by Ken Page
Have your past romantic relationships left you feeling unappreciated, unfulfilled and yearning for something more?
You might say that you don’t want just any kind of relationship. You want a soulful relationship with a person whom you love with all your heart, and who loves you and accepts you for who you are.
You’re done with relationships that make you feel less-than or not-good-enough. You don’t want to risk falling in love with yet another unavailable person, or someone who pretends to want love, but perhaps doesn’t really know what they want (and leaves you to wonder what you did to drive them away).
Or someone who is still pining away for an ex, or is married to their work, or their single lifestyle.
You’re ready to feel hopeful again. You’re ready to fall in love.
But perhaps you’re not sure what it will take to make a fresh start when it comes to dating. Following popular dating advice hasn’t worked out for you.
All that “making yourself attractive” stuff hasn’t gotten you anywhere.
So, what should you do?
Is there some secret you must know in order to attract The One?
Maybe at this point, you doubt that you’ll ever find that special someone, or if this person even exists. You feel a little bit jaded after all the heartbreak you’ve experienced in your life.
Is the kind of relationship you want is even possible for you?
I assure you, it is.
Your Dream Relationship Is Possible As Long As You’re Ready to Embrace These Truths
In my decades of practice as a psychotherapist, and through helping countless singles figure out why they’re still single, I have come to realize this:
Most people who have not had much luck in love have to embrace certain truths about themselves before they are ready for the kind of love that has been eluding them.
Perhaps there’s a truth you need to embrace about yourself, too.
These truths are not what you think. I’m not going to tell you that you’re not attractive enough or that you don’t know how to flirt, or that you’re not good at playing hard-to-get. That’s the kind of popular dating advice that doesn’t work and hasn’t served you.
THESE truths, once you embrace them, have the potential to help you attract your dream relationship. In fact, they can completely alter the course of your entire life.
Once you embrace these truths, and are willing to make certain changes in the way you approach intimate relationships, you’ll not only be ready to meet your soul mate, but you’ll look at yourself in a whole new way.
You’ll feel more relaxed, more confident, and you’ll know yourself in a way you’ve never known yourself before. That’s how these insights can change your life.
What are these insights that are so life-transforming? There are 4 of them:
1 You must lose your taste for “attractions of deprivation”.
It’s easy to become attracted to people who can almost commit: people who treat you wonderfully—and then diminish, demean, or ignore you. These relationships are usually highly charged and gnawingly addictive. Like a slot machine, they keep you coming back for more.
You long to get it right, to get your partner to love you. You struggle to improve yourself. You play hard to get. You try giving more, or you practice giving less. You try to be funnier, more successful, or more in shape, so that your desired one will finally want you as much as you want them.
I call these attractions of deprivation.
In order to attract a healthy relationship with a partner who is capable of loving you the way you want to be loved, you must lose your taste for relationships that chip away at your sense of self-worth. You must get to a point where you can’t even stomach these kinds of relationships.
When you become less “sticky” to these kinds of attractions, it means a dead-end era of your dating life is finally coming to an end.
It’s not easy to ignore the thrill of your attractions of deprivation. It takes honoring your self-worth and loving yourself enough to want something better. If you don’t know how to do this, I can help.
2 Kindness and availability must become more important to you.
As you lose your taste for the attractions of deprivation, you usually experience a temporary void in your dating life. You know you don’t want the pain of past relationships, but nothing else seems as exciting. In time (with guidance), you begin to seek what I call attractions of inspiration.
These attractions are based upon a (basically) consistent quality of shared kindness, generosity, and emotional availability. They often unfold slowly. They get richer as time goes on. They make us feel love, not desperation.
You can measure the very quality of your life by the relationships of mutual inspiration you’ve cultivated.
The joy you feel in these relationships doesn’t come from conquest or momentary validation, but from an essential quality of contentment which you feel with your partner.
These relationships have a trajectory of their own. They need to be cultivated and nourished in different ways than you might be used to. It may seem that they are not as exciting at first, but in fact, they are much more so.
3 You must be willing to give up your “flight patterns”.
All of us, single or coupled, flee the heat and the risks of true intimacy. All of us. There are so many ways to flee intimacy, even as we seek it:
Staying home and watching TV every night. Surfing the net, instead of going to places where people with shared values can be found. Wasting time on attractions of deprivation. Not being authentic. Chatting online but never taking steps to meet. Playing it cool. Looking for hookups instead of dates. Drinking too much on our dates.
At a certain point, you realize that time is ticking, that you are growing tired of living and sleeping alone. (Please note, this isn’t true for everyone. Some of us are quite happy living solo.)
When you’re willing to let go of your flight patterns; when you find ways to meet people who share your values; and when you only have second or third dates with people who hold the promise of becoming attractions of inspiration, then things really begin to change.
4 You must lead with your authentic self.
Leading with your authentic self may seem on the surface like an easy thing, but it’s not.
We get most wounded around the places we care the most. These are the parts of us that I call Core Gifts.
Core Gifts are not talents or skills. They often feel like shameful weaknesses, parts of yourself you’d feel most vulnerable to expose. (“I have a deep need to connect and love texting regularly just to share a thought or experience.”)
They are things about you that others may have criticized or ridiculed in the past (“You’re too sensitive!”)
They may be traits that you don’t want to admit you have, or that you are reticent to expose about yourself on a first date. (“I want more than anything to get married and have a family.”)
They are the places where we have incurred profound wounding, so we tend to either suppress or create air-brushed versions of them for the world to see.
When we reject, hide or suppress our Core Gifts, we don’t honor or accept our authentic selves. Then what happens is we attract people who ALSO don’t honor or accept us for who we are, either.
The key lies in treasuring your Core Gifts and therefore your authentic self, in all its uniqueness, timidity, imperfection, and excess. You have the right to honor your Core Gifts and only to choose people who can do the same.
When you do that in a non-defensive way, your world begins to change. That’s when you somehow find yourself dating people who accept you for who we are: people who are kind, generous of spirit, and available. I can’t explain why this happens, but I’ve seen it occur so many times that I’ve come to accept it as a happy truth in the frequently treacherous world of dating.
If these shifts are already happening for you, be encouraged. You’re probably well on the way to finding the kind of love that can last.
If they aren’t happening for you, or if you need guidance in cultivating your attractions of inspiration, giving up your flight patterns, discovering your Core Gifts, or appreciating kinder, healthier relationships, I can help.
How to Uncover Your Core Gifts and Lead With Them to Find Attractions of Inspiration
It’s not easy to see things about yourself that until this very moment, you didn’t even know existed. You may have been cultivating attractions of deprivation because you thought these were exciting—in other words, that they were the kinds of relationships you really wanted. You may have never heard of Core Gifts before you read this article.
And maybe you have always thought you had to hide certain parts of yourself in order to attract a potential mate, not LEAD with all your insecurities!
But I assure you, I’ve helped thousands of singles like you, and I’ve seen time and time again, that this way of dating works.
It’s so powerful that I’ve developed a process to help you through these steps.
I call this process Deeper Dating.
Deeper Dating is the quickest, easiest, and most direct path to true, lasting, healthy love because you’re no longer wasting time in unhealthy relationships or attracting unavailable partners.
But I can’t possibly work individually with everyone who needs to learn how to discover their authenticity in this way. That’s why I’ve partnered with Flourish, so I can extend that help and guidance to as many people as possible, since almost all singles who are longing to find a life partner can benefit from these insights and tips.
When you subscribe to our FREE Relationship Advice Newsletter, you get access to more articles like these, from an accomplished community of carefully selected experts (like me!).
You’ll also learn:
- Which attractions can lead you to love, and which can lead you to pain, and the truth about sexual attraction that no one teaches us.
- The tell-tale signs that you’re living from your Gift Zone; meaning, you’re appreciating yourself and your Core Gifts, and being as magnetic as you can be to the person who will make you happy (and appreciate you, too!)
- How your deepest insecurities hold the key to discovering your greatest gift when it comes to love.
- How to increase your level of discrimination against the people who can never make you happy or love you the way you want to be loved—and do it early on when you meet someone, before you get too involved and attached.
- The most powerful question you can ask yourself when you’re dating someone that will save you countless days or months of pain. Ask yourself this, and it will quickly reveal if the person is right for you.
Simply enter your name and email address in the box, and you’ll get all this plus much, much more.
It’s free, it’s easy, and you’ll be amazed at what a difference the tips and insights will make in your relationship!
Discovering your Core Gifts and learning to honor and embrace them in order to find love is one of the greatest, most important journeys of your entire life.
And it’s one of the great privileges of my life to share what I’ve learned about this path.
The advice contained in the articles I’ve written for Flourish will help you see why you’ve been attracting certain types of relationship your entire adult life, why you may not have felt a true sense of romantic connection, and what it really takes to set your soul free in love.
I can’t wait to share all this with you!
Warmly,
