After hitting rock bottom at 30 years old, finding myself in an emotionally abusive relationship I didn’t know how to get out of or recover from, I let myself get pretty comfortable in my singledom for the majority of my 30s.
I equated falling in love with pain and betrayal, so being alone felt much safer.
That particular relationship (now nine years ago) catapulted me onto a journey of desperately seeking how to heal the excruciating pain, and to my surprise, inspired me to become a heartbreak coach.
My coaching approach stems from the idea that our thoughts create our results.
Over the last five years, I’ve worked tirelessly to become an expert on helping women heal their hearts with their minds. But in the back of my mind, it gnawed at me that if I really was the creator of my reality and could heal the worst pain through conscious thinking, I knew that it was my brain’s unconscious thinking that was keeping me single and “safe.”
I finally had to recognize that my most-of-the-time single status wasn’t because online dating sucks or my city sucks, or all the good ones were gone, or the trauma from my past relationship was the reason I “couldn’t” let myself love again.
I was single because I kept CHOOSING to be.
I was single because I believed it was “hard” to find my ideal guy.
I was single because my fear of getting hurt was greater than my desire to create an epic love story, which, I’m so happy to share, I have now finally created.
Editor’s note: Although this article uses male pronouns, the advice applies to all sexual orientations and gender identities.
1) I stopped blaming past failed relationships and started using them as LEARNING LESSONS. After another Mr. Unavailable would go running for the hills, I’d ask myself, WHAT DID I LEARN? I couldn’t undo the past, so I decided to look for evidence to support how it SERVED me, vs. hurt me.
2) I fell in love with myself. Many clients are super uncomfortable with this aspect of our work together—I used to be too. But if you aren’t authentically in love with you, how can you expect someone else to be? I started to evaluate who I was both as an individual and a partner (without an actual partner in the picture) and began to really soak up my value as both. Loving myself meant taking regular inventory of how proud I was of the woman I’d become, honoring my commitment to grow in multiple areas of my life, and owning my worth, with or without a man in the picture.
3) I got clear on the ideal man I wanted to attract—I focused on the QUALITIES I was looking for in a partner. I wanted an emotionally available man. Someone who was looking for a lifelong partnership. I wanted us to laugh and have crazy chemistry, but I wasn’t fixated on what he was supposed to look like—I just wanted to FEEL a certain way around him. I wanted to feel an innate trust and comfort in my body. Honesty and loyalty were also important to me.
4) I became the woman my ideal man would want to attract. This doesn’t mean I changed who I was for Future Mr. Right, but I thought about how I could up-level myself as a partner for my ideal guy, who would be way more up-leveled than the crummy dudes I had been attracting. If I wanted to attract better, I needed to become better. For me, this was taking my business to the next level. There was something about becoming a total boss babe that not only turned me on, but I believed it would turn my ideal partner on. In order to grow my business and myself as a coach, I had to grow my self-worth, and I saw so clearly that this would translate into my worth as a partner. This might be different for you. In what area of your life do you know you’re not hitting your potential? Your finances? Health? An unhealed relationship? Focusing on improving other areas of your life will for sure create space for Mr. Right to enter.
5) I prepared for his arrival. I started to focus on my living space and created actual physical room for him. I had a whole drawer in my bathroom that was his with a black (manly!) toothbrush waiting for him to use. I left empty shelves and extra hangers for him in my closet. I PRACTICED THOUGHTS I’D THINK AS IF HE WAS ALREADY HERE, like, “I’m so lucky to have him, and he’s so lucky to have me.” Or, “It’s SO FUN seeing him after a long day of work.” I used my imagination and had FUN being the woman in my ideal relationship BEFORE he arrived.
6) I didn’t let a bad date derail my commitment to finding him. No date was a waste of my time. It was a step closer to me finding him. I refused to let myself take a break from dating just because I went out with five doozies in a row. I accepted that awkward, brutal dates were a part of the process, and I wasn’t going to let them deter my belief that my ideal guy was definitely out there.
7) I self-coached before each date. Right before the first date with my now boyfriend, I felt super nervous because my brain had decided I already liked him. I had to check myself because of the many times I thought someone seemed great on screen and then not so great in real life. So I paused and found the thought creating the anxiety: I REALLY WANT US TO LIKE EACH OTHER! It sounds like an innocent thought, but it was coming from a place of pressure versus ease. I got clear and recognized that it would be a bummer if we didn’t hit it off, but I WOULD SURVIVE like I had the prior 100 shitty first dates. The nerves didn’t fully go away with this new thought (which I don’t expect to happen on a first date), but I was showing up more present and clear than I had been over my many years of unconsciously dating.
Keep in mind that being responsible for your singledom isn’t an opportunity to shame and blame yourself. It’s an opportunity to heal, grow, and manifest the partnership of your dreams.
I had a blast implementing this new approach, and tease my man all the time that I created him with my brain!
So don’t forget to HAVE FUN as a single woman, putting yourself out there in a completely new way. If you commit to these steps, you’ll for sure feel a powerful shift that will POOSH you so much closer to your dream partner. Why not give it a shot?
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Claire Byrne is a heartbreak/finding-love coach, and the host of her podcast, Stop Wanting Him Back & Find Someone Better. Click here for more information on her group program.
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