Are you looking for an incredible, magical relationship? Are you waiting for the person of your dreams to show up and sweep you off your feet? If so, you’re not alone. Most people are looking for their “other half,” trying to find someone else to help them feel more whole.
The good news is you don’t have to look far to find “the one” because the best relationship you will ever have in life is the relationship with yourself. It’s time to realize that no other person can complete you; only you can complete yourself.
That’s why, whether you’re currently in a relationship or not, it’s critical for you to learn to date yourself. When we date ourselves, we are nurturing the wholeness that we are so that we can show up powerfully in all of our relationships, not just our romantic ones. When we first date someone new, we’re eager to learn more about them, find common interests, listen for a connection and trust our intuition. So can we use those same dating strategies in deepening our relationship with ourselves? Heck yes!
Dating Yourself Prepares You for Rewarding Relationships
Dating yourself prepares you to be a better partner, friend or companion to someone else. Knowing yourself more deeply, and enjoying your own company, go hand in hand with being more magnetic to others. When we love ourselves, it shows. Conversely, when we’re trying to fill the emptiness we feel inside with other people, that shows as well. Being fully conscious of who you are and what generates a feeling of wholeness in you, prepares you to recognize and attract those qualities in others. When you successfully date yourself, you enhance your desire to recreate that positive dating experience in all your relationships. Dating yourself first prepares you to find rewarding relationships with people who are a good fit for you and the life you want to create.
Dating Yourself Helps You Become Your Own Person and Stops Codependency
I like to think of relationships as two circles. When one complete circle is in a relationship with another complete circle, the overlap is pure magic. If the circles happen to separate (even if only for a weekend!), there isn’t this crazy feeling of loss, because it was a complete circle to begin with. However, if a half circle is looking to feel whole (and doesn’t want to do the work to complete itself), it will often attract another half circle in the same boat. Two half circles become ONE, banking on the hope that the other person will make up for their shortcomings, and that’s a disastrous recipe for codependency. Both half circles will be relying on the other one to complete them and make them happy, meanwhile never realizing that it was their job to do in the first place.
If you don’t want to enter the dreaded Codependent Zone in your current or future relationships, it’s imperative that you begin nurturing that circle of yours with personal growth, self-awareness, and deepening your experience of what you love to do. When you date yourself, don’t be afraid to romance yourself. Don’t look to others to fill you up – you are responsible for your own joy, happiness, and pleasure. Dare to get excited about dating yourself. Find what works for you. Put yourself and your needs on your own calendar. Look forward to time you’ll spend with you with anticipation. Be relentless in holding that time as sacred. It’s only when we are willing to be complete and enough on our own, that we can truly attract in a healthy relationship.
How to Date Yourself
The best way to get to know, and fall in love with, ourselves is to treat ourselves like a budding new relationship. We plan for, and savor with delicious anticipation, our date with someone special. And as we begin to date ourselves, it’s no different. We can plan the time we spend with ourselves, and look forward to our date. We can savor the deepening and building of the relationship with ourselves by asking revealing questions (and having the patience to wait for the answers), and we can truly get to know what we like, what we dislike, what moves us and makes us feel all warm and fuzzy inside. In short, it's critical that we treat ourselves the way we would treat an exciting new relationship with someone we find attractive.
So, create your date list. Write down 10 ten things you absolutely love to do that you can enjoy by yourself—you know, those things that just make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Maybe its lighting candles, playing eighties love songs and splashing around in the bath? Or maybe it’s putting your onesie on and watching the entire Rocky series. For me, going on a hike and then sipping a tea while strolling the aisles of a bookstore is my idea of a good time. Whatever it is, treat yourself at least once a week to a date with YOU. Take yourself out on the town, or have a romantic evening in; whatever you love to do, do it. Don’t wait for someone else to nurture you; you have yourself for that.
Remember, we cannot expect anyone to fall in love with us until we fall in love with ourselves first! We must fill up our circle, and do the work to become our whole, powerful and true selves so that we can begin attracting whole, powerful, true matches. We don't attract what we want in life, we attract who and what we are---so we must begin to love ourselves unapologetically first, so we can attract that same love back. Isn’t it time you decided to date yourself?
