Have you ever found yourself in a dating rut, unsure how to break free and progress? The key to moving forward is within reach. If you’re feeling paralyzed, questioning where to begin, or navigating the uncertainties of being single, the solution lies in identifying your essence-based preferences.

In this episode, Lily shares the essence-based preferences tool that empowers you to attract the most fulfilling relationships. It is the tool that has allowed Lily and countless Date Brazen clients to attract the best relationship of their lives. Tune in and unlock the potential for positive change in your dating journey.

Hot-takes and topics:

• When you learn to trust what you want, you will set more boundaries and know when you are in the presence of the right kind of people.

• One tool for building self-trust is creating your essence-based preferences!

• The two categories of essence-based preferences: logistical and personality traits/values

• Lily explores how to ask for what you want in your dating life out loud (hint: this is where your co-conspirators come in!)

Links:

Download the free Guide to Your Essence-Based Preferences
VIP One-on-One Coaching with Lily
135. How to create your essence-based preferences

Show transcript:

Lily: [00:00:00] Hello, gorgeous friends. Welcome to this extra special episode of the Date Brazen podcast. I am coming to you live from a walk in Brooklyn in my neighborhood. And so I’m just going to treat this as a. As a chat and the impetus for our chat, you text me and you’re like, Lily, I feel so stuck in my dating life.

[00:00:25] I’m feeling fear that I’m going to settle again, or I don’t even know how to get started. I really have just, this is me, like what I imagine you’re saying that leads to me calling you and be like, okay, let’s talk about it. You’re also maybe thinking wow, I’ve just realized how much I want to find.

[00:00:43] The right relationship, the right partnership. I don’t even know where to start. Okay. That’s the impetus for our chat. So you text me, you tell me that and I give you a call immediately. That’s what this episode is. And I give you all of my hottest [00:01:00] advice for this issue. Okay. Because there’s nothing I like more.

[00:01:05] I love helping you trust yourself. I want to help you trust yourself all day long. That’s my ultimate goal. And I also love telling. People what to do based on my hottest steaks. So I want you to take notes on this. If that feels good to you, I want you to just absorb it and get ready cause I am going to share exactly what to do to get unstuck and start moving forward right now.

[00:01:38] Hey, I’m Lily Womble, former top matchmaker and founder of Date Brazen. After setting up hundreds, I realized that with coaching, women could match themselves. It’s better than anyone else ever could with my unconventional feminist approach. I’ve helped women around the world build courageous and self trust filled love lives.

[00:01:53] And now I’m here to support you get ready because I’m about to share the exact steps you need to attract a soul quenching [00:02:00] partnership and feel amazing about yourself along the way. This is the date brazen podcast. If you know me. You know that I’m super type a. I love a system. I love a spreadsheet. I love a workbook.

[00:02:13] Oh my God. I have changed my own life with so many workbooks. I can’t even tell you. And when they’re thoughtfully prepared and I want to share with you if you are feeling paralyzed with like, where do I even start or how do I never settle again? Maybe you’ve never dated before, Never. And, or maybe you have been in a marriage that just didn’t work, right?

[00:02:38] And maybe you’re feeling like, Oh my God, what do I do next? The answer to never settling again, the answer to moving forward in your dating life. The next step that you need to take is to identify your essence based preferences. Essence based preferences are the tool that allowed me to attract the best relationship of my life.[00:03:00]

[00:03:00] The essence based preferences are the tool that my clients. Point to and say, Lily, EBPs were the reason that I knew my partner was right for me on our first or second date. EBPs are how I make decisions in my dating life now. Okay, now I’m going to go into my little. Local garden and it’s gonna be so cute and maybe oh the hammock is open.

[00:03:24] Oh my god I love this little space so much. It’s such a gift in New York City. Okay y’all again. This is me talking to you Sometimes there are divergence some sometimes there are moments where I will get distracted and talk about something else for a moment, but we’re friends. So let’s just let’s normalize essence based preferences, the tool.

[00:03:43] How are they the tool? What are they? Essence based preferences are your love life vocabulary. So instead of focusing on a rigid checklist, right? The rigid checklist, it sounds like this. This kind of master’s degree, this kind of [00:04:00] university and they need to live in this exact neighborhood. Pause.

[00:04:03] While I sit on the hammock. Okay. Oh my God. This is very fun. Hanging out like you, hanging out with you like this. Okay. So they are the living, breathing documentation of your desires. So even if you’ve never been in a relationship or the right relationship yet romantically, I know. that you know how you want to feel in that right relationship.

[00:04:29] I think that people specifically, if we’re talking about you and what I think you might be going through, you might be using the excuse of I haven’t been in the relationship I want yet or I haven’t been in a relationship. Using it as an excuse not to trust yourself. You’re using your relationship history as a weapon against yourself and your self trust.

[00:04:51] And I’m here to tell you that whether, whatever your relationship history, you learning the skill of self trust is going to lead to you [00:05:00] being in the best relationship of your life with yourself first and a partner inevitably second. Because when you learn how to trust what you want, you will set more boundaries.

[00:05:10] You will bless and release the wrong people with less mind drama and more ease. And you will be able to know when you’re in the presence of the right kind of people, like that they’re the right kind of people. When you learn how to trust yourself. And one of the tools to build that level of self trust is learning your essence based preferences.

[00:05:30] So I created essence based preferences when I, or I created this like concept of how to create them when I was a matchmaker and my clients would. all share. I want somebody kind, funny, smart, like literally everybody said they wanted to say the same thing. And I knew that wasn’t going to help me set them up on dates, right?

[00:05:50] That wasn’t going to help me know distinctly what would make somebody right for somebody else. And so I started asking more questions and [00:06:00] I built this process of discernment. around how to create essence based preferences. Let me unpack what you might be doing and why you might be doing it instead of essence based preferences.

[00:06:12] Maybe you are over functioning and I’m borrowing this phrase for, or this word from Brene Brown who talks about that in risk, like over functioning and under functioning can be a response to anxiety. So you might be over functioning in your preferences by putting up a rigid wall. In rigid wall.

[00:06:30] That’s what I was doing. And why was I doing that in my dating life prior to meeting Chris? Because I wanted to protect myself because I had been in bad relationships before and I thought rigidity would help me. Be the de facto boundary to keep out the wrong people. The problem with rigidity is that I was not open to the right people.

[00:06:53] I was not open to being surprised by the right people because I was getting in my own way with the rigidity and self [00:07:00] protection. That is the counterintuitive thing about self trust is that I previously thought that if I had all of these rules for who I would be attracted to and who I would meet up with and who I would go on dates with, that I would be protected and that I could trust myself.

[00:07:16] But in fact, self trust for me meant a grounded sense of I’ve got my own back no matter what. So I’m open to being surprised by the right person, the right people for me. So over functioning doesn’t work in terms of attracting what you want. The on the opposite end is under functioning. Under functioning is I just want somebody nice with a job, right?

[00:07:40] This like underneath the surface thought probably is what I want doesn’t exist. So I’ll just go on a date with anybody because you never know, right? The problem with you never know, right? Is that it is not, it is outsourcing your agency. It is saying, who knows? So let me just go. No, you know yourself better than that.

[00:07:59] You [00:08:00] know yourself better than that. It is possible to know yourself better than that and to trust yourself more than that. Again, self trust is not the rigid must be X, Y, Z. Self trust is also not we’ll see. Self trust can be showing up with a list of your essence based preferences, which I’m going to get into in a moment.

[00:08:19] But showing up with a plan. for your dating life, a plan that is so based in how you want to feel with the right people that you will be open to being surprised by how they show up in the world. And you will be doubling down on like getting what you want. Cause when you measure how you want to feel in the right relationship, when you use that as a metric on dates, when you use that as a metric for preferences, you inevitably will.

[00:08:47] only be with the right kind of people for you, period. So let’s come in the middle with Essence Based Preferences and let me give you an exact example. I got into this deeply on episode 135, but [00:09:00] I really wanted to give a refresher and a tool. Okay, so I’m about to unpack how to create Essence Based Preferences and you might be like, Oh my God, Lily, so many questions, so many steps, did furiously writing notes.

[00:09:12] That’s why I’ve created the guide to. create your essence based preferences. I have created a free, this is usually only for the brazen breakthrough clients, but I’ve give I’d created it for you for free because it’s so dang good and I want everybody to change their own lives with essence based preferences and attract love like right now with their essence based preferences.

[00:09:32] So you can go to date brazen dot com to get the free guide to creating your own essence based preferences. It’s 14 pages. It is complete. It is the complete guide. And it is fillable. So it’s a fillable PDF. All you have to do is give us your email address, get on our email list. We’ll send you all of the hottest, most feminist dating advice ever when you’re on our list or you can unsubscribe at any time.

[00:09:56] Seriously, I just want you to get this guide so that you can in the next [00:10:00] two weeks while we prepare for the new year, get yourself really. prepared to want what you want and to ask for it out loud and often in your love life specifically because I swear that is the tool. This is the tool that is going to change the game for you and your dating life in 2024.

[00:10:18] So here’s what essence based preferences are. And again, I go into this in depth in this free guide that you can get at datebrazen. com and also in the description of this episode. There are two categories of essence based preferences, logistics, meaning the stuff you can measure on paper, and the personality traits values, I grouped those into one bucket.

[00:10:37] How do you do logistical preferences that are essence based? Let’s get into it. These are like age range height. Education preferences. How do you make those essence based is you list out what you want. So for example, age range 25 to 45 or 25 to 35 or 35 to 45, whatever it is, 55 to [00:11:00] 65, whatever. Now you list out what you want.

[00:11:04] You get to want what you want. That’s the permissive drunk meat throughout the entire workbook is you get to want what you want. I ask you for every single logistical preference. How do you hope that makes you feel? So instead of just saying, I want this age range period, I want you to know why. How do you hope to feel with that age range?

[00:11:24] For most people, they’d say, I want somebody who. Meet me where I’m at, who gets my references, who I feel belonging with, who is in a similar place in life. And that is so much more rich in information than just the age range itself. And when you have that information cause to be honest, Chris was a little older than my age range.

[00:11:47] We are nine years apart. And my age range was not like nine years up. I don’t remember exactly what it was, but I knew that I wanted to feel belonging. I want to feel [00:12:00] held. I wanted to feel excited in their presence. I wanted to feel like I was constantly leaning forward and like asking more and laughing a ton.

[00:12:08] And, we were in a similar place in life and all these. Thanks. And so when I had that essence based preference, I was open to being surprised by the right person, whether or not they fit the original expectation of 25 to 35 or whatever my age range was at the time. I think it was like 30 to 35.

[00:12:27] And I digress. I just want you to know how you want to feel with every single essence based preference, including logistical stuff, because logistics are where people can get tripped up in the rigid and you get to want what you want, period. And I want you to know how you want to feel with every single one of those preferences.

[00:12:46] Now let’s move on to the second bucket, which is even more. Juicy personality traits and values. Again, in this free guide, I take you through all of these steps. So in personality traits, values [00:13:00] land. I define and differentiate personality traits and values as follows. Now, you don’t have to, you use this definition, you don’t even have to distinguish these two separately if it doesn’t serve you.

[00:13:11] However, that’s how, this is how I do it. Values are. Why someone shows up at a party the way they do and personality traits are how they show up at a party. For example, somebody could have the value of compassion and the value of social justice. That is a value. Personality traits is they show up at a party and they are an amazing listener.

[00:13:39] They are asking good questions. They are curious as hell about people around them. They are caring for people around them by getting them drinks or refreshing their cocktail or going to the person in the corner who’s. Solo and like hanging out with them. That’s how I knew that Chris was right for me because we were at a party.

[00:13:56] One of the many reasons. We were at a party and there was somebody [00:14:00] standing in the corner alone at the party, and Chris was like, Lily, let’s go talk to them. Let’s go hang out with this person. Let’s bring belonging to anybody who like may need it. Let’s go. And I was like, oh my God, that’s so hot.

[00:14:10] This idea of personality traits, values, that’s how I distinguish them from each other. And so what I want you to do in this guide will help you. Brain dump all of the personality traits and values that you could possibly want. Then your job is to narrow them down to their root word. So brain dump and then asking yourself, for example, if you want somebody smart, asking yourself, what does smart mean to me?

[00:14:34] What does somebody who is smart do? What does somebody who is smart to me? Smart to you is very different than smart to somebody else. What is somebody who is smart to me value? How do they show up in the world? What do they like to read? What do they like to listen to? This is not painting a rigid snap, a rigid snapshot, but instead painting an impressionist painting where, the vibe, the feeling that you are going to [00:15:00] have by being in their presence, like you see an impressionist painting and you’re like, Oh yeah, I feel that.

[00:15:05] I feel it when I see an ABR baiting, I feel the energy. There’s a luncheon of the boating party. I don’t remember the artist, but I wrote about it in my book actually, and it’s this group of people luncheon on a boat, having lunch on a boat, and the vibe is so good. They’re like partying you.

[00:15:23] feel it. It’s so clear. And also you can’t see the sharp outlines of all the people because it’s a hazy impressionist thing. So that’s what essence based preferences are. They’re the impressionist painting of what you desire. So you know how it feels to be with the right person. So once you brain dump, what does smart mean to me?

[00:15:43] You’ll see that there is a root word coming to emerge, right? The root word for you based on your definition could instead of smart instead be Intellectually curious, or it could be worldly, compassionately worldly, or a compassionate [00:16:00] listener. I don’t know what smart means to you, but there’s so much data to mine about what you want that you haven’t even thought to ask yourself yet.

[00:16:08] And so essence based preferences will really come in and help you get to know your own brain, get to know your own body, your own desires so much more. Then after the workbook guides you through those pieces, logistics and values. Personality traits and finding the root words. You need to go through and find all of the shoulds in your essence based preferences that don’t belong to you anymore.

[00:16:31] I’m talking about the preferences that your dad or mom or sister or cousin told you quote should want that don’t belong to you. One of my clients. was struggling with the preference of education. And I want somebody with a master’s degree. And that was what she said. And I could tell there was something up about this preference.

[00:16:50] I could tell there was something beneath the surface. And so I started asking her more questions about it. And it turned out that I was like, why do you want that? I want somebody who meets me intellectually. [00:17:00] Okay, why do you care about that? Okay, I want somebody who makes me feel really excited to learn and like we’re growing together and like they impress me and I’m inspired by them, their knowledge and their thirst for knowledge and their depth of knowledge of things they’re passionate about and their willingness to learn new things and read new books about new things that they’re learning.

[00:17:19] And I said does that necessarily have to correspond with a graduate degree? Like she had originally stated, she was like, actually, no, we discovered that it was a should preference based on her dad telling her, you should get somebody to the graduate degree because they’ll be able to provide for you more.

[00:17:36] That was an old experience from years, decades prior that was influencing how she was viewing her essence based preferences today. And so together with this like reflective process. We were able to identify what should preferences were not serving her anymore and really shed the shoulds. So she was more in alignment with her vision, not her family’s vision [00:18:00] for her love life.

[00:18:01] So that work is going to be really powerful for you after you brain dump all of your preferences and do this essence based work. So that is the process of essence based preferences. Now, how to use them. There’s literally. so inconveniently a helicopter above me, which happens so often in Brooklyn because we live close to Manhattan and there’s a lot happening in Manhattan.

[00:18:28] Some say it’s the city that never sleeps, LOL. Okay. Last thing as I keep going on my walk after this moment in the sun in this hammock hanging out with you. So fun. Last thing I want to share about essence based preferences is how to use them in practice. Okay. They in the brazen breakthrough, I teach you how to use essence based preferences to influence every part of your dating strategy because the key to attracting the kind of relationship you want is [00:19:00] how effectively and often you ask for what you want out loud.

[00:19:03] The way that you often and effectively ask for what you want out loud in your dating life is many folds. You can share your essence based preferences with your friends to invite them in to be your co conspirator in 2024 to help you help. They can help you set you up with the right people more easily when you have your essence based preferences.

[00:19:23] And by the way, in the guide, it’s not about wanting like. A giant list. It is about identifying the three to five root words for the personality traits values, having your own definition of those root words, and then you could communicate those very effectively in addition to the logistics. So just wanted to mention that.

[00:19:40] I think I forgot to mention that. So You can share these with your co conspirator. Like you can literally give your workbook, your completed workbook to your co conspirator so they can help you in your dating life more effectively. You can use these essence based preferences to also influence the qualifying disqualifying questions you ask.

[00:19:59] And this is a [00:20:00] strategy that I’m going to talk more about with you in 2024 I also teach it. In full inside of the brazen breakthrough, basically, it’s like how you ask the right questions to gauge whether or not somebody has the essence based preferences that you desire. So you can look at your essence based preferences and say what questions can you can reverse engineer it?

[00:20:17] What questions could I ask someone to gauge whether or not they have this quality or this personality trait, this value, whether they make me feel the way I want to feel. You can also use EVPs to influence your new dating. Profile. I teach this in the brazen breakthrough, but you can DIY it. Like, how can you use EBPs in your profile prompts to say I’m looking for somebody and you insert your root words, somebody compassionately curious, who is worldly.

[00:20:47] With an edge or I love this essence based preference from another brazen breakthrough member who used the term worldly nerd or like joyful nerd, which was so sparkly to me. I loved it so much. You can [00:21:00] use them to fill in the gaps of your dating profile so that people get to know what you want and in doing so get to know you a little better.

[00:21:05] I would also suggest that you talk about what you want more period. If you are in a group of single people in your friend group, okay. Instead of complaining about how people suck, men suck, women suck, dating sucks, which is valid. Dating is really hard. Instead of doing that for a night, though, what if you had an essence based preference party where you just like got off together on what you each desired?

[00:21:30] I really encourage you to do that because I think that giving yourself permission to get out of the toxic feedback loop of dating sex, and instead get dreamy about what you want. Get turned on by your own desires. I think that will really influence how you set yourself up for success in 2024.

[00:21:48] Go to the link in the description of this episode or in the show notes of this episode at datebrazen. com to. Get the guide to create your own essence based preferences. It is [00:22:00] such a good guide. And then you’ll be on our email list and receive all of my juiciest dating hot takes and feminist wisdom to attract love on your terms in 2024.

[00:22:12] To create a dating life that is confident and joyful as fuck on your way to attracting more in 2024. I love y’all. I’m so excited for this guide. I’m so excited for you to get your hands on it and to dive into Essence Based Preferences. And if you liked this episode, then share it with a friend and get them to download the guide as well so that you can have an Essence Based Preferences party.

[00:22:33] If you really want to work with me to create your own essence based preferences, you want the accountability and support and guidance from me one on one to do that and to start attracting love as soon as possible. That is. soul quenching and aligned. If you want to make that inevitable in 2024, then you can work with me one on one.

[00:22:55] I have a few VIP one on one packages available and you can [00:23:00] apply and learn more at datebrazen. com and the link to apply to work with me one on one is also in the show notes of this episode. So in the three month container of one on one, I’m going to be laser focused on you and your love life and getting you results, getting you that confident and joyful as fuck dating life that makes the right relationship inevitable in three short months of one on one really focused work.

[00:23:24] And I’m going to give you so much accountability and support in the process of creating that love life and creating that strategy online and in person. And as a one on one member, you also get 12 months access to the brazen breakthrough. So when. When and so much support and so much life changing goodness inside a community.

[00:23:43] So go to the link in the description of this episode for that application to one on one work with me. And also get your hands on that free guide to creating your essence based preferences. Love y’all talk to you very soon. Bye.[00:24:00]