Photo Credit: Zoey Grossman
Last year, romantically speaking, was a lot for me. I’d had three major attempts at relationships and three less serious dalliances in between — which unfortunately still made me emotionally spiral.
For the most part, in my dating past, these are my (at times contradicting) internal habits: I’m very good at “thinking too much” as they say, telling myself stories that aren’t true, caring about things that don’t matter, looking for problems where there are none, reading into things, and turning everything into the worst version it could be. And yet, my self-talk will rationalize away huge ACTUAL red flags, while at the same time blow up and turn something NOT negative into COMPLETE NEGATIVITY.
I was at a point where I felt like I was lying face down on the ground with absolutely no desire to ever date or have sex again. I was exhausted. I just kept telling people that moving forward, if/when I ever DID start dating again, I wanted to “make better choices.”
However, while I have great intuition and will physically sense when something is off, for some reason, I’ll STILL carry on in a romance that’s not right for me — just because I think the person is ‘neat,’ or I want to see it through, or I’m in it for the story. I dissociate and am watching my life like it’s a movie; I’m bored, I’m lonely, or I think he’s all I’ll be able to find and am so grateful he chose me. People are so multi-faceted, am I right?
Anyways, I had three main attempts at a relationship last year, and the final one was my rock bottom. Actually, any of the three could have been my rock bottom. Hell, I even got in a near-death car accident between the first and second rock bottom-worthy relationships (driving alone — not with any of the men I’m talking about), which in and of itself was clearly a message from the universe trying to shake me up, wake me up, and get me on the right track. And while I believe it did in most ways, I still went towards the fire as far as romance was concerned and got involved with men who were not only wrong for me, but incredibly BAD for me.
A little on that...
The first was a successful, jealous, misogynistic, codependent Adderall addict who I believed was cool because he was creative with long hair. WRONG!
The second was a latent religious man who was a mix of sensitive and wholly insecure but with bizarre anger issues sprinkled in, who during our final conversation on a porch at 2 AM one night was such a child that he literally ran from me mid-breakup convo and never looked back, and I’ve yet to hear from him since. Um, not that I want to, but… what a weird way to NOT say goodbye. My friend made a joke saying “Wouldn’t it be funny if when he finally called you back, it was via face-time and he was STILL running, and the background was like Antartica or whatever?” Yes, that WOULD be funny. A great soundbite to cushion the blow of yet another dating disappointment.
And now, the third, which I barely want to get into because it’s even still too recent, was a six-week stint that didn’t need to happen. Suffice it to say, he was yet another codependent, perma-adolescent narcissist who was emotionally manipulative and reckless with his words/promises/ my feelings. However, it was ME who had allowed him in my life.
It was ME who let all of these “wrong/bad” men get close to me. I was part of the problem. 50% of the problem. And in the wake of that six week whirlwind rendezvous I wished never happened and had intuitively known all along was completely wrong for me but still went on the wild ride despite knowing better, despite physically sensing it was off, I had FINALLY awoken to my romance rock-bottom and I had to do something.
I had to change. I was the common thread.
I was at a point where I felt like I was lying face down on the ground with absolutely no desire to ever date or have sex again. I was exhausted. I just kept telling people that moving forward, if/when I ever DID start dating again, I wanted to “make better choices.” But I felt completely disenchanted and lackluster as fuck.
After the breakup, I went to a New Years Eve party. I had my eye on no one romantically. I barely got tipsy. I made out with no one. I was solely focused on having a great night, and not embarrassing myself or spiraling the next morning over things that didn’t happen or matter and were nonissues: i.e., “Does so and so hate me?” “Should I NOT have said that?” “Did I dance dumb?” “Did I look ugly?” “Did I overshare?” “Were those people judging me?” “Am I enough?” Blah blah blah. NO! I was focused on having a great New Year — making better choices. I stopped drinking and began focusing on my career.
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Around the holidays, a girlfriend of mine posted about a website called FreeAndNative.com created by a young woman named Lacy Phillips. Hmmm. What was this? Lacy was a “manifestation advisor.” I didn’t exactly know what that meant, but what I had noticed was that my girlfriend who had posted about Free & Native had changed drastically over the past year. And I’d known her for nearly ten years. In the past year, she’d become so grounded. What was she tethered to? Herself? Wow! She seemed to move through life much more gracefully, effortlessly, magically, and magnetically than ever before. It was a palpable difference. She was like a walking talking advertisement for FreeAndNative.
I thought, if this is her new self-help medicine, it was working. I wanted to know more.
I needed a shift. I reached out to Lacy and invited her onto my podcast. And that's when the change in my life began. That day. And this is not a paid advertisement for Lacy. I kid you not. Listen to the episode, and you will know what I’m talking about. Lacy teaches people how to manifest what they want for their lives by providing tools for people to raise their self-worth, so their self-worth is on the same level as what they are trying to manifest/call into their lives.
Self-worth! I thought I’d had incredible self-worth. I mean, after all, I’m such a brave, fearless go-getter! And as far as romance was concerned, so what that I had a habit of having sex on the first or second date with someone? I was sexually empowered, baby! It wasn’t because of my daddy issues, or subconsciously feeling like this was what the guy expected, and he would get mad at me if I were to move slowly, make space for myself to take the time to get to know him and vice versa… was it? Yikes.
I was lifting the veil of my life and who I was at my core — why I made the choices and thought the things I thought about myself and others.
I was confronting the voices in my head that up until now I wasn't even aware of, beliefs that were subconsciously running my life. Lacy says you manifest from your subconscious, so you have to do the work and use tools to unblock all the things getting in your way. Uh oh, I realize this is starting to sound like a cult, it’s not. I promise. Unless you want it to be, then it IS: a cool, self-help cult that doesn't harm you and only helps you be the best version of yourself you can be.
Years prior I had had a moment of revelation after reading Conversations With God or some Shakti Gawain self-help book or Wayne Dyer audio self-help thing, when I realized I had deep, hidden, subconscious beliefs running me. I listed some of them to rid them from my system, but then quickly forgot about it and continued on with my life and all its habitual patterns — no longer digging deep internally. And here I was again, the same work calling to be done. Lacy’s work involves hypnotherapy. You do it from the privacy and comfort of your own home. All you need is your computer, headphones, a pen, and a blank journal.
I wasn't sure if it would work. “I’m gonna get hypnotized from some hip cool young babe over my computer? No way!” WAY!
Before I knew it, I was on a carpet floating to a meadow in my mind's eye, having conversations with my shadow self, and the six-year-old version of me.
I found myself cathartically crying, seeing my weaknesses, insecurities, and understanding how/why I am the way I am, seeing what I was exposed to (too much) as a child, reparenting myself, pushing past trauma and things that don’t serve me into the fire (in my head, not an actual fire). I visualized the magnetic version of myself and had chats with the worst version of myself, after which we hugged and healed.
I did exercises where I had to reach out to a handful of my closest friends and ask them to tell me what I do — behavior and habits I have that self-sabotage. Yeah, that was definitely as vulnerable, scary, and cathartic as it sounds. I visualized my ‘magnetic family’ — the family and surroundings I wished I had come from, something healthy, loving, encouraging (not that mine wasn’t, but I come from a lot of chaos, enmeshment, and just A LOT) but in the work, you fix and create the ideal scenario of your childhood to heal the trauma that doesn’t serve you and is actually still working against you.
By now, I've done ALL the workshops. I love them all. They have changed my life drastically and continue to do so. If you end up checking them out and care in the least, here's the order I did the workshops in: Shadow, then Formula and Magnetism (I did those two at the same time), Reparent, Partnership, and Opulence. I'm doing the Opulence workshop again, and I have just begun doing the daily reprogramming exercise from Formula and Magnetism on a daily basis, to reinforce and strengthen new neural pathways. I'm considering doing the partnership workshop again and substituting the word "relationship/partner" with "money" and "career."
But this will all make more sense if you check out Lacy’s website or listen to her episode of my podcast. Overall, after this deep dive, and all the internal work I’ve just done, I genuinely feel I’m raising my self-worth, trusting the universe, passing tests, surrounding myself with expanders (people who show you what you want for yourself is possible), meditating twice a day, listening to the ‘pings’ of my intuition, and unblocking and reprogramming limiting beliefs from my childhood/past.
After all this self-work, I felt different. I felt like I valued myself more. I felt like I could look people in the eyes more. Hadn’t I been able to before? Somehow, this version of me felt different. People I knew and strangers commented on my energy. I felt great. I felt grounded and a shift; I was ready. It was as if a dark cloud had been lifted. I was ready to throw myself into the world again, to dip my toe into the stream of life!
I was ready to date again.
To be continued...
