This page contains two audios, a write-up of my basic premises for a grand experiment in dating, a pdf of that same text for easy download, an audio resource from Abraham-Hicks, and ways to work with me more on the topic if drawn.
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Part 1
This 90-minute audio lays out the premises for a grand experiment in dating. You're going to launch an experiment, an exploration, that starts with no and allows you to proceed just one yes at a time.
The pdf available here for download lays out the basic points made in this foundational audio. | ||
Part 2
This second audio (60 minutes) reinforces and provides applications for the concepts covered in part 1, and offers some guidance on fears, boundaries, being the see-er, not the seen, and more.
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Grand Experiment in Dating!
Premises & basic explanations are outlined in full right here.
Why an experiment?
Experiments are fun. You don’t have to know anything and you don’t have to get it right. There’s no foregone conclusion: you’re seeing what you learn along the way and you can’t know where it’ll take you.
Experiments invite curiosity, awe, presence. Show up with your senses alert and let life show you.
Make it a grand experiment.
More about how to make anything a grand experiment right here.
If you’re going to bother experimenting at all, why not make it a grand experiment?
Think of dating as an exploration.
That’s all you’re doing: exploring what’s possible with another human being.
You’re not trying to find a partner, prove you’re lovable, or make anything happen.
You’re not trying to fix anything, fill a hole, or secure a future.
Point of departure: Start with NO.
From marketing expert Jim Camp. You don’t give a quick yes to starting a business with someone. You need info, gathered over time, about how they show up, what their terms mean, whether things look promising, etc. That for dating.
With NO as your foundation or baseline, you’re not quickly agreeing to a lot of things you don’t yet know. You won’t have to backpedal.
You don’t decide they’re the one. You’re not imagining a future together. You don’t want it to “work out.”
There’s no foregone conclusion: the exploration will take you wherever it takes you and it will last however long it lasts.
From NO as a safe base, simply find the one next yes.
As long as you’re curious and want to keep exploring, just look for each next yes; proceed from one yes to another. Yes to messaging, yes to coffee, yes to a text exchange, yes to next date.
Do this for some time, staying at no as your baseline position.
Any NO along the way is no problem. You can either default to the foundational NO you’re already standing on; or if it leads to a fine process and resolution, and you still want to explore, carry on: watch for the one next yes.
Redefine some concepts or get them out of your dating vocabulary.
Giving people a chance. The Universe is the dispenser of chances. No one needs a chance from you—millions of other chances exist. If you’re not totally drawn to explore who they are and what’s possible with them, move along.
No, you’re not being too picky if you don’t have a bunch of tedious dates with people you’re not drawn to. You’re not being too picky even if you don’t date or keep dating cool or lovely people who feel like a NO to you. See Amy Webb’s smart and funny TED talk about her grand experiment in dating.
Having it work out. It always works out, whether it lasts one date, one month, one year, one decade, the rest of your life. Let working out mean whatever it means as you explore interesting connections with curiosity and respond appropriately to what you learn as you go.
If you’re not thinking in terms of things “working out,” you don’t have to lie to yourself or pretend you don’t see what you see.
Rejection. No one has the power to declare that someone else is unlovable or unworthy. If someone doesn’t want to explore or keep exploring with you, it’s simply not a match and they saw or said it first.
You’re free to truthfully tell someone you don’t want to keep exploring with them if you also give others permission to do the same.
In either direction, no one is being rejected or declared unlovable, unattractive, or unfit for relationship: not a match.
It’s okay if feelings and thoughts of rejection come up as you go. If you’re capable of such, dating may as well be what brings them up. Come close to those to heal them. DO NOT believe them and let them take you down to untrue beliefs about your worth. Remember, you’re not dating to have your worth confirmed. (If you are, you won’t want people to say it’s not a match and you won’t say it’s not a match: then you’ll date the wrong people or stay too long.)
Finding a match. Who we match shifts as we heal, grow, and step into our becoming. Anyone you’re with even for a moment is your match right then, even if for 10 minutes so that you learn to get up quickly & declare, Not a match. So show up with curiosity for as long as you get another yes.
A match doesn’t have to be a forever partner: dating is not adoption at the animal shelter.
Focus on the good (positive aspects), from Abraham-Hicks.
A-H says to keep in view whatever aspects of another or of being with them you like. If 70%, then give that your full attention and enjoy. Apply to one date or 1,000. Abraham says to list positive aspects in writing, even during a date!
You’re not in danger of forgetting or missing the 30%. Since you’re at NO, give a nod to the negatives that show up, and go back to enjoying the 70% full-throttle. When a look at the 30% puts you at a final NO, fine. If a nonnegotiable is violated, go to NO. If the 30 keeps calling you back and you’d rather be done, NO. (Note that the 30% will often be in service of you meeting something in yourself. This doesn’t mean you need to stick with that person! Stick with no, even if you have one next yes with the person.)
Marry that together with Jaya’s microscope.
Whatever you put under the microscope fills your entire field of vision. So put that 70% (or whatever) under there, so that it becomes 100% most of the time.
Catch yourself when you’ve put the bad under the microscope. You will: many of us habitually keep the negative as the focus, especially in tricky territory.
Interested in Law of Attraction? The idea is this: what you practice or focus on is what you call forth. When the negative 30% is your focus, you’re inviting more of what you don’t want. (Don’t let that scare you. Let it remind you to keep shifting the focus back to what you want, back to the 70%.)
Don’t use dating/relationship as a makeover project.
Especially don’t use relationship to groom someone to take care of you and make you comfortable. Likewise, notice when they’re doing that to you and invite them out of it—or get away, establishing that NO as final.
You’re in a relationship with you your whole life. You’re the one responsible for your comfort and well-being. Do not make your love life a place to bully or beg or in any way manipulate another to do that for you. (Catch yourself in that and shift back out. Nothing to judge: just course-correct.)
As long as you have a button, life will push those buttons. Romantic partners come close: they will most certainly push your buttons. Nothing’s gone wrong when that happens! (And if you want to default to that foundational NO because of what happens or how, or how it gets processed, fine.)
Process first between you and you, then with the other.
Taking full responsibility for your well-being and your buttons means that you come close to yourself to meet what comes up kindly and heal yourself. Make it your job to learn about and dismantle your buttons, to soothe yourself when they’re pushed, to question your thinking. Take care of yourself.
When you process with yourself first, you’ll have much less to take to the other. You can be more simple, clear, and clean in what you bring to them. You may better:
That’s the stuff of the dating experiment—plus or minus your tweaks now or along the way.
And, if you’re going to bother experimenting at all, make it a grand experiment.
Premises & basic explanations are outlined in full right here.
Why an experiment?
Experiments are fun. You don’t have to know anything and you don’t have to get it right. There’s no foregone conclusion: you’re seeing what you learn along the way and you can’t know where it’ll take you.
Experiments invite curiosity, awe, presence. Show up with your senses alert and let life show you.
Make it a grand experiment.
More about how to make anything a grand experiment right here.
If you’re going to bother experimenting at all, why not make it a grand experiment?
Think of dating as an exploration.
That’s all you’re doing: exploring what’s possible with another human being.
You’re not trying to find a partner, prove you’re lovable, or make anything happen.
You’re not trying to fix anything, fill a hole, or secure a future.
Point of departure: Start with NO.
From marketing expert Jim Camp. You don’t give a quick yes to starting a business with someone. You need info, gathered over time, about how they show up, what their terms mean, whether things look promising, etc. That for dating.
With NO as your foundation or baseline, you’re not quickly agreeing to a lot of things you don’t yet know. You won’t have to backpedal.
You don’t decide they’re the one. You’re not imagining a future together. You don’t want it to “work out.”
There’s no foregone conclusion: the exploration will take you wherever it takes you and it will last however long it lasts.
From NO as a safe base, simply find the one next yes.
As long as you’re curious and want to keep exploring, just look for each next yes; proceed from one yes to another. Yes to messaging, yes to coffee, yes to a text exchange, yes to next date.
Do this for some time, staying at no as your baseline position.
Any NO along the way is no problem. You can either default to the foundational NO you’re already standing on; or if it leads to a fine process and resolution, and you still want to explore, carry on: watch for the one next yes.
Redefine some concepts or get them out of your dating vocabulary.
Giving people a chance. The Universe is the dispenser of chances. No one needs a chance from you—millions of other chances exist. If you’re not totally drawn to explore who they are and what’s possible with them, move along.
No, you’re not being too picky if you don’t have a bunch of tedious dates with people you’re not drawn to. You’re not being too picky even if you don’t date or keep dating cool or lovely people who feel like a NO to you. See Amy Webb’s smart and funny TED talk about her grand experiment in dating.
Having it work out. It always works out, whether it lasts one date, one month, one year, one decade, the rest of your life. Let working out mean whatever it means as you explore interesting connections with curiosity and respond appropriately to what you learn as you go.
If you’re not thinking in terms of things “working out,” you don’t have to lie to yourself or pretend you don’t see what you see.
Rejection. No one has the power to declare that someone else is unlovable or unworthy. If someone doesn’t want to explore or keep exploring with you, it’s simply not a match and they saw or said it first.
You’re free to truthfully tell someone you don’t want to keep exploring with them if you also give others permission to do the same.
In either direction, no one is being rejected or declared unlovable, unattractive, or unfit for relationship: not a match.
It’s okay if feelings and thoughts of rejection come up as you go. If you’re capable of such, dating may as well be what brings them up. Come close to those to heal them. DO NOT believe them and let them take you down to untrue beliefs about your worth. Remember, you’re not dating to have your worth confirmed. (If you are, you won’t want people to say it’s not a match and you won’t say it’s not a match: then you’ll date the wrong people or stay too long.)
Finding a match. Who we match shifts as we heal, grow, and step into our becoming. Anyone you’re with even for a moment is your match right then, even if for 10 minutes so that you learn to get up quickly & declare, Not a match. So show up with curiosity for as long as you get another yes.
A match doesn’t have to be a forever partner: dating is not adoption at the animal shelter.
Focus on the good (positive aspects), from Abraham-Hicks.
A-H says to keep in view whatever aspects of another or of being with them you like. If 70%, then give that your full attention and enjoy. Apply to one date or 1,000. Abraham says to list positive aspects in writing, even during a date!
You’re not in danger of forgetting or missing the 30%. Since you’re at NO, give a nod to the negatives that show up, and go back to enjoying the 70% full-throttle. When a look at the 30% puts you at a final NO, fine. If a nonnegotiable is violated, go to NO. If the 30 keeps calling you back and you’d rather be done, NO. (Note that the 30% will often be in service of you meeting something in yourself. This doesn’t mean you need to stick with that person! Stick with no, even if you have one next yes with the person.)
Marry that together with Jaya’s microscope.
Whatever you put under the microscope fills your entire field of vision. So put that 70% (or whatever) under there, so that it becomes 100% most of the time.
Catch yourself when you’ve put the bad under the microscope. You will: many of us habitually keep the negative as the focus, especially in tricky territory.
Interested in Law of Attraction? The idea is this: what you practice or focus on is what you call forth. When the negative 30% is your focus, you’re inviting more of what you don’t want. (Don’t let that scare you. Let it remind you to keep shifting the focus back to what you want, back to the 70%.)
Don’t use dating/relationship as a makeover project.
Especially don’t use relationship to groom someone to take care of you and make you comfortable. Likewise, notice when they’re doing that to you and invite them out of it—or get away, establishing that NO as final.
You’re in a relationship with you your whole life. You’re the one responsible for your comfort and well-being. Do not make your love life a place to bully or beg or in any way manipulate another to do that for you. (Catch yourself in that and shift back out. Nothing to judge: just course-correct.)
As long as you have a button, life will push those buttons. Romantic partners come close: they will most certainly push your buttons. Nothing’s gone wrong when that happens! (And if you want to default to that foundational NO because of what happens or how, or how it gets processed, fine.)
Process first between you and you, then with the other.
Taking full responsibility for your well-being and your buttons means that you come close to yourself to meet what comes up kindly and heal yourself. Make it your job to learn about and dismantle your buttons, to soothe yourself when they’re pushed, to question your thinking. Take care of yourself.
When you process with yourself first, you’ll have much less to take to the other. You can be more simple, clear, and clean in what you bring to them. You may better:
- ask questions (rather than tell them what they’re doing)
- stay out of accusations and assumptions
- ask for what you want (rather than expect them to know or remember that; rather than assume that what you want is the right way to do relationship and therefore what they should be providing already)
That’s the stuff of the dating experiment—plus or minus your tweaks now or along the way.
And, if you’re going to bother experimenting at all, make it a grand experiment.
download the above text as pdf |
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audio resource from Abraham-hicks
I love this talk that contains Abraham's take on dating with ease and joy.
Beyond that, you can use the YouTube search bar to get more. Type in "Abraham-Hicks and dating" or whatever comes to mind.
Beyond that, you can use the YouTube search bar to get more. Type in "Abraham-Hicks and dating" or whatever comes to mind.
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