From the age of 14, I was a serial dater.  I never went more than a few weeks without a boyfriend.  I didn’t feel right if I wasn’t “in love”. And each guy was “the one”.  

Until he wasn’t.

Most of my relationships ended with the guy cheating on me. I didn’t really see it as a particularly unusual pattern. Most of the men I grew up around also cheated, so I think I had made the conclusion at an early age that men cheat.

Until I realized I couldn’t accept that theory anymore. 

I was out with a group of friends shortly after a particularly difficult break up and one of my male friends asked me to think of at least one guy I knew who had never cheated. And then, all of a sudden, I had a list of them. Damn. There goes that theory. Now I was forced to think of why I was attracting the cheaters.

But was I really attracting cheaters? Because not every guy I dated had cheated on their ex-girlfriends. Oh God! There must be something wrong with me!

I vowed to take a break from dating while I figured this out.

It was the best gift I ever gave myself.  It wasn’t easy and I was really lonely but it was vital to my journey to find love.

I read. I went to workshops. I watched videos. I devoured everything I could find on self help and love.

I heard over and over again that you can’t attract love if you don’t love yourself first. Intellectually that seemed obvious. And I thought I understood but it wasn’t until I asked myself if I felt worthy of love that the tears really flowed. 

Bingo. For a variety of reasons, I thought I had to be a certain way in order to be loved by a man.

You can only pretend for so long in a relationship and then the real you comes out. 

When I dissected my past relationships I realized that things started to change when the real me came out. The real me held some resentment that I had to be someone other than myself. And I can imagine the guys were wondering what happened to the person they first started dating! 

Now, let me be clear. I am not condoning their behaviour nor am I making excuses for them. But every partnership has two people and I needed to look at my side of the downfall.  Since there was a pattern in how each relationship was ending, I needed to get real with myself and what I was bringing to the table. I needed to look at myself and what I needed to evolve within me in order to attract a different kind of love.

What I wasn’t expecting was that the new love I would fall for would be me.

I finally got it. 

Love myself first so that I can attract real love into my life.  And that started with believing that I was worthy of love.  That was what I had been missing in my search for love!

What about you? Have you been desiring something in your life but it seems to evade you? Do you truly feel worthy of it? 

If self worth is a struggle for you, let’s set up a time to chat. It was the support I received in releasing the struggle that got me to a place of Love. I’d love to offer the same opportunity to you.

Sending you so much Love on your journey,

Nicole xo