Tag Archive for: Relationship

3 Day Rule & Relationship Readiness

We have a bone to pick with y’all… Okay it’s not that deep, and we aren’t here to scold you. But we need to talk about dating pet peeves. What really grinds your gears on dates? 

For our guest today, it was when her date showed up in the wrong pants. Devyn Simone is a renowned matchmaker at Three Day Rule, one of the largest matchmaking companies in the country. She’s here to tell us what really matters in making a love match.

 

DATING DISH (1:58)

(1:58) What’s cookin’, good lookin’?: In a week that’s ALL about food, we thought we’d cover the 10 foods that have been known to boost your sex drive. Now, are these foods scientifically proven to improve our sex drive? No. But many people have sworn that the foods on this list help them to feel *sexy* and increase their libido. Here’s some you want to know about:

  • Avocados – This is fitting, as avocado trees have been called “testicle trees” in the past. Avocados are also rich in vitamin B6, which can help ease the symptoms of premenstrual syndrome (and who wants to have sex when they’re cramping up?).
  • Oysters – Oysters contain zinc, which is linked to regulating testosterone levels in men and improving sperm production. And if you aren’t feeling the oysters, crab, lobster, and red meat also have higher levels of zinc.
  • Pistachios – A small study in 2011 found that men with erectile dysfunction who ate pistachios regularly for three weeks, saw an improvement in their erectile dysfunction. The same study also found that the men’s lipids were better regulated, which helps improve heart health (and you can guess how this plays out in the bedroom).
  • Pomegranate – Fun fact: in ancient times, the pomegranate was known as a symbol of fertility. This may be because pomegranate can help protect against type 2 diabetes and heart disease, including hypertension. It can also reduce the formation of plaque in your arteries.
  • Asparagus – This vegetable is high in vitamin B6, which can help relieve premenstrual syndrome symptoms and thus help women feel more in the mood for sex. Asparagus is also good for heart health – it contains vitamin K, which can help protect against type 2 diabetes (and one of the complications from diabetes is often erectile dysfunction).

 

(5:30) “I’m more in love with what I’m doing than people”: In an interview with Harper’s Bazaar, rapper and internet darling Lil Nas X spilled his thoughts on what he thinks it takes to commit to a relationship. While commenting on ending his relationship with dancer Yai Ariza, he shared that “being in a relationship is a responsibility. I’ve been wanting somebody for so long and wanting somebody to love for so long, but it’s a real responsibility.” He then added, “I’m more in love with what I’m doing than people.” Now, we’re all for being committed to your work or loving your freedom. But to be in love is to accept all that comes with making room for that person in your life. And if you find yourself not ready to take those steps to build a connection with someone else, that’s okay! You are allowed to take your time, enjoy your autonomy, and figure out who you are first.

 

If you’re ready to take those next steps to build a connection, you’re gonna need a dazzling dating profile to match. You can download Damona’s Free Profile Starter Kit HERE, which includes prompts to help you write a winning profile & a short tutorial video on how to choose the best dating profile photos. 💬

 

DEVYN SIMONE (8:03)

We’re here with Devyn Simone, top matchmaker at Three Day Rule. When she’s not dishing out dating advice on the Wendy Williams Show or coaching on The Real Housewives of New York City, she’s searching her exclusive database for successful love matches.

And now, she’s here to school us on what qualities she looks for in successful matches.

(9:25) Matchmaking is our best-kept secret: “Damona, why would I ever need a matchmaker?” As we continue to reevaluate how we traditionally meet people, Devyn states that people are starting to think outside the box. So consider this – having someone in your corner who has a really large network, and vast experience at getting to know people and connecting with people, is priceless. A matchmaker is also great at anticipating your own dating “blind spots” – even if you are screening your dates yourself, sometimes you might find yourself falling into the same pattern of picking the same kinds of people, even subconsciously.

(17:30) What do you hear a lot as a matchmaker?: The initial process in the client-matchmaker collaboration is getting clear on your patterns, so you don’t keep “repeating the third grade” (Devyn’s shorthand for dating different versions of people you’ve dated in the past). Once you’re both clear on your patterns, Devyn says she then moves on to getting clear about the direction you want to move in.

So with every new client, Devyn asks them for their three must-haves and three deal breakers in a partner – only three. No one’s gonna have everything on your list, so being clear about what’s most important to you will set you up for success. Eventually, Devyn expands the client’s list to include preferences, AKA qualities that are not necessary but you would enjoy if your partner had them.

(23:33) Matching men vs matching women: In her experience, Devyn admits that matching women can be more complex than men because typically, a woman’s desires are more complex. Devyn continues that generally, men ask themselves four things when they are looking for a female partner: am I attracted to her, do I have fun with her, do I respect her, and do we want the same things? And in terms of qualities, the main question they ask is: is she happy on her own? On the other hand, women at their core want to feel safe, special, and sexy – yet always leave room to ask, “but how tall is he?” So Devyn believes it can take a more significant amount of self awareness when working with a matchmaker, particularly on the woman’s part.

(26:30) Your friends are keeping you single: While we all have that list of must-haves we are looking for in a partner, Devyn points out that we can sometimes get hung up on what our friends might say about our date.Devyn gives an example from the show Insecure – the character Molly shows her friend Issa a picture of this guy she’s going on a date with (he’s on the older side). Molly thinks he’s cute, but when she shows Issa a picture, Issa immediately judges this guy’s age. In the end, this had an effect on Molly’s perception of this guy and possibly squashed any potential that was there. 

Even when friends mean well, reactions like this can affect our ability to really connect (or discover a lack of connection) with the other person on our own terms. So before you judge your dates, Devyn poses the question: are you trying to please everyone else, or are you being authentic to yourself and your matchmaker?

Dates & Mates is officially collaborating with Three Day Rule! Get in touch with Devyn and all the matchmakers at Three Day Rule by going to https://www.threedayrule.com/damonahoffman.

 

DEAR DAMONA FT. DEVYN SIMONE (34:23)

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:

  • IG Message from Anon – Hello Damona. So recently a guy I was seeing did not contact me for a whole day, and I found out he has been emotionally connected to another woman. I finally walked away because I felt I deserved better. Is this okay or should I send him a text as to why I ended? Everyone says I deserve better and they believed he would be back, and sure enough he called and sent a simple text saying “yo.” What would you advise?
  • IG Message from GG – Damona, please help! I have a pet peeve – I’m going on a first date tonight, and if my man shows up in sneakers I will fall to the floor. I can’t stand men showing up in sneakers on the first date. I don’t know what to do. Tonight I’m going on this date, and I know I’m not going to say anything to him. We just show up and hope for the best.

Real Housewives & Date Coaching Demo

FIND LOVE AT ANY AGE

Hello Lovers!

Welcome to Season 8 of the Dates & Mates podcast!

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Modern Love has changed dramatically since the start of the show — actually, since the start of this season.

When this show first launched, the founder of Bumble was still working at Tinder, Love Island was still lost at sea, and Brad & Angelina hadn’t even gotten married yet – let alone divorced.

Times have changed but we’ve been here with you through all of it keeping up to date on the latest news, trends, apps, cultural shifts, and advice on love in the modern world.

This season will feature the top voices on dating and relationships plus even more celebrity guests sharing their own personal love stories.

Speaking of which, today we’re giving you an exclusive peak inside Damona’s coaching program and one of her celebrity clients has agreed to show you what the start of her coaching journey looks like.

She’s a cast member of Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, she’s an actress, reality star, and fashion model. She’s the one and only Garcelle Beauvais.

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But before we get all up in Garcelle’s business, we have to talk about this week’s headlines: 

DATING DISH (1:28)

Get your dating app messages poppin’

Are you having trouble getting good banter on dating apps? Bustle has given us a bunch of fun suggestions for your next dating app convo. Damona tells you what’s hot and what’s not.

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The new rules of LDR

According to the latest advice in Cosmopolitan on long distance relationships, you shouldn’t knock it until you try it. In fact, there are lots of people in accidental, COVID-induced long distance relationships. Here’s how to keep the romance alive.

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In Sickness and In Health

Whatever your opinion on Kanye’s politics, we can all agree that Kanye is going through it right now. Kim has asked that we all respect their privacy and be understanding of mental health struggles right now – not just for Kanye but for all people. This is actually really relevant to you and Damona explains why.

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GARCELLE GETS BACK OUT THERE (11:00)

We are back by popular demand with the very first interview segment of the season! To kick off this season, Damona gives you a very special peak into my coaching program with a very special celebrity client.

You know Garcelle from Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. She also just launched a podcast called Going to Bed with Garcelle.

If you haven’t seen the show, let’s get you up to speed: Garcelle is ready to get back out there after healing from divorce. She is a talented, high powered career gal with a lovely family. So we’re going to help her set the tone for her new dating journey.

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Things get personal:

  • Dating takes bravery
  • Give yourself some credit: just because marriages don’t always last, it doesn’t mean you haven’t had successful relationships.
  • Five steps to fixing your love life: mindset, sourcing, screening, presentation and flirting
  • Finding the common denominator in your past relationships
  • Moving past infidelity
  • What you want in a guy
  • Old Fashioned guys versus Chivalrous guys
  • Celebrity dating is… a little different
  • What to do when you’re don’t want to use dating apps

Make sure to check Damona out on Going to Bed with Garcelle later this season!

TECHNICALLY DATING (29:40)

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

  • From Lauren IG – I had a convo with a guy and it turns out he hates to go out and spend money. He came from a poor household and I have had no issue with funds. How can I suggest he be okay to go out without him feeling he needs the finances to do so?
  • IG: I’m about to be 50, what dating advice to you have for the older crew.

 

 

Best of all, it’s super affordable – Dates & Mates listeners like you get 10% off your first month with discount code DATESANDMATES 

 

So why not get started today? We all need someone to talk to right now. Go to BetterHelp.com/datesandmates so you can fill out a questionnaire to help them assess your needs and get matched with a counselor you’ll love.

 

 

 

What is Patreon?

Patreon is a platform that allows you to support creators like me to keep making helpful content that you want to hear and allow you to get amazing listener benefits by participating

Our page is Patreon.com/datesandmates

What will you get if you sign up?

There are three different tiers. One for our loyal listeners who want to connect with others and keep this show going strong for another 7 seasons.

Sign up at patreon.com/datesandmates for: 

  • an opportunity to work with Damona directly
  • to get quality advice that is tailored to your dating challenges
  • and to become part of a community that will help you find the healthiest, most loving relationships this year

 

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

Unknown Speaker  0:00  

It’s a tale as old as time. He’s handsome, debonair. She’s pretty and sweet. They lock eyes across the room.

 

Damona  0:10  

Okay, hold on, honey, you need to get your facts straight. Finding love today is more like,

 

Unknown Speaker  0:17  

we supposed to get my swipe. I just want somebody to share my life. What does this text mean? Maybe he’s just not that into me or even because I don’t like to date I pick one and I make a mind kind of like caveman, I hit him over the head and I drag him home. You can keep waiting for the fairy tale, or

 

Damona  0:33  

you can get on forward with the new rules of relationships. If you’ve read my advice in the LA Times, then you know, this ain’t your mama’s love advice. This is dates in mates with damona Hoffman. Hello, lovers, it’s your certified Dating Coach damona Hoffman and I am welcoming you to season eight of the dates and mates podcast. Whoo. Wow. Modern love has has changed quite a bit since the start of this podcast actually, since the start of this year. But when this podcast first launched, let’s see the founder of Bumble was still working at Tinder, love island was still lost at sea. And Brad and Angelina hadn’t even gotten married yet, let alone divorced. So, times have changed.

 

But I have been here with you throughout all of it and keeping you up to date on the latest news, trends, apps, cultural shifts, and advice on love in the modern world. This season will feature top voices on dating and relationships as always, but we will also have even more celebrity guests sharing their own personal love stories. Speaking of which, today I’m giving you an exclusive peek inside my coaching program. And one of my celebrity clients has agreed to show you what the start of her coaching journey looks like. She’s a cast member of the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. She’s an actress, reality star and fashion model. She’s the one and only garcelle Beauvais. But before we get all up in our sales business, we have to talk about this week’s headlines, we’ll discuss the best opening lines to get your dating app messages poppin. And how Kim loves Kanye, in sickness and in health, plus the new rules of long distance relationships. Then, as always, at the end of the show, I will answer your questions including Can you date a cheapskate? And how can you find love when you’re 50 and fabulous? back by popular demand, it’s time to dish these dating dish. Our friends at bustle hooked you up with some opening line suggestions. So many times people write to me and say I don’t know what to say on these apps. How do I message in a flirtatious way? How can I get him interested? We swiped right we matched and then Things just died out. Well, my friends, bustle is telling you all the best lines to get your banter going. There were some that I loved and some that I thought maybe you should think twice about using my favorite ones were what’s your theme song? Hmm, that’s a that’s a that’s a thinker right? But it tells you a lot about the person. There’s another one I like always food you can’t go wrong and food. We’ve covered that before on the show and how many people actually mentioned food and their dating profiles. So if you say something like cheese pepperoni or Hawaiian, you will definitely get a reaction. I mean, I think there’s a definitive line in the sand between Hawaiian and no Hawaiian people. Right? And what are you binge watching right now this is a great one for generating conversation and especially in the situation many of us are in in the pandemic, we are on lockdown, and we are binge watching quite a lot of things. Now there are a couple of them that I thought might be a little bit much for an opening. line like, What’s your idea of a perfect first date? I think this is a great, great conversation piece for further along in the conversation but not right up front as an opening line. So be careful with that one. And the angel, why do you swipe right? How many of you have gotten this line? And you thought, Well, I don’t know. I had a couple glasses of wine and you look cute. So why’d you swipe right? It doesn’t give you a lot of information necessarily other than like, they’re already attracted to you. We know that they might not know why they swiped right, don’t put them on the spot. There was one that I wanted to share with you that I gave to a client this week, who she says is working like gangbusters. It was mint chip or rocky road, like I said cannot go wrong with the food references. So give it a try. Let me know how some of those lines work. We’ll put the link to the bustle article in the show notes. Now while we’re talking about making connections, long distance, I gotta hook you up with this new car. Mo article seven things you need to know about a long distance relationship because we’re finding a lot of us are in long distance relationship, you could be in a long distance relationship with someone who lives in your own city. A couple of these tips, one of them is mine. I’ll let you guess which one and then you can head over to the article and check it out. First one, don’t knock it until you try it. If you’ve heard me say on the show before, it’s really tricky. Don’t Don’t think that I am saying don’t do it. I’m just saying go in eyes wide open. think through what it will mean to live together again or one day. So a lot of times we don’t play it forward. And I’m always cautioning you don’t get too far ahead. But if you’re in a long distance relationship, you have to know that there’s at least the possibility that one day you’ll be together. Your routine you got to set the next time that you’re going to see each other and you go for quality, not quantity. Don’t obsess over having Constant Contact. I just saw someone Post today. Do you get mad when you see your partner is on social media if they haven’t texted you good morning? I mean, are we really checking it like that? Are we really social media stalking them all the time. There’s so many great tips. If you are engaging in a long distance relationship, you should check out this Cosmo article because we need to get your relationships growing and deepening even throughout this pandemic. One couple whose relationship seems to be strong in spite of some big challenges is Kim and Kanye. It’s been a minute since we’ve talked about Kim and Kanye on the show, but after his campaign rally for the birthday party, you may remember a couple weeks ago that Kanye is running for president. She had to just come out and say, Look, y’all, he is mentally ill. He’s done many interviews talking about the fact that he is bipolar. And I’m not going to give you a whole lesson on mental illness or what it means to be bipolar. But let’s just say that all All of this plays into the narrative that’s going on in the Kim and Kanye household right now. And that’s going on in Kanye his mind. And one thing I think we don’t talk about enough is the fact that mental illness is a big factor in relationships. And many of us coming through this pandemic are dealing with depression, anxiety, insomnia, you know, maybe it’s not as intense as what Kanye is going through. But everybody is coming to the table with their own stressors and with their own challenges, right, in the mental health space. So I actually think this is really good that Kim spoke on this. And she wanted everyone to give them their space to be able to process this and you may find that you’re in a relationship with someone who has already been dealing with mental illness or sometimes a trauma or a triggering event or I don’t know, maybe a pandemic might happen, and new mental health challenges arise. And if your relationship is strong, then the two of you can work through anything together. And if your partner wants to run for the birthday party, then you know you got to back them up and help them get the resources they need to move through it. Those are the headlines for today. Speaking of mental health, I have something very important to share with you. Before we get to garcelle.

 

We are back with the very first interview segment of the season. At the top of the show, I mentioned that I’m giving you a special sneak peek into my coaching program with a very special celebrity client. You know, garcelle Beauvais from the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. And she also just launched a podcast called going to bed with garcelle. So if you haven’t been following what’s happening on real housewives or her podcast, let me get you up to speed garcelle is Ready to get back out there after a breakup and a high profile divorce. She is a talented, high powered career gal with a lovely family. And we’re going to help her set the tone for her new dating journey today. So without further ado, please give big smooches to my girl garcelle Beauvais. I’m so glad that you’re here joining me for this experience. You’re a brave lady. Oh,

 

Unknown Speaker  9:29  

boy.

 

Unknown Speaker  9:31  

Holding on,

 

Damona  9:33  

you’ve always been brave. You’ve always been bold and you know, we got to talk during your podcast, going to bed with garcelle. And I’m curious, what made you start that podcast and then what made you interested in dating coaching and asking some of these kind of questions right now. You know,

 

Unknown Speaker  9:49  

for me, I’ll start off with going to bed with garcelle. That’s been a thing that once a month when I don’t have my kids on a Sunday, I would have friends over and we drink. We gossip If we talk and eventually conversations always came up about sex. So it was always a good time. And at the end of all these things, basically what I’m saying goodbye to everybody. People would say, why aren’t you doing this? This is a show. Why aren’t you doing this? So my producing partner and I were like, Okay, let’s do it. And it’s been so much fun. We’ve had amazing guests, you included, and it’s been really great to get women together to talk about sex and talk about their lives and talk about you know, what we’re doing moving forward in terms of COVID No, COVID quarantine, quarantine.

 

Damona  10:31  

So here we are, and you go there on the show. Do not hold anything back. And I know it takes a lot of bravery. But it also takes a lot of bravery. garcelle to be a cast member of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. And have those cameras in going through all the experiences that you went through and I know you’ve had some ups and downs like

 

Unknown Speaker  10:55  

everybody else relationship. Yeah, like, you know, I think I’m a romantic At heart, I love love. And for some reason, the love that I have chosen in the past haven’t been lasting love, you know, I’d like to find my soulmate and you know, go off into the sunset with him.

 

Damona  11:13  

Wait, hold on, hold on, hold on, we have to give you some credit. We have to give you some credit because even though you haven’t found someone that you’re with for your entire life, you’ve had successful relationships. You’ve been in relationships that have lasted.

 

Unknown Speaker  11:28  

That’s true. Okay. Thank you. Thank you for making me take a moment and take that in. You’re absolutely right. I mean, obviously, my children, all three of my boys came from loving relationships. So that’s an amazing thing. But in terms of, you know, I want to find my soulmate. I’m the type of girl that if I go shopping, if I go, do I want that dress, I don’t know. It’s not for me. I know when I see something and I want it and that’s for me, and that’s what I want to find. Because I feel like in my relationships in the past, it’s been like, he’s a nice guy, he’s good on paper, and he’ll be fine but it hasn’t been like, that’s my man. And that’s what I want to find

 

Damona  12:08  

right now. I it’s a weird time, you know, coming out of the Coronavirus haze. So, right now, would you say your status is single and ready to mingle single singing

 

Unknown Speaker  12:20  

about mango? Mango.

 

Damona  12:24  

Alright, so let’s pretend like if we were beginning a coaching process just I know we talked about this on your show, but I’ll just run everybody through there’s five steps in my dating funnel. And if you’re not where you want to be in love one of those things, one of those elements of the funnel is broken. We just patch it up. When then we just flow some love through it and keep on moving. So the five, five funnel steps are mindset sourcing, screening, presentation and flirting and then follow through. Okay, so we’re going to start with mindset nurses. Pick up right You said you’re very clear you you know when you want something, you know

 

Unknown Speaker  13:05  

what it’s for me, I know what I want. I don’t waver.

 

Damona  13:08  

Yeah. Okay, so let’s, let’s take a look at what relationship patterns you’ve had in the past. And then, and then I’d like to take you on a little journey to get crystal clear on who that person is that you would like to meet. Oh my god,

 

Unknown Speaker  13:23  

girl, how much are we going to spend on this? Oh God, like

 

Damona  13:30  

an iceberg. And this is a mindset piece that we’ll get into today. Like maybe we’ll have you come back

 

Unknown Speaker  13:35  

the other element,

 

Damona  13:36  

but looking at your past relationships, is there any common denominator that you can realize between your marriages or I know you had another significant relationship that ended fairly recently? Is there any commonality that you see between them?

 

Unknown Speaker  13:54  

Two things, I think,

 

Unknown Speaker  13:58  

not that I forced things but I I tend to go Okay, let me just go along with this. So I’m sort of going in half in half out. And I think the second thing is that maybe because I love love, I may jump too quickly.

 

Damona  14:14  

Hmm. Would you say then that you moved into those relationships? Like it went from courtship into commitment very clearly.

 

Unknown Speaker  14:24  

Because I’m not a big data, or I haven’t been in the past. I’m like, you know, to me, I feel like it’s always like, oh, then I got to start all over again with what I like and what I don’t like and this is me and sort of like always getting to renew Reno someone. So I think the guys that have been in my life, I feel like because I don’t like to date, I pick one and I make a mind kind of like caveman I hit him over the head and I drag him home

 

Damona  14:48  

or you got to do it modern.

 

Unknown Speaker  14:51  

Exactly. Like I pick guys that I’m like, Oh, he’s nice and nice. It’s not enough or he safe. And then I realized maybe That wasn’t the safe guy for me.

 

Damona  15:02  

Well, and I know you’ve you’ve shared on real housewives that you dealt with infidelity in the past to in a marriage. And I know that’s a really tough thing to return to a relationship where you can trust after that. What has been your the your divorce happened?

 

Unknown Speaker  15:22  

My boys are 12 they were three so

 

Damona  15:27  

so how are you feeling now in terms of your ability to trust again? And

 

Unknown Speaker  15:33  

I feel like I’m a trusting person. And one of the reasons why didn’t want to sort of fix my marriage, if you will, was I felt like it would change the dynamic of who I am. I would become the person who checks your phone, where have you been where you were? Or are you and I didn’t want to become that person because that’s not who I am. And then obviously, it was a bigger, bigger thing in my marriage, but I feel like I can trust That’s not the issue. I feel like I can trust. I think I give everybody the benefit of the doubt

 

Damona  16:05  

Not a lot of people can do that. Sure. What do you think? Do you think that’s something in just the way you were raised or just your worldview or some process that you went through, to be able to trust?

 

Unknown Speaker  16:16  

I think it’s just my worldview. Honestly, I just feel like everybody, I always tell my kids like at the beginning of a school year, they’ll say, Oh, Mom, this teacher we’re getting I heard is really mean are really strict. And I always say, that’s somebody else’s experience. Like I want you to go when that’s not your experience. You go in and you figure out what your experiences with this teacher, and I think that’s what I tend to do. I tend to give everybody the benefit of the doubt. Do I have a little jealousy bone? Yes, but not trusting.

 

Damona  16:47  

I think everybody to some extent, except for I don’t know, we didn’t episode last season with a dating coach who’s polyamorous so maybe that’s a whole different conversation. But that’s out there. Really? tip that you want. So talk to me then about the relationship that you envision for yourself, keeping in mind all of your past experiences and then what you see when you like, close your eyes. garcelle and you’ve visualize what your life will look like when you are with that soulmate that you said, is coming into your life who is he?

 

Unknown Speaker  17:24  

He excites me. He walks into a room and I smile from the inside out, because I know that’s my man and that doesn’t mean that he’s perfect, but he’s just my man. He is fun, full of life. Kind. He is tall, slender, I’m giving it all to you. He supports me and lets me be who I am and loves my children. My they don’t need a dad they you know, they just their dads in their lives. So it’s not about that I want somebody I can lean on emotionally, financially, sometimes. I mean, you know, I want someone who’s doing better than me in that way. Who loves to dance who loves to travel who wants to give back to the world, a guy who I can talk to all hours of the night and we can laugh, we can

 

Unknown Speaker  18:19  

have the same life goals and grow together.

 

Unknown Speaker  18:24  

That’s what I want.

 

Damona  18:25  

Well, I saw you, for those that are just listening to the podcast that couldn’t see the video, you just weren’t in it and you were really getting into the feeling, which is something that I’m always telling my clients and my listeners to do, like, what does it feel like to be with that person? Not just like, what qualities do they have no taller than slender.

 

Unknown Speaker  18:47  

Okay, I was giving you the picture girl.

 

Damona  18:50  

Well, you’re pretty tall yourself, right? Yes. And you’ve been a model and you need you need a guy of a certain caliber, but at the same time, you need him To make you feel good and still support you and your dreams and your goals and your vision, and I think a lot of times people miss out on I

 

Unknown Speaker  19:08  

want to be the girl. And when I say I want to be the girl, because I have such a strong personality, and this is something that I’m trying to switch up with my next relationship when that comes, is that not lead with what I do not lead with what I have accomplished, you know? And I feel like sometimes I tend to have a male dude tendencies in that way. And I want a guy who’s gonna make me feel like a girl.

 

Damona  19:33  

Now garcelle is this because you truly want that? And you truly feel that for yourself, that’s the life that you want, or is it out of like, feeling like you’ve taken on a masculine masculine role in past relationships. And you don’t want to feel that again? Or is it something where outside influences are telling you this is that you should try this

 

Unknown Speaker  19:59  

stuff. This is what I would love. And I feel like because you know, since the age of 17, I’ve been on my own, building my career. So I know how to take care of myself, I know how to take care of my household and my children. Being a single mom, I want someone that I can be a partner with. And I can feel like I don’t have to be more dominant because you’re my man. And I like I’m traditional in that sense. I would never take someone else’s last name. Again. I say that because it was so hard to get my last name back after I got adores, but I like the traditional, the traditional relationships in a way, to a certain extent.

 

Damona  20:43  

Yeah. What elements of that because this was something that came up on the TV show I did hashtag black love where they, one of the cast members said, Oh, I want a traditional man. But then he wanted her to be in the kitchen, cooking barefoot pregnant and then she was like, No, no, no, wait. What I actually wanted was a chivalrous Man,

 

Unknown Speaker  21:02  

clarify this man is what I’m looking for a chivalrous man who will open the door who will, you know, buy me gifts, but it doesn’t have to be expensive gifts. It’s the thought, but just making me feel like the girl that I’m not the dude.

 

Damona  21:15  

It’s an important distinction. But I’m, I’m really glad that you brought this up. Because I think for a lot of successful women, and a lot of the ladies that listen to this podcast, maybe they can’t relate to being being a celebrity, but they can relate to feeling like they’ve worked really hard for what they have, and they don’t want somebody to come in and take what they have hustled to get. But there’s also this feeling of not, you’re leading in so many areas of your life and especially as a single mom, right, you have so much on Yeah, that it’d be nice. I mean, even just to admit that it’d be nice to just have a partner who can take some of those risks. Exactly,

 

Unknown Speaker  21:53  

exactly. And that’s what I mean like somebody you can lean on or lean to.

 

Damona  21:59  

Alright, so So now we know who this guy is. So the next step in the process, we go into sourcing we go into, where would we find this person?

 

Unknown Speaker  22:09  

Girl? I have no idea.

 

Damona  22:14  

Okay, well, this is what I’m here for. So most of my clients, and the listeners know that online dating is the best bang for your buck for most of my clients. But I know you’re, you’re kind of you’re in a different situation, right? Because you’re looking to find somebody who is as established in their career as you are right? That isn’t looking to you because they’re like, well, I want to be with the garcelle. There. They’re actually wanting to be in partnership. Yeah, and even on RIAA, there’s a there’s a lot of like CNBC and we’ve talked about that before. So that leaves us with a couple of different options. There are still options for you girls at work. You got four areas where most of my clients meet someone, either Either through matchmaking and just to clarify, for those that don’t know and for you, I am a dating coach. I want to be your own you, I want you to be your own best matchmaker and to give you the tools to do this for yourself. I do collaborate with a number of matchmakers. And I think it’s a great tool, but we can talk about the pros and cons of it in a minute. The other way to me is at social gatherings and as we are moving out of Corona time, it’s a little bit of a trickier place. There’s chance meetings, same thing for Corona time, and then there’s meeting through friends. So of those four matchmaking, social gatherings, chance meetings, meeting through fans, which one would you want to tackle first?

 

Unknown Speaker  23:40  

chance meetings and meeting through friends because those seem to me like that’s more my lane.

 

Damona  23:46  

Okay. So when you go out into the world garcelle and let’s say you know, you’re just, you’re just doing you you’re just living our life.

 

Unknown Speaker  23:55  

Yeah.

 

Damona  23:57  

How do you feel like you present Do you? Do you? Are you keeping your eyes open? are you engaging with people with strangers that you don’t know? Or it’s funny,

 

Unknown Speaker  24:08  

I’ve had my friends in the past go, you move too fast, you don’t give people time you move too fast.

 

Damona  24:13  

Tell me what that means.

 

Unknown Speaker  24:15  

That means that, you know, we could be somewhere, let’s say we were at a party prior to, you know, all of this. And I would just walk through the party really fast. And a friend of mine, a gay friend of mine, who I was with and he goes, you move too fast, you don’t let you know. It’s sort of like you’re not taking the time to look and you’re not giving them the time to see. And I thought that was really interesting for him to say and I was like, wow, okay, so I don’t know how I moved through the world. I just me I don’t know.

 

Damona  24:44  

Wait, I’m gonna, we’re not gonna breeze through this. So fast through this. What is going through your mind like when you are when you’re showing up at a party or like, like you’re saying moving through the world and Moving through fast is it? Are you sort of thin slicing and looking at? Well, there’s nothing for me here or this isn’t the kind of environment or are you just completely unaware that that’s how people perceived?

 

Unknown Speaker  25:13  

perceived? I think I’m not aware. So I’m gonna say that one. I think I’m aware. I think I’m not taking the time to assess. You know, the room or Who’s there? I mean, I might see somebody who’s good looking, but obviously, if they’re have a ring on or they’re with someone, then I won’t. Obviously, I’ll keep it moving.

 

Damona  25:32  

Yes, yeah. So you look for that. Yeah, I’ll see you are and you are kind of assessing the room a little bit.

 

Unknown Speaker  25:39  

Oh, okay.

 

Damona  25:40  

Yeah, because if you are, if you’re looking around for things like rings, then you are looking with eyes that are looking for attraction. Okay. Right. So I don’t know if I agree with your friend. I mean, we’ll have to go out and hang and I’ll see I do this with clients. We’re all observed. Because we a lot of times we don’t know, like, you know, we we show up with not you because you’re always smiling. But you know, sometimes people will show up with resting bitchface you know and not have any idea that that when you when you even when you feel uncomfortable yourself sometimes you’ll put a mask on of trying to suss it out. Yeah. And that can be read from others as unapproachable and approachable or, like you’re not having a good time. So what I have my clients do is just resting smile face because it feels it feels dumb to walk into a room and you’re just like smiling, happy to be there. Yeah, it always looks like you are the life of the party. And it looks like you’re someone that’s approachable and that they would want to talk to, if you’re always smiling, but that’s why smiling, right?

 

Unknown Speaker  26:53  

It’s a hard adjustment for a lot of people. So yeah, so not for you.

 

Unknown Speaker  26:57  

intimidation, I was talking to a friend of mine and she was like What do you think guys are intimidated, but I have to believe that my guy won’t be intimidated.

 

Unknown Speaker  27:06  

You do have to buy my success, right?

 

Damona  27:08  

Oh, absolutely, absolutely. And this is something that comes up a lot. It’s hard for many people to hear that. rejections, your protection. So if somebody is not enough for you garcelle if someone rejects you or is intimidated by you, because you’re too much, then that person was not enough for you or gay man the confidence in themselves, the right person. And interestingly, it might come in a slightly different package than you expect. But short right person will show up for you and will not be intimidated by all that you have will only want to add to it. I mean, of course you’re a gorgeous woman and you’re very successful. So for any man to approach you there’s there’s some level of courage confidence that he will have to have, yeah, but the right ones will be able to, to push through that and, and would would still approach you or engage with you. I mean, also for successful women, a lot of times, I have to remind them that they are in the driver’s seat in terms of queuing, an approach, like a guy needs to know that he’s not going to be blown off not going to make have a right make a fool of himself if he goes up and talks to you, right and the way that you can signal that without necessarily even having to approach him is just by like making extra eye contact, smiling or, or potentially finding a reason to engage in a casual conversation with him without any any goals of where it’s going to go. But just casual conversations and I talked about creating openings just create an opening for our magic to happen. For you,

 

Unknown Speaker  29:00  

that sounds beautiful.

 

Damona  29:02  

Okay, so once we are able to move out into the world, that’s that’s where we’ll start with that. And then when we talk about meeting through friends, how many blind dates have you been set up on before?

 

Unknown Speaker  29:14  

Oh, Mmm Hmm, maybe two in my life. How good

 

Damona  29:20  

were they? I’m single. Right? Right. A lot of times we’ll get setups from our friends and they are projecting they are putting on what they think you need. So they set you up with someone who is someone they would be attracted to. They’re single or someone that they they haven’t had this conversation that you and I had about right? What’s your vision? What are your goals, so if you could distill everything that we did a moment ago down into three must have qualities and one deal breaker I only give you one deal breaker, but three must haves and one deal breaker that then you could communicate to someone. And it doesn’t seem like you’re too shy about acknowledging that you’re single and ready to mingle. Am I right? Oh,

 

Unknown Speaker  30:09  

no, you’re absolutely right. Because how else am I going to fix it? Right?

 

Damona  30:14  

Right that I’m so glad you said that. garcelle that’s something that a lot of people have a hard time embracing. There’s a shame around singlehood that if I say, I’m single, if I acknowledge aloud to another person that I’m single, and I’d like to meet someone that I am, I am weak or that I’ve failed. And that’s not the case at all. It’s just it hasn’t been an anime.

 

Unknown Speaker  30:34  

I think society has done that to us, especially women. I’m you know, I have nieces who are grown women, and will have family reunions and people be like, Oh, my God, how are you still single? or Why are you single? Or, and I feel like that’s what society says that if you’re single, it’s almost like you’re no longer good. Or, you know, growing up you were an old maid if you weren’t married by 20 you know? Things like that, I think is what people set us up for. And then we take that on as if it’s true.

 

Damona  31:08  

Yeah, it’s a lot of old fashioned ideals. And yeah, that’s what’s exciting to me about this time is that we’re getting to rewrite a lot of the rules. And we’re getting to examine a lot of our preconceived ideas about even you know, gender identity and gender dynamics in a relationship, and even race and culture and religion and all these things that we were told were the most important things, right. And in today’s world, culture is is in constant flux. You have to be I think, to give yourself the best chance at love. We have to be open to the fluidity of that and open to evolving so I’m glad to hear that that you are but you know, society might not be ready, but society, Angel Matchmaker, so yeah, willing to share that with ya. The people close to you. And also One thing that I do with my clients is I have them make a connector circle, which goes beyond that first layer. Because a lot of times we’ll ask those people that are closest to us because that’s the least vulnerable thing to do to say to our girlfriends, some of those people that came over on Sunday maybe will say, hey, do you know anybody who’s single, but we don’t give them any specifics on who that person should be. And we don’t we we don’t go beyond just that. That immediate circle. And if your girlfriend knew the person that you probably would have met already, good point. So we want to go one degree beyond look at friends of friends. So it’s like create a little bit create like a phone tree, like those old fashioned phone and figure out who might know the kind of person that would have all of those interesting. Yeah, so it’s a little homework assignment for you. And then once you have those three qualities, you can find a way to communicate with That person directly and say, by the way, I’m single. And if you happen to know anybody who’s this, this and this, I would love to know, okay, now, you’re, you’re sort of training their brain to be a matchmaker for him, that is all the time when they say, Do you know anybody who’s single? And they’re like going through their mental database, right? Well, I don’t know. Like, now you’ve given me a job. Right? Right. Right. So okay, connector circle and your ideal mate three qualities. And then also, when we’re talking about meeting out in the world, I want to make sure that you’re in the space with like minded people. So based on the qualities that you told me, what’s what give me one or two places where you think that man might go like, let’s assume Coronavirus is kind of over where would you meet a man like that?

 

Unknown Speaker  33:56  

The first thing that came to my mind if I’m going to do it that way it would be I would Golf.

 

Unknown Speaker  34:02  

Oh, I love that. I love it.

 

Unknown Speaker  34:05  

Yes. And again, in my mind, do I know how to play? No. But yeah, I think that

 

Damona  34:10  

I love that and I, you know, I don’t know that I’ve fly it, say golf but you’re absolutely right and I’ll tell you like hot tip when I used to golf, which is a while ago, you know,

 

Unknown Speaker  34:27  

oh my god, that’s what we can do together.

 

Damona  34:29  

You want to go go? I terrible. I’m terrible now, but we could we could improve together but what I’ll tell you is that sometimes being terrible is not a bad thing. Because you can go to the driving range and there are a lot of guys there who would be willing to help you with your swing whether you ask them or sometimes not. Right, but just being there and looking like you’re open to having someone help you guide you that could

 

Unknown Speaker  34:54  

be a really great place. Awesome place

 

Unknown Speaker  35:01  

I don’t want to see a party because I go to a lot of parties and I feel like that’s not really it. Um, I don’t know the market. Huh?

 

Damona  35:10  

Look like just the grocery store like regular army like

 

Unknown Speaker  35:13  

where else Where else? It’s funny.

 

Damona  35:16  

Um, I got a hold of some stats from match calm about meeting at the grocery store. I know that’s a lot of people’s

 

Unknown Speaker  35:23  

fantasy the most.

 

Damona  35:25  

Yeah, it is. Especially now but it turns out not a lot of couples actually meet their online dating and meeting through friends are the top ways that people meet. But I do not want to discount chance meetings but yeah, maybe maybe a car dealership. Car is good too. And I know that’s a big topic of conversation on real housewives. But, but no, I want to stay with the market for a second. Okay, because the question is what kind of market because if you go to, let’s say You are really into a healthy lifestyle. And you go to the farmers market, there’s a lot of communication points and I talk about creating openings around something that you’re curious about. So if you’re at the farmers market, there’s like a new vegetable that you haven’t seen. You can just ask a cute guy standing next to you. Have you ever cooked with this? Like, what the heck is this thing right? And then you’re in it. I know like, once you get in the conversation garcelle it’s it’s gonna flow it’s just a matter of making that chance encounter. Jericho, you’re gonna meet a different kind of person at Yeah, air one, which is for those that that don’t know is sort of a high end health food market. Then you are at Ralph’s, which is like right now every day chop.

 

Unknown Speaker  36:52  

Your Man is for lunch. I knew that about you. I knew that.

 

Unknown Speaker  36:57  

No shade of food for less but

 

Damona  36:58  

no, yes. Jake right and we’ve been out. Now we know the guy we figure out where we can go find him. Girl, I could talk to you about this forever.

 

Unknown Speaker  37:07  

For a lot of

 

Damona  37:09  

a lot of homework so you’re gonna come back and report back.

 

Unknown Speaker  37:15  

I love it. This is so much fun.

 

Damona  37:17  

This was so much fun and remember garcelle also to give them a chance, like your friend said, sometimes you can breathe through breeze through. I have a three date rule. So try to make a connection. Give it try to give it three dates, if you can. Okay, let him come out of his shell and really show his true colors. But if after the third date ain’t happening, then it happened. It occurred. Okay.

 

Unknown Speaker  37:40  

I love it. Thank you so much for being here.

 

Unknown Speaker  37:42  

Thank you. I enjoyed it so much.

 

Damona  37:44  

to y’all you have to check out her podcast going to bed with garcelle and get yourself caught up on Real Housewives of Beverly Hills on Bravo. Before we move on and get to answering your dating and relationship questions I wanted to let you know how I can help you too. If you’re feeling overwhelmed about dating and relationships and looking for more support, then you are the perfect person to become one of my friends with benefits on Patreon. What is Patreon you may ask? Well, Patreon is a platform that allows you to support creators like me to keep making helpful content that you want to hear and allow you to get amazing listener benefits in the process. You can check out our page@patreon.com slash dates and mates, you’re probably wondering what do you get if you sign up? Well, first, you’ll get access to my private Facebook group for all the friends with benefits where you can chat with me and other listeners of the show in a safe and supportive space. Plus, you’ll get access to my weekly behind the mic. This is a new feature, where I will give you the insider take on the latest episode and even some additional content and tips that will help support you on whatever topic we’re talking about that week. And you’ll also Get behind the scenes content and some of our library episodes from some of the past 300 plus episodes of dates and mates. Just go to patreon.com slash dates and mates and you can join for only $5. And then hopefully we can keep this show going for maybe another eight seasons more. All right, when we come back, I will be answering your questions, so don’t go anywhere. Welcome back. I am here and ready to answer all of your relationship questions. A little something different since I just launched the LA Times column dear demona. We are doing a bit of a rebrand you have known this segment for seven seasons as technically dating, but now let me introduce to you our new q&a segment.

 

Unknown Speaker  39:54  

damona help me

 

Damona  39:55  

this one comes to us from one of our Fw B’s. Lauren. Hey girl, she says I had a Convo with a guy. And it turns out he hates to go out and spend money. He came from a poor household and I have no issues with funds. How can I suggest that we’d be okay to go out without him feeling like he needs the finances to do so? Oh, this is this is a real issue in a lot of relationships, you know, couples tend to fight about money more than anything else. And the bottom line is that he needs to feel like he’s contributing to the relationship in some way. So even if you have the finances by you saying, well, I’ll just pay for it. I’ll just take you out. It might make him feel a little bit like he’s not at your level, it might make him feel less than and it might send the relationship in the wrong direction. You have to be a little bit more creative if you want to be with him, but it’s not an issue for you that he doesn’t have the money. Then try to be more creative and figure out some day That you can do that don’t cost anything. There are so many things, especially in the pandemic world. You can go for a hike, you can maybe do a sip and paint night at home and get, get supplies that you do together play a game that you already have. There are so many ways that you can connect with someone without having to spend money. And actually, this is a good tip for everyone. I really encourage you to get creative with your dates right now, we can’t do the same old dinner in a movie. So why not use this as an opportunity to connect on a deeper level? Last question for today comes from Instagram. This person says I’m about to be 50 what dating advice do you have for the older crew? So this comes to us from a lady and as you know in society, there are a lot of people that try to make you feel like if you’re 50 or 60 or whatever you should just hang up the towel because Dating is done. And that is just ridiculous. I have helped clients all the way up to their 80s find love again and find love online, many of them. So that’s the great takeaway is that because of dating apps, people who may not have had an opportunity to find love again, maybe if you’ve been divorced or widowed, or you’ve just been focusing on your career or other things and haven’t had the time to date, you still have the ability to make a connection, even if you don’t have the same single circles that you used to. So what I would say first of all, is just to feel 50 and fabulous and know that it’s just a number and you will read some statistics that say men would would not write back to you, if you’re older or if you see that they’re looking for someone in their, I don’t know 40s and you’re 4950 that it’s not worth it to eat Reach out or swipe right. Don’t believe everything that you read, I say, take a swing for it. And I’ve said this on the show before. If someone sees that you have an active lifestyle that you seem flexible, and you can roll with things and that you’re attractive that they’re attracted to your pictures and your profile, they’re going to write you back, regardless of what that number says. So I say, live your 50 fabulous life. Don’t worry about what the number is. But be proactive, as I always say to women, be proactive, send outgoing messages, generate conversations, maybe pick up some of those, those opening lines that we gave you from the dating dish, and put yourself out there, see what you can get in return. That’s it for today’s episode number 321. updates and mates. Make sure you catch me later this season on guard sells new podcast go into bed with garcelle where she talks all about six intimacy. It’s a hot one, y’all. I think you’ll like it though. And as always, we will put the links from today’s show in the show notes at dates and maids.com. While you’re there, I also have free gifts. I have a free profile starter kit, which will get you online, refresh your profile, get you out there, dating, whatever age, whatever, whatever photos you have, I’ll hook you up and that’s all free at dates and mates calm or if you’re already in a relationship starting something new. You want to keep things fresh, you can get the seven day relationship boot camp, all those tools are free for you at dates and mates calm. And then if you want to go a step deeper with me, please I invite you to check out the Patreon Friends with Benefits Program and support this show for just $5 a month@patreon.com slash dates and mates. I would love to hear from you. You can connect with me on all the socials at damona Hoffman and don’t forget to DM me about how you felt about today’s episode. Whatever questions are on your mind, so I can answer them in a future show. I’ll be back again next week with more modern love advice. Until then, I wish you happy dating

Is this the time to give up on love?

My listener Jen didn’t have the Valentine’s Day she wanted. At the beginning of the year, she wanted to find love by February 14th (or at least someone cool to take her out.) She took my webinar in January and understood that the problem wasn’t HER, it’s that her dating funnel needed a tuneup and with the right process, she could get her love life on track again.
Jen had every intention of following the plan I laid out for her. But then life happened. She took on a new project at work. She had a medical situation that needed attention. Her best friend went through a rough breakup and she was pulled in a million different directions.
Within days she fell off the dating plan.
A few days after Valentine’s Day she accepted that, although she didn’t follow the plan she wanted, she had the roadmap to love. She did one step I recommended about follow-through and she had a fabulous date on Tuesday.
Now she’s feeling optimistic about love again and ready to give it another shot.
You know the saying, “The best time to plant a tree was 10 years ago and the second-best time to plant a tree is today”?
It’s Today.
 
I want to give you a second chance at love. I want simplify dating for you so that it can be easy and fun to meet your dream match. I want to teach you the exact steps to follow that have led hundreds of my clients to love over the last 15 years.
 
90% of the people who did my VIP Diamond Coaching Program last year were dating someone exclusively within 3 months.
But here’s the deal…Due to my production schedules I can only take on a handful of private clients per year and I have only 3 slots opening in March.
Here are the signs that this program might be a fit for you:
– You connect to my advice or have taken one of my online programs but you are the kind of person who does better with a personalized plan and an advocate working with you
– You are ready not to be single anymore and you are prepared to make an investment of time and finances in yourself and in the relationship you want
– You believe that it’s possible for you to find a relationship by the end of this program.
If the 3 things above are true and you would like a consultation with me to see if it’s a fit for us to work together, CLICK this link to schedule a 30 minute session for next week https://damonahoffman.as.me/consultation
P.S. If you aren’t sure these options are right for you but you want more support in love and would like to participate in live coachings, get a signed copy of my book or a dating profile polish, check out my new Patreon Program which has a special bonus for people who sign up before the end of the month. Patreon.com/datesandmates

Healthy Communication & Roasting for Romance

HEALTHY RESPONSES TO CONFLICT

This week is all about discerning healthy communication patterns in response to conflict in all your relationships. Conflict is going to happen no matter what. It’s normal. Whether you’re self-partnered, dating, or in a relationship it’s important to look inside take a moment to prepare for healthy conflict. 

Marla Mattenson is an internationally recognized relationship expert specializing in working with entrepreneurial couples using her background in neuroscience and mathematics. Over the course of her 25+ year career, Marla has helped more than 12,000 couples including Academy Award winners, NBA players, and Grammy Awards winners!

She’s here to give us all the answers on healthy communication!

More on that later, first we have headlines!

DATING DISH 

Are you and your partner headed for a breakup?

According to Elite Daily, 55% of couples see moving in together as a step towards marriage. According to Marla, if your partner is giving you more gifts than normal this is a SURE sign you’re headed for a breakup.

via GIPHY

Tim Tebow has tied the knot and FINALLY popped his cherry

Wedding Bells for Tim Tebow and Miss Universe Demi-Leigh Nel-Peters. No word yet on whether she’ll add another hyphen to her name.

Roasting for Romance?

Some new research from Appalachian State University indicates that roasting – sarcastic jabs at your partner – can actually be healthy and bring you and your partner closer together. Damona and Marla disagree.

via GIPHY

HEALTHY COMMUNICATION (15:30)

Marla and Damona go in-depth on exploring your childhood conflict when it comes to healthy communication:

  • Fight, Flight, or Freeze
  • It’s not your fault, it’s your biology
  • Insightful knowledge as to how we handle conflict
  • Three key ways to effectively navigate the situation:
    • Acknowledge your childhood
    • Introduce awareness to the conversation
    • Press the reset button on all default settings
  • Introducing a safe word in your relationship to let you partner know when his/her “fight, flight or freeze” default setting is kicking in
  • Speaking your truth
  • Getting Unpleasant feedback
  • Why you need GEJF in your life (Grace, Ease, Joy, Flow)

TECHNICALLY DATING (36:27)

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 – This guy I’ve been in a situationship with has been working a lot lately. He told me at his job someone was eyes him and asked if that person was flirting with him? But then he said he felt uncomfortable. Should I be concerned? Is he asking me how to read the signs?
  • EMAIL -I have been this guy long time – after a long period of being broken up, I have found him again on Facebook. I miss him, love him, and want to marry him. We haven’t seen each other in three months. He either changed his phone number or blocked me. I want another chance and to be with him for Valentine Day. I bought a Valentine’s Day present for him. What should I do?
  • IG – I’ve been divorced for about 10 years and I’m just getting back into dating. When I was 18, I needed an ileostomy to save my life and now I’m wearing an external pouch. My ex had no problems with it because it doesn’t interfere with intimacy. ButI’ve told guys after a few dates about my pouch and I’ve also waited to tell them. In most cases the guy ghosts me. Do I wait until there is a deep emotional connection and risk being emotionally hurt? Or do I tell them up front and lose the guy sooner than later?

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 and mates. Thank you for making this your go to dating show for the past seven years to all the new listeners who watch my dating profile polish on E Welcome to the fam I am here to love up on you and support you at all phases of dating and relationships and so is my guest for today. Marla Martinson is an internationally recognized relationship expert specializing in working with entrepreneurial couples. She uses her background in neuroscience and in mathematics to do this. And over the course of her 25 year career. She has helped more than 12,000 couples, including Academy Award winners and beyond. Players, Grammy Award winners millionaires, y’all. She’s the real deal. Please give big smooches to Marla Martinson. Thank you so much for being here.

 

Marla Mattenson  1:10  

Thank you so much. I’m super excited for this show!

 

Damona  1:13  

All right, this is the gold standard of advice, y’all. So, get your pen and paper ready because we are going to give you some really key advice about building healthy relationships, and communication. Even when things get a little bit uncomfortable, especially in a fight. We’ll be talking about fighting it’s gonna happen y’all. So we’ll tell you how to navigate through so that you both can get your needs met in the relationship. And we’ll also be covering this week’s headlines including What are the signs that you and your partner could be heading for a breakup and Tim t bow tie the knot and finally popped his cherry Garcia we have the decision about that was is it good for you to roast your partner will tell you the answer to that in a minute and then we’ll answer your question. Including, should you be worried that someone is flirting with your boo at work? And what do you do? If you want your ex back? Especially when you already have a Valentine’s Day present for them? Oh, is this gonna be a spicy one? Marla?

 

Damona 2:15  

Are you ready to dish though?

 

Damona  2:19  

All right. All right, our friends at elite daily gave us the skinny on the four signs that you may be headed for a breakup. I have to admit I did give a lot of the advice for this for this article. But I’m curious Marla because you work with you work with couples. And I’m sure you have seen a lot of these signs coming up. I’ll just go over some of the signs. Y’all should read it on your own. We’ll put the link in the show notes. But I told them to look out for a change in communication style and a decline in sexual intimacy, signs of annoyance or them needing space from you and I think those are just some of the signs, but I’m sure you’ve seen a lot of other signs and people want to know like, what is my partner thinking? What should they be looking for before things get into crisis? I love this article, actually,

 

Marla Mattenson  3:14  

I think it’s really fantastic. It’s a great sign post, there’s not a whole lot more to add to it To be honest, except gifts. If they start giving you more than you’re used to, then that kind of a change, also more than just in the communication style. If they’re starting to go above and beyond, it might mean that they’re trying to put in the extra effort, just in case maybe it will work.

 

Damona  3:39  

Oh, wow, way, way, way way. Wait, because I know a lot of our listeners are saying, Oh, this is great. Like my partner is really leaning in. And they’re they’re showering me with attention. And this is something that I see also in dating in the early phase that I tell people to look out for that when somebody is too too romantic. too aggressive with trying to lock down the relationship? I say that’s actually a bad sign. So that’s also a bad sign on the way our on and the relation. Yes, yes.

 

Marla Mattenson  4:10  

It’s sort of like a last ditch effort. It’s it’s, it’s actually something that I coach on as well in relationship is you want to put in your real hundred percent efforts that maybe you have been holding back because you’ve been waiting for your partner to show up and do the work. And they haven’t. So what I teach is you show up and you do the work. So you put in the extra effort and you see how your partner responds. And so because I know that I offer that as advice to my couples, if they’re having a lot of challenges, I know that sometimes that’s what’s actually going on, someone’s putting in one more big huge effort at the end to see is my partner going to change? Are they going to do anything different or they’re going to still be the curmudgeon? Are they still going to be you know, bitchy, are they still going to have problems and you know, complain, etc. Or they going to see me a new because the idea and relationship as you know is you have have to be able to see your partner with fresh eyes every day, every moment of the day. And if you can’t see your partner with fresh eyes, then you’re always going to be looking for the things that they’re doing wrong. You’re going to be looking for those problems, rather than looking for what’s new and fresh about my partner today. How can I honor and love what he’s all about today are what she’s all about today, rather than looking for all of the issues and the problems and the challenges,

 

Damona  5:25  

yeah, I like the idea of really focusing on the present and I talked to daters about this a lot. What about if we were to look into the past many of these, these cohabitation situations, which is really what this article was talking about, like signs, your partner may be moving out, not just breaking up with you. I think that some of the problems begin before the point of that this article begins. And according to the article 55% of people see moving in together as a step toward marriage. I actually hosted a TV series for a networks called a question of love were removed couples in together for the first time. And they had to go through this intensive experience for 30 days and see if they wanted to stay together or move out and break up. And I found that so many of the times as we move these couples together, they were like, yeah, I’m ready for a relationship. But the moving in together meant something different to each of them. Many of them hadn’t had conversations about like almost sort of a prenup of what’s going to happen if we break up. And it was it’s continually surprising to me with clients as I help them through the dating process. that so many of them are are focused on let me get to the moving in like then now I’ve now I’ve got something, but it’s so much more complicated when you’re living with someone. And I find a lot of these questions aren’t being asked early enough. The dating process

 

Marla Mattenson  6:54  

definitely you know, meaning making is one of the biggest challenges and relationships My partner, Julian, he could literally walk across the room and I can make meaning out of that. How he’s walking across the room, the look on his face what he’s paying attention to, you know. And so if you start paying more attention to the inner world of your own, and you start asking yourself, what meaning Am I making out of moving in together out of how he’s doing this, how she’s doing that, then you’re going to start to understand more about yourself, your own needs, your own desires, and then instead of waiting for your partner, to show up and be all of what you want, you actually know what you want, and then you can articulate it. And you can actually verbalize, you can say it, you can speak it out loud, and then you can see how it lands and how it lands matters, right? Because then you can feel the sort of reverberation of how it lands no matter what they say. You can feel the truth in the vibration of the tone of the vibration of you know, their body posture or their arms folded, look away. You know what’s happening as you’re saying Speaking your needs and your desires to your partner.

 

Damona  8:03  

Well, one person who seemed to be very clear about his needs and his desires was Tim Tebow. He loved love. We’re on board for this. He married Miss Universe Demi Lee Nell Peters. She has a lot of hyphens in her name. I don’t know she’s going to definitely mail Peters t bo. But here’s the catch with this story. Tim was very vocal for many years about his faith and about his desire to stay celibate until he was married, and only 3% of the US population waits until marriage. I was not aware of that. I was not either. But I I’m curious what you think about the faith aside about making this declaration of not having not being intimate until you get married, and if you’ve seen like any couples that have been successful waiting or unsuccessful in not been finding out later that they weren’t intimately compatible.

 

Marla Mattenson  9:04  

Yes, that I love the way you just said that. That’s really wonderful. I wonder if Tim did not have his faith if he would have been celibate. That’s my first wondering, because I believe that celibacy and faith tend to go hand in hand for our youth now, and there is a movement for celibacy in our youth that has nothing to do with faith that just has to do with I’m saving myself for the right time, but it’s not necessarily marriage. saving yourself for marriage is different than saving yourself for love. So celibacy till marriage is a completely different animal and I have to be honest, unless it’s your faith, please don’t do it. Don’t wait until you’re married to have sex. Okay,

 

Damona  9:55  

why Marla?

 

Marla Mattenson  9:56  

Okay, because exactly what you said which is sexual portability is a real thing. I mean, I have a client who a former client who she ended a relationship with someone she really loved because of the way his anatomy hit her on the inside, in a way that caused pain every time they tried to make love. And it was just him. It was it was just the way he curved to the left a little bit that hit her and they tried I gave them all kinds of coaching on that, you know, different positions this and that. And it was painful. She couldn’t enjoy sex with him. And so he was really big,

 

Damona  10:42  

right? No, no, he wasn’t actually okay. We don’t even Okay, we

 

Marla Mattenson  10:45  

don’t have to go there I go, there I go.

 

Marla Mattenson  10:51  

But it’s sometimes the anatomy is an issue and if that’s an issue, you do not want to be in a lifelong relationship with someone that is Going to have that kind of a problem that’s just starting with a foundation that’s really shaky. That’s very challenging, even when you love someone, so literally, there are so many issues in the sexual arena that have nothing to do with compatibility that have to do with taste and touch and the way you hold each other and you know, how, how rigid or contracted you are versus how much you can relax. There’s so many nuances to lovemaking that, you know, you kind of want to take the car for a test drive before you buy it.

 

Damona  11:36  

Yes, you know, just don’t like move the car in your garage before you know you know where you’re going to be driving it. There you go. Okay. As we are looking at different qualities that make a relationship successful beyond the INTIMACY COMPATIBILITY. Community communication is obviously something that you specialize in and something We’ll be talking about more later on in the show. There was an article Marla in the sun, obviously a very reputable source that said, roasting your partner every day makes the relationship stronger. I’m going to just go out on a limb here and say, this goes against everything I know about healthy relationships. And they were saying that it’s good for the the energy to kind of rip them on certain qualities that irritate you rather than nag them. But I kind of feel like if you’re having that much contempt in your relationship, you know, that’s what one of john Gottman four horsemen, you’re feeling those feelings towards your partner. I’m not sure that roasting them is the right way to

 

Marla Mattenson  12:48  

bring it to the surface. I’m so glad you feel that way. I can

 

Damona  12:52  

say on this lady, so I was ready.

 

Marla Mattenson  12:56  

I’m a hell no for that.

 

Marla Mattenson  12:57  

So it makes me question. I’m not The sun they’re just reporting but it makes me question the research and the ages of the participants. It makes me want to question how many people they interviewed it makes me want to question how long they’ve been in relationship it makes me want to question a number of things about the actual research and it feels very teenage It feels like a teenage You know, when you’re in middle school and you kind of negative each other like, you know, you can’t

 

Damona  13:27  

write boy makes fun of you, like sells your hair, then he likes you

 

Marla Mattenson  13:32  

Why is that a thing and that should not continue into a healthy adult relationship. So preamble also to just add on to what you said is, you know, I love dr. john Gottman and it’s if you are using sarcasm in your relationship in any way. Sarcasm, the definition of sarcasm is tearing flesh. I mean, it is not kind it’s saying something that you’re hoping somebody Going to get a message underneath of a truth. Why not just say the truth? And why don’t we because you know, we don’t want to deal with the actual reaction from our partner. So if we are sarcastic instead, then we can, if there’s a negative reaction, we can easily just say, oh, babe, I was just kidding. Oh, why can’t you just roll with it? You’re all you’re so serious, you know, rather than, you know, actually that hurt my feelings. I didn’t like when you said that. That doesn’t feel good to me. To me. Building a loving healthy lifelong relationship with your partner means you pour love and kindness into the union of your relationship the big week, right? You don’t pour sarcasm and jokes that are meant for little digs. Just to get some you know upregulation of hormones so that you can get horny for each other.

 

Marla Mattenson  14:51  

You know, that’s not that will keep you

 

Damona  14:54  

it’s not sustainable to now walking off into the sunset now. This is this is getting interesting, Marla, this is getting very interesting. And I know you have many more insights to share on how to build a healthy relationship, how to deal with conflict, like what we were talking about, and how to have this partner in crime that you you live with, that you love, and maybe even that you work with, that you can really build a long term standing relationship with. So yeah, we’ll be talking about that right after the break. But first, I just have to acknowledge one of our listeners who left this lovely five star review on Apple podcast. Darling Nikki says, Wow, I’m obsessed and I can’t believe I never heard this pod. I can’t believe you haven’t either. loving every app and don’t want to sleep just binge. Thank you, Nikki. We’re so glad that you found the show and we are so grateful you took the time to give us a review. Whether you’re a binge listener like Nikki or a casual fan of the show, please leave us a review on your favorite podcast platform so we can shout you out and give you some love on a future episode. More with Marla Martinson in just a moment.

 

Welcome back. We are here with Marla Martinson and we’re talking about dealing with conflict and relationships and building healthy communication. Marla. Now, you alluded to this in the first segment, but you also work with your partner, Julian colker. He’s a little under the weather today. So we’ll have to join us on a future show. But first of all, how is that because so many people tell me so many clients say I really want to find my partner in crime and somebody who’s going to support me through not just like, love but also life and business. You’ve done it. Yes. How’s that working for you? It’s amazing.

 

Marla Mattenson  16:38  

It’s amazing. And it’s challenging. It is challenging from time to time, right? You know, we’re just like any other couple, we get into the arguments that sometimes spiral down into the pit of hell. And then we come out together the other side, but really, we look at it like it’s kind of like an obstacle course that we go through together. So even when we’re spiraling down, we’re aware because awareness is always the first Step in any process that you’re going to master at some point, you become aware at some point in that conflict. Oh my gosh, wait, I’m in a conflict with the person I love the most on this planet. And when you can pause long enough to remember that that’s the point to insert a knowing that actually it’s not your fault. It’s your biology. Your biology is telling you lies about your partner. Wait, what does that mean? So this is like, this is inner game, inner game, baby. All ready to go in.

 

Marla Mattenson  17:37  

Okay, let’s do it.

 

Marla Mattenson  17:40  

So, when you’re aware that you feel like you want to attack your partner, verbally, just even in your mind, right? You’re saying really awful things in your mind about your partner, blaming them angry, you know, why can’t he or why can’t she just get it or whatever it is. for you in that moment, when you become aware that you’re thinking negative thoughts about your partner, that’s the moment to say, I must be activated. I must be activated about something. It may even not be about my partner, it may be about because, you know, we can’t pay this bill or you know, the mother in law just called or you know, something else is happening with the kids or something is going on in your life. You’re feeling stressed, you’re looking around. I’m not sure if you saw this burn a brown video of it’s hilarious. She talks about how she’s in her kitchen, and she accidentally drops a mug of coffee on the floor. And her husband is nowhere to be found. He’s not even in the house at the time and she yells his name out and blames him for it. And she dropped it and she dropped it.

 

Damona  18:50  

Right girls you know it,

 

Marla Mattenson  18:53  

like the closest person to like ttttt Oh, you You’re the problem. It can’t be me. Right because our ego Won’t let it be us as the problem. So as soon as you realize you’re in that loop, the crazy loop of I want to blame. I want to blame my partner for how I’m feeling right now, even if it is their fault. Okay, here’s the thing. One of our philosophies is it’s never you versus your partner. It’s never you, it your partner is the problem. It’s always the two of you versus the problem. Yes, right. Even if your partner is the problem, we still look at it like we’re sitting next to each other, rather than across from each other across from each other is actually very aggressive. It’s an animal aggressive state to be exactly opposite each other looking into each other’s eyes, rather than sitting next to each other at a table and looking out or going for a walk together and talking about a problem. So the thing is, is that our biology is telling us your partner is a threat. He’s a threat, he’s the problem, or she’s the threat. She’s the problem. The lies that go on our chemical. So your body is is telling you through cortisol through norepinephrine through all the chemicals flowing in your system when you feel attacked in some way. There’s no saber toothed Tiger anymore. We’re not running from a lot of wild lion anymore. But now the threat is can we pay our bills? Right? Is my partner having an affair? Are it does he really love me? You know, all of those things. And when you get into a conflict, it’s a mini microcosm of that old fight flight or freeze response that happens.

 

Damona  20:32  

Right? So talk to us about this fight, flight, or freeze. I’m sure people have heard fighter flight. The talk to us about what the freeze element means and then, you know, as we are just nothing but mammals. Yeah. How does it How is it really affecting us in relationships in our biology?

 

Marla Mattenson  20:53  

Yes. So, fight so if everybody has one major default In the fight flight or freeze response so as as everybody’s listening, you can listen for your own. And sometimes it’s a combination sometimes you go back and forth and sometimes it’s all three and that’s the like, you know, trifecta of horror, when they’re all three activated. So the fight is something happens. Your partner does something they say something they could load the dishwasher wrong in your eyes. Something happens to me, right once.

 

Damona  21:24  

No, no, on the regular rice, right? Because there is a right way to load the dishwasher according to each of us. Don’t we want the dishes to be clean? I don’t know. But okay, go on. Okay, and then we’ll and then we’ll come full circle back to analyze me later. Okay.

 

Marla Mattenson  21:42  

So the fight response is your first inclination is to lash out and to say something to take action. So if your first response is, I need to say something about that dishwasher. The first response is, hey, hey babe, may remember put the glasses on the top Remember, right? Exactly that okay, though, remember. So that’s also kind of like the nag, the nag and the fighter are kind of cousins. So that’s if you have your first response is some action. It can also be a passive aggressive action, which is, let’s say there’s a towel left on the floor every morning, okay? And so white response is, I’m going to pick up that towel and put it back on the hanger. that’s a that’s a it’s a lower level version of the fight response, because on the inside your mind is saying to yourself, that so and so why can he ever just pick up that’s how I’ve told him a million times? So even if he’s not even there, you can still have the fight response when there’s nobody listening. Okay, yeah. Okay. So that’s the fight response. The flight response is, you just want to exit the building, either actually, or in your mind. So these are people who sort of shut down. They they You know, hey, I gotta go handle these other things. They want to put everything on pause.

 

Marla Mattenson  23:04  

This is the people that ghost

 

Marla Mattenson  23:06  

these are the ghost tours, the fighters are they can’t handle conflicts they will avoid at all costs. They’re the ones who actually will use sarcasm and then pretend like it’s not a big deal to actually try to communicate. So the flight people will get the same chemicals but chemicals bond and they start reacting in the way that they learned how to deal with conflict by witnessing and experiencing from childhood.

 

Damona  23:29  

Oh, yeah. Okay. So let’s talk about that. Okay. A lot of people come into relationships with their own conditioning, and they think, I don’t want to do that. My parents did that. And that was uncomfortable for me. So I’m going to be different in my relationship. Do you find that people if they are able to consciously acknowledge what their childhood conditioning was? Are they able to rewrite it? Or do you find that they end up just falling into the same pattern?

 

Marla Mattenson  23:56  

You know, both. I’m just gonna I’m going to answer all of the above Because what happens is just because you’re aware of it doesn’t mean you have a new pathway. So typically, when you become aware, oh, I don’t want to recreate this pattern that my parents did. Typically we do the opposite, which is the opposite side of the same coin. So you’re still doing the pattern, you’re just doing the pattern, the opposite, it does not heal the pattern. To heal the pattern, you need to do something completely new, have a completely new response. And so part of the work that Julian and I do with couples and that we practice ourselves is really excavating family lineage patterns. Because Where did you come from? You didn’t come from nowhere. You came from somewhere, and you learned through experience. And up until the age of seven, we’re literally just open vessels receiving we have no ability to deny or reject or say no to anyone or anything.

 

Damona  24:50  

And you’re not talking just about parental relationship. You’re talking about lineage like what has been passed down generation Right, Andre, she says,

 

Marla Mattenson  25:00  

Did your parents do the work to excavate their material from their parents? Or did their parents or did their parents or their parents, everybody? You know, at one point, what your current parents taught you was very helpful. But that could have been five generations ago. But we’re still using those things today, because who has taken the time to look at their family lineage around, let’s say, pleasure? What did you learn about your family? lineage from pleasure? Like, what did you witness your family doing around physical pleasure? Guess what, it’s in your bedroom? Yeah. And we can excavate that. So really, taking a look at the biology of what’s happening inside of you, is really the most important first step. So becoming aware and pausing long enough to listen to your own thoughts before they fly out of your mouth. And that’s one of the hardest things to do. Right? Because especially those of us who are fighters who just want to say it and then also if you happen to be articulate as you are, as I am Right, you can say things in a way that are logical, they make sense and they’re obviously non combative. But are they building intimacy? are they building more connection? And there are plenty of times where what I say to Julian is not building intimacy and how it’s not about being perfect. It’s about how quickly can I become aware that oops, I just said something that is not in alignment with who I really am. That’s an old version of Marla. That’s the kind of Marla that’s the little hurt girl right? The one who just wants to be loved and doesn’t need us understand all I need a hug. All he needs, whatever, but how does he know that I need a hug when I’m throwing prickly, you know, dark energy out and him right? And he’s like, I’m just gonna stay away from that until that calms down. It’s like a porcupine, you know, right. All the plumes come up, and he can’t get close to me.

 

Damona  26:52  

And then what is his conditioning to is the other side of that Right,

 

Marla Mattenson  26:54  

exactly. So the Exactly, so the other side of the pattern is what is he conditioned to do and part of I’ll just share because we share all apartments cereal. Thank you, right?

 

Damona  27:04  

We’re open book. Yeah. Jason made? Yes.

 

Marla Mattenson  27:08  

So you know, part of his side of the pattern is he doesn’t want to be made wrong. Oh, well, isn’t that the perfect other side of the pattern? I get to be right and he has to be wrong. And so when I find that I’m feeling righteous, or justified or verified in my, because I have a long list of reasons why my way is correct, even if it is, that’s not going to build the intimacy and he will feel wrong. And so that will activate him. And so when he gets activated, and if I’m activated, we call that double activation. And that is the most challenging thing to go through. And that’s when you start spiraling down. And so when one of us has the courage to say, pause, hold on. We’re in it. We’re in it. This is it. This is the moment can we go through the rest of this together like that? Okay, oops, we didn’t do so hot the first five minutes. But How about now?

 

Damona  28:05  

Right now, it’s like kind of bringing it back to what you said earlier of having that moment. Living the moment again, and you’re you’re right there, you’re not like in what just happened five minutes ago, or what happened last week, or what is going to happen next week, it’s being in that moment with your partner and being on the same team, like you were saying, exactly. And

 

Marla Mattenson  28:26  

we actually have a technique for that. I can teach it in two seconds, teach it, it’s called the redo.

 

Damona  28:31  

Hello.

 

Marla Mattenson  28:33  

redo it. And so what it is, is you ask for Rito. So if I’m the one who kind of started it, then I’ll say Wait, can I get a redo? If I, if I can be aware, and then we pause, and he’s, we’re both sort of calm enough that I can say, Can I get a redo, babe, I really did not. Start that the way I really wanted to. And he’ll go, Okay, hold on, give me a second. I gotta shake that off. First. They’ll shake it off. I’ll shake it off and then I’ll go okay. And the idea is You bring sparkly eyes, you bring your open heart, you bring your best self and you both reenact the same scenario. But this time you show up as your best self as your loving self as the self who wants to build love, intimacy and connection, even through challenges and chaos. And when you redo it, you’re literally rewiring your brain in the moment because when you think back on a memory, you remember what happened mostly at the end? Yes, okay. You remember the beginning and you remember the end, you don’t really remember the murky middle, okay? That’s all where it gets very subjective. And so when you redo it, you have redone it and you end smiling. So when you remember the beginning next time, you’ll also remember Oh, yeah, and we did the redo. And we went

 

Damona  29:44  

through it together, and we ended up smiling. Yeah. Marla, how do I get how do I deal with this dishes that you know, I know, how do I get the towels off my floor? I’ll tell you. I mean, of all the things it’s pretty a pretty minor thing. We’ve been together so almost 17 years, 16 years, I’ve, I’ve also just realized, like people sometimes have their patterns and limitations and like, I can be mad about the towel on the floor, or I can just pick it up and move on with my life and let it be over. Yes. And so that’s what I 17 years later decided to do. But honestly, I seriously don’t know you guys. Is that, is that what you recommend? Or is that like, is that a flight response?

 

Marla Mattenson  30:29  

Okay, let’s let’s chat about it.

 

Marla Mattenson  30:30  

Yeah, it depends. And the reason it depends is because it depends on your state of mind in the moment. So, next time, he leaves his towel on the floor, if you will, first of all, I’m assuming. So let let me not assume Let me ask a question. Have you mentioned this to him in the past?

 

Damona  30:49  

He like years ago, like years, okay, it’s been years and then now it’s just like, oh, there’s gonna be towels on

 

Marla Mattenson  30:55  

and so is it every day that there’s two or every time

 

Marla Mattenson  30:58  

I mean, it’s like 6040 Okay, 6040

 

Marla Mattenson  31:03  

So, okay, so there’s a couple of things. First thing is you can with a whole fresh new attitude and love in your heart, you can have a new conversation with him to say, you know what, I realized that I’ve kind of let this thing go, but it actually is still kind of a little bit of a thing for me. I wonder if you’d be willing to make an extra effort to hang up your towel after you use it every day. And then wait for the response and have a conversation about it. And you can also say, and I want to let you know that if you forget from time to time, it’s okay. But it’s still okay. Like it’s been okay this whole time and it’s also still okay. And I also just want to let you know, like, it actually would still feel loving to me, if you would make an even an extra effort, right now, how does that feel to you? And then wait for his response.

 

Damona  31:51  

And now let’s play out the different responses. Okay, everybody. So let’s say the response is like, you know, and just for listeners, like we’re talking about towels, with This could be anything in your relationships. Right? And it’s like a woman. Why are you talking to me about these towels again? I don’t think he would say that. But let’s just play devil’s advocate that

 

Marla Mattenson  32:10  

Yeah. Yeah. What is it about me asking you that bothers you? Oh,

 

Marla Mattenson  32:16  

so whenever someone that’s not that’s not.

 

Marla Mattenson  32:20  

That’s not a fight response. So know if you’re in a calm place, and you ask genuinely because you’re curious and you really want it like, ooh, up. Okay, that’s your reaction. I wasn’t expecting that. And that’s totally fine. I’m just curious, what, what is it about me asking you that feels so off. And you really want to know, and this is the thing is that we don’t really want to know certain things about our partners. And so we just don’t ask and we don’t ask. So I’m a big fan of asking.

 

Damona  32:53  

Yes, that is so important. Like in all we’re talking about conflict, but that’s just important at all phases. Building the relationship curiosity. Oh, yeah. Yo, you hear in her I curiosity comment is what I say for people when they’re dating, like be curious about so good about what you need to know about that person just like be curious on a date. So it’s the same thing in the relationship. And people always ask me, How do you keep the relationship feeling fresh and feeling new and discovery? Right? You still have to stay curious. You talk about something, a philosophy called gaggia. Yes. What is gaggia?

 

Marla Mattenson  33:32  

Okay, gaggia I just have to say I hated that word for many years. And it finally in 2020 is actually a thing. It’s a thing and Julian named it okay, but it’s our philosophy of grace, ease, joy and flow. So get GIF getcha getcha g JF gadget that it’s just easier to say yes. And so it’s like our philosophy is, you know, you can’t control what’s coming at you in life, you know, there’s always the UPS, there’s always the downs, you have no control over that. But you do have control over how you respond. You do have control over that. And if you respond with, I expect grace, ease, joy and flow, even through conflicts, even through challenges, and through the joy and through the happiness, then you start living your life that way. And then when something bad happens, you get a car accident, you know, life happens, right? Then you’re prepared because that’s what you’ve been practicing. I want to run one more thing, which is the freeze response. We didn’t get to that. Can I just say that really quick? The freeze response is and it’s so interesting that it almost is forgotten, you know, because the freeze response is literally like the chameleon just blending into the wall. It’s you know, the octopus that can turn into anything. It’s, you know, the the freeze response is feeling paralyzed. You have no words, no words will come out of your mouth. You’re not trying Two eyes out your partner but you just can’t find any words. Everything in your mind is confusion and your partner’s articulate and you have no idea what to say. So you just say nothing. So the freeze response is a really delicate response that is challenging for people. You know, I actually am an introvert people don’t realize that about me. But I can get into the freeze response. When I’m really activated. I go right into that little girl space where I’m like, I’ll just be like the silent little Good girl where I don’t know what to say. So I’m going to say nothing.

 

Damona  35:31  

Hmm. And so very fulfilling for your prey.

 

Marla Mattenson  35:33  

It is not they’re not

 

Marla Mattenson  35:34  

know and it’s trying to work through the GED. Exactly, exactly. And

 

Marla Mattenson  35:39  

so you know, then you find ways to sort of down regulate the emotions and allow those chemicals to flow through your system and pass through and give yourself a little bit of time and then you come forward again, and you go Okay, let’s, let’s try this again. Let’s do a redo.

 

Damona  35:54  

I love that. And I’m also married to an introvert who’s like Now he’s uh he’s like an introvert mascot yeah found power in introversion but yeah it’s it’s it’s hard when everyone else is is talking and everyone else is in like fight response if your tendency is to go inward and and shut down or we’re not be able to find the words like me right now

 

Marla Mattenson  36:24  

if you tapped into the introvert I did you tapped in

 

Damona  36:27  

like channeling him. This is all such such great information and I know you have insights that our listeners are going to want to hear in our next segment because we got a lot of questions. I so appreciate it y’all. I appreciate you. trusting us with your love lives. We have some very, very challenging questions, but I know Marla Martinson is up to the task so don’t go anywhere. We have more dates and dates right after this. Welcome back to dates and mates.

 

We have some Very challenging questions on this week’s show that have been sent to us far and wide from all different sources Instagram, email, Facebook, you can hit me up on any of the platforms at Damona Hoffman if you if you have a question for a future show. This one Marla comes to us from Instagram. This gal says this guy I’ve been in a situation ship with has been working a lot lately. He told me that at his job, someone was eyeing him. And he asked if that person was flirting with him. But then he said he felt uncomfortable. Should I be concerned? is he asking me how to read the signs? So this person it seemed in situation ships, so it’s kind of a new relationship. But the guy’s asking or like somebody seems to be flirting with me. I don’t really know. What do I do?

 

Marla Mattenson  37:58  

Yeah. How would you read this? This I think this is such a beautiful question because it’s very clear that he wants to move things forward with the woman who wrote that, because he wouldn’t say anything to her about someone flirting at work or potentially flirting. If he wanted to go off and flirt with that other person or start something with somebody else, he would he would probably just go do it rather than talk about it or ask about it. So it’s really beautiful that and it’s sort of a celebration that he is coming to you with this information. And so it’s it’s um, it’s kind of like a toe dip in like, how honest can we be with each other in this relationship? He’s checking to see if you’re going to greet him with love and affection. Or and this may be conscious or unconscious in him okay, but he’s coming to you with Are you a safe person to reveal the truth of my life too, or are you going to freak out, are you going to judge me? Are you going to blame me? What are you going to do with this information? So So the idea here is, in my experience and opinion would be to ask him a question, to get curious to get curious about him and say, Wow, first of all, number one, always when someone brings information to you that they wouldn’t normally bring or they don’t have to bring. The first response is always two words. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for bringing this to me. I really appreciate you sharing this with me. What did that feel like to have that happen? What what Kate, what came up for you like if you become the open, curious space for this person to come and share this information, the number one, he’s going to bring more to you. And number two, you’re going to bond over the fact that you can get curious about this very benign situation because he wasn’t That flirting, if he was into that flirting, then he would have just gone into that flirting.

 

Damona  40:04  

Yeah. So well done. I agree with you. It seems to be a sign of desiring this to become more serious. I do wonder though, if there’s an element of, I’m telling you someone else’s flirting with me to let you know, like, I got options here. Yeah, so yeah, let down

 

Marla Mattenson  40:26  

this Right, right. Exactly, exactly. So. So before you nail it down, though, you want to make sure that he’s not just playing a game, you want to actually ask questions to see how he shows up in the response. So he’s checking to see how you’re going to show up. But you also want to check to see how he’s going to show up. So gathering more information through experience, not just through your thinking about it, but through actual questions and having him answer and having a beautiful conversation about it is what’s going to help the two of you together come to Oh, yeah.

 

Marla Mattenson  41:00  

Well, I don’t want anybody flirting with you at work,

 

Marla Mattenson  41:03  

I want to flirt with

 

Marla Mattenson  41:05  

flirting with you or you know, so you can get playful with your responses and show him if you want more in the relation. If you want the situation to be a relationship, then you can offer up a little bit

 

Damona  41:16  

more like playful. Okay, I need everyone. I just have to pause for a second because I need everyone to really hear what Marla just said. It is so important in the early phase of dating and getting to know people that you find that playfulness and that flirtatiousness as you are trying to figure out where things are headed. So a lot of times my clients get very stressed in that period of when we’re trying to DTR figure out is this going to be a relationship or not, and they don’t know how to find the words to really express what they want without feeling like they’re being raw and vulnerable and potentially getting going to get hurt. But you have to you have to get Curious, and you have to present it if you present it in the way that Marla said. It’s it keeps it light, but it keeps it also intriguing. I would say yes.

 

Marla Mattenson  42:12  

And if Also, if you’re not curious, if you’re not bringing curiosity to these conversations, then you’re bringing something else. You’re bringing your assumptions. You’re bringing what you think is going on,

 

Damona  42:22  

you’re bringing your assumptions, you’re bringing your desire to get married and have a baby yesterday into whatever outcome you’re trying to create. You’re trying to create an outcome, right? That’s kind of the bottom line. That’s right.

 

Marla Mattenson  42:35  

That’s right. So you’re not actually available for what the real outcome is. And the real outcome unfolds, you can’t control it. It actually just kind of naturally organically comes together more and more, the more you’re open and vulnerable, rather than what a lot of people try to do. And I know you’re a master at this is, is helping people understand that if you try to control the dating process, you could actually end Up engaged to someone who doesn’t really know you. Because you’ve been showing what you think they want to see every step along the way, rather than who you really are

 

Damona  43:11  

or manipulating the outcome or

 

Marla Mattenson  43:13  

exactly, exactly, exactly. So curiosity. No, we don’t want that for you don’t do that.

 

Damona  43:17  

Okay, that’s actually a perfect segue in. Okay, this was an email that was sent to me, I’m going to kind of paraphrase hope it’s okay to the listener who’s on this question. But basically, she was with this guy for a while. They broke up, they got back together. They were together for a few years. And then, about three or four months ago, they broke up again. But she’s saying, I miss him. I love him and I want to marry him. We haven’t seen each other in three months. He either changed his phone number or blocked me. I want another chance to be with him for Valentine’s Day. I bought a Valentine’s Day present for him. What should I do to get him back

 

Marla Mattenson  44:00  

I have a little yikes on that when I noticed, I don’t know go easy. So I don’t know how to say this in, I’ll just say it in the most gentle kind way I can. If you want to give a gift to someone, a gift is a one way direction. It is not a two way direction. It’s you want to give a gift. And it’s received by the other person and the person can do whatever they want with they can throw it in the trash, they can cherish it forever, they can do whatever they want. Right? I

 

Marla Mattenson  44:30  

love that.

 

Marla Mattenson  44:32  

Or, and then if they want to respond or reciprocate than they can, but there’s no no guarantee obligation at all for them to have to respond. So if you’re giving a gift with the hopes of getting something in return, then that’s the first question. I would ask yourself. Why do I want to give something to someone who I can’t even get ahold of right now? Like what is it in me that wants to still Reach out and give to someone who I have not received from in months and that I literally don’t really even have any way to get ahold of that. So to me, that tells me that there’s something in you that needs nurturing, and need love and needs attention and affection from someone who loves you, meaning you, you, you need to love yourself first, more than wanting to get married to this particular person. So if you start fulfilling your own love first, you know, then the way the universe works is you shift yourself, then that sends the vibration out to the universe. And then if he is meant to come back to you, he will and if he is not, he will not.

 

Marla Mattenson  45:54  

But let’s look at let’s just look at facts. I mean, they were together for a year I said I was going kind they can No, and then they got back here.

 

Marla Mattenson  46:01  

And

 

Damona  46:02  

I’m glad that you went kind. But I do want to also just realize the reality of the situation. He is being very clear about how, what he sees in the future for this relationship. If he blocked you or he changed his phone number, he’s not responding to you. He is saying, I need a clean break here. And there. I just like you said, I don’t see an positive outcome in chasing a relationship that one person does not want to be in.

 

Marla Mattenson  46:37  

Okay, I’ll say something more about that. That so I appreciate that. So the thing is, is

 

Marla Mattenson  46:43  

you either want harmony in your life, or you want suffering, and it’s conscious or unconscious. And when we chase after someone who clearly is sending the message, no, you’re asking for suffering. So if you you know what would happen, let me let sort run through some, some scenarios. My background is in mathematics and neuroscience pattern recognition is my thing. I can run through all the iterations of what might happen, let’s say spreadsheet, let’s

 

Damona  47:07  

do it. You’re talking about language. Okay,

 

Marla Mattenson  47:10  

so what if you dropped off the package at his house and you saw him? Get out of the car, from you know, kissing somebody else? Oh my gosh. And then what you’re standing there with this present, just dropping in a suffering, you’re going to suffer, everyone’s gonna suffer? What is going on inside of you? That you want suffering? And it’s obviously unconscious, because nobody consciously wants suffering. That’s not that’s not what we do. As humans. We don’t consciously want suffering, unconsciously we recreate family patterns. So ask yourself, can you actually receive love from someone who actually loves you? Who wants to build a life together because as soon as you can really let go of this particular person, in your mind, in your heart, and your soul in your body, go do some cleanses or something like go on a on a solo journey, take a trip by yourself get go to the local park and look at the flowers, take some time for yourself, and then start loving more and more of who you are. And then that’ll shine out. And you’ll actually attract someone who values who you really are

 

Damona  48:19  

so true. Yeah, and just just just to cap it off. I hear this all the time, like I want. I was in love with this person, and I wanted to marry them. And I just have to remind you, if you’ve said that to a relationship that has ended, you’re not in love with that person. You are in love with the idea of that person. They may are in love with the time you invest in or the idea of marriage or the idea of marriage, but you are not in love with that person. Because if that relationship was going to fulfill all your needs, it would be happening. I’m so

 

Marla Mattenson  48:49  

glad you said that because people fall in love with the idea of a person.

 

Marla Mattenson  48:54  

And we have to really I’ve been married in my

 

Marla Mattenson  48:56  

mind.

 

Damona  48:59  

But it was so Different when I met my husband, and then you look, I swear, you look back at those other relationships and you’re like, how could I thought that that was going to be it for me? So so if you look at it from that perspective, maybe that’ll give you a little bit of hope to that something greater. Yeah is out there for you if you do the work that Marla is recommending, we do have one more question. I want to start. Okay, this is this a little bit different. Jenny says I’ve been divorced for about 10 years, and I’m just getting back into dating. She says when I was 16, I needed an ileostomy. I’m not sure exactly what that is. But she said she needed this position, this medical procedure to save her life. And now she has to wear an external pouch for you know, digestion. So she said her ex had no problems with it. And it didn’t interfere with intimacy. But she’s told guys after a few dates about the pouch, and she’s also waited to tell them in some cases, but in most of the cases, she’s told them the guy ghoster she says, Do I wait until there’s a deep emotional connection and risk being emotionally hurt? Or do I tell them up front and lose the guy sooner than later?

 

Marla Mattenson  50:12  

So you think it’s a great question. I think this is a really like beautiful vulnerable question. Absolutely. And

 

Damona  50:18  

I’m sure a lot of people like maybe you don’t have the the pouch like Jenny does, but maybe you have another mental medical condition or,

 

Marla Mattenson  50:27  

or feeling shame around certain part of your body or something

 

Damona  50:29  

body shame, mental health challenge, whatever it is. Everybody has their something.

 

Marla Mattenson  50:34  

Yeah. How do you do this specific thing is a special case scenario really is.

 

Marla Mattenson  50:41  

I would say,

 

Marla Mattenson  50:43  

it depends on who you are. So knowing yourself, so some people are a little more shy. So Jenny, if you’re more of the shy kind of a person, then I would say wait for a significant amount of time before you share that bowl. detail about your life. If you’re more of like a bold, brazen kind of unapologetic person, then then I would say it very early on, I would go very early because if somebody can’t handle that about you, then they can’t handle you.

 

Marla Mattenson  51:15  

So, bye. Bye, Felicia,

 

Marla Mattenson  51:18  

we don’t need any of that. Right, right. We need people in our lives who accept and love us for who we are. So if you’re the bold, I’m more of the bold type. So I’m the type who, hey, I’m just gonna lay it on the table right now from the beginning. And if you don’t dig that about me, that’s okay. We won’t be friends. And that’s okay, too. You know, we should doesn’t mean literally like,

 

Marla Mattenson  51:38  

No, no, no. No, right. Okay, thank you. I appreciate that.

 

Marla Mattenson  51:44  

don’t deal with it. Hey, what about this?

 

Marla Mattenson  51:47  

You know, and there’s a way to do it, obviously, I’m sure you’re very way more nuanced than what I just tried to say. But really knowing who you are because this is not just about Jenny right? This is about everyone who has that one thing that they don’t Really want to share the beginning they’re not sure. I mean, I actually just wrote an article about, you know how to have difficult money conversations with your partner early in a relationship. And, and so that is it’s so tender to talk about the things that we keep very private, that are just for us that are just for the people who really love and know us. And then we’re opening up to the possibility of a new relationship. You know, on some level, you want to test the waters First, make sure this is someone who’s worthy of that kind of information, not just somebody that you met, that you may be interested in, you know, you want to make sure that it’s on the other side, like there’s one side of it is, who are you? Right? You’re bold, or you’re more shy, where are you in that sort of spectrum? That’s how long you should wait and then also, who’s the other person? Are they worthy of hearing these details? Because you don’t want to just share this with someone who’s gonna go post it on Facebook or Instagram or Snapchat or you know,

 

Damona  52:58  

or Yeah, or judge you and Fairly for it like, right. our listeners have heard me say that on dates early on, people have to earn information that’s right from you. So is it something that you would share with like your coworker on the first day at a new job? Is it something that you would tell the person on the bus next to you? If it’s not, then maybe you wait until that you feel that you’ve you’ve earned a little bit of trust in that person? Yeah, they have earned a little

 

Marla Mattenson  53:26  

and also you can be playful with it. Yeah, right. Yes, like transform it into a superpower. Like, oh, oh, you still use some digestive juices to digest your food. That’s amazing. Because mine totally goes into a bag. Yeah. I’m saying like you could do or whatever your particular bag is. You know, some people have a philosophy bag. People have different things. So you can use your quirky thing as a way to be playful with it.

 

Damona  53:57  

Yeah, and some people like her situation. is sort of invisible until she becomes intimate, right? There are people I know that are dealing with very, very visible disabilities challenges, like I had a client who had a very pronounced stutter. That got worse when he was attracted to someone or, you know, sexually, you know, interested. And what we worked out with him is for him to acknowledge it just right right away, but to also turn it into a compliment. So he’d say, I’m sorry, I, I have a stutter. And and I actually stutter more around beautiful women. And so then it became sort of brought them it’s almost going back to what you were saying about putting your partner on your team it put your date on your team. Yeah. So that you acknowledge the elephant in the room, but at the same time you brought that person into it?

 

Marla Mattenson  54:46  

Yes. And then it’s not made into a problem. And here’s the thing. The other piece that I want to say is, if you make your own and it doesn’t sound like you are Jenny, I’m just saying, if if you’re making your own thing, A problem, then that’s the energy that’s going to come through how you communicate it. So before you communicate it, you want to make sure that you’ve made best friends with whatever issue it is that you have, so that you can bring it to the table as not this big huge issue. But as just this is just me,

 

Damona  55:19  

this isn’t is it? You know, it’s just a thing. Yeah. Yeah. This is such great, great advice. Marla, I’m so glad you could be here to share all of your wisdom with us. And this is such valuable information for people who are both dating and in relationships. And if you go into a new relationship, using some of the tools and techniques that Marla just shared, I’m telling you guys, you’re going to have a completely different experience of it. You can find Marla and Julian colker on social media at the intimacy experts. You can find her online at Marla martinson.com will also be sure to put those links in the show notes. Thank you so much for being here. Marla.

 

Marla Mattenson  55:59  

Thank you so much. Much. Also don’t forget,

 

Damona  56:01  

you still have time to find a date for Valentine’s Day. So if you are ready to date differently in 2020, but you don’t know how to get started, the 30 day dating playbook could be your solution. I’m just going to go out on a limb and say it is your solution. And it has worked for so many of my clients before and it works quickly. 90% of my clients last year, left my programs dating someone exclusively in as little as eight weeks. So give yourself this gift, get yourself launched into a relationship and maybe even snag a date before Valentine’s Day. You can find that at 30 day dating.com. And that has all of the five steps that I lead my private clients through that help them to go through their dating funnel figure out where they’re looping and get themselves into the relationship that they dream of. And it’s 30 days it’s self led so you have no excuses go to 30 day dating.com And I’ll put the link to the 30 day dating playbook in the show notes as well. And for those of you who want more love support, but maybe you’re not ready for the playbook. We will be launching a Patreon Friends with Benefits Program in February. So please stay tuned for that we’d love to welcome you into the community. I hope you enjoyed Episode 294 updates and mates again, I’m at damona Hoffman on all of the socials. And we’d love to have you join in on the conversation. You can send me your questions for future episodes and you can leave us a review like darlin, Nikki. And also don’t forget to share this episode with a friend who needs to hear Marla’s unbelievable relationship advice. Thank you so much for listening until next week. Wish you happy dating

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

 

Marriage Boot Camp & Bad Advice

FIND LOVE IN THE AGE OF BAD ADVICE

Dating culture is changing rapidly. A lot of the advice our parents gave us starting out no longer applies in the dating climate today. So how do you know what dating tips still apply to you now?

Enter Dr. V. You may know her as the host of WeTV’s Marriage Boot Camp, but she’s also a PhD in Clinical Psychology, a renowned media personality, and now the bestselling author of “Bad Advice: How to Survive and Thrive in an Age of Bullshit”. She literally wrote the book on sorting through good and bad advice, people!

Here’s the rundown:

D’S DATING DISH (2:45)

Facebook wants to know your secret crushes

Facebook dating is coming to the US! Is this the future of dating? Damona thinks so. 

The scientific way to get a first date

A Princeton study reveals the conversation topic that is guaranteed to get you a first date. Damona and Dr. V break it down.

Charlize is single and ready to mingle

Charlize Theron is a hot, single mom ready to find love. What can you learn from Charlize’s love journey? Damona and Dr. V have thoughts.

BAD ADVICE (18:03)

Dr. V and Damona go through all of the most popular dating advice out there today. First up: If you want to get a man, you need to play hard to get.

This is the WORST advice!

“We have deceived ourselves into believing that the person who cares less wins,” she says. “I’m here to tell you that the person who cares less gets less.”

Dr V is so right! Both women and men are conditioned to make it seem like they aren’t trying to make an impression. We don’t want others to judge us for trying too hard.

Bottom Line: There’s a difference between trying and trying too hard. But if you don’t try at all, you won’t get the outcome in love that you are looking for.

“Lean into love! Because if you care more, you get more,” says Dr. V.

Today’s dating culture is trending toward authenticity and honesty. Lead with your real, authentic self and you are sure to find the love you’re looking for.

Dr. V sets us straight on common advice like:

  • NEVER Text First
  • You can’t love anyone until you love yourself
  • Be upfront about what you want on a first date
  • And so much more!

This is essentially the Dates & Mates version of Dating Bootcamp. As Dr. V always says –

TECHNICALLY DATING (36:00)

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

  • Is he interested or is he bad at texting?
  • Should you wait for him to text back?
  • What do modern women want?
  • How long should you be with someone before they introduce you to their family?

GETTING GLAMMED UP FOR A DATE?

Have a hot date this weekend or another event that you want to glam it up for? Let Glamsquad help you out with Damona’s code! If you’re new to Glamsquad you can get $20 off your first service with my special code Damona20.