Love Coach Blog

Coaching Session #10 of Love Coaching Social Experiment – How to Build Self-Love. Watch me coach Jodi, a single, bright, beautiful, late-thirty-something lady, to help her attract the man of her dreams – reality-TV style, right in front of your eyes and ears.

Read the full introduction to this social experiment , follow the links from there to previous coaching sessions and then back to this post.

This week Jodi is wondering how to find the voice inside of her that is louder than her addiction to unavailable men in general and louder than her latest interest in Dustin – a geographically-unavailable man in particular.

Read what Jodi said in her latest post and then come back here and read my coaching to her.

Jodi said: If this path I am on is addiction and not true attachment, it comes down to saying no to the addiction (to Dustin?). I have to find a voice that is more powerful than the addiction is. Where to find that voice is the challenge.

Love Coach Rinatta says: Jodi, the voice that is louder than the addiction to Mr. Unavailable, i.e. emotionally unavailable man, one that’s louder than settling for crumbs of love when you are so hungry for connection, is the voice of self-love and the voice for how much you are loved by the divine.

All right, let me clarify this, before you, dear reader, take me for either a religious fanatic or a complete flake.

Self-love and the feeling of being loved and supported by God, the universe, Buddha, or whatever your name for a higher power is, begins from being deeply loved by parents in a way that fills the child up. Most parents of Jodi’s generation, and the previous generations, did not know how to do this for their children.

The result of that kind of limited-love parenting: children who grew up feeling empty and unloved, lacking self-love and lacking the sense that they are loved by the divine.

The cure: cultivate self-love and seek to connect to the divine.

Perhaps that’s why the population of the United States is becoming more religious – people are seeking what they did not get in their childhood by trying to forge a connection with the divine through organized religion. (I don’t know why, but I have a feeling people are going to have a reaction to this statement. If you are about to have a reaction to this statement, think, breathe and remember that I am not attacking you.)

Jodi, while you hunger for connection to another, what you don’t know is that when you establish a deep connection with yourself and the divine on the inside, you will feel wonderfully full and quenched. Not that you will not want a relationship, but you will want one in a different way, for a different reason.

But how to get there, that’s really the dilemma now. The quest for connection with self is a very personal, intimate process. And the quest for connection with the divine is even more personal.

I can be your guide, but you, my dear, have to do the work, as you know. You have been trying to do the work, but you’ve been struggling. I tried to give you a way to connect with the divine first, through the remembrance meditation, but perhaps that is too much of a leap to start with.

Let’s try to get you to connect with a deep wellspring of self-love and work on the spiritual connection after.

Here is the key. You have to be hungry for self-love and a connection to self. You can’t just do the exercises I give you dispassionately and hope they bring results. You have to deeply want to be connected to your inner world of feelings, to gain the ability to love and sooth yourself, in a way that no one has ever done it for you.

It’s kind of like the connection with Dustin right now. When he calls, you hold your breath, waiting for him to tell you he wants you. That’s how I want you to be when you are working on cultivating self-love. Hold your breath, hoping that your inner self is going to be able and willing to connect with your outer self. See yourself becoming whole and integrated and connected to yourself and the world around you and be willing to do anything it takes to get there.

Start with a book called Homecoming by John Bradshaw. It’s an oldie but a goody. As far I can see, this book is still unparalleled in its depth of explanation of the concept of the inner child, and in its variety of exercises to start to heal and make whole again the self.

How about you read the book this week and then we will decide what kind of work from the book you will pull into your daily life. You can read this book in a week, because you are very hungry to finally feel connected and whole, right?

P.S. Jodi, by the way, did you know you and I are attached? I know, it’s long distance and so much of our connection is public. However, there is a very real connection and I deeply care about you.

Dear reader, do you want the same help and coaching Jodi is receiving, only private, so that you can find your way out of being single and into a healthy relationship? You can get help from me, privately, by hiring me as your love coach. Contact me and tell me you want coaching on your situation, and we will go from there. Or go directly to the coaching page.

From the Heart,