Seek not for love

“Your task is not to seek for love,
but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”
Rumi

Think about that. Reread it. Let it sink in. Take a deep breath and read it again.

This hit me like a speeding train right the first time I read it. I keep ruminating on it, turning it over and over, because it's so counter-intuitive and counter-cultural. Especially when it comes to love! Yet it resonated with me so deeply.

Ladies, how much of life do we spend trying to control things external to ourselves, looking for things outside ourselves to satisfy our deepest longings? Our hearts get broken, and the walls get put up. We spin our wheels and spin our wheels and they just keep on spinning. Men can’t be trusted. Men are the worst! And then we despair. Will I ever find the man of my dreams? Will I always be stuck and single? (More on that later.) Has the last good man been taken by my friend who just got married? What is she doing that I’m not doing? What does she have that I don’t have? And away we go...

I hear you!

There's good news! As my grandma used to say, “There's a lid for every pot.” (Now, whether you're the lid or the pot, I'll leave that for you to decide. And I’m not saying that there’s only one lid for every pot. More on that here.) Ladies, there are more than 7 BILLION people on this earth. And you think your friends are just better at this than you are?! No way.

Let's pause for a second and let me blow your mind (this completely blew my mind wide open):

You could be married right now if you wanted to be.

Are you with me? Let me explain. Have you ever gone on a date with a man who was just goo-goo-gaga over you? Thought you were the bee's knees and the cat's meow? And you were decidedly not into him. Why? Maybe he was too forward. Too familiar. Too whatever and you said, no thanks. It's all good. My point is simply to say that if marriage or a relationship were the goal, you could be right there, right now. But let me challenge you and propose that perhaps marriage and relationship in and of themselves are actually not the goal! Being with a man who makes you feel alive, who lights up your world and blows your socks off-- THAT'S the goal. And when you can keep that in mind as you go on dates, it might help you to have a more hopeful perspective. There are great guys out there. There are great gals out there! And you’ve got to believe that your person is looking for you the same way you’re looking for them.

So I'll say again, if marriage and relationship were the goal, you could be there already. I'm sure you have high school friends or college buddies for whom this is true: they got married in their late teens or early 20s to the only man or woman they've ever loved, had a few kiddos, and are maybe still living that happily (or unhappily) married life. I have several friends who got married early in the 20s and who are now divorced. A few are remarried and happy as ever. Because they learned the hard way that actually, marriage itself wasn’t the goal-- they wanted a kick-ass relationship with an incredible human. (Not that their exes weren’t great folks, just not their folks.)

So read Rumi again: “Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”

Take some time and reflect: what are the barriers you have built within yourself that are keeping you from the love you want? I’d love to hear from you!

Swipe left, swipe right

Swipe, swipe, swipe…

Are your thumbs tired from all that swiping? Girl, I hear you. Online dating is exhausting. You have a great profile, lots of cute pics of you and your dog and your friends and your adorable nephew and you doing your favorite activities, all while looking fresh and fabulous, of course. You know you’re a catch, your family knows you’re a catch, your friends know you’re a catch. So why aren’t you happily coupled already?!

With all the dating apps out there today, it’s tough to say for sure if you’re even looking in the right place, given all the niche sites out there now. Match based on dog preferences, music tastes, celebrity look-alikes, farmers tans). I mean, do you really need to have an active profile on ALL THE SITES?! I need a nap just thinking about it. Thankfully, Consumer Advocate has done a lot of the legwork for you! Check out this comprehensive guide to the top online dating sites, their features, services, and what to watch out for when using them. This site is GOLD if you’re getting into online dating, truly.

But seriously. In a city of an estimated 18.1 MILLION people here in this sprawling metropolis of Los Angeles, and on a planet of 7.3 BILLION people, there’s got to be SOMEONE out there for you, right?! Absofrickenlutely. So what gives?

First and foremost, “online dating” is a misnomer. You do NONE of your dating online. A more apt name for the whole process would be “online MEETING.” You meet online; you date offline. As we have more and more real-time online interactions, it can be easy to feel like you are offline! Heck, you can join practically ANYONE on their day-to-day endeavors via Instagram & SnapChat. But don’t be fooled. You’re still online! And offline is where the magic is!

To be clear, I’m not suggesting abandoning online dating altogether. Quite the contrary! I am suggesting it be used for the very powerful tool that it is-- an instrument of MEETING.

So if offline is where the magic is, GO TO THE MAGIC AND GET OFFLINE ASAP! Have a few phone conversations or FaceTime to vet the guy. There’s a lot to be learned about a guy through his voice, conversation style, listening abilities, capacity to ask meaningful questions. But even the phone still isn’t fully real life!

With all the crazies out there, I’m not advising anything stupid. This person, no matter how many phone calls you’ve had or how deep you’ve found yourself on his IG feed, is still a stranger. Be smart; be safe.

What I’m suggesting is that you get offline and into the real world as soon as possible. No pen pals allowed. The difficulty with keeping things online for too long is you begin to fall in like with the highlight reel, not what is actually real (we all know the highlight reel is a version of reality as seen through the rosiest of colored glasses).

So keep your expectations low (as in, based in REALITY!), and proceed to getting offline as soon as is humanly possible, so you can meet a real person in real life, and not find yourself disappointed by a figment of your imagination. (Or maybe reality will be disappointing, but at least you’ll know and won’t spend weeks or months (and valuable brain space) building up something up that wasn’t for you in the first place.)

As John Michael Montgomery crooned, “Life’s a dance, you learn as you go.”

Give those thumbs a rest and put on your dancing shoes, ladies!

The Myth of "The One"

Today, more and more singles are staying single for longer, and despite plentiful availability of partners (or at least potential partners) via social media and online dating, more and more folks are still single. We all have single friends who make us scratch our heads-- “Why is he or she still single?! They’re such a great catch and anyone would be lucky to be with them!” So what gives?

I blame it on the myth of “the one,” soulmates and the “spark.” Somehow, we’ve collectively accepted the idea that if there’s no spark on the first date and if we can’t picture our whole life together with this person after a single meal or cup of coffee, then he or she is simply not the one.

But what if there’s no such thing as “the one”? What if there is more than one person who could be your “perfect” match? I know I’m stepping into sacrilegious territory here, but stick with me.

What if your soulmate isn’t someone you meet? What if you become soulmates as you create a healthy, meaningful relationship together? What if more than one person exists out there who you could build an awesome life with? It doesn’t sound quite as romantic as “the one,” but it sure does take the pressure off!  

I would also argue that the “perfect” match doesn’t exist. We are all broken people, and when we bring our brokenness into relationship, it’s often messy and difficult, no matter how compatible we may be. We’ve got it all backwards-- we’re looking for the perfect match for US, all the while neglecting our own junk. It’s easy to write someone off for their flaws; it’s way more difficult to look inside and examine our own flaws and what brokenness we bring into relationship and look for a partner through those eyes.

No one wants to settle. And that’s not what I’m suggesting by any means. But until we become the “perfect” partner (which won’t happen, believe me), we need to stop looking for the “perfect” partner, and recognize the real-life humans who we are meeting.

When people talk about meeting their “soulmates,” chances are they’ve been together a while. And chance are that they’ve forgotten how they’ve grown together during that time. In the same way that you don’t become best friends right away with someone you’ve just met-- that sounds ludicrous. And meeting your soulmate right out the gate is even more ludicrous.

So take some of the pressure off, get out there, meet lots of folks and learn what it is that you bring to the table and what you want and need your person to bring to the table. And be gracious. Not only with these folks you’re dating, but also yourself-- this process is so hard all around, but it’s worth it in the end, I promise.

Dating is hard...

There are plenty of fish in the sea and tons of dating apps to choose from and loads of great single people out there looking for love. So why is the process of finding someone so hard? There’s no sugar coating it— if you’ve ever dated, you know. With more and more apps and seemingly fewer and fewer eligible partners, what are you to do?!

In this hook-up culture we live in, finding something meaningful and lasting can be a real challenge. But it’s certainly not impossible.

You are an amazing woman who has so much love to give, I just know it. Because you are out there looking, because you are here reading, I believe that there is someone looking for you with the same persistence! I am here to help you find your fish, to champion you and challenge you, to walk with you on this journey to find love!

You’ve come to the right place. Let’s go fishing!