When I began dating again this year, I did the ‘normal’ thing and tried online dating apps for a while. I read articles to find out how to know when you’re in love (embarrassing, I know) and listened to podcasts on how to manifest your man, eagerly sharing with my other single friends.

All the options for meeting men seemed limited to Tinder, speed dating and yelling at each other in overcrowded bars, and I spent more time trying to lock in dates and messaging people than I did actually dating men.

And the dating advice I was being exposed to seemed counter intuitive to what I actually wanted, which was a deep, intimate connection.

Should I date one man, or keep my options open?

Play it cool and hard to get, or tell them how I really feel?

Give him a chance, or end it if I don’t feel a spark on the first date?

So I started to blog about my experience #tinderellaturnscarriebradshaw…

During this time I was also beginning to explore tantra, embodiment and play in the realms of manifestation. I wrote down all the qualities (physical, emotional, spiritual, sexual) that said man would have, meditated on the vision of how we would meet, what he would look like and how I would feel.

And then, strange things began to happen. Every man whom I would feel a physical attraction to turned out to be unavailable, either physically located somewhere else or emotionally attached to someone else.

AND the men who were attracted to me met many of the qualities on my ‘check list’ but were not quite what I was looking for (go figure!) So I refined my check list and started again with little reflection or thoughts on the matter (except he bloody better hurry up)!

However, after months of dating like this and not finding what I was looking for, I started to look inwards and notice the energy I was putting out there when these men entered my life.

When I could see my role in who I was attracting, I started taking responsibility for my own energy.

When we long for another, it means our hearts are open enough to feel the pain of loneliness, as well as the joy of being in intimate communion with another. As I started to (slowly, painfully) accept this yearning for deeper connection and feel into my feminine desire for intimacy, not only was the response I got from men noticeably different, the types of men I was also attracted to began to shift.

My experiences with dating in last year has taught me more about myself, and what I want in a relationship (and generally, in my life) than any book, podcast or article I have consumed (and trust me, I’ve tried it ALL).

Here is what I know to be true

Who we are attracted to is a direct reflection of our own self-worth

How we feel about ourselves is always being reflected back to us through our relationships and the people we are dating. I’ve written a lot about attraction to people who are physically or emotionally unavailable before, because in my experience no relationship is a waste of time, there is gold hidden amongst every heart ache and every love lost. We accept the love we unconsciously believe we deserve, so if you keep attracting people who are unavailable, it is likely there is a fear of intimacy underneath the apparent desire for a deep connection. Because our attractions are often completely unconscious, the first step to unlearning this is through awareness of how these attractions feel in the body.

Opposites Attract

In relationships, opposites really do attract. The love avoider/love addict dynamic I discuss in detail here occurs because we have learned to unconsciously create drama in our relationships to distract ourselves from feeling or deepest fears (and desires) in the body. Many relationships I see and help clients with are extremely polarised - one minute they are in love, and the next they are in the depths of despair, ready to break it off, can’t stand each other.

Because we have not been shown how to process emotion through the body, arguments are fought through the mind and someone always has to be ‘right’. However, arguments are most often a sign of a connection deepening, the argument a product of fear which results from feeling more vulnerable. Our mind doesn’t know what is good and bad, but only what is uncomfortable and what is comfortable. When we can start to feel this fear of deeper intimacy in our body, and learn to take some space instead of fighting about surface level topics, arguments and fights can refocussed to deepen a connection rather than sever it.

Learning to surrender and show your vulnerability is your most potent source for creating intimacy

Maintaining the ‘spark’ comes down to surrendering to our core sexual essence. Women today have been sold the story that their career, financial success and security is MORE IMPORTANT than their relationships. However, if you have a feminine sexual essence, then this will never completely fulfil you.

For many of us, being in our authentic feminine doesn't feel safe. How many times have you been told you are ‘too emotional’, or ‘too irrational’ or ‘not logical’? Feminine qualities in men and women (being nurturing, good listeners, emotional intelligence) are not revered or respected to the same degree as the ability to perform and embody masculine traits (i.e. being rational, logical, and ambitious). As a result, we have lost this connection to our true, authentic power as women, which we need to keep the juice of intimate relationships alive. To attract a person with the opposite sexual essence to you - in this case, someone with a masculine essence - we must learn to lean into, and embody our femininity while we are dating and with our partner.

If you are you ready to let go of damaging patterns blocking you from love and better understand who you are attracting and why, grab a copy of my Conscious Dating and Relationships Guide using the form below.