Ready to Date: Avoiding OH NO YOU DIDN'T Rude Moments Part 2

The following Oh No Moment Dating Posts are excerpts from Heartbreak: Know Why and Heal

(Re)Entering the Dating World

Ah love and dating, isn’t it lovely? Alright, those two don’t necessary go together but I will tell you that as an Intuitive Empath Advisor, Coach, and Counselor, this is by far what I do most of my work in. From thinking about dating to divorce issues, there are volumes upon volumes of material dedicated to these in various ways. Just look around, relationship experts abound. Here however, we are talking common sense and the super basics, which have been forgotten by too many experts. My intention here is to speak of the blatantly rude and silly behaviors that are not working in the dating and relationship scene. This includes so-called advice resources that give the most absurd information and guidance. I just read a magazine for women in their 20’s and was shocked that “hooking up” is highly suggested. I believe that hooking up is one of the most damaging things that ever happened to the world of dating and I’ll tell you why shortly. With all this nonsense advice, it is no wonder everyone is so darn confused.

Anything related to human issues will inevitably involve romance and sexuality. When I first started studying psychology I was interested in general social issues. I was also interested in helping others particularly crime victims. Being a former victim myself, I felt this would be very healing and empowering and moved me from former victim to victor. This worked entailed research and counseling. I did several years of this and learned a tremendous amount about victimology, and the way the law and social services works (or do not work).

This section is for heterosexual and same-sex relationship issues. Some differ but some issues are universal, and that’s what we are addressing here. This section requires a slightly different style, more of a frequently asked questions type. So let’s begin.

What is the best way to meet someone?

That depends on your style, resources and general personality. Some people prefer to be introduced by friends or family. Others like to meet someone spontaneously like at school, work, coffee shop, on vacation, or while commuting. The latter is a bit harder and a lot is based on chance and circumstances. Others try to find someone based on their own lifestyle as in while doing yoga, running a marathon, wine tasting, and so on. Yet, others looking to begin dating try services dedicated to finding you a partner ranging from online dating sites, matchmaking services, dating apps (Tinder/Hot or Not/Grindr, OKCupid, etc.). Each method has its pros and cons but that’s a bit beyond the scope of this book. We are however, going to get into just some of manners issue that would make some of this process much less stressful and more pleasant whether or not you meet someone you are truly interested in.

What is your goal?

Depending on where you are in life, some people just want to meet someone to hook up with, no commitment, and just physical sexual contact. Others are looking to just meet new people and get used to being social after a divorce or a breakup, while others are looking for their life partners. It is so crucial to know what you want when dating because that’s what is going to determine your success or failure in getting what you truly want.

A Note about Hooking-up

I have an issue with the whole hooking-up thing, that is, hooking up as an ongoing lifestyle habit. I find it has devalued the quality of a meaningful connection tremendously. Worst yet, it has created an incredible amount of unnecessary issues. Some of which do not show up for years later. The problem gets freedom to act, confused with self-care, self-respect and yes common sense. In my opinion, sexually transmitted diseases is nature’s way of saying “whoa, slow down cowboys and cowgirls!” Yet here we are ignoring them thinking, I’ll just go to the doctor, get a pill and keep on rolling (in the sheets, or bathroom or wherever). Your body is your temple, why are you just giving it away to anyone who does not genuinely care about you or vice versa?

In addition to physical consequences, as mentioned earlier, there are emotional and spiritual ramifications to engaging in sexual activity for simple immediate gratification. Immediate gratification, can lead to long-term adverse situations. Yes, I said spiritual. It doesn’t matter whether you believe it or not, it happens. It’s like saying I don’t see ultraviolet rays so they must not exist, yet you are getting sunburned and possibly other adverse effects from exposure.

One of the things I deal with as a coach is helping people disentangle themselves from a romantic partner, when they have been intimate and that contact shows its toxicity. Inevitably a negative spiritual attachment is formed when people engage in careless, loveless intimacy. These are called etheric cords, and they are as real as the blood running through your veins. When it’s time to cut the cords people hesitate thinking they will lose someone, when in fact they are just losing the negativity.

What is this toxicity you ask? It is complex and shows itself in various ways depending on the person. It can range from obsession, oppression, depression, dependency issues to lover, substance or self-soothing behavior (food, alcohol, smoking, drugs), lowered self-esteem, physical illnesses like sexually transmitted diseases, fatigue, lethargy, negative outlook, anger, jealousy, lack of self-respect, lack of respect for others, guilt, just to name a few. The question is, is hooking-up, worth these issues?

~Diana Navarro, M.S.
Finding the Beautiful Things in LIfe--Including Manners

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Dating: Avoiding OH NO YOU DIDN'T Rude Moments an Intro Part 1

The following Oh No Moment Dating Posts are excerpts from Heartbreak: Know Why and Heal

An Introduction: Avoiding the "Oh No You Didn't" Moments in Finding a New Romantic Partner: Manners and Seeing the Humor in the Meeting and Dating Process

It’s hard, very hard to laugh when you’re in pain, but laughter releases hormones that counteract the pain we feel. This book wouldn’t be complete if we didn’t talk about romance with a bit of humor to help us cope with those little “oh no, you moments”.

Oh No Moments

This section in many ways is an introduction to much of the work I am doing on common sense manners versus rudeness. In the dating world, there are a lot of common sense manners missing. I see many people complaining that they are single and they don’t know why.

Now this is tricky because romance has its own timing, but we must do our part. As I said in many sections of this book, self-care is crucial. Self-care can take many forms. It means learning for the first time to love yourself. It is amazing how many people do not care enough about themselves. How in this vast universe can any one outside of you love you if you don’t know what love is from the inside? This is a question to ponder. You will appreciate the humor and recognize some of these oh no moments and have many of your own in this chapter, I am sure.

There will come a time when you will want to step into the dating world again. By then you will ideally have tried some of the healing exercises presented in this book and be well on your way to being whole again. Dating is very challenging. It is essential to have the health and stamina to begin the dating process.

There are so many people out there, how do you find the right match for you amidst billions of people? You have to have common sense, patience and a plan. Full disclosure, I chose to be “single” while undergoing an emotional and spiritual growth spurt.
This was a conscious, but not an easy choice. I do know what happiness is, however. I am happy alone and peaceful until the right time comes to be in lifetime relationship. I am also ready to be alone, if need be, due to my dedication to my life path with is healing and helping others heal with common sense knowledge and tools. With that said, I’ve had plenty of dating experience and know from research and clients what it’s like out there. So let’s start laughing, learning and finding good matches.

I strongly suggest that before you engage actively in dating, you do your negotiable and non-negotiable list in your life contract as seen in Chapter 3 of my book listed above and make use of the scale I’ve created.

via GIPHY

The This is Diana Dumb-ology© Scale

A Little Dumb	Plain Ol’ Dumb	Seriously?? Dumb	Ridiculously Dumb	Ludicrously- Dangerously Dumb
1	2	3	4	5

The Dumb-ology© Scale is a way of measuring the amount of inappropriateness in certain behaviors. I simply call them “dumb” behaviors, but they can have a wide spectrum, ranging from a little annoying to outright dangerous. These include the following:

1. The lowest type of dumb behavior is attributed to simple absentmindedness and human error anyone can make. An example is slowing down suddenly while walking trying to find an address. Just say sorry and move on. These are usually harmless acts but annoying. Thise can potentially lead to more serious issues if one doesn’t become more self-aware.

2. The next level on the scale is an increase in dumbness that is pretty darn annoying. For instance, when someone is having a conversation next to you with someone in person or on the phone and is speaking unnecessarily loud. Or someone begins eating next to you a full smelly meal on a bus or train.

3. The next level gets more serious, yet can be avoided with education and awareness, e.g. I hail a cab in the city, it approaches me and someone out of nowhere takes the cab and leaves me there knowing, I was there already. You say to yourself “Seriously?” did that just happen?

4. With level 4, we are in the chronic dumbness territory. You are walking down a city street and someone passes you bumping you really hard and just keeps going. Or someone goes to the restroom and does not wash their hands, or barely wets them, touches the knob you are about to touch, yeah, lovely. You wake up a day or two later sick because you have lots of bacteria and viruses all over you. Gross but this DOES happen all the time. 

5. Level 5 is where I really cringe. This is dangerous, serious, and deadly dumbness. If a forethought can be given to preventing the behavior, harm to one or many can be avoided. This is road rage, violence or anything that causes extreme harm to anyone or anything. Use the scale in your own daily observations. Compare it with others and see if you agree what a little dumb versus Ludicrously-dangerous dumb is. It might surprise you to see how differently or similarly we each think dumb behavior, in the common sense manners context is.

~Diana Navarro, M.S.
Finding the Beautiful Things in LIfe--Including Manners

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Dark Night of the Soul-Reposted from DailyOM

Image Credit: Fractal Enlightenment

I simply had to re-post this from DailyOm since I wrote about my personal dark night of the soul in my first book You're Not Crazy, It's Paranormal.  This post is a reminder of what a life-changing experience this really is for me and for anyone. The term should not be used lightly.  ~Diana Navarro, M.S.--This is Diana ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Dark Night of the Soul

BY MADISYN TAYLOR [original Source:DailyOM] While we are in a dark night of the soul experience, hold steady knowing the light will appear once again. Whenever a word is overused, it is most likely being misused, and over time, it begins to lose its meaningfulness. For example, we often refer to a fleeting feeling of depression or a period of confusion, as a dark night of the soul, but neither of these things qualifies as such. A dark night of the soul is a very specific experience that some people encounter on their spiritual journeys. There are people who never encounter a dark night of the soul, but others must endure this as part of the process of breaking through to the dawn of higher consciousness. The dark night of the soul invites us to fully recognize the confines of our egos' identity. We may feel as if we are trapped in a prison that affords us no access to light or the outside. We are coming from a place of higher knowing, and we may have spent a lot of time and energy reaching toward the light of higher consciousness. This is why the dark night has such a quality of despair: We are suddenly shut off from what we thought we had realized and the emotional pain is very real. We may even begin to feel that it was all an illusion and that we are lost forever in this darkness. The more we struggle, the darker things get, until finally we surrender to our not knowing what to do, how to think, where to turn. It is from this place of losing our sense of ourselves as in control that the ego begins to crack or soften and the possibility of light entering becomes real. Some of us will have to endure this process only once in our lives, while others may have to go through it many times. The great revelation of the dark night is the releasing of our old, false identity. We finally give up believing in this false self and thus become capable of owning and embracing the light.

I Finished a Book, Here's What Happened

Author Page

The Motivation

I've always been a storyteller. I loved, even as a child to share stories. I loved both fiction and non-fiction. I didn't choose writing as a career however. I was more in the healing and business fields for many years, then after some injuries that left me disabled in many ways, I used art like singing and writing as therapy.

The writing took a serious turn when I realized some stories needed to be told. My stories and stories were shared with me by others via exploration and research. Some of these stories also included part of what makes me a bit unusual which is a ridiculous lucid dreaming empath. I dream the strangest things and they are so creative I felt the calling to share them systematically.

As an empath who counseled advised, researched and worked with thousands of people, I knew that creative expression was where I wanted to be. I wanted to ultimately inspire others by example to be creative in some way, shape or form. 

The Process

The first thing I did was begin to just jot down in a journal my real life experiences as well as my dreams. Then I began creating a column of sorts in a website I had. People really seemed to enjoy what I wrote and I then began officially blogging.

As you may know, there are millions of bloggers in the world covering every subject. It can be really challenging to have your work seen. At one time I had a lot of hits on blog entries and at other times, nothing. I tried all kinds of strategies to increase my visibility like videos, various links, images, creative blog titles, gifs, social media use, you name it, I tried it. All you can do is keep going.

You can try tons of strategies on having your work seen but it is literally a full time job. At the end of the day, it's something I do for short pieces like this, but then I turned to writing books. I took my jottings, journals, even past academic work and found ways of putting them together and a way that made sense. Especially with the non-fiction work. The fiction is another process altogether and each process evolves each time I write. The key for me, is to keep learning and improving.

Things have changed tremendously in the publishing world. Thanks to technology I can write my own books in a simple computer program. Then I can either have it done electronically or do a physical version. Of course, it's not that simple. There are one hundred steps to each process but that's when you do things one step at time. Once you do decide you will do this no matter what, all you need to do is take the time to actually do the work. The best part is that there are many resources available to help in the process.

Expectations and Feelings

There is nothing sadder than knowing no one is reading your work, no matter how much heart, soul and work you put into it. This was how I felt about the blogging. When I switched to book writing. I feared the same would happen. It was intimidating to think about writing a book. All these issues and doubts came into my mind. Was I good enough? Would anyone be interested? Could I handle it? Would I make a difference in the world? I wanted to take what was in my mind and get it out into the world for others to experience. By writing a book I could do this. I expected relief that I finished a book, even in draft form. I was indeed relieved I was able to complete this phase.

The next step was to move on to formatting, editing and packaging it so it can be ready to be published and ready to be seen. It was daunting but I decided to take things a bit at time and understand that this was not a linear process. I went back and forth between all these phases to the point of feeling dizzy, but I kept going. That is the absolutely only way I was able to complete the book. The truth is, it took me nine years to complete my first book on the paranormal and spiritual awakening. But it got done.

Results

The first result is as feeling of incredible accomplishment. It doesn't matter I haven't gotten on the bestseller list (yet). I am determined to share my vision with the world via words as well as in other ways because storytelling is multi-media and multidimensional.

When you first hit publish, there is a feeling of elation. "Wow, I did it!" Enjoy that moment. It really is a huge accomplishment.

My motto is: Better done than perfect, better late than never.

The other result was the feeling of motivation to keep writing. Now I could continue to express myself creatively by writing. It was a bit easier to write my next two books because I developed my own formula. However, once you move into a different genre, I realized I'm back on that very challenging learning curve. The fiction work requires a different process I am still working on. It is challenging and intimidating, but I am loving it. Perhaps my next blog on writing will be sharing the process in fiction writing.

However, as I'm working on the fiction I am also working on my fourth book, a memoir titled Oddball, My life as Ridiculous Abnormal. This is my most personal passion project yet. I finally get to share to a large audience how unusual I am and what makes me both an oddball but also able to understand others as an empath.

What About You?

Do you want to write? What do you want to write? Fiction, Non-fiction, long or short stories? Both? What is your plan? Have you written something already? What are your goals? Share your story, it's worth telling.

~Diana Navarro, M.S.

Photo Credit: Asa Williams

Links for you to check

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