To Date or Not to Date, That is the Question

So, a friend of mine thought I should try my hand at dating advice.  I laughed at first because Lord knows the tales I could tell.  But I'm not going to do that and will keep my own counsel on my personal experiences.  However, there is an aspect of the dating experience I have observed and would like to write about.  Lots of people think about dating for the wrong reasons and honestly, at the worst times of their lives. Well, that is if they want a good experience.  Having a really good dating experience is about you and your readiness.  If you're not really ready, I promise you it could be a harrowing experience.  At no other time is it more important to ensure you are in full possession of your faculties as when you are dating.  You must have very agile and on target discernment faculties in full operation or the consequences can be quite devastating for you and could even become dangerous.

So, to make this easy, let me start by giving an example you may think is completely unrelated but it is very relevant.  When you are starving and go to the grocery store to shop, what happens?  Most often, you end up buying all sorts of unhealthy junk that sounds good in a moment of thinking from the space of hunger rather than health and when you get it home, you dive into some very unhealthy choices.  Later on, you may take stock of your purchases thinking, "What was I thinking?"  You weren't actually.  You were acting from a state of hunger (negative) and not from  place of satiety (positive or neutral).  So, now, extrapolate this thought process across the challenging realities of dating.  If you are lonely, sad, depressed and down on your luck or otherwise not in a good stead with your own responsibilities, emotional stability and peace, what do you think you are going to bring home?  Junk that sounds good in a moment but is wholly unhealthy for you.  It's a fact no matter how much you'd like to argue.  Think back across your choices while in an unhealthy state and tell me what happened?  Did you get lucky or did you end up paying for your emotional choices?

When not to date - Here are some examples I submit for your consideration:

1.  If your ex-husband or ex-wife, ex-boyfriend or ex-girlfriend is to blame for any or all of your current woes in life - You are SO not ready to date.
2.  If you are unemployed, underemployed or otherwise lacking in your ability to provide for yourself - You are SO not ready to date.
3.  If you are still holding intense thoughts of love or anger for an ex or someone else - You are SO not ready to date.
4.  If you are at an emotionally vulnerable time due to the stress of family drama or trauma - You are SO not ready to date.
5.  If you don't know who you are, have no idea of your direction in life and do not know what you want - You are SO not ready to date.
6.  If you are sad, depressed and lonely to the point of heart ache - you are SO not ready to date.

Now, I say all of the above things not to disappoint you or frustrate you but to get you to think about these things in particular.  These things above are very strong signs that you need time for yourself, for thinking through your life lessons, resolving your emotional wounds and striving for healing on your own.  If you don't do this first, you are apt to miss very big glaring red flags in the person you are are attempting to date in your un-whole state and, if it doesn't turn out well or you end up in the company of one of the many personality disordered individuals out there, you will not have the where-with-all to understand how to respond to such a soul without putting yourself emotionally and potentially, physically in harm's way.  This is just the absolute truth of the matter.  Like it or not, there are people in this world working with many unhealed wounds.  If you are not whole emotionally, you will be unable to access sound decision making and could lead yourself to a great and painful unanticipated fall or worse yet, become someone else's emotional prey.  There are those out there adept at emotional manipulation and you do need all of your faculties to spot them.  It is not that these individuals don't deserve love and compassion - they do, but you certainly will be in over your head if you are not completely whole and healthy emotionally yourself to the point you can spot the red flags and respond to them safely.

So, I leave you with this food for thought.  Ask yourself, "Am I really ready to date?  Am I whole and healed enough that I could have a discussion with a potential mate without bringing up unresolved feelings of pain from any aspect of my past or current life experiences?"  If you are not whole, are in a negative state of loneliness or are wounded - you will be creating from a negative state and will invite only those of similar vibration to you.  Will it be a learning experience?  Oh, absolutely but you have to give some serious thought about what you want from dating experience and make sure that you are in a position to bring that to the table.  If you are not ready, get yourself ready, seek out healing for wounds, get yourself emotionally and financially stable, learn who you are and what you want and then open yourselves up to thinking about dating.  If you can do this, you create a much better chance that you will have a positive and rewarding experience that is empowering for you rather than the opposite which can be wholly debilitating emotionally.  Think about what you are bringing to a partner and ask yourself, "Is it fair that I bring myself half whole and healed and half stable to someone else to fill me and heal me?  Is it fair to lay the responsibility to fix you on someone else?"  The answer to those questions is NO if you want a truly good and healthy outcome from the dating experience.

So, enough of this for now.  You create every experience.  My attempt here is to teach you how to have a better experience that supports you rather than tears you apart.  Just food for thought.  Get out there and have a good time.  That's what life is for.  Lighten up and don't take things too seriously.  Allow yourself healing and invite wholeness into your being and you will see life from a very empowered perspective. ~Blessings.


(c) Jaie Hart (photo, random internet find).