We have a bit of a ‘pivot’ in the topic this week but you may well be surprised, as I was, when you see how similar the concepts and strategies are, as I talk to Mandelynn Moses about successful dating in the ‘soul mate zone’. For me, love – meaning romance as well as other relationships – is one of the five key areas in our lives and I was excited to delve into this topic.
Mandelynn Moses is a relationship coach who helps successful singles, men and women, with their relationships. These are people who have succeeded in all areas of their life except for romance, where they just can’t seem to find the right person for them.
Dating and romance can be an especially tricky area to navigate for success-driven, ambitious men and women who are used to going for, and getting, what they want. First of all, it can be hard to admit that you want to meet someone – you might feel that this makes you seem weak and needy, and who wants that?! Second, I certainly felt it was a bit odd at first to write down goals and action plans when it came to love.
How can we set goals in the area of romantic relationships?
It’s interesting that it feels so foreign to set goals in this area. If you think about it, getting clear on your goals and what you really want is generally what has made you successful in other areas of your life. For example, when setting up a business you absolutely need to get clear on your vision and what it is you’re trying to achieve in order to get things right. In your career, you need to know what you want your next career move to be in order to take steps that will get you there. Why should it be any different in relationships?
In fact, Mandelynn recommends that you apply those same principles in relationships. When you’re clear on what you want, she says, the universe conspires to give it to you. When you’re not clear, you get back a bit of everything and nothing. So getting clear on what you want is crucial if you’re ever going to find it!
What is that you really want and need in a partner and, most importantly, why? For example, in your business you may want to get more clients and revenue. Your ‘why’, however, goes deeper and gets to what you’re trying to achieve in your business, the impact you want to have, and your real motivation for wanting to build and grow your business. It’s the same when it comes to relationships: Why is it that you want to meet someone? Beyond the fact that it’s something that you’re ‘supposed’ to do, what is it that a relationship would bring you as an individual, at this particular time in your life?
Mandelynn describes meeting her current partner, who shares her core values and even the same business purpose, and how aligned they now are with each other, contrasting this with a previous relationship. Although it may feel like this has happened organically, she knows that it took a lot of prep work in discovering for herself what she really wanted.
What are the mistakes that people are making?
Mandelynn explains that a lot of people do, in fact, have a list of criteria for their ideal partner; but often these criteria stem from things that they don’t want. For example, a female client included that she wanted someone who liked her cat – which was very much born out of her previous partner not liking her cat! This puts the focus on the wrong thing, says Mandelynn.
To bring someone into your life, she explains, you need to be completely open to this. Holding onto the energy of your ex can be a big blocker here. You can still consider these past issues that you’ve had but make sure that you re-frame them using words with a “higher vibration”, a more positive energy – for example, “unconditional acceptance” – which will allow you to really visualise what you want and not get stuck focusing on what you don’t want.
Why is this particularly difficult for successful women in their 30s and 40s?
Although starting out with male and female clients, Mandelynn is increasingly focusing on helping successful women in their relationships. She refers to the consequences of the feminist movement that tells women to be more like men: you feel like you have to be masculine and ‘like a man’ in order to compete with men in the professional area. Putting aside whether or not this is the right approach in your career, unfortunately it’s probably not the right approach in your personal life.
The truth is that women have something that men don’t have. That’s really what makes things interesting, and it’s ultimately what (heterosexual) men are attracted to. If you give off that very masculine energy, then the likelihood is that you’ll meet a more ‘feminine’ man who wants you to be the strong and masculine one in the relationship. In my experience, however, most of us – despite being incredibly strong, independent and successful women – still want those rugged and masculine men who will take us in their arms and make us feel safe. On the other side of the equation, says Mandelynn, most men fundamentally want to feel needed, and to be allowed to “be a man”.
Did you see Wonder Woman? Mandelynn refers to her as an example of a really powerful woman who still manages to be true to herself. She’s actually a very feminine character, soft and tender, who views things from a woman’s point of view and allows herself to “melt into” the man she meets and falls in love with.
“Practise true surrender,” says Mandelynn, “and you’ll have the best of both worlds.”
What strategies can we use to overcome these blocks?
1. Learn your love language
The first priority according to Mandelynn is to get clear on your ‘love language’. This allows you to express what it is that you need in a relationship and from your partner.
“Everybody on the planet needs to know their love language. If you don’t know your love language, I don’t know how you can succeed in life!”
There are five love languages, according to Gary Chapman’s best-selling book:
- Words of affirmation
- Acts of service
- Receiving gifts
- Quality time
- Physical gifts
You can do a free quiz to find out your love language here >>
What usually happens is that we try to love people the way we want to be loved – but that’s backwards! Instead, we need to be clear with each other as to how we want to be loved – and then give the other person what they need.
2. Imagine the person you’d like to be with
Once you know what you need, you can get clear on your goals. This is not a checklist, Mandelynn clarifies! If you have a checklist and someone doesn’t meet all those things on the list, then bye bye, they’re sent on their way. But some of those things on the checklist don’t really matter. The truth is, your logical mind doesn’t know what it is that you need! So you need to really tap into your intuition and your feelings here.
“Date a person, not a concept.”
Mandelynn gives the example that she had always wanted to be with a foreign man and, indeed these were the men that she had previously dated – and yet her soul mate Paul has turned out to be a local. He showed up in a ‘package’ that she would never have been able to describe in a simple checklist, and just a few years earlier she admits that she would not even have been open to letting him into her life. It’s only more recently that she has become more open minded as to what might be a good fit for her – and this is what allowed her to consider Paul.
So instead of a checklist, create a list of qualities that you really want your partner to embody, consider how you want to feel when you’re with him, and try to truly imagine yourself being with this person. This will allow you to call that person, who you really want and need, into your life.
What makes you feel good? If you have a superficial list, you’ll get a superficial man!
3. Don’t set unreasonable expectations
Mandelynn gives another personal example, when she had decided that she was going to meet The One. This kept her in a relationship with the ‘wrong’ person for much longer than was healthy simply because she was putting too high expectations on the relationship and trying to force it into being something it was not.
“There’s a beauty of not having expectations. When your heart is broken, I truly feel that it’s not your heart that was broken, it’s your expectations that were broken. You expected so much from this person.”
So don’t be too attached to the final outcome. Be open to unexpected encounters and see where it takes you. You’ll always learn something – either about what you do want, or alternatively what you don’t want in a relationship. Celebrate growing through your different relationships and experiences, and don’t mourn a relationship when it ends for the right reasons. As Mandelynn says, dating is a learning experience!
What’s the ONE STEP you can take to start dating in the soul mate zone?
Write a list of all your beliefs that you hold around relationships.
This will be familiar to you by now if you’ve been following me for a while, but Mandelynn is another proponent of examining your underlying beliefs.
What are the beliefs that you hold around dating and relationships, and how might they be holding you back? These beliefs – many sub-conscious – will often come from your parents or from other people you’ve observed, or from just one unlucky encounter in the past.
As a strong and successful woman, for example, you may find that you hold such beliefs as:
- “I’m independent and I don’t need a man”
- “I’m better off alone”
- “All the good ones are married”
Can you see how this would stop you from attracting the right man, let alone being open to meeting him when you do?
Others might include:
- “I’m not worthy”
- “I don’t deserve love”
- “I feel abandoned”
These are incredibly strong beliefs that you may not even realise are driving you. But they can go really deep and create huge blocks in your relationships. Understanding these blocks is the first step towards being able to shift away from them.
So write down the beliefs. And then change them!
Get your free article, ‘Dating in the Soul Mate Zone’, which will help you to attract and start dating men at your level, here >>
[Note that Mandelynn mentions a 21-day challenge, which has unfortunately already happened – but follow her on Facebook if you’d like to hear of similar challenges in the future!]
Mandelynn Moses is a relationship coach who helps successful women attract their life partner. She helps women break out of the cycles of co-dependent relationships and into happy interdependent relationships that help take them to the highest ascension of their lives. She works by helping women connect deeper with themselves so that they can connect deeper to others. She believes that by uncovering the barriers that we set in place and that keep us from truly being open to receiving the love from others, we can learn to love without fear. Connect with her on Facebook, as well as on Instagram.
