Hello friends! I am a featured relationship coach and contributing author at The Life Coach Marketplace! Woo! In this fun, candid article that I wrote just for them, I’ll tell you HOW I found true epic LOVE after 3 lonely decades of dating and relationship disappointment and heartbreak and how all that relates to the so-called “definition of insanty.”
**Update: Unfortunately, the life coach marketplace went out of business, so here is a copy of the article I originally wrote for them**
Different Actions Won’t Always Yield Different Results…but a Different Mindset Will Change Everything!
The well-known “definition of insanity” meme with a photo of Albert Einstein that says “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results” might just be the most overused cliché and most over-shared meme of the last decade. I can’t even find proof that it’s a genuine quote and I’m inclined to believe it probably isn’t. Nonetheless, this meme must really reach the common folks or it wouldn’t be so popular. After all, it’s true to some extent. It would be silly (or insane as the meme suggests) to do the same thing the same way over and over again and expect a different result. Unfortunately, the sentiment puts too much of the focus on the repetitive actions that a person is doing with no regard to how a person is thinking and that is where it’s power falls short.
When I saw that meme for the first time, I’ll admit, it convicted me. At the time, I had one basic goal in my life and that was to experience real, true, epic romantic love….or as I used to say “ to find someone who will love me as much as I love them.” From the age of 15 to the age of 44, nearly 3 decades, I was in a state of innocent ego-driven desperation, trying to absorb value from the status of those around me, one failed relationship after another, meeting guys in the same places, doing the same activities, hanging out in the same circles year after year somehow expecting that miraculously one day, I would meet my ideal mate and true love would find me. The years and the broken hearts began to take their toll on me. A well-meaning male friend told me one day what a great person I was but since I was getting older, I needed to think about just picking someone and settling because the older I got, the fewer quality men would be available to me. I was told by 2 other well-meaning male-friends on different occasions that they were sure I would feel a lot better if I could just lose a few pounds.
Are you angry yet? Because I sure was. I rejected those viewpoints with ferocity. That anger fueled the fire that I needed to get up off of my slightly overweight butt and make a change in my life once and for all. It turned my desperation into determination. Right around this time, my great epiphany moment occurred while sitting on the outdoor patio of a well-known Las Vegas rock music venue having a drink with an out of town friend. This friend was a very unique and eccentric individual, extremely wealthy, pretty face, talented and smart but he adorned himself like a member of Satan’s army. He was covered in tattoos, had long, stringy shoe-polish-black hair, wore black t-shirts with skulls on them and baggy cropped cargo pants with combat boots. Many women find this attractive. Unfortunately for him, the high value women he was seeking wouldn’t give him the time of day and he only attracted very damaged women with lots of problems, drama and baggage that used him for his money. My own answer became so clear while speaking to him about his woes, it was like I was looking in the mirror throughout the entire conversation. On the inside, I was a deeply spiritual, quiet, peaceful, Earthy girl with conservative values who loved antiques, sunflowers and bluesy guitar music. On the outside, I looked just like Lily Munster. Much like my friend, I too, was a false advertiser. In that moment of truth, I thought I finally understood why I attracted all the wrong men. My exterior did not match my interior and that realization blew my mind. However, that my dear readers, was only a fraction of the answer.
I immediately began changing my image from head to toe so that it would more authentically reflect who I felt myself to be on the inside. Bye-bye Lilly Munster, hello Sofia Loren! I stopped hanging out at heavy metal concerts and rock bars where all my friends were and started going out alone to music and community events that reflected my personal tastes better. I deleted people from social media who I no longer wanted to be associated with. I went to churches and salt room meditations. I began grocery shopping in a different neighborhood. So here I was, winning the overachiever’s award for employing what I learned from the simple concept of “you have to do different things if you want different results,” just like the Einstein meme suggested, but surprisingly, the results I got were not very different at all. They certainly weren’t the results I had hoped and prayed for. And there I was, alone with my fierce authenticity. I did not get a single date nor did I make even one new friend throughout the entire year that I spent in this mindset. Not one!!
Mindset. That was the key. I am here to tell you that you can do everything differently and still get the exact same results because it’s NOT just about what you do, it’s about how you think!! I had done all that external transformation but very little had changed with my mindset. Essentially, the only thing that really changed was that I was feeling a little more high and mighty than the friends I had left behind and I carried that arrogant mindset into these new places which made me seem cold and unapproachable and therefore produced my lonely result. What a hard lesson to learn! That huge external shift was simply not enough. The feeling of desperation came back worse than ever and I was convinced that there was something terribly wrong with me. I needed help. After watching several inspirational and motivational speakers on YouTube, I was compelled to seek the assistance of a life coach. I learned that an internal mindset shift was the magical missing piece and the most important part of the formula! I spent the next 2 years healing childhood emotional wounds, forgiving people, reading self-help books, meditating & praying, gaining laser sharp clarity about how I wanted to show up in the world, understanding what values I could bring to a love relationship and deciding what qualities my ideal partner would have to have to blend with my personality and lifestyle. I became truly confident and happy with myself.
Then, on a random cold day in January when I least expected it, I found myself back at that old rock music venue where I’d had the life-changing conversation with my “Satan’s army” friend. I went there to see a blues guitarist and catch up with a girlfriend after a long workday. As we walked across the room, I had a love at first sight moment, or perhaps it was a moment of soul recognition, an extreme magnetic pull of attraction to a beautiful stranger sitting on a barstool alone. My friend gave me an introduction and that beautiful stranger has since become my partner, my world, the one true, epic romantic love I had been searching decades for. It still makes me laugh to think we met at the place I once thought I was too good for. Oh, the irony!
After taking this long and difficult journey to love, it has become my passion and mission to help women understand that finding your ideal mate is not so much about what you do or don’t do or even about where you go or how you look. There is so much more to how you present yourself to the world than clothes and makeup. The right mindset is the greatest accessory you can have.
Be A Sunflower... 