by heartsdesireintl | Jun 6, 2013 | Dating, Gratitude, HDI Blog, Heart's Desire International, Intimacy, Love, Relationship Advice, Romance
by Gladys Diaz
I have been dating someone for a month and a half. We spend a lot of time when we are together, but do not communicate often when we are apart, which makes me feel a bit sad! How do I communicate to him that talking on the phone, checking in throughout the week is important to me, so that he can reach out to me more often, without driving him away?
I really like the way you are focusing on how you can communicate what you would like, rather than on what he needs to or “should” do. This is a great start, because, too many times, whether it’s at the beginning of dating or even further into the relationship, we begin to set expectations and make demands of the guy that can, as you mention, drive him away.
The first thing to keep in mind is that the two of you are just dating right now, which means you’re just getting to know one another (you’re not “in a relationship”). It sounds like you are enjoying the time you get to spend with him, which tells me that he’s treating you well and you are having fun (two very important aspects of dating!).
I hear that it makes you sad when you don’t hear from him throughout the week, and, given that you enjoy spending time with him, it’s completely understandable that you’d want to continue speaking with and getting to know him, even when you’re apart. I noticed that you said that you don’t communicate “often” when you’re apart, which leads me to believe that there is some communication, just not as much as you’d like.
When we express what we want or prefer, I always like to encourage women to present it as “an invitation,” rather than “an obligation.” An invitation lets him know, “I love it when you call me,” I enjoy talking to you, even when we’re apart,” and “Thanks for calling me! I have another reason to smile today!”
Contrarily, an obligation says, “You should be calling me during the week,” “I don’t get why you just can’t pick up the phone for a few seconds, just to say ‘hi,’ or “Why can’t you call or check in with me during the week?” The problem with the obligation is that it’s nothing short of a complaint and the underlying message is: “You did something wrong,” or “You messed up…again!”
So, can we express what we want or prefer without making him wrong for not doing it as often as we’d like?
- Focus on what he is doing to please you and receive his time and attention graciously. Thank him when he does something that pleases you. Let him know he made you smile. Guys like to know that they have something to do with the smile on your face!
- Say what you like or prefer without making demands or ultimatums. Saying something like, “I like hearing from you when we’re apart,” or even more simply, “I love hearing your voice,” sends the message that it pleases you when he calls you. Again, you’re presenting him with an invitation to call you more often.
- Let go of expectations. Too often, we have an idea in our mind of what things “should” look like and what the other person should be doing or saying. However, this is just our opinion, or our way of thinking about and seeing things. Of course, you always want to make sure that you feel safe and treated well when you’re dating or in a relationship with someone. However, be open to the idea that his way of communicating or expressing his feelings may be different from yours, and remind yourself that “different” does not mean it’s bad or wrong. It’s simply different.
Hope this helps, and let me know how it goes!
Questions? Comments? Let us know! We love hearing from you!
Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net
by heartsdesireintl | Jun 5, 2013 | breakups, Dating, Forgiveness, Gratitude, HDI Blog, Heart's Desire International, heartache, Intimacy, Love, Marriage, Parenting, Relationship Advice, Romance
by Gladys Diaz
One of my favorite parts about the work that I do is being able to connect with and make a real difference for the people with whom I work. There really is nothing more rewarding to me than guiding a woman through her biggest fears, greatest blocks, and limiting beliefs, and having her come through more empowered and confident than ever, with the promise of her heart’s desires being fulfilled on the other side!
I don’t always get an opportunity to connect with everyone in our community on a personal level, but lately I’ve been trying to think of ways to create opportunities for more personal connections, where I can hear from and share with you on a more consistent basis.
Well, those of you who know me know that I don’t believe in coincidences, and that I do believe that everything that happens does so at the perfect time and for a specific reason. That’s why yesterday, when I read about a 30-Day Challenge yesterday, I got excited!
And the best part is YOU get to be part of it, too!
One of the groups I’m very proud to be part of is the Social Media Club of South Florida. The members are participating in a 30-Day Blogging Challenge during the month of June.
So, why is this exciting and how can you be part of it?
The 30-Day Blogging Challenge I participated in last year is what helped me to start blogging on a more consistent basis. I joined the group right before the last challenge began and it motivated me to create “Your Heart’s Desire Thought of the Day,” where, for 30 days, I blogged about a different dating and relationship topic each day. People enjoyed it, I loved reading and responding to the comments, and, when the challenge ended, I had several requests to continue with the daily messages (If you were one of those people, consider this your request being granted!).
Another reason I’m so excited is because I’ll be doing things a little differently this time. Instead of me coming up with the 30 topics I’ll be blogging about, this time, I will be answering your questions about love, dating, and relationships! That’s right! All you have to do is ask me a question via email or our Facebook page, and I will answer your question in one of the blog posts during the month of June! Your name will be kept confidential on the blog post, and you’ll have the opportunity to have some of your burning questions answered!
Here’s all you need to do:
- Type the words “Burning Question” in the subject line of your email or in your Facebook comment.
- Send your question via email to gladys@heartsdesireintl.com or post your question on our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/heartsdesireintl.
- Once the question gets answered, I’ll send you an email or Facebook message letting you know that your question’s been answered on Heart’s Desire’s blog.
That’s it!
Now, I really need your help, because today is June 5th, and the challenge began on June 1st! Believing that it’s never too late for anything wonderful to happen (in life or relationships!), I want to get started right away – as in tomorrow, June 6th! So, if you have a question (or 2… or 3) that you’d like answered, just send me an email or go to our Facebook page and ask it NOW! And, please don’t wait to see if someone else asks first. I need to answer 30 questions in 30 days and I want yours to be one of them.
Just send me any questions you have about:
- dating
- love
- sex
- relationships
- parenting
- romance
- marriage
- breakups
- avoiding divorce
- intimacy
- any other burning questions you have
So, go ahead! Make my day and partner with me to make this next 30 days ones that make a huge difference for you and the thousands of others people who are going to benefit from reading the answer to your question!
Questions? Comments? Let us know! We love hearing from you!
Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net
by heartsdesireintl | May 10, 2013 | breakups, Dating, Forgiveness, Gratitude, HDI Blog, heartache, Intimacy, Love, Marriage, Relationship Advice, Romance
by Gladys Diaz
This was Week 1 of the From Heartache to Your Heart’s Desires Telesummit. It has been a week filled with details: emails, interviews, technology issues. And it has been a week filled with miracles, too! Being able to connect with people all over the world (over 1500, so far) and share a message of love, healing, hope, and the promise of new beginnings has been – while at times overwhelming – a beautiful journey!
Heartache is not the most “fun” topic to discuss. When a relationship ends, due to a breakup, divorce, or death, or when it begins to unravel, the pain is real. As the experts who have been sharing on the telesummit have said, there are real physical effects to the heart, nervous system, and other parts of our bodies; there are emotional effects in the form of anger, sadness, confusion, and disappointment; as well as the grieving of the hopes and dreams we had envisions for ourselves. There’s no doubt about it: The pain of heartache is real.
What’s optional, however, is suffering.
It would be strange and unnatural to invest your time, attention, and love and then not feel anything when it’s over. But suffering is a choice. You can either choose to stay in the grief, the anger, the resentment, or you can choose to acknowledge it, allow yourself to feel it, and then let it go. You can choose to close off your heart – shutting out any possibility of giving and receiving love – or you can choose to step beyond what feels safe and allow love to flow to and through you.
But how do you begin to let go of the suffering so that you can begin to live and love again?
Well, if you’ve been participating in the telesummit, you’ve heard different experts share a variety of ways to begin moving beyond the fear and pain and moving toward a new future filled with the possibility of love!
- Julie-Anne Shapiro shared how to bring love and forgiveness to your inner child and about making a Soul Commitment to having the love your heart desires.
- Julie Ferman spoke of being present and approaching dating and love as a journey.
- Stephan Gonnick walked us through exercises to move through the three universal blocks that keep us from experiencing love.
- Marni Battista explained how we can avoid the #1 relationship killer: the need to be right.
- Jennifer Grace shared some daily practices that will help us begin to heal and discover the love that’s already inside of us.
- Laura Doyle talked about how to avoid the four major mistakes women make when it comes to creating a loving relationship.
- Marcy Neumann shared how it’s in letting go that we can let love in.
- Charles J. Orlando explained how we can kill the endless cycle of unfulfilling relationships.
- And, today, Jennifer Hadley shares how we can “unbreak” our hearts; and
- Debi Berndt and Dr. Roberto Maldonado share how to create “conscious chemistry,” rather than falling into the trap of unconscious “default” relationship patterns.
And this is just in the first 5 days of the telesummit! We still have another 8 days to go!
Here’s what some participants are saying:
What an incredible interview with Julie-Anne Shapiro! I loved the part where she encouraged us to visualize our inner child and “provide her with what her heart desires”! That was a huge AHA for me! I was actually able to see the inner child in me…now I think I have an idea of what she desires. 🙂 Thank you again you Gladys Diaz for the incredible messages during the telesummit! I am so excited!!! ~ D
Thank you so much for putting this program together. It’s been wonderful so far. I am sure the rest will be fabulous, too.
Thanks to all of your guests and especially to Laura Doyle for her great generosity in giving this huge gift to this sweet community. ~ M
Thanks so much for putting all of these tele-interviews together, keep up the good work.
I just felt I wanted to let you know that I really enjoyed the talk with Marcy Neumann – wow! Everything she said just echoed so deeply within me, it all made so much sense, I kept taking notes and re-listening to some of the parts. She has so much wisdom to share.
Thank you again.
It was lovely today, and it will help me to take one step at a time to figure out where my GPS is going to lead me, but I must identify that myself too. ~ L in Austria
I am trying to get the whole world to join in. It’s amazing! ~ Y
If you missed part of Week 1, there is no need to worry! There will be a “Replay Day” on Sunday, May 13th where you’ll be able to listen to all of the available interviews – even the ones that have expired! If you’d really prefer to not have to wait to listen to recordings until they air, or having to listen to them within 72 hours, after signing up you can upgrade your subscription to VIP Membership, where you’ll receive MP3 recordings of all of the interviews and links to all of the free gifts! But you need to register, so go to: http://www.heartachetoheartsdesires.com NOW!
Comments? Questions? Let us know below! We love hearing from you!
Photo credit: WolfS♡ul via photpin.com cc
by heartsdesireintl | Apr 16, 2013 | Dating, HDI Blog, Intimacy, Love, Marriage, Relationship Advice, Romance
by Gladys Diaz
The other day, I experienced some really frustrating moments. Thankfully, they were not related to my relationship, but, as usual, I still had the chance to learn a great lesson about how to make a relationship work!
After my husband had spent hours working on a creating a new web page for my business, we found that it was suddenly GONE! All of the work we’d done, even our ability to access the administrative site was completely gone!
I panicked! I was on a deadline and was already behind schedule. I didn’t know what to do, and neither did my husband. Immediately, my husband went online to try to find a way to fix it. What did I do? I called someone I knew who works with websites. It was going to cost us $60/hour just to have him take a look. I reached out to someone else I knew, but she wasn’t responding to my message. Then I went online to try to figure out how to fix it myself. The problem? When I read information about websites, html code, plugins and widgets, it sounds like Charlie Brown’s teacher (“Waa-waa-waa-waa-waa!”).
I collapsed in a heaping pile of nerves and tears. How was I going to fix this? What was I going to tell the people waiting for me to deliver what I’d promised? Why couldn’t I figure this out?
I called my sister and hysterically explained what happened, and she managed to help me calm down. That helped me think and listen to what was going on inside of myself a little more clearly. And what I heard was eye-opening for me.
My husband said he would figure it out. He’s downstairs right now, working on it.
What am I doing? Why am I trying to fix this myself?
Why can’t I just let go and trust him to take care of this?
Realizing that I had jumped into “control-mode” was eye- and heart-opening, to say the least. My fear had caused me to ignore the fact that my husband was downstairs trying to solve the problem for me. My need to know how things were going to turn out had me step in, knowing full-well that I didn’t know what I was doing, which only made me feel more anxious. More importantly, I saw that there was still a fear of completely trusting my husband to take care of the situation… to take care of me!
I took a deep breath… and I let go.
I started working on something else, gave it my full attention, and felt the fear and anxiety begin to fade.
A few hours later, my husband texted me to go ahead and reach out to the guy, because he couldn’t figure it out. He told me he’d pay for the services. Then he apologized for letting me down. WHAT?!?
I told him he hadn’t let me down. I thanked him for the hours he’d spent trying to fix the problem and said that I’d reach out to the guy, but that I’d prefer if he spoke with him, because I didn’t understand all of this techie stuff. He agreed (helping me solve another problem).
The next day, my husband had several conversations with the guy and everything was taken care of. He rebuilt the website and sent me the link so that I could see it was up and running. When I texted him with “I love it! <smiley face>,” he responded: “That’s why I don’t give up. That smile, right there!”
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: My husband is my hero!
So, what were the main lessons I learned? It all comes down to trust!
1. Trust him to solve some of your problems. Many people associate trust in a relationship with loyalty and fidelity, and that is certainly part of what makes a relationship work. But there’s another level of trust in a relationship. The one that allows you to trust and believe that there is someone else there to help, support and take care of you – not because you are incapable of taking care of yourself, but, because in a relationship, you no longer have to.
2. Trust that he has your best interests at heart. Men want the women they love to be happy and to know that they had something to do with that happiness. If your guy makes a decision that ends up not having the most desirable results (he loses some money in an investment, he makes the wrong turn when you’re already late to an important event, he chooses to start his own business and ends up making less money than he used to), trust that he didn’t intend to disappoint you. Trust that, if he could have, he would have avoided disappointing you.
3. Trust that everything will work out in the end. When I think back to the other day, I realize that things were not as “bad” as they occurred for me that day. There was a back-up on the server, so we were able to get back most of the information we’d lost. I had people around me who were trying to help: my husband, my sister, the web guy, and my coach’s virtual assistant, who was amazing in telling us what we needed to tell the web guy. I wasn’t alone. It wasn’t so bad, and things worked out in the end. If I’d trusted that it would work out, I would have saved myself a lot of stress, anxiety, and wasted energy!
Learning to trust is one of those relationship skills that takes repetition to “build the muscle,” but the pay-off are so sweet: knowing someone is there who wants to help and has your best interests at heart, and the reassurance that, in the end, no matter what happens, you still have each other!
Questions? Comments? Let us know below! We love hearing from you!
Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net
by heartsdesireintl | Mar 25, 2013 | Dating, HDI Blog, Intimacy, Love, Marriage, Relationship Advice, Romance
by Gladys Diaz
Even if the man you’re dating, committed, or married to is the most wonderful man in the world, chances are that at some point he’ll say or do – or not say or do – something that leaves you feeling hurt. Many times, when we’re hurt, the initial response is to strike back. However, if what we want is to create intimacy in our relationships, it helps choose how we will respond when our feelings have been hurt.
Perhaps what has you feeling hurt is something the man you are dating or in a relationship with didn’t do. Maybe he didn’t invite you to go the company holiday party. Maybe he didn’t call when he said he would. Or perhaps you feel that he didn’t say, do, or wear the right thing when he attended the family wedding with you.
Many times, that feeling of hurt is a result of an unmet expectation. There was a certain way you expected him to be, something you expected him to do or say and he didn’t. Unfortunately, as the saying goes, “Expectations are the recipe for disappointment.” If you think about it – really think about it – what has you disappointed is not so much what he didn’t do, it’s that he didn’t do what you expected him to do.
Maybe what has you feeling hurt is something he said. Perhaps he made a joke at your expense, was critical of something you said or did, or spoke to you in a harsh tone. It’s a very natural reaction to want to say something that hurts at least as much as what he said in return, or, at the very least, to demand that he apologize for what he just said.
Or, what if what has you feeling hurt is the fact that he’s no longer making an effort to see or call you the way he did. Or, if he’s your boyfriend or husband, you may feel like he’s spending a lot of time at work, with his buddies, or immersed in a hobby, leaving very little time for the two of you to spend together.
Any one of these situations could leave a woman feeling hurt. The question is, how can we express how we are feeling when we are hurt in a way that nurtures, rather than breaks down, the intimacy in the relationship?
1. Check your expectations at the door. If the reason you are hurt is due to something he didn’t do or say, it may very well be that you are dealing with an unmet expectation. Rather than tell him, “I felt hurt when you didn’t invite me to the company party” or “I was hurt when you went to your friend’s wedding without me,” it would be wise to check the intention behind the words you want to say before you actually speak them. In these two examples, the truth is that you expected him to do those things. When he didn’t, you were left feeling disappointed. If you tell him that what he didn’t do, at best, you’ll get a half-hearted apology (because, although he’s apologizing, he really didn’t do anything wrong. He simply didn’t do what you thought was “right.”) At worst, he’ll feel like you are telling him what he should do, and men simply don’t being controlled, nor do they want to be “mothered,” so you may find that you actually end up pushing him away. So, rather than try to manipulate him into either feeling guilty or doing what you want him to do, just realize that this was an instance of unmet expectations and let go of the need to say something.
2. Refrain from striking back. It’s an almost-knee-jerk reaction to defend ourselves when someone says something that is hurtful. We don’t like feeling like we’ve been criticized or sucker-punched by someone else’s words. The problem is that this kind of response is likely to lead to an argument, and, whether you just started dating someone or you’ve been together for years, arguments rarely ever lead to anyone actually winning. More often than not, things are said that we regret and then have to apologize for later, and, meanwhile, the intimacy and connection we want is being chipped away with a verbal ice pick. In these situations, it’s better to not say something simple, like “Ouch,” or say nothing at all. When you do this, what lingers in the room is the last thing he said, which means he has to be at the impact of the words he chose to say to the woman he cares about or loves. When that’s all that’s replaying in the space, he’s more likely to apologize for his words. And because you chose to maintain your own dignity, there won’t be anything you’ll need to apologize for!
3. Choose to be vulnerable. When we feel like the man we love is pulling away or spending less time with us, it’s natural to feel afraid and insecure. At our core, all of us are afraid of being unloved or abandoned. That fear can lead us to try to get him to come closer again. However, when we complain to him that he’s not spending enough time with us or that he’s making other things more important than the relationship, we can inadvertently push him further away. Rather than respond in anger or by complaining about behavior we wish he would change, we can choose to express ourselves in a more vulnerable way by saying, “I miss you.” These words communicate what we’re actually feeling, rather than what we want or expect him to do, which is more likely to spark in him his natural tendency to want to please and protect you from feeling hurt. As frightening as a vulnerable response can be, it’s always more attractive than nagging – which rarely, if ever, inspires a man to do anything differently.
Now, does all of this mean that we never share how we are feeling? Of course not! It’s important that we are able to express our feelings clearly and purely. However, unless we’re truthful about our intentions before we share our feelings, we’ll almost always be responding in a controlling and manipulative way by trying to get him to change his behavior.
When we can simply share our feelings by saying things like “I feel sad,” “I feel worried,” or “I feel afraid,” without adding the words “because you…” or “when you didn’t/did…” then we can be sure that we’re expressing our feelings purely – without expectations, attachments, or complaints. Then, and only then, does he have the freedom to choose how he will respond because he wants to and not because he feels that he has to. And isn’t that what we wanted in the first place?
Want to learn more about how to express your feelings purely and without expectations or attachments? Then join us on Tuesday, March 25th for our Relationship Coaching Calls, offered by Heart’s Desire International and Laura Doyle. We have separate calls for single ladies and those who are girlfriends and wives. Each bi-weekly call focuses on a different relationship and intimacy skill that will lead to you experiencing the relationship your heart desires!
Comments? Questions? Let us know below! We love hearing from you!
Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net
