Too Cheap For Love

~ The Active Listener, Inc. ~ 5 Comments

By Suzanne Wiggins

According to an email I received today, when it comes to finding love, I’m screwed. It’s embarrassing to admit, but about a year into my journey to change my life I signed up for several e-newsletters claiming I could: “Be Irresistible (.com)”, “Catch Him and Keep Him (.com)”, and “Have the Relationship I/You Want (.com)”.  At first I found the tidbits of information they provided to be helpful. After all, I had no clue how to interpret men’s behavior unless of course it was in a work related context. Oh, if only love were as simple as business.

A few months after the emails began to arrive I started feeling an underlying sense of irritation with each newsletter I read. I tried to let it go by telling myself to take what helped and ignore the rest. My growing hostility resulted in moving the emails into a separate Inbox tab so I wouldn’t have to see them until I was emotionally prepared. Well today I was just bored. I opened my email and discovered I had no new messages other than 2 items in my “love advice” tab. I should have shut my laptop and walked away, instead I’m sitting here mad as hell.

It turns out there are a bunch of “secrets” and “tricks” that a person has to know in order to find real love. And the kicker  – these secrets can only be had by buying them. To date, my refusal to pay for information being held captive by a handful of “love experts” has kept me from: “Making Him See Me As the ONE” “Getting Him Literally Addicted to Me”, knowing the “7 Tools Guaranteed to Make Him Mine Forever (30% off)”, “The Shocking Secret of Creating Romance With a Man”, “The #1 Thing that Makes Men Fall In Love”, “One Simple Trick to Cure a Breakup”, “What NOT To Do If He’s Acting Cold and Distant”, “The 30 Second Daily Trick That Makes Him NEED You (Me)”, “The Secret to Getting AND Staying On His Mind” “The Desire Trick Men Can’t Resist”, “The Secret P Word that Determines Who You Will End Up With”, and on and on and on. And if you’re married don’t despair, handing  money over to these “experts” can also help you improve or even save your marriage.

So what’s a person to do when they’re too cheap for love? Well you can buy used copies of books on Amazon. This was my first course of action prior to signing up for the newsletters. Since everyone pays for the book they are more agreeable to giving the secrets away. One of the first books I ordered was “He’s Just Not That Into You.” I still get depressed when I see it sitting in the pile on my closet shelf because it reminds me of how often in “the spirit of optimism” we can excuse bad behavior or interpret it as hopeful signs of possibility. The book did, however, present one of my favorite nuggets of wisdom as provided by Liz Tuccillo.

 “There is something great about knowing that my only job is to be as happy as I can be about my life, and feel as good as I can about myself, and to lead as full and eventful a life as I can, so that it doesn’t ever feel like I’m just waiting around for some guy to ask me out.”

If you’ve read my earlier posts, you won’t be surprised by my next suggestion of looking to Pinterest for inspiration. I avoided Pinterest for years having developed an aversion due to the constant stream of “Pins” clogging up my Facebook news feed (which I seldom check.) I wasn’t interested in knowing what sofa my third grade teacher was thinking of buying or what bridesmaid dress a friend’s daughter was considering given I wouldn’t be invited to the wedding. But once I grudgingly opened an account to search for healthy recipes, the flood gates were opened. The fourth or fifth “board” I created was my Guidebook to Love which currently has 181 pins. Over the past year I’ve moved some pins to other boards and deleted those which just made me feel bad. I don’t reference this board often, but when I do it always reveals some of the “secrets” to finding love:

  • The way you treat yourself sets the standard for others
  • If you find yourself constantly trying to prove your worth you’ve already forgotten your value
  • Don’t look for love. Quietly give it away and let it find you back.
  • If you don’t love yourself you’ll always be chasing people who don’t love you either
  • Just because someone desires you doesn’t mean they value you
  • Nerd girls are the world’s greatest under-utilized romantic resource

Sadly, I’m convinced that women are paying hundreds, if not thousands of dollars each year attempting to discover that ONE secret or trick that will change their luck in love. For anyone reading this post I’ll give you my secret for free ~ No one will ever love us more than we love ourselves.

“The secret of attraction is to love yourself. Attractive people neither judge themselves nor others. They are open to gestures of love. They think about love,  and express their love in every action. They know that love is not a mere sentiment, but the ultimate truth at the heart of the Universe.” ~ Deepak Chopra

Two Steps Forward, One Step Back

~ The Active Listener, Inc. ~ 2 Comments

“In any given moment we have two options: to step forward into growth or to step back into safety.” ~ Abraham Maslow

Over the past three years I’ve lost 130 pounds. In the last six months, however, I’ve gained 40 of it back. I’ve been asking myself, ‘how in just a few months did I go from being 40 pounds away from my healthy weight goal to 80 pounds away?’ It’s extremely difficult not to beat myself up or feel discouraged. They say (“they” meaning those damn Pinterest quotes) your attitude determines your direction. So I’ve decided to see this setback as an opportunity to discover valuable lessons that will help me in the future when I lose focus and start to “step back into safety.” It is not an easy process to learn from the mistakes that we would rather just ignore, deny or blame on external conditions. It requires both honest reflection on what we are or are not doing to make progress AND constant evaluation of what we’re trying to achieve and why we want to achieve it.

I have struggled with weight my entire life, so when I made the decision to  become a healthier person I knew it had to be part of an entire lifestyle change. I didn’t want to follow a commercial weight loss plan because as most of us know, once you’re off the plan things seem to quickly return to “normal.” I was looking to create a whole new “normal” but understood it wouldn’t be easy given that 1) I had experienced only limited success in the past, 2) I was simultaneously working on other interconnected changes that would determine my success, and 3) I had some saboteurs that I could not easily, or in some cases, ever remove from my life.

I started by making a plan that worked around my workaholic tendencies. I sought out creative ways I could eat all my meals (breakfast, lunch, dinner and an afternoon snack) at the office staying between 1200 and 1400 calories a day. The plan was personal to me and took into account both my strengths and weaknesses. I’ll be honest, from the start I knew I would never willingly give up beer or half ‘n half. I simply adjusted my consumption and built those calories into my daily or weekly plan. I truly believe that creating a process that was personal and accounted for both my behavioral tendencies and my dietary “deal breakers” is what helped me to succeed. Oh, and lots of patience.

So what happened? Why am I twice as far from my goal than I was a year ago? I’d like to blame it on anything but myself. I could attribute it to my brother unexpectedly passing away, followed by my cat becoming terminally ill and dying which coincided with starting a new job and on and on. Honestly, I would love to lay my setback at the feet of life and its unexpected events, but that would be a lie or an excuse. I know this because there were just as many times that I continued to make progress despite losing a job, having my car break down, experiencing a significant health crisis, my own or a family member’s, or while facing numerous other challenges. But the reason I’m not as healthy as I was six months ago is because I took a giant step back into the comfort and safety of old ways. I consciously or subconsciously decided that I wasn’t the most important priority in my life anymore and began to create congruence between how I felt inside and how I looked and behaved externally. I gained 40 pounds because I stopped exercising every day and eating right. It’s as simple as that.

I’ve been asking myself, ‘Where do I go from here?’ and ‘How do I get back on track?’ Well I recently convinced myself to stop feeling embarrassed and ashamed. I realized that this journey is mine, and mine alone so I’m the only one who has authority to set the course, the timeline, and the purpose. Next, I decided to acknowledge the situation openly, hence this post. I’m taking accountability and committing to each reader that I am re-energizing my plan and taking a first step forward into growth. Lastly, as part of the process of re-evaluating where I’m at and where I want to go, I’ve realized that I may be very happy and satisfied to lose 50-60 pounds instead of 80, but I’m not going to decide that right now. I’m just going to see how I feel along the way and continue to ask myself “what” and “why.” I’m also taking comfort in the wisdom of others.

“You may have to fight a battle more than once to win it.”  ~ Margaret Thatcher