Are you loving the listener Q&A episodes? If so, today is your lucky day; we have another one for you! This week, Lily unpacks the idea of “my ex raised the bar,” the stories we make up about dating standards, and how to reclaim your agency.  The listener’s question went something like this: 

“I am dating with intention right now. I was dating someone six months ago, and he broke my heart. He also raised the bar, but I feel like it’s tripping me up. Is holding on to him or wondering about him hurting my chances? If he raised the bar, is that a good thing?”

This episode reminds you that you deserve a relationship with someone who fiercely chooses you. Plus, Lily explores how and why to reclaim agency over “the bar,” recognize that you own it, and can continue to raise it (yourself) based on your needs, wants, and desires.

Hot-takes and how-tos:

• Reclaim your agency over the bar – it was and is yours – you own the bar, and you can continue to raise it 

• You get to be in a relationship with someone who fiercely chooses you! 

• People who are not right for you make themselves apparent to you quickly. Those who are right for you also make themselves apparent quickly.

Links:
Join us for the Create a Joyful-As-Fuck Dating Life Workshop on 3/28! 
Join the Brazen Breakthrough
3-Step Guide to Make Dating Feel Like Self-care
Date Brazen on Instagram
Date Brazen on TikTok
124.The “Thank You, More, Please!” Challenge!
135. How to create your essence-based preferences
146. “I’m 37 and haven’t been on a date. Am I too late?”

Subscribe to The Date Brazen Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or Stitcher!

Show transcript:

Lily 

Hello Gorgeous friends. Welcome to another episode of the date brazen podcast. So glad that you’re here. Today we have another juicy listener question all about how to let someone go and how to date when, like, you’re heartbroken. And your last relationship was a great one, how to not compare and like, oh, it’s gonna be so good. So I want to just start this week’s episode with a call back to last week’s episode. So last week’s episode was all about a listener who was feeling behind in her dating life and hadn’t been in a long term relationship. And you know, what was feeling like embarrassed about that we talked about how to feel your feelings, and how feeling your feelings effectively with self compassion with tools can really propel you forward in your dating life. It’s a counterintuitive truth. And so I wanted to share a brag I’m sharing this with consent from a member of the brazen breakthrough inside our private Slack channel. So all throughout the week, there are members in there making friendships like planning to meet up in person sharing their brags and wins, sharing their coaching questions so they can I can coach their face off between our monthly group coaching sessions. And this brag by Sarah really struck me as a real example of the work and the impact of feeling your feelings effectively with emotional safety and also with a community behind you, and practicing that skill and how that can impact you. Okay, so here’s Sarah’s brag. Like I got chills reading it the first time. And the second time, who am I getting? Sarah said, Today, I connected with a few friends who all have exciting plans for the weekend, most of them with partners. While I just have a regular weekend ahead. My win is that I was really upset feeling lonely, isolated left behind thanks feelings wheel. But instead of wallowing or trying to ignore it, I went to the caring for your nervous system module in the brazen breakthrough and worked through the how to feel anything steps its a literal video inside our portal. It was hard in all caps, and I’m so proud of myself for taking a step back when I was upset to work through this vulnerable moment. This brag is revolutionary. Because Sarah did not make herself wrong for having big feelings. She also did not make her friends wrong. She just decided that she was the main character, right. And she decided that she had power over how she cared for herself in that moment, how she gave herself permission, how she took up space with her needs and desires like she is like she said instead of wallowing or trying to ignore it, I did the caring for your nervous system module. She was highly resourced in this moment, and called upon the resources she had based on the needs in her in the moment. And she moved through. And I would venture to say that Sara then was able to take a very, this was very productive in and of itself. And then Sarah was able to like take a powerful step in the direction of putting herself out there because she moved through this hard feeling it didn’t ignore it and then come came and got community around her and belonging around this very important moment in her dating journey. You’re being activated and how you move through that is just as important as how you meet the right person. Because I would venture to say, I keep saying venture to say like I’m going to tell you the truth. The truth is that being in the right relationship is hard on your nervous system. If you have not practiced emotional safety in your body, feeling your dang feelings before you get into that relationship. These skills are skills that will translate into you being in not only attracting but being in the best relationship of your life. Having your own back every step of the way. Knowing how to care for your nervous system when you start to receive what you want. Having your own back and caring for our nervous system. When you get into your first tiff with the love of your life. Creating emotional safety in your body translates to how you attract a relationship in which you are emotionally safe. So it’s all about that normalization and creating that skill set of like how to feel anything with emotional safety in your dating life, especially your feelings here matter. You don’t have to put them push them aside. Your feelings matter you get to expand this program. The brazen breakthrough is all about expanding into even more of what you want giving yourself massive juicy permission to have what you want and then building a clear path forward to attracting it. One that feels easeful and joyful. And sometimes hard because dating is still vulnerable as hell and you’re going to have your own back through every moment of it, you’re going to feel safe you’re gonna feel grounded during every moment of it. So that’s the power of doing this work inside the brazen breakthrough of doing it in our community of showing up to the Slack channel of showing up to our live calls to get your brain coached to building friendships with other single badass dudes who have your back who are doing this work with you. So if you want to join us inside the reason breakthrough, we are open right now. So what you’re gonna do you’re gonna go to the description of this episode or our show notes or date brazen.com And you can learn all about brazen breakthrough read all about it, and you can click to buy it right there on the page. And then once you purchase once you invest in your heart time, you are then going to have access to every single tool. Every single training there are over 20 video trainings over 20 Juicy as fuck workbooks there are so many group coaching calls in our recordings vaults there are so many group coaching calls to come that will be live that you can attend. I can’t wait to see you inside so go learn more feel it out in your body and join us if that feels like the most exciting invitation What are you waiting for Go Go learn more go dive in go join us and start getting results immediately and just a reminder from our bonus episode last week. March 31 is the final day to join the brazen breakthrough and if you are curious about joining you can hop on the sales page and learn more now and or you can come to my live workshop creating a joyful as fuck dating life on March 28 at 6pm Eastern in that room together I’m going to show you exactly how you can create that joyful as fuck dating life that makes the right relationship inevitable. And I’m gonna give you a special invitation to join us inside the brazen breakthrough and you’re gonna get your face coached off by me so join us with the link in the description of this episode for that live workshop on March 28. And or if you’re ready to join us inside brazen breakthrough right now before the doors close for further notice on March 31. Then hop into the description hope into the show notes and get yourself in. Okay, now let’s get into the Episode 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 better than anyone else ever could. With my unconventional feminist approach. I’ve helped women around the world build courageous and self trust built love lives. 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 partnership and feel amazing about yourself along the way. This is the date brazen podcast. Today’s episode is, like I said a listener voicemail episode. If you want to leave a voicemail for me, you got to get on my email list because I send out a special link about once a month to leave your voicemails and questions. So you can get on my email list with the link in the description of this episode and in the show notes. So go get on my email list. So let’s get into this question.

Hello I am writing slash talking to you because I am currently dating, I’ve been single for about a year and a half. I’m 35 broke up with my eight year relationship because he didn’t want kids. So I’m dealing with intention right now. And recently, I dated someone about six months ago, who I totally fell for and he broke my heart. And He raised the bar for sure. So I’m looking for something like that. But I also feel like it’s tripping me up and I’m not really happy with anybody that I meet, which maybe is a good thing, but I’m struggling. is holding on to him or wondering about him hurting my chances at dating or am I overthinking things? Or did he just raise the bar and it’s a good thing? Help me Help me.

Lily 

Okay, so I hear in your questions, so many buckets, right? I hear there was a massive amount of courage and permission that you gave yourself to end that eight year relationship in which, you know, your long term vision wasn’t aligned. I hear you know, you are dating intentionally, which is courageous, it is so vulnerable to date at all. I hear that you’re asking for what you want out loud. I think that that might have been like if you hadn’t built those skills to advocate for your own needs, then you probably would end up in a relationship again that was wrong for you. And although I’m so sorry about the breakup and you’re you know you shared he this last guy six months ago broke your heart. I do think that the skills of advocating for yourself and knowing what you deeply want. That’s why we do the essence based preference work check Episode 135. If you haven’t done that yet 20 essence based preference work really is transformative. And you sound like you’ve done your own version of it of like, here’s what I want. Here’s what it looks like. And that’s one of the reasons that relationship didn’t work out with the guy that broke your heart. Right? So I hear there are a couple different, which is, it’s a bar. Of course, we want like dating as hard as fuck. And I think to some degree, everybody knows, I don’t know, many people who just want to keep dating like we you want to find your partner, right? So it’s fucking bummer that he wasn’t your partner. And he wasn’t your partner for a very good reason. Right. And I think that this idea of he raised the bar is great, fine. Wonderful. I’m glad he showed up for you. I don’t know exactly how he raised the bar for you and want you to, if you haven’t already unpacked that on a piece of paper. And I wonder how much you are, Okay, here’s what I wrote down. I wrote down some notes. Okay, so raise the bar. This was recently so your brain is focusing on what was most recent, it’s very normal. And then I did also wonder how much power you are giving him in this scenario, how much power you are giving him in terms of like, what I want existed in that person, does it exist in somebody else? And then the brain gymnastics that you’re doing right now, what I hear is you’re going on dates, you’re not meeting people who you’re excited about. So your brain is making this a problem and make it and going back to that last relationship and thinking about it a lot and saying, like, what’s the problem here? Let me fix for the problem. I don’t hear a problem. I hear you had a relationship, he broke your heart. That sucks. And you wanted it to work out. It’s a bummer. feel those feelings grieve. There might be some grief in the room that you haven’t processed yet and know that your preferences how you want to feel in the right relationships still belongs to you. They are not in the hands of anybody, any man. Right? So this idea, I hear in your question a little bit of like, he owns the bar, not only that, he raised the bar, he owns the bar, right? Like he is the one that had the magic key to the bar, and he owns the bar. And I can only go to the bar like literally let’s imagine a bar. And I can only go to that bar and feel that way at that bar at his bar, he owns the bar. That’s how I hear when I hear a little bit and you’re behind your question. And what I want to encourage you to do is reclaim your agency over the bar, that the bar was and is yours. It it has been yours, it will be yours. You can continue to raise it a way that you can continue to raise the bar and own your own bar your standards is by acknowledging that you get to be in a relationship with somebody who’s so fiercely fucking chooses you. Who chooses you who believes and knows and lives that you are their best case scenario? So in that way, yeah, he doesn’t meet that bar at all for you. You own the bar you get to raise the bar it’s not even a bar it’s you get to like it’s a party. He ultimately didn’t belong at your party because he didn’t want to be there and truly His loss there’s that right him you own the bar number one number two what are you making it mean that you haven’t met somebody you’re excited about in six months? What are you making that mean? Are you making it mean that it’s never gonna happen again? Are you making it mean that he was the only person who had those those traits? Are you making me look good notice what your brain is making that mean? And if you like I think that you need to focus more on your essence based preferences and how you want to feel in the right relationship and focus on how chosen you want to feel and like how much belonging you want to feel and how much like excitement in that area you want to feel kind of get off on what your new bar is after like this hard experience kind of get off on what you want how you want to feel like do that work of getting excited again about what your bar gets to be you get to jump off from the ex six months ago who raised the bar I’m so glad he did. You know our brains want to see evidence that what we want exists in the world and use him as a jumping off point. What if I could want even more than this? What if I What would I want? Right and then get the to the thank you more please challenge Okay, the thank you more please challenge I break it down in episode 124. or, and it is how you are going to show your brain that there is data that what you want does exist, okay? So it’s a very important challenge for you to do after you identify your essence based preferences in episode 135. And like kind of get off on what you want, then go out in the world and look for tiny, tiny pieces of evidence that what you want does exist in people that you might be attracted to. You are for the few not for the many. There will be people that are not right for you, they make themselves apparent you can practice the thought people who are not right for me make themselves apparent quickly. Those who are right for me also make themselves apparent quickly. That’s my recommended thought for you to practice this week, next week, this month forever. Notice what would make that thought feel true, right? If you had the skills to ask qualifying disqualifying questions, if you knew deeply what you wanted, if you were very rooted and excited and for what you wanted. And if you had evidence to believe that what you want does actually exist, like all of these pieces, contribute to believing those thoughts. That’s my coaching for you, you’ve got this right. And if you feel like you want additional support, if you feel like you want a community of people around you who are actively encouraging you to raise your bar and own your own fucking bar, then join us inside the brazen breakthrough, I would love to have you we would love to have you to help you build that confidence, that clear path forward, that community full of belonging full of people who are also intentionally dating, and who are expanding into their desires more and more each day, we’re attracting the best relationships of their lives actively every single day. Whether or not you’re going on exciting dates does not matter to me, because it only takes one person and you don’t know when that’s going to happen. And so I want you to challenge you to only go on dates with people for whom you have intrigue, or for whom you are excited to meet with whom you’re excited to meet for whom I don’t have any clue. But you’re that’s the homework beyond the other homework. Again, these listener episodes I’m gonna give you the fuckin homework. I love homework. I love a journal. My program the reason right two is a gorgeous type A dream. With like literal spreadsheets and Google documents for your dating life that are gonna give you life if you like that sort of thing. It’s not about rigidity. It’s about structure and clarity and confidence So you’ve got this. I’ve got your back. Let me know how it goes. You can DM me on Instagram at date brazen. I love hearing from you. And yeah, you fucking got this. Love y’all talk to you soon. And you can join us in the brazen breakthrough with a link in the description of this episode or at date brazen.com. And again, the minute you join is the minute you start getting results inside the brazen breakthrough. The goal is to attract the love of your life with more clarity, ease and confidence than you thought possible. So let’s do this. Talk to y’all next week. Bye. Okay, bye.