A Personal Note from Orion

Amidst all the dating advice, all of the “do this” and “don’t do that” you’ll often find that a lot of that noise is geared towards helping you prepare for your relationships with others. But one of the most important relationships that you will have, and which will set the precedent for all others, is the one you have with yourself!

It sounds so simple, yet self-love and self-care are not always prioritized in our society, especially for women. You need to have a good relationship with yourself, in order to have good relationships with anybody else. Because it’s not just about being in relationships for the sake of them, it’s about being surrounded by healthy, loving, and supportive people.

My guest today is Alexis Meads, a Harvard educated dating and relationship coach. She is well known in her field and helps women improve their confidence to find passionate, committed relationships. Tune in to learn how to navigate the world of relationships, beginning with the one you have with yourself.

 

About Today’s Show

Seventy-five years and still going. A Harvard study discovered that the secret to true happiness is good relationships, and most of all, the quality of one’s intimate relationships is the key to happiness, the quality of your relationship. This is why I’m so passionate about helping women find love and helping people have better relationships and better lives. You know what? The first relationship that you need to have in order to have a good relationship is to have a good relationship with yourself. Mind blowing! Very simple, simple sounding, but not that simple at all. The second thing you need is the desire, a clear desire and a real knowing of what you’re looking for, very important to be specific with what you are ordering from the universe. Believe me, I know. I had to be specific in ordering the love of my life. You want to really write down the qualities of the person you want to attract, and also figure out who do you need to become to attract that person. My guest today is Alexis Meads. She is a Harvard educated professional, Dating and Relationship Coach, founder of alexismeads.com, and the Crazy Wild Love Academy. She’s a well-known coach and helps women improve their confidence and find passionate, committed, relationships. Now, without further ado, onto the show.

Hey Alexis and welcome to Stellar Life Podcast.

Hi, Orion, thank you very much for having me.

Thank you so much for being here. I know that you’re going through a lot and you’re very, very busy so I’m very grateful that you’re here with us. You’re going to help a lot of people, especially women that are listening to this show.

That’s great. I’m excited to be here, absolutely happy to make the time. Thank you for having me.

Before we start, why don’t you share a little bit about yourself?

Sure. I’ve been doing coaching work and had this business now for about six years. I didn’t start out knowing that this is what I wanted to do, I actually went to graduate school for something totally different and then just through a series of life events, evolved naturally. It’s been a wonderful journey. Other than that, I currently am living in Portland, Oregon. We’re about to have our second son, so I have a three-year-old and then in just a few months we’re going to have another little guy, so excited for that and kind of getting prepped for that. That’s a little bit about me and my life right now.

The quality of your relationship is the key to happiness. Click To Tweet

That’s cool. When I saw that you were busy, I was like maybe I shouldn’t say that she’s about to have a baby, she’s super busy because this is very taxing and a wonderful time.

Yes, that’s true.

Where did you start in your coaching and how did you change into really focusing on the love coaching?

Good questions. Where I started with my coaching was actually more holistic wellness based coaching if you will. I stumbled into it a bit by accident, I had been going through a coaching program just for fun. It interested me, it was really just to better myself. I was working in a different career. Because of a series of moves that my husband and I were making–physical moves across the country–I had this time that I thought to myself well, I can’t look for another full-time job where we are right now. What can I offer to people? I just started one-on-one in my community doing some energy work with clients, I was doing some cleanses and nutritional work with them. I love that stuff. I still actually really feel passionate about that stuff. But what I found was that I’d be meeting with these people one-on-one and then we’d start talking about their personal life. I’d start giving them actions of can you write about this? Can you list things you’re grateful for? Little just life coaching steps. I got a further degree in life coaching and I just kind of evolved from there. When I saw what most of my clients were struggling with—for the most part, if you go through a coaching program as you probably know, it’s a little bit more general. I actually worked for Tony Robbins as a coach for his organization for some time and one of the mottos for us was you can coach anyone, anywhere. You have to have the confidence as a coach that I could coach anyone on anything, anywhere, and that’s great. But I had to start putting together what most people are coming to me for. What’s the outcome? I was doing a lot of self-love work, but a lot of the clients I was seeing–most were women–most wanted a relationship. They were doing the self-love work, but for the desired outcome of being in love with someone, partnering up with someone, that’s where the transition started to happen into the dating and relationship coaching that I do now.

We have similar paths in a way where I started with fitness coaching, and then life coaching, and then love coaching, and found my niche there and then helped women with the self-love and all that. Another parallel is that I actually met my husband at Date with Destiny.

No way! That’s so funny.

Yeah, we met on the very last day. Actually, that’s what niched me into doing the love coaching, having my own experience with it. We met on the very last day, nine days later he proposed to me in a hot air balloon in Vegas.

That’s crazy, wow.

That’s after I did my relationship vision, and prayed for him. I had the whole metamorphosis, and transformation, and connection, and all that.

That’s awesome. I wonder how many people meet at Tony Robbins’ events. I had a few Tony Robbins clients who are like, “I met this amazing person on the last day of the event.” That’s really cool.

Yeah, because you want to go to where people are like-minded. This is like a big pool of people who are like-minded. Also, with Date with Destiny, many people get separated or divorced. It’s either they get together—because they keep themselves into a higher standard. All of a sudden it’s like well, this is not exactly what I want. What I really want in life is something else. There are both sides to that super potent event.

You’re an example then of you never know what’s going to happen, or how it’s going to happen. Being proposed to nine days later…

Well, I said “no” nine days later. It was a very sad descent into the Vegas land. It was very sad. We really liked each other, but the difference between the way my husband and I met and most common dating scenarios is that we were there for six days doing the work, shedding our masks, and going deep internally. Do you know Donny Epstein? He does energy work.

I don’t.

He does energy work with Tony Robbins before he goes to stage. We did a few seminars with him, we know him personally. He’s like an energy magician. One thing that he told us is because we met in such higher vibration, we always have to keep high standards for our personal relationships and keep ourselves in high standards, or else we break down. We have to keep evolving and working on ourselves and keep higher standards for ourselves and for each other in our relationship. What I was going to tell you is that we met at very high energy, high vibration situation. Most people meet online, or they meet in a coffee shop and it’s very artificial. Everybody comes with their baggage, and everybody wants to impress, and there is a lack of trust. What’s the first thing that you do with your women? If a woman just came to you and said, “I can’t find love,” what will be the first thing you will do?

That’s a good question. I can’t say that there’s a standardized thing because I realized that while I feel like I followed what now appears to be almost a formula, if you will, in my life, that led me on the path to finding love and finding my husband, everyone’s different. Everyone’s life path is going to be different and look different. One of the most important questions I help my clients within the beginning is what do you want personally? What do you want? While I can’t guarantee an outcome, I can’t say well yeah, you want a husband, you’re going to meet them in six months, or whatever it might be. We take those, we look at that desire, what is the actual desire? What have been the frustrations? And what are some first steps for them from there? I’ve had clients in this past year who come to me and yes, maybe their desired outcome is they do want to be married. However, they don’t even feel close to being ready to even date yet. I’ve had two clients last year who haven’t dated almost ever in their life who are in their 30s. For them, the first thing to work on was bringing up some of that confidence and depending on what that meant for them, bringing up some more inner confidence in yourself from an authentic standpoint and looking at those individual goals. And then I have other clients who might say yes, my desire is I want to meet someone, “I want to fall in love, but I’m just meeting really,” like you said, “superficial interactions.” I’m just not feeling connected. But they’ve been dating. For them, it’s going to be a different stop and a different path, meeting them where they are, within their dating, or within their love journey.

Dating should be simple and fun. Don't push it if it feels like a chore. Click To Tweet

I’ve been working with women like that. I know people like that. They’re frustrated with the dating journey. It’s like a second job, basically. It’s the thing that wakes them up in the middle of the night. They go to picnics and they sit there with their married friends and their kids and they feel like they don’t belong. There is this facade of, “Oh, I love to be the auntie that comes and brings gifts,” but inside it’s like I don’t want to be that, I want to be the friend that brings her kids to play with your kids and have this beautiful relationship. How do you help them?

One thing that I will say I don’t believe is I don’t think that it’s a numbers game, per se. I’m not going to get a client who says, “I don’t want to be the aunt anymore. I want to be the person married with kids.” I don’t say, “Okay, let’s just get online, let’s find the best apps for you, and message as many guys as possible and go out on as many dates as possible. The more guys you weed through, the closer you’re going to be to get there.” I don’t believe in that. I actually just wrote an article the other day called My Three Golden Rules for Dating Online without Losing Your Sanity or Your Confidence…

Yeah, I saw it. Let’s talk about that.

A lot of women who are currently dating who come to me are very frustrated. Very, very, frustrated. Not just with dating in general, but with the dating culture as it stands today. I got married four and a half, almost five years ago now. When I was dating, even just five years ago, it was so different. In such a short amount of time, at least the online scene or interactions if you will, are so different. A lot of clients come to me and they’re like, “I feel like I have to be online if I want to date. Yet, I’m feeling too empty and disconnected and dissatisfied by this. It’s chipping away at my confidence.” Then, I think it’s kind of important. If that’s you, if you’re just frustrated by it, I think dating needs to seem somewhat simple and it needs to be fun. If it’s just frustrating and just like oh, this is the second job that I hate, then chances are no matter how many guys you go out with, or women, or whatever, you might not meet that person by sheer numbers alone because your state has become so depleted by the process itself.

Right.

Therefore, you took a step back and went to Date with Destiny and did this high vibration work on yourself. When someone comes to me in that state, I look at how do we need to take a step back right now? Maybe that’s actually not dating for the first few months we work together in general and bring up your vibe, bring up your confidence again. Or if you want to continue dating or you’re ready to start dating, what can we do to keep dating from feeling like this weighted thing where you’re dreading meeting someone? Because I guarantee if you dread meeting someone, dread going on a date, you’re not going to feel connected to them, and they’re not going to feel connected to you. It’s going to be harder to meet that person.

That’s exactly what I did with one of my clients. That’s what I do in general where I’m like the fact that we’re looking for love doesn’t mean that we have to start dating now. I remember a specific lady that now really improved her life and found love and all that. When we started, it was about three or four months of not dating, we’re working on you finding you, we’re working on you finding the confidence, we’re working on you being happy and joyful, and radiant. We’re working on your connection to your feminine essence, as an attractor. And then from that point of attraction, then you’re going to attract what you want. Like you said, if somebody is low energy, depleted, jaded, tired, exhausted, but then they want somebody who is powerful, successful, energetic, loving, warm, two different radio frequencies. Even if they will meet that person, they might meet them for coffee, or drinks, or whatever. But it won’t feel like a match because it’s not the vibration, the energy is not a match.

Yeah, absolutely. That’s what worked for me as well in my journey.

Tell me, I want to know how did you meet your love, your true love?

I think I tried to do exactly what you’re describing before I met him and before I took that step back. That’s why when I thought about my own self-love journey, the way it outwardly manifested itself was with love, was with relationships. That nagging feeling of just not feeling confident within myself, not really having that self-love, just came out in relationships. Essentially, them not working. I met someone when I was 18 years old, he was my first boyfriend, we were so in love. That young love where you’re just like there’s no baggage from the past, it’s just like yeah, this is great. When we dated for many years, after that I realized that I felt so validated from a relationship. Being with him made me feel like well, I think he’s handsome, and I was never that confident growing up so I’m like well now I feel validated, I feel good about myself. But the problem was that he could fill that need for a while, and then suddenly it was shakey again. Well maybe I need to find a hotter guy to fulfill that validation again, maybe I need to go on more dates.

For years after that, to me it was about how many guys can I get to like me, how many dates can I go on, how can I seem so attractive and so whatever. I would “get” guys but I would never feel that same connection. I was looking for something bigger and better, if you will, to fill my own self, but I wasn’t feeling that love that I had felt in that first relationship. I think that’s when I got a little panicky. It can’t just be the number of guys you’re going through because I was meeting great guys. Really, really great people. There was something missing. I took a step back. I went to grad school, and then after graduate school, I moved to Hawaii for four, five-ish months, and I worked on a farm. I got my hands dirty and I was just like nope, I broke up with someone I had been seeing and I knew wasn’t the one. I was like this needs to be time for me to reconnect with myself, with the earth if you will, that was an important part of it for me.

Be intentional and present in dating. It's not just a numbers game. Click To Tweet

I love that.

I just needed to reconnect. I wasn’t going to date, I wasn’t going to repeat my old patterns, I just was going to reconnect. I took that time and I did that. A lot of what I did in that time is some of the starting work, the inner work, if you will, that I do with my clients. After that time, I set the intention like you were saying with Date with Destiny. I saw what I wanted for my life after that time when I moved back to the States, what I wanted for me, and how I want it filled up and what kind of relationship. I started dating again when I moved to Portland, Oregon, after Hawaii. I never lived there before, I was just like for whatever reason, yep, moving there, and I did. I started dating again and I fell right into the same pattern, fell into the same hole. I was dating this guy and I was chasing after him. He clearly was not that into me but I ran myself ragged trying to get him and I was just like oh my god, I’m falling into the same stuff. Within a few months, I met my now husband, but we were friends. We were just friends. I knew he was kind of interested in me but I was just trying to meet new people in a new city and he was so different than my previous type. I just dismissed it a little bit. I knew that every time we hung out, I felt good around him. I just felt grounded, I felt safe, we laughed, we had fun together. I can still remember the moment. I kept holding him out at arms’ length.

He expressed his feelings, I was super honest. I was like I just don’t know, and I’m kind of like focused on myself. It didn’t scare him off, he didn’t react like guys in my past reacted which was either manipulative and jealous, trying to play games to get me, or angry and just fine, I won’t talk to you ever again. He didn’t act like that at all. He was confident enough within himself to be like okay, that’s great, I’d still love to be friends because we had so much fun together. There is this one date that we spent together after we had both expressed our feelings. He had a motorcycle and we went on his motorcycle out to the beach. We just had this long talk, it was probably like Date with Destiny for you. We cut through all the bullshit, it was not casual, and we just talked about ourselves, he had been married before and we talked about that, his journey of finding himself afterward, and my journey. I just felt so connected to him. On the motorcycle ride back, I remember him just gently placing his hands on my leg and I was so cold. His hand just felt so warm.

Aww, I love that.

I just felt like for the first time, I felt so attracted to him.

Oh, wow.

I had fun with him and we were great friends, but with my previous type, I would’ve gone on one date and been like ooh, I want to make out with this person or whatever. It wasn’t like that with my husband at first. And then I can remember that switch flipping for me. That day, I was just like I really like him, I’m really attracted to him, and I really like him. Then, we were engaged within six months.

That’s beautiful.

That really showed me that love at first sight probably is out there and happens for some people, and for some of my clients who say well, shouldn’t I just know right away? I’m like not necessarily. It can develop, it can take some time. You have to get to know people and give them a chance. That feeling can change.

What I see in my clients is that they hit a certain age and then it’s becoming like a project, like a very stressful project. They date the wrong guys for the wrong reasons. And then they become the hunter, they hunt them down. It’s like no, don’t text back, no, wait for him to reach out, no, love yourself enough to know that he should come to you. They are so stressed that sometimes it’s hard for them to break that pattern. What are some patterns that you see?

That’s definitely one of them. I get a lot of people who are very competitive in nature within themselves, and they start dating specifically, maybe online dating, and things happen. They’re like, “I thought I could just work at this, it would be easy, why is this so hard?” Kind of separating ourselves from a job mentality or an athletic mentality is a different mentality than finding love, per se. It’s not linear as you put those other categories. The other pattern that I see some clients falling into is especially if they get to a certain age and maybe they haven’t had a lot of dating experience, or a lot of significant relationships, and things seem to be going well. They’ll meet someone and things seem like they’re going great, and it will be this whirlwind within a few weeks.

It’s not just driven by them, the guy might be fully participating in this, future plans and boyfriend talk, having exclusive talk within a few weeks, and then all of a sudden the guy will pull away. They don’t know why. I feel for them because that feeling is so, so painful. It’s so hard and you thought this was it, and everything was going well, and they were participating in it. I think what happens in that pattern is that we make them a goal. My goal is to meet this person, and therefore I met them, and everything seems to be going so well, that we kind of get ahead of ourselves a little bit. We forget that this individual isn’t just a goal to be met of your goal of I need a boyfriend, but that they’re just starting to get to know you and you’re just starting to get to know them.

You’ve both–especially if you might be in your late 30s or your 40s or even 50s–had some time where you built up a life of your own, of independence. I think when you meet someone and you quickly try to box each other into this ‘we need to be in a relationship now’, it can all of a sudden flip a switch in the wrong direction and freak people out a little bit. Like, “Oh God, what do I need to sacrifice then? Am I even able to do this?” I’ve sadly seen that happen a few times where I get so excited with the client because they feel like they’ve met this person and everything seems to be going great, they’re already talking to them about them being their boyfriend and all those things, and then the guy just pulls away out of nowhere. I’m sure that happens with women as well.

Dating should be a natural experience and not something forced. Click To Tweet

It’s like in marketing when you want to sell a product and you just scream and say please buy this product, this is a good product. They promise you it’s a great product, buy it, buy it. “You want a discount? Here you go. Please buy this product. You have to buy this product.” Or, “This is a very exclusive product, please join our waiting list.” Very different energy. That’s the problem. How do you turn this off, the neediness, the energy of I have to, I need, I should. How do you help your clients turn it off?

I do think that this is when working with a coach can be really helpful. At least having great friends that you can go to during this process. I tell my clients the value of working with me as a coach, I can’t guarantee that you’re going to find a boyfriend or husband within X amount of time. I can’t guarantee that. However, when my clients do start dating, if they haven’t been dating already, and when they’re ready for that, when they’re in that energy like you were talking about, things like this are most likely going to come up. Especially if you’re online dating, there are some insecurities that come up. People don’t message you back, maybe a guy ghosts you which seems to be an unfortunate trend for both men and women now. Things come up that are going to shake your confidence, and that neediness or some of those patterns that maybe you thought you were over, you’ve been working on, and you thought you were done with. In love, it pulls it out of you sometimes. We’re like oh god, this is still here, I didn’t even realize. That’s kind of the value of relationships, that’s the value of dating almost, it brings some of that stuff out that was like oh geez, I didn’t even realize this was still within me.

While my clients are going through that, I’m in contact with them. They can text me if they need to, between calls because I know that feeling so intimately. That’s sometimes when we need that person, that go-to. Maybe it’s your mom, maybe a friend, but someone who’s non-judgmental that you know you can continually go to when those emotions inevitably come up to kind of bring you back into your center, bring you back into your heart, remind you of your value, remind you that no matter what, you’ll be okay. That this isn’t something you need. It might be something you want, but that you can take a step back. Just because a guy might be rushing it too that you’re seeing it, but even so, I’d rather my client be the one to be like whoa, I’m so enjoying getting to know you and this is great. I have a life, and I need to take this a bit slowly.

The worst mistakes to do is to be always available, to change your schedule around the guy, to be all about him. What are some mistakes that you see that women do when they’re dating?

I think those are some of them. Maybe they’re mistakes, maybe they’re not. Maybe they’re just something like you have to go through to see the results for yourself. But typically, as you know, that doesn’t work. My advice to people around that is don’t bend over backward. It’s what I call the cool girl syndrome. I was stuck in the cool girl syndrome for so long where you want to be accommodating, you want to be nice, you want to be understanding. It might even be coming not from a needy place, it might be coming from a positive intention of yeah, I just want to be accepting and understanding, and that’s fine.

The more experience you have of dating, the easier it will be. Click To Tweet

But what’s going to quickly happen is if they don’t get turned off by that, if you guys do continue down the road, they’re going to start seeing you that way as someone who doesn’t stand up for themselves, someone who maybe they can walk all over, someone who maybe don’t have the standards their needs adhere to. You might find yourself becoming resentful in time. It’s too late to even voice those resentments until it just blows up because you didn’t start from the beginning of being like you know what, this actually isn’t okay with me. You canceling our date last minute often is not okay with me. This is what I would like to see instead. You’re either challenging a guy to either step up to that, step up to your standards because you value yourself, or not, or to leave and that might be the best thing for you, too.

You talked about ghosting and you said this is a new trend. What are some of the 2018 trends that we are seeing here in the dating world?

There’s so many. It’s hard to keep up with all the different trends now. I was asked a quote on Serendipidating not too long ago and I had to google it.

What is that?

Serendipidating? It’s when you always avoid dating or you don’t go on dates because you always want the next best thing, like you think that there’s something bigger and better. The swipe app culture has made that more prevalent because it seems like there might always be something right around on the next swipe. You don’t give opportunity as much to one another. Ghosting, as we mentioned, definitely has become more of a trend. Really, it’s nothing new but me and my husband were talking about it. When we were dating, we never would have thought of doing that to someone and I had never been ghosted myself. That seems to be something that’s becoming more and more prevalent. Why? I don’t know. Maybe it’s some of the apps as well. Ghosting seems to be the main thing.

Yeah. Also, I feel sorry for the young men in our culture because you don’t have to develop those basic skills of like, “Hey, how are you doing? Let’s go on a date,” and really face a woman in the real world, really own themselves, and ask somebody out. Yesterday, I was in the store and this young guy approached me and talked to me. I was just nice to him, helping him, and then he asked me out. For myself, because I’m married, I so don’t look for this. I didn’t even know how to respond. I was just like, “No, no, no.” It was such an abrupt ‘no’ and I felt really bad for him because he was trying to make the effort. For the next 10 minutes, I was walking in the store feeling really, really bad about the way I treated him.

He was like, “You are such a nice lady. Do you want to go for coffee?” I was like, “No.” All of a sudden, nice lady became not a nice lady. I just didn’t know how to react. It’s funny because I’ll coach women on how to handle dates but because I was just caught off-guard, I wasn’t looking for somebody to approach me. I felt that for 10 minutes. Then I went to pay for whatever I bought and I saw him there standing in line. I’m just like, “Bye,” and he looked at me and gave me a mean look. Two minutes later, he was flirting with another girl, so I think he was just fine. It makes me think about it because as women, sometimes we care too much. Honestly, there are a lot of players out there and like you said, with your husband, he wasn’t mad at you or just cut you off, but guys do act like that because of their insecurity and it can be really painful for a woman or worse for a woman. What’s your advice on handling rejection?

That’s a really good question. I actually just came from a meeting with one of my guy clients—I work with a few men as well—and one of his goals was to get rejected 100 times.

Oh, cool.

He just wants to accept it. He just wants to accept rejection and he wanted to ask women out in person, so that was part of it. He was going to maybe, like the guy in a store… but he wanted to practice being okay with putting himself out there and potentially being rejected. The truth is, in dating, rejection happens and my clients who I’ve seen who have been crushed by the guy pulling away or by rejecting them typically haven’t had as many dating experiences per se. There’s nothing wrong with that. When I look back on the days that I was dating, there are so many times that I felt hurt, I felt rejected in some way, and it’s never easy. I mean, we’re humans. It’s never easy on that ego part of ourselves. It’s going to feel it in some way. However, realize that you are still going to be okay, with or without this person’s validation. With or without, like you said, that neediness of feeling like you need that. Realizing that you don’t and no matter what happens, you are going to be okay, and the more experience that you get of putting yourself out there, of being open to the possibility that you’re going to get rejected, the easier it will feel and the easier it will also feel to be connected with someone.

I have this question actually come up in The Dating Cocktail Lounge, my online membership group, and they ask, “What’s the norm? What should I do? Should I date one person at a time if I’m online dating or should I try to be dating as many people as I can as possible so I don’t get hurt?” Everyone’s advice was a little bit different with all the different members in the group, but the truth is that, yes, if you want to not put your eggs in one basket, if you will, and date multiple people so that you don’t get too attached, you are less likely to get hurt. Even if you do get rejected, you might not feel it as much because you’re like, “Well, I still have this date set up,” or, “I still have this guy in the back burner.” But, you also are less likely to fall in love or feel connected to someone as well.

I love that. Yes.

You almost have to have what feels like the approach that feels unnatural to you, of being able to say, “You know what? I got really hurt last year. I got my heart broken, even.” If you believe in a higher power need, that’s like, “You know, God? I am willing to even get my heart broken again if that means that I might find true love. I might find that person,” or like, “I am willing to put myself out there and knowing that I could get rejected by someone if that means I’m closer to that outcome,” whatever that outcome is for you. Feeling connected to marrying someone, to falling in love. We can’t feel that connection, we can’t feel that feeling that we all want without the vulnerability. We can’t be vulnerable without accepting that rejection could be a part of that path.

That’s a wonderful answer. Also, it’s such a delicate matter. If a woman is completely heartbroken, maybe this would not be the right time to go and start and just date again, and again, and again if she’s not healed. Yes, take the time to heal. I think my biggest lesson was what you said, it’s about surrendering to a higher power and saying I cannot do it on my own, please help.

Yes.

That was my moment where it was okay, I tried it my way, I tried to make it a project, I tried to chase guys. It didn’t work. I’m going to surrender. I also had Alison Armstrong on the show. For you listeners, it’s Episode 51 if you want to refer back to that which was another amazing episode about understanding men and women, and The Queen’s Code.

Yes, I love that book.

Yeah. I love Alison. What she says is that it’s okay to go through that heartbreak and to date because when somebody is “rejecting” you, he’s doing you a favor. Instead of you wasting another month, another year, another two years with something that will not pan out and wasting time, the most powerful resource that we have is time. Somebody’s giving you the no, then he’s doing you a favor. It’s about changing the perspective. I know that when one goes through rejection, it’s like the hardest thing. But maybe some of this awareness can help as well.

Right. That awareness, even when you’re going through it, you’ve had to realize you know what, I might not see it today but this is for the best in some way. Like you said, to give yourself time. If you are still really hurting from something that felt big, then give yourself that space and time for healing. Absolutely.

What are some of your healing modalities that you teach your clients?

That’s a great question. I have a lot of different ways that I work with people around that. I have a couple different written exercises that will have them do on their own, things that feel ceremonial. I’ve had clients where it’s what we just talk about and have worked on together for months, even. Also, I’ll do some energy work with clients. If I’m on a call with someone, we might do some energy work or some meditation work around it as well.

When you say energy work, what type of energy work do you do?

I was–I don’t typically practice anymore–a Reiki master. Sometimes, I’ll just do some meditation and visualization with the client and bring some of the Reiki into that. Also, just have them visualize certain things that can help shift their energy around the way that they feel towards the person; be it anger, be it pain, whatever that might be. It takes time. There’s no one specific magic thing that I can give someone that’s going to make it all better. Sometimes it does and sometimes it just takes time, and practice, and healing. My husband likes to say… we had this conversation about it. I always like to hear a man’s perspective too because sometimes it’s so different from the way that I would think.

His perspective was, “You know what? You only have so much mental energy in a day,” and he’s like, “You’re actively spending so much mental energy thinking about someone from the past, or in pain and in hurt because you’re so focused.” I’m giving that energy still to them. He’s like, “Then you’re never going to be ready to move forward because you’re literally expending your energy on that, your daily energy.” That’s how he processes it. In some ways, I think what he’s saying helped me to realize you have to feel the pain, you have to go through that. There are definitely some things that can help you to heal. It also at some point takes some conscious effort and conscious decision to choose new thoughts, choose new actions. I’m not going to spend all my time focused or stuck in this depression anymore, focused on that person that broke up with me.

Right. I find out that there is a small percentage of my clients that it’s almost like there is an addiction to the suffering. They say they want to move forward, they have the tools to move forward, and they revert back to the old pattern and the old behavior. What do you do with that? How do you coach somebody like that?

I’ve had clients who are addicted to different kinds of suffering, and it’s taken us some time and some really honest looking at what is actually going on here. I had a client this past year who was really addicted to holding on to her weight. She had been her whole life and she wouldn’t date. She said she wanted to date but she wouldn’t move forward because she didn’t feel confident in her body. She had done therapy for it in years. It was tough. Many of our conversations were around, like you said, holding onto the suffering. She was looking for a ‘why,’ just looking for that why did she do this. Eventually, we started to be a little bit more self-honest and kick her butt a little bit more. “You’re here for a reason. You want this.” She almost gave up on the coaching and like, “You can give up.

That’s okay. I’m not going to force you. But know that you’re stronger than this, too. There’s a reason you’re here. You have this inside of you.” That conversation—I can’t remember specifically what was said—started to shift things. She not just looked at the why is this happening but really started to commit herself to take different actions and having that accountability from me and from herself as well. She started to finally create new habits and new thoughts from it, focus on the future, focus on what she did want, focus on the positive, and focus on the strength within herself, not just the, “Well, I’ve always done this since I was 12, so how can it be any different?” That addiction, if you will, to the suffering, to the victim-part mentality that we can get stuck in with that.

What shifted in her? Where is she now?

She’s actually going to be doing a fitness, the bikini competitions next year.

Oh, how cool.

Yes, she’s going to be doing a fitness competition. She started an Instagram feed to keep herself accountable. She never really cooked before, so she started learning how to cook so that she could cook herself nutritious meals to help her in this weight loss goal. Then she set a goal for herself on when she would decide she’d be ready to start dating. This was the main journey for her, the fitness and the confidence journey. She’s been wanting to do this for a long time. But she also made that decision of like, “In the new year, in 2019, come January, I am going to just actively start putting myself out there.”

Yeah. I had a client that after a very short amount of coaching within a year, she got married and she told me, “For 50 years, I didn’t believe that a love like that can exist,” which was like, “Oh my God.” It’s so beautiful and powerful, but she was ready to take on the challenge. She was at a point where it’s not physically ready, it’s on an emotional level. It’s a level of surrender and trust and openness to the possibility that a love like that can happen, even if it didn’t happen for the last 50 years. I love that you brought this example of this lady. I love that you didn’t give up on her and she didn’t give up on herself because that happens, too. Even with coaching where the person is not ready, that’s okay. I love that. It takes a while for some people to really rebuild their self-confidence, awaken the power inside of them together with their coach, and take it step by step. For some people, it’s a sprint and for some people, it’s a marathon, but you have to stick until the end to get the result.

Right. Yeah. Beautifully said.

What are some of your most exciting client stories?

I had one client who came to me, only wanted to work on self-love. She had really low self-confidence. She has some things that she thought were major setbacks for her in terms of dating, that she just didn’t see it being a possibility of love, of a relationship ever happening for her. We have worked together on and off for a few years, actually. I had seen her through a couple of relationships that were just disappointing. Like you were just saying, this woman who found love after 50 years, she was ready and it might have been easier to look back and say, “Well, it’s never happened to me now, so why is it going to happen? It’s never happened before, so why is it going to happen to me now?” That is where this client was at, like, “Wow, even I do get my hopes up, even I do get excited. Why would it happen for me?” She ends up in another relationship, there are some things that still come up in a new relationship that had to be worked through, but I just texted with her this morning, randomly actually, just to check in, and they’re moving in together this morning. They’ve been together for a year-and-a-half now and things are going really well, they’re in love. She’s in her later 30s, it’s the first time she’s been in love.

That’s great.

Yeah. Of course, whenever you hear those success stories like that.

That’s why I’m doing what I’m doing.

Yeah. It’s always wonderful.

What are your three top tips for living a stellar life?

Good question. Maybe because this is on my mind, because I just wrote this article this week about the online dating, I think some of those things I’m going to say here for life in general because I think that they still hold true, but one thing I have said, if you are going to date online or date in general, whatever, and keep your sanity, and keep your confidence, one is you have to be intentional and you have to be present. It’s not just a numbers game. It’s not just about how many times you can swipe. It’s not even about is there bigger and better out there that’s going to make me feel better about myself? It’s really about setting the intention that you want to have. If we’re talking about finding love in this area of your life, what is that intention? How do you want to show up to that intention? Being mindful about it, being present, realizing that if you’re going to get out there and date, especially if you’re dating online, like you said, surrendering to the journey and embracing the process. There are going to be ups and downs, so let it teach you something about yourself, or about life. Embracing the whole journey, the whole process and showing up mindfully to it. Using the third thing I mentioned in that article was the golden rule. Treat others as you want to be treated. If you don’t want to be judged based on appearances from one profile photo alone, or you don’t want to be ghosted, or you don’t want to be brushed aside, make sure that you’re showing up that way. Make sure you’re checking your judgments, you’re checking your thoughts, you’re giving people an opportunity, you’re seeing someone as a person and not just a potential hook-up, as a date, as a profile or photo on an online app. I think that really holds true in life.

I have a three-year-old now and I find myself being distracted all the time when I’m with him or when I’m to pick up my phone or do whatever. I remind myself constantly that this is my life. These moments are my life. You have to use those moments, those moments of your every day, those normal things, and make them joyful, make them enjoyable. Fill them with things that you want to be doing or at least moments of connection, whether that’s to another person or to a dog or nature itself, but things that are going to fill you up and not just distract you out of reality like our phones and our technology and our swipe apps so often can.

Beautifully said. This was a beautiful conversation and I’m sure many would love to contact you or join your community. Where can they reach you?

My website is alexismeads.com and we’ll probably have that up. I’m assuming it’s just my first and last name.com. If you go to alexismeads.com/gift, you’ll see how you can download my free training series. That’s going to be a video mini master class that you can download right away and from there we’ll be connected. I mentioned to you that I’m actually winding down my practice earlier in our podcast I had mentioned, having another child in a few months. I won’t be taking one-on-one clients but we have an amazing online membership community now that’s 150+ women. Everyone’s very supportive of each other. I answer questions in there all the time. It’s extremely affordable. I made it that way so it can literally be accessible to anyone. It’s just month-to-month. That’s the primary way now that I’ll be working with people over the next year. It’s called The Dating Cocktail Lounge.

That sounds amazing. Alexis, thank you so much. It was a pleasure talking to you and learning about your tips and tools and wisdom. Thank you very much.

Thank you so much for having me, Orion. Have a beautiful rest of your day.

Thank you for joining me on my mission to light people up and change lives around the world. I hope today’s conversation inspires you to step up, go after the life of your dreams, and be who you want to be. Please subscribe, review, and help spread the word by sharing us on Facebook and Twitter. Have a lovely day and I’ll catch you in the next episode.

Your Checklist of Actions to Take

✓ Invest in your relationships by spending time with your loved ones or looking for ways to meet new people. Remember that the quality of your relationships is the key to happiness.
✓ Maintain a good relationship with yourself through self-acceptance and self-care. It’s easier to share the love with others when you love yourself first.
✓ Be specific when you want the Universe to manifest something. When it comes to dating, write down the qualities of the person you want to attract and let that be your guide.
✓ Don’t date people if it feels like a chore. Dating should be simple and fun and if it doesn’t feel natural, chances are you’re not connecting with the other person.
✓ Take the time to heal and reconnect with yourself when you’re not dating. Rejection and breakups are tough but the silver lining is that you get to know yourself better as an individual and find out what you really want in life.
✓ Set some boundaries. Don’t be too available for someone you barely even know. Bending over backwards for a man often leads to him taking your feelings for granted in the long run.
✓ Don’t take dating so seriously. Just get out there! The more experience you have, the more intuitive it will become to make a connection with someone.
✓ Know yourself and learn your negative behaviour patterns. Develop strategies to avoid falling back into bad habits. Self-awareness is key to becoming better at handling your weaknesses.
✓ Be intentional and fully present when you’re dating. It’s not just a numbers game. If you’re really seeking a love that will last forever, take the time to know the person you are with.
✓ Check out alexismeads.com and learn the 3 simple secrets to end dating frustration.

Links and Resources

About Alexis Meads

Alexis Meads is a Harvard educated Professional Dating and Relationship Coach. Founder of AlexisMeads.com and the Crazy Wild Love Academy, she’s well-known as the coach to hire when you want to improve your confidence and find a passionate, committed relationship.