Your breakup is an opportunity to stop the frustrating cycle you've had with dating the same kind of person over and over. It's time once and for all to put an end to this so that you can create the happy, lasting, loving relationship you're really craving. This episode is deeper than a quick fix. We're going to get under the surface and look at the unconscious patterns that are keeping you stuck so that you can take control of your love life. In this episode, Sarah discusses her own past experience of dating emotionally unavailable men who made promises they didn't keep. She discusses how she changed her relationships and what you can do differently to change your dating life, too. You absolutely deserve to have the relationship that you want and that you desire.
Sarah outlines common patterns and blocks that prevent people from breaking these unhealthy dating cycles, such as:
"Human beings will choose the familiar hell over an unfamiliar heaven every time."
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I can't wait to talk to you more and hear your thoughts.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Have you gone through a breakup and you're tired of feeling low lonely or lost? I've got a pep talk for you. I'm Sarah Curnoles, your breakup bestie. I'm a certified life coach with years of coaching experience, helping people just like you turn your breakup into the best thing that ever happened to them. Each week, tune in to get a pep talk, to heal your heart. Let go of the past, reclaim your power and get back into your main character energy. Your breakup may have shattered your world as you know it, but together let's build a new better world. Let's go. Hi there, friends. Sarah Curnoles here, and today I have a different kind of episode. Sometimes people come to me and they are ready to start dating
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Right away, or they know that when they do start dating that they don't want to keep making the same mistakes over and over again. And we talk a lot about what does that look like when you do start dating and how do you use what you've learned from the past to stop dating the same kind of person over again or having the same relationship dynamic over and over again. And I can really relate to this. I was the person who always dated the unavailable guy, the one that promised the moon and never really wanted to commit. I've dated all kinds of really wonderful, passionate people and those guys were very quick to say that I wanted too much, that I needed too much, or that they just weren't ready to settle down with just one person. They wanted to keep dating other women or my final relationship, the one that really led me on this path that I decided that I was going to end my pattern once and for all.
(02:16):
We dated off and on for four and a half years and he kept saying he wanted to marry me, that he wanted to have kids with me, that he wanted to buy a house and put down roots and that he could see us someday with grandkids running around and we're sitting on a porch in our rocking chairs. He said those things, but we never actually talked about what would married life look like. He never actually proposed. He never actually put those roots down. And what's the saying? Why am I blanking on the saying? He never actually put his money where his mouth was, right? His actions never actually lined up with what he was saying. And so I guess that's another way of saying I dated the unavailable guy. I also really forgave the person when their actions didn't line up with their words. And I always believed their words, not their actions, which it's easy to do when you really like somebody when you're all swept up in the romance and the attraction and the passion and the fun and the connection of I'm finally with somebody that makes me feel the way I've always wanted to feel.
(03:34):
I was somebody who would be very forgiving. If I finally got to feel the way I thought I wanted to feel in a relationship, I would really ignore a lot of those warning signs that I was in the same kind of dating relationship dynamic of this person isn't actually available. They're not actually going to commit and they're not going to be in integrity with what they say and what they do. It's going to be out of integrity. So how do we break the cycle of dating the same kind of person over and over and over again? Well, let's first look at what's behind this. This is deeper than something just on the surface because when I was in it, I wouldn't have said that I was dating the same guy over and over again. I would've said, no, these guys are totally different. That one never wanted to talk about commitment. Whereas this other one, I was in a committed monogamous relationship. He just never wanted to marry me. On the surface, it looked very, very different, but the dynamic was familiar. So what about you? What are the stories of your past relationships? What did notice kept? Well, before you get into any kind of patterns, you have to tell the story of what was the relationship. So if you haven't done that, that's a great journaling exercise to write down what was that relationship like? How were you to behaving when you were around each other?
(05:35):
How did he treat you? How did your ex treat you? How did you treat them? How did they regard the relationship? And what were your fights that kept coming up over and over and over again? Because all couples have that fight that they keep having and they never actually solve it. They just keep having the fight. They think they resolve it, but they keep having the fight. I would write that down for the past couple relationships that you've had. You don't have to go through every single 1, 3, 4, that's probably plenty. Three or four is probably more than enough. And you can start looking at where are there similarities in the dynamics and you want to find any kind of patterns and you don't have to go jumping into conclusions or anything. Don't go too fast too soon.
(06:51):
I had a mentor once who told this story that when she sat down with her therapist to do similar work and her therapist was asking, said something that the men that you keep dating are a lot like your dad. She said, they're nothing like my dad. My dad was cold and unavailable. He was never around. He didn't really want anything to do with me. The men that I date, they're passionate. They're artists, they're totally into me. And her therapist looked at her and said, yeah, but they live in other states. They live in another country. They don't actually live in the same area as you. They're not available to you. So even though it's a very different dynamic of it's not cold, it is still unavailable. I think that's such a great example of a pattern that maybe you don't see, maybe that you've sort of brushed off of. Well, yeah, sure, I always have to travel to see them. Well, ultimately that is somebody that's unavailable because are they going to move here? Are you going to move there? What does the future of that relationship look like?
(08:07):
So you want to be looking for what are the common threads? And it might not be obvious, it might be the unobvious thread. So that's a great reflection exercise that you can learn a little bit more about. What is the pattern that I keep repeating? Now I want to talk a little bit the common blocks that come up when it comes to stopping these patterns. When we want to stop engaging in the same thing, I notice that there are some patterns even in the behavior after somebody says, I'm not going to keep dating the same person over again. There are some that are conscious and the ones that are conscious are going to be the trap of falling for the opposite. So we think that in order to stop dating the same person over and over again, we think, oh, I'm just going to date the opposite.
(09:16):
So I'm going to date somebody that's completely the opposite from my ex, and they swing from one end of the pendulum to the other end of the pendulum. So if it's somebody who cheated on you, maybe you decide to go totally other end of the spectrum and you date the person who is overly committed right away, off the bat, overly affectionate and basically love bombing and it's too much too soon, too fast. Well, that person isn't any more available for a healthy relationship than the person who cheated. It's just showing up in a different way.
(10:03):
The emotional result that you have from both is actually the same. You feel betrayed. You feel let down. You feel disappointed. You don't feel seen or respected for who you are because in both cases, the person who's betraying and the person who is love bombing, that's more about them. It's actually very self-centered behavior with very little regard for you. Alright, so I want to talk about another one of these blocks. And this one is more not conscious. Most people are doing this and they're not even aware that they're doing it. They stay in their comfort zone. What that means is there's a really wonderful quote that I'm going to paraphrase. Human beings will choose the familiar hell over an unfamiliar heaven every time. And what that means is that we will unconsciously pick something that is familiar to us because we as human beings prefer to be in our comfort zone and we're just wired that way. We don't change, we don't like trying new things. Really, we stay in these familiar, even sometimes painful dynamics instead of going for something different. And here's what that might look like, and it's an example from my own life that I kept dating the really passionate artist type. I loved a guy that was passionate. And for a long time I was dating a lot of actors because I worked in the theater world and eventually I was like, no more actors. I'm not going to date any more actors. I'm swearing them off.
(12:16):
They're not ready for relationship with me. But the familiar dynamic for me was picking somebody that was passionate and emotionally unavailable. And so what I did was I picked somebody who was very passionate and also very unavailable even though he had a steady job, the dynamic was still there. Instead of picking someone that aligned with more of my future goal, which was to be in a loving partnership with somebody who considers me their equal, who respects me and my contributions to the relationship, who wants me to shine, he wants to celebrate me. And he isn't intimidated by that. That kind of a guy. I went on dates with those guys except after two dates. I've shrugged them off as they were boring because the guy that's emotionally available, the guy that's ready for a real relationship, it's not hot fiery passion. It is calm, steady, consistent. So to me, that felt really boring. And so I rejected it.
(13:35):
And now this is where I hear a lot of people push back, especially a lot of women. They're like, but why would I settle for anything less than hot and fiery if that's what I want? Well, look at where hot and fiery usually goes. If you think about an actual fire, when your fire is burning that hot, it either takes a lot, a lot of work for it to keep going or it's going to burn hot and fast and then it fizzles out very quickly. Fire isn't meant to burn that hot for that long. It is a short burst.
(14:17):
If what you want is a long-term partnership of healthy love, that actually looks very different. That is a slow burn. And when your system, your nervous system is so used to fiery hot passion, even though that leaves you emotionally wrecked in the end, that is something that you will pick over and over and over again because it's familiar. And the consistent slow burn is unfamiliar and so you're going to reject it can see how this could happen on an unconscious level and you're not even realizing that you're doing it. You need to align with what is your future goal of where do you want to be going. So the way to shift these patterns, the first step is always going to be awareness. You have to be aware of what is the dynamic that you keep repeating and what does that look like? And because that might look different in different situations, it's also really important to pay attention to how you are actually feeling.
(15:31):
That will always be one of your early signals, your feelings. So when I was dating the passionate guy, I would get all frenzied and worked up and I'd almost be a little obsessive about him for a little while because I was so excited to hear from him all the time. And I couldn't wait until the next text and I couldn't wait until our next date. And there was just all of this frenzy, this frenzied energy around it. And when I noticed that when I'm dating somebody that is now a big red flag, well, I shouldn't say it's a red flag, it's a yellow flag telling me to slow down and pay attention to ask more questions, to get to know the person and to not rush in to really take my time because I'm aware of that pattern, I'm able to do that. So recognizing the pattern is the first step. The second step is to reevaluate what you want and if your standards for what you want for a date, do they match up with what you want? So like I said, if you are somebody who wants a long-term partnership where you do have that moment on your porch and you're rocking chair and you're holding hands and grandkids are playing in the lawn, that's very different than if what you want is a hot, passionate love affair that only lasts a couple weeks or a month.
(17:18):
Those are different things. And so you would date differently and you would date a different person for each of those things. So really take that moment to evaluate what is it that I want and what are my standards of the type of person I have to be, be dating to align with that. And then you have to change the way that you are thinking about yourself in that relationship. A lot of times we reject what's unfamiliar because maybe we think we're not worthy of that or we're not deserving of it or we reject it because it's just not comfortable and we have to readjust how we see yourself of I absolutely am worthy and deserving of love. Or maybe your parents got divorced when you were younger, and so you have a story that you're telling yourself that love doesn't last. So you have to tell yourself a new story of that may have been true for them. It doesn't have to be true for me or any number of stories that you could tell yourself. You have to reframe how do you see yourself in relationship?
(18:51):
So if you're listening to this episode, I know it's because you've been really hurt in the past and you don't want to be hurt anymore, and maybe you drew that line in the sand saying, I'm never going through that kind of pain ever, ever, ever again. I don't want to experience it. I am done with that and I get it. I understand that absolutely. And you have everything that you need right here in this episode. To get started towards the path of changing it, you have to be super clear on why does that matter to you? Of course, you don't want to feel that pain anymore, and why does it matter that you have the kind of relationship that you want so you can go about this on your own and I'm so happy to support you and cheer you on from a distance. And if you really want to get clear about your patterns, I actually have an amazing gift for you that you can go to top 10 journal prompts.com and download my top 10 journal prompts that are going to really help you go deep down inside yourself so that you start bringing the unconscious up to the surface and you start to know yourself better and you start becoming more aware of your patterns so that you can start making better choices.
(20:22):
And that's sort of like the DIY version. You can do that on your own, which is amazing. The only problem with that is that everybody has blind spots and you're not going to be able to see your own blind spots. And also when you're DIYing it, it really is the slowest route. The fastest way to get there is to go with somebody who's been there before. If you are one of the people who really does want the help, who wants the accountability, who wants to get there faster, who wants their blind spots shone a light on, then I want to invite you to consider working with me as your coach. I want you to consider private coaching where I create a tailored plan and I guide you through it step-by-step holding you accountable to what you say that you want and adjusting it so that you don't fall back into old patterns.
(21:23):
But instead, you start rewiring your brain of how you see yourself and how you show up in the world so that you start having different results and you start attracting better people to you. And you entertain dates with maybe that person that you weren't so sure of at first, but you were kind of curious, kind of interested. They're not really your type normally, but you're going to give it a try and that ends up being the kind of person that maybe could really create that relationship that you're longing for. Deep down, that's the kind of work I do with you if you're coaching with me, if that's for you, I want you to come over to my Instagram and DM me. I'm at Sarah kernels and it's spelled C-U-R-N-O-L-E-S. And I want you to DM me and say that you're interested in coaching and we're going to have that conversation of what that looks like and what kind of plan I would create for you and how I would help support you as you go through that change.
(22:28):
I really hope that you find the option that works best for you. They're both great options. I love the journal proms, I love the DIY. I do it myself. I also always work with a coach. I don't go alone anymore. I DIYed it for a long time and I got tired of it. I hired a coach so that I could really make change fast and I did. But I want you to find whatever option works best for you. I want you to get the support that you need because you absolutely deserve it, and you absolutely deserve to have the relationship that you want and that you desire. I can't wait to cheer you on this journey, whether it's from a distance through Instagram or whatever way we reach out to each other. Or if you come and work with me privately, I am a big fan of yours and I want you to have everything that you want because you deserve it. Alright, my friends, that's our episode for today. I hope you take good care of yourselves and until next time, take care. I.