Dating While You're Waiting for "The One"

Dating and the romantic "learning experience" relationships can be confusing, degrading and nerve-wracking- unless you've learned how to be assertive and confident and know how to take care of yourself. But as the term suggests "learning experience" relationships are the perfect venue for learning about ourselves and promoting our psychological and spiritual growth. That is because they bring us face to face with our own neuroses, providing us with the perfect mirror to see all of our wounds that are still in need of healing. For many of us, our learning experience relationships are obsessive- compulsive attempts to replay our childhood drama and have it come out differently. For example,the little girl who was largely ignored and later "abandoned" by her young, inexperienced father, later spends her early adulthood unconsciously attracting one man after another who, like her father, is emotionally unavailable. Each time, she obsessively tries to change the past and win her "father's" love. Finally, when she fails to "fix" him and get him to "see" how lovable she is, she gives up and moves on to the next one, telling herself that "this one will be different". Or the little boy whose father is an abusive, angry, alcoholic who controls the entire family with his mood swings and violent behavior. Later, this little boy takes on the personality traits of his passive mother and attracts a controlling and emotionally abusive wife. At the same time, he takes on his father's habit of drinking to release his anxiety. These are both examples of how two "adult children" subconsciously reenact their childhood stories, desperately trying to fill the emptiness left in them by parents who were unable to give them the love, care and protection they needed. So how can we do this? By learning how to love, care for and protect ourselves in a way our parents never could. Join me,Dawn Priolette,in releasing old patterns and setting healthy boundaries.