Protecting your Inner Child
Hi Sabrina, Long time listener. I get excited every time I see a new episode. My favourite episode was 46 “Stepping in your power” and would love to hear more about protecting my inner child. I am having a situation where I moved “too quickly” and trusted someone I needed to give more time. That led to disappointment and now attachment to someone who left me. I am trying to find myself and my joy, while also setting up boundaries so they don’t come back and shake my confidence. I realize they gave my inner child joy and I am having the hardest time convincing my inner child that I can protect them. What tools or exercises can you do to build confidence in the inner child that you can protect them?
Intimacy too soon?
Thank you for being such a sex positive person. I consider myself very sexual as I learned the freedom to express myself sexually after growing up in a very religious home that shamed sex. I am wanting to find my partner and sex is a very important part of a relationship for me. If I am feeling the connection, I will be intimate on the first date. Many times a guy will lose interest after that and I am left wondering if it would of been different had I waited and built more of an emotional connection. I am also bisexual and I very much enjoy threesomes. I feel like when I disclose my sexuality and I am asked about threesomes, it gives the wrong impression to men I am dating. I know you already did a bonus episode about this, but I would like a little more content on this. Also, how do you feel about when someone asks you what your "body count" is? I feel this is a very disrespectful question and I have shut it down in the past, but then I sound defensive. When asked this, I usually say my body count has nothing to do with my sexual health. What you should be asking me is about my sexual health rather than how many people I have been with.
Twice Divorced
I am a two time divorcee and I struggle with when to tell a person I am interested in that I have been divorced twice. Usually, my latest marriage will come up in conversation when discussing what we learned about ourselves from our last relationship, but I feel a lot of shame around brining up the fact that I was married twice. My first marriage was when I was 22 and it ended up becoming physically abusive. I jumped right into the next relationship with me second ex husband and now I see where I made some mistakes. My question is, when do I disclose this information and how do I disclose it without sounding like I am trauma dumping?
Finance syndrome “I’m not ready for a relationship”
Moved to NYC (cultural shock!). Great connection with a friend of friends (knows my ex which doesn’t help). Kind and careful guy. Flirting, 1 month texting, i come back from holidays we have 1 intense week of dating and hooking up (as a secret to our friends bcs of ex). Super cool chill vibe. But works in finance job and got staffed in a deal working crazy hours. Slowly started being MIA and cancelled all dates “because of work” without trying to make up for it. Got confused by the change in attitude and pushed for a chat to understand. Cancelled the chat. Red flag? Finally in a night out with friends we ended drunk chatting and he admits “got overwhelmed, really like you but dont want a relationship”. So early for this sentence! But still so much chemistry and good banter, we end up laughing about it and slept again together. Morning after I reinforced the need to “step up the game” if he wants to be with me - don’t just disappear, or let’s just cut it off. Starts texting again for a few days but fades again. Do I give space until the work load is back to normal and assess if it was just work? Hate that I’ve become so keen and vulnerable over text and doesn’t feel reciprocated
Being the only single friend & finding it hard to date
Love the podcast so much! I’m so happy I subscribed to the premium, not sure if this went through as I asked this a week ago but I’ve been single and celibate for a year after having not the best experiences with dating and relationships. I know it’s part of life to just not have everyone you meet be for you but I’ve noticed I only get to like 1-2 dates with people & nothing seems to be progressing past that. They decide to just be friends or they are just not interested past that and say I’m so lovely they just don’t feel a “spark”. For context, almost all my friends are in relationships, most have never even been single longer than a couple of months, and when they are, they have guys they’re always seeing. Most of them are also women who have only dated men even if some are also attracted to women (they say it’s easier to be pursued by guys which I agree to to some extent & that women are intimidating). I’m a lesbian so I only date women and I will say that it makes the dating pool smaller & I think less girls are more likely to be serious with their first queer experience. I actually find it quite easy to meet people and make friendships but with dating it just seems like I keep meeting people and the dates goes well & they wanna see me again up until the 2nd date or 3rd date and I get cancelled on or they just say they wanna be friends and theyre just saying that to be nice. I have enough friends, I don’t really need more. I am trying to not get discouraged & I feel like because I’m a lesbian and autistic it can be more difficult for me to make the date seem like a date and maybe I’m not flirtatious or forward enough? As much as being celibate and single has been good for me, I can’t help but think, it seems so much easier for my friends to find relationships and it just works out with them & I kind of get exhausted having to go on first dates all the time and not seeing it progress. I know I’m beautiful and have a great personality and would be a lovely girlfriend to someone. A lot of my friends are like “oh just enjoy being single” but respectfully I have been single since I was 19 & it’s easy for them in relationships to say that when most of them haven’t been for as long as me. I love them, I just wish they would know that I’m allowed to find this frustrating. Maybe if more of my friends were single it wouldn’t feel as isolating sometimes being the only single friend. I don’t have dating apps anymore because I just found the same thing kept happening & it wasn’t working for me. But when I was overseas, it seemed to be so easy to go on dates for me because I wasn’t having any expectations of wanting it to go anywhere because I was just visiting the place. For added context, I’ve only had one 7 month very turbulent ldr at 17 & one messy situationship at 21 where the girl was saying she loved me but couldn’t commit because of my autism (kinda hurt me a lot but I take ownership in allowing that situation to go for so long). I’m 24 now and really want to date with intention, I guess do you have any advice on not getting discouraged and trusting that the right person will come in time?