‘I overcame huge odds when I met my now-husband Todd in 2010. I was middle-aged, I was 23 stone and I had a strong personality, which I was told, over and over again, to tone down because men wouldn’t want me.
y last relationship before Todd was a long-term one that wasn’t really serving me. But like so many women in their late thirties with a ticking biological clock, I held on to it for way too long, hoping for a result or a return on my investment.
When I walked away from that relationship, I realised that something had to change.
I said, ‘Okay, Jeanne, look at all the men you’ve been with in your life. The one thing they have in common is you. So why do you keep attracting — and not only attracting, but holding onto — relationships where the person really can’t be your partner?’
That question sparked a journey of self-discovery. Over two years, I studied with dating and relationship masters, I took up belly dancing to feel comfortable in my big, fluffy body and I travelled the world by myself. I just reconnected with who I am, and gave myself permission to let all of myself out of the cage.
Once I was ready to date, I put this profile out online and what was funny was that I almost became an accidental cougar! I was attracting, almost exclusively, really young men in their twenties. I guess it was flattering in a way, but when you want a partner, it’s not really satisfying.
I was curious about why this was happening, so I asked a few of them what brought them my way. And invariably, they would say something along the lines of: ‘You look very confident and fun, and you probably don’t want to have my baby and you probably don’t want to get married’. Then they would tell me that women their own age were really focussed on that, but they hadn’t sown their wild oats yet.
That was a big ‘aha’ moment for me because I realised that even after all of this work I had done on myself, I had still written my dating profile with this mindset.
I was still playing it safe and putting myself out there as easy-breezy, and without really flying my freak flag.
I decided then that I was going to rewrite my profile and let my full authentic self out of the cage. I got comfortable with the idea of scaring some people away, and I put out there what I really wanted and needed.
I mentioned one of my deal-breakers, which is intolerance. I put in a profile picture of me posing with a bunch of drag queens and wrote that my dream man will understand that I love going to drag shows and will be comfortable flirting with drag queens and be comfortable in his own skin. I admitted upfront that I wanted to get married. Women are told never to say that because it sounds too needy.
It was wildly authentic and I remember getting a chill in that moment because I literally did feel a shift. It was as though that was the last piece of the puzzle that needed to be in place in order for me to attract a higher-vibrational relationship.
When I checked my inbox the next day, there were four men, all of them my age, all with similar goals and values, all of them wanting marriage. And one of them was Todd. They all commented on how amazed they were by the profile because they had not seen one that was so honest. They told me that they wanted to get married too and they couldn’t understand what was wrong with saying that.
In my training with relationship masters, I had learned that you’re not going to meet your soul mate by focusing on physical chemistry, which is what most people do, whether they realise it or not. Instead, you focus on the person who makes you feel at ease, like you can completely be yourself and be accepted.
When Todd showed up I didn’t feel excited. Five years prior I would have thought there was no chemistry but because I allowed it to be what it would be, it was immediately obvious that this was an old friend I was coming home to. We just talked for hours and hours and it felt very peaceful. I knew from my training that connection takes care of the chemistry, and that’s exactly what happened.
Today, Todd and I live and work in Schull, West Cork. He’s a retired Silicon Valley biotech scientist now working as a visual artist. I’m a former San Francisco-based publicist-turned-career coach, now working as a soul mate coach. There was something about us coming here that really made us awaken to new careers. Both of us have Irish heritage and we were really inspired by the creative energy and the soulfulness of the place. It helped us get more aligned with our purpose.
As a soul mate coach, I now work with men and women, straight, gay and everything in between, who want to find their soul mate. People are generally demoralised when they come to me because they don’t realise that they are approaching the dating process in a way they’ve been taught, but which doesn’t serve them.
They are confident in their careers and friendships but their dating life feels embarrassing to them. They get this message — both men and women — that they are intimidating. And they wind up trying to diminish their power to make others comfortable, or to prop them up.
Both men and women are walking around with these mid-life dating myths. Women are fighting the mindset of men only wanting a young, pliable thing. Men are walking around with the painful belief that women want a bad boy and they don’t want a nice guy.
I have to explain to both of them that the key to attracting a partner is to do what I call ‘stepping into your sovereignty’, and that’s becoming more confident by loving yourself enough. A lot of Irish people think confidence means arrogance but it’s really about being comfortable in your skin. It’s about loving yourself enough that you are comfortable with, rather than apologetic about, who you are.
The number one problem I see with clients is that they don’t realise how much they’re letting physical chemistry drive their love train. That’s how we’re conditioned. We see this big, exciting spark in movies and if we don’t feel that with a person, they are immediately placed in the friend zone.
But in reality, statistics show that the majority of happily coupled people started as friends. So if you can just allow yourself to let the conversation flow and curiously explore what’s there between you, that connection will become an aphrodisiac.
I also help them write their dating profile because the sad truth is that the vast majority of profiles are boring. They all use the same adjectives and, for that reason, they all sound the same. So I teach them not to use adjectives and to ‘show, don’t tell’. Paint a picture of what life would be like with you, I tell them, so they can decide if they see themselves in that picture with you.
Is my approach about quantity over quality? Yes, and I support clients through the process of honouring that and not giving in to loneliness or impatience. Most of my clients are high-achievers and they are so focussed on achieving the relationship that they don’t know how to receive it and allow it to come to them.
A lot of people want a quick-fix but, really, there is no shortcut if you want to be in this for the long game. You have to put yourself through the process of releasing resistance, clarifying the vision and then taking inspired action.”
mysoulmatecoach.com
As told to Katie Byrne
