Trouble with Dating? Rather than Tips, Maybe it is Time to Start the Journey

If I knew half the things that I know now, almost every single piece of advice I have given in the past that had “tips or tricks” would have been thrown out the window. What I now know personally and now professionally working in a more spiritual and shamanic way with my clients is this — if you are struggling with dating, it is a symptom of something larger that needs to heal. When we are in balance physically and emotionally, relationships are not that difficult. It is the reason why therapy hasn’t always been needed. But in modern times, when we are so disconnected from our ancestors and spirituality, any help you can get is a start to the path.

Oftentimes our complaints with dating are really about not getting our needs met. After a lot of healing, you will learn that it is not the other person’s job to assist you in getting your needs met but, yes, there needs to be teamwork and collaboration on a bigger vision. Otherwise the relationship will cease to go anywhere. Sometimes we discuss those needs as sexual and sometimes we discuss those needs as more love based. Whatever the complaint is, we now know that it represents an energetic imbalance in the body. It is very common, from an energetic perspective, that the sacral chakra which represents our emotions, desires and relationships is out of balance with the throat chakra which is our center for self-expression. These two energetic centers, are in fact, linked. Many couples in couples therapy often have over activations where one partner has too much energy in one of these centers (which may tip over to a sex addiction) and the other partner is having trouble either quieting or speaking their truth. The imbalances in each individual actually balance out the energy of the relationship but both parties are not happy. They blame each other and conclude that the relationship is a failure and begin to look for someone else.

Often times, unless their is real personal development work done, the cycle repeats again. Why? Because it is one way the Universe tries to wake you up to move you to a higher level of learning, which if completed, results in more fun and less stress. I have found for myself and my clients that the older the soul, the more of this relational trauma will need to be purged and healed.

If you are like me, you are probably burnt out from healing. I know that I personally am and wish I could go back to those moments in my 20s when we had fun looking for an outfit and hoping to meet someone new at a bar. the fantasy and the anticipation of something new made dating fun. What is not fun for most people is that the mystery has been stripped away. The fantasy eroded. So our anxiety skyrockets and we have to start healing rather than enjoying the privelege our ancestors did not have of meeting new people.

Add a new level of energetic sensitivity into the mix for the spiritual girls and boys who are here to reinvent the world and dating has gone from fancy dinners, quality wine/cocktails, and intimate conversations to a lack of effort, subpar planning, and non-existent etiquette. Even today, when I went to a fancy hot chocolate place accross the street from Harrods London (which I had not been inside since I was 18), I was astounded by the lack of knowledge of the menu — which would have made sense if this were a cultural moment but it was not. I was also confronted by a father who took a chair from my table and stated, “You won’t be needing this, will you,” rather than asking if the chair was free. Not only are our dating lives a disaster, basic human interactions are struggling right now.

Dating is supposed to be fun but there is a reason why those stuffy old fashioned rules actually worked — they heighten human emotions and create a safe container for intimacy. The reason why dating is not working is that there is no safe container anymore. Learning why you are not capable of receiiving or providing that container is part of the personal development journey which, especially if you have European ancestory, is going to trigger memories of how your ancestors ate, dined and treated their partners. Even the wine or cocktail selections can be an unconscious exploration into ancesteral patterns. The basis of how our cultures sit for dinner has the capacity to help you open up to the healing of love in ways you cannot even imagine. Spontaneous moments of connection with those who may have passed could be possible with a sip of dessert wine (I know if has happened to me).

So if you are struggling, it is simply an invitation to education. The question is whether you would like to accept the invitation or not. But venting or complaining about your dating life is not going to be helpful from this point forward. The use of your words will begin to manifest exactly what you do not want. I always prefer in sessions that clients speak about what it is that they desire most rather than recount what the problems are. This is basic manifestation practices but also the foundation of the field of psychology where it is the therapist’s job to keep track of you use of words and help you see that you may be creating your own suffering.

It is a very hard lesson for most of us but, the truth is, we are mostly creating our own drama due to the need to heal mother wounds. And those wounds can start to heal when we go back to basics on how to ask, plan, set a date/time, and choose a venue conducive for intimacy. And none of this is based on how much money you have. The only limit is truly your belief in love and I would prefer to go back to the times when the belief in love was so strong, a first date was an exciting event — not an activity that produced no joy.

Remember, the struggle is the invitation. It is a path I have been on for a very long time. My thoughts about what I believed was happening years ago turned out to be false. We can only see things from the standpoint of how skillsed we are with our intuition. The trouble seeing the relationship or date as it is, is really a call for inuition training and to learn more about your mind. More than half of the United States has childhood trauma in this life time alone and the brain has been wired to see things in a particular way. It often needs to be reprogrammed before the spiritual work can truly begin.

So the next time you are getting frustrated, ask yourself what is it that you would like to learn about yourself or your mind so that your next experience can be just a little bit better. And if you have already been on a journey, be open that those frustrations may be past life triggers that are coming up for healing now. My triggers led me on the Magdalene path that led to profound healing and soul based learning about my own original abandonment wounds. Knowing this led to understanding why there were so many repetitive situations and that I was not failing — I just couldn’t remember where the original pain came from.

And it is this memory that is the key that unlocks the higher wisdom of love, intimacy and healthy human relationships.

*Originally published on Medium.com