5 Easy Steps to Navigating Uncertainty in a New Relationship

Entering into a new relationship is filled with excitement, fun and discovery. Something that many people often unexpectedly discover is that new relationships can also be filled with a whole lot of uncertainty. Whether you feel some anxiety about your new beau or simply need some guidance in navigating the uncertainty of your new relationship, I’ve got you covered my friend. Keep reading for five easy steps to kicking those feelings of uncertainty in a new relationship to the curb and getting back to the excitement and fun.

1. Know That You’re Not Alone

The thing with uncertainty in new relationships is that everybody goes through it. Chances are, even, that your new partner is experiencing the same feelings and thoughts as you.

Something you need to understand is that these feelings don’t come from a negative place. They’re a completely natural reaction to a new situation and the fact that you’re having them means that you care. Don’t let them trip you up!

With time, and with open communication, you’ll begin to feel more secure in your new partnership and the initial anxiety will fade

2. Embrace the Unknown

There’s something incredibly exciting about the unknown, and this is your chance to take any uncertainty you might be feeling and turn it into spontaneity. Take this opportunity of getting to know someone new to challenge yourself to step outside of your comfort zone and try things that you normally wouldn’t.

Allow your mind to wander and get away from your regular thought patterns and routine for a little while. Indoor skydiving for your next date? Maybe. A whirlwind weekend trip to the big city? Sure!

3. Find Your Pep Talk Pal

Everyone has that one person in his or her life who, no matter what the circumstances, can turn a crummy situation upside down. They recognize your best traits and forgive you for your faults. At the same time, they have a knack for holding you to a higher standard. Having this person in your life, especially during times when you might be feeling a little uncertain, is even more important.

Whether she’s your best friend from college, your sister, your co-worker or your mom, don’t hesitate to reach out to your go-to girlfriend when you need a pick me up. They know you’re amazing and just how to give you the pep talk that you need. Sometimes it is just a simple, "focus on what you do like about him, rather than all the things you are worried about", coming from a trusted friend.

Choose wisely who you go to for advice.

4. Keep Confident and Carry On

While you might find it tempting, you can’t accept your truth as the truth. If he takes a little while to text you back, don’t let your mind run wild about all the reasons you haven't heard from him right away. Distract yourself with activities that make you feel good.

There’s a saying that goes, “Fake it ‘til you make it,” and sometimes the idea really works. Even when you’re not feeling 100% confident, if you actively work to exude confidence you will likely actually find your confidence – and your confidence in your new relationship – starts to boost itself. You chose each other because you saw potential so don't be afraid to keep pursuing that potential in an active way to see where things go.

Be open minded, be aware of what makes you feel good and bad about yourself and carry on getting to know each other.

To your authenticity,

Love, Christine

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Dance, Swim, Grow, Repeat: All About My Exciting Travel to Portugal

I’m back from my travel to Portugal and boy oh boy, are there stories to tell. :)

But first, how are you? How has your summer been?I’d love to hear from you.

On August 3rd, I boarded a train in Lisbon headed for Castelo Branco. I had been told by one of the festival organizers that I would know I was on the right train because everyone will look like they were going to a festival. Backpacks, carefree clothing, big smiles and music. She was right. The variety of people that I watched board the train made for some very interesting people watching. Little did I know that people watching would become my favorite past-time over the next 7 days.

I quickly made friends with some women from Germany and we chatted most of the way. All the languages around me were either German, French or Portuguese, all sharing the same excitement of getting to the festival.

Once we arrived at the festival site, it felt like such a union of likeminded souls. Here we were, gathered, practically in the middle of nowhere, all for the same reasons - to dance, to sing, to swim, to grow, to connect and to interact peacefully with each other for 7 days.. The fact that 50,000 people were able to do this without a single speck of police presence is remarkable. The theme for the week circled around:

We are one.

Country flags were prohibited because that can cause rivalry, even if it’s friendly. The message is that we are all humans looking to lead a life of meaning, fuelled by love. Now I don’t want you to get the idea we were all holding hands, singing Kumbaya the whole time….it was much more than that….

If you can picture almost like a little city complete with a supermarket, restaurant area, homes (tents!), shopping (local artists) and more. On each day, you could choose to go to a yoga or meditation class in the morning and then see an interesting lecture in the afternoon before you got your dance on in the evening. I preferred the early mornings and was often packing it in before the all-night dancing began but there was one night where the moon was out in full and dancing on the beach for 3 hours straight to a live DJ seemed like the perfect thing to do. :) The days were really hot so swimming in the big lake became my siesta and let’s just say, if you were wearing a bathing suit, you were in the minority. Haha.

I’ll be sharing again about my adventure to Portugal (and working as a Couple’s Therapist!) but I’d like to give you your coaching exercise for the week.

COACHING EXERCISE FOR YOU

Think of an area of your life where you feel your mind has shifted but you still behave the same way. For example, you may have a new perspective on recycling, but yet you still don’t recycle. You may have a new perspective on guns and war but you still allow your kids to play war-themed video games. This week, put some action behind any area where your mind has shifted but your behaviour hasn’t. Then TELL ME ABOUT IT! :) I would love to know what you are taking on.

I’d love to hear your thoughts so be sure to leave a comment below. :)

To your authenticity,

Love, Christine

Want to Become a Certified Dating Coach and Help Others Find Love?
Click Here to Get Your FREE DATE COACH STARTER KIT!

4 Steps to Building Self-Esteem

On a coaching call last night, a client of mine asked me, “I’ve become aware I have some serious self-esteem issues and I’m wondering if you can give me some tips around that”. He is someone that has had limited success with women and it’s not because women don’t find him attractive, it’s because he doesn’t believe he is attractive both physically and emotionally.

The main thing I want to point out here is we are talking about building self-esteem and building confidence and I am not talking about “how to wake up tomorrow with the highest self-esteem you’ve ever experienced”. As nice as that would be, you would no doubt wake up the following morning feeling lower than low.  Building confidence (not over-nighting confidence) requires you to lay out a personal growth plan, and as a life coach and relationship coach, here are my suggested steps on how to do so.

First:

Start looking at the big picture. In relative terms you are here on earth for a very, very short time and then….you are gone. That’s it. Do you want to look back on your life here on earth and think, “gosh, I’m so glad I wasn’t able to develop healthy self-esteem and I’m so glad I let that limit my opportunities in life.” No! You want to look back on your life and be grateful you found ways to shine a positive light on yourself and continuously develop your self-esteem on a daily basis so you could accomplish everything you came here to do. Always remember that life is a precious, precious gift and the fact that you beat out all the other sperm/egg combinations to be here is truly miraculous.

Second:

Decide on one thing a day you are going to do to build your self-esteem. Do not make a gigantic list. Just one simple thing. I caution you to put something down like ‘go to the gym everyday’ because we both know what’s going to happen on the day you don’t go, you are going to beat yourself up and hurt your self-esteem. It needs to be something very simple like looking yourself in the mirror and smiling instead of frowning at least once a day. Start simple.

Third:

Next, don’t avoid people. Learn how to talk to people. Now you may be thinking, “Um, Christine, I know how to talk to people.” My point here is that you need to talk to more people to gain practice in feeling good about yourself when around others. Often that is a trigger, we feel good about ourselves around our own home but as soon as we are at work, on the street, at an event, something happens to our self-esteem. So when I say, learn how to talk to people, I am referring to learn how to talk and interact with people and still feel good about yourself at the same time. This takes practice, just recognize the thoughts that come to mind and do your best to acknowledge them and then ignore them.

Fourth:

Don’t  judge yourself in the process. Sometimes my clients will try one day of building their self-esteem and if they don’t see drastic changes, they say it doesn’t work. Building self-esteem is a skill that you need to practice every single day. Building any skill requires practice and just like if you were a professional athlete, you would have good days and bad days but you are continuously practicing and moving forward. So please don’t be hard on yourself, celebrate your little wins, even if you managed to counter-act one negative thought, that is progress.

These 4 steps will get you well on your way to building self-esteem and building self-confidence. Be kind to yourself and have patience with the process.

To your authenticity,

Love, Christine

Want to Become a Certified Dating Coach and Help Others Find Love?
Click Here to Get Your FREE DATE COACH STARTER KIT!