What We Do For Love: Coaching Jodi to Attract a Relationship, Coaching Session #12

Coaching Session #12 of Love Coaching Social Experiment – 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 full introduction to this social experiment, follow the links from there to the coaching sessions, and then back to this post.

Jodi and I have been doing a lot of coaching by email these past few weeks. This is a problem in a way, because we are supposed to be coaching in public, and not by private email. However, I love working with clients by email.

That’s how I coach people on an ongoing basis – I work with them by phone and email. The beauty of email coaching is that as people write their thoughts and read my coaching they change and grow faster – many times faster than they would if they were just speaking to me and listening to my coaching.

Back to Jodi’s coaching.

What you will find below is the transcript of almost all of our email interaction over the past week. I am publishing it here with Jodi’s full permission.

Let me give you a bit of background to the conversation you are about to read. On Monday of last week I put up coaching for Jodi. What you will see here is a conversation she and I had by email as a result of that coaching.

4/24/2006 Jodi wrote:

Rinatta, all has been quiet for a couple of weeks and then whamo!

I am feeling overwhelmed and depressed. I feel like I am supposed to do to much. You are asking me to do too much and I feel like I don’t have a clear goal or direction.

4/25/2006 Love Coach Rinatta wrote:

Jodi, I am sorry, perhaps I have overestimated how much I can put on you or ask of you. There is nothing you are supposed to do. There is only what you want and what will work to shift the fact that you can’t connect and attract an available man.

Let’s take this one piece at a time.

Guided meditations – do them when you feel emotional pain and or are ready to heal another part of your childhood or feel disconnected and want to feel connected.

I have asked you to find a way to connect with people daily, to learn to connect through practice. Does that feel overwhelming? I don’t care which groups you join to do that. Groups where people are growing are more likely to have people who will be interested in connecting.Dustin is another story. What you don’t know is that the Internet and other places where there are singles are full of people like you, but are also full of people who are not like you. If Dustin is just a friend and you are not developing feelings for him I have no problem with him. However developing feelings for another unavailable guy at this point in the game is just not a good idea.

Ok, I don’t want you to give up and I don’t want you to wander away aimlessly.

I want you to pick a path. You are the one who lives your life. You are an adult. I have given you choices – I have spread out the banquet of choices in front of you. If you want, I can give you more choices.

Now you pick what you are willing to do and can do daily. Let’s create a schedule/action plan of what you will be doing, so that we are both clear, and then let’s move forward with it.

How does that sound?

4/25/2006 Jodi wrote:

Rinatta, I am confused about my direction and can’t tell you how to coach me, I don’t know.

I am using the experience with Dustin to better define my emotionally available guy qualities, not to wimp out and follow the same pattern. The physical unavailability is minor compared to what I have been used to. This is a different experience for me and I feel like he has something to offer, a positive role model and a nice person. Granted I will be doing other things to continue my journey to find my ultimate destination.

I am not going to find an available guy if I am in the unconnected state. I can’t do any more jumping around from one mission to the next.

If you would like to do the meditation/visualization stuff make that the path. Right now, I don’t see any steps, just jagged edges. There is nothing wrong with the end of the project being I, connected with myself, with the tools you have provided.

I can’t comment any further because I can’t put anything else together, I am wandering. I just wanted to give you what I have in my head now….

4/25/2006 Love Coach Rinatta wrote:

Jodi, somehow you want me to tell you what to do yet when I have, and you have told me you didn’t want to do it. I suspect that when anyone tells you what to do you resist. I am not asking you to jump around from one mission to the next.

I am not asking you to tell me how to coach you. I am coaching you by asking you to create a set of activities that you are willing to do on a daily basis to help you open your heart. I am simply and clearly asking you to choose activities.

Here are the choices. Can you, will you, decide on a set of these choices and start practicing it? You don’t have to choose all of them, but you do need to do something every day. Pick at least one from group A and one from group B:

Group A:
1. One or two guided meditations daily

Group B:
1. Joining a spiritual group or community
2. Joining an interest-based group or community
3. Joining a growth-based community

Dustin: Jodi, you would not be the first person who becomes attached to an unavailable guy while trying to grow emotionally. It is always a barrier to grow, because it’s like trying to go forward with one foot nailed to the floor. He may be a great guy and so here is my coaching for you: Be his friend, don’t sleep with him (I know you have not so far), don’t kiss him, don’t flirt with him, and don’t fantasize about him. If you really are learning about nice guys and using him to learn about healthy qualities in men, then just be friends.

On 4/26/2006 Jodi wrote:

Hi Rinatta, I choose.

Group A: This guided meditation. I have been setting my alarm for 30 minutes prior to my normal wake up time for meditation.

No time for B items unless you consider kickball and inline skating groups B items.

I am now committed. Dustin will be a friend as you suggested. I can do that and I understand where you are coming from.

I am less overwhelmed and not so confused anymore.

Thanks for your support!

On 4/30/06 Love Coach Rinatta wrote:

Jodi, more on Dustin. I am just wondering, you don’t just want to be friends with him, do you? You want it to be more.

The whole thing with Dustin started like this. You started to sound like a young giggly girl about to fall in love.

So I said something. You agreed and said you would not see him. Then the comments and the giddiness continued. The time line is something like that.

That is why I asked you to drop him – you may intellectually see that nothing will happen, however, I think the hunger for connection does get the best of you, and the last thing you need now is to be attached to another unavailable guy.

It may seem that something is better than nothing, but in fact it is not. In case of love, it’s better to go hungry then to be satisfied by empty calories. The hunger will make you more likely to make changes, which in the end will get you satisfied, while the empty calories will only hurt your heart more after the initial rush.

So, stay friends with him, that’s fine, but don’t allow yourself anything more. Remember, he is unavailable and you need men who are available.

Jodi has not replied back yet about her mediation experience this morning or about Dustin. When she does, I will update you on what happens next.

Do you want the same help and coaching Jodi is receiving, 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.

From the Heart,