by Lucretia | Apr 4, 2017 | Advice, create your life, Love, Men |
If you’ve been single and searching for love for a while, I’m pretty sure someone ‘wise’ will have advised you verbally or in an article somewhere that, ‘When you learn how to love yourself, he will come.’
Now I want you to picture me doing some major eye-rolling until I make myself dizzy.
You see, while I know that most of the time this advice is well-intentioned (except when it’s patronisingly delivered by someone who also happens to be in a partnership – yes, occasionally people do this), the truth is this statement about loving yourself and then he’ll come, simply isn’t true.
There are loads and loads of women out there who do not love themselves and yet have managed to create partnerships with wonderful people who love them. Have you noticed that?
I also know lots of women out there who do love themselves; they’ve done a lot of work around self-love for years and years, and yet they’re still single.
Mmmm.
Now, am I sounding the death knell for your search for the right man?
Nope.
Am I saying that learning to love yourself is a thankless and pointless task?
Definitely not.
What I am saying is this advice about first you need to love yourself before you get to have a partner who loves you back can be, well, kind of a mean thing to say to someone. It also sets up this idea that your goal or ‘prize’ in learning to love yourself is that you get the love of someone else.
And that’s really beside the point of the whole journey of self-exploration.
Trust me, I’m speaking about this from a position of some expertise and experience. I’ve been mostly single for the past 10 years and I have done HUGE amounts of work around self-love. As someone with heightened self-awareness and intuitive ability, the Universe has pushed me to go deep with this stuff time and time again. And it’s still an ongoing process.
Is it easier to create a stronger, healthier and more viable long-term love partnership with someone if you have strong self-love and everything that goes with that understanding of self? Yes, I really believe that to be true.
However, the right man still needs to be there in front of you, at the same stage as you, for that to even become an option. And maybe he’s not ready yet. Maybe you’ve still got things you have to do. Maybe it’s not time. Maybe you’ve done the work but he’s still around the corner paying some other karmic dues or embedding some other life lesson he needs to learn before he can progress.
These factors are real possibilities. You both need to be in ‘the same step’ in order for you to come together. Maybe he’s just not there yet.
So please stop buying into this theme that suggests it’s your fault that you’re still single because you haven’t done the work yet. After all, that’s what this kind of self-help is doing. Too often it suggests that you just need to work harder.
Well, I think that’s a rort because I know you’re working hard on yourself beautiful woman. You’re getting up every day and you’re doing your best. You’re looking at your ‘stuff’ and you’re beginning the journey of self-accountability and facing your life lessons because you know you have to in order for your soul to progress. And you do want to progress. I know that. But for someone to dangle this carrot of ‘self-love’ as being the answer for you to attract the ‘one’ is illusory and somewhat misleading.
We all need to learn how to love ourselves first; that much I believe to be true.
We all also desire the love of another, a partner to travel life’s journey with. I believe that to be true as well.
But I don’t necessarily believe that you must do the former in order to successfully attract the latter. Although it may be a helpful contributing factor, it is not the comprehensive answer.
So keep doing your best you fabulous, complex woman. Keep striving and learning. Know that whether you are with someone or alone, you still need to walk your path and nourish your self-love daily. But please don’t buy into the self-help rort that it’s your fault that you’re single because there’s nothing wrong with you.
It’s just not the right time yet.
Lucretia Ackfield is a writer and transformational teacher who has learnt the lessons of love and romance the hard way. You can read her voyeuristic, hilarious and sometimes mortifying stories of the single life in her memoir The Men I’ve Almost Dated. Or, if you’d like to work on developing your self-awareness and intuition, you can join her Facebook group Rock Your Inner Channel.
by Lucky Lucy | Jan 29, 2016 | Advice, break ups, Emotional, follow your dreams, Uncategorized |
Last weekend, my friend Susan* discovered she had lost some of her friends. Somehow, over the past 12 months, as she became absorbed more and more in her purpose and life in general, her friends began to pull away. Then over the weekend, Susan experienced a ‘friend break-up’.
‘It would be great if you could write a blog about how to deal with that!’ she said. So here it is.
Susan has done a lot over the past year or so. She’s had a baby, established a not-for-profit and organised fundraising events that delivered valuable and much-needed outcomes for those in need. Put simply, she’s been following her heart and purpose to make the world a better place.
Unfortunately, some friends have decided not to support Susan’s journey. For whatever reason, they never ask what she’s up to, they don’t support her fundraising events and they don’t care about the path she has chosen. They don’t get it and now deliberately isolate her at social events. The situation felt like schoolyard bullying and, as she felt hurt by their behaviour, Susan decided to ask them what was going on.
Their reaction wasn’t positive and included statements like ‘All you ever talk about is you’, ‘You’re never free when we want to see you’ and ‘You didn’t come to my party.’
Some of her friends’ complaints stretched back to August last year. But when Susan asked, ‘Why didn’t you say something back then?’ they had no response.
Now, while Susan has been engrossed in various activities and could probably do with more ‘balance ‘in her life generally, she definitely hasn’t been making it all about her. She’s been juggling a baby, work and trying to make the world a better place in the only way she knows how. Susan has been busy but also made an effort to stay in touch with her friends. However, her commitments meant she wasn’t as available as she used to be. Meanwhile, her friends aren’t interested in what she’s doing and want her to be the way she was before.
But Susan isn’t that person anymore and she can’t go back.
‘What do I do?’ she asked with tears in her eyes. ‘I’m doing my best but they’re not interested. They don’t want to know.’
Breaking up with friends is hard but we can’t stay in one place just to make other people comfortable. In life there will be moments when you realise you must leave some people behind. Life is like that. Some people will always be in our lives, others will stay only for a certain period of time before going their own way. Then there are others who will leave and return when the time is right. That’s just how our soul contracts with each other work. We support and learn from each other, then move on when the contract is done (read Sacred Contracts by Caroline Myss if you’d like to know more about this).
Our relationships, platonic, familial and romantic, do require work and commitment. However, sometimes you are simply moving in a different direction and must let go. And that’s okay.
My advice to Susan was to seek out those friends who support her journey; the ones who ‘get’ what she’s trying to do.
‘Seek out the ones who help you feel lightness in your soul and encourage you to live the life your dream of,’ I said. ‘What would that feel like?’ Susan’s smile was all the answer I needed and I felt her spirit lift at the thought.
Some people are only in our lives for a season. Others will remain connected over long periods to teach us lessons or support only certain parts of our lives. And then others will return when we believe the connection is broken, because that too is what’s needed. The challenge is to protect our hearts and know it’s okay to let go when the contract is done.
*Names changed and story published with Susan’s approval.
If you’d like to me to respond to one of your questions, please comment on my blog or email me at lucretia@lucretiaswords.com
by Lucky Lucy | Sep 20, 2015 | Advice, Bad behaviour, Men, The Men I've Almost Dated |
Being the cool girl has never worked for me. I’ve tried to play it cool, not crowd the guy I’m interested in, not acted needy, not asked for anything from him (like, even a date) but it’s never gone well. Instead I’ve frequently ended up frustrated, frequently screwed over (figuratively, if not metaphorically, speaking) and then in true Lucy-style I’ve exploded.
Yes, exploded.
It’s not a part of my personality I’m particularly proud of, this capacity to lose my head and throw a bit of a tantrum. But I am startling good at it. The crazy thing is the explosion and tantrum are a direct result of trying to be the cool girl. So I bring it upon myself. Then of course, the man in question often freaks out, withdraws, throws a tantrum back and well, you get the drift.
It’s a no-win situation for me.
Someone reminded me recently of my tendency to become more than a little high-handed in my tantrum-phase. They are completely right. It’s easy to take the high ground when you feel wronged. Particularly when the object of your affection is proving evasive, indecisive or bloody-minded. But every time this has happened I know it’s only got to that point because I was trying to play it cool at the start. When I talk to others about this, it seems to be a bit of an epidemic. Women feel like they should play it cool so they don’t seem ‘needy’ while men think that if a woman isn’t playing it cool then there’s something wrong with her. Yep, that little gem came from an ex of mine who, when his mate said the girl he wanted to date told him she was available any night of the following week, my ex said, ‘Mate, I’d be careful there. There’s probably something wrong with her.’ He meant it!! Meanwhile I said, flabbergasted at his stupidity, ‘Maybe she just really likes him!’
Is it any wonder the male/female dating dynamic is a freaking mess?! (And yes, that was a red flag conversation I should’ve paid more attention to with my ex).
As I work my way through the last edits of my book, evidence of my tantrum-throwing behaviour is particularly apparent in Part 2: Dysfunctional Dating and Other Disasters. In one situation, I’d been playing the ‘cool girl’ with a man I’ve called Salsa Cat. He was in my dance class and he’d been flirting with me and coming on to me for months and months. It was obvious, it was frequent and it was persistent. Then we hit a turning point when he told me that he didn’t want me invading his personal space…when he had been actively and intentionally invading mine for months. Gah!! What followed was a Lucy-tantrum that I believe could have been avoided if I’d just not tried to be the ‘cool girl’ in the first place.
“I threw myself on the bed that night and shed tears of frustration and disappointment. I was terribly hurt. Then anger started to bubble up inside me. A couple of days later I did something I had never done as a single woman before – I told a man he’d upset me. Instead of just taking it, blaming myself and feeling like crap, I stood up for myself and said it wasn’t good enough.
Actually, let’s face it, I completely lost my temper and acted like a crazy person. Salsa Cat bore the brunt of years of singledom involving game-playing, non-committal and dishonest men.
I kept as far away from him as possible during the next class– that’s quite a feat when you’re dancing salsa. At the end of the our first dance together I very particularly and noticeably disengaged my fingers from his and moved on to the next dance partner, and then the next and so on around the circle of about 20 men. A few minutes later we were opposite each other again. My anger was palpable and visible in every line of my body.
‘What’s wrong?’ he asked.
‘I’d just hate to invade your personal space,’ I said sarcastically. Then we changed partners.
He wasn’t so cheerful by the time we danced together again. ‘I don’t know what your problem is. But I’m not doing anything,’ he ground out. I somehow restrained myself from punching him in the nose and flounced off to the next partner. I danced my way around the circle, forcing a smile for everyone else and continued to fume.
He was apologising as soon as I was within earshot. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I know my behaviour must have seemed a bit hot and cold.’
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘It has been.’ Then I moved on to the next partner.
The class finished a few minutes later but he didn’t seek me out to explain further. Instead he retreated to his group of friends and watched me nervously, casting sideways glances in my direction as I walked out the door.
He didn’t show up for end-of-term classes the following week. I guess he felt like an idiot and didn’t want to face a psycho dance partner again. Or maybe his absence had nothing at all to do with me.
It was a month before I saw him again and this time he did seek me out after class. He sat down beside me while I talked to two of our classmates, Dave and Ken. But Dave and Ken didn’t get the hint that they should move on and I couldn’t just end the conversation abruptly without being impolite. So I was stuck.
I guess Salsa Cat got sick of waiting because he got up and left after a minute or two. I’d started seeing someone else by that point so I didn’t run after him. We would dance together over the following years but he never gave me any further explanation. To this day, I’m still not sure what he was thinking.
There was never a resolution with Salsa Cat. Ever. My tantrum-throwing was not conducive to creating a situation where any kind of honest conversation could happen.
I think there is a middle-ground between cool girl and ‘honesty with a bludgeon and resulting head trauma’. Unfortunately, it’s clear I haven’t mastered that yet. Instead I seem to swing from one extreme to the other with the occasional explosion. The extremes don’t lead to a healthy relationship with the opposite sex so the middle ground is kind of important.
Anyway, whenever I talk with single friends about this, my advice is always the same. Be as honest as possible (in an open non-bludgeon-type way), as early as possible, and let the cards fall where they will. Maybe the object of your affection will not respond positively or in the way you like. But it’s not needy to want to know where you stand and if you play the ‘cool girl’ you’re just reducing yourself in your own eyes because you’re not saying what you want and you’re not being who you really are. You may also be leaving yourself open to be taken advantage of if the man/woman in question isn’t genuine.
Of course, I’m still mastering this advice myself. It’s an ongoing process. But playing the ‘cool girl’ has never worked out for me. Instead it has possibly shut doors that could’ve been left open, and that is really quite sad. I also I think I’d rather be not a ‘cool girl’ because acting like a passive-aggressive nightmare in a dance class is not a good look. Just saying.
by Lucky Lucy | Aug 9, 2015 | Advice, Bad behaviour, Intuition, Love, Men, turning 30 |
I’m the final throes of editing my first-ever book. It’s a memoir about my 30s and all the crazy men-related experiences I had during that time. As I sift through the final edits, I’m constantly reminded of how far I’ve come in learning to trust myself and my own judgement. It’s been a long road.
Mine is the story of a woman who, around the age of 30, begins to feel and finally listen to the inner voice inside her. It’s a voice that says, you’re on the wrong road and you need to make some serious changes. My story continues with what, in hindsight, seems like the ‘what not to do’ when it comes to life, men and relationships. As I re-read the anecdotes, I revisit a roller coaster of highs and lows that somehow I emerge from (with a little dignity intact) and I keep going. Some of the stories are so odd that I can hardly believe they happened. Yet they did. Some of my behaviour was quite odd. Yet I did it all.
I was a woman on a journey of self-discovery that has brought me to this very moment in time.
What is most obvious to me is how much I’ve grew through those experiences and how much more I trust myself because of those things I went through. I’ve gone from being a 20-something judgemental, naive and very analytically-focused woman to the 40-something I am now. But I had to go through all those things in the middle to get here.
Nowadays I’m not so judgemental because I’m no longer so hard on myself. I’ve realised that we all make mistakes and life is never black and white; it’s all the colours of the rainbow. I’ve done some things I’m not particularly proud of, but I own them all because they’ve made me who I am.
Somewhere along the way I’ve also decided to trust that voice inside me, my intuitive inner guidance system that always has my back. It’s a voice I ignored a lot in my early life and certainly, when dealing with men, I tried to drown it out with rationalisation and kind excuses (kind to men, that is). These days my intuition is something I use every day to keep me on track in all kinds of ways. I also use my rational brain and reasoning too, but that’s not all I rely on anymore. Like many people, my brain can rationalise almost anything if I let it while my intuition always cuts through to the truth of the matter…if I’m brave enough to listen to it.
My intuition can’t necessarily stop me being hurt. But it can warn me when that event is likely. It also helps me see things for what they are and not what I’d like them to be. My brain and its very passionate friend my Ego are rather clever at pulling the wool over my eyes.
So I’m grateful for all the craziness, ill-advised decision-making and random events of my 30s because they’ve brought me to this moment in time. They’ve taught me so much about who I am and who I wish to be. And most of all they’ve brought me to a point in my life when I have learned to trust me. What greater gift could there be, than that?
If you’d like to learn more about connecting to your own intuition, check out my next Nights for Spiritual Beginners – Introductory Course beginning in Brisbane on 19 August 2015. More information is available at http://lucyandlife.com/a-night-for-spiritual-beginners/
by Lucky Lucy | Jul 29, 2015 | Advice, control, create your life, let go |
Have you ever noticed that when something isn’t going your way, you want to control it even more? You want something to happen and you want it really badly but it’s stopped down the track and it’s not moving. You can see it in the distance; it’s oh so close. But it’s not getting closer.
If you’re anything like me (and I know some of you are) this can occasionally bring on a ‘control meltdown’. This is the moment when you’ll feel like if other people would just get their act together then it would all work out. It will be the moment when you want to get in there and ‘sort the situation out’. It will be the time when you will feel determined to drag that thing towards you inch by painful inch until it’s where it’s supposed to be. You’ll feel stressed, anxious or even angry because you’ll want to control that situation and ‘make it happen.’
Sigh. I feel exhausted just thinking about it.
Things rarely work well if we try to control them. Life just isn’t like that. Instead it’s an organic thing that grows best with a little love and a lot less control. That’s just the way it is.
So much of what we’re taught is about control. For example, if I do X and Y then this will result and I will be able to create this outcome. But what if you’ve followed this formula and the outcome hasn’t eventuated? What then? Have you stuffed up the formula? Did you do it wrong? Is there something wrong with you or are ‘they’ to blame? Should you be doing more? Can you force it?
The questions will buzz around your head like flies and drive you crazy if you let them.
The truth is, all we can ever control is what we do in this moment. So my advice is (and trust me, I’m still working on this myself), if it’s not working and you believe you’ve done everything you can, then let it go. Allow it to eventuate or not. You can’t control the outcome and you certainly can’t control what other people are going to do. And you can’t force something to happen if it’s not supposed to.
Let it go and know all is as it should be. Often that’s when the thing you want will slide effortlessly into place and later you’ll wonder why you ever worried about it at all.
by Lucky Lucy | Mar 13, 2015 | Advice, Emotional, Fear, Inspiration, Personal power |
I was thinking today about a man I worked with years ago (Max*) and how he worried about what other people said and thought about him. What others thought was more important than what he thought.
Max surrounded himself with people who were happy to judge him and tell him what was best. Sometimes they even convinced him that he was worth less than he was. That wasn’t hard to do because Max didn’t think he was worth much. He barely give himself a chance to think about what he wanted or believed.
Strangely (to him) in the midst of all this advice and knowledgeable opining, Max was unhappy. He felt there was something more out there but instead of exploring the unknown he thought, ‘What would I know anyway? Other people know better than me.’ So he stayed where he was. He stayed in the same job, surrounded himself with the same types of people and did the same things he’d always done.
And yet inside Max a quiet voice whispered, ‘There is more for you than this. You are worth more than this. Take a chance, follow your heart’s desire wherever it takes you.’
When I last saw Max he was doing a great job of drowning out his inner voice because, if he listened to it, he would have to change. And the very thought of change and the courage it would take to believe in himself (instead of others) brought up a tidal wave of fear. How can one person suddenly decide to live a different life, one that will make them truly happy, and risk the judgement of others? What would people think of him?
The implications of such actions were diabolical to Max so he struggled on.
I have been like Max. I have resisted listening to my inner voice. And I know how hard it is to back yourself and risk the judgement of others. But over time I’ve come to realise that my inner voice knows best even if it flies in the face of other people’s opinions.
It can hurt when other people judge you or say you’re making the wrong choices.
But they are not you.
They cannot hear your inner voice urging you forward to a better place, a place where you are happier and can be the person you are truly meant to be.
I hope Max decided to listen to that voice whispering deep inside him and I hope you decide to listen to yours too.
*names changed.
