Dating and relationships can be frustrating and, often, downright painful. What single hasn't dreamt of a fairy dating coach swooping in to help her let go of baggage and find the happy, healthy relationship she craves?
For Nadette, a 45-year-old casting director who just recently ended a year-long engagement, that dream became reality. Nadette entered and won YourTango's Love Life Makeover contest, earning the privilege of taking on a 31-day love life makeover with me. In this first episode of the Love Life Makeover video series, we help Nadette identify and let go of unhealthy dating patterns to help her get over her past relationships. Watch the first episode below as I work with Nadette on her Diamond Self identity.
To understand what I mean, let's look at Queen Latifah. She was born as Dana Owens. Yet she found and focused on the Queen Latifah aspect of herself, an identity where she feels open, empowered, deserving, lovable, and loving toward others. This is what I call her Diamond Self.
I define the Diamond Self as your most dynamic, most self-loving and passionate identity. It builds on all of your prior successes in life. It's the "you" that acts in ways you like, enjoy, respect, and admire, the best "you" that you can become. Personality psychologists refer to this identity as the "ideal self," because it contains our hopes and aspirations for the future along with various skills and behavior traits we would like to master.
Your Diamond Self comes from heartfelt intuition and constructive thinking when you relate to yourself and others. You affirm yourself and your needs as important, work through your fears, and ask for what you want and need. You help others to do the same.
This is not an all-or-nothing kind of thing. You are a work of art in progress, working your way into being more of who you really are, on the Diamond Self path. Understand this: Recent research shows that there is no such thing as a fixed structure in the brain that represents self! In other words, the self you think is permanent inside your neural network is actually always in flux. Rich Hanson, a neuropsychologist, describes it like this:
As different parts of self come forward and then give way to other parts, so do the momentary neural assemblies that enable them. If the energy flows of these assemblies could be seen as a play of light, an extraordinary show would move endlessly about your head. In the brain, every manifestation of self is impermanent. The self is continually constructed, deconstructed and constructed again.
So there is a constant play of brain structures that represent you! And as we've talked about throughout this book, your brain and its neural networks are very malleable. You can train and thereby change your brain's image of self, its physical representation of you, by adding a picture of that new you, your Diamond Self, into the constantly changing energy flow of identity. This is not a static process. And this is why I call it the Diamond Self path. On this path, you consciously influence the way your mind processes the very notion of who you are.
I will be posting daily so that you can see all six episodes this week. Nadette will share her progress, struggles, ups, downs and wins in the videos. Watch as she overcomes the painful break-up of an engagement and moves forward in her life. Don't miss this exciting series. For more on how you can break free from your ex and get back your footing on the journey to love please pick up a copy of my new relationship advice book, Sealing The Deal: The Love Mentor's Guide to Lasting Love.
Diana Kirschner, Ph.D., a psychologist and frequent guest expert on The Today Show, is the author of the bestselling book Love in 90 Days: The Essential Guide to Finding Your Own True Love.
