The suitable men have a special club that they belong to. It’s a club that requires a suit and there are no women allowed. If you’re looking for them you’re out of luck because they’ve realised life is a whole lot easier without a woman looking for the perfect man.  They have passwords, secret handshakes and everything else necessary to keep their club well hidden.  You’re never getting in. So thanks for asking.

That leaves you with the rest of us!

The real answer to ‘where are all the suitable men?’ is simply this. That suitable man is wherever you are, he’s walking in the same park you’re in, he’s in the same coffee shops you’re drinking in, he’s standing next to you in the supermarket. You may not meet him today or even tomorrow but I know for a fact he’s out there.

So how can 4 women go to a speed dating event and not manage to find at least one suitable man? I even spoke to the woman that wrote to me. It turns out that 15 guys ticked her box, which means they’re eager to date her. She only dated one of them who turned out to be too young for her.

I attend dating events in a professional capacity and I know that they can attract the worst kind of men, but generally 75% of them are presentable and you can side step the rest. So worst case scenario this woman got ticked by 5 social liabilities which leaves her with ten at least reasonable men. So she picks the guy that’s too young. Does that strike anyone else here as interesting?

One of the earliest things my clients do, male or female, is draw up a list detailing their ‘Perfect Partner’. There is a tendency for some people, and this generally applies more to my male clients, to be totally unrealistic. So point number one is that if you’re looking to get with someone who’s a ten you better be at least an eight or they’re not going to approach you or allow you to approach them.

The second issue, and I think this is where the initial question really comes from, is that a ten will rarely be found at a speed dating event – finding people to date isn’t something they struggle with. Your job is to find the places where they do spend time. This is the tricky bit for some people but it’s easily fixed. There are so many different ways of meeting people. The thing is, it takes perseverance.

One of my clients started going to Toastmaster’s because she wanted to meet some quality men and figured that an organization dedicated to learning how to speak up in public would be a great place to start.  Initially it was hard work, the group was fairly closed but over time things started to warm up and before long she was dating the Vice President.

If you start dance classes then you need to persevere to the point where you stop looking like a dork, and then people will get a lot more interested. It’s a phenomenon referred to as ‘social proof’. Once you start being accepted in a group your value goes up and suddenly you have chemistry.

Potentially the truth is that our suitable men really are hanging out in clubs, you’ve just got to get access and figure out how to get their attention. If the people you meet are below the standards you’ve set then you need to look in a better environment. I once worked with a guy who worked as a bouncer in a strip joint and wondered why all the women he met there seemed to be a little unsuitable.

So I have two answers to the question.

One possibility is that some of the things you’re specifying as essential qualities are unrealistic and either you, or your love interest, are never going to measure up. The second possibility is that you’re hanging out in all the wrong places. If this is your issue it’s time to stop being lazy and generate some much better ideas about where to find these ‘suitable men’. A relevant quote by Edwin Lowes Cole that I like is ‘You don’t drown by falling into water, you drown by staying there.’

For More Tips For Finding Mr Right – Please See Below

Loneliness is one of the reasons I insist my clients agree to a ‘man ban’ during the first couple of months of coaching with me. Feeling lonely is such a powerful pain that people will get into the strangest relationships in order to avoid it. If you’d like to know how to come to terms with loneliness then please read on.

I’ve been coaching people long enough to know that feeling lonely can happen in a multitude of circumstances and ways; having to go to a wedding on your own because you’re only allowed to bring a ‘significant’ other and then returning to an empty house. Trying to organise a girlie lunch or a boys night out and having your friends bring their partners along. Being continually surrounded by happy, laughing couples having their perfect relationships all around you in the street or out shopping. And then you have the pain of shopping for one and then carrying it all home on your own. Added to all that you have got the agony of pretending that everything’s fine because you’d hate anyone to know you’re lonely because it’s so unattractive – that only adds to your sense of isolation.

The first point I make about loneliness is that it can’t kill you, you won’t die of it. It is only ever going to be a feeling. It is a particularly insidious one, but you’re always going to be far bigger than your worst feeling. It’s no excuse for getting yourself into yet another pointless relationship because it’s better than nothing.

That emptiness you’re feeling is the new found space in your life that’s opened up for you to explore. Right after a break-up you’ve got heart break but eventually it just feels like you’ve got a hole in your life. That hole is a space that you could grow into. Being single is said to be a luxury we often fail to notice in our desire to get back into a relationship.

Different people handle the experience of being single in different ways. For some it’s very painful and for others it’s a cause for celebration as they get back out into ‘the game’, knowing they are one step closer to winning. Bare minimum they now have enough free time to catch up with their friends or upgrade their wardrobe.

In order for a situation to be really, really painful you must believe three things are true of it. You must believe it’s permanent, personal and all pervasive. Teresa was busy telling her self that she’d never find another man as nice as her ex because she was totally depressed and always would be. She was miserable because ‘everyone’ she knew had a great relationship so her failure really was (as far as she was concerned) personal to her. Added to which Teresa told herself that no one really cared about her situation and her friends were all sick of her whining. She’d taken to drinking on her own at home whilst singing along to an ‘All by Myself’ type sound track a la Bridget Jones with no hope of being rescued.

You may be lonely but you’re a long way from being alone. All over whatever town or city you live in are people just like you feeling lonely and worthless because they aren’t in a relationship. The irony of course is that the reason Bridget Jones was such a hit is that everyone could identify with it. Even the men I coach, their loneliness may look a little different but it’s just as painful. Loneliness is not personal to you, you’re just not that special.

Teresa realised fairly quickly that it really wasn’t a permanent state. Through her day there were certain hot spots like going to bed, waking up alone, sitting down for breakfast or as she was putting on her running shoes which were all things she did with her ex. So we came up with some ways of breaking up those feelings. This is a fairly well kept secret but getting your self a cuddly teddy bear, giraffe or even elephant will help you get over that empty feeling.

The scientific term is ‘transitional love object’ and they really help with not feeling alone in bed. You could of course get a cat or dog if you can deal with the responsibility and your lease allows for it. This has worked so many times I could write a book on it but it’s not what I want to be famous for . Get yourself something cuddly!

The other thing about permanence is that it’s clearly not true. You’ve been in love before and you will love again, that much is a given. There are thousands of people out there desperate to get to know you better. The more interesting challenge is setting up a relationship that both parties feel is worth making permanent and that I can help you with. You’re a grown up. Yes, your last love may have been amazing but trust me, once the hormones kick in again you won’t spend too much time looking back.

Teresa had gone a long way to convincing herself that all her friends had gone off her and didn’t want to deal with her sadness. Her lack of love was now all pervasive. As a result she’d started staying home on the weekends and had got herself into a vicious circle. This was very easily interrupted by Teresa phoning her closest friends and making an arrangement to go to the cinema with them and then building on that connection.

It’s really that simple, if you’re feeling bad you’ll be telling yourself that at least two of the terrible triad are true. Is your situation really permanent, personal and all pervasive? The faster you can dismantle that particular piece of internal dialogue the better you’ll feel. So what are you saying to yourself that’s making all of this so much worse?

Tips on Dealing With Loneliness

Do something physical that involves other people
Learn how to rock climb which will teach you to trust people again. Learn Ceroc or some other partnered dance which will at the very least mean that someone you like will hold your hand at some point in an evening. All of these things get you out of your head and back into your body.

Become one with yourself
Tai Chi, Yoga and meditation could also help but they lack a sense of connection to others which can be important when lonely. The up side of these practices is that you may learn to get your feelings into perspective and stop having to run away from them. That’s no small thing.

Plan ahead
Try to arrange things to do with people well ahead of the times you’d normally get sunk in feeling lonely. Don’t leave it until Friday night to start planning for your weekend.

Get something to take care of
It’s a funny thing but sometimes the thing we miss most is having someone to care about. You could buy yourself a plant, a pet or even take me up on the cuddly toy idea. Be careful about the pet though, if you’re not careful it could well become a long term reminder of how lonely you felt.

Best wishes

Michael

I’d been doing my best to assist people with their marital problems for years before finally giving up as it seemed to be remarkably unfulfilling. My results in marriage counselling were less than inspiring, couples just kept breaking up. I wasn’t the only one having this experience; people who do work in marriage counselling have developed a joke that couples only come to marriage therapy because they want to break up more elegantly. In hindsight this is clearly ridiculous, every couple fell in love for a reason and my experience, with much better training, is that they are desperate to recapture that feeling.

It wasn’t entirely my fault though as a lot of traditional marriage counselling is badly flawed. On my last trip to Boston I managed to set up a video interview with Terrence Real (I’m aware I’m using his full name a lot but if you knew about how search engines worked you would too). I had him talk about the difference between traditional marriage counselling and what he teaches people to do which he calls Relational Life Therapy (RLT).

You can find the video half way down this page in the box, http://www.therelationshipgym.com/couples_therapy.htm It’s pretty obvious, I’m sat on a the couch and the other guy is Terrence Real. In the video he outlines the 3 major points that make RLT different from other forms of marriage counselling.

1. We are taught to that it’s OK to take sides, not all relationship help needs to be 50/50. Sometimes it really is about one person being totally unreasonable. Take a look at the video, Terry gives a really good example.
2. We are taught to tell the truth (respectfully and with compassion!). If the issue is that Jack just refuses to stop screaming at Laura then we are trained to tell him it has to stop in a way that he can hear.
3. We are taught to then show Jack the difference between right and wrong rather than forcing him to take the next two years to figure it out for himself.

Now that might not sound like much but let me tell you it’s light years on from a lot of what passes for marriage counselling. That first point about taking sides is hugely helpful. In traditional marriage counselling the therapist is actively discouraged from ever taking sides. One of several reasons this happens is that in one to one therapy, the therapist is generally working on raising someone’s self esteem in the name of personal empowerment, which is all well and good because that’s what a huge amount of people come to therapy for. To pretend the same is true of couples seeking help is plain stupid. Generally at least one party isn’t thrilled about being there and really isn’t looking for help with his or her self esteem. What a huge percentage of couples really need is for someone to help them out of the power struggle they are entrenched in. Very loosely put, at least one person is always feeling ‘superior’ to the other in the relationship and it’s causing huge problems. The solution has nothing to do with raising their self esteem and everything to do with bringing down their grandiosity.

Terrence Real is big on the truth. You’ll find often times that in marriage counselling the therapist is being very careful not to frighten one party off, and it’s generally the man. The party least invested in the relationship has all the power which can be a real minefield. So for years therapists have gone very gently on the husbands hoping to build enough rapport with them to eventually tell them that all the shouting or storming out of rooms just isn’t helpful. This left marriage therapists in the same position as a lot of partners, hoping not to offend the offender. Turns out that in order for marriage counselling to be effective I have to be willing to take on the more offensive partner. Men in particular hate being handled, as much as they pretend otherwise they’re very good at changing once they’re clear on what changes need to happen and why.

The next key difference Relational Life Therapy has over a lot of marriage counselling is that therapists trained in the model are taught that showing someone how to do something right isn’t a bad thing. In individual therapy there may be time for an individual to arrive at their own conclusions but when a marriage is on the line Terrence Real suggests that ‘its borderline abusive’ not to give the couple the information they so desperately need. B y the time most couples make it to marriage counselling they are generally very close to breaking point and the quicker a therapist can get them out of pain the better. Couples are very smart and if they were able to figure it out on their own they would have.

As Terry explains in the video, these are three of the major differences between what Relational Life Therapy and traditional marriage counselling have to offer. He puts it across in a much more succinct fashion in the video and you might enjoy the level of incredulity he’s willing to display about what other therapists are up to. It’s Ok, he’s earned the right as far as I’m concerned. I used to make all those mistakes with my marriage counselling before training with Terrence Real. If you want a brilliant introduction to his work then get hold of a copy of ‘The New Rules Of Marriage’. It’s a real page turner, particularly if you’re in a relationship of any kind. Make no mistake; it’s not just people that are married to each other that are struggling. Terrence Real is a family therapist and families exist everywhere, take a look around your work place and you’ll see what I mean.

Best wishes

Michael

As with most of the couples I see, one of the primary areas that Diana and Steve were struggling with was their understanding of how to apply healthy boundaries. I’m about to give you a lesson that has the potential to totally revolutionise the way you approach life and how you feel about it. You might not need marriage help, but I can assure you that this article will simplify your life.

Pia Mellody, in a book called ‘Facing Love Addiction’, has a great metaphor for boundaries that my clients have found fertile. Let’s say that you have a garden at the back of your home. (Hey, in central London that’s not something you take for granted!) Ideally there is something that marks out where your space ends and your neighbours’ begins. Let’s say your three choices are a six foot brick wall, nothing at all or a hedge that stands about waist height.

If you’ve got a wall that’s six feet tall then you’ve got lots of protection from your neighbour but very little potential for connection. Let’s face it, you can’t even talk over it let alone see each other. This was pretty much how Steve behaved and Diana would often talk about him putting up walls and blanking her, especially when she was upset at something he’d done. Whilst Steve may appear to be getting the better deal of the two of them by walking away, the truth is that he wasn’t getting any intimacy either.

If you have no boundary at all then you’ve got the possibility for lots of connection but no protection. If anything goes wrong between you and your neighbour then things could get very messy as no one has any real idea about where the lines should be drawn. Diana had very little of what could be termed a ‘protective boundary’ and as a result tended to take everything very personally and was easily upset. This kind of behaviour is often referred to as being over-sensitive and as much as I personally try to hold my sensitivity up as a quality to aspire to, it does have its limits.

What is especially interesting, if these things interest you, is that despite appearances both Steve and Diana were struggling with maintaining a protective boundary. All the door slamming and walking away on Steve’s part was due to a fear of being overwhelmed by what he saw as ‘the endless criticisms’ Diana was making of him. It would be easy to think that if Steve could just bring his walls down everything would be better, but it’s just not true. You may also be thinking that if Diana could stop being so needy then Steve might stop building walls. That would also be a mistake. Given we always get with our emotional equals it’s a fair assumption that both of them have work to do in this area.

In order to build your own psychological fence here’s an exercise you can do which will allow you to create a healthy protective boundary that you can use. You need to think of a time when you were relaxed, happy and aware of your strength and inherent lovability. Bring that time to mind and think about the kind of things you said to yourself back there and feel how your body felt back then. Is there anywhere in your body that feeling appears to reside in? If there is, you could place your hand there to emphasise it a little more, maybe even turn up your inner volume switch to increase that feeling. Now you know what you’re doing, do it again with your eyes shut; let yourself feel great, and really relax into it.

Once you have a connection to that feeling imagine what it would be like if a giant jam jar came down to enclose you and keep that feeling inside you. (If you are one of the ‘way too literal’ types you can include air holes in the roof of your jar.) You now have an extra skin, an extra a layer of protection. But you should know that in that layer of glass is a little door that you can open should you need to let anything in that might be useful from the outside world.

How it works is this – if someone says something about you, take a moment before you decide whether to let it in or not. The question you ask yourself is, ‘Is this true for me?’ If something is true you can decide to open that door and let it in but you do it as a conscious action. If it’s not true then it just hits that outer shield and slides to the floor. I like to pretend I hear a thudding sound as it crashed into what I refer to as my bullsh*t shield.

This is a muscle that needs to be built up over time, but you can do it. You just need to keep doing it until eventually it becomes automatic. A point to note is that you probably already do this at work with most people, it’s just the ones you care about that can get to you so easily. Practice having your version of a waist-high hedge, you’ll be protected and connected.

In Steve and Diana’s case what they noticed most immediately is that Steve could suddenly listen to Diana without going into meltdown and storming off, as in his words, ‘it didn’t seem so personal anymore’. As a result Diana felt she got heard more often, but what she found more empowering is that even if Steve stomped off on one of his bad days, that didn’t seem so personal either.

With both of them having a protective boundary they were able to maintain a much healthier perspective. In Diana’s words, ‘Simply because Steve is feeling badly about me no longer means I feel compelled to feel bad about myself too’.

Best wishes

Michael

Tips on Healthy Boundaries

Get Educated
Establishing healthy boundaries is a heroic effort, the experts talk about taking 3-5 years to really sort them out. Pia Melody’s book, The Intimacy Factor, discusses boundaries at great length as does Terrence Real in The New Rules of Marriage. (And yes I’m aware I’m turning into a bit of a Terry Real groupie, he’s just that good!)

Use a Stop Sign
One of my coaches once taught me that it’s useful to pretend you have one of your hands out in front of you, fingers facing up, like you’re saying ‘STOP!’. Every comment anyone makes about you is forced to stop and you evaluate whether to let it in or just slide to the floor in front of you.

Watch more TV
If you pay attention you’ll begin to notice the outrageous amount of boundary violations that go on in the world. For now try to catch when people are using really good protective boundaries, there’s a few of them out there. ‘House’ is one of my favourite shows for observing this kind of stuff. In case you wonder, he’s massively walled off and a total boundary violator. Let me know if you can think of any other examples.

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What are your five favourite love stories?

No cheating by looking at my list, come up with your own.  Now the ones that generally come up, in no particular order, are.

Romeo and Juliet
The Bridges in Madison County
Bridget Jones’s Diary
Jerry Maguire
The Titanic
Sleepless in Seattle
Message in a Bottle
City of Angels
Four Weddings and a Funeral
Pretty Woman
Notting Hill
Moulin Rouge
Betty Blue
Pride and Prejudice
Beauty and the Beast
Shakespeare in Love
Donnie Darko
Gone with the Wind
Love Story
When Harry Met Sally
Before Sunset

So  here comes the first mind blowing distinction. There is a world of difference between love and romance. All we are ever shown in movies and through the media are romances, people love a good romance but none of us really have the stomach for a love story.

There are 21 films listed above:

• 95% of them deal with an infatuation.
• 10 of them include an actual death as the end of the relationship,
• 13 of them set up a relationship that would have to overcome impossible challenges to survive
• In 15 of these films the couple spend less than a week together before we’re led to believe that they would live happily ever after.
• One of them ends with the guy suffocating the gal beneath a pillow after she’s taken her own eyes out.

Given what I know about the nature of relationships I’d give 7 out of the 21 a 50% chance of success and the others next to no chance.

Well, if that’s love my dating advice will always be in demand.  At the very best they are films about infatuation; they’ve got very little to do with love and the reality of living in love with a person. I know several actors and we joke about the roles they play, it seems that no sooner are two people happily in love than the script writers are figuring out a way of killing one of them for dramatic effect. It seems the public don’t actually want a love story, most people prefer a tragedy. Romeo and Juliet is not the greatest love story every told, it’s a tragedy about a couple of fairly messed up teenagers. The only thing that makes it seem like a love story is that so many of the love stories around us, and maybe even our own, appear to be tragedies. It’s time to grow up and get real around this stuff, we’ve been lied to and misled most of our lives about love.

We’ve been led to believe that when we meet ‘the one’ we’ll know him instantly, a spark will leap across the room and we’ll ‘just know’. Well I don’t know about you, but I’ve had that feeling so often that I’ve almost lost count and some of those soul mates became cell mates I can no longer bring myself to talk to. We’ve also been told that if it’s the right person then it will be easy. There will be no struggles or difficulties that we can’t laugh our way through. Not only that but it’s going to be the best sex we’ve ever had, it will all be totally new and we’ll both want to do it all the time. Most of all though it’s important that we both believe that we’ve never felt this way before and it will always feel this good. If you start from this position I guarantee you’re going to need relationship help at some point

One of the biggest revelations I hold out is that we really need to give up on looking for someone perfect and start looking for someone perfect for us. Stop looking for Mr. or Ms. Perfect and find someone to love.

Tips

• Try to generate a list of healthy relationships that have been portrayed in the media. Two of my favourite shows are Six Feet Under and Brothers and Sisters. If you know any others please let me know.
• Those of us who are fixated on beautiful media personalities need to know that level of beauty isn’t real. You would be horrified just how much work goes into tweaking publicity photo’s and those movie close ups.
• Start to focus on learning some of the skills you need for getting along with a person, not just attracting one. It’s really never going to be plain sailing. We all need relationship help when it comes to communicating with the people we love as they can be the most painful fall outs. Get a copy of The New Rules of Marriage by Terrence Real. I’ve probably said this before but Terrence Real is a genius and that book is the best I’ve read on relationships in the past 20 years. If you prefer slightly pulpier try How to Make Love all of the Time by Barbara DeAngelis.
• Watch your favourite movies and then take some time to work out whether that love was real. Would it look or feel the same without the clever lighting, the expensive sets and that beautiful music?

He Never Says ‘I Love You’!

Joyce* has been coming to me for relationship advice for a couple of months as she was considering leaving her relationship. She’d been with this guy for the last two years but had got to the point where she could no longer ignore her sense of feeling unloved and under appreciated. Initially she was very angry with her partner James, but has more recently she’d come to the understanding that the level of pain she was in was her responsibility not his.

One of the biggest areas for potential growth occurs the moment you accept that it’s your job to educate your partner about what makes you feel most loved. Then, for a truly magnificent relationship, learn how to love your partner how they want to be loved, not how you think they want to be loved.

One of my clients taught me to think about this concept in a really easy way. When it comes to giving our loved ones gifts there is a real tendency to end up buying your partner the things you’d love to receive. So James buying his girlfriend a Nintendo Gameboy and Joyce buying him a new pair of shoes was never really going to go well.

Gary Chapman wrote a book called ‘The Five Languages of Love’ and it’s a real eye opener. You see, we all have our own preferred way to receive love and the mistake that we make is in assuming that our mate speaks that same language. The five languages are as follows.

1. Words of appreciation. If this is your thing then being told ‘I love you’ could mean the world to you. If it isn’t then potentially as far as you’re concerned ‘words are cheap’.

2. Acts of service. If this is your language then your partner could touch your heart by cooking you dinner or arranging to have your garden cleared. This was my Granny’s language ‘Love is as love does!’ Of course if this isn’t how you get to feel loved then for you your partner spending hours in the kitchen cooking could feel like they were avoiding physical touch.

3. Quality Time. This is about making time for each other just to be together maybe going out to the movies or hanging around in bed all day long. Hopefully you’re beginning to see how some of these languages can conflict. If you’re looking for ‘Acts of service’ and your partner is just lying around on the couch with you then you may be feeling pretty unloved.

4. Physical touch. Some people feel loved the most from being held, cuddled or stroked. It’s important to note that this isn’t necessarily in a sexual way. Your partner may be busy giving you the massage of a life time as far as they are concerned and you are potentially laid there wondering why they never tell you that they love you.

5. Gifts. ‘Yahoo! You bought me a book. I can’t believe how much you love me!’ Now depending on whether this is your language you may wonder if the above line is for real. Trust me, for some people even small gifts really light up their heart. Of course if it isn’t your language then you are really sure that ‘Money can’t buy you love!’

Joyce took a really good look at the five different languages and instantly spotted that ‘acts of service’ allowed her to feel loved. One of her previous boyfriends had spent a day fixing up her bathroom and James never seemed to do anything for her. Of course she was busy cooking for him on a regular basis and worked really hard to keep the flat tidy for him. All of which she quietly resented doing as it all seemed very one sided.

I had her sit down with James and it turned out that in order for him to feel truly loved he needed quality time. For James quality time meant watching a movie together or just laying around in bed chatting. Unfortunately he’d spent quite a lot of time waiting for Joyce to ‘finish her endless list of chores’ by which time he’d fallen asleep or gone off the idea. I’m hoping you can see how that dynamic was born to fail. The good news is that the moment they clarified the confusion between themselves they came up with some solutions that met both their needs.

It really is worth asking your loved one, I guarantee that they know which language they speak. There is no right and wrong around this, you just need to figure out how to love you partner the best way for them. Remember that because their language is likely to be foreign to you, you may be better asking them to teach you about the kind of things they’d love.

Quick Tips For Giving Gifts People Love

Words

If your partner longs to hear how much you love them then try to make sure that the last thing they hear at night is how special they are to you. Tell them something they did that moved you and just how much you appreciated it.

Acts of service

We all have things we wish we could get done but haven’t got around to yet. Maybe your partner has been trying to hang a mirror for the past year or sort out a particular flower bed in the garden. Once you figure one of these things out try to get it done whilst they are out. It pays big dividends if this is their language.

Quality time

Quality is best defined by your partner. For some it’s time out doing fantastically exciting things and for others it’s time in by the fire with no distractions other than your underwear.

Physical touch

These people are generally fairly obvious, they are the ones that love to hold you even while you’re washing up. If physical touch isn’t your thing that can be plain irritating, so try to figure out better ways of meeting their needs. As a gross generalisation that may be helpful a lot of women feel more nourished if the touching is non-sexual. In contrast a lot of men find physical touch that isn’t sexual to be less rewarding.

Gifts

Interesting point here. According to John Gray men and women differ on receiving gifts. Apparently every gift a woman receives scores a point, anywhere between picking up her favourite magazine and buying her an expensive piece of jewellery will only win you one point. Men however don’t work this way. They only really recognise and remember the big things. Show up at his home with a top of the line Scalextrix and he’s yours forever. The little treats just don’t stay in his memory in the same way and pretty quickly get filed as clutter.

* We always change names to protect our clients privacy.

Your Sexual Pilot Light!

It may be an indication of my age but I can remember an advert for Turkish Delight that featured a tag line stating that it was ‘full of eastern promise’. Come to think of it the Flake adverts weren’t exactly subtle either. I’ve got close friends in advertising and you can bet that if there’s a way of working sex into an ad they’ll find it. If you are looking for great dating advice then those ads hold some helpful clues.

Like it or not, and personally I choose to like it most of the time, you live in a society that is largely fixated on sex. I’m guessing this isn’t news to you, you’re bombarded with semi erotic images all day long. Yes, it can be distracting but the good news is that it’s not just the sexual act that people are fixated upon but the promise of sex. Just watch some adverts, they’re clearly not offering you great sex but the suggestion is there. Particularly the ads marketing to the age group of most of the clients I work with.

This is going to be contentious and if it bothers you then please just bear with me. I hate to say this but it seems to me that quite a few of the women that end up on my Finding Mr Right courses or working privately with me aren’t exactly relaxed around being sexual beings or even talking about it. It’s almost as if being out of a relationship means that their bodies become off limits. This can actually be quite literal, one of my female clients, Julie, (name changed) was so crushed by the loss of a relationship that she slept fully clothed as the feeling of being naked and alone was unbearable. She really just didn’t want to know about her body as it just reminded her of how alone she felt.

I believe we all need to take time to get over a significant relationship but women tend to wait too long before getting back into dating. The standard guide is that we need about a month to get over a person for each year we were together. If it’s taking longer than that then it may be wise to get some assistance. Julie had been in this phase for 18 months and even she knew she had to change.

Peta Heskell in ‘Flirt Coach’ talks about ‘Giving out the glow.’ She’s the only person I’ve seen dare to say in print that there’s a certain energy that comes off a sexually active person that people find attractive. Sometimes if you’ve been single a while it’s as if the sexual pilot light goes out and you just get busy with just getting on with life. Having spoken with clients about this for years I know that this is a real phenomenon. Julie had been working with me for a couple of months and getting nowhere fast on the dating front. She couldn’t understand why she was getting no interest from men or being asked out, and frankly having seen her photo neither could I. When we talked about sex however, it turned out that she hadn’t had sex with a partner for over 18 months and felt sad and a bit guilty about masturbation so she wasn’t doing that either. She had managed to turn into someone who came across as totally A-sexual. Which most men interpret as either not interested or just not interesting. What it appears to boil down to is that if you’re going to live like a nun people will treat you like one. No offence intended to my nun readers but don’t be holding your breath waiting for a guy to make a move.

Through internet dating Julie met a man who she fancied but clearly wasn’t husband material. He expressed an interest in having sex, something along the lines of ‘I don’t really see a future for us but I’ve got some very exciting fantasies about you.’ Given her desire to reawaken her sexual spark she decided to go with it. The week after, having changed nothing else, she was getting more male attention than she’d had in the last six months. I’m not saying that promiscuity is the key to your finding Mr Right, what I am saying is that shutting down your sexual energy isn’t going to help.

Having taught Yoga for so many years in the past. I see things most people miss. Women who used to walk into class looking a little shut down or grey, one day, generally after a couple of months, there is a significant change; they brighten up, stand differently and suddenly the men in the room are finding them a lot more distracting. Sometimes it’s because they’ve just got a boyfriend and their feel good hormones are raging and sometimes it’s just because they’ve reconnected with their bodies. As Peta says ‘We are all sexual beings’. Sometimes it just needs to be re-awakened. If you want some concrete ideas then check out my tips below.

So what am I saying? I hear you ask. If you feel you need to, then it’s time to reawaken your sexual energy. Fortunately intercourse isn’t the only way to reawaken your sexuality, you have lots of great options. I’m sure you can use your imagination to think up some alternatives. Dreaming up new ways has got to be better than the work that I’ve interrupted you from . If the whole idea is distasteful for you then you’re going to need help, it’s not my intention to burn any bridges here but let me just say some of you are not single by accident whether you know it or not. You may have some trauma or abuse incident in your past that’s really holding you back and I’d be happy to help.

So what I’m talking about here is just one area of dating advice on what I refer to as the dating wheel, it’s one element of your market value. If you’re struggling with being single or know someone else that is I’m hoping this has been helpful. If it’s not your issue take a look at my website and see if you can figure out what is. Enjoy your homework! Don’t worry, no one else needs to know,

Top Dating Advice Tips

Decide to get physical. It’s important to get back into your body in such a way you become excited about it. Ideally it would become something you view as such a great treasure that any bloke who gets to share it, with you, is truly blessed. It may be that you start Yoga, Salsa, Ceroc (the ultimate choice for those of us with two left feet) or maybe even a belly dancing class. Although given you’re out there looking for a partner I suggest you go for partnered type dance classes because if nothing else you’re going to get at least a little physical contact you like. Just having your hand held can be very good for your spirit.

Start to play around sexually. Some of my clients are very shy around the subject of sex and have lost partners on the basis of not being adventurous enough. I believe there’s a whole language around sex and seduction, either you can speak it or you can’t. As a woman it ups your market value hugely with most men if you can. Pick up one of the more tasteful erotic novels and see if there’s anything you can learn from it. Aim for the stuff written by women for women, at least in the beginning. You would do well to learn the linguistical loveliness of luscious language.
If you can become his favourite fantasy without feeling like you’re lowering yourself then you’ll be married in weeks. There are ways of having conversations with a man, particularly if you are really, really interested that guarantee you his full attention. Learn this and you’ll be kicking butt and taking names. This is a much bigger piece that gets covered on my Finding Mr Right course and outlined in the FMR e-book.

For the men who managed to read this far let me just say that approached correctly women are eager to have you relight their sexual pilot light. If you’re stuck for ideas look at our How To Talk To Anyone And Enjoy It ebook.

I’m about to teach you a skill that may well revolutionise the way you view conflicts in your life.

Often times our conflicts are about trying to get other people to change and become more like ourselves. The irony here for me is that it’s hard enough for me to change myself let alone try to bend someone else to my will. It is my humble suggestion that we should all stop trying and take a lot more responsibility for handling our own emotional issues. The strange thing about this of course is that the moment you stop trying to bully your partner into changing they are generally more than happy to meet you half way. Let me show you how you do it.

Emotional literacy is a key skill in life, it’s essential if we are to get along with others and a core marriage counselling lesson. Most of the population struggle with trying to figure out how we are ‘ supposed to behave’ how we are ‘supposed to react’ how we are ‘supposed to really love someone’. One of the things that my clients struggle most with is how to communicate hurt in a way that actually gets heard.

I used to teach people the basic phrase. When you did X, I felt Y. I first learned this on my marriage counselling training years ago. My client Rob* recently had an issue with his partner Mary forgetting to take their car in for a service. He found himself in a blazing row about it with her and had no idea why. Using the old phrase he said ‘Mary, when you failed to take the car into the garage I felt really angry’. I’ve been teaching people this stuff for years, it’s what I was taught! I look at that phrase now and wonder how anyone ever thought it would go well. I guess it’s light years on from ‘you really piss me off’ but I suspect it’s heard in much the same way. Mary heard Rob blaming her and being angry with her and like most of the population reacted fairly badly.

Now, here is a really simple change you can make and most of your conflict problems are over. The new structure goes like this: When you did X, I imagined Y and as a result I felt Z. Using the example above Rob would now say; ‘Mary, when you didn’t take the car into the garage I imagined that you don’t understand or care about how concerned I am about the car breaking down and leaving one of us stranded. As a result I feel upset.’

This new structure pushes what a friend of mine calls ‘the soft button’. It directly requires you to open up about a fear or insecurity of yours that has been triggered. People generally respond with love and affection to an honest request for reassurance. The other thing about the new structure is it removes the sense of blaming and gets you out of the criticise, counter-criticise or defend cycle so many conflicts get lost in. There is also less of a lean toward an implicit demand that the other person fixes your feeling for you. This is all very good news.

There is a ladder of emotion in all conflict that goes from anger to sadness and from sadness to fear. A lot of us use anger as a way of trying to disguise something we are embarrassed about or feel ashamed of. This is particularly true of men. As men there is a pull toward using grandiosity as a way of asserting ourselves and never having to share our vulnerability. Being forced to disclose what it is that we imagine also forces us to push our own ‘soft button’, you’ll notice in the example that Rob moved himself from feeling angry to upset.

A few weeks later Rob was hoping to pick Mary up from the airport, he was really excited about her return and had great images in his head of a romantic reunion. However, on the phone the night before her return Mary announced that she’d booked a cab to take her home and she’d see him later in the day. Using his new skills he said; ‘ Mary, you booking a cab home has left me imagining that you are not as excited about our reunion as I am and I have to say I’m feeling a little unloved and hurt as a result.’ This is light years on from old Rob who would have just announced that he was pissed off that she was getting a cab home or put the phone down all tight lipped with hurt. With the new approach Mary explained that actually she was concerned that after a 14 hour flight she was going to look, and potentially smell, less than her best. She was just as excited as he was about their reunion and as a result of their conversation decided to risk not looking her best having brushed her teeth and re-applied her make up in the airport toilets.

This might appear simple because it is. The effects though are really profound. You will be amazed about the amount of times you avoid what could have been a fight by clarifying what is really going on between the two of you. That said some of my clients have hit problems when their partner seems to just ignore what they are trying to say or responds angrily. Other times it’s hard to figure out what’s really going on and how to communicate it. Most of us grew up in families with no idea about how to handle conflict. If you’d like any further help with sorting out any of the above please just get in touch and I or one of my coaches would be happy to help you.

Tips.

Promote positive intent

As you go through your day you will be amazed at how often an assumption you make works against you. Your rage at a guy for driving too fast becomes much softer when you realise that he’s off to the hospital because his wife is in labour. Even if it’s fictitious, generating a good reason for someone’s behaviour will make for an easier life. This is especially true with strangers!

Practice every chance you get

Whilst your newly discovered X,Y,Z approach appears easy it’s going to require practice. Try it with everyone you have any kind of relationship with. Clarifying the truth will generally make your life a lot easier rather than basing your life on assumptions. As my granny used to say ‘to assume makes an ass out of u and me.’ In the corporate world it’s ‘assumptions are the mother of all f’ ups.

Start to tune up your softness

When you catch yourself getting angry, try to take a while to feel out exactly what is going on for you. Anger is healthy when it’s felt and expressed correctly, a lot of our anger though is about trying to change someone and that’s entirely different. Anger is a signal that something is wrong. Let’s say you’re angry and you start pointing the finger at someone, well, if you look at your hand you’ll see that three of your fingers are actually pointing back into you. That’s what some would call a clue! If this happens a lot with your partner you’d be wise to get some marriage counselling.

Skim through the steps, then print off this practical advice on dealing with relationship break-ups. Keep referring back to it as you work through each step of the process. Yes, it will still take time, but working through the steps will reduce the pain of your break up as much as possible.

1. Feel your Feelings

You’re probably already doing this bit and are looking to move on, but feeling your feelings is an essential part of the healing process.

Some people really struggle with feeling certain feelings, some of us are easier with anger, others with grief. I’d encourage you to explore them all by writing a ‘Grief’ letter to your ‘X’. It’s important to know that you’ll never send this letter so you can really explore ever aspect of how you feel.

Take the time to explore what you’re going to miss and what aren’t you going to miss. What are you angry about? What are you sad about? What do you fear this break up means? What was your part in the break up? What are you always going to love or appreciate about your ‘x’. Explore it these questions in such a way that you can feel all the things you suspect may be true even if you’d rather they were not. Write the letter as if you writing it to someone who really cares about how you feel.

It’s really important that you take time to do this. Every time you leave a relationship there is a danger that you will harden your heart due to the pain and disappointment. That hardening makes you less attractive and makes your life a lot less loving. If you do this properly you’ll be able to reconnect with at least some of the love you felt for this person you’ve parted from. Not in a way that eats at you, in a way that nourishes your sense of life.
If you’ve loved deeply once then you can do it again. Work to keep your heart healthy and open.

2. Recognise the signal to move on

At some point – whether it’s days, weeks or even months – you’ll get a sense that you’re fed up with feeling bad. Maybe there’s a growing frustration with yourself that you aren’t moving on. Maybe you’re there right now; that’s why you’ve come looking for break up advice. If you aren’t yet at this stage yet then bookmark this page and come back to it when you’re ready or print it off and keep it until you are.

All you need to know is that this sense of frustration with yourself is a signal. The signal says that it’s time to take the necessary steps to move on from the end of your relationship. One of my favourite quotes is that ‘you don’t drown by falling into water, you drown by staying there!’ What do you do as a result of recognising this signal? Just complete the remaining steps of this process.

3. Use your emotion to move you on

Tony Robbins teaches a fantastic method for using your emotions to move you forward. He defines every core emotion as being a signal for action. This step is all about action and making the decision to move forward.
So what are you really feeling? Most commonly after a break up it will be hurt, inadequacy or loneliness. If your prime emotion is something else I’m sorry, there are too many to deal with in this article But if one of these is your main emotion currently, here are the steps to take:

Hurt – maybe as a result of your sense of loss.

Get a sheet of paper and a pen now. Take 10 minutes and write down all the reasons you won’t miss your partner. All the things they did that annoyed you about them. All the things you would have changed about them if you could have done. All the things you wanted from them that they couldn’t or wouldn’t give you. Keep the list and review it and add to it any time you get those feelings of hurt again. Try to think of at least 5 really big incidents that you remember clearly where you knew that this relationship wasn’t working for you. (You’ll need this sheet later on in the process.)

Inadequacy – Feeling unworthy.

Get a sheet of paper. For 10 minutes write down all the things you appreciate or feel proud about yourself for. What would your friends say they like or love about you (may be even actually ask some of your close friends). What do your family love about you? What have you achieved in your life that you were proud of? Who do you know that loves you? Sometimes when we feel low this can be hard to do. If you’re struggling with this and there’s nothing you feel good about then ask yourself ‘ If you could feel good about just one thing what would it be?’ Then ask yourself again. Trust me you are bigger and better than you think, you are a miracle in progress!

Loneliness – You need to connect with someone.

This is an important part of the process anyway even if you aren’t feeling lonely. Stay in contact with and go out with as many of your friends as you can. It’s important that you do this ahead of time rather than just waiting for the weekend to happen to you. Trying to reach out when your miserable is really hard and you can end up getting caught in a spiral. Being single is a luxury that you could easily miss. This serves to remind you that you still have lots of people to connect with in life, but it helps your mind to focus on some fun things in life.

4. Rid your environment of reminders

What you focus on you is what you feel. If you spend your time thinking about the loss of your partner – guess what? You’ll feel miserable. That’s why, once you’ve dealt with the real signals that the emotions give you, you must do as much as you can to focus your mind on things that please you.

Take the practical steps necessary to remove the reminders of your ex. from your environment. They will only act as triggers to think about him or her. Instead, when you see a reminder, use it as a trigger to get rid of that reminder – IMMEDIATELY!. Delete the telephone number, remove the pictures, store the presents. I’m not asking you to destroy them, just put them where you won’t see them on a day to day basis.

Out of sight, out of mind.

5. Do fun things!

As I said above, what you focus on you will feel. So generate yourself a list of things you like or love to do. Yes, again, you must write them down. So when you’re next focusing on things that are making you feel sad, you can run for the list, pick something off it and go do it. It’s the best way to speed up the process of moving on.

You’ll be amazed at how this works to change your mood.

Keep adding to your list… listen to loud music, dance around the room, sing your favourite fun song, watch your favourite film on video, go for a run or call a friend. You know the kind of things I mean.

The simple, easy and quick to do ones are the best.

6. Recognise you’re ready to love again

Well, I wish I could give you a really practical step here, but I can’t. What I can tell you is:

• Only you’ll know when you’re ready
• How long it takes is in your hands
• Set yourself a time limit

When you’ll be ready is a grey area. The truth is it will happen when you’ve fully accepted your past relationship is over and when you’ve fully dealt with your emotions around the break up. Not easily measured, but doing all the steps in this process will speed it along.

A rough guideline I quote for a limit to getting over a relationship is 1 month for every year of the relationship. Set that as your own time limit for moving on. What will be your month? Keep in mind that men tend to rush into the next relationship much too quickly and women tend to stay single too long.

If you feel like it’s time and you’re still finding it difficult to move on, then get some assistance.

7. Learn from your relationship

The reason you broke up? The real reason – was that you weren’t compatible. To ensure you increase your chances of finding someone to love for life, learn from your past relationships.

Take the list of things you may have written about in step 3, and store them in a safe place. If you haven’t already generated that list, then do it when you get to this stage of the process.

Also I want you to generate a list of things that you did like about your partner. And store that list too.

In one of my courses I call this the perfect partner exercise, and it’s critical to finding you the right partner in the future. But you can see why it’s necessary to have properly moved on from the relationship before you go through this exercise.

Finally, I wish you well. I know this is a painful time for you. If you need any further help from me, let me know.

If you’d like to know one of the biggest relationship killers identified by two of the world’s leading relationship experts, and how to avoid doing it, then read on.

It’s not exactly a secret that men tend to withdraw when they feel under attack. It’s been referred to as ‘retreating to his cave’. Women have a version of this behaviour that’s a little more subtle where they give their man the silent treatment or the cold shoulder, or even, as my dad used to call it, ‘put him in the dog house’. People can do this for hours, even days at a time and if done regularly it can be very destructive in a relationship. In fact, it’s so destructive that it makes it into John Gottman’s list of four things guaranteed to destroy a relationship. Gottman calls it ‘Stone Walling’. Terry Real has a list of 5 things that will kill off a relationship and ‘Stone Walling’ is on his list too. Clearly it’s a massive issue that’s been driving partners nuts for the last hundred years or so.

As a gross generalisation it tends to be men that live in an emotionally walled off state leaving women to pursue them. Occasionally I’ll work with a couple where the dynamic is reversed, but for this article let’s talk about Paul. For Paul, arguing was ‘beneath’ him. He felt like it was messy, unnecessary and would do anything to avoid it. He’d been avoiding arguments all of his life and he’d adapted the ‘time out’ to legitimise his withdrawal.

Paul had watched his parents fighting in some fairly spectacular ways as a child and had promised himself he’d never end up in the same situation. His parents were very unhappy and on at least two occasions he witnessed his mother throwing crockery at his father. It’s hardly surprising that as a result Paul decided that all arguing was bad, potentially dangerous and best avoided. He’d rather be alone in his garage than risk Serena being mad at him. What Paul and so many other people need to learn is that sometimes people argue to come back together and that not all ‘fights’ are bad. His choice to live behind his emotional brick wall left him protected, but entirely unconnected to Serena. Serena was left feeling very alone and miserable as nothing she said seemed to penetrate that wall, except the very worst kind of behaviour on her part. Throwing pots and pans at him was rapidly becoming a tactic she’d consider using to get him to re-engage with her.

It’s my belief (contrary to popularly held opinion) that men are at least as, if not more, emotional than women. Men have just never been taught how to deal with their emotions in a way that allows healing, so they tend to run away from them. When a man dashes off to his ‘cave’ (things like slamming doors on his way out, turning on the television or locking himself in the bathroom) it’s because on some level he’s too scared to stay because he can’t deal with the level of feeling that may be coming up for him. That wall he puts up leaves him just as lonely as his partner but the loneliness is preferable to what he fears may happen if he stays open and therefore vulnerable.

What Paul needed to learn was that his withdrawal was a losing strategy that was at some point just about guaranteed to leave him single again. He needed to understand that sometimes Serena was going to say something that he’d feel was a criticism and he had to be big enough to deal with that. Sometimes she may even be mad at him, but it didn’t mean she’d stopped loving him. Paul needed to understand that healthy couples did fight, in fact sometimes a couple with very high standards will fight a lot as a way of establishing healthy boundaries between the two of them.

Used properly the ‘time out’ tool is one of the most important skills to learn for a healthy relationship. It’s very quick to learn and will without doubt change your life forever should you take the time to use it properly. Let me teach you how to avoid making the mistakes Paul used to make.

A ‘time out’ is, as you’ve probably guessed, a way of inserting some space into a discussion when you feel like either you or your partner is about to get nasty. Used correctly it’s a great tool, used badly it will destroy a relationship. What we’re talking about here is the difference between what Terry Real calls ‘responsible distance taking’ as opposed to ‘creating a rupture’. The most important thing for you to know is that if one of you is calling a ‘time out’ then you must also agree to a ‘time in’. It’s important to reassure the partner being left that you will be back and the subject will be discussed. Generally this should be 20 minutes later. If after 20 minutes one of you is still too ‘hot’ to talk about it then you briefly check in with each other and say it’s going to be another 20 minutes. If after that time you’re still not able to talk in a compassionate tone then it’s time to take a couple of hours. Sometimes you can get so badly triggered that it takes a while to calm down again.

As a result of his revised understanding Paul made some new agreements with Serena. The first was that if he was tempted to dash off to his garage he’d make it an official ‘time out’ and give a time when he’d be back. 20 minutes was his minimum cooling off period. He also came up with the idea of a ‘soft time out’, which I really liked, where if they couldn’t be trusted to talk to each other they could still cuddle up on the sofa and watch an episode of ‘Spooks’, one of their favourite shows. What’s great about that was it maintained a level of love and connection even if on some level they weren’t happy.

For Serena the most important change was that she was no longer left feeling like Paul was contemptuous of her every time she was upset with him. As a result she felt a lot less abandoned and insecure about the future of their marriage. She also felt a lot more empowered to challenge the things that were slowly driving her insane around him and driving up her resentment levels. In short, she could stop being quite such a nag because she now knew Paul was going to listen.

Paul and Serena are much happier now. Serena feels like she now gets heard pretty much most of the time, even if they need to time out a couple of times to get to the end of some discussions. Paul was also feeling better as he realised all the time in the garage and running away from Serena he’d been pretty much lonely and miserable. I knew Paul was really getting it when he said he realised sometimes he and Serena would argue as a way of coming back together, they’d argue towards each other. Now that’s healthy!

Tips on dealing with arguments

Get Real

Love and anger are separate and equal emotions. On some level the willingness to get into conflict demonstrates that you value and trust your partner enough to show them your pain. Withdrawal and stonewalling give out the opposite message. Someone being angry with you doesn’t mean they don’t love you or that you’re bad, they’re just angry with you.

Get a Grip

Sometimes you may need to put a discussion on hold for a day. If something’s been recently triggered it doesn’t take much to set it off again. Just aim to reconnect to your feelings of fondness for each other in some way. If you are going to be apart do not get caught up in dramatizing why your partner is the world’s biggest pain and how you’d be better off on your own.

Get an education

The best books I’ve read about how to understand and manage conflict in a relationship are Ten Lessons to Transform your Marriage by John Gottman and The New Rules Of Marriageby Terrence Real. Both of these are life changing books full of workable solutions for most of the struggles you’ll face in any relationship.