My Conscious Dating Journey

By Patricia Drury

"After having been sure that love had passed me by, I am thrilled to say that I spent my 60th birthday (and will soon spend my 61st) with a man who loves me and whom I love back. I can say with authority that it really is never too late to turn things around and find a love that works!"

Q: What was the most helpful concept, idea, or strategy you learned from Conscious Dating and why?

The most helpful concept is so obvious I'm embarrassed to admit I wasn't already acting on it. It's "Be the chooser." Duh. There was a way in which I already knew that, of course, but I still had to make several psychological shifts to get there in reality.

First, I had to recognize that I hadn't actually been the chooser in my past failed relationships. I would have told you I was. I was certainly successful, independent and aware in other parts of my life. But somewhere way inside, when it came to relationships, I was really telling myself that I had to take whomever I could get.

I grew up as the school valedictorian who wore glasses starting at age five and didn't have a date to the prom. I drew the conclusion then that I wasn't pretty enough, nice enough, fun enough, SOMETHING enough. Fast forward twenty or thirty years, and I was still acting on that conclusion and my relationships were failing painfully.

Second, to become the chooser I had to focus on what assets and traits I bring to a relationship. I finally realized that if someone didn't want me as I actually am, the whole thing had no chance anyway and could only end in disaster. So I started looking at myself with an eye to the positive. This shift changed my life.

Finally, I had to get into the mindset that says "I will walk away if I have to." That's what I finally saw it means to be a chooser - the freedom to choose NO. I had to make peace with the idea of being single and not in a relationship. I had to embrace it willingly so that I would not compromise my needs the first time somebody showed an interest in me.

These things took a little time, but with those shifts in place, I started choosing, and it changed everything.

Q: Which of the Ten Principles of Conscious Dating was most instrumental in your success and why?

Without a doubt, the most foundational principle for me was the first, knowing who I am and what I want and need.

My first and second careers had both been successful in large part because I knew what I loved to do work-wise, had confidence in my skills, had a broad network of people who knew my abilities and had the expectation of success. It had never dawned on me to apply the same principles to my dating life.

The line from Conscious Dating that jumped off the page for me was "All relationships have problems or challenges. But unmet Requirements tend to be relationship-breakers." About half-way through that last sentence, it hit me that I actually do have Requirements, that I am ALLOWED to have Requirements, and that it was my unmet Requirements and Needs, NOT my personal inadequacy, that broke those past connections apart. My dating mindset, the I-have-to-take-what-I-can-get mindset, left me oblivious to myself. I just thought I needed a relationship, but that wasn't it at all. I needed a particular KIND of relationship, one that fit me.

My mind started racing through my past, looking for clues to the unmet Need or unfulfilled Requirement that accounted for each failure. I could find one in every instance. I was energized! It was like a key had finally turned in the lock and I had a new doorway open into understanding the intractable problem of my repeated painful relationships.

I went back to basics and wrote down my dreams and vision for relationship. I became aware that, at the age of 58, I was so ashamed of not having a relationship and of never having been married, that I hadn't been able to admit even to myself that I HAD dreams or a vision for my life that included relationship. I had some vague fantasy and a deep longing but had lost faith decades ago.

As I stepped up and owned my relationship strengths, recognized the skills I already had and the ones I knew I could learn, and identified what I really, really require and need in a relationship, I felt a level of hope I had literally never felt before. I began to see that a systematic approach, coupled with the power of vision and hope, could take me where I so deeply wanted to go and had never yet been.

Q: Please share your success story in as much detail as possible.

Ah, the STORY.. After my last break-up, I stopped dating. I promised myself that I wouldn't even try it again until and unless I was sure I had learned something about how to do it differently. I was then 58 years old and no longer believed in much of anything in the way of miracles or love. My openness and readiness for commitment were deeper than ever in some ways, but self-preservation made me drop out of dating. Way under the garbage heap of outworn beliefs inside me, I knew there had to be a better way.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I worked professionally as a life and business coach and am still an active member of my state's coach association. Each summer, the association has a picnic with a silent auction. At the auction that took place about four months after my last break-up, another coach (an RCI trained coach) offered one slot in her about-to-start Conscious Dating program. She made extravagant promises about successful dating and backed them up with quite a few testimonials, including one from a fellow coach who was about to get married for the first time at age 51. I put in a bid, but not without cynicism. I won it.

So I started the six-month teleclass. I came in with a pretty negative attitude, but I went along with the exercises. I clarified my vision for my life, identified the strengths I bring to a relationship, pinned down my key values and my requirements and needs. I put the whole package together in writing, and I admit I felt quite a bit better about myself. I wrote it all down, committed my dreams to paper. And four months into the program I very consciously and clearly declared that I was in no way ready to date. I finished the course out of curiosity, but made no effort to meet anybody then or use any of the dating skills the coach taught.

The one thing I did do, however, was keep my membership up on an online dating site. They sent me matches every so often, usually a pretty pointless exercise. I reworked my profile so it represented me as I had come to see myself, posting a picture with glasses and openly stating that I am not super-thin and the right man will love me the way I am. By this time I had received over 260 matches on that website during three years. The number I had even talked to was about 12, the number I had met was 4, and the number I had seen a second time was zero.

Six months after the class ended and just before I was about to start saving money by closing my account, the website came up with two new matches. I contacted one and the other contacted me. I responded to the second but not with a lot of hope. Frankly, I held out more hope for the first, but there was something different about the second, some sort of intangible feel that intrigued me. He had a level of education, a way of communicating, and a set of interests that matched me exceptionally well. He had been divorced for over 20 years and was very open to relationship. And he kept the correspondence going.

I decided to meet the first one. He traveled a couple hundred miles to have dinner with me. With a clear sense of what I was looking for, I realized within about 10 minutes that he was not "the one." Remembering to be the chooser, I thanked him and as nicely as I could, said I didn't see a long-term relationship developing between us. What a high! I actually made a choice to say "No!" to someone expressing interest.

The second match, Bob, and I live 1,300 miles apart. That certainly helped slow the pace! We wrote and talked for four months before we met face to face when we were both in the same third city at the same time. We had lunch together. It wasn't one of those bells and firework deals. We had a quiet time and an animated conversation. When he said he wanted to continue our correspondence, I agreed. Something much deeper than superficial hormonal chemistry was drawing me forward.

We began talking every day on the phone and I could see that he was a real possibility. Even though I was match number 558 for him, here he was, putting out the effort to connect with me. He was choosing me at the same time I was choosing him, liking things about me that were actually about me! And I was seeing more depth, more common interests, more compatible humor, and more heart in him. I gradually developed very deep affection for him.

I'll be honest; a couple of times, part of me was eager to flex the "be the chooser" muscle again and cut it off when there was a momentary bit of tension. But I kept noticing that my sense of security and self-worth was getting stronger the more I stayed in touch with him. I kept noticing that my Requirements and needs were being met and that I was finding more and more things to love about him. And I kept noticing that he had the skills and the willingness to work with me to resolve any tensions. I was in love, but I was so unfamiliar with the feeling that I didn't call it that for a long time.

One evening, I joined a Conscious Dating teleclass on long-distance relationships with panelists who were or had actually been in one. I heard a lot about the challenges, most of which I knew pretty well by then. After the call, I decided to hire one of the panelists who was also a relationship coach to coach me in these early months of my long distance relationship.

Several times one thing or another in my conversations with Bob raised questions for me. My coach would always ask, "Does this make him rejectable?" referring me back to my Needs and Requirements, and upon reflection, the answer was always "No." And then we would get down to the work of clarifying exactly what my unmet need was (since I now knew that upset is always about an unmet need,) polishing up my communication skills, role-playing my requests, and framing my questions. As I got better at asking for what I needed, I found my connection with Bob to be getting stronger and more grounded. And I kept seeing that he always made a real effort to honor my requests and meet my needs. He still does.

Remember, I'm a coach. I can do this really well for other people. I, however, needed a coach to help me stay anchored in a conscious approach to this previously unsuccessful area of my life. I needed a coach to help me keep refining my Requirements and Needs and evaluate my experiences in light of them. I needed a coach to help me keep everything in perspective. And I needed a coach to help me keep that bit of hope alive.

A couple of months after my first face-to-face date with Bob, I went to visit him. And stayed in his guest room, an important first for me. A month later he came to visit me. We had time to spend together, time to share experiences. And we had daily conversations of increasing depth in between.

Now it is nearly a year since those first visits to each other's cities and over a year and a half since we were first matched. We have been together six more times for several days each time. We have had major disagreements and have succeeded in resolving them in ways that left both of us feeling great and our relationship stronger. We have become very good friends. We have realized that we love each other and finally aid so. Now we say it every day, but it took us both time to get there. We have become exclusive. We talk every day, sometimes more than once.

The long distance part is still a challenge, of course. We can't participate in the daily ebb and flow of each other's lives other than through conversation. However, had I not been willing to look beyond my particular geographical location and risk facing these long-distance challenges, I would never have met this wonderful man who fits with me so well. We still don't know exactly what we will do about our separate lives so far apart. I just keep applying the principles of conscious awareness as we work through it. We have talked about what we both hope for someday together, and I know we will get there.

I no longer work with my relationship coach. Instead, I became one! Having experienced the sheer joy of being in a successful, conscious, loving relationship after decades of believing it wasn't possible, I decided to focus my coaching practice on helping others have that. I use the principles of Conscious Dating as a basis for my coaching and workshops. It brings me great satisfaction when I see the same light go on for someone else that went on for me. I don't have all the answers, but I do believe most of them are in there somewhere in David's Conscious Dating book. And I know the process works!

After having been sure that love had passed me by, I am thrilled to say that I spent my 60th birthday (and will soon spend my 61st) with a man who loves me and whom I love back. I can say with authority that it really is never too late to turn things around and find a love that works!

Q: Based upon your experience, what is the single most important advice you'd like to pass along to other singles?

First, there are some things I will NOT say, common things that were said to me that just were not helpful. I will not say, "It will happen when you least expect it." The truth is it will happen when you are ready, have done the background work to get ready, and you are open either to relationship or to a great single life - either one without attachment - and when you DO expect it.

I will NOT say "You'll just know when the right person comes along." The truth is that without a great deal of consciousness, there are things inside most of us that can trip us up - over-attention to hormones, unfinished business from past relationships, unconscious motivations. You WILL just know the right person when you have consciously thought about who you are, what you are looking for in a relationship, and when you have the patience to let natural course of things unfold.

What I WILL and do say to my clients is that the most important thing to do is to love yourself so much that you wouldn't dream of not being a chooser. This doesn't just happen by throwing a switch. You don't wake up on a Tuesday and decide to love yourself and expect it to happen by Wednesday. Maybe it means working with a therapist to resolve issues from your past. Maybe it means working with a coach to refine a vision for your life and clarify what relationship means to you and what you need and want from one. It definitely means developing a whole new inner monologue and a new set of habits.

Loving yourself means continually giving away love - in thoughts, in gestures, and in acts - to lots of people lots of times and particularly to yourself. It means doing whatever it takes to help yourself believe deeply and experience yourself repeatedly as capable of giving and receiving love. It means holding the intention of finding a loving relationship without getting over-attached to the idea.

I will say that when you fill your own life with love - in all its forms - a great relationship has a much better chance of appearing in the middle of all that glorious love!

Sincerely,

Patricia Drury and Bob Sidman

Congratulations to Patricia and Bob for finding the love of your life and winning first place in our Conscious Dating Success Story of the Year contest!

To submit your entry for next year's contest click here