HOW TO USE YOUR MAGIC IN DATING.

Happy Halloween Lovers! This is one of my favorite times of year because of all the magic in the air.

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FACT: Everyone has magic and intuition. You just need to learn how to use it to attract your highest love.

Today I’m talking to Astrologer Rachel Lang, author of the new book Modern Day Magic about all this magic in the air and how you can use it in your love life. 

This is going to be a really powerful episode and you will leave today with some simple and effective rituals and techniques to help you find your intuition, visualize your match, and make some modern day love magic for yourself.

DATING DISH (2:07)

(2:07) Couples Halloween costumes for you and your cutie

As Halloween parties are coming back this year, this is a PEAK moment to impress with your couple’s Halloween costume. It doesn’t even have to be with a romantic partner – you can do this with your BFF! Now you can go classic with a Disney prince and princess, but what I’m looking forward to are all the opportunities for *topical* costumes this year – I’m talking Cassandra and Ryan from Promising Young Woman (upcycle your “sexy nurse” costume with all the right accessories), Wanda and Vision in one of the many TV universes they visit, or if you’re going solo, Kim K at this year’s Met Gala.

 

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A post shared by Kim Kardashian West (@kimkardashian)

IMO it’s a perfect COVID safe look.

I’ll be sticking with the topical theme this year and going as a song from Bo Burnham’s comedy special Inside – with tiny pumpkins, comfy socks, and a bobblehead of Ruth Bader Ginsberg (check out my IG on Halloween if you can guess).  If you know, you know.

(5:57) Red flags so you avoid your own dating horror story:

Usually around this time of year, we will cover your Halloween dating horror stories. But considering we’ve all been living in a horror story for this last year and a half, let’s cover some red flags so you are prepped to avoid your OWN dating horror story. I covered these on The Drew Barrymore Show this past week with Drew and Alicia Silverstone, but you can never be too prepared…

So let’s play “Flag or No Flag?”

Their profile has a long list of things they want in a partner…

NOT a red flag – having a long list means they’ve put thought into what they want in a partner. And when you know which qualities you’re looking for, you’re more likely to find someone who fits that criteria. However, if they have a long list of things they DON’T want in a partner, that can often be a red flag that they’ve got some baggage. 

Their profile is only pics, no text…

RED FLAG – I think we’ve all seen a blank, pic-only profile at some point, and it doesn’t bode well. A profile with no text usually comes from either a catfish, or someone who isn’t using dating apps with intent. People who are really looking for a relationship will put some effort into writing their profile. And even if they do want a relationship, with nothing written in the profile, it’s hard to know if they’re a good match (plus you’ll waste a lot of time having to draw the info out of them). 

They message you with a generic opening line like “hey”…

NOT a red flag – but, they could be doing more. To get someone’s attention, they should put forward more effort. My formula for a great opening line is always “comment + question” – comment on something in their profile, and follow up with a question that’d require more than a yes/no response. But if you want to test if they are genuine beyond the first “hey,” respond with something cheeky like “hey hay, do you love horses too?” or “I love a hey, but I have a burning question for you: [insert burning question here].” If they reply with something more original, explore the convo! But if they still aren’t giving you much, let ‘em go.

Watch the full “red flag” segment with Drew and Alicia here.

 

Modern Day (Love) Magic (9:40)

I’m with Rachel Lang, professionally certified astrologer, Reiki Master, intuitive, and medium. She’s been featured in LVBX Magazine, Bustle, Huffpost, Well+Good, Romper, Elite Daily, PopSugar and more. Now she’s the author of the amazing book Modern Day Magic: 8 Simple Rules to Realize Your Power and Shape Your Life.

She is my personal astrologer and friend and I absolutely love having her back on Dates & Mates!

(12:02) What is magic and do you have it? Rachel says part of the purpose of her book Modern Day Magic is to redefine what “magic” means in today’s context – because I know that some people may hear the word and instantly have an aversion to the topic. Many of us think of magic as something more from storybooks and something we can’t access ourselves. But Rachel says the exact opposite – she says that magic is really just the creative and connective energy that we all already have within us, it’s what makes us feel connected to each other and the earth. 

(18:22) Using magic to set intentions and find your highest love: With every magical process, it is equal parts intention and attention – meaning, it’s not enough just to say what you want, you have to actively be shifting your energy and attention towards that result. So for Rachel, she first started working with magic because she wanted to be in love. She had to set her intentions of meeting her soulmate from a place of feeling really integrated, and able to clearly listen to her heart. As for the attention aspect, we want to spiral our intentions out into the world and have them go beyond our body/aura, send them into the earth and “into the heart of the Divine.”

In Rachel’s case, she practiced manifesting her partner through writing love letters to her future wife, and imagining her heartstrings connecting to her. But – Rachel says that we want to avoid obsessing over the end result of our intentions, because this hyper focuses us on not having that thing yet and will make it hard for us to see when the opportunity from our intentions makes itself known to us (i.e. the soulmate you’ve been conjuring could be standing right in front of you).

(23:43) Fear blocks our magic: Rachel says fear can keep us from accessing the depth of our intuition and keeps us from the clarity of knowing what we want (we may even be afraid of the thing that we want). But the solution is not finding a way to get rid of the fear, but to step into it and go as far into it as you can. Fear is energy. If you tap into that energy and use it as fuel, you can move forward full-speed and make things happen for yourself (tapping into that creative power, as mentioned before). Damona also adds that fear helps you because it tells you when you care about something or someone – if you didn’t feel fear, there would be nothing at stake, but that’s not where the best growth comes from.

(30:56) Knowing your inner Yes and No: If you take away anything from Rachel’s book, she says that honing into your intuition, and knowing your inner Yes and No, can answer any question in life. A lot of this comes from body awareness and taking the time to get to know the cues for what feels right and wrong for you. Because magic is “a body-centered spiritual practice,” having deeper body awareness lets our body be our “divination tool.” And Rachel does an exercise with Damona to practice this:

1. Put your hand on your chest, around your heart area (below the collarbone and above the rib cage).
2. Ask yourself a yes or no question.
3. Feel the way your body reacts to this question, and feel if it is a Yes or No to you.
   • Rachel says that when her body is saying Yes, she will sway or lean forward, like leaning into the question. When her body says No, she will lean backwards and away from the question.
   • Damona says in her body, it feels more like leaning right or left.

Check out Rachel’s book, Modern Day Magic, here!

DEAR DAMONA (37:19)

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

• Email from Nicholas – Hi Damona, I’ll start by saying I’m a heterosexual 31 year old African American male. Everything is going well for me currently, I got accepted into grad school and I don’t have much problem finding work. Anyway, one thing that’s not happening for me is dating. That’s pretty much nonexistent. Now I do prefer African American women, but I’m open to all ethnicities of women if there’s a spark and sincere interest. But one thing I noticed while being in the dating game even online is that mostly non-black women (read: white) contact me, and these women tend to only have only a high school diploma. Why aren’t I attracting African American women? Offline my experience dating is pretty much the same. I get much more interest from foreign women. Again, missing from this equation is African American women. Why am I having such a hard time dating? Is it that New York doesn’t have a good dating scene, or is it something more baneful? How can I put my best foot forward in terms of showcasing my best person to attract the best mate I can? Thanks.
• Instagram Message from “Not Pleased in New England” – Dear Damona, love your podcast! Here’s a question. I am fully vaccinated and only hang out with a few fully vaccinated friends. In an attempt to meet people organically offline, I was trying to get out more on weekends with these friends. One of them was recently sick with covid symptoms (didn’t tell me), and it turned out she had pneumonia AND covid, and then gave ME symptomatic covid even though we were entirely outdoors (but not 6 feet apart). I live in a multigenerational household and I cannot put everyone through this again. So my question is – how can I even date like this? Use a 6 foot separation stick outdoors until they swear exclusivity??? Hazmat suits?? This is insane. Signed, Not Pleased in New England