Is Your Ego in Charge of Your Dating Life?

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Nowhere does our ego become more activated than in dating and relationships. Dating from the heart (rather than from your ego) is a practice that can impact every part of our lives!

By "ego", I'm talking about the masks we wear in social settings to keep us inside our emotional comfort zones and shield us from vulnerability.

The ego typically creates all kinds of narratives (shame, judgment, blame, comparison, etc.) that block us from experiencing deep aliveness and intimacy.

We learn to wear those masks from a young age to protect ourselves from unsafe people and situations--but in the process, we lose our authentic selves, and therefore our ability to relate to others as profoundly and genuinely as we could.

The ego's job is to protect us, but it creates suffocating loneliness in order to do this.

Our mission, as mindful daters, is to cultivate awareness and to use the ego's manifestations as opportunities to choose realness, courage, and deep connection.

Messages from the Ego

You can discern ego-driven scripts as fear-driven rather than love-driven:

• You're not good enough to attract the partner you want
• You'll never find true love
• There's nobody "good" left out there
• All men/women/[insert anger target group here] are assholes
• If someone is less attractive than you, they have no business rejecting you
• You're too old/fat/awkward/broken/etc. to date
• Other people have it easier than you in life and love; it's not fair!
• You must outdo the competition to find love

Messages from the Heart

Messages from the heart are constructive and caring towards you AND others. You can choose to cultivate them actively to create a rich and fulfilling relational life!

The heart might say these things:

• I want to create great experiences for my date no matter what the outcome is
• Every person is a complex and interesting human being, worthy of curiosity and care
• I have amazing gifts to offer to everyone I meet
• Dating is part of an ecosystem of relationships; therefore I care about each part of the process
• I am lovable
• Everyone deserves love
• Having clear boundaries is an act of kindness, not rejection

The Practice

You can use dating and relationships as a powerful practice for taking the ego out of the driver's seat of your life, and put your heart at the wheel instead.

Step 1: Awareness

Observe the thoughts you have around dating and relationships. How do you feel when swiping on an app? When messaging someone who might turn into a date, or even a partner? When making love? What scripts and messages run through your mind? Investigate what point(s) of pain in you the negative, belittling, victim-like, or blameful statements are coming from. Put on your scientist cap and be a hawk to yourself.

Step 2: Replacement

When you catch ego-based messages (negative) going through your mind, try supplementing them with heart-based (positive, constructive) statements. Ask your heart for its input using the question, "What would compassion say?"; "What would LOVE say?"; or "What would wisdom say?" Write down these affirmations and keep them handy/visible in your space. Repetition is how we cultivate our positive voice until it grows and becomes bigger than the negative voice.

Step 3: Emotional Release

Once you have reframed a situation, you will still need to release residual negative emotion. Running, kicking, singing, taking a bath, talking to your coach or friends, drawing, writing, taking a bike ride... These are all possible ways to let go of emotional tension when we are feeling scared, angry, sad, or powerless. Find your favorite outlets.

Everything you feel is valid and there for a reason; but negative emotions will hurt you if they stay trapped in the body. Emotional release is an essential part of personal emancipation and making room for deeper, more authentic, more intimate relationships.

When we take our ego out of the driver's seat of our love lives, and replace it with love and authenticity, we witness our entire lives changing, and all of our relationships improving.

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Want personalized support in transforming your dating patterns? Consider working with a relationship coach or therapist who can help you move from ego-driven to heart-centered relating.

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