S.O.F.T. and Strong: Midlife Women On A Mission

Episode 34: To Learn About "Who He Is" Is To R.E.L.A.X. Into Love

May 03, 2021 Bernice McDonald Season 1 Episode 34
S.O.F.T. and Strong: Midlife Women On A Mission
Episode 34: To Learn About "Who He Is" Is To R.E.L.A.X. Into Love
Show Notes Transcript Chapter Markers

Does this sound like you? ...Exciting. Fun. Mesmerizing.  Beautiful.

No? Hmmm - good news! She's in there! She's just hiding. And she's your Super Girl.

In this Podcast, I put this out for your thoughts...Maybe your Super Girl is being dis-empowered by a chunk of Kryptonite that is blocking your way to Over The Moon, Never Leave Me love.

We all have those pesky strength stealers that come down like brick walls on our Path, blocking the future.

R.E.L.A.X. You're learning how to take that beautiful heart of yours out into the world - and out on a date.

This is the 3rd of 5 in the "R.E.L.A.X. Into Love" series.

The "L" is for Learn . Learn everything you can about him (and about yourself, too). This is the PRIMARY tool in opening your heart and helping you to RELAX.

Power Pillar #1 - Your "Why": You want to experience a Great Love! (of course)
Power Pillar #2 - "The Truth Is...":  Always be learning because happiness = progress.

  • Learn about how you see yourself.
  • Learn about how you see him.

Power Pillar #3 - Hope-Filled Action: 

  • Answer the questions discussed in the Podcast about who YOU are.
  • Answer the same questions about him because it's fun, it focuses on seeing his heart, not his surface behavior AND it gives you a very attractive vibe!

The R.E.L.A.X. into Love Masterclass:

Episode 32: R  Relax
Episode 33: E  Elevate his Heart
Episode 34: L  Learn everything there is to know about you and about him
Episode 35: A Ask for your Needs to be met
Episode 36: X Excellence - Live in it always!

All the Steps on the Open To Love Again Pathway...

Step 1: Recognize your Old Story and your Power Story
Step 2: Find your S.O.F.T.
Step 3: Put your S.O.F.T. into action and R.E.L.A.X.
Step 4: Grow your Sparkle Power.

Brave Enough For Love Website



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0 (1s):
What scares him? What is it? And this is maybe not a question for the first date, but you can sense it. You can hear it in his words, you can watch it in his body language when he talks about certain things, there are things in his life that set him back, that hold him back and make him afraid. So those are the things that you need to R.E.L.A.X. and Learn from him.

1 (35s):
So you're a woman beyond 50. What is standing between you and the dreams that you have in your heart? I'll tell you, it's the Story that your telling yourself. This podcast is about keeping our heart awake and open to love because those Stories are what closes your heart and keeps it locked up tightly. It takes courage every day to face those Stories - about 15 minutes a day only, in fact, I'm Bernice McDonald, Courageous Happiness Coach. And that's the journey that I'm on in this life. I want you to find your heart again, to find the real use, the amazing courageous, loving, crazy, sexy woman that you were meant to be.

1 (1m 27s):
Yep. Even after 50 you're ready. Okay. Come on in. Let's take those 15 minutes right now.

0 (1m 37s):
So there's Supergirl. She's laying on the ground and she's desperate because right beside her is this piece of green material that's glowing and zapping all of her strength. You know what it is, right? Tell me! Kryptonite. It's her weakness. It's the only thing really that takes away her strength and dis-empowers her. I love super Stories, super Stories. I love Super Hero Stories.

0 (2m 19s):
My husband and I watch them a lot because they inspire us somehow. They just, even though they're just fiction, it really just brings home the idea that we have to be our own Hero. And each of us has a Hero inside. What amazes me, and we were just talking about this the other day, is that, with a superhero, they have these huge enemies. They have these huge problems to solve. And many times they have this huge fear. But they always figure it out. Good triumphs over evil. And I think that's why as human beings walking on our Path, right?

0 (3m 6s):
We love to hear that. We need to hear that. We need to be encouraged - that you can always find a way out. That takes Learning. This is the third in my masterclass on R.E.L.A.X. into Love Again. Love can be fun. Love can be uplifting. Looking for love can be fun. Looking for love can actually be a situation that teaches you a lot about yourself. And you can come out - no matter what happens on those dates - you can come out on the positive side.

0 (3m 50s):
The 'R' is for Receive. The 'E', Elevate His Heart. And the 'L' is to Learn. Now to "Learn" applies to everything. In fact, the definition - I needed to just look this up because I was curious, the definition of "Learn" is to acquire knowledge of, or skill in something by study experience or being taught. Tony Robbins - what I have learned from him, and I love this, is that happiness equals progress. When you are learning and moving forward in your life, that's progress, you're getting somewhere, right?

0 (4m 37s):
Even if you learn how to bake a new cake, even if you learn a better way to organize your time, you're learning, you're moving forward. You're making progress. And that creates this sense of accomplishment of purpose and well-being inside. Right? Well, we are applying this, of course, to you finding a great love in your life, experiencing a great love. And sometimes that brings with it a certain amount of anxiety, right? Where we're a little bit on the afraid side, a little bit shy, especially if we haven't been out there for a while and very worried, concerned that we could get hurt again.

0 (5m 27s):
You might pick the wrong man. You might cause history to repeat itself. And that's true. You might. Because life is full of pain, right? As you're walking on your Path, you have those bombs going off that come out of nowhere. You have a Boulder dropping on you and S and flattening you for a while. You have others throwing rocks at you that set you back for a time. But how do you get past that? You Learn. You Learn how to deal with it. There are two areas. Remember, life is simple. If you keep it simple.

0 (6m 9s):
Two easy areas, one is how you see yourself. And two is how you see others. That leads to all the Stories that we tell ourselves. So the whole idea about Learning to R.E.L.A.X., when you're getting to know a man so that you can be yourself, so that you can enjoy yourself and enjoy the process and know that you are taking your strong, S.O.F.T. self out into the world, and you're going to protect your heart. This is the action of that. Receiving, Elevating his heart, focusing on who he is and Learning about yourself and about him.

0 (6m 57s):
So when you're Learning about yourself, that is simply, and you'd be surprised how many people do not know very much about themselves. In fact, if you ask them questions like I'm going to just ask you in a second here, they will clam up. They will freeze because they don't know, for one thing, they haven't really thought it through. And also they're kind of self-conscious about talking about themselves because they don't have a very high opinion of themselves. You, my beautiful lady need to change that.

0 (7m 37s):
You need to have a high opinion about yourself. You need to cherish and be excited about the person that you are. So start here. What do you know about yourself? What do you know about him? When you think about yourself, things, ask yourself things like this: What interests me? What do I love to eat? What do I love to do for fun? What do I love to explore? What do I wish that I could do? What do I dream of doing or being, or having someday?

0 (8m 17s):
You should know these answers. And if I were you, I would take some time. I would step back and I would write these things in a journal. And that's going to be in our Hope-Filled Action Steps, in case I forget to mention it. This is something you should write down. So the other things here, what scares me? What terrifies me? Now, in this case, there are many things in life that do scare us, but you need to know what it is that scares you. Remember you're on your Path but sometimes these brick walls come down in front of you, such as maybe your divorce.

0 (9m 6s):
That's definitely a showstopper. It is. It can be a block. Yeah. That lands in front of you and keeps you from moving along your Path into your future. You have to decide... How am I going to get around it or under it, or through it? A lot of times we sit down on this side of the wall because we're afraid. We're so afraid. The thing is, for example, what you need to do is Learn about what's scaring you and Learn, then, not staying stuck there, but Learning what you have to do to demolish that brick wall.

0 (9m 48s):
We all have the castle where we're putting our hearts to sleep inside. The thorny bush grows was up around us, protecting us from others. The Fiery FEAR Dragon is huge and stands outside the castle. Every time we think of waking up or trying something new or break in through the thorny bush around the castle, that's keeping people out, the Fiery FEAR Dragon will breathe on you and try to make you stop. You need to Learn about what he's saying to you. Those are the Stories that you hear. What is scaring you?

0 (10m 31s):
What is your kryptonite like Supergirl. It says, if you think of doing something and then he says, "Oh, but you're not enough. What are you thinking of? Or, you know, what always happens". Classic Stories. Or "Who do you do you think you are to even believe that you could do anything like that? You're not meant to. You have this ceiling that you're supposed to, where you're supposed to stay stuck". Those are the Stories the FEAR Dragon will remind you of over and over again. I just want to remind you again, here that you need to shrink that Fiery FEAR Dragon down to size and realize that FEAR is a friend to us to prevent us from true danger.

0 (11m 16s):
Your brain where FEAR lives does not know the difference between walking off a cliff and you taking a chance on love again. It doesn't know the difference. All it does is feel those emotions. And so it will tell you the same Stories and try to stop you. You need to understand,"What are my Stories"? What am I telling myself? Okay. And then you shrink that Fiery FEAR Dragon down to a friend, and you call him Fred. And you see him as a cute little stuffed toy. And you have conversations with him. He's always going to be there, but you need to say, "Fred, I hear you, but I want you just to go over there in the corner and eat a cookie because I really do need to go ahead and do this".

0 (12m 6s):
I have to get in the driver's seat and I need to do this because I have a goal. I have a purpose here. I want to know what love is. I deserve to know what really wonderful, romantic, Over the Moon, Never Leave Me love looks like and feels like. Okay, now we get to - that's how you see yourself and you're dealing with that. So when you go out and you begin to get to know somebody, what you need to do is to Elevate His Heart. So take the focus off of you because you already know what you're dealing with. You're understanding who you are and who you are bringing to the table as yourself.

0 (12m 48s):
But who is this man across from you? How you see him is really crucial here. If you see him as somebody who's going to hurt you, that's going to change your approach and how open you are and how will the kinds of conversation you're going to be free to have. If, though, on the other side of that, you see him as a human, being - a heart walking on his Path, who has been through lots of stuff already. And you just want to know how's he responding to those kinds of things. You reach out and you receive from him, his Story, open up to him, elevate him.

0 (13m 36s):
What is his Story? And this is where you Learn. This is where you ask him things like, what does he love to eat? What does he love to do for fun? What makes him feel as if he's on an adventure? What does he do to explore? Or what does he wish that he could do or be, or have in his life? What are his - what scares him? What is it? And this is maybe not a question for the first date, but you can sense it. You can hear it in his words, you can watch it in his body language.

0 (14m 19s):
When he talks about certain things, there are things in his life that set him back, that hold him back and make him afraid. So those are the things that you need to R.E.L.A.X. and Learn from him. So let's look at our 3 Power Pillars, the Power Pillars that put this into a framework where we can begin to really be working on this whole aspect of Learning. Of course, our first Power Pillar, as we've talked about many times is purpose. It's your "WHY". And our big WHY here is so that you can experience a great love in your lifetime.

0 (15m 4s):
When we look a little deeper here, and we're talking about Learning to just be on a date, to take your S.O.F.T. out into the world, feel strong on the inside so you can be soft on the outside, then your WHY becomes - you need to know what your kryptonite is. You need to know what are your potential blocks from keeping yourself from really seeing this person. This is crucial. You need to Learn to Learn. That's your why? Because Learning just like our superheroes, they're there with big problems,

1 (15m 52s):
Big fear, big needs, big enemies.

0 (15m 54s):
They always find a way you need to find a way and you need to get yourself in the habit of knowing you have options. Lots of options. Not just staying afraid. So that's your Power Pillar #1 is you need to know your kryptonite and how to defeat it. You need to know how to get away from it. How to flip your Story from a negative to a positive, empowering Story.

1 (16m 24s):
So that that Power Story spurs you on and helps you to grow. So we learned that by looking at our second Power Pillar, which is "The Truth Is..." You need to spend time - so many of us spend time being afraid. So afraid of what might happen that we forget and ignore developing the skill, dealing with it, facing it, of overcoming it, smashing brick walls on our Path so that we get beyond it to that future that is waiting for us.

1 (17m 10s):
The Truth Is... when emotions come up for yourself, you need to ask what is at the bottom of that. I'm feeling this, but there's a Story behind this.

0 (17m 22s):
Remember the balloons tied to the chair. The balloons are your emotions. They're floating up there, but they're tied to the Story in the chair. The Story could be, in this case, your kryptonite. It could be what dis-empowers you. What makes you stop in your tracks and freezes you in time? How well do you understand what your kryptonite is? When you know that, man, can bust that wide open! You can find your way into the positive Story because you know the negative Story that you're telling yourself - on your Fiery FEAR Dragon is constantly blowing at you.

0 (18m 9s):
The Truth Is... A man has a Story and you need to find out what that Story is. Who is he? What's his Story? The Truth Is... everything you see is not everything that's going on inside because, one little man fact here, is that men hide. They don't like emotion. They don't like you to see who they really are because it's so important to them to not be seen as Poser. Their ability to be seen as a hero is even more important than it is to us. So keep that in mind when you're listening to him and you're hearing what he's saying, Learn about him as he talks.

0 (18m 59s):
That brings us to our Hope-Filled Action which is... That's part of what our Hope-Filled A ction is. As I said, take a journal, write down the questions about yourself and answer them. Who are you? What is it you love? What is it you hate? Find out that about you so you can just R.E.L.A.X. and be that and be okay with it and be growing in the areas of your life that are important to you. Then Learn about him. Observe, feel your responses to him, and look at how he's responding to you.

0 (19m 39s):
Just sense that because you're a woman - you've got that intuitive feeling in you. Lean back, R.E.L.A.X., absorb the atmosphere that you're in. Let whatever happens happen. And just watch and Learn cause your heart will tell you. Your heart will show you what's going on with you and with him. And I think you're probably, if you come across like this, as I said in the last podcast, you're going to get a second date because this is a rare thing that women do. Women think they have to impress. They think they have to try to do all kinds of things that are not required.

1 (20m 22s):
What they need to do is a lean back and be themselves, have their own standards, live in their own values, be who they are and just see this man across from them as a human being. Somebody who is looking for love. Somebody who's looking for friendship. In our next podcast, we're going to be talking about the 'A' in R.E.L.A.X., which is to 'Ask for what you Need' - a quality that many, many women have not developed either. But you're going to be different because you are going to get the inside scoop on this which is, I have to say, the key thing that helped me to Learn to be confident in love, again, knowing how to ask for what I need.

1 (21m 15s):
So come over and see my Instagram post. Always posting stuff that fits all in the podcast every week. So if you want to expand your Learning and what we're talking about here, just go and visit my Instagram post and give me a follow there, too, and share with your friends. Thanks so much for being here and sticking with me to the end. I look forward to talking to you again on our next podcast.

What you, Supergirl and Kryptonite have in common.
To "Learn" is to help yourself NOT pick the wrong man again
LEARN about who YOU are - and take the REAL YOU out on your date
LEARN about him - the key to your charm.
Power Pillar #1: Your "Why" is to find a great love. And to LEARN how to do that.
Power Pillar #2: The Truth Is...
Power Pillar #3: Hope-Filled Action Steps