Written by: Sarah Duff, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
Do you feel like you have most areas of your life figured out and moving in the right direction, except for dating and relationships?
You have a successful career, a fabulous circle of friends and a great social life.
You have a laundry list of hobbies and fun things you love to do on your own or in a group.
You’ve been doing the inner work, so you’re self-aware and in a good place within the relationship with yourself.
But when it comes to figuring out how to be in a lasting romantic relationship, it remains a mystery. A mystery that may baffle even Hercules Poirot or Magnum PI!!
And it’s so very frustrating, for 2 main reasons:
You know (even if that little voice in your head sometimes plants a seed of doubt) that you would make a great partner.
You are a problem solver, you figure s**t out, so it feels doubly ridiculous that this one escapes you.
If you relate to the description above, you’re not alone. I’ve spoken to many people just like you.
People who are really happy with their life overall and with themselves. But deep down they would like to meet their sexy bestie, the companion with whom they can enjoy the simple things in life ‒
The leisurely walks on a Sunday morning
Someone to ask, “how was your day?”
The Saturday nights in watching Netflix
The person you’re laughing your butt off with one minute, and having a deep and meaningful conversation with the next
The person who has your back, no matter what
The person you can share your greatest joys and sorrows with.
People in this situation are frustrated that no matter what they do history keeps repeating itself:
They go through the same relationship cycles, repeating the same mistakes
They find themselves ignoring red flags, even when their intuition is screaming at them
They attract the same type of person in every new relationship, then feel hurt and disbelieving when things work out exactly the same as last time
They eventually reach complete dating burnout that drives them to give up completely.
It feels like every time they try to press on the gas pedal with a new relationship, things get so far and then stall. So, they end up back at square one feeling frustrated, angry and at times sad.
If you relate to any of this, I bring you good news! It doesn’t need to be this way.
There are reasons why you keep getting the same results, and if you understand them, you can achieve the change you want.
These reasons have nothing to do with you not being worthy enough, good enough, attractive enough or the “perfect size” for the relationship you want. They have nothing to do with your level of success or your age. (Feel free to insert whatever reason your inner critic throws in your face as to why you’re single).
But they have everything to do with what I refer to as INVISIBLE love obstacles. And it’s this pesky INVISIBILITY that leads to you feeling completely bamboozled about why things never work out no matter what you do.
So “What the heck-a-maloola are love obstacles?”
Love obstacles are the deep-seated, unconscious beliefs that develop from:
Things we have witnessed that shaped our expectations and beliefs about how relationships work
Critical messages we received about what we needed to do to gain approval (ACCEPTANCE+SAFETY+SECURITY=LOVE)
Painful things we experienced that caused hurt and humiliation.
Many but not all will stem back to our developmental years. So, it’s not a small window we’re talking about here.
Love obstacles are, at their core, defence mechanisms created by your brain to protect you from situations where it believes you may encounter pain. But because the brain bases its reactions on the interpretation of past experiences, it creates a bias in your responses to the current situation. And you have very little idea that it’s happening.
These hidden obstacles based on faulty beliefs are like the world’s most powerful army front line. Strong, always ready to go and willing to do anything to keep you safe. But although they have your best interests at heart they can often work against your current desires and goals.
Going back to my gas pedal analogy, these obstacles can often feel like you are trying to drive forward with a solid steel wall in front of you. And no amount of flooring that pedal is going to get you past it ‒ you can reverse but you can’t move forward. So you, lovely human, are stuck in the same spot, and you ain’t going nowhere!
Not being aware of your love obstacles means you have no way to overcome them because you can’t change what you don’t know!
So that leaves you taking repeated wrong turns that lead to another dead end on your relationship path. These huge blind spots mean you often miss the amber, red or black warning signs and before you know it, you’ve repeated the same mistakes and self-sabotaged the relationship you really want.
So, to summarise ‒ these hidden love obstacles are based on faulty beliefs intended to protect us, but they are responsible for creating massive internal resistance to actually being in the relationship you consciously want. And they make the whole process of dating very painful and very unenjoyable.
When I discovered my crazy ass internal conflict, I knew I needed to figure out how to overcome it. OR else make my peace with living without the relationship I wanted. For me I knew the latter wasn’t acceptable, so I chose the former.
Through my own journey and spending a lot of time working out how to shift things I came up with a system to identify, overcome, and ultimately shimmy these obstacles out of my way. I worked on no longer allowing myself to let my faulty beliefs and my past prevent me from meeting my person.
I began taking the steps to remove my love obstacles, change my core identity and beliefs. And rewrite my entire narrative about dating, love, and relationships.
I went from struggling to understand why I couldn’t find real love and feeling anxious, confused and soul destroyed by the dating process, to becoming confident and clear about the steps I needed to take to remove the blocks to love and feel confident and secure about myself. So, I could enjoy the dating process and attract a different calibre of person. And that ultimately changed my results.
You might read all of this and feel sceptical. You regard yourself as very self-aware so it’s hard to believe that you have blocks or other factors that influence your behaviour that you are not aware of. And I hear you, I do. So let me help you out a little.
How do you know if you have love blocks?
The most obvious IMO is when you’re making a genuine effort to try and meet someone to build a lasting relationship with. You’re being open, you’re taking action, you’re really putting yourself out there. But no matter who you meet there seems to be an invisible force keeping your dream from becoming a reality.
If that sounds familiar it’s more than possible that you have conflicting beliefs and parts of you, making it difficult for you to be successful in relationships by creating love obstacles, that you’re not fully consciously aware of.
But to take things a step further let’s explore what love obstacles look like in action.
Love obstacles in action
A tendency to ignore or justify red flags. Or on the flip side, you decide you’re the one that can fix them
Making decisions based on fear. For example: running out of time, not wanting to die alone, not thinking you can do any better
Meeting great people, but tending to nit-pick at small things you don’t like
Staying guarded and avoiding vulnerability and intimacy
Tending to people-please and feeling you need to earn love
Needing to have your worth and value validated by others
Wanting to be rescued by someone or trying to be a saviour and fix another person
Running away and burying your head in the sand if things get difficult, avoiding any and all uncomfortable conversations or conflict
Being triggered and on the defensive all the time. Feeling you need to prove yourself to other people. Being stuck in black and white thinking
Repeating “toxic” patterns ‒ going after partners that are emotionally unavailable/ just unavailable. Being with people who love bomb then vanish. Always getting breadcrumbed. Feeling unfulfilled in love when you find it
Extremes of high drama or total indifference in dating and relationships
Having standards set so high they are impossible for anyone to meet. Seeking perfection, your rom-com/Disney prince!
Struggling to commit or to be committed too.
If you’re feeling a bit uneasy now, thinking ‘I check a lot of those boxes’ ‒ don’t panic! I know about these things because a lot of them describe me, before I did the work and took the steps to get where I am now. And then ‒ THINGS CHANGED!
I finally met my person, my sexy companion and am in the relationship I always wanted. A relationship where we both WORK on creating the happiest, healthiest relationship that works for us.
I’ve used my learning and experience to develop my system, one that would help others to make their own journey, and gain control over this crucial part of their lives.
I hope by sharing this I’ve given you some food for thought about what might be stopping you from being in a healthy, happy, and lasting relationship. And honestly, this is just the tip of the iceberg!
If want to become a confident, secure dater and finally attract the right matches for you, then feel free to book a call with me here to find more about the program I created to get you these results.
Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info!
Sarah Duff, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Sarah Duff is a life, dating and relationship coach. After years of repeating the same dating and relationship mistakes. By age, 40 Sarah was sick & tired of being unlucky in love. She decided enough was enough and, she began to dig deep into what was behind her struggles. After cracking her inner love code, she attracted her partner and is now in her first healthy relationship at age 43. She has decided to dedicate her work to helping women crack their inner love code. She doesn’t want other women to struggle in their love life as long as she did. She's the owner of the brand Thrive With Duff, and her clients span the globe. In 2022 she launches a new program dedicated to helping women thrive in love at all stages of their life.
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