relationships today. I’m always talking about texting. This is now the way that so many of us are communicating. And there was an article today in elite daily about how to change your partner’s texting style. I found this really interesting that everyone has their specific style of texting which we know right. But for some it’s a deal breaker if texting styles don’t match up. The article actually quoted this term “Textpatible”. And some of the people that they interviewed said it’s not a bad thing if you have to end a relationship over texting in compatibility. But my friend Julie Spira, who was quoted in it said, “Why don’t you just talk in person and ask them if you can shift if they could shift their texting style a little bit.” What are your thoughts on on texting compatibility?

 

Stephanie Dawn Elizabeth  10:17  

I don’t know. My first initial reaction is it’s kind of funny that that’s a quote unquote problem. But I also understand it from a sense of like, okay, let’s say one person is a person who really like thrives in relationship off of like that communication all the time. You know, like, some people text a lot. Some people don’t text a lot. I can understand that being kind of like a I wouldn’t say deal breaker but a conversation. But in terms of like, they talk a certain way and texts and I don’t like it that I kind of don’t get and I think, like you said, it’s a lot more important to have a conversation in person. I think, conversation in person that’s incompatible would make a whole lot more of a deal breaker than a text. You know what I mean?

 

Damona  11:00  

Yeah, you definitely can’t ask someone to change their texting style over text. But there was actually a tip in the article that I really liked. a linguist and researcher Michelle McSweeney said first you have to ask yourself why it’s bugging you. Because Yeah, if it’s, if it’s annoying you it’s probably violating your own cultural norms. So just because you have a certain text etiquette, text ticket, you have to understand that that person might not be playing by the same rulebook. And I really worry about asking someone to change their text behavior, and then they’re conscious of what words they’re choosing and how they’re texting you. And it might make it less spontaneous, less authentic, and you may lose the communication because they weren’t communicating exactly on your rulebook.

 

Stephanie Dawn Elizabeth  11:55  

Oh, I totally agree. 100% with what you just said,

 

Damona  12:00  

Although it also said that the longer people know each other and the more bonded they get, people tend to start texting the same way. Now I’ve been with my husband for 16 years, we text totally differently. I’m wondering if this is a bad thing: I have finally after 16 years was like, Can you just acknowledge that you’ve received a text for me? Like if, yeah, I I’m not into sexting, so I don’t send them like, I don’t send them nudes or anything like that. So all of a sudden, it was like a grocery list, you know, and I’ll just be like, I send it into the ether. And then I was like, Can you just like click the like button or just like respond Okay, or something, to just acknowledge that you’ve received it, but he, he’s consistent. He hates texting. He doesn’t like being on the phone at all. He hates texting. He it’s not at all the way he communicates face to face. And I wouldn’t really feel right like forcing him into a different different communication style. Tt hasn’t lined up. I Have you ever experienced that texting like somebody that you’re with?

 

Stephanie Dawn Elizabeth  13:08  

Not really? Uh, no, not really. That’s why I think I’m just like, oh, wow, I didn’t realize that was a thing. I’m like, actually, probably other people get annoyed with me in the same way where I’m either like, all in on the conversation via text or I totally forget to respond. Not necessarily in like a romantic relationship. But when you were talking to I was just thinking that kind of, you know, like the non response that I could see being a thing just by the other person feeling like, “Okay, are you listening? Do you hear me like do are you recognizing that I’m trying to connect” even if it’s about like a grocery list, but I can’t think of like a time when that was a thing for me in a relationship.

 

Leah Schell  13:53  

I actually have been in this situation. 

 

Damona  13:55  

Oh, Producer Leah in the house.

 

Leah Schell  13:59  

Okay. It was my high school boyfriend and I just hated the way he spoke to me over text. It was just like, he kept misspelling words. And he kept like, I don’t know, this makes me sound awful. But I just got really annoyed. And I think it was like, a manifestation of just like another issue I had, like, I did not like how he spoke in general. So I was just like annoyed about the text messages.

 

Damona  14:23  

You just didn’t like who he was as a person.

 

Leah Schell  14:24  

I was not a great person in high school.

 

Damona  14:29  

No, none of us were. But I know sometimes I think about things I did in high school, and I’m just like, oh my god…

 

Well, being a stickler for grammar, though that does indicates I’m just going to go there. Not that I’m analyzing you right now, but I’m kind of analyzing grammar is an indicator of intelligence in written communication, right. So I don’t know. Maybe you felt like he wasn’t keeping up with you intellectually?

 

Leah Schell  14:57  

Yeah, I did feel that way. I know my parents were like, “why are you with him?” He’s not the brightest person so it just you know… 

 

Damona  15:05  

The doctor is in. But the question is Producer Leah and Stephanie, how was your flirt game back then? And can you flirt effectively? Can you learn to flirt over text? Because according to Business Insider, Millennials are just failing on the flirting game and they actually can learn to flirt from older generations. They interviewed Amy Nobile, who’s the founder of a dating concierge service in New York. She basically does a very similar thing to what I do, but she’ll like jump in there and flirt and banter for people and teach them. I like to teach to do that. I don’t like to do what she calls ghost bantering because I want you to know that you’re talking to the real person and not not me. How many times does that happen? You show up on a date and you’re like, oh, you’re a really funny and charming over text, but now you’re kind of dull. I want to teach people how to be able to do this text banter. But what Amy Nobile, who’s 50 herself and she met her her boo on Bumble. And now she wants to teach other people how to do it. She’s seeing that the baby boomers and Gen Xers are much better at flirting and have developed that skill. I’m always saying that flirting is a learned skill. And if you haven’t flexed that muscle or if you’re only if you’re only flirting over text, then you get on the date and you don’t know how to let that. Let that you know, flirt. The I’m trying to think of like a catchy word now and it’s not coming but like let that you know that playful flirt out.

 

Stephanie Dawn Elizabeth  16:47  

Oh, yeah. I don’t know if I’m a good floater. 

 

Damona  16:53  

What’s your game like? What’s your style? 

 

Stephanie Dawn Elizabeth  16:56  

I don’t know. Like, I’m one I don’t know. I mean, I don’t know that’s that’s like such a I have no idea. I think probably like, maybe charming witty like quick kind of just like go lean in and I don’t even know.

 

Damona  17:17  

I’ll give you a tip then from Amy Nobile who is is all about flirting in the right way because I mean there are definitely ways you can flirt. And there are people that will send you the Hey beautiful text but she says instead Yeah, do it not in a sexual way. But in a warm, charming or validating way. And instead of saying hey, beautiful, which I oh my gosh, I see this up for my clients time. It’s, it’s just like what is the response to that? Hey, beautiful. Hey, she says say Happy Tuesday. Instead, I always say callback something else that picks up on the thread where you left off or picks up a new thread and starts the day like just Happy Tuesday.

 

Leah Schell  18:02  

It seems like a good morning text. I hate good morning texts.

 

Damona  18:08  

What’s the point of that? So we need to step it up we need to step up your tax game. But first, we are going to take a break and when we come back we will be talking more to Stephanie Donna Elizabeth host of made a magic the podcast about how you can manifest love in your life. We’ll be back right after this.

 

Welcome back to Dates & Mates. We are here with Stephanie Dawn Elizabeth, who is going to give us a quick pep talk on our inner magic and how you can manifest the love that you want. Stephanie I’m into this girl! I am into this idea i think, you know, I do a lot of technical dating advice but there is an element of magic in making that connection and having that fairy tale like if I go back and look at the trajectory of any of my clients and how we made it happen I do the foundational stuff, but there’s also a little bit of mindset and a little bit of timing and luck that I think  you can manifest. You can create your own luck. Now tell me you you identify as an intuition and manifestation mentor, what does that mean to you?

 

Stephanie Dawn Elizabeth  19:46  

Well, just a quick kind of like backstory for me of how I manifested my next level love, like I like to talk about it, and just how I really got to get in touch with my intuition and really had that like spark of figuring out what manifestation was and how I did it and what my magic was? So, about a year ish ago, just over a year ago, I called up my engagement. And yeah, 

 

Damona  20:12  

oh my gosh, sorry. 

 

Stephanie Dawn Elizabeth  20:14  

No, it’s okay. it was my choice. And it was what sparked so much magic. I think, so much of my life and you even said this in the beginning, it’s like, all of your life is connected. So your relationship, if it’s out of alignment, a lot of your other life is going to feel and be out of alignment to and that’s going to like really affect your magic and manifesting and all of that. And for me, like that relationship, I had so much of my own intuition like, first kind of whispering at me then talking to me then like screaming at me that this was not the relationship and nothing was wrong. Nothing happened. He’s a great guy, but I always had that like underlying feeling of settling and this is not it and there’s something so magic. That’s like going to click everything into place. And so finally, I just trusted myself and my intuition and called up the engagement last September. And honestly like, although, yes, it’s it was the hardest thing I’ve ever actually had to physically do to hurt somebody else. It 100% changed my entire life and clicked all of that magic into place. Because I gave myself like time to get back to knowing who I was what I wanted. And I was not trying to manifest love or relationship at that time. But two months later, I decided, Okay, I’m just going to go on Bumble. Like I feel ready and I’m so clear in my own power and what I want and what I desire, in that like, unwavering way, and I met my now boyfriend who is 100% my my person, like, a week later.

 

Damona  21:52  

Oh my gosh, it sounds like a marriage pact is coming. No! I’m kidding!

 

Stephanie Dawn Elizabeth  21:55  

no, no, no,

 

Damona  21:56  

no, no. I want to back it up. Yeah, or people listening because I, I’m also an intuitive and one of my missions. I’m just going to say it here on the data made show. I haven’t said it aloud yet. But one of my missions is to be able to teach people how to hear their own intuition, because people always ask me like, oh, if you’re psychic, like you have you’ve some, some gift from God, something magic that happened to you and it’s in your family bloodline, and you you, you can do this magical thing. And it’s like, No, no, no, no, everyone, in my opinion, everyone can do this. Everyone has intuition. But we squash it down. We call it we think, Oh, well, I’m already engaged and the invitations are being mailed and everything is moving so quickly. And so I can’t hear that right now. Because I’m already on this panel. And I mean, it happens all the way down to the micro level of should you go out on a date with this person or not? Which a lot of our listeners are dating and going through that decision process. So let’s slow it down for everybody and go back to that moment that you said your intuition was speaking to you first it was whispering then it was nudging you then it was screaming at you. What did that actually feel like look like sound like when you were in the moment?

 

Stephanie Dawn Elizabeth  23:29  

Yeah. I mean, looking back, I can recognize it. I don’t know if in the moment I was like, Oh, that’s my intuition until it was so loud that I couldn’t not listen to it. But I remember like looking back now times like when we first started dating, I remember actually trying to break up with him. When we first started dating. We dated for five years and got engaged and we’re engaged feel sorry for years then got engaged and we’re engaged for two years. So I remember like, the beginning of our relationship, like when I dates and making it fit. And even like trying to break up with him thinking like, oh, we’re not really that compatible, like, we’re so different he like just that was my intuition saying No, not this isn’t the way and the universe kind of trying to nudge me in a different direction. But then we stay together. And those feelings of like, your intuition for me is like that, knowing that almost I always explain it as there’s no emotion attached to it. It’s that clear? Oh, this person is not right for me, or, oh, I need to call off my engagement. It’s super cold. It has no emotion, but your fear and your ego and all that are so much louder and your human part kind of like takes over really quickly. And so unless you kind of take that time in that space, to give yourself time to hear what it’s actually trying to say and like, listen to it. It’s hard to actually It’s hard to hear it and then actually do the thing. Because the thing you have to do a lot of the time is not necessarily the thing you want to do. So looking back, I can see like all of those feelings in my gut, or when I saw my friends and relationships where they were actually so happy and in love and like, looking at them, like, are they faking? Like, Is this real? I don’t, and looking at my own relationship and realizing that’s not how I feel about him. But this must be everyone must be lying. So I think we always have that knowing, but we cover it up with layers of Yeah, like fear or just stuff that’s true to try and not have to do the thing we know we need to do.

 

Damona  25:40  

Well, a lot of times the thing we know we need to do is the harder thing, hopefully, and then you also layer in the pressure of family and friends at work and all of these other other plans that life has for you, right?

 

Stephanie Dawn Elizabeth  25:57  

Yeah, well, for me, it was like that. Well, I Already, I, we had talked about getting engaged. I said I wanted to be engaged, deeper pose. And I said I was going to do it. So it was like my intuition was saying this is the thing, but it’s like, well, I already said yes. And I’ve already committed and I can’t change my mind.

 

Damona  26:14  

Right? Right. And what will that look like to other people if I’ve changed my brand? Exactly. No, I didn’t. Yeah, I didn’t know and I’ve made a mistake. Let’s Yeah, let’s now look at this term of magic because I’m sure there’s also some people listening that are like, hold on Dimona. This sounds like witchcraft. I’m not like, I’m a Christian. I’m not here for this. I don’t look at it as witchcraft and I think sometimes using the term magic has different connotations. What is man mean to you? And like what is it is what are the associations that it brings up when you say magic?

 

Stephanie Dawn Elizabeth  26:55  

Yeah, I love that you said that because it is true. I think sometimes we do have resistance to it or There’s so many different ways we use the word. For me magic is just kind of the word that I use for all of the things that there’s no other word to describe them. So calling off my engagement, and then what happened after that there’s no word for how that clicked and what happened, except for magic. You know what I mean?

 

Damona  27:21  

Right, it doesn’t, it doesn’t make sense on paper, but somehow it all worked out.

 

Stephanie Dawn Elizabeth  27:27  

Yeah. And that and then the thing that I really work with women on the most is really getting back to their own magic, like we a lot of the time are seeking out the right answer or the right thing that’s going to click it all into place, or even when we’re talking about manifesting like we think we have to follow this 123 or to find the relationship we have to follow this like 123 step. And although obviously there are things that are good for a foundation or like learning and strategy if we’re talking about business, that kind of stuff, but everybody has their own unique magic that is the thing that will click everything into place and that’s why you have to listen to your intuition and find what it is for you instead of figuring out what it is for everybody else.

 

Damona  28:16  

So let’s say we’ve tapped into intuition we got that part down check got it what is the manifestation piece when you’re talking to people on on your podcast on made of magic about how to manifest what you want? Because it’s like you said something actually very profound. I don’t know if you realize that you said I wanted to be married and I wanted that wedding. But then there’s this other piece of with the right person that may be left out of the out of the the dream or the wish or the fairytale that you were telling yourself Right, right. Oh, yeah. How do you clarify how do people clarify their, their manifestation process and find one That works for them. Because you’ve said on the show different manifestation methods that work for some won’t work for it necessarily work for you.

 

Stephanie Dawn Elizabeth  29:10  

Yeah, well, part of that is trial and error in a sense of like figuring out what feels good for you, a huge part of manifesting is you have to have to feel good. So what I do and how I manifest is really journaling in the morning. I call it magic mornings, like creating space, at the beginning phases of okay. I mean, there’s something everyone wants to manifest, whether it’s a relationship, whether it’s getting married, whether it’s a business or whatever. But behind all of that is how you want to feel so what we miss a lot of the times and what I missed was okay, I want to be married. I know that that’s the thing I want to do. I want to have kids, but I forgot like that, like you said that whole piece of who it was and what that person is like and what I like in the relationship, even towards the end of the engagement like that really relationship, I got to a point where I was like, I don’t even like who I am. It’s not even about him. It’s like, I don’t like how I’m showing up. And what happens I think a lot of the time is we don’t give ourselves time and space to stop and ask the better questions of not What do you like not just what do you want in terms of marriage and all of that. But how do you want to feel? How do you want to show up in that? what feels good for you? What doesn’t feel good for you? And then figuring out what in your life is in and out of alignment with that?

 

Damona  30:31  

Yeah, that’s very helpful. And I like this idea of it doesn’t have to be perfect, right? It’s just a to be out there. And for anyone that’s listening, that’s like, I don’t know if I buy it to Mona and Stephanie, I’m not sure. If you don’t have that time to vision, if you don’t have that magic morning, like Stephanie said, it’s at some point in your life. If you haven’t placed the goal in your mind. It’s really hard for you to achieve. And it’s kind of like when you look at just breaking it down to human behavior. When I don’t have the exact stats on this, but I remember reading an article about, there was a particular race pace that everybody was hitting, and nobody can break through the barrier. And then once the first person broke the barrier, then it was like the next person, the next person, the next person because they knew it was possible. And right, what I’d love for people to do is to just place that as a possibility, like you said, you saw amongst your friends that a dream relationship was a possibility. And then when you looked at your own life, at that time, it wasn’t vibrating at that level, but you had to like, you had to set the intention. You had to have that, that dream goal, somewhere out there so that you knew what you could strive for. Right

 

Stephanie Dawn Elizabeth  31:58  

100% I love all of what you just said. I think part of it, especially for me, and just especially for so many of us, whether it’s relationships or any area of your life, we do kind of settle in and just settle with that like, thing that feels quote unquote, comfortable. But there could be more out there. So exactly what you said, we think, well, that’s not going to work, or that’s not available to me or, for me, I thought people were just lying, that that’s not actually how people feel. Now, I know that that is completely not true, because I feel that so I think what happens is we don’t have a reference point for that. So I’d never experienced the love that I am experiencing now. So therefore, I didn’t know it was possible. Or, you know, if in our life, we’ve never seen people in really beautiful relationships, they’re out there, you just kind of have to give yourself a reference point for create your own reference point that anything’s possible. And the more evidence you get that that’s true, meaning like Okay, so, whether that’s your journaling and you’re visualizing or You’re just getting back to knowing yourself, and then you start to see the magic or that things, oh, they do click into place, or Oh, I didn’t make that happen, then you start to get that little bit of hope that the things are possible, the more that you see that they do happen.

 

Damona  33:16  

And I like what you said about seeing, seeing the little pieces of it actually come to fruition. We don’t do that enough. We don’t acknowledge where we’ve where we’ve come from. And a lot of times with my when I begin a one on one coaching program with a client, I always have them start with a snapshot of their current dating life, and then set goals for where they want to be a month from now, two months from now, three months from now. And that way you can go back and track your progress because maybe, I mean, lined up for you the magic happened after two months of after moving on from your previous relationship, but for some people The timeline, the magic timeline might be a little bit longer. But if you haven’t taken the time to look back and say, wait a minute, three months ago, I’d had no dates and I felt terrible about my dating prospects. I was not putting myself out there. I was not showing up on dates I I felt miserable. I dreaded going on dates. And then now I’m like, Oh, I can do this and Mad Men on two dates this week. And maybe I haven’t met my person. But that’s still progress. And I think that’s a really big piece of the manifestation and creating magic that people leave out to that that reminder like yeah, you’re on the right path. Keep going with it.

 

Stephanie Dawn Elizabeth  34:41  

Yeah, I actually literally just wrote excuse me this on Instagram the other day that we’re so focused on how far we still have to go. So what we don’t have or what we are still have so much work to do on it that we don’t either stop and notice the moment of what we actually do have an audience Things that we asked for that are now here, or we don’t give ourselves the credit for how far we’ve already come. Yes. So and that kind of gratitude is so magnetic when you can just stop and be present in the moment with everything that you have, instead of always, because we we can get stuck in manifesting in that way too, which was I love that you said that. We were constantly trying to get more always looking in the future and not really being present in the moment and actually how you manifest the best or how you just feel the best is to be incredibly present incredibly grateful for what is already with you.

 

Damona  35:39  

So true, and even. We were talking about flirting earlier. Actually, I’ll tell you all the secret to flirting. It’s not a magical formula. It’s not really saying Happy Tuesday instead of a beautiful, it’s actually yeah, being present and being in the moment and listening and responding like Stephanie and I are doing right now and having this conversation like I’m feeling really connected to you, Stephanie. Yeah, we’re nowhere.

 

Stephanie Dawn Elizabeth  36:08  

Yeah, yeah, I was actually thinking that after you were talking about flirting, that the reason I was like, I don’t know, is because we think of flirting as that. That sexual or that the, you know, that old school way of thinking about flirting, but when I’m thinking now of what my flirting quote unquote game is, or why I feel so good in my relationship, and vice versa is because that’s the kind of flirting that we have that in the moment, I’m listening to you, you’re listening to me we’re responding and that it feels so good.

 

Damona  36:42  

And even if we reframe the idea of flirting, like yeah, make it not about not about sexual attraction, but even just make it about exchange of energy because I’ll tell you, my five year old son is like the biggest flirt. I know and I know that’s not it’s not a sexual thing, but it’s just like, it’s this exchange of energy. Like he likes to see the reaction he gets when he looks at them in a certain way. And maybe if we could find a little bit more of that play, and that joy, like you were saying, then we can take the pressure off of ourselves and just be

 

Stephanie Dawn Elizabeth  37:20  

well, because then you are just being you’re not thinking, oh, what’s the witty, flirty thing to say for them to like me?

 

Damona  37:29  

Exactly. I I like you. Like everything you brought into dates and mates today. You also have your own podcast. I do mate of magic. What what exciting things can people explore and experience if they pop over to your podcast and what we’ve explored today?

 

Stephanie Dawn Elizabeth  37:50  

Oh my gosh, it’s kind of like my open diary. Honestly, I share a ton about it’s probably very interesting for people honestly to start from episode one. It actually used to be called the girl kind of podcasts. And when I started it, it was really from a place of just wanting connection and a place for women to share their stories and be honest and say the things we’re all wanting to say. So that’s kind of if you go from the beginning, you’re going to get that kind of those episodes. And then it’s sort of organically changed to native magic. And so it’s probably wild to listen from the beginning because you’ll hear like when I was engaged to when I called up my engagement to meeting Justin to dating and what that was like to where we’re at now. So you can get a huge journey of all of it. And I share so much about what my own intuition has been saying through the journey or ego or all of this stuff. And then I have really incredible guests on to talk about all things magic manifestation what it’s like to be a woman in the world like all the things I love it. I love it.

 

Damona  38:56  

I know people will get so much more from following your podcast made a magic. But before you go, we have questions. Yeah, definitely don’t Elizabeth, we have questions from our listeners. People need some help, and it’s time for our next segment. All right, this one comes to us from Facebook. This lady says I’ve been single eight years and I’ve been in a couple of relationships, but just not finding anyone quality until I met will just call him K. She told me the name but secret. He’s everything I’m looking for. He tells me I’m what he’s looking for, but he’s moving out of state. So we both decide to meet and see if there’s a connection and we have an incredible couple days together. But we don’t know where to go from here. Sadly, we also currently live three hours apart so seeing each other until he moves is limited two weekends for us to even find out if there is more to us. It’s taken me six years to find him and I don’t want to let go how Can we make this work?

 

Stephanie Dawn Elizabeth  40:04  

Oh, okay, well, I’m not a dating expert like you, but

 

Damona  40:08  

you’re a manifestation expert. She wants to be a relationship girl.

 

Stephanie Dawn Elizabeth  40:14  

Well, I don’t see anything wrong with long distance relationships. Justin and I like we’re not long distance, long distance, but we live like an hour away. And honestly, I think that was a really good thing in the beginning, I tend to jump into relationships or having a past like real quick, fall real hard and like, go all in and I was all in with him. But that distance kind of allowed us to like slowly get to know each other in a different way, which ended up being so incredible. So I don’t know like, I’m all for it. If you can figure out a way that it’s going to work for both of you and that your needs are both met. And I mean, if this is the person that you been waiting for Don’t think that should break it up. What do you think?

 

Damona  41:04  

First I’m glad that you said slow love, basically, slow it down. I just did an episode of the kind of dating podcast all on this topic about low love. So I will not be labor the issue you guys can check it. If you want to hear me, wax poetic about that. I hear a lot of anxious words, though, in this statement like, because I know she’s been single for eight years and I know what that feels like. It feels like you’ve been in the desert and you finally got a drink of water. And now you’re going to just guzzle it all down. But still, you have to have slow love and you don’t have to figure it out before he moves. So like I think the tendency when you have been looking for someone for so long, and you know she said a couple of times like it took me eight years to find him is to then take this. Take this peg that may or may not fit, and just like jamming in there, we have to figure this out right now. And you don’t like Yes, a lot of time has passed, and you’ve invested a lot, but you still need to proceed cautiously and carefully, and mindfully, and especially if you’re going to be investing in a long distance relationship. Like I’ll say, Stephanie, it can work to meet someone long distance, but eventually you have to have a plan to be together. Hopefully, very few relationships work long term long distance. Yeah. But you just have to, you have to figure it out and not be I think she shouldn’t be in a rush to figure it out before he goes, you will still have Skype dates, you’ll be able to travel to one another. And I don’t think it’s a bad thing that they can only see each other on weekends. because like you said, having that space in between the dates will make it will give you the opportunity to really assess if this is something different if it has that magic like Stephanie was

 

Stephanie Dawn Elizabeth  42:58  

that’s so true. So much of what you just said, one being like that energy is different. If the energy is like, hold on, cling, don’t leave me. We got to figure this out, then no, that’s not going to feel good for anyone. And I love what you said about the weekends to even honestly now, Justin and I don’t, we’re moving in together in like a month, but we don’t really see each other during the week. And that’s okay. And for me, that’s what me release and heal so much of that unhealthy attachment or that I need you, you need to need me and has allowed us to, like individually grow in such a huge way and then we come together in a really healthy way. Exactly. That’s the goal.

 

Damona  43:42  

Any relationships? Yeah. relationships. Okay, we have one more question. This gal says women always say that men only want them for sex. But I never get any responses on dating apps. What’s up with

 

Stephanie Dawn Elizabeth  43:56  

that? It’s a guy

 

Oh,

 

Unknown Speaker  44:01  

I’m gonna pick up that whole thing. Okay,

 

Damona  44:05  

this question, okay.

 

Okay, this question comes to us from a fella. He says women always say that men only want them for sex. But I never get any responses on dating apps. What’s up with that? So this guy is trying to have like a more serious connection. He’s sending messages on dating apps or women of substance. And he’s getting shut out in the cold. What’s he doing wrong? You think? Other than not manifesting his magic?

 

Stephanie Dawn Elizabeth  44:36  

Well, I mean, I guess it if you get logical with it, it’s like what’s, what is the conversation? And then the other part of it is like, what’s the energy that it’s coming from? It’s kind of similar to the last question, you were just saying, like, Are you going out with that energy of? I need it now? I want something serious. Where are you? I don’t want anything like that that energy that you come to it with is also super important. Yes.

 

Damona  45:08  

And it’s I feel like we’re coming back full circle to where we began at the show. It’s a combination right of, of the logistics. What What is your profile? pictures? Do you? Do you need the profile starter kit that you can get a dates and mates calm for free. And maybe you need to redo your profile because chances are you if you’re not getting responses back, there’s something amiss in your profile or in your approach. So if you’re not like chasing down women and sending them novels and acting weird, which, if you’re listening to this podcast, then surely or not, you might just need to refresh on your dating profile and have some pictures that really amplify your magic and show people who you are and what what would make you a great match. But I would say don’t be a Afraid, especially for a guy to let people know that you’re, you’re there for something more serious, right? Because if you if people I think are so afraid to say what they mean or say really what their intentions are, they’re afraid someone might run away. So I think it pushes away the wrong people and it magnet magnetized is the right people to you

 

Stephanie Dawn Elizabeth  46:22  

100% I say that all the time people Justin and I met on Bumble And people always ask me, my God, how did you find a person on Bumble or vice versa? they asked him to both of us for very honest about what we wanted, and with our energy, but also in what we physically said. And I think especially for women, I mean men to or they were just afraid to say that because we think, oh, then people will leave or they’ll think like, oh, okay, he wants something serious. I’m out. But good. That’s good information that does not the person that’s on the same level of what you want. And so the more Yes, like you said part of it is what does your profile say? What are you coming into the conversation with? And then the other part of it is just be vulnerable and honest about what you actually want from the beginning.

 

Damona  47:07  

And then let the magic take hold. Right? This has been so much fun so

 

all of our listeners will check out made a magic the podcast, it’s on all of your favorite podcast platforms. You can also follow Stephanie on Instagram at Stephanie dawn Elizabeth. We will put the links in the show notes along with all the the links to the dating dish stories. Those are always for your reading pleasure, along with fabulous GIFs by the wonderful Producer Leah at dates and mates.com This is Episode 282 of dates and mates. Do you have a question? Do you have a question that you want me to answer on future show? Don’t be shy. Tell me what’s on your mind. Chances are somebody if you’re having a question, there’s somebody else listening, that’s having the same issue. So you can help somebody else out and also help out your yourself, you can message me at Dimona Hoffman on all the socials. I also love voice messages. So you can call me or you can leave me a voice message on on Instagram. You can call me at 424-246-6255 you can email me, just find me and get me your questions so I can help you out. And don’t forget to do three keep it free. Number one, subscribe to this show on whichever platform you’re listening right now click that little subscribe button number to give us a review. And number three, share this episode with a friend. Everyone has a friend that needs a little bit of manifestation magic in their life. So why not click share and let somebody know that you found a fabulous podcast and you are going to help them live their best life while you’re living your best to. We’ll be back again next week with more dates and mates. Thank you to my guest Stephanie Don Elizabeth.

 

Stephanie Dawn Elizabeth  48:52  

Thank you.

 

Damona  48:53  

Until next week, my lovers I wish you happy dating

 

Love & Loss

AM I EVER GOING TO LOVE OR LOVE AGAIN?

 

After a breakup, divorce, or a loss of a partner, we often ask ourselves this question.

In the description of this show we say you’ll laugh, you’ll cry, and you’ll believe in love again. But have you ever had to learn how to love again after loss?

 Whether you’ve been through a breakup, divorce, or the passing of your partner this episode is for you. Healing your heart is a long process – A lot of us feel guilty moving on or feel like we’ll never find someone as great as what we once had.

We’ve all been there. 

But today we want to give you hope. That is why I’ve brought in Gladys Diaz – a love expert who helps people learn to love and trust again.

She is the co-founder of The Love Twins of Heart’s Desire International. 

After being widowed at a young age, Gladys believed that she would never love or be loved again. She and her sister developed  a program that women how to love after loss – a program that she followed to meet the second man of her dreams 19 years ago. Here’s the rundown:

DATING DISH

How to find the perfect first date spot

According to GQ, you should find a few first date spots and stick to them. Damona and Gladys discuss.

Do you really need to find your intellectual match?

Damona and Gladys have thoughts on this article from Female First. 

Do you want to feel safer when dating?

Apparently there is a brand new chaperoning / matchmaking service that takes away the pressure of meeting a stranger in public for the first time. Is this really necessary?

Love & Loss

Learn to Love Again

Gladys lost the love of her life at age 27. After some time, she developed a program to heal her own heart and open herself up to love again. Gladys now helps women of all backgrounds heal from breakups, divorce, and the loss of a partner.

We cover:

  • Gladys’ Love Story
  • Breakups and divorces are in a lot of ways like the passing of a partner
  • Limiting Belief: I will never love again
  • Feeling guilty for moving on
  • The two steps you must do before moving on
  • Accepting new love in your life

TECHNICALLY DATING

Submit your questions Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook and hear our answers live on the show! Here’s what our listeners asked about this week:

  • What’s the deal with people who put someone else’s kids in their dating profile?
  • Is online dating a must if you’re 39 and divorced?

The Game of Desire & Dating With Dominance

HOW TO WIN THE GAME OF DESIRE

Shan Boodram - The Game of Desire

Season 7 is HERE!

Modern love has changed DRASTICALLY since I first started the Dates & Mates Podcast 7 years ago but I’m committed to continuing to keep you up to speed on the latest news, tip, and techniques in the dating game.

Speaking of dating, do you ever feel like finding love is just game of cat & mouse between men and women? 

Then you’ll want to hear from, SHAN BOODY, sexologist and intimacy expert behind The Game of Desire. She performed a study on how to come out on top in the game of love. Can you actually learn to be more attractive?

Apparently you can! Her book, The Game of Desire is revolutionary in so many ways and I’m thrilled to finally have her on the show after watching her business grow the last couple of years.

We give you the skinny on:

  • High Interest Playmates vs Low Interest Playmates
  • Tips to becoming your most desireable self
  • Dating Studies & Stats you NEED to know
  • Shan’s 5 Step Program for becoming your most desireable self
  • Should you ask your ex for a “Relationship Yelp Review”?

 

If you haven’t already shared Dates & Mates with a friend, now is the time! I have a goal of doubling our reach this season so we can help more people and heal more hearts.

Make sure you and a friend are both subscribed to Dates & Mates this season on your favorite podcast platform so you don’t miss any of the info-rich, entertaining episodes that I have lined up for you this season. 

 

DATES & MATES DEALS: START DATING NOW!

Damona will announce details about her 30 Day Dating Playbook Program re-release on the show later this month. If you want to get into this premium online-led dating course, The 30 Day Dating Playbook Program, CLICK HERE to get on the early interest list for a special deal.

via GIPHY

Good News You Can Use!

Can I share some good news with you?

The Dates & Mates Community is finding TRUE LOVE
It’s been a great month

I don’t like to brag, but I’m giving myself a pat on the back this month. TWO Dates & Mates couples are on their journey to happily ever after!If you watched my tv show, A Question of Love on A+E Networks, you know that we put 3 relationships to the test and helped them explore the insecurities that might be hurting their relationship.

During this time, Nicky was really open and honest about the trust issues she had with men. For her entire life, she watched men leave her grandmother, mother, and aunts.

She was convinced that she would not break the pattern. All of these past disappointments almost led her to lose Jamie, the man that genuinely wanted to prove that he was going to be around forever.

Her trust issues almost killed their relationship! Here’s a short peek at their relationship journey!

Nicky & Jamie’s Relationship Journey on FYI’s A Question of Love from Damona on Vimeo.

I’m so happy for Nicky and Jamie! They were wonderful to work with on the show and I wish them a lifetime of love and happiness!

Also CONGRATS TO ALICE AND HER BAE!

Broadening your horizons really works!

Alice is a long-time listener of Dates & Mates and she’s applied some advice that I gave on the show to make a match:

Are you ready for your love story to begin?

In a few weeks I’ll be launching a new and improved version of my 30 Day Dating Playbook and since you’re part of my VIP community, I’d like to give you access to get EARLY ACCESS the to join the program before registration opens up to the general public. I’ll also through in a special VIP discount for you too.

In a nutshell, The 30 Day Dating Playbook is 30 days of video, audio, tutorials and quick start tips that you can start using right away! You’ll discover things like:

  • The #1 most important quality that attracts the opposite sex
  • What’s gone wrong in your past relationships and how to fix that in the future
  • How to actually enjoy dating and make meaningful connections

If you want into the VIP Early Access list, all you have to do is click this link and look out for an email from me with registration details in a couple weeks!

CLICK HERE!