How to Stop Falling For the Wrong People

Falling for the wrong people over and over again - oof. If you're caught in this dating loop, you're not alone. Most people looking for love go through this.

Me personally? This haunted me through dating and even my first marriage.

We might find that our dates have qualities we are actively trying to avoid (like being emotionally unavailable). We get sucked in and then we're left with nothing to show for it - again. Or we might try to date people we typically don't go for and we're just bored, there's no spark. Or we keep getting"the ick."

If you're tired of your dates not getting you anywhere closer to love, this is the post for you - I'm going to break down dating from the ego and explain how this messes up dating for all of us at one point or another.

Despite what our senses tell us, it's not that there are no eligible men, women, or people out there. It's that our unconscious mind is secretly running the show.

Dating From the Ego

The part of the mind we are most aware of is the ego - the ego is what makes all of the chatter we hear when we're feeling uncomfortable.

Was that a weird thing to say? Does she like me? Am I listening enough? Why hasn't he asked me anything about myself?

The ego is what judges situations and people (including ourselves) as good or bad, because it's job is to protect us from what it has deemed a threat.

What it bases "threat" on comes from our memories (mostly early childhood ones) that have strong emotions and feelings attached to them. In our early childhood, we were in a major social learning phase: every situation, person, character quality, facial expression, and feeling we encountered got sorted between "Good" and "Bad."

These memories and emotions are usually unconscious - what we experience on a conscious level is a trigger. We may get "the ick" from certain kinds of people, we may repeat patterns that are not serving us anymore, or we may feel desperate to find a relationship.

When we're dating from the ego, this part of our mind that is constantly judging between good or bad is using outdated information based on feelings and memories from when we were young. We'll seek what's familiar or avoid what we unconsciously fear, and this keeps us stuck in dating ruts. So how do we date from the soul instead of the ego? When we keep ending up on dates or in relationships with people who are wrong for us, the best thing we can do is self-inquiry: asking ourselves questions to help us use our observing mind.

Same Issues, Different Person

When we find ourselves dating people with the same issues over and over again, it's not them - it's us. (Sorry!) Because it's the most common one I hear from my clients, let's take the example of emotional unavailability. If we are actively trying to date emotionally available people and we keep ending up on dates or in relationships with folks who keep things superficial, don't want to talk about their feelings, or have trouble having difficult conversations, there are two lines of inquiry we want to follow. First is the line of attraction:

• Why am I finding myself attracted to people like this? What about them intrigues me?

• How might I benefit from being more like them? What could open up for me?

The second is the line of projection:

• What do I find scary about having (in this case) emotional intimacy?

• What is good or comfortable about not having what I say I want?

• What am I getting out of avoiding emotional intimacy?

  
  

Self-inquiry is empowering. By understanding our unconscious attractions, we can change our conditioning and look at potential relationships with clearer eyes - the potency of attraction changes when it's not unconscious anymore. And by understanding what we're externalizing (in this case emotional unavailability), we can own our projections and confront the fears that have been driving our lives.

Not Feeling The Spark

Often dating coaches will recommend casting a wider net for dates in order to address the issue of meeting the same kind of people over and over again. This isn't a bad tactic, but it has limitations: mainly, that the unconscious is still remaining unconscious, and so it will continue influencing our life.

The result of casting a wider net will often be that we don't feel attracted in the way we're used to feel. Again, inquiry is the most helpful first step:

• What qualities do I typically find myself attracted to? What am I missing in the people I don't feel a spark towards?

• How are those attractive qualities keeping me from having the relationship I want? What has been my experience with them in the past?

• What does my mind think will happen if I pursue a relationship with someone I don't feel a spark towards? What is the fear underneath that?

Keep Getting "the Ick"

"The ick" is a feeling of disgust or disapproval towards a romantic prospect. These are common reactions to when we encounter our Shadow. Our Shadow contains every character quality and emotion we learned to reject when we were younger. As I've written about before, this is a necessary part of our development: we have to learn how to be socially acceptable within our cultures in order to survive. Once we reach mid-life, we're ready to begin integrating our Shadow, reclaiming the parts of ourselves we'd previously rejected so we can be more whole.

Perhaps we get the ick when our date laughs too loudly. Perhaps we get it when they seem too sensitive or too awkward. Perhaps we get the ick when they seem clumsy or dumb. When we get the ick, we're experiencing shame on behalf of the other person - we've learned that to be seen that way leads to rejection, humiliation, or judgment.

If we're getting the ick so much that we can't find anyone to date, there is something unconscious limiting our experience and keeping us from love. While carefully avoiding those qualities in our early life may have helped us, avoiding them is likely holding us back from what we want most now. Here are some self-inquiry questions:

• What quality gives you "the ick?"

• What would happen to someone who lived their whole life being that way?

• How do you avoid being that way and how does that burden you?

• What might open up for you if you could be 1% more like that person?

To be crystal clear, performing this self-inquiry doesn't mean you're required to date people you're not into, and it doesn't mean you should ignore your intuition when something seems off. The intention is to open our minds so that we can choose freely how to be and what to do, rather than operating on old programming.

Want to uncover what's keeping you repeating the same patterns in dating? Check out my free workbook Triggered No More! Click the button below to get your free download!

Free Workbook