Do you have a “Keep Out” sign plastered across your forehead? Tips to attract your perfect partner

I have two friends who have at some stage had someone comment that they had “Keep Out” plastered across their foreheads, meaning that only the very brave of men could take the risk to actually talk to them, let alone get to know them!

Both of my friends are giving, loving women who have so much to give, however one of them is still looking for love (in the wrong places too, I might add!).

So why is it that whilst they desperately want to meet Mr Right, they’re sending out signals that contradict that?

(I might add at this point that one of my friends finally did meet Mr Right on a blind date and she has been very happy with him for several years now!)

Here’s my take on the situation with my friends:

• They are so scared of being alone, that they are sending out messages that attract what it is they really don’t want – being alone!
• Attaching negative thoughts to attracting the right partner. For example, you see a happy couple, and you feel jealous of what they have. You are jealous of their good fortune. This attracts more negative into your life.
• Looking at your prospective partner’s perspective, do you think they would want someone who smells like they’re desperate?
• Also looking from their perspective, do you think you’d be seen as a good partner if you sneer at every happy couple that walks past?

The bottom line is this – how much fun are you to be around? If you were that person, would you want to be with you?

You probably have so much to offer, but like my friends, those qualities are hidden deep down below for just in case someone you meet wants to hurt you in some way.

Getting out there and meeting Mr/Ms Right is a risk:

• They could be married and you have become the “other woman” or “other man” unknowingly!
• They could take you on the date from hell
• They could be an absolute loser
• They could be an abuser
• You really just don’t get along or you just don’t like them
• They could have every bad quality known to man
• They could cheat on you or hurt you in other ways

So many things can go wrong, and sadly, so many single people remain focused on these.

What about the things you can gain from meeting the right person:

• Happily ever after
• They become your best friend
• You always have someone to talk to about your problems
• You have someone you can be intimate with
• You have someone who is there for you, for better or for worse
• They may some day be the mother or father to your children
• They may help you grow in so many ways
• They may be lots of fun and a joy to be around
• You want to spend the rest of your life with them
• They want to spend the rest of their life with you

Ok, the fairy tale is rarely perfect, however from my own experience I know it is better to have loved and lost than to have never loved before.

I’ve been hurt before (my ex hubby), however I am so grateful to him for what I gained from being with him. I have a beautiful daughter, I have learned the difference between a good and a bad relationship, I finally met my current husband who I probably would never have met if I hadn’t married my first husband first! Sooo many reasons to be grateful!

Being in a relationship is risky, but if you’re able to see the positives and how much they outweigh the risks, then maybe you can relax a bit and get that “Keep Out” sign off your forehead and open yourself up to the joys of falling in love!

 

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Self Responsibility

How do I attract the right partner?

How do you forgive someone?

Self Responsibility

Taking responsibility for your current situation can be difficult to do if you feel that everything that is wrong with your life is somebody else’s fault.

Someone with a weight problem might say that they’re overweight because there are too many fast food outlets around that tempt them, or someone in a bad relationship might say that they pick bad relationships because they were abused as a child and they just end up in the same situation over and over again.

It is kind of confronting when someone says that your current situation is 100% your fault, and it took me a long time to really believe this to be true.

No, you don’t choose to have fast food outlets everywhere and you don’t choose to be treated badly, but what you do choose to do is react in the way you do.

For example, there are plenty of thin people who live near the same fast food outlets. The difference between you and them is that they choose not go eat there as often as you do. You can choose to limit your fast food consumption to one day a week.

There are millions of other people who have been abused as children, but they don’t all find themselves in bad relationships.

On the other hand, I was never abused as a child but I found myself in a bad relationship – so what caused my situation? It certainly wasn’t abuse as a child!

If you find yourself in a bad relationship, you can choose to leave that relationship, you can choose to stay or you can choose to work on fixing it (if possible). You can also choose to avoid people who are likely to treat you badly, or you can choose to love yourself so that you can find someone who can love you even more!

Here is another example: I work with people who are constantly whining about where we work, how bad their job is, how terrible management are – but they still continue to work there and they’re not looking for employment elsewhere!

They have three choices. They can continue to put up with a job they hate, they can learn to see the positives of working there and be grateful they even have a job, or they can find a job elsewhere!

Until one starts taking responsibility for their situation they will have a lot of trouble making the changes required to improve their life.

How do I attract the right partner?

I have a good friend who is single and I’m really writing this today to help her out, because she doesnt’ like being single and really does want to meet “Mr Right”.

So how can she attract the right partner for her?

Well, here’s a list of things I think she should do in order to attract Mr Right (if he does in fact exist!):

1. Write it down – write down what you want – this is by far the most important step!

Write it as though you have already got him/her! Eg. I am so happy and grateful now that I have met the perfect man/woman for me. He/she has the following qualities….:

2. Now, it’s time to write down what qualities you think your partner should have. List down the essentials, followed by the “nice to haves”.

This step is essential, because you might meet a great guy, but he doesn’t want to commit long term, or you might want children and he doesn’t or any number of conflicting things!

3. Believe that you will eventually meet this perfect partner of yours – if you don’t believe he exists, then how on earth do you think you are going to attract him? Also, if you do meet Mr Right and you lack this belief, he might think you’re cynical and negative and you will unknowingly push him away!

4. Detach – know that you will be ok regardless of if/when he/she comes your way.

Detaching takes the emphasis off the devastation you would feel if you were to remain single for the rest of your days.

If the thought of not meeting your perfect partner brings up feelings of dread, then you definitely have not detached and you are still harboring negative emotions around this.

On the other hand, if you know you will be fine, happy and self-sufficient regardless of whether you meet someone or not, then you are most likely to meet him/her. You are at peace with your current situation which means you are more likely to attract what you want!

5. Enjoy yourself and get out there! If you’re sitting on your couch waiting for your knight in shining armor to jump in through the window, you’re going to be waiting a very, very long time.

Have fun, go out with friends, take up a sport or a hobby, do something you are passionate about.

Chances are your perfect partner shares the same passion and what better way to find them!

Have a happy and safe Easter!

How do you forgive someone?

My saying for today is this:

I don’t forgive people because I am weak, I forgive them because I couldn’t be bothered harboring negative thoughts…

Have you ever been guilty of harbouring resentment for somebody that did the wrong thing by you?

How did you benefit when experiencing these feelings? What if you were able to forgive that person and get on with your life?

This is a difficult concept for many people to accept and apply in their own lives.

“Why should I forgive him for what he did to me…?” might be the kind of reaction one would get if suggesting that forgiveness might be the right way to go.

Harbouring negative thoughts takes up sooo much energy and that energy is totally wasted. Personally, I just couldn’t be bothered!

Forgiving doesn’t mean you condone what they have done – it means you’re no longer going to let your feelings about them run your life.

My former husband treated me pretty badly for a long time, and in the end I walked out with my daughter, my personal belongings, some household items and what was left of my dignity. I told him he could have the house, the car and everything else inside.

So many people have asked me what I was thinking!? How could I let him keep everything after what he did to me!? I should take him for everything he had!

If I thought that way, then I’d still be in the “victim mentality”. I’d be fretting about all of the horrible things he did, maybe thinking up ways to get my revenge, thinking of how I could get as much money out of him as possible.

And my daughter’s life would have been filled with turmoil and anger.

Instead I chose another option. I didn’t need all of the “stuff” we had accumulated together. My daughter’s happiness and stability in her life was what I wanted more than anything. That is what helped me make my choice.

My former husband’s childhood was wrought with verbal abuse at the hands of his father (his father isn’t exactly what one would call a “happy” man…!), and whilst I don’t condone abuse of any kind, I do feel that the way he treated me was a symptom of all of the years of abuse he endured as a child (in fact, his father was still calling him names and putting him down well into his 30’s and probably still does).

I also know that deep down, he did care for our daughter and I, but he had a pretty terrible way of showing it – I suppose he never had a good example to follow.

I actually feel very sorry for the man, because I know that he will very likely remain the miserable man I married all those years ago – unless he finally gets off his butt and gets some help with his attitude and hopefully his self esteem!

So for me, forgiving him hasn’t been difficult at all. He had a terrible childhood, was miserable when I was married to him, and is still not exactly “Mr Happy” now. Nothing has changed, so I do feel pity for him, but know that only he has the power to change it, although I doubt he would have the foresight to actually do anything about it. Unfortunately. For him!

So how does one forgive? Well for me, it’s all about making the choice to do so. We can choose to forgive or not forgive. I also look at the situation from their perspective. For example, a thief who steals food from a store is breaking the law. But what if they feel they have a good reason to steal? What if they have starving children at home? What if they have no money and feel this is their only way? Ok, it doesn’t make what they’re doing right, but it does make it easier to understand why someone would stoop to such a level if they’re in a desperate situation.

We may never forget, but forgiving is taking back our power and moving on with our life.

How do you go when it comes to forgiving?

Are you caught in an abusive relationship?

I regularly check the statistics of my website so I know what people are interested in, and time and time again I see that many people are caught in an abusive relationship and don’t know what to do.

I was in a verbally and emotionally abusive relationship many years ago now, and can only try to imagine how things would have been if the abuse had turned physical.

A while ago I read a story that talked about abusive relationships and it was noted that in many cases, verbal abuse can eventually turn to physical abuse.

So even if you’re in a verbally abusive relationship, you MUST find a way out of your situation.

I see it this way. When caught in an abusive relationship you have three options:

1. Stay and put up with it

2. Stay and get help

3. Get out of there and get help!

With all three options, especially in the case of a physically abusive relationship, you must put your safety and that of your children (if you have any) first.

Number 1 might feel like the “safest” option right now, but long term things could progress and get worse. Even worse, your children could fall victim to the attacks or even grow up and find abusive partners of their own! This is probably the most damaging long term.

If you must stay (maybe for your safety), then you also need to get some help on how to deal with the abuse. Start off telling a close relative or friend, or even find a professional to help you. Remember though, your partner will not stop hurting you if you continue to let it happen. Remember that. It took me nine long years to wake up to this fact!

If you can get out safely, do so – but get help on how to deal with the wounds you have suffered, either physically and mentally. You don’t want to find yourself in the same situation again.

Remember your safety is paramount when you are in this situation, and trying to reason with an abuser is probably not going to work in many cases.

Abusers tend to be unhappy with very low self esteem (why else would they be like this?), but nothing justifies hurting another individual, no matter what.

Getting help can be as simple as searching online or making a call. Just remember that for as long as you give them permission, they will continue to hurt you.

How to attract the right partner

I am a strong believer that the better your mindset and self esteem, the better quality of partner you will attract in your life.

For example, when I met my first husband, I was not in a good place emotionally. I had low self esteem, and I was really just happy I found someone who was prepared to “put up” with me. Sad huh?

My first husband had very low self esteem himself, and it was only after nine years of verbal and emotional abuse that I finally built up enough courage to leave.

Fast forward to the day I met my current husband, and the person I had become, and you would be completely amazed at the difference!

I was a lot more confident, I felt good about myself, I was happy, and I was not going to settle for just “anyone”. My man had to meet certain criteria and I was not afraid to say “bye bye” to anyone who didn’t.

I now have a wonderful, caring and loving husband who has his faults (who doesn’t?), but is prepared to admit he has them and does what he can to rectify them. He is a wonderful and loving father and step father and I am so happy I have him.

I suppose I attracted the type of man I thought I deserved. From my own experience, the second time around, I found I was only attracted to confident men, whereas over ten years prior, that wasn’t even in the equation.

I can definitely say the quality of men I met after leaving my first husband were a LOT higher than the quality I encountered up to and including my first husband. Interesting.

So how do you attract the right partner?

The first thing is to sort yourself out. Get your mindset right. Learn to love yourself! How can somebody else love you if you don’t even love yourself?

I have my faults, and there are plenty of things I would change if I could – but I can’t, so I have to learn to live with them regardless! What’s the point of focusing on what you cannot control? I consider that a huge waste of energy.

So focus on what you DO like about yourself. Think positive thoughts about yourself. Hold your head up high, and smile!

Write down what you would like in a partner. What qualities must they have? Now that you know what you want, you can be on the lookout for someone who meets those qualities. You will find that people who fit your criteria will begin to cross paths with you – it is truly amazing!

I had a list of essential and non-essential qualities, that included must love kids (essential), and must have an interesting job (non-essential), for example.

So what do you want? If you were that person, would you be attracted to you? Why/Why not?

Communication is the key to a wonderful relationship

I am yet to come across a "perfect" relationship, and in many cases, the imperfection is caused by communication – or a lack of it.

Unfortunately, especially when you’ve been with someone for a while, couples seem to take each other for granted and don’t realise that if they just sat down and had a good talk once in a while, then their relationship would be a whole lot better.

I discovered this with my husband recently. We both learned a few things about each other the other day that surprised us, to say the least. This all came about when we had a huge talk after the children had gone to bed.

During this talk we realised that most of our time and efforts are spent on the children or work. These days we rarely take time out for ourselves. We then decided that once a month we will go on a "date" – just the two of us!

We also talked about going away for the night on occasion (maybe once every two or three months) and just taking time out to be a couple again, instead of parents.

All too often we fall into the trap of spending our energy on everyone and everything around us, so there’s very little (if any) left for each other.

In 2009 we are committed to making our marriage the best it has ever been, so I think our year is going to be wonderful!

Have you found yourself in the situation where you’ve kind of lost touch with your partner? Why not add it to your resolutions for 2009 to make your relationship greater than ever?

Check out the Relationships section in the new Self Confidence 101 forum at http://selfconfidence101.com/forum/ where we can share ideas/strategies for making our relationships great!

Talking about your ex in front of your children

Since leaving my husband over eight years ago, I’ve made a point of never talking in a negative way about him in front of my daughter.

The reason I have done this is because she had nothing to do with what happened between us, so therefore why should I involve her in the issues we had?

I feel really strongly about parents who try to hurt their ex through their children – it really is a form of child abuse in my opinion.

Of course there are some cases where a child is not safe to be around your ex partner, and I’m not referring to people in this situation, although I do believe the problems associated with this situation really should be dealt with professionally.

In most other cases however, your children probably feel a sense of love and loyalty towards your ex. In my situation, my ex was still my daughter’s father, and nothing I could do or say could change that.

By saying terrible things about him to her, I would have done little more than create confusion for her and I really don’t think that is fair to her at all.

Yes, he treated me badly, but what right do I have to make her sad and confused because of what he did to me?

The other day she asked me why I left him all those years ago. I didn’t want to lie to her of course, but I did have to say something, so I told her I left him because he didn’t treat me the way I deserved to be treated and that I hoped he had learned to treat his current partner well.

She told me he had learned his lesson and they were no longer fighting all of the time (yep, it took him a while to wake up to himself!).

Trying to put things in a positive way to her has therefore meant I have a beautiful, well-adjusted daughter who knows she is loved by a lot of people in various families!

Confidence in relationships

Sometimes I think it’s easier to have confidence in the early stages of a relationship. At this point you are still setting your boundaries, and this is therefore a perfect time to let your partner know what you will and will not tolerate.

As my first marriage neared it’s end, my husband and I went to a marriage counselor and after hearing the goings on in our marriage (mainly him being nasty and cruel and me putting up with it), she told me that I was also a contributor to the verbal and emotional abuse I endured.

She went on to say that one of the main reasons he continued to treat me badly was because I continued to let him. If, right from the start I had been firm and told him and proved to him that I was not going to put up with such treatment (through my words and my actions), then maybe our marriage wouldn’t have gone down the road it had.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but it didn’t help me then – our marriage was over, but I did learn from it. In fact, when I reentered the dating scene, I really stuck to my guns about what I would and would not tolerate, and I probably broke a few hearts along the way!

I know it was all worth it, because I ended up with a man who knows I won’t put up with any rubbish!

On the other hand, I have to remain conscious of the fact that he shouldn’t have to put up with rubbish from me either.

Remember, you get out of life what you put into it and what goes around comes around. Be the best person you can be, and know that you deserve to be treated right by everyone.

Are abusive relationships worth saving?

When I talk about abusive relationships I refer to both physical and emotionally and verbally abusive relationships because although the action of the abuser is physically different, the emotional effects for the victim are actually very similar.

So if you’re in an abusive relationship, should you stay and try to work things out?

In some cases, if both parties get help (both will definitely need help!), then of course there may be a chance the relationship can be saved, but in many cases, the relationship is doomed from the moment the abuser started abusing.

I might talk of my own experience as the "victim" (I hate referring to myself as a victim, because I now choose not to be one in any situation, but for simplicity I will use this term), to explain what I mean.

I found that from the first time my former husband started verbally or emotionally abusing me, I began to build an emotional wall.  Each time he abused me, the wall grow by another row.  This wall was my protection.  It helped to reduce the hurt every time he called me a name or yelled at me. 

By the time our relationship had neared its fateful demise, I no longer felt anything at all.  I didn’t feel hurt when he abused me, and I most certainly didn’t feel any love for him whatsoever.  I was completely detached emotionally from the entire situation.  He called me a "cold hard b*tch" once, and that’s probably how I appeared to him, because I was no longer crying, begging him to stay with me and I most certainly wasn’t showing any emotion towards him!

When he suggested we seek counseling (this was after I told him I was leaving him) I only agreed because I had been begging him to go for a long time and until this point he’d always said we didn’t need it (yeah, right!).  To say no at this stage would have made me a hypocrite.  Problem was that I really didn’t see how going to counseling was going to help us, because emotionally I had left the relationship several years ago.  My body was just waiting to follow.

The counselor picked up on what I was feeling and also pointed out how he was trying to manipulate me into feeling guilty about how I was feeling.  She was sooo right!  It was at that point that I knew I had to do what was best for all of us – and I left.

Now, if you’re in an abusive relationship, I definitely suggest you seek help NOW.  Don’t wait.  It’s just not worth it.  You only have one chance at this life, so wasting it on the life you’re living now isn’t really "living"!

You might already know what you should do, but you’re yet to actually do it.  What’s holding you back?  What are you afraid of?  What do you hope to gain by staying?  What could you gain by leaving?

There are a lot of questions you need to answer – many of them not even mentioned here, which is why it is so important you seek professional assistance to help you make a decision then act on it. 

No matter what you decide, you must consider your safety, and if you have children, their safety too.  I cannot stress this enough.

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