In today's episode of 'Finding the Guardian of Your Soul,' Lisa dives into the challenges of surrendering to the dating process and being open to growth and learning. She talks about the importance of self-improvement and personal accountability in dating and learning to embody the qualities you seek in a partner.
Lisa explains that both men and women find the dating process challenging and that men today may feel hesitant to approach women because of a fear of being rejected or because of the Me Too Movement. She offers a personal and detailed account of her experiences dealing with narcissistic individuals and provides professional insights drawing from her own struggles.
Lisa shares how a willingness to face the worst parts of herself led her to a fulfilling and enduring 21-year marriage. To illustrate how facing adversity can lead to our biggest breakthroughs, she shares about being humiliated by and standing up to her mentor while getting her Master’s degree.
Quotes:
"I am so disheartened when I read all of the reports out there about how many people are giving up on finding love and resigning themselves to staying single."
— Lisa Shield
"If we see life as a school and all of the experiences we're having as life lessons, we are able to move forward in a better way towards our goals and dreams."
— Lisa Shield
"They've actually done studies, and they've shown that when it comes to romantic signaling, women actually send the first message, not the man. So the woman signals to the man that it is safe for him to approach her."
— Lisa Shield
"You've got to send men the signals. You've got to smile. You've got to run your fingers through your hair and flirt a bit, or men won't approach you in public."
— Lisa Shield
"Narcissists can tell which women will be harder from the ones that will be easier to manipulate.
— Lisa Shield
"You don't want a man who offers you false flattery to win your favor, which is what narcissists often do."
— Lisa Shield
"Surrendering to this process means acknowledging that you have blind spots and things you don't know, you don't know. And that you start to reach out to coaches and mentors and people like me who can actually help you see your patterns and show you how to break them."
— Lisa Shield
Lisa Shield [00:00:02]:
Hello, everybody. I'm Lisa Shield, and this is finding the guardian of your soul. It's great to be here. I'm excited about today's topic, surrendering to the dating process. I have so much to say on this topic, I don't even know where to begin. I think it's a very, very important subject for everybody who's dating. First of all, I want to say that I am so disheartened when I read all of the reports out there about how many people are giving up on finding love and resigning themselves to staying single. One of the problems with that is because it's become such a huge number of people, more than half of adults are now living single without a partner.
Lisa Shield [00:01:02]:
And because of that, it makes it seem like that's the norm, that that's the way it should be. And it gives so many people a justification for giving up on love and partnership. Right? If so many people aren't finding love and they're not looking for love, why should I put myself out there? Why should I date? Why should I go through all of.
Lisa Shield [00:01:27]:
The heartache of looking for somebody when.
Lisa Shield [00:01:32]:
Most people are living alone and don't have partners? And I have to say, for me, look, if you really don't want a.
Lisa Shield [00:01:43]:
Partner, don't go find a partner.
Lisa Shield [00:01:45]:
I am not imposing my views on anybody. I am speaking from the other side of the coin. I am the person who knew that I didn't want to spend my life alone. I knew that I had work to do if I was going to find the right partner. I had been in a failed marriage. I stayed with my ex husband for 13 years. As I've mentioned before in a marriage.
Lisa Shield [00:02:14]:
That, looking back, knowing what I know.
Lisa Shield [00:02:19]:
Now, I would never have gotten into that relationship. But that is what relationships do. If we really look at them in the right way, they teach us they're incubators for what to do and what not to do. So if we're smart and if we see life as a school and all of the experiences we're having as life lessons, they're teaching us how to move forward and be able to. They're teaching us how to be able to move forward in a better way towards our goals and dreams. And if we don't fail and we don't make mistakes, there's no way we can learn how to do this better, how to be better. And so I stayed in that marriage for 13 years because even though I knew it wasn't the right relationship for me, I also really worried about whether or not I would be able to find another partner. I had struggled to find my first husband, and it wasn't easy.
Lisa Shield [00:03:37]:
In fact, we dated for five years, and then we broke up. And then I went back to him because I was alone. And in the year that we were apart, I thought I would meet somebody, and I didn't. I remained single, and I felt lonely, and I didn't want to be alone. So I went back to him for.
Lisa Shield [00:03:59]:
Another seven years, eight years.
Lisa Shield [00:04:04]:
So another eight years I went back.
Lisa Shield [00:04:06]:
To him, and it was disheartening.
Lisa Shield [00:04:11]:
I wish I had known, once I left him, how to move forward and not open that door again. So our relationships are not meant to make us afraid and put up more walls and teach us that we do.
Lisa Shield [00:04:30]:
Not want a partner.
Lisa Shield [00:04:33]:
Part of why we go through them is so that we can grow and learn. And when, anytime we enter into an experience, we don't always know, we know the outcome we think we want. But sometimes the outcome we get is very different.
Lisa Shield [00:04:55]:
Sometimes it's a lesson and something that.
Lisa Shield [00:04:59]:
We need to learn along the way so that we can have that outcome.
Lisa Shield [00:05:04]:
I remember when I was in my.
Lisa Shield [00:05:08]:
Master'S program, it was a two year master's program, and I was, I think, three quarters of the way through my.
Lisa Shield [00:05:16]:
Second year, and it was a master's in spiritual psychology.
Lisa Shield [00:05:23]:
And I didn't have a lot of issues and problems coming up for me. During that time, I had been doing a lot of personal growth work, and I was in a really good place. Many of the students were there because they were working on their personal growth. I'm not saying I wasn't working on my personal growth, and I was all healed, but I didn't have a lot of the big dramatic issues that I had had in the past when I went through that course. And so I went there to learn techniques and to learn more about myself and to get my master's in spiritual psychology.
Lisa Shield [00:06:05]:
But the lesson I walked away with.
Lisa Shield [00:06:11]:
The deepest learning I took away from that course, was not the material I learned and the experience of going through the course. I actually had probably two months before I graduated, two or three months before my graduation, I had a run in during class with one of my teachers.
Lisa Shield [00:06:34]:
There were two teachers, and one of.
Lisa Shield [00:06:38]:
The teachers was not on stage. She was in the back of the room doing some work, and her husband was taking questions.
Lisa Shield [00:06:46]:
A voice inside me said, do not.
Lisa Shield [00:06:50]:
Ask your question unless Mary is up at the front of the room. So I raised my hand, I overrode my intuition, and I stood up and.
Lisa Shield [00:07:02]:
I told Ron, her husband, what was.
Lisa Shield [00:07:07]:
Coming up for me. And I had felt very upset because I had been raising my hand. We only met for one weekend a month throughout this course.
Lisa Shield [00:07:18]:
So there were twelve or no, eight.
Lisa Shield [00:07:20]:
I think it was eight months long and eight weekends. And I had been raising my hand to share and not being called on. And I would sit and raise my hand and raise my hand and all kinds of other people were getting picked, but not me. And so I started building up anger and resentment about that. And Mary at one point even said to the group, I would love to hear from some people that we don't always hear know. There's always those people who just put up their hand constantly and always have something to say. And I had been raising my hand and wasn't called on.
Lisa Shield [00:08:03]:
And Ron started attacking me and saying.
Lisa Shield [00:08:09]:
Oh, so you're saying I'm upset because. And you're blaming us.
Lisa Shield [00:08:14]:
And I said, look, I have been.
Lisa Shield [00:08:17]:
Raising my hand over and over and.
Lisa Shield [00:08:20]:
Over again and I haven't been called.
Lisa Shield [00:08:23]:
On and this has gone on for several weekends now. So yes, I am feeling upset. And so he turned to the group.
Lisa Shield [00:08:33]:
Of over 250 students and he said.
Lisa Shield [00:08:37]:
How many people have raised their hand and not gotten called on?
Lisa Shield [00:08:41]:
Well, everybody in that room more or.
Lisa Shield [00:08:44]:
Less had raised their hand and not gotten called on, but not for several weekends in a row. And it was an unfair thing for him to do to make me wrong in front of the class.
Lisa Shield [00:08:58]:
And I literally just felt myself imploding.
Lisa Shield [00:09:03]:
I knew whatever I said was going to be the wrong thing to say. And I said to know he made a joke about something and I said, you know, ron, I often find your.
Lisa Shield [00:09:14]:
Humor funny, but I'm not laughing right now.
Lisa Shield [00:09:19]:
I'm really serious. And he continued to be a jerk. And so at one point I said, you know what, thank you very much. And I sat down and I just.
Lisa Shield [00:09:31]:
Said to myself, okay, anything you say.
Lisa Shield [00:09:36]:
Right now is not going to go.
Lisa Shield [00:09:38]:
In your favor, so it's better just to sit down.
Lisa Shield [00:09:43]:
And as I sat there, I just felt worse. And so I wound up leaving. I wound up leaving. It was Friday night and it was.
Lisa Shield [00:09:52]:
A three day weekend class and I.
Lisa Shield [00:09:57]:
Spent most of Saturday in a terrible, terrible place. And then Sunday morning I woke up and I said to myself, look, if you don't go back, you're going to miss your opportunity to graduate and get your master's and it's better to go back today. Even if you just sit in the back and listen and not participate, you can sit in the back and you'll be there, and you don't have to put your masters in jeopardy. And going back really took a lot. It really took a lot for me to go back that day, because on Saturday, I had forgotten I had actually written a letter of resignation. I had written a letter to Ron.
Lisa Shield [00:10:46]:
And Mary, and I just said, I.
Lisa Shield [00:10:49]:
Came here because I thought that this was a heart centered, loving course, and I don't feel that that was how I was treated. It doesn't feel safe to me, and I can't continue. And I basically said, look, if I want landmark forum, I'll go to the landmark forum. I'm not here to be treated that way. And so on Sunday, I decided I would go back because then it would give me another month and it would give me the chance to stay in the program. And when I went back, I got a standing ovation from the class, and a few people stood up and shared and said that they felt that me coming back was really courageous and that I was an example for them, of somebody who could feel hurt and not just have to walk away and leave, but that I had the dignity to come back and all. And so I showed them that you could come back and that you didn't have to just leave.
Lisa Shield [00:11:59]:
At the end of the class, at.
Lisa Shield [00:12:01]:
The end of the weekend, I went.
Lisa Shield [00:12:03]:
Up to Ron, and he said something.
Lisa Shield [00:12:07]:
That I felt was said, you know, contrary to popular opinion, I'm not the enemy or I'm not the bad guy, which I thought was really, I don't know, narcissistic, I don't know the right word, but not I'm sorry, or I'm glad you came back. No, he made it about him. And I said I had the wherewithal.
Lisa Shield [00:12:35]:
To say to him, you know, Ron.
Lisa Shield [00:12:37]:
This isn't about you. I said, it's not about you. And I said, I have worked too hard to get to where I am, and I'm not going to set myself back because of something like this. I care too much about me and what I've accomplished, how I feel about myself to let this dictate how I feel about me.
Lisa Shield [00:13:03]:
And I walked away and I finished.
Lisa Shield [00:13:08]:
The course, and I learned a very important lesson from that experience. It wasn't the lesson I came for. If I hadn't surrendered to that process, if I had wanted it to look a certain way and be a certain way, I would have never gotten that lesson. And the lesson for me that I.
Lisa Shield [00:13:32]:
Walked away with, which was in some.
Lisa Shield [00:13:35]:
Ways more powerful and more deeply personal than just what I learned in the course or getting my master's degree was.
Lisa Shield [00:13:46]:
That I learned that I don't have.
Lisa Shield [00:13:50]:
To take things personally, that I don't have to make someone else's bad behavior mean anything about me and that I get to decide who I am and.
Lisa Shield [00:14:03]:
How I feel about myself and that.
Lisa Shield [00:14:06]:
I won't let anybody dictate that to me. And that was a powerful, powerful life lesson. Had I not been in the process and surrendered to the process and if I had been controlling the outcome and how I thought that that should have looked, I would have not walked away with my dignity and my masters, which I did get, I would have left.
Lisa Shield [00:14:36]:
I would have felt hurt.
Lisa Shield [00:14:39]:
I would have made myself into a victim and I had done that in the past, many times, and I wasn't going to do that again in this circumstance.
Lisa Shield [00:14:50]:
So that was a powerful, game changing experience for me.
Lisa Shield [00:14:57]:
And it could have gone many, many ways.
Lisa Shield [00:15:01]:
When it comes to dating, this can.
Lisa Shield [00:15:04]:
Be one of the most triggering experiences anybody can have.
Lisa Shield [00:15:10]:
And it's not for the faint of heart.
Lisa Shield [00:15:13]:
This is not an easy process if you're really fully engaged in it and you're really not just going through the motions or putting yourself online and then saying to yourself, oh, I'm just going to meet some people and this is going to be easy. And I'm going to pop my profile and my pictures up there because I'm so fabulous and my girlfriends tell me I'm fabulous and my mom tells me I'm great and I'm a kick ass boss at work and everybody loves me. So this is going to just be easy.
Lisa Shield [00:15:51]:
It's one of the biggest wake up.
Lisa Shield [00:15:55]:
Calls for so many people. And because so many of us have these very well formed opinions of who we are when it comes to dating.
Lisa Shield [00:16:07]:
And putting ourselves out there and we don't get the results we expect, it can be devastating.
Lisa Shield [00:16:17]:
It can really be devastating.
Lisa Shield [00:16:21]:
And you have to surrender to the process.
Lisa Shield [00:16:25]:
If you're going to get through this, you have to be willing to look at yourself and say to yourself, look, if I'm so wonderful, why am I still single? I meet people every day. I'm out and about. I'm in the world. There's guys all around me. I hear from people all the time. Oh, we met at work. We met at a coffee shop. Oh, yeah, I was out at a Christmas party and we were both newly single and we were comparing our previous relationships.
Lisa Shield [00:17:01]:
And here we are, married later.
Lisa Shield [00:17:07]:
Or.
Lisa Shield [00:17:08]:
I met the love of my life on hinge. I was on there, somebody said, get on hinge, and I met the love of my life there. It isn't an easy process for most of us. And the truth is, we can be fabulous in all these other areas of.
Lisa Shield [00:17:30]:
Our lives, and we can still have.
Lisa Shield [00:17:33]:
A lot to learn when it comes to our love lives.
Lisa Shield [00:17:36]:
And that's the truth.
Lisa Shield [00:17:38]:
Many people don't want to have to learn this. I can tell you, I have a business. I'm learning a lot in my business, and there's a huge learning curve here. I love it. I love what I do. But I also have to say that it's fraught with a lot of learning curves, and it mirrors back to me certain blind spots that I have, certain behaviors and blind spots that I have. It's also taught me some wonderful things about myself. Owning this business has taught me what a great business.
Lisa Shield [00:18:22]:
I'm a wonderful CEO. I'm a wonderful leader in my business. My employees, the people that work with me in the business, they love working with me. They love our mission. I didn't know that until I embarked on this journey. I started out as just a one on one love coach. So by trusting this process and trusting this journey, I hired a coach who I loved. He was amazing, and he helped me structure my business.
Lisa Shield [00:18:56]:
He showed me how to set it up and get it going, how to market myself, how to do sales calls, every single one of those steps along the way, how to create my course, how to deliver my course, how to handle clients who were upset. All kinds of things I had to learn in order to do this business and gain the confidence to do what I'm doing today. And I still have blind spots.
Lisa Shield [00:19:28]:
I still have things I don't know.
Lisa Shield [00:19:32]:
I don't know that come at me from behind, that I have to look at how I manage my money, how I deal with my ad budget, how I budget our income. There are so many things just on the money side. I've proven to myself that I can.
Lisa Shield [00:19:53]:
Make money, but I can also spend it.
Lisa Shield [00:19:57]:
And it's very easy. You can make a million dollars, and it's not hard to spend a million dollars if you're not careful. So I'm learning how to manage money and how to deal with my revenues and my proceeds in order to reinvest them in my business. How to plan for bad months when we don't have a good month and.
Lisa Shield [00:20:22]:
We may have not as many enrollments.
Lisa Shield [00:20:26]:
As we usually do. We're learning all of that. And would it be easy to just fold my hand and walk away?
Lisa Shield [00:20:34]:
Yeah, it would be simple. But I don't want to do that.
Lisa Shield [00:20:39]:
Because I love what I do and I'm good at it. And even if there are blind spots in my knowledge, I know how important it is to work through those things and to humble myself. Humility is a ginormous part of this process.
Lisa Shield [00:20:59]:
Huge.
Lisa Shield [00:21:01]:
And you know what? I can humble myself today and not take things personally and be able to sit with what's going on and instead of feeling like a failure and telling myself, oh, there's no good men out there, or, this isn't going to work for me. It works for other people, but not for me. I was in a mastermind, in the mastermind I was talking about. It's a mastermind group for high level professionals in the coaching world, and I watched other people making a fortune, and I was still struggling. And I wasn't struggling because I didn't have what it takes. Although I didn't, I had to develop.
Lisa Shield [00:21:44]:
Those skills and I had to be willing to take the risks to prove.
Lisa Shield [00:21:50]:
To myself that I had what it took. That was the other thing. We hold ourselves back. You hold yourself back in dating because you're afraid to go for what you really want. You may say to yourself, oh, well, I'm a CEO and I make $250,000 a year, and I deserve to be with a man who's on my level and who makes as much or more than I do and who's going to treat me like a princess. But underneath all of that, you don't know how to receive. You don't know how to be feminine.
Lisa Shield [00:22:27]:
You haven't learned that yet.
Lisa Shield [00:22:30]:
You're a CEO. Maybe you're up in your head using your brain all day, and you don't know how to be feminine. You don't know yet how to let all of that go. Can you be sexy on a date? Can you act smart and put on a show? Probably.
Lisa Shield [00:22:53]:
Have you cultivated your dating Persona that.
Lisa Shield [00:22:58]:
You think, oh, I'm a great date. But maybe you're not getting second or third or fourth dates, or maybe men are ghosting you after three weeks or three months. You have to look at those patterns.
Lisa Shield [00:23:11]:
And ask yourself, what am I doing?
Lisa Shield [00:23:15]:
What am I not seeing? What am I missing? Because I'm the common denominator in all of this. And you have to be willing to humble yourself and surrender to this process if you're going to make the necessary changes and grow through this process so that you can be ready when a great guy sits down across from you on a date. We had one of our mastermind women who was in our high level mastermind program, and she's amazing. I love her so much. And she came on the call to share with the current mastermind women about her success in the program. She met what we call the guardian.
Lisa Shield [00:24:06]:
Of her soul, and she is so.
Lisa Shield [00:24:09]:
Happy blowing up my phone over the holidays with pictures of her and her amazing guy. And she came on the call to share about her experience in the mastermind. And she said a couple, well, many really brilliant things. But one of the things that she said was, before I started this program, I thought I knew what love was. I thought I had been in love. Boy, I didn't have a clue. I never knew what real love is. I never knew what it was meant to be a guardian of someone else's soul and how once I could do that for him, he would do that for me.
Lisa Shield [00:24:58]:
I thought I was just going to get the guy. I was going to be charming. I would sell myself. I'm a realtor. I'm great at sales. I thought this was just another way of selling myself. I'd go out and I'd be all that in a bag of chips, and they would be lining up around the.
Lisa Shield [00:25:16]:
Block to date me or be with.
Lisa Shield [00:25:20]:
Me, and it didn't work out that way. And she said something that was absolutely brilliant.
Lisa Shield [00:25:27]:
She said I missed out.
Lisa Shield [00:25:31]:
I dated quality men and didn't even know it.
Lisa Shield [00:25:36]:
And what I realize is they were.
Lisa Shield [00:25:39]:
Guardian of my soul material, and I blew it. I was so busy with my agenda and trying to seal the deal that.
Lisa Shield [00:25:49]:
I turned them off.
Lisa Shield [00:25:50]:
They could feel it. They could sense my anxiety, and I pushed them away. If she had not been surrendered to this process and to growing and learning and sticking in this journey with us as her guides so that we could.
Lisa Shield [00:26:08]:
Help her see her blind spots, she.
Lisa Shield [00:26:11]:
Would not be where she is today.
Lisa Shield [00:26:15]:
So Yvonne has written, I draw nothing.
Lisa Shield [00:26:20]:
But narcissistic people and have no money and also never have people ask me out.
Lisa Shield [00:26:27]:
What's wrong? Well, Yvonne, I think a lot of.
Lisa Shield [00:26:34]:
People today aren't being asked out just in public. I think that it's easier. First of all, men don't want to seem predatory, and it's a little weird to walk up to somebody in public unless it's an environment like a party or someplace where you would typically meet people. Men don't typically just walk up to women today out of the blue. So that's one piece of it. The second thing is not getting asked out in public, which I assume you mean. I don't know if you're talking about online dating, too. But the other piece of this is women.
Lisa Shield [00:27:18]:
They've actually done studies, and they've shown that when it comes to romantic signaling, women actually send the first message, not the man. So the woman signals to the man that it is safe for him to approach her. And then she gives him sort of a look or a smile or something. That's a come hither message of some kind, and then the man will approach her. And without that signal, most men don't want to get rejected, and so they're not going to make that first move. So you have to be sending those signals. I had a girlfriend who really got asked out a lot in public, and she engaged men all the time. And she was not looking at her phone or looking down or just waiting for guys to approach her.
Lisa Shield [00:28:18]:
She would literally look at them and smile and really engage them, and they would come over to her. But you have to do that. You've got to send them the signals. You've got to smile. You've got to run your fingers through your hair and kind of let them know that it's a little bit of a flirtation, or men won't approach you in public. And many women, what we do is when we see a man notice us, we pull away. Is he looking at me? Why is he looking at me? So we'll pull our energy in drawing in narcissistic people. Part of the reason you do that is because narcissists come on very strong, and they can actually sense women who are weaker.
Lisa Shield [00:29:10]:
They can tell. In fact, I know this is a terrible analogy, but they have studied serial killers, and serial killers have said they know the signals. They can watch people walking by and they can tell the ones that are weaker and the ones who are going to be going to be fighters and the ones who are going to be more compliant. So they can sense their victims, and they go for those people. It's the same with narcissists. They can tell the people who are going to be savvy to them and who are going to be harder to manipulate. And they can tell the ones that they are going to manipulate, you fall for them because they come on stronger. They're very seductive.
Lisa Shield [00:29:59]:
They know how to pull people in, and they're not going to go for somebody like me because I would call them out in a second. So the minute I sensed that somebody was being manipulative, telling me what I wanted to hear, romancing me, whatever, and it felt fake. Because the truth is, nobody should be coming on hard and fast and strong romantically in the beginning when they don't know me. In fact, I don't want somebody doing that. It doesn't feel authentic, and I don't need false flattery. Do you get that? You don't want somebody who falsely flatters you to win your favor, which is what narcissists often do, and they know how to do that.
Lisa Shield [00:30:51]:
So this is all stuff that we.
Lisa Shield [00:30:54]:
Work with our women in the course. You can go to lisashield.com, sign up for my emails. You'll get some great information from those. And also keep watching my Facebook lives.
Lisa Shield [00:31:07]:
And there is a page on my.
Lisa Shield [00:31:09]:
Website that has all of my podcasts. So I highly recommend that you also look at my podcast because this is like right out of the starting gate. This is the very first thing we deal with in my course. And if you start to recognize the signs of narcissists, suddenly you're going to just blow the lid off of this thing and it's going to be like, oh, my God, this is so obvious. And I've been falling for this over and over again. So we can really help you break those patterns often. Again, I'm going to go back to something I said just a minute ago. We all have blind spots and things we don't know.
Lisa Shield [00:31:54]:
We don't know.
Lisa Shield [00:31:56]:
And part of what happens, like, let.
Lisa Shield [00:31:59]:
Me give you an example of a blind spot. Let's say that you have a bias. And your bias is I want to be swept off my feet. I want to meet a guy, and I want there to be fireworks and skyrockets, and I want to feel chemistry right off the bat when I meet this guy. So that's a bias. That is a pre programmed bias that's in your head about how it's going to look and feel when you meet your guy. That creates a blind spot, because anything or anybody that doesn't show up that way, you are going to filter those people out. And the only people you will filter in are the ones who meet that criteria.
Lisa Shield [00:32:52]:
So your blind spot is that you're.
Lisa Shield [00:32:54]:
Cutting out all the men who are.
Lisa Shield [00:32:58]:
Kind, who are consistent, who are loving, who are good men, who might have money and really like you, but they don't do that narcissistic coming on strong, romancing you, wowing you. And so you're cutting off those men before you get to know them. And so because you have that bias, you keep choosing the wrong men and letting the wrong men into your life. Surrendering to this process means that you really do acknowledge that you have blind spots and things you don't know, you don't know. And that you start to reach out to coaches and mentors and people like me who can actually help you break these kinds of patterns. And it starts with you, like you just did there. Yvonne admitting. Know, what you wrote was, I draw.
Lisa Shield [00:34:02]:
Nothing but narcissistic people, and you're taking responsibility for that.
Lisa Shield [00:34:10]:
You're saying, I do this. You're not saying, all I meet are there's only narcissists. You're taking responsibility, saying, I'm drawing these people in. So that's the first thing you're realizing that there is, and you're saying, what's wrong? So this is a great step for you in admitting and surrendering to this process, taking responsibility for what you're doing and that you're the common denominator here. And then asking the help of a true professional, how do I break this? How do I stop this? My father and my ex husband were both narcissists.
Lisa Shield [00:34:52]:
It was awful.
Lisa Shield [00:34:53]:
I attracted a man just like my father. My current husband is not a narcissist because I got very smart about what.
Lisa Shield [00:35:04]:
I was doing wrong, and I met.
Lisa Shield [00:35:08]:
A man who is the opposite of all of that. So I worked on myself and I asked questions like you are, and I learned. And if anybody else has questions, I'd love for you to post them because I would really love some great questions. But it's surrendering to this process and not quitting, taking ownership of the mistakes and the blind spots that you have and asking, what can I do differently? What am I missing here? Why am I not moving forward? We have a mastermind group.
Lisa Shield [00:35:44]:
It's quite a wonderful group, and I love these women.
Lisa Shield [00:35:48]:
They challenge me as much as we challenge them. Some of the women are very open and willing to change, and they're open to our feedback and some of the women aren't.
Lisa Shield [00:36:01]:
And they're much tougher to work with.
Lisa Shield [00:36:03]:
And they're not really asking questions, what can I do differently? They're not really surrendered to the process. They want partnership, and they're willing to invest in their personal growth, but they're not surrendered to our process and how we can help them grow and learn. They have an idea already of what they think they need in order for this to look a certain way and work, and they're not willing to get out of their box and look at this differently and allow this process to work for them. So I really believe, personally, that once I make a decision to sign up to do something, I need to look at what I'm doing there and why it's not working for me. And if I don't like the process or I was attracted to it and then I'm pulling away or I don't feel it works, I have to look at myself and say, what am I resisting here? Where am I not open? How can I open up more? This happens with online dating all the time.
Lisa Shield [00:37:17]:
So many of you go online and.
Lisa Shield [00:37:21]:
The mistake you make is that you have this idea of how it's supposed to work. I'm going to put some pictures up, I'm going to throw my profile up there and I'm going to sit back and wait for men to approach me. And that doesn't happen. And it's probably not just not happening online, it's not happening in real life either, because your energy isn't open. Your profile may be communicating some of the wrong messages. Your pictures may not be as good as you think they are. There can be all kinds of things that aren't working in your favor. And you just have this idea that, oh, my girlfriend just went on and she threw up her photos and she met her husband in three weeks or three months.
Lisa Shield [00:38:12]:
And so you have these expectations, oh, I don't like any of the guys. They're all creeps. They don't have money, they're not educated, whatever. And maybe within all of those creeps and all of those uneducated guys, there may be a handful of really great guys. And you're missing them because all your selective perception sees are the jerks or the ones who don't have money. But we have something called selective perception. When we have an idea or a belief or a fear that is coloring our experience, our brain will look for data and evidence to support our belief system.
Lisa Shield [00:38:59]:
Does that make sense?
Lisa Shield [00:39:01]:
So what happens is you go online, you're looking at profiles, and all you're seeing are the flashy guys, the narcissistic guys, the ones who, their profiles sound over the top and super romantic. And you're not seeing the really sweet men, the kind men, the good men.
Lisa Shield [00:39:25]:
The men like my husband, who many of you would pass over because he's.
Lisa Shield [00:39:31]:
Not a supermodel, he's not ripped, he's whatever. He actually is pretty ripped, I have to say. The man loves to work out. He wasn't ripped when we met, though.
Lisa Shield [00:39:43]:
In fact, my husband was 30 pounds.
Lisa Shield [00:39:46]:
Heavier and he had a ponytail. So he's changed a lot since we met.
Lisa Shield [00:39:53]:
But when I met him, I looked.
Lisa Shield [00:39:56]:
In his eyes and my very first thought was, oh, my God, this is the kindest person I've ever met.
Lisa Shield [00:40:03]:
Now, when I started dating online, the.
Lisa Shield [00:40:08]:
Difference between me and a lot of other people is that I knew I had a lot to learn. I knew I wasn't ready to find my guy. I knew that I wanted a great guy. But if that guy had sat down in front of me on a date, I wouldn't have known what to say to him.
Lisa Shield [00:40:30]:
I would have been dumbstruck.
Lisa Shield [00:40:33]:
Like so many of you are. Most of you are great when you sit across from a guy you're not interested in. You can be charming and entertaining and sexy and whatever, but you put a guy in front of you that you think has everything you want. And many of you, if you're being honest, wouldn't know what to say or do. And I hear this so many times from clients and women I talk to. They meet a guy, maybe it's one out of 15 guys, maybe it's one out of 100. But he finally, that guy that they've been looking for, they sit down across.
Lisa Shield [00:41:18]:
From him on a date and they blow it.
Lisa Shield [00:41:23]:
That's what I'm talking about. So those other 49 dates that you went on, those were your opportunities to really get your game on. So when that guy showed up, who was all that, you would be able to rise to the occasion and know what to say. When I met my husband after going.
Lisa Shield [00:41:45]:
Out on 96 1st dates, I was in my power.
Lisa Shield [00:41:51]:
I felt confident.
Lisa Shield [00:41:53]:
I knew he was amazing when I.
Lisa Shield [00:41:56]:
Looked in his eyes. But I had surrendered to this process. I knew I had a lot to learn. I was willing to learn and grow and go on all those dates.
Lisa Shield [00:42:06]:
And I practiced opening up, letting go.
Lisa Shield [00:42:10]:
Of my own narcissism. I mean, I used to make it all about me. I didn't know what to ask a guy. I didn't know how to get a man to open up to me like I did when I met my husband. I didn't know how to deal with my emotions in a way that wouldn't push a man away, where I wouldn't get all meaty and dramatic. I had to learn all of that through the dating process. I had to surrender to that process. And I remember when I started my journey, what I told myself was, I am going to get on the path.
Lisa Shield [00:42:51]:
I am going to stay on the path, and quitting isn't an option. I know my guy is out there. I know I have a lot to learn, and it will take as long as it takes, but I will find the guardian of my soul. And to do that, I need to surrender to this process. I need to learn and grow and admit to myself that it is going to look. This journey will look very different than I think it will or than I want it to. But I am willing to keep doing this and showing up and growing and learning because I need to be the woman I need to be in order to have the relationship I'm looking for. You have to first cultivate all of that inside of you.
Lisa Shield [00:43:50]:
We had this weird fantasy based on, you know, you can be Renee Zellweger and be a basket case and have this fantasy that your Jerry Maguire would get you, and then suddenly you would show know, he would realize how fabulous you are and come running back to you. It doesn't work. That doesn't.
Lisa Shield [00:44:22]:
It does in the movies, but not in real life.
Lisa Shield [00:44:27]:
This is a skill set. This is a skill set. Thank you, Janine. Surrender is so hard and it is so important.
Lisa Shield [00:44:38]:
It truly is. So we have to be willing to.
Lisa Shield [00:44:44]:
Grow and learn through this process. We have to become the person we need to be in order to have the relationship of our dreams and not just tell ourselves, we're all that. And I've done all this work and I'm ready. I don't know how many of you realize you can do personal growth work from now until forever. You can go to therapy for years and years and years. And that still doesn't mean that you know how to connect with men and relate to men. They're two completely different things. Learning to love yourself doesn't mean you know how to be loving in a romantic relationship.
Lisa Shield [00:45:27]:
They're two different skill sets.
Lisa Shield [00:45:31]:
I did learn to love myself. I spent years after my first marriage working on myself. In fact, I was in a group.
Lisa Shield [00:45:38]:
With Don Miguel Ruiz, a spiritual group.
Lisa Shield [00:45:43]:
Right before he wrote the four agreements. I was part of this community and I went to therapy. I went to the landmark forum. I went to a twelve step program. I did anything and everything. I went to some Debbie Ford courses or weekend seminars. I did all kinds of stuff. I got my master's in spiritual psychology.
Lisa Shield [00:46:10]:
I grew to know and love myself better.
Lisa Shield [00:46:14]:
But that still didn't mean when a.
Lisa Shield [00:46:17]:
Great guy sat across from me on a date I could hold my own. That was something I still had to learn how to do. And I did it by surrendering to this process, going out on many, many.
Lisa Shield [00:46:31]:
Dates, asking myself at the end of.
Lisa Shield [00:46:34]:
The date, was there anything I could have done differently? Did I talk too much? Was I open enough? Was I compassionate enough? Was I a good listener? There were always improvements I could have made. Did I share enough from my heart? Was I too much in my head? Was I feminine?
Lisa Shield [00:46:58]:
Did I drink too much?
Lisa Shield [00:47:01]:
There were so many things I had to learn. And that I did learn. And you know what?
Lisa Shield [00:47:11]:
I attracted the most wonderful man I have ever met anywhere, anywhere in my entire life.
Lisa Shield [00:47:23]:
And after 21 years of being together with my husband, I can tell you.
Lisa Shield [00:47:31]:
That I love him more today than.
Lisa Shield [00:47:34]:
I did when we met. And he is the kindest, most loving, compassionate, generous, forgiving partner I could have ever dreamed of having. But I was able to attract that because I first learned how to be those things. Wayne Dyer says, we don't attract what we want. We attract what we are.
Lisa Shield [00:48:03]:
On that note, I am going to.
Lisa Shield [00:48:06]:
Say thank you for joining me. Thank you, Yvonne. Thank you, Janine. Thank you, everybody else who listened in today, please, if you can, I would love it if you would go to my website, lisashield.com. Sign up for our daily emails. You can also click the button all over the site to watch my free 45 minutes presentation. If you like what you hear, you can sign up for a free breakthrough call with a member of my team. We've been doing our course for the last eight years, and in that time, we have changed many hundreds of lives.
Lisa Shield [00:48:46]:
In fact, one of my lucky clients just came through Santa Fe over the holidays, and we had brunch with her and her new boyfriend, who she refers to as the guardian of her soul. Please don't miss out on this beautiful opportunity that you have in this lifetime to find true love. Don't give up on love. Learn how to surrender to this process. We can show you how. I'm Lisa Shield, and it has been a pleasure and an honor to spend this time with you. And I will see you next time. If you do have any suggestions.
Lisa Shield [00:49:27]:
Well, two things you can sign up, whoops. Technical issues. You can sign up for a call with me, and you would sign up for that call by going to Lisashield Comreserve. I don't do the calls, but you would talk to a member of my team.
Lisa Shield [00:49:49]:
And if you have any suggestions for.
Lisa Shield [00:49:52]:
Future podcast topics, you can do that by going to, you can send us an email at podcast@lisashield.com all right, everybody, enjoy the rest of your day. I hope you take something valuable away from this conversation.
Lisa Shield [00:50:13]:
Bye bye. I'll see you next time. Bye.