A male client came to see me recently looking tense and unhappy. In the two weeks that I’d been on holiday he had twice broken up with his girlfriend and twice got back together with her. That made a grand total of some 26 break ups in a relationship lasting less than 3 years.

He hated himself and hated allowing himself to get drawn back into a relationship that clearly isn’t working.

He described how friends and family are losing patience with him, how sick they are of hearing about his on-off relationship.

Maybe this sounds faintly familiar.

He said: “It’s so stupid of me. I know that I shouldn’t.”

I said to him that it’s not about being stupid, or weak, or pathetic.

What it is about is forgetting that there are always alternatives.

When you are in a bad relationship you forget that there is a whole world out there. More importantly, you forget that there is a place for you in that world. A place that can be as good as you want it to be and choose to make it.

On many occasions I’ve said this to clients. Only to have them gaze at me blankly, clearly convinced that I had missed the point. Their point was that they had just fallen into the last ditch, were up to their eyes in mud and would, very likely, never clamber out of it again. In any event, the mud bath was their future.

It was only last week that I discovered quite why this sorely limiting belief is so powerful and – and persistent.

Enlightenment came in a book called “Stumbling On Happiness” by Professor of Psychology Daniel Gilbert. Professor Gilbert uses scientific research to prove that human beings are pretty hopeless at imagining the future. Yet we believe, wrongly, that we are rather good at it.

Gilbert writes: “Because predictions about the future are made in the present, they are inevitably influenced by the present. The way we feel right now [‘I’m so unhappy’] and the way we think right now [‘That’s the way it is for me’] exert an unusually strong influence on the way we think we’ll feel later….

“we tend to imagine the future as the present with a twist, thus our imagined tomorrows inevitably look like slightly twisted versions of today…

“Because it is so much easier for me to remember the past than to generate new possibilities, I will tend to compare the present with the past even when I ought to be comparing it with the possible.”

Abused women, more than most, having been through so much trauma, lose sight of the possible – which is one good reason why they feel unable to make the decision to get out.

The mechanics of getting out can be extremely difficult. The emotional decision to get out and stay out could be less anguished than it so often is.

Gilbert duly poses the question: How are we to predict the future more or less accurately when we are so poor at imagining it?

His answer is to learn from the experience of other people who have already trodden that path.

Gilbert says: “It doesn’t always make sense to heed what people tell us when they communicate their beliefs about happiness, but it does make sense to observe how happy they are”.

And if you find yourself objecting: “But I’m not like other people, my situation is not like anyone else’s”, Gilbert disagrees. His viewpoint is this:

“Our mythical belief in the variability and uniqueness of individuals is the main reason why we refuse to use others as surrogates…surrogation is a cheap and effective way to predict one’s future emotions, but because we don’t realise just how similar we all are, we reject this reliable method and rely instead on our imaginations, as flawed and fallible as they may be.”

When you look at it like that, any and every woman who has survived abuse and gone on to build a happy and successful life is evidence that you can too.

(C) 2006 Annie Kaszina

Annie Kaszina Ph D, is a coach and writer who has helped hundreds of women to rebuild their confidence and their life after an abusive relationship. Annie is the author of “The Woman You Want To Be”. This ebook will teach you how you can love yourself first, so that you can create strong self-belief and build the fulfilling future you’re looking for on firm foundations.

To find out more and sign up to Annie’s free bi-monthly ezine visit EmotionalAbuseRecoveryNow.com EmotionalAbuseRecoveryNow.com You can email Annie at: mailto:annie@EmotionalAbuseRecoveryNow.com annie@EmotionalAbuseRecoveryNow.com

Feel free to reprint this article on your website or in your ezine, just include the resource box.

When is it the right time?

There are no hard and fast rules about this. People have met in a matter of days after their first online contact and ended up dating for years; others have met in person after four weeks of email and phone conversations, and ended up getting married; others have taken months and months to meet in person, and broken up after having had a successful long term virtual relationship.

You don’t need to wait a long time; when you feel the phone and a few photos or video images have told you all you need to know about someone, you can propose meeting in person.

If you keep your expectations low and have as your goal a congenial conversation over a cup of coffee, it’s easier to decide on the time. You’re putting less pressure on yourself and the other person, after all. You can go to a face to face meeting as a matter of course; after a few instant messages and email exchanges, you just ask someone if they want to meet at a coffee shop or at another location that is connected to a common interest. It doesn’t have to be any more complicated than that.

That’s the informal approach, and it’s one that makes sense for many people, but it may not be your cup of tea. If you only want to meet people in person if you’re serious about them. You might decide it’s the right time only if you experience one or more of the following signs:

You can’t stop thinking about the person and looking at his or her photo.
You are considering moving to another location in order to be closer to that special someone.
You’ve put your match on speed dial and assigned him or her a special ring tone.
You are beginning to annoy your friends by talking incessantly about your web match.

The big barrier to meeting face to face, for women, is the question of whether you can trust the other person. If you meet in a public place, keep your meeting short and sweet, and tell someone you have to head off to another appointment at a definite time, you won’t run into safety issues. You’ll have some evidence on which to judge the other person, and you’ll hopefully have had a nice encounter with someone that day.

Where is the right place?

It’s hard to think of online dating as being old enough to have a tradition, but the traditional place to get face to face with someone you’ve gotten to know online is a coffee shop. That doesn’t mean you have to meet in a coffee shop, of course. First meetings have happened in bars, bookstores, museums, miniature golf courses, and the like.

The important thing, for both parties to feel at ease, is that it is in a public place. When in doubt, go for a coffee shop, which is safe, informal, and usually populated by other people. If you pick a local, out of the way coffee shop rather than Starbucks or one of the other chains, you’ll be showing someone a bit of your neighborhood; you can explain why you like the atmosphere of the place or maybe talk about its history (not your history with previous dates, however) and you have a ready made icebreaker.

The Internet can help in many ways with choosing a location. You can consult the online versions of local newspapers for suggestions of restaurants and cafes. If you’re lucky, you might find an article full of recommendations especially intended for people on a first date.

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Love is a consuming passion for our own happiness. It is a choice we make to be excited, safe, secure. Love and joy are available when we decide we are important. To decide means to conclude. Not based on any proof or accomplishment and not waiting for some magical moment when someone gives permission. Simply deciding who we are and what we want is important. The decision could be made right now, in this moment. There’s no need to lose ten pounds first or achieve the next goal. We decide when we give ourselves permission to decide.

Love is available when we connect with dreams and flow with empowering thoughts. Love is an inner state of being which develops as we decide it is alright to create an exciting, sensuous and enticing partnership with ourselves. It deepens as we align with desired outcomes and focus attention on what feels good. Excitement builds power. This power is necessary to feel good, to move through obstacles, to successfully manifest dreams. Self-love allows the ability to resist the temptation to give away power the moment it is received. Instead, relish in it, feel its vibration, connect it with personal dreams and desires. Ask for more. Trust yourself with power, for who other than you knows what best to do with this power? Feel good in the power, excited in the imaginings of a great life. So much more power is available once we are ready to believe we matter. Love and joy are feelings we allow into us. We become filled with love and our confidence, joy and radiance illuminates our lives and the lives of others.

Self-Love

Self-love is not so much a feeling as it is an absence of self-doubt and self-disapproval. It is a sense of balance and belonging. Respect, responsibility for self, and feeling good are important values. Self-love means that your well-being matters to yourself unconditionally and in practical terms. The following are some characteristics of self-loving people:

Self-loving people focus on feeling good.

Self-loving people allow themselves to be happy and to share this with others.

Self-loving people tend to treat themselves well.

They see fun and enjoyment as a primary goal most of the time.

They do not remain in mistreatment by others.

They are caring towards others. (Because it feels good to do so).

They put themselves first. (Even those they love are a “close second.”)

They find a thought that feels good, and practice it.

They let themselves succeed.

Basic Principles of Self Love

Who we are is more important than what we are.

We are valuable. Nothing can change that.

What we want always matters.

How to Develop and Nurture Love:

Becoming love involves intention. A declaration to self, to the universe, to earth or to the angels, we want to know what it is to feel unconditionally loved and supported. We want to be alive on earth, but only if it feels good and exciting. An intention that we want to know, in this lifetime, while we are alive in this body, what it means to stand in unconditional love, having enough energy to do the things we love.
The biggest life changing decision any of us could make is a decision to be happy. Once the decision is made, what is the next step? Training ourselves to focus on everything and anything which feels good. For example: Good thoughts, exciting desired outcomes, dreams, happy movies and beautiful surroundings. It may take some effort to pry ourselves away from the stickiness of feeling badly, but joy and love are possible. To feel good we need to focus on feeling good. Below are some examples of how to develop love:

Acknowledge and verbally praise yourself.

Have fun often.

Fill the physical body with relaxation.

Think inspiring thoughts.

Focus on desired outcomes.

Fill life with silence, beautiful music, flowers.

Reward yourself often.

Have confidence in your ability.

Love your body and find new ways to inhabit it.

Listen to, and trust, intuition.

Let yourself succeed.

Nurture yourself by imagining desired outcomes to life’s situations.

Offer yourself affection.

Choose to think thoughts that bring inner peace (rather than worry).

Remember and feel gratitude.

On this day, engage in a love challenge and help yourself understand a deeper loving connection. Zoom way out and see a big picture perspective of your relationship with yourself, your body, your thoughts and dreams. Do you think you behave lovingly toward yourself? Do you focus on happy thoughts, desired outcomes? What is something you could commit to right now, in this moment, to bring yourself greater love?

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Helping people let go of self-destructive thoughts, emotions, and behaviors has been the life work of Dr. Annette Colby. Her fascination with the power of the mind, emotions, spirituality, and physicality has led her to become a leader in the field of personal growth and consciousness. She is a valued counselor, and an inspiring teacher, as well as an independent writer, mentor, and guide. She is a highly sought-after trainer with a unique ability to inform and inspire individuals to open their hearts, love more openly, and pursue their dreams.

Dr. Annette Colby, RD

Nutrition Therapist & Master Energy Therapist

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“Opening Creative Portals to Success”

Even though some people feel that newspaper dating ads are a thing of the past, you can still find a great companion that way. In recent years, it seems that the older crowd is using these classifieds more than the younger crowd. And the reason for this is that younger people spend most of their time on the internet, so they also use the internet in order to find dates. Older people who are not as familiar with the internet tend to use the newspaper classifieds in order to find dates.

Before the advent of the internet this was the king of the dating world. If you did not want to venture out into the world to find a date, you would answer personal ads in your local newspaper. And believe it or not this method worked for a lot of people. And it still does. Placing an ad in the newspaper is a great way to meet new people.

All you need to do is write up a brief profile and send it to the paper. The cost of running an ad is usually very small, and well worth the investment. If you are not having luck online, try newspaper classifieds. This is a tried and true method of dating!

Peter Portero sometimes contributes articles to camsfaq.com Camsfaq, an online dating resource geared towards putting Western men with women from overseas.