by Ken Page
Do you believe that the reason you’re still longing and aching to find true love is because there’s something fundamentally lacking about you?
So many people you know are in committed relationships or married, raising families, planning marvelous futures together—while you’re still trying to figure out why your relationships don’t last, or why you keep ending up with emotionally unavailable people.
It’s like that Bette Midler song. You think that “love is only for the lucky, and the strong.”
That maybe you don’t know the secret and special “skills” of seduction and attraction, or if you have read about them, haven’t integrated them effectively into your dating life.
Or that you’re not enough: not attractive enough, not smart enough, not confident enough, not charismatic enough, not skinny enough…
Therefore, you’ve embarked on a quest of self-improvement.
You’ve identified what you need to change, tone down, or hide—and what you need to enhance, ramp up or work on.
So that when you meet that person who is just your “type”, they will want you as much as you want them.
But does this actually work? Has it worked for you?
Are You Fixated On How to Make Yourself As “Attractive” As Possible, But It Hasn’t Helped You Find True Love?
You’re either not meeting anyone, or, every time you think you’ve found someone that stirs you down to your soul, they reveal that they’re only interested in you “as a friend”, or they’re still hung up on an ex, or too married to their work to commit to a real relationship.
But here’s the real problem:
Too often this quest for self-improvement has us chasing some fantasy of true love by denying who we really are. We hide what we perceive as our deepest insecurities and faults, because we think they’re embarrassing or unappealing.
We think we’ll scare away the people we date if we come across as too eager, too needy, or too naïve, for example.
So we play “hard to get”, or we force ourselves to play the role of some kind of feminine diva or assertive alpha, depending on our gender.
And if the person we’re dating in any way insinuates that they think we’re “too much” or “not enough” of the very thing we were trying to hide, and that’s why they can’t love us, it devastates us.
It makes us want to dig a hole and crawl right in!
What Our Deepest Insecurities Reveal About Us and Our Potential to Find Love
But here’s what’s fascinating, and something you’re going to want to read carefully, and then re-read it, over and over…
In my decades of practice as a psychotherapist, this is the insight that has inspired me most:
Our deepest wounds surround our greatest gifts.
I've found that the very qualities we're most ashamed of, the ones we keep trying to reshape or hide, are in fact the key to finding real love.
I call these qualities Core Gifts.
Core Gifts are not the same as talents or skills.
In fact, until we understand them, they often feel like shameful weaknesses, or as parts of ourselves too vulnerable to expose.
Yet they are where our soul lives. They are like the bone marrow of our psyche, generating a living stream of impulses toward intimacy and authentic self-expression.
But Core Gifts aren't hall-passes to happiness. They get us into trouble again and again. We become most defensive-or most naïve-around them. They challenge us and the people we care about. They ask more of us than we want to give. And we can be devastated when we feel them betrayed or rejected.
Over the years, I realized that the characteristics of my clients which I found most inspiring, most essentially them, were the ones which frequently caused them the most suffering.
They thought these qualities were getting in the way of finding love, and they wanted me to help them work through these unwanted aspects of themselves.
But what some described as weakness, I saw as loyalty or generosity.
What they thought was an inability to let go in the face of rejection, I saw as consistency.
What they feared was naiveté, I saw as a sort of openness, and trust.
Again and again, where my clients saw their greatest wounds, I also saw their most defining gifts!
Dishonoring Our Gifts Is Like Viewing a Beautiful Tapestry from the Back
Cervantes said that reading a translation is like viewing a tapestry from the back. That's what it's like when we try to understand our deepest struggles without honoring the gifts that fuel them.
When we understand our lives through the lens of our gifts, it's as if we step out from behind the tapestry and really see it for the first time.
All of a sudden, things make sense.
We see the real picture, the moving, human story of what matters most to us.
We begin to understand that our biggest mistakes, our most self-sabotaging behaviors were simply convulsive, unskilled attempts to express the deepest parts of ourselves.
That’s why it’s so important for us to be able to name our Core Gifts, and then embrace and honor them.
But…We Don’t Even Know What Our True Core Gifts Really Are
It’s likely that at this moment, you’d be unable to name your Core Gifts. Why?
Because you subconsciously guard and hide your Core Gifts—even from your own consciousness. But there are ways where you can begin to get an inkling of what your Core Gifts are.
Where do you feel most defensive? What have former lovers uttered that has hurt you most in the past? These are small clues that can lead you to uncovering your Core Gifts.
Your Core Gifts shine in your joys and strengths, but they also live-and hide-right in the heart of your greatest insecurities and heartbreaks.
And here’s the secret:
If you uncover your Core Gifts, and then learn to lead with them in your dating life, you will find-almost without trying—that you'll attract people who will honor and appreciate your gifts, not reject you for them.
But if you continue to hide, deny or suppress your Core Gifts, you will end up in the same unavailable relationships. You’ll show up as less than your true self.
And you’ll continue to feel that aching loneliness of a person who hasn’t yet fully embraced their inner beauty, nor has found anyone else to embrace it, either.
That’s why I’ve made it my joy and privilege to help individuals discover their Core Gifts and lead with them in dating, so they can finally find themselves at home in love.
And it’s something I can help YOU with, as well.
How to Discover Your Core Gifts and Lead With Them to Attract the Greatest Love of Your Life
Finding the person who will reciprocate your love and want to spend their life with you isn’t about seduction games, “attraction tips” or playing the role of a perfectly confident person.
It’s not about having a certain look, or being the smartest or most clever person in the room.
It’s about seeing the parts of yourself you previously thought were flaws or awkward personality traits as your most beautiful qualities. And then leading with those qualities to attract the kind of person who will love you for who you really are, not someone you’re not.
When you can do this, you’re going right to the heart of who you really are, and you’re leading with your gifts instead of with your fear and insecurities.
I know this works, because I’’ve worked with thousands of individuals in my career as a psychotherapist, and have concluded that this 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.
- How your deepest insecurities hold the key to discovering your greatest gifts 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.
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It’s free, it’s easy, and you’ll be amazed at what a difference the tips and insights will make in your relationship!
Learning about your relationship patterns and transforming them in order to attract healthier relationships can mean the difference between years of loneliness and decades of relationship bliss. That’s because finding lifelong 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,
