How To Find Your Soulmate | Dating For Empaths

One of the things that I advise people on a lot is relationships, especially women, knowing that they are attracting the wrong kind of guy and want to get on track to really attracting the man of their dreams, a deep spiritually aligned partner.

This has also been my story, so I’ve made all these mistakes and seeing the benefit of doing this work.

We’re going to talk about the five stages that are necessary to go from crappy patterns, crappy relationship to soul aligned, fulfilling relationships that really support your life and magnify the love that you put out into the world.

The benefit of understanding these five stages is that you get the roadmap to success because of troubles in relationship are often due to confusion and blind spots in our own system. It can be hard to know where you are or where to start. You can see there’s a problem but we don’t know where to start or how to change things. So understanding these five stages, will help you know where you are and what you need to do at each stage.

Stage 0: Identify That There's A Problem

Stay zero – the place where you are before our begin is a certain level of understanding.

In your observer mid, you have to already have noticed and identified that there’s been a problem. Maybe you’ve noticed that you keep attracting men who don’t want to commit or be in relationship or men who have issues with substances.

This was actually the case for me four or five years ago. I started dating as a practice and I started noticing that I was attracting men who seem to have an unhealthy relationship with alcohol. I’ve never really been a drinker or use drugs or things like that. It was kind of odd.

For me in the wider pattern, just there’s no place in this life that I’ve struggled more than in blind spots around relating with men so this has been my growing edge in a place that was the hardest for me to dive into. I would say the place that has brought the most fulfillment and satisfaction.

So step zero is that, “I know that there’s a problem, I see the patterns that are reoccurring and I want to stop and I’m at the point of doing something differently”. So that’s where we’re coming from.

Stage 1: Define Your Values

Stage one is to clearly define your values. Now stick with me because this might not seem like the first step. What people want to do in the first step is dive right in or get going or magically do something different.

Unfortunately, to really change a deep seated pattern, we need to redo the groundwork that’s there. The first part is to clearly define your values.

What that means has a couple steps to it. One is to look at past patterns, not just with yourself but also with men or women that you’ve dated. This applies to all genders, all types of relationships.

This is a period of really going inward and working on the foundation. No dating, no sex, no romantic involvement during this time, you need to have a clear slate to observe your blind spots and patterns and you cannot do that if you’re involved with people and going through the dating/courting process.

While you’re in stage one, keep it clear and an exercise that you can do is to start to define for yourself in writing on a piece of paper, 8 1/2×11 on one side of the page. Write down for each line every ideal quality that you would like your ideal person to have.

Then in the following column, write the name of your last relationship at the top and for each of those qualities in this new column for the past partner, writing down where that person fell in that category.

For example, if your ideal partner is very thoughtful and gives little tokens of appreciation, maybe he brings you flowers, maybe he brings you a small treat from the grocery store. Whatever it is that you feel fulfilled by, that’s the essence of what you’re looking for. Then you put your last partner’s name, and you notice, did he do that? Did he not?

You can do that for several past partners of how they match up to this ideal. This is really important in this first stage because it will really help to clarify one, what is you actually want in a partner and two, where there’s been some patterns that are not going well across several different relationships.

Stage 2: Heart's Desire vs Mind Ideas

In step number two, we separate what I call your Heart’s desires from your mind ideas.

One of the things that happens when we start to think about our ideal relationship is these thinking mind ideas are going to come in from the natural fantasies that we’ve had as maybe a child or our Prince charming kind of things.

These are things from the thinking mind side that are like, “Oh my ideal guy, he’s definitely a lawyer. He definitely plays soccer. He definitely is six foot three and drives this kind of car. Or maybe it’s he’s this kind of astrological sign or he’s a natural medicine person like me”.

What you have to start to do is write all those things down, the things that you think in your mind of what you want and then we start to separate out. Are those thinking mind ideas or are they deep heart’s desire?

I use this concept a lot in my teachings and it’s a way to separate out what’s just the thinking mind ideas, which generally do not lead us down a good path and cause us to suffer continually. Or is it a deeper heart’s desire of something that i want to really experience in this lifetime?

Let’s take the mind thinking idea of, “Oh my ideal guy is definitely a soccer player”. To get down to what is the actual heart’s desire of that part, we have to think about what’s the essence of why I feel really jazzed about being in relationship with a man who plays soccer. Is it that he’s athletic or that he’s strong or that I know that he can work well with other people as a team or that I like to go see him do things or perform while he’s having a game”?

Take the conceptual aspect of like a label—soccer player and pull out the meaningful part that is closer to what you would want to experience as your heart’s desire.

As you go forward looking for relationship, you want to be able to identify the essence of that and release the thinking mind because you might meet someone who’s not a soccer player but still fulfills these essence of the things you want. Maybe you meet a guy who does some kind of athletic parkour competitions. He’s not a soccer player, but it still meets that essence of being an athletic person. You getting to go watch him and be seen and see how he works with the team.

See what I’m saying? Don’t limit yourself by the mind stuff. Pull out the heart’s desires.

Stage 3: Yin Yang Communication

Stage three is to deeply understand what I call Yin Yang communication.

Now this is a whole topic by itself. This is a heavy part of my Subtle Body Certification Course that I train people in, but the nuts and bolts is that there is an energetic way that men and women (or women and women and men and men) of different energy types interact.

If you don’t understand how this energy cycle and communication works, you’re shooting yourself in the foot in relationship. This is very akin to understanding what you could also call Yin Yang communication to take it out of a gender place, but it’s also saying how to really be in your feminine, how to really honor and communicate with the masculine and how to act in an embodied feminine ways in your speech and in your behavior that actually get your needs met. This is a whole fricking science unto itself, and it’s one of the things that has made the most difference in my life romantically and even just interpersonally with men. It’s made interaction with men so much more fun, fulfilling and has deepened the intimacy in my life.

So understanding and watching your communication and starting to learn about what does it mean to really embody feminine communication—the priorities of the feminine and the masculine.

Stage 4: Practice The Art of Dating

Stage four is to practice the art of dating.

Now, this was a big one for me. I had had relationships throughout my twenties. Some of them long, several years but I realized that I had never actually dated. I’d always kind of just been friends with people and then kind of got into relationship and that was okay. What I realized was I had no effing clue about how to do the art of dating!

What the art of dating really means is similar to that Yin Yang communication – to understand how to know yourself at a deeper level, how to interact and hold your energy bubble in a way that is interactive, playful but also self respectful and filled with self love when you’re interacting with men.

In stage four, what we’re doing is in a somewhat controlled non-overly, fire work-y, on-overly sparkly, non- sexual environment.

You start to practice dating ideally with multiple people. Now this was a hard one for me. I was like, “What? You wanted me to date several people at the same time? That’s crazy! That’s unethical”.

Remember that I just said this stage four is still a non-sexual stage. there’s no getting deep with any one person. What you’re going on dates, you’re getting to know people, you’re learning how to embody those feminine Yin Yang communication skills that you just got back in stage three and you’re creating a feedback loop for the effect that those things have.

This is when you’re really starting to create a new pattern, but you’re doing it with multiple people at the same time so you don’t get too entangled or trigger deep emotional codependent or other sticky patterns in the meantime by dating multiple people, and you’re not having sex with anyone.

Here’s a side note about sex:

Outside of any other moral or ethical kind of a thing, on a physiological, biological level, women cannot have non-emotional sex. What that means is that on some level when a woman especially has an orgasm, even with deep kissing, there is a change in the hormonal profile. There’s the creation of the hormone oxytocin, a bonding hormone. As soon as those chemicals are getting triggered in your mind, any face that’s there at that moment is going to look a ton better because of you hormonal change.

No, that doesn’t mean that you’re going to get ultimately trapped in a relationship but if you really want to create the relationship of your dreams, if you really want to undo old unhelpful self-harming patterns, it is so important during these initial stages to keep that slate clear and not trigger your bonding hormones at that time because they will usurp your brain and you will not be able to make the objective discernment that you need before you go deeply into relationship with someone. So that’s my soapbox on that one.

Stage four is to practice the art of dating with multiple people at the same time in a non-zingy, no “acting on the fireworks way”. One of my dear friends and kind of an older male mentor to me while I was going through this time said to me, “Leslie, there is no more strike while the iron is hot for you”.

So you might notice, depending on your energetic type or patterning, that you might be a little bit addicted to this chemistry aspect of relationship. You might love just being in the feeling of it. And just going with it. Well, sorry to say that doesn’t work here anymore at stage four if what you want is to really overcome your pattern. No more strike while the iron is hot!

Stage 5: Assess the Person Objectively

Stage five is the decision tipping point between going into deeper, possibly sexual relationship with one person. Before that time you are in stage five which is non – emotional objective assessment of where this individual falls back into those evaluations that you’ve done in stage number one.

Whip out your sheet that you’ve created with your ideal qualities and make a column for this new potential person and see where do they line up, where do they fall in line with your values? What are their challenged spots? Everyday has them and nobody’s perfect.

This is the stage that you start to evaluate this person’s strong suits and their downsides in the stuff that they’re working on. Are they okay with for me or is that a deal breaker?

This is also the place where you’re really looking for red flags. You’re also asking your friends and trusted advisor. If you’ve got a coach, a spiritual guide or mentor, or a therapist that you’re working with, these are good places to bring all of this information together and then make the choice whether or not you’re going deeper into relationship, which has its own phases.

So to you review the stages that you go through:

Stage 0: Shit’s not working. I need to do something differently. Therefore…

Stage 1: I clearly define my values. I go back and look at the patterns that I’ve gone through in relationship, what I’ve attracted in men in relationship.

Stage 2: I separate out my mind ideas of what I thought is perfect for me with actually getting down to what are the heart’s desires of what I’m wanting to experience.

Stage 3: Then I learn to deeply understand this flow of Yin Yang communication and I pay deep attention to the words and the way that I interact with men when it’s going well, when it’s not going well, and how I can adjust what I’m understanding about communication to get a better outcome and to get my needs met.

Stage 4: Practice the art of dating with several people at one time before things get sexy.

Stage 5: Having a non-emotional, objective assessment of the pros and cons of being in deeper relationship with this person.

I hope that has been helpful for you.

I know it can seem overwhelming, but trust me, you can get there.

I love this stuff and part of my work is to help people along the path of self mastery and learning how to be skillful in relationship is part of that. I’ve got Subtle Body Certifications and training on Yin Yang communication.

If you get the hint that I might be helpful for you in this life on your personal spiritual growth path, reach out and we can chat more. I would love to be of service to you and your health and personal growth. You are a soul with a body and I am wishing you great things!

Disclaimer: This program is not intended to be a substitute for professional mental health or counseling services. No practitioner-patient relationship is established and the training content is for educational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice. These statements have not been evaluated by the FDA and nothing here is intended to diagnose, cure or treat any disorders.

Leslie Huddart L.Ac.