As a dating coach and someone who has found her husband online (after several very interesting years of serial dating!), I sincerely see dating apps as a gift. Their technology enables us to connect with geographically diverse folks, with whom we would not cross paths otherwise in our regular routines or social circles. They also provide us with an unparalleled window into our vast, fascinating, multicultural world.

On the flipside, however, online dating has the uncanny ability to throw us into swirls of negativity. Using those apps—most of which gamify dating to make it resemble “hot or not”—can make us feel as though we are products rather than complex individuals, and lead us to regularly question our own value.

Dating App Fatigue

That’s why many people see online dating as a process that is soul-sucking and dehumanizing. In fact, several of my coaching clients suffer from dating app fatigue. They report getting depressed, insecure, cynical, bored, even angry when using the apps.

Let’s face it: there’s nothing inherently enchanting about swiping through hundreds of bathroom selfies, pixelated photos of strangers in sunglasses, awkward group shots, and/or profiles of attractive people who won’t like or write us back.

The trouble is, dating is not a game; our hearts and life narratives are on the line.

So, is there a way to bring more joy and humanity into dating in our increasingly online world?

On the one hand, I always encourage daters to “diversify their portfolio” beyond online dating and look for opportunities to meet like-minded folks in other contexts, such as social events, networking organizations, classes, festivals, and meetups. These activities are both vitalizing and likely to help us attract a compatible partner based on common interests and engagement in an activity that makes us shine.

However, eliminating online dating altogether can result in missed opportunities—both to meet a great partner, and to develop our relational skills. In spite of all their flaws, there are powerful ways to humanize dating apps, use them for our own good, as well as the common good! Enter Mindful Swiping!

What is Mindful Swiping?

Mindful Swiping is a way to use online dating as a mindfulness practice—one that helps us cultivate love, awareness, presence, equanimity, and genuine care for ourselves and others while we look for romantic connection.

It’s not hard to do. Here’s how:

Step 1: Remember that your first responsibility and commitment is to yourself and your own wellbeing. No more swiping through profiles while in line at the grocery store or while sitting in the waiting room at the doctor’s office. Instead, create a ritual time and space around your use of the apps. You might want to designate a special spot in your home that makes you feel relaxed, light some candles, listen to some music, and tune into your heart space. Breathe deeply. Connect with your intentions to share your love.

Create a compassionate space within and around you for whatever emotions come up, so that they can be seen, welcomed, and loved. Having at least one friend, coach, or therapist to share your dating journey with is also key in counteracting any sense of isolation that might come up from using dating apps

Step 2: Write a bold, authentic dating profile that truly honors you as you date online. Use the process of profile creation as an act of self-love. Have a friend or photographer take beautiful pictures of you, and practice genuine self-expression when composing the profile text.

Step 3: Connect with the fact that there is a three-dimensional human on the other side of the app. Here is a soul, a heart, a body that’s longing to be loved, with their unique path, traumas, fears, history, and social conditioning. No one is “just a photo”; we are all thirsty for connection, belonging, and respect.

Embrace that online dating is a wonderful opportunity to practice loving-kindness. Loving-kindness is a Buddhist meditation focused on sending love to strangers. Its practitioners aim to cultivate inner peace, while also building a better society.

You can practice it with folks you encounter online by sending the following thought to each one of them, no matter if they initially disgust or attract you: “Just as I wish to, may you be safe, may you be healthy, may you live with ease and happiness.” Feel into the truth of these words, and send genuine goodwill to that person. Creating kindness out of a difficult situation is one of the most powerful actions we can take to create a better world and a better self.

Step 4: Accept the outcome. Remember that cultivating your intentions, aligning your heart and your actions, and doing the footwork of looking for a partner will pay off, no matter what the immediate outcome is (or isn’t). Dating apps are not the only way to meet your special someone—or to create love in your life—but they are a fabulous practice ground. Bringing as much intention as humorous detachment into the practice, and be kind to yourself, always.

In sum, Mindful Swiping is all about honoring our own humanity and that of others, even in a context that typically lends itself to forgetting all about it. Sending love to ourselves and others in spite of the negative emotions we feel is a mighty way to grow our own strength, resilience, and to flip the dynamics of online dating from feeling powerless to feeling empowered, from waiting to be chosen to bringing goodness to the world, and from feeling like a victim to feeling like a gift.

The post Humanizing Online Dating Through Mindful Swiping appeared first on First Date Stories.

The ultimate goal of dating and intimate relationships is to reach a juicy, heart-expanding, mutual YES!

But—you won’t be able to reach that full YES until you master your NO. 

Saying NO—to unwanted dates, sexual acts, relationships, etc.— is something many of my clients struggle with. But it’s an essential skill for finding and growing loving relationships, because:

• Saying NO to what we don’t want clears space in our lives for what we TRULY do want!
• Saying NO when we aren’t fully enthusiastic releases other people from our fake, or halfhearted YES, and gives them the freedom to pursue their own true YES.

Our ability to voice a clear and loving NO sets us and others free from untruth.

In other words, it’s the KIND thing to do! Clarity = kindness.

There’s a variety of reasons that can make saying NO a scary thing:

• We are afraid that saying NO will lead to loneliness
• We dislike hurting someone’s feelings
• We have been socialized to be polite and to people-please rather than to be authentic
• We are confused about what our YES and our NO even are
• We feel that saying NO is unsafe (we might have been punished for it at some point)
• We don’t know how to say NO without shutting down emotionally and feeling disconnected

These obstacles can be overcome with mindful awareness and practice. We can learn to say NO in a way that feels safe, grounded, caring, and connected. 

For example, you can enroll a trusted friend into this powerful exercise.:

Take turns making hypothetical requests from one another (ask for a hug, for a date, for a kiss, etc.) and say “no”, or “no, thank you” from the heart to each one—even if you feel like saying yes. Feel into how that NO reverberates in your body, and visualize expressing your NO from the center of your chest—and integrating care, connection, and kindness. Practicing this skill in a safe, controlled environment can make it easier to say NO to a date when it feels vulnerable.

It can be scary to move away from people-pleasing and into the vulnerability of radically authentic expression—but the quality of your intimate relationships depends on it. Becoming more honest with yourself and others about your desires, needs, and boundaries is fundamental to building love partnerships based on truth and on love, rather than on fear.

In other words: when your lover can fully trust your NO, only then can they fully trust your YES. This is when the true discovery of another human being may really begin, without pretense—this is genuine intimacy.

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Rejection is a universal pain point. As social creatures, we all crave feeling included, desired, and chosen. It is thus no surprise that rejection often represents the most vulnerable area of our intimate lives—especially when we are single and looking for a partner.

Moreover, as the fast-paced world of online dating provides us with endless opportunities to meet new people, it also implies endless opportunities to get rejected.

After coaching people from all backgrounds, I have found that the fear of rejection is the number one hurdle to finding and creating fulfilling relationships. However, I have also found that working consciously with that experience can deepen our ability to love in a profound, radically authentic way.

As counter-intuitive as it may seem, the pain of rejection can OPEN a door to become truly available for love!

In this blog post, I distill the lessons I’ve learned from my own rejection experiences and those of my coaching clients into a formula for turning rejection into a catalyst for self-actualization—a process that carves a path for true love and intimacy.

1. Use Rejection as a Flashlight

Rejection can be a powerful flashlight: when we use it to look inward, it illuminates the places in us that need the most healing. Ask yourself, “Where is the fear or pain of rejection coming from, exactly?” to reveal precisely where your emotional wounds are. This awareness is the first step of healing and transforming these wounds, and living an emancipated life.

Once we see where the fear or pain of rejection is coming from, we can then work to love ourselves more radically in those spaces.

For example, if a person doesn’t feel physically beautiful, feeling rejected in a dating situation will trigger the pain associated with lacking love for one’s own body. Seeing this dynamic clearly will allow a person to undertake self-love practices focused on their body, such as lathering lotion on themselves every night while intentionally infusing love into all the nooks and crannies. Actions like these can create a new vibration around us, and shift our social dynamics.

We are constantly teaching others how to treat us by the way we treat ourselves. How we feel about ourselves matters so much more than how we look—because people largely see us the way we see ourselves. When we love our own nooks and crannies, we automatically inspire others to love our nooks and crannies too!

2. Give Up on “Fitting In”

The fear of rejection usually comes from our addiction to external sources of validation. We are a hyper-social species programmed to seek belonging and approval from others as a matter of survival, beginning in infancy.

Paradoxically, as adults, the best way to attract love and genuine intimacy is to offer our own love freely, while releasing others from having to make us feel good about ourselves.

As a teenager, I was labeled a “reject” by my peers and became socially isolated for several years. What eventually freed me from the pain of utter rejection was the process of GIVING UP on being liked or “chosen” based on “fitting in.” When I realized that I did not have the option of “fitting in,” I was forced to give up on ever fitting in.

What a RELIEF! I was freed from the tyranny of seeking external approval, so I went on to carve my own path based on freedom and authenticity. I found my internal source of boundless love and acceptance—and that newfound confidence began to magnetize people into my life. In other words, I started receiving love from my peers once I stopped demanding it from them and started producing it for myself.

Anchoring your heart within your inner source of love might not happen overnight; but, the more you cultivate it, the more peaceful you will feel, and the more attractive you will become to others.

3. Strengthen Your Nervous System and Give Love Freely

A steady commitment to cultivating a network of loving relationships can strengthen our nervous systems and build our resilience to rejection.

According to the polyvagal theory pioneered by Dr. Stephen Porges, both children and adults need regular, safe connections with others to “co-regulate” and develop emotional health and resilience. This means that cultivating life-affirming relationships helps us get into the habit of feeling safe inside of ourselves—which is the essence of emotional resilience. Thus, prioritizing connection with our family, friends, and colleagues builds our embodied ability to feel safe when things get hard.

In the context of dating, having a strong social network will make the perceived “threat” of rejection slide off our back much more easily—rather than throw us into a fight, flight, or freeze state.

And how do we build a strong social network? By giving love. Giving love, especially when it’s difficult, forces us to stay connected with our inner source of strength—the abundant, unlimited geyser of generosity that lays inside each one of us. Accessing that source, especially when we are feeling offended or rejected, shifts the emotional dynamic from being a VICTIM and into being a GIVER. This not only feels much better to us, but it also makes us tremendously more attractive to others who are naturally drawn to our abundant, courageous, and daring love.

4. Cultivate Gratitude

The fear of rejection relies on a sense of scarcity; but gratitude is rooted in the perception of abundance. As such, gratitude is an antidote to rejection.

Too often, we date with expectations that others will meet our needs. When these expectations are unfulfilled, we experience disappointment and even feelings of betrayal and anger.

When we cultivate gratitude, we remind ourselves that everything is a gift. Remembering that we are not entitled to anything from anyone, and that nothing should ever be taken for granted, helps us see the glass as half full rather than half empty.

A 2-minute daily gratitude practice can create a river of abundance in your life. Try writing down one thing you are grateful for every single day, and deeply give thanks for it. This simple practice will gently enhance the flow of receptivity in your life, and help you magnetize love!

5. Choose Life!

Choosing life fully is to approach every situation with an attitude of engaged curiosity rather than judgment or condemnation. It is about viewing the multitude of moments that we experience every single day—even the disappointing ones—as opportunities to proactively create goodness, growth, healing, and love.

When we honor life as it is (rather than how we wish it would be), we fully participate in the great adventure of being ourselves. With this attitude, we have a chance to use pain—including the pain of rejection—as a school rather than a tool of self-punishment. This perspective is not only more compassionate; it can also free us from the prison of resentment, anger, and permanent sulk.

Observe your reactions to everyday situations when things don’t go your way: do you immediately jump to judgment? Victimhood? Blame? Simply injecting a moment of awareness in these situations will begin to create the space you need to view things from a more compassionate lens. In that space lies your freedom to build a richer, more positive, and more love-filled life.

Conclusion: The Magical Kitchen

Don Miguel Ruiz, author of the bestseller books The Four Agreements and The Mastery of Love, tells a beautiful story called The Magical Kitchen. It encapsulates my dating philosophy beautifully. Here it is, paraphrased:

Our hero has a magical kitchen that produces any food they desire, in any amount. There are always people around the large kitchen table—eating what they crave. The doorbell rings: a person is at the door holding a pizza box. They tell our hero, “I will give you this pizza if you promise to do whatever I want you to.” Our hero laughs and says, “Thank you, but I’m fine. I have a magical kitchen that can give me even better pizza—in fact, you are welcome to join me for dinner and eat anything you want.”

Now, how would this have gone if our hero had been starving for days? He might have agreed to trade his freedom for a piece of pizza.

We run the risk of losing ourselves and our freedom of self-determination when we date from a love-starved, desperate place. Don’t fall into this trap! Instead, try turning rejection into a path of liberation, healing, and as a catalyst to find love. Find your magical kitchen—I promise we all have one.

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Every person holds insecurities about being fully lovable. 

Before you think, “that’s not me!”, let this sink in: Even the most successful, confident, attractive, self-aware, and sociable people hold varying degrees of deep-seated insecurity about their lovability.

We each developed core beliefs about our lovability as children. For some of us, it’s major trauma that made us feel unlovable—such as sexual or emotional abuse, unsafe or unstable home environments, or toxic social contexts such as racism, classism or bullying. Even the very lucky ones among us who have had relatively happy childhoods, and no “major” trauma, have internalized negative messaging from peers, family members, and society.

As children, we did not have a critical filter, so we believed what we were told. We took in all kinds of negative messages and tucked them into our beings:

“Your teeth are too big!”

“You are too fat/too skinny!”

“You aren’t as smart as your brother/sister!”

“You will never be lovable unless you wear makeup or look like an athlete!”

Such messages were reinforced as we grew into social environments that promoted shame, competition, and self-rejection. They turned into emotional wounds that we often don’t even consciously know exist. That’s partly because they become an undistinguishable part of our emotional landscapes, and partly because they are so common.

Later in life, these wounds and beliefs become part of our psychological architecture. Our wounds affect how we feel about ourselves. They also impact how we relate and interact with our friends, family, and work colleagues. However, nowhere does this pain manifest as powerfully as in dating and romantic relationships.

A Transformative Power

The intimate realm of dating and relationships brings us face-to-face with shame and our fear of not being lovable. Its fire illuminates the darkest corners of our psyche, giving us a window into the emotional wounds we otherwise might cover and stuff down.

Confronting these wounds can make dating and relationships extraordinarily difficult and painful. But doing so ALSO presents us with an opportunity to see and heal them.

It’s true. Dating and relationships can be an incredibly powerful avenue for personal growth and transformation.

The obstacles we cannot see have the most potential to harm and control us. But those we bring to light lose much of their power over us!

When we shed light and love onto our insecurity, we have a chance to stop being a slave to it and to transform it. Only then, we can start to embrace the fullness of who we are, engage others with heart-filled confidence, build relationships based on emotional freedom and authentic expression, and stop self-sabotaging our efforts towards finding love.

Powerful Practices to Cultivate Self-Love

Here are some practices that are powerful and transformative for healing shame and developing unbreakable self-love.:

1. Commit to the process of recognizing, healing, and tearing down the walls of shame and self-rejection you’ve built inside of yourself. Being 100% clear in your intention and resolve will guide you towards your freedom to love yourself fully.
2. Give yourself permission to OBSERVE and FEEL any longstanding inner pain or disappointment, without filters or distortion. Look into your inner dynamics without judgment—observing yourself from a distance, as if you were watching a movie with YOU as the main character. What emotions and thoughts come up when you analyze your life and relationship history? Get acquainted with your feelings from a place of curiosity: temporarily suspend the temptation to blame or condemn. Start a daily meditation and/or writing practice to create a sacred space for this process. Get a journal and develop a regular habit of writing down the thoughts and memories that arise. In other words, cultivate a relationship with the parts of yourself that you may have shunned—a relationship based on understanding.
3. Forgive yourself for any harm you may have caused yourself or others. Making amends may be cathartic when possible and appropriate. However, if this is not an option, you can heal yourself through self-forgiveness and a commitment to moving forward in a loving and compassionate way. This forgiveness process will allow you to look at your past more clearly, more lovingly, and to consciously choose new behaviors that are aligned with your higher self. This process is at the core of breaking free from fear and negative patterns. Be patient with yourself, but stay steadfast in your commitment.
4. Forgive others. Holding on to resentment hurts you, because it perpetuates past hurt into the present moment. It makes it impossible to live with a fully open heart. Make a list of people who have caused you emotional pain from the moment you were born, until now. Commit to the intention of forgiving them, even if it feels impossible in some cases. It’s not, but it might take some time. Write down what they taught you, in terms of having better boundaries moving forward, and send them gratitude and goodwill. Also, imagine them as small children. What hurt might they have experienced that eventually made them be hurtful to you? Try to understand what it feels like to be them. Understanding breeds compassion, and compassion breeds forgiveness. Forgiveness frees you to love yourself and others without limits.
5. Be the person who loves and enjoys YOU unconditionally!  Become your own best friend and partner. Treat yourself as someone you’re in love with. Do something that gives you joy at least once a day for at least 15 minutes, no matter what other commitments you have going on—whether it’s taking time to truly enjoy your food, walk in a beautiful place, take yourself to the movies, meditate, read for pleasure, take a luxurious bath, or whatever gives YOU healthy, life-affirming pleasure.
6. Give yourself words of affirmation. We all have negative voices in our minds, and that is completely normal. But it’s nobody’s job but ours to change these scripts to messages that serve and elevate us. Is your mind telling you that you’re not beautiful enough to attract your dream lover? Write yourself sticky notes saying, “I am 100% beautiful,” “I am 100% gorgeous,” and “I am 100% loveable”—and post them all over your home, phone, car, and office. Try to connect with the part of you that knows you are beautiful just the way you are—it might be buried deep, but if so, keep digging. It might feel awkward or silly at first, but don’t give up—you are reprogramming yourself. It does take some time and work. Please be patient with yourself, and stay committed to the process. Consistency will get you there.
7. When you come up against a place inside yourself that you feel you cannot love, breathe deeply and visualize yourself as a child. Would you reject this child for not being perfect? Or would you reassure them that they are beautiful and lovable exactly the way they are? Treat yourself with as much kindness and compassion as you would a two-year old.
8. Clarify and stand by your relational standards and boundaries. Make sure that your standards and boundaries reflect self-love, and do not invest in people who treat you poorly or leave you feeling drained. Write down in your journal your standards and boundaries on how you want to be treated, and promise yourself that you will not compromise on these. Of course, hold yourself to those same standards: treat yourself and others the way you want to be treated!
9. Give your love. Giving love to others tunes you to a pleasure frequency. Too often, we feel we must wait for someone else to love us before we can feel loved. Try loving first. I’m not suggesting you invest endless resources into people who cannot appreciate or reciprocate it—but be generous with the kind of love that doesn’t cost anything. Invite a friend (or parent, or colleague, or child) to share a beverage socially distanced or virtually, and listen to them more deeply than you ever have. Be extra nice to strangers. Give heartfelt compliments. Commit to being a soothing presence for others. Taking this stance has the power to reverse your emotional state from feeling like a victim to feeling like a SOURCE of love—and to shift you from a scarcity mindset to an abundance one. This not only will make your life much better, it will open the door for others to love you.
10. Get support from a trusted loved one, coach, and/or therapist. Enrolling trusted others into your healing journey will give you strength, inspiration, perspective, and accountability—especially when the road gets tough. Human beings are not built to thrive in isolation. Establishing a loving support system around your healing and transformation is the most reliable way to create lasting change.

Becoming Whole

Self-love is a lifelong journey of becoming whole—of bringing all of who we are into the open, and letting the healing power of love and acceptance transform our shadows into uninhibited expressions of ourselves.

You do not have to be shame-free before you can get into an intimate relationship. In fact, healthy relationships can, and should, contribute to our healing and growth. Sometimes, others can help us by loving parts of us that we haven’t been able to love ourselves. And that is quite a magical thing!

However, taking shame out of the driver’s seat is in nobody’s power but yours. 

The more you emancipate yourself from negative beliefs and wounds, the more you have to offer the world. Shining your light gives other people permission to shine theirs. The freer you become, the freer people will be around you. This is how we can build a more loving, inclusive, and shame-free world.

Healing shame opens the path to love and intimacy with yourself and others. 

The more you love yourself, the easier it is for love to flow through you and towards you. This is not an easy road—but the path is laden with treasures, and worth every single step.

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