You needed it. A light, easy summer. A fun fling.
The fling was hot … not someone you’d ever see yourself settling down with in the long run, but he served his purpose of just making you feel ALIVE again.
Thank you, sir, but now it’s back to reality.
Editor’s note: Although this article uses male pronouns, the advice applies to all sexual orientations and gender identities.
The school year is starting (even if you’re not a student, you know what I mean), and it’s time to pull up your big-girl pants and get back to productively focusing and taking action on what you actually want.
True love?
Or some serious YOU time?
There’s no right or wrong answer here, but what I like to offer my clients is to make sure that whatever they choose to focus on, their decision is clean and intentional.
What do I mean by clean?
You’re making choices from a place of conscious, up-leveled service to yourself—not guarded protection out of fear of getting hurt or slipping into disbelief about love being in the cards for you, while covering yourself by telling yourself and others, “I’m just gonna do me for a little bit.”
Be ON to your brain. Again, there’s no right or wrong … just your authentic truth.
And if your authentic truth is, “I want love but I’m terrified of getting hurt,” go work on that fear with a professional. Denying it or putting it off by distracting yourself will only perpetuate the fear and could potentially have you unconsciously avoiding finding your person for a very long time.
Now, if you genuinely want to do you for the moment while knowing that you do ultimately want to find your person, here’s what I suggest …
It’s step three of my five-step process to find your person:
Become the woman you think your ideal guy is looking for. I mean this in the least anti-feminist way, so stay with me here!
Think about the partners you attracted in the past with whom it didn’t work out …
It’s easy to focus on the parts of them that weren’t doing it for you, but what about the parts of you that you now see so clearly were what attracted the two of you in the first place?
Like attracts like.
If you want to find a partner who’s emotionally mature, available, ambitious, financially stable, and mentally and physically healthy and who works on himself, then make sure you’re committing to being all those aspects you’re searching for, as well.
Finally, if you know you’re ready to look for the real-deal love now? Take what I said above about healing any disbelief about his existence, fear of getting hurt, checking to make sure you’re practicing what you preach by becoming the woman your ideal guy is looking for, and then GO FIND HIM.
Get on the dating apps and clean up any mind drama about all the shenanigans that can unfold when online dating.
When you’ve got your eye on the prize (ahem—the love of your life), a slew of duds you have to sift through isn’t the biggest deal, and your time won’t be considered wasted when he arrives!
Claire Byrne is a heartbreak/finding-love coach and host of her podcast, Stop Wanting Him Back & Find Someone Better. For more information, go to clairetheheartbreakcoach.com.
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