At the age of 42, I sat on my bed talking on the phone to a dear friend, telling her that this time I really was getting a divorce. My husband of eighteen years had left me for the second time in our marriage. The first time he left me, four years earlier, I fixed everything that was “wrong” with me and convinced him to stay with me. I stopped eating almost completely and lost forty pounds in two months, and pretended that I liked going out to nightclubs so he could live out his midlife crisis. (This behavior, by the way, had nothing to do with love and everything to do with my anxious attachment style, which is also called codependency. We will explore this in Chapter Five – Attachment Styles.)
This time, I told my friend, I just couldn’t do it. I didn’t have the energy to work my ass off and beg him not to leave me again. I told my friend that I was going to let him leave, and she said something that scared me to my core. She said, “You’re 42, and you have two special needs kids. Who’s going to want you?” Please understand, my friend is a wonderful person. She was just reflecting back to me what I was thinking. My fears that I would be alone and unloved were emanating from my pores! These fears were the reason that I had worked so hard to keep a man who repeatedly cheated on me and put me down. What she and I didn’t know then, but both know now, is that we create our own reality. Our thoughts become things. My beliefs that I was too old for love, and that no man would want to be in a relationship with someone who had autistic children, were just that – beliefs, and beliefs can be changed! I met the love of my life at the age of 48, and I still had my wonderful sons. Don’t let your own false beliefs keep you from your love!
False Belief #1
I’m Too Old
This was a big one for me. As I mentioned, I was 42 years old when I got divorced. As I write these words at the age of 50, 42 doesn’t seem old, but it sure did at the time. The cliche is that age is just a number, but cliches become overused frequently because they are true. In the seven years that I spent single after my divorce, I went on many dates and had three relationships before I met my soulmate, Mike. No one ever told me that they weren’t interested in me because of my age. As a matter of fact, every man that I had a relationship with, including Mike, was younger than I was. If you believe that you’re too old for people to be attracted to you, that will be true for you. Conversely, if you believe that your age isn’t an issue, it won’t be. Your thoughts become your reality. This is the Law of Attraction, which we will explore much deeper in Chapter Three.
False Belief #2
I’m too fat or ugly
So many of us have a variation of this damaging belief. We are born knowing that we are beautiful, special, and unique. We are made of stardust, and we know it! Try to remember how you felt when you were three or four years old. Even better, find some pictures of yourself at that age. Look at them carefully. You loved yourself and believed that you were worthy of love because other people, some well-meaning and some not, had not yet told you what was wrong with you. There is a photograph of me at that age, wearing sunglasses and sitting on the trailer in front of my dad’s ski boat. My head is thrown back in a glamorous pose, and with my shades on I look like a pint-sized movie star. Adults and the world around me had not yet made me feel that I was not good enough.
But like most people, sadly, those negative messages began to penetrate my stardust beauty. My eyes are brown, and I became convinced that they were not as attractive as my mother or sister’s green eyes. I compared myself to fashion models and movie stars, and came up wanting. And even though I was a healthy and attractive weight as a teenager and young adult, I believed that I was fat. Our society’s negative messages about women’s bodies really got to me. I dieted all the time and was convinced that I would be truly loved if I was thinner. My thoughts became my reality, and I attracted a man who did not deem my weight acceptable.
My ex-husband was obsessed with thinness. He always believed that I was overweight, and he was terrified of gaining weight himself. When someone criticizes you, it’s a reflection of their own fears. He would pinch my stomach lightly when we were sitting on the couch, ostensibly as a gesture of affection. I realized later it was a nonverbal criticism. If you can pinch more than an inch, there’s too much, if you will. I was perhaps twenty pounds overweight, by society’s standards, the first time he walked out. He told me that he was not attracted to me because of my weight, and that he thought he deserved someone who looked better. As I mentioned before, I went into starvation mode in my desperation to keep this unhealthy relationship going. I lost forty pounds, shrinking to a skeletal size zero. (I’m 5’6”, so that was not really a good look.) My ex did come back, but he left again four years later, even though I kept the weight off. It was not about my weight; people cheat because they are unhappy with themselves and their lives and they don’t know how to fix it. They mistakenly think that changing their external circumstances will fix their issues. But the reasons why people cheat are another book!
I was fifty pounds heavier when I met my soulmate, Mike, seven years later. I assure you, he was quite attracted to me, and still is. The difference is that even though I’m the heaviest I have ever been, I love my body and my looks more than I ever thought possible! I believe that I am beautiful, so I draw to me people who believe that I am beautiful, too. The other day, I said to Mike, “I know you think I am beautiful,” and he stopped me and said, “I don’t think you’re beautiful. I know that you are beautiful.”
False Belief #3
I’m too poor
Many people worry that a lack of money will keep them from receiving love. Our patriarchal society makes men feel like their most important contribution to a relationship is financial, and many men feel that they can’t attract the partner of their dreams unless they have an abundance of money. Women worry about finances, too. My divorce left me with a lot of credit card debt and no savings. My credit score decreased to a low number, and it took me a long time to get it back to fair. I also have large student loans that I borrowed for graduate school, which I was trying to pay back on a teacher’s salary. I worried that my debt and lack of money would scare men away because they would be afraid that I expected them to pay off my debts. No one that I dated ever asked me about my debt or bills. And I never refused to date someone because I didn’t think that they made enough money. The size of your wallet won’t keep you single unless you believe that it will. Like our other false beliefs, if you think that it’s true, it will be. Your thoughts become things!
False Belief #4
I’m a single parent
When other single-parent friends of mine would state their fears that no one would date them because they had kids, I would think to myself, “At least your kids are neurotypical. Mine have autism! No one wants to take that on!” I’m happy to report that both of my sons love Mike, more than they love me sometimes, and that he is a wonderful, loving, positive presence in their lives. Mike has a nephew with autism, so there was no learning curve; he just jumped right in. This is something that I manifested. I wrote a list of qualities that I wanted in a soulmate, and I put on my list that I wanted a man with a relative who had autism so he would know how to love and be around my sons. Like all the other false beliefs, being a single parent only stops you from finding love if you believe that it will. Find a good babysitter and go on dates! You can manifest a partner who will love you AND your children. I did, and so have many people that I know.
False Belief #5
All the good ones are taken
This belief is very common, but it’s simply not true. The Law of Attraction, which we will discuss at length in Chapter Three, states that like attracts like. If you believe that there are no quality single people around you, there won’t be any. It’s not a case of seeing is believing, but rather a case of believing is seeing. Now that I am in a relationship with an amazing man, I see lots of good relationships around me. And even if you only change this belief a little bit, you can still attract the love that you want. There are millions of people on the planet, and half of them are single at any given time. People get out of relationships and become newly single every minute of every day! Even if you don’t believe that the majority of all these single people are good people, you only need one! All of the good ones are not taken!
False Belief #All
I’m not good enough
There are many more false and hurtful beliefs that keep people from the joy of a loving relationship, but every single one of them can be boiled down to one common theme – I’m not good enough for someone to love me. Fortunately, the way to change these limiting beliefs can be simplified into one strategy. Believe that you are worthy of love! I know that it’s easy to say, and hard to do, but you can change your beliefs. And if it seems impossible to you, I would ask you to take the advice of the great spiritual teacher Louise Hay. Say to yourself, “I am willing to change.” We will talk more about Louise Hay’s work in later chapters.
Be willing to change your beliefs, and you will change your love life for the better!
Love and Law of Attraction Coaching 