I-Dating...Can you find love?

There are roughly 50 million singles in the U.S., and according to various dating sites, 40 million have tried online dating. That’s a pretty significant number…but how successful is it for finding love?

Depending on the dating site:

…between 17% and 23% of those married in the last three years have met their partners online.

…the internet gives people access to more potential partners than you are likely to meet around town.

...you have the ability to get to know your potential mate from the comfort of home.

I think the biggest benefit of online dating is the ability to really get to know someone without the distraction of face-to-face contact (meaning you won’t be distracted by attraction or physical proximity). You’ll have the chance to listen to what’s truly being said or conveyed over the phone, to learn the life stories, to pick up on tone and inflection and to go out of your way to connect without touch.

Of course, online or virtual dating does ask you to exercise your communication skills. If you are solely relying on text or Email there’s a lot of room for misinterpretation.

Some things to keep in mind if you decide to hop on the I-Date path: -

1.    Pick the site that’s right for you! There are upward of 1,400 online dating sites giving you tons of options! There are general dating sites like match.com and plentyoffish.com, or more marriage-minded sites like eHarmony.com, PerfectMatch.com, or Chemistry.com. Perhaps you’d like more a niche site like JDate.com, ChristianCafe.com, DateMyPet.com or FitnessSingles.com. Try them out…if you’re looking for a perfect match then you want to make sure to join the site that’s going to provide you with the largest pool of potential mates that meet your compatibility criteria.

2.   Take the compatibility test. Although I doubt an algorithm is going to lead you to your ideal mate, it will help weed out your search list.

3.   Pick an appropriate screen name…Hotty69 might get you a date tonight, but may not necessarily introduce you to your potential partner. Your screen name is your first impression…maybe connect your name with a hobby (GolfingJane or LesaRuns) to attract people with your interests.

4.   Break the bland mode and stand out! Like to walk on the beach, go to movies and listen to music? Yea, so does the rest of the world. Share some special details…music? What’s your favorite CD? What about walking on the beach is so special to you? Don’t be afraid to put off potential dates through your profile – that’s what you want to do…weed out and attract those who could be a good match.

5.   Use spell check! Okay…that may just be a personal peeve of mine (along with homophone mix-ups), but misspelled words and poor grammar can be an instant turn off… u no?

6.   Post pictures to get attention! Please make them recent! I’m sure you looked absolutely fabulous 5 or 10 years ago, but people want to know what you look like now. And skip the bikini…if you put up a bikini shot you lose the right to complain that guys are contacting you for sex because you’re out there as a sexual being.

Your virtual dating scene still requires you to remain authentic and emotionally available. Think about the type of person you’re looking for and how much of yourself you’re willing to invest in building a relationship. Remember, with texting, Skype, and cheap flights…. anything is possible!

16 Quotes to help live your dream

16 Inspirational Quotes To Help Make Your Dream Life A Reality

By Silvia Mordini

Spending time dreaming is not the waste of time some would have you believe. Daydreaming, more than anything else, can stoke your creative energy and amp you back up. It's vital to your overall mental, emotional and physical health, and neuroscientists have found dreaming to be an important part of your cognitive wellbeing. A 2012 study published in Psychological Science by researchers from the University of Wisconsin and the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Science suggests that a wandering mind correlates to higher degrees of what is referred to as working memory. This means dreaming might help us tap into creative problem-solving. 

Apathy and complacency are the real enemies of love. They sneak up on us like small leaks in a boat and drain our imagination until we lose all motivation to keep growing. We’ve all fallen into this chasm of downward energy, but it's vital to continue dreaming and acting on dreams to develop as human beings.

Recommit to letting your mind explore new possibilities by conceptualizing your biggest dreams and acting on them within the next 24 hours. Here are 16 quotes that will inspire you to live your dream life.

“Dreams are necessary to life.” - Anais Nin

“All human beings are also dream beings. Dreaming ties all mankind together.” - Jack Kerouac

“All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them.” - Walt Disney

“Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world.” - Harriet Tubman

“As long as a man stands in his own way, everything seems to be in his way.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Dream and give yourself permission to envision a You that you choose to be.” - Joy Page

“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.” - Eleanor Roosevelt

“There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask, why? I dream of things that never were, and ask, why not?” - Robert Kennedy

“All men of action are dreamers.” - James Huneker

“Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it!" - Goethe

“A dream doesn't become reality through magic; it takes sweat, determination and hard work.” - Colin Powell

“Dreams pass into the reality of action. From the actions stems the dream again; and this interdependence produces the highest form of living.” - Anais Nin

“We all have dreams. But in order to make dreams come into reality, it takes an awful lot of determination, dedication, self-discipline, and effort.” - Jesse Owens

“If you take responsibility for yourself you will develop a hunger to accomplish your dreams.” - Les Brown

“If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with success unexpected in common hours.” - Henry David Thoreau

“To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe.” - Anatole France

How to attract a partner...

How To Attract A Partner Who Brings Out Your Best Self

By Cindy Saleeby Goulding

As a licensed behavioral counselor, I often talk with people who are searching for a partner — one who is loyal, smart, attractive, funny, confident, successful. And the list goes on and on. As they search for this partner, I ask them what they're doing to make themselves more attractive to someone with so many positive qualities. They often can’t answer that question. 

After exploring the question, they begin to discover that they attract those like themselves. So, if they lack confidence, good humor, a feeling of attractiveness, and success, then they tend to attract people with similar qualities. Let’s talk about what you can do to attract someone you want in your life who brings out the best in you.

Be the person you want to attract.

If you want someone successful, what steps are you taking to be successful? We all define success differently. Success is a continuum, a journey. My point here is that if you want to attract someone who you define as successful, you need to develop your own ideas of what success means to you and what that looks like, then take action to continue your journey. 

If you want someone who is confident, what are you doing in your life to feel confident about yourself? Making healthy decisions in your life and achieving realistic goals along the way contribute to increasing your level of confidence and happiness. When you exude confidence and happiness, you're naturally going to attract someone who is also confident and happy.

If you want someone who is physically fit and attractive, what are you doing to make yourself fit and attractive to yourself and others? Are you eating healthy foods? Are you creating a work/play balance so you can exercise at least five days a week? Not only do exercising and consuming healthy foods improve mood, confidence, and positive energy, they also give you an opportunity to meet others who have similar interests. If you join meetup groups that are connected with healthy cooking or healthy foods and fitness, you're more likely to find others who can connect with you. This leads to the next idea:

Surround yourself with an environment that attracts the person you want.

If you want to attract a person with a certain interest, where are you spending your time? A good indication of what your values are is where you spend most of your time and money. Are you always at the movies or fast food restaurants? Bars? Or, are you spending time at fitness centers, healthy grocery stores, parks with hiking and biking trails, or book clubs? Think about who is attracted to each environment and evaluate if you want to be part of that.

Think positive.

There is a lot of value in positive thinking. Not only is it an attractive feature to have, it also helps create positive energy around you, attracting positive people and positive outcomes. Think about how you feel (physically and mentally) when you are negative, whether it’s talking about someone in a negative way or being pessimistic. When you change the way you think, you create a whole new outlook on life. Your thoughts become your experiences. It takes practice and a lot of awareness, but thinking in a positive way attracts others in your life who are also attracted to positive thoughts and feelings. When people are positive, they are typically happier and more confident in their life choices. Thinking positive also reduces stress and depression. Reciting positive affirmations daily to yourself is an effective way to develop/enhance self love and positive thoughts throughout the day, and a wonderful reminder of how worthy and divine you are now.

Allow yourself to be open and free of limits.

When you limit yourself and your experiences, you are also limiting potential new people into your life. When you continue to grow and enhance your physical, emotional, and spiritual health, you create a more positive experience for yourself. When you feel better about yourself and your confidence blossoms and new experiences come into your life, you're in a much better place to attract other healthy people. Focus on yourself and not on trying to find the "perfect partner," and it will just happen. Let down those barriers and limited thoughts that may be hindering your growth and push yourself past your comfort zone for improving yourself.

Relax, enjoy the present moments in your life, and continue enhancing your journey to a more fulfilling life.

Thanks Jerk!

Thanks, Jerk! What You Can Learn From Folks Who Drive You Nuts

By Sara Seinberg

You've been looking forward to a party for three weeks. Finally the night is here: you look fantastic, and you feel great. Then you spot your ex-boss, an arrogant man who spent four years making your life twice as difficult as it had to be. He micromanaged your work to death. Now you spend the party trying to avoid him, ruminating on past professional humiliations suffered at his hands. 

Or maybe it's slow at work. You’re on Facebook and see an update from a friend who is presently annoying you more than Bobcat Goldthwait on a silent meditation retreat. Although she's simply stating her political opinion, you find fault with it, then feel compelled to visit her page. 

Before you know it, you're spending the rest of your break working yourself into a negativity lather regarding every irritating thing about this person who, just six months ago, was such a fun lunch companion. 

Look, everyone needs a nemesis. This person can act as our guiding light to humanity and calm. This is the person who can lead us to the moments of presence. She is our teacher.

Yup: This asshat is precisely the one who can help us find what we're always saying we want: serenity, authenticity, ease, grace and happiness.  

And here’s how:

1. They force us to identify the quality we need to develop. 

It’s never the whole person we can’t stand. It’s what they represent that drives us bananas. Is it the arrogance? Neediness? Maybe it’s the sarcasm or the mean streak. There are a billion things we highlight in the nemesis that we readily accept in friends. But in the nemesis, these highlights can become a map to our own freedom. 

Of course this is a version of that old saying, “That which we reject in others is exactly what we fear in ourselves.” 

Duh. Paging Dr. Freud. While identifying these things are great: THEN WHAT?

2. They force us to get real with ourselves. 

Once we find the characteristic(s) about our arch enemies that make us want to spit, we jot them down and carry them with us until we have a moment. We then sit quietly with the list and find where those little human foibles are prancing around in our own lives. It’s time for Real Talk with Ourselves, not as a berating lecture on how we have failed in life, but rather an observance of how we are NOT perfect, and therefore actually doing our jobs as humans, being imperfect.

3. They get us to practice forgiveness. 

We picture the enemy. We sit with them until they become real. We allow them to have a family, to be daughters and brothers. We picture things about them we like, their humor or work ethic. Maybe their attention to detail. We see them laughing. We recall the time we spied them hunched in the stairwell, crying quietly on a flip phone. We acknowledge their complexity as people and we forgive them their bad behavior. Then we practice the exact same thing for ourselves. Shame and everything.

4. They show us gratitude. 

And like anyone who does us a good turn, we say thank you. We thank the exact jerk who is bugging us for the opportunity to make a gateway back to our true selves. We also thank them for helping us to lighten the toxic load. This is heavy baggage and it is slumping our spiritual posture. Then, again, we use that practice for ourselves. We thank ourselves for being willing to try this practice. We thank ourselves for letting go of resentment at least long enough to acknowledge our co-humanness with our nemesis teacher.

5. They help us practice. 

We do this a little bit every day. We let people be whole and we practice it. We forgive idiots and jerks because we ARE idiots and jerks sometimes. We let ourselves see others as imperfect instead of kicking them off pedestals over and over because we have fallen from the same pedestal and it’s a long way down. We forgive ourselves for not being perfect because there is no such thing. It is our job to make mistakes and at try to make new ones because these old ones are holding us back.

I remember a conversation with my friend Allison one day. She was sad because her ex-friend had made her into a new monster, talking around town about all the awful things Allison had done. 

"That must feel so unjust!" I said.  

Allison sighed and said, "I feel sad about it, but I can be that for her. Everybody needs a nemesis."

Meeting your Partner's Reactivity

Meeting your partner's reactivity is often quite difficult.  You likely find yourself in one of the following scenarios.  Your partner reacts and you react back with defending, attacking, submitting, or shutting down.  Your partner reacts and you walk away, working to contain your own reactivity or simply refusing to engage.  Your partner reacts and you are able to see through it easily to his or her feelings and needs and so you offer an empathy guess.  Your partner reacts and you express your own feelings, needs, and request. 

In the last scenario, you are expressing honestly.  A true expression of your feelings and needs and an effective request, can be pretty hard to access while facing your partner's reactivity.  On the other hand, if you can stay connected to yourself in this way, you call your partner and your relationship into a different level or relating and you interrupt the cycle of reactivity.  

Being able to offer your honest expression in the heat of the moment is dependent on the amount of reflection and practice you have done when things are not heated.  My hope for you is that every reactive interaction with your partner is a cue for you to take time to reflect on your own feelings and needs and what you would like to happen differently in the future.  Ignoring reactive exchanges in your relationship for the sake of superficial harmony, is a high cost strategy.  Every ignored reactive exchange lives as a toxin in your relationship, perniciously destabilizing your connection.

When you do take the time to reflect, it's important to separate the details/topic or trigger from the reactive state itself, these are two separate conversations.  Sometimes your lawyering mind wants to hold onto and argue about details in the hopes of proving the validity of your needs.  Embodying NVC consciousness means letting go of the crutches you have used to prove your needs are valid, and surrendering to the deeper truth that it is your birthright to thrive and pursue thriving.

As you focus on your partner's reactive behavior, honest expression becomes easier.  It might sound something like this:  

"When I think about last night before dinner and how you told me I was selfish, I feel hurt and I need honor and peace.  The next time you have the impulse to call me a name would you be willing to take three deep breaths and tell me what you are needing?"

In the example above, you can see that the request offers a specific do-able action for the next similar situation.  When you are telling someone about something that doesn't work for you, the temptation is to make a "don't" request.  For example:  "Don't get reactive with me.", "Don't call me names.", "Don't yell at me.", "Don't shut down."  These requests are about moving away from something, avoiding or averting.  They are ineffective for a couple of reasons.  

First, everything anyone does is an attempt to meet needs, so when you say "don't" and that person doesn't know another way to try to meet that need, you are asking someone to hold back their life force.  When anyone works to hold back their life force, they are moving into a depression.  I am guessing that's not what you want to create.

The question is:  What do you want to create?  A "don't" request doesn't answer this question.  A request that asks someone to do something different moves you toward creating the relationship you want.  Of course, your request is only a guess at what the other person might be willing to do to meet your needs.  When you don't have a guess, it's okay to collaborate around the request.  It might sound like this:  

"When I think about last night before dinner and how you told me I was selfish, I feel hurt and I need honor and peace.  
Is there something specific you would be willing to do differently the next time have the impulse to call me a name? or Could we brainstorm ideas about what we could both do to interrupt reactivity the next time it comes up?"

Working together in this way, you and your partner stay grounded in your needs and how you would like to meet them in your relationship.

Practice
This week notice when someone is doing something that's not working for you.  Each time you hear yourself thinking or expressing a "don't" request, pause, connect to your needs and the needs that you guess are alive for the other person, and imagine what he or she could do instead.

~LaShelle Lowe Charde