Valentine's Day for Singles A-ha Moment: "Love Has a Price"

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“Love has a price.” Have you ever heard that before? Or maybe you’ve even said something yourself, such as "With love comes trade-offs." Any of those thoughts around “Love has a price” is also saying that love is a commodity. Kind of like you’d go to the store and buy love. So, in this mindset, I have to have $2 to pay for a can of soda, and love works that way too. No moolah, no soda; nothing to trade away, no love. In that thought, that’s how love is “transacted.”

Put in those terms, it makes love sound bleak and cold. Do you believe that love works that way, bleak and cold in a transaction like that? I’m thinking you probably don’t, but if you’ve said that there’s a price for love, then that’s the belief you’re starting with. That’s the belief that your actions are starting with.

If you’ve noticed now that this is your thought and you’d like an alternative around it, well, here’s your alternative.

“Love has a price” is just one thought. There are many thoughts we could have about love. Here’s a suggested thought, if you’d like one to try out for size. It is that love is like currency. But unlike dollars or Euros and pennies and coins in your pocket, love is a limitless currency. Sometimes we ask each other in conversation, if you had all the money in the world, what would you do with it? We answer with things like, give some to charity, buy a boat, buy a giant house.

So consider this as you try the thought “Love is my currency” on for size: If you believed that this was true - that you could never run out of love, that mean people have as much love in them as you do, that love is out there to be freely given and freely received - what would you be doing differently? If you thought your love was a limitless currency, what would you be doing differently?

Why We Don't Say No More Often

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Have you caught yourself overwhelmed, drained, or feeling more obligated than motivated to help others?

Oftentimes, when we get to this point, we ask ourselves, “How did I ever get to this??”

 Just as often, we can trace back our getting to this breaking point to all the people and projects we said “Yes” to, just because we felt we couldn’t say “No.”

Why We Don’t Say “No” More Often

“No” tends to get a bad rap. No one wants to be known as the person who is “uncooperative” or “not a team player” or “asocial,” just because you declined one too many times.

The social stigma around saying “No” is that we’re only using “No,” because there was no alternative to “Yes.” If I could have responded with some words other than “No,” then I would have used them instead. This idea is so ingrained in us that, indeed, this is what we sometimes still try to do. Instead of just saying “No,” and leaving it at that, we feel the necessity to add justification or regret, because we certainly wouldn’t want to seem too happy, smug or secure while declining.

Some examples:

"I can’t – because I’m already committed to something else at that time.”

“No - but I really wanted to.”
“I would - but I’m swamped.”
And the classic: “I’m washing my hair that night.”

But notice how we don't usually feel the need to justify saying “Yes."

The truth of the matter is that one honest “No” is worth more than a thousand fake “Yes’s.”

While we all want to hear “Yes” to every request we make, we also know the deadly aftermath of the “Yes” that never had any commitment behind it – the “Yes” that had been a “No” all along.

Becoming Aware of Present Behaviour

If you’re starting to wonder just why you don’t say “No” more often, consider how you feel today when someone says “No” to one of your requests.

• Is “No” uncomfortable for you to hear?
• Does “No” feel better when a person provides a reason why not?
• Does it somehow feel like a personal rejection, even when you know they’re rejecting the request, not rejecting you?
• When a project or request that you know you should decline comes across your desk, do you find yourself putting off having to break the bad news? Do you wait to see if it will blow over?

Is saying “No” easier or more difficult, depending on who’s asking something from you? With family? With business associates?

When you get a request, imagine yourself responding with “No.” Notice your behaviour, your physical reactions, and your emotional reactions in everyday situations where “No” is involved, and you’ll discover some keys to any hangups around rejection.

Rehearsing “No” - An Exercise

Listen to the audio version here, or scroll down for the transcribed text. If you don't have a partner handy, you can use the audio to rehearse by yourself.

All uncomfortable situations become easier to handle as we become practiced in them. Just like rehearsal for a play, we can rehearse hearing and saying “No” in situations that are less significant, so that it’s not as shocking when we have to say “No” in situations where it counts.

Here’s my exercise for rehearsing “No,” and even become more aware of your current reactions to “No.”

Work with a partner or a friend. Remember that the automatic answer to the next ten questions is “No.” You can say “No” in whatever variations you like (i.e.: “Definitely not,” “Certainly not,” etc.), but resist being apologetic and resist justifying your “No.”

Ask your friend the first five questions, and hear them say “No” to you. Then have your friend ask you questions 6-10, and decline all five questions.

1. Can you spot me $5?
2. Would you put the dishes away?
3. Would you take notes for this meeting?
4. Do you like asparagus?
5. Would you like to see the dessert menu?
6. When are you going to lunch?
7. So can I sign you up for this committee?
8. What’s the last movie you saw?
9. Can I count on your vote?
10. Can I get that by noon?

Note what you did when you heard and said "No." If you're working with a friend, you may be able to share your observations of each other during this exercise.

Feel free to share your experience in the Comments here, or by emailing me at SoulmateFromWithin@gmail.com.

What's Bothering You?

The first step to making something different is almost always awareness.

So if you're looking to start creating a different love life next year - or today! - then consider what's bothered you about love so far.

Be honest and brutal.

"Now what?" you ask?

Well, you're on your way to setting the intention for different results. Here are all 3 steps:

1. Awareness
2. Ownership
3. Desire

 The rest simply unfolds. (A very enjoyable process if you want it to be.)

More details below in my recent show on awareness and intention-setting, called "What's Bothering You?" I'll be talking about the other two steps in the next two shows, but I'd love to hear your questions and comments in the meantime!

Independence and Interdependence: Please comment!

Thanks to the caller who called in to yesterday’s show on “Independence and Interdependence”. (To hear the show from Cyber Monday, click here.) Apologies that I forgot to ask you your name! In this post, I’ll have to call you the "Cyber Monday Caller."

 

The Cyber Monday Caller has experienced that women don’t want the responsibility of making decisions, and asked what the statistics were (or what I thought they would be) around the percentage of women who feel they have or are subjecting themselves to their men’s whims and don’t feel it necessary to change anything, and they’ll continue to complain about it to their friends, behind their partner’s back. Hmmm…

 

I’ll be honest - I don’t know what the statistics are, and I didn’t feel it was my place to do the speculation. But I’ll be keeping an eye open for some supporting stats for this now. (When I find something, I’ll post it here.) Is it really a “big hullaballoo about nothing,” as the Cyber Monday Caller says? (If you're listening to the show archive, it comes up around minute 35:00.)

 

If you listen to the show, you’ll hear the Cyber Monday Caller speculate that 90% of women would keep this dynamic as it is: “So what makes you say this like it’s a major problem?” he asks. I personally think the percentage is much, much less, and the number of women I’ve encountered in my experience who would like to assert themselves with better effect in relationships of all kinds is closer to the reverse.

So, fellow Soulmates, here’s your chance to tell me (AND The Cyber Monday Caller):

• Have you ever given over decision-making power to a partner when you’ve been in a relationship?
• Was it a good or bad experience for you? What did you learn from the experience?
• How many of you feel that the giving over of decision-making power to one’s partner is a common relationship problem - or not?

I’m looking forward to lots of your comments & thoughts. Enter your comments below.

Independence and Interdependence: Classic Dilemma of the Mature Single

The Cyber Monday show of Soulmate from Within on BlogTalkRadio tackles this very classic dilemma for mature single people. (You can listen to the show here. It will open in a new window.)

After living on your own for a number of years, even the idea of bringing a partner into your world can send shivers down a person’s spine. Especially for women, the push-pull conflict of “losing one’s independence” is one that is particularly potent in this era.

The conflict is not exclusive to women. Men often experience confusion over what a woman wants, in this regard: whether being a gentleman will be viewed as offensive or patronizing, or if treating her like “one of the guys” is ruining his chances because he’s not enough of a gentleman for her.
So, is it one or the other and all-or-nothing? Or is it a balance?

Like so many things, each individual needs to look in themselves for their own true answer. What makes this dilemma particularly sticky is that there is so much “story” behind it (You might recognize is as “traditional behavior.), that it can be a challenge to distinguish between what’s your truth, what you’ve deducted from a past painful experience, or what you’ve been trained or conditioned into thinking a “good woman” and a “good man” are in relationship.

In essence, whenever what we say and do is not aligned with what we really feel, we are bound to experience frustration. Every time we hide from ourselves and our true desire and fail to give appropriate voice to that, we add another experience of frustration. As this frustration builds without resolution, it can turn into annoyance or even resentment. If you have ever ended up resenting someone you once loved or getting deeply annoyed with someone despite their caring for you and not ever offending you, then you have experienced what I am talking about.

The common fear of losing one’s independence in a relationship comes from seeing independence as the only way to freedom. And that’s where understanding INTERdependence comes in.

While INdependence is the lack of dependency on another, INTERdependence is the mutual dependence of both parties to each other. It’s not two individuals trying to share one life together, nor is it two halves of a person making one whole person: It is two persons who choose in every moment to create a living that continuously fulfills each person’s life in a way that could not be accomplished individually. This kind of relationship has a positive effect on the two persons in it, as well as on their relationships with others.

However, this kind of creation only happens when both persons actively participate in the relationship. When one person needs to make a decision, s/he considers its effect on the relationship, for the benefit of both persons and the relationship. It is not done out of courtesy or politeness. By the same token, the relationship is not benefited by the constant suppression of one of the person’s desires for the relationship, whether they are choosing not to express themselves or they are being discouraged from doing so.
Whether you fear losing independence in a future relationship or find yourself “getting burned” repeatedly in past relationships, these are fruitful places to begin developing your awareness of yourself and your ideas about dependency and interdependency with other people. In the same way, if you’re currently in a relationship and you’ve got this one-sided dynamic (or a tendency toward it) and it’s not doing much for you, it is your awareness that begins to change the dynamic gently, from the inside.
I’d love to hear if this is something that you can relate to and what your experience of the “Independence and Interdependence” internal conflict is for you. Share your comments here.

A Thank-You Gift to Soulmates everywhere!

The holidays are already upon us! Are you ready?

As a holiday gift to Soulmates everywhere, I’m offering a special, complimentary teleseminar on Tuesday, November 17 at 5:00 PM Pacific / 8:00 PM Eastern.

Holiday Survival Guide for Shy Singles
“Merry Meeting People!”

Socializing for the holidays was always a huge challenge for me, until I started thinking of myself and these events differently. I’ll be sharing what I’ve learned in my own experience, as well as addressing participants’ own questions and challenges during the Q&A time of the event.

Of course I’ll be inviting you to at least one Discovery Activity to try before and during this season’s holiday parties and happy hours!

What a great gift to give youself or a friend! (I’d be flattered if you re-gifted me!)

Just click here to RSVP! Hope to see you there!

- Janice

Thankfulness as Your Relationship Strategy

On yesterday's radio show in the new time slot, I talked about using thankfulness in your relationship strategy. (I'm talking about this relationship strategy all month long, so catch the archives or be sure to catch the next two weeks of shows.)

 

Thankfulness and gratitude are so much more than just being polite. I tend to think that the reason why most of us don't really understand thankfulness on a deeper level is because we're not really trained to be thankful.
We're not really trained to look at what we have now as already abundant.
We're not really trained that the desire for something in our lives is not the same as an expression of what is lacking in our lives.

 

What we are expertly trained on - for many of us, from the time we're children - is to look at what should have been better, what we did or are doing wrong, and easily name off everything that we should have but don't have today.

 

"The world today takes a lot of stock in what is wrong. The world today takes a lot of stock in what's missing." It's not that we can't see what we have now as anything special. We're just not used to it. So at first, the re-training to see something different takes work. It is much easier to complain about what we don't have, because that is more actionable. We should be able to do something about the things that are wrong. We can't do anything about the things that are already right.

 

But focusing on the things that are right and good in our lives - that is, being thankful - is the action we can take when we are challenged with things gone wrong. Did you ever notice how the person who is constantly mentioning their certain disaster, certainly suffers it? We get more of whatever it is we think of, and we get more of whatever we are emotionally attached to, whether it currently exists or not.

So, here's the real trick to this strategy:

Identify and express gratititude for whatever bits you have today of what you want tomorrow.

For example:

• If you want more money in your life, look in your wallet now and say, "Thank you for that $4.37! It's there for something good today!"
• Or if you want more connection in your life, get the phone numbers or email addresses of your current connections and let them know you were thinking of them and that you thank them for all they've done for you.
• If you're looking for your body to be more hot, identify one or more of your body parts - even if it's a 1-inch-square patch of skin - and look at it kindly, directly or in a mirror, and say aloud to yourself, "That is one hot [put body part name here]."

I call this Discovery Activity, the Thank You Bits. And the more ridiculous I thought an exercise was, the more effective it ended up being!

 

An alternate Discovery Activity - and the one I recommended on the air - is the very simple Gratitude List. I used to do this myself every night, as a result of this show, I'm going to start doing it again. Before going to bed each night, list on paper or in your head, at least TEN THINGS you're thankful for from the day.

Examples:

• What you have (such as: friends, your housing, all your teeth)
• What you're glad happened (such as: got paid, got groceries, prescriptions got filled)
• What you did (such as: said hi to the post office lady, laughed at the exercise Janice suggested earlier, cooked a tasty dinner)

I have personally tested every Discovery Activity I have provided for you. Try either of these out for at least once a day for the next week - until next week's radio show - and see what happens. Never thought that thankfulness had a goofy side, did you?

I love to hear from you! Tell me what you think of these Discovery Activities for Thankfulness and what kinds of results you're getting when you try them!

To listen to my webcast on this subject, click here.
For a listing of my upcoming shows about Thanksgiving (and for more archived shows), check out my radio show page.