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Ep #57

A Single Dating Coach? WTF?

“So…you coach on relationships but you’re not in one?” 

I’ve heard comments like this many, many times. While I know and my clients know that I am an expert on teaching you how to manage your mind on dating, I’m often confronted by people’s belief systems about what it means to be an expert. 

As if a wicked plastic surgeon has to also have wicked breast implants. Or the perfect mate has to have been married 8 times to prove they’re good at marriage. 

Let’s shatter some belief systems, shall we? In this episode, I’m exploring what it means to be an expert and why we hold onto beliefs that weren’t even ours to begin with. I’m inviting you to look inside your mind at your beliefs so you can decide if you want them to stay there. Dating doesn’t have to be draining or dramatic; let me show you how.

What You Will Discover:

  • What an expert is and how we tend to qualify them.
  • What makes me an expert on helping you manage your mind on dating. 
  • Why it’s important to challenge your inner voice and belief systems.
  • What happens when you write your thoughts down on paper.
  • Why I’m committed to telling you the truth.

Resources Mentioned:

  • I can show you how to date without the devastating drama. Schedule a free, confidential, powerful mini call with me here to discover what happens when we work together.
  • If you’re enjoying the tools and concepts I’m sharing each week about your brain on dating, you won’t want to miss out on working with me one-on-one. I’ve just launched my program, Wake Up Before Another Breakup, where in just 8 weeks, you wont question if you can trust yourself to date or why you cant find the one. Click here to learn more about it and how you can work with me.

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Renegades,

I’ve got to tell you; I went for the most lovely night run last night and my oh my, our Austin sky line is one sexy thang. I have this loop at the moment and it includes going to the capital and anytime I run on congress my entire body lights up. I fucking love it. And get this, when I got home my apple watch notified me that I had completed a 4-mile run and gives me some form of congratulations followed immediately by Ashley, you just need to go a bit further to make today great. All it will take is 10 more minutes. A walk around the block will do it.

I was like, bitch. I just ran 4 miles and you’re telling me that’s not enough. Do I need this? In a pandemic? Or ever? No. Apple- shut the fuck up. We the people need positive reinforcement. Good lord. Telling me it’s not enough. I’ll decide what’s enough. Someone needs to tell these programmers to get up off from my shoulders.

Anyway, my sweet baby seals, today I want to address some comments that I’ve heard more than once that go like this; “it’s ironic that you’re a dating coach, and single.”

“Wait. You coach on relationships but you’re not in one?” “How does a single person coach on relationships?”

Perfectly fine observations, but today I want what does it matter if I’m single and coaching people on how to date and be in relationships?

Is there a rule somewhere that I missed? That you have to be labeled with or as the thing that you claim to be specializing in?

How do you know I’m single and not dating? Would I be considered more of an expert if I was dating someone? Perhaps if I was referencing how great my dating life was. Or if it was on display then you’d think, she dates. We’ve verified her. Look at all the men she is with on her Instagram. She can officially coach on dating.

Well, my friends. I refer to the wisdom of Bill Maher when he says; “Sorry, I’m going to have to ask that you keep two ideas in your head at the same time."

It is 100% possible to be single and coach someone on dating and relationships. Both can exist. Being single doesn’t mean you don’t know how or don’t have the experience or that you can’t specialize in the topics of dating and relationships BUT, I know how belief systems work so let’s shatter some, shall we?

Ask yourself, what defines an expert? How do you know when you’ve met an expert? And does this so- called expert have to be an expert at the skill to be considered trustworthy? For you to have confidence in them and believe that they know what they are talking about?

Last I checked, my breast implant doctor didn’t have boobs and somehow, he has perfected this skill.

How many athletes do you see being coached by someone who has previously played the sport? Some of the greatest coaches never played professional sports.

Would you prefer to marry someone who has been married 8 times because they are very experienced at it?

Have you ever considered what you believe qualifies someone as an expert at what they do?

An expert, Renegades, is defined as “a person who has a comprehensive and authoritative knowledge of or skill in a particular area”

Key word being knowledge.

A common belief that much of American society has adopted is that an expert is someone who has spent 10,000 hours doing the damn thing.

So, to answer the original question, how can you be single and coach on dating and relationships?

If it were based on time alone, then I can tell you without a doubt and I have the journals to back this, I am beyond expert level when it comes to dating.

I’ve had a very rich, long and colorful dating and sex life. I also spent a combined 15 years in monogamous relationships.

I am an expert dating coach because I know what it’s like to date from the belief you have to find the one. I know what it’s like to lose months and years to the distraction of others and regret not being focused on my work and kids. I know firsthand what it’s like to have an affair and be publicly shamed- or canceled- if you will. I know firsthand what it's like to say I would never stay with someone ‘if’ and find myself unable to leave. I know firsthand what it’s like to feel trapped and stuck in a relationship because of what everyone will think.

I have an endless reel of experiencing my brain on dating.

My experience is built on a foundation of 10 years of listening to people in my lingerie shop, Teddies for Bettys reveal to me the secrets they didn’t feel they could share with their closest friends. 10 years of people exposing their dating lives, marriages, affairs, divorces, parenting, friendships, eating disorders, how they’d never experienced orgasm, never used a vibrator, didn’t know how to ask their partners for what they wanted- how the other moms at their kids’ schools treated them, the jobs they were after- you name it- all revealed to me as easy as their shirts came off.

And this isn’t something I took for granted. People felt compelled to tell me their truth because they felt safe.

That someone would listen and not judge.

How many people do you have in your life that you feel you can tell anything to you and they will just listen? Not give you advice that has some sort of agenda attached? But just hear you?

Not tell you about the time they went through something similar? But truly just listens to you, word for word and somehow lets you know they totally get it, without saying a word?

Do you know how powerful that is? To just hold space for someone. To see them, let them feel seen, without offer your own personal experience?

I am an expert dating coach because I have the ability to see what you’re telling me from many, many other angles.

This is where my years of coach training comes in.

When my clients tell me their story, I’m listening beyond the details of what they are saying. I’m listening for their inner dialogue. The contents of their brain, and the voice narrating it in real time. I’m listening to the tone, is it caring and compassionate- or full of shame and judgement.

I’m listening for the beliefs they have about themselves based on what they are telling me.

I question my clients with such interest - I want to understand and to know all the things, like recently when my client told me marriages last longer if a couple is affectionate. Her parents were and that’s what she is looking for. That’s what will make it last.

Oh, you saw that growing up. What was a that like?

Is it possible that a couple could not display affection and still love one another and stay together? I mean, would the whole world agree that couples who stay together do so because they are affectionate?

I’m curious, how do you feel believing couples stay together longer if they are affectionate? Is that how you want to feel? How do you show up in your current relationship with this belief? What do you find yourself doing? Not doing?

Does your boyfriend have the same belief?

In what ways would you say your boyfriend expresses himself and affection to you?

Does this mean he loves you less? That you’re not attractive to him? That you won’t be able to be together forever?

This belief ‘couples who are affectionate will stay together longer’, sounds harmless right?

It actually seems sweet, 'couples should be touchy feely, my parents are and look how happy they’ve been all these years.’

But in reality, this belief causes my client pain. It makes her question the foundation of the commitment every time she doesn’t feel his touch. It also, in this case has her question if he’s attracted to because she believes that if he were, he’d want to touch her. Because that’s what people do.

But it’s not what all people do.

This is why my clients hire me as their dating coach.

I am an expert at showing you the script you are living from. Playing back the voices that are coming from inside the house. I show you how these thoughts and beliefs are creating your feelings and fueling your actions. And then get you to question all of it.

Inquire. Seek. Reveal.

Together, my client and I uncover all these beliefs and decide on purpose what they want to believe. We found out who and what tuned your voice.

You must remember, the voice you have isn’t one of your own but has been shaped by the people outside you. The social, cultural and religious landscape you were raised in combined with the voices of those closest to you. The voices that raised you. If you haven’t ever questioned your thinking, that inner dialogue then, it begs the question; is this my voice? Am I living my life? Have I ever really made my own choices? Do I really have free will? What is my agency here?

This concept of free will offered by the Christian faith sounds lovely but I argue that it’s just not possible. I’m not talking about the free will to go about your day and do what it is you want. I’m talking about the voice that drives you towards marriage, kids, who you vote for, your sexual identity, your job.

Your belief systems, your thoughts, were programmed in your brain by the time you were 7.

Your brain, like plastic was being molded and shaped before you could walk. Science shows it goes deep than that; that you have an ancestral DNA blueprint downloaded into your body and mind. The way your grandparents experienced love and trauma in their life time and their parents and grandparents and so on has been transferred on to you. How your mother felt and thought when you were in the womb was all absorbed by you.

I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know logically. What I am telling you is despite understanding this we have a difficult time applying it to our lives and choosing for ourselves.

We really believe we have no choice, but to stay. We believe that if we wait to have sex that we are doing it right. We believe that if we don’t text right back, we have the power. We believe if he cheats, we have to leave. We believe we shouldn’t get divorced. We believe we should stay for the kids.

My question to you is why? Why do you believe that? Did you ever consciously decide to believe it? Where did you learn that this is the way things are? Is it true for everyone? Do you want to believe it? Does it serve you?

Renegades, the choice is yours. To think what you want. To feel how you want. To do what you want.

I am an expert dating coach because I teach you how to overcome all of this.

How to write a script for the voice you do want. To reclaim your thinking. To create the life, you want.

I teach my clients how to process their emotions and manage their thinking while dating, we discover what it is they are really looking for in a relationship AND they learn how to pursue the things that really turn them on. I teach my clients how to find pleasure in living. With or without a person.

The solution I offer my clients couldn’t sound less sexy. I usually get a wait, that’s it. Everyone is expecting something big and tangible. Like lose 10 lbs. and get a boob job. You’ll fucking love yourself and life. But it’s not. It’s not a new car or a salary. It’s not the man or mind-blowing sex for breakfast. Although that will certainly get the chemicals that we want releasing but it’s none of this.

I teach my clients the art of self-coaching.

If you want to change your dating life and relationships, if you want to learn how to stop spinning out when he’s not calling, questioning if you are settling, if you should stay or go, why you aren’t comfortable having sex or if you are having it to soon, why it’s distracting you from your work and kids then you want to work with me.

I am single and an expert at this. I have mastered the skills required to not lose myself to a man. I can teach you the same.

To change the way date requires first and firmest awareness around your thinking.

It requires you letting go of beliefs like you could get them to call you, you would feel better. If he would have sex with you, you could feel desired. If he would post pictures of you on Instagram then you’d feel secure.

You have to let go of trying to control all the external shit and change your thinking. But first you have to be aware of it.

When you see the pattern of your thinking and how it’s causing you to feel, you can start to feel better.

This is the ONE thing you can control. Not the people you are dating but yourself and your thoughts.

To create awareness around the voice that is narrating and dictating your life - to get an understanding of who that is, we have to get it on paper. Sounds like an incredibly simple task but I can’t stress the impact it has, Renegades. There is a shift in the brain- I say this almost every week, when you write your thoughts down you stop experiencing what you think is happening and you get to watch what is happening.

Once you see on paper this persona, your patterns - the trending cycles - how you talk to yourself- Your inner dialogue - we can re write the script. The character even.

I am single and an expert at this. Within 8 weeks of working together I will show you how to train the voice that is talking to you about your dating life- and what you learn on a micro level with me can be and will be transferred and applied on a macro level to all areas of your life.

I will train your inner voice to become one that is compassionate, curious and encouraging.

The most common feedback I get after a few weeks of working together is my clients telling me they can hear me coaching them on what to do. They will find themselves in a situation seeing how they would normally go about it and then hearing my voice offering another option.

THIS Renegades is gold. Not my voice in your head but the subtly of the tools working. Of catching yourself in the act. This is the awareness we want. To see that there is more than one option. To ask all the questions before we decide what to do. To observe your reaction and then choose your response.

Before you know it, you are able to self-coach yourself through any problem.

I am single and an expert on coaching your brain on dating.

I have had clients say; “I thought you were going to tell me what I should do. Tell me what I should tell him or when to respond.…”

My question is always, 'How are you going to learn if I do it for you?’

Having someone do it for you only reaffirms your belief that you can’t trust yourself to make decisions and follow through. It doesn’t teach you self-responsibility, but more abdication. It doesn't teach you how to find the answers for yourself.

I show you how to seek growth by embracing the discomfort. This is the currency to the life you want. It’s uncomfortable Renegades but the birth of anything is. And it should be. You have to earn what is on the other side. You need to understand what it’s like to swim through the river of suck to build the capacity to experience all of life’s feelings. This takes courage. But don’t let that dissuade you, because what’s on the other side is a new version of you. The one who gets what she wants. The one that can handle rejection, being ghosted, heartache and not only survive, but thrive.

I am single and an expert at this.

I push my clients outside their comfort zone, because I truly believe this brings out the best in them.

There is, in my opinion, no greater accomplishment than overcoming yourself and your thinking.

It’s not my job to be your friend. To tell you what you want to hear. To tell you what I would do.

I’m not serving anyone, myself included, if I’m not honest and showing others how their thinking keeps them falsely protected by playing safe and small.

It’s my job to teach you mental fitness. Just like you would hire a coach or trainer to get in physical shape, I’m being hired to teach you how to tame and train your brain. It doesn’t sound as measurable as losing 20 lbs., but trust me.

If you don’t change your thinking you will never feel satisfied with your love life or achievements.

My job is to teach you that you can have it all. That you have the answers. That you can trust yourself to start, fail, finish repeat and not make it mean anything other than you are living and learning.

My job is to help you hone in on what it is you really want and how to expend massive effort wisely. I teach you how to channel your energy so you feel less depleted. How to stop depriving yourself and start truly caring for and protecting your energy.

I teach my clients to stop reaching outside of themselves to feel good. I teach them that life is about the foreplay and to climax is death. To find within themselves the things that please and fulfill them. To not chase or be chased but receive.

I’m an expert at being honest with my clients. I’m willing to say things they don’t want to hear.

I’ve had clients with tears in their eyes, tell me no one’s ever said that to me. Thank you.

Some people have gotten mad but called me back later to say the truth hurt. They didn’t want to see it or admit but now they can move forward. Thank you.

I’ve had some laugh and say I can’t believe I pay you this much to show me how I’m the problem each week. Thank you.

Renegades,

The truth can hurt but it’s the only thing left standing at the end of the day.

The heart of the truth, it’s your thinking about your dating life and relationships that is the problem causing you all your suffering.

The sooner we can get to the truth, the sooner you can find your freedom.

I am single and an expert on dating. I’ve lived it, continue to breathe it and most importantly have mastered the art of self-coaching my brain on dating.

If you struggle with your inner voice when it comes to dating and your relationships, I want to invite you to reach out and schedule a free mini session with me. Key word. Free. It’s confidential. And it’s very powerful. Go to modernrenegades.com and click on the work with me button.

Renegades, dating doesn’t have to be draining devastating or dramatic. Let me show you how.

Until next week, stay sexy.

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