Are You Suffering From The Ms.Boss Syndrome?

Its that time again!!!!  Time for the SoulMate Coach Crystal Show!!!  And this week we will be taking a look at the Ms. Boss Syndrome.  How can you tell if you have the syndrome? Well. here are a few questions to help you clarify:  Are you constantly accused of being bossy and/or controlling? Do you ALWAYS have to have the last word? Do you tend to believe that YOUR way is ALWAYS the best way? Is it hard for you to hear and respect a different opinion? Well, guess what? If you answered yes to most of the questions you most likely suffer from the MS. Boss Syndrome! 

And if you answered mostly no's, don't get too excited! Because there is still a good chance that you suffer from the syndrome and you are just are in denial. One of the main symptoms of the syndrome is an inability to see a problem with our bossy behavior (the Ms. Boss Syndrome is veeerryyyy tricky). It's not that you are bossy, it's just that you ideas ARE always better LOL! 



But seriously, as successful sista's we have to handle a lot and in order to experience the kind of success we have it is important to be able to take control at times. There are times when it is absolutely necessary to be the boss! But what happens when we can't turn Ms. Boss off? How does being Ms. Boss 24-7 affect your dating life, relationship or marriage? What are the signs that you are too bossy? Join me this Monday on the SoulMate Coach Crystal Show, where we pack more info into 30 minutes than the law should allow, to get the answers to these questions and more!!! 

When: Monday, August 29, 2011
Time: 7:00-7:30PM EST

Where: www.blogtalkradio.com/SoulMate-Coach-Crystal or call in to listen live or comment by dialing 760-512-7255 

This show is quickly becoming the go-to show for real relationship advice and insight! Come on out and get you relationship "Aha" moment!  Also, ALL previous episodes are available on-demand and iTunes-FREE!!!  

Some of you are happily single or married and this is NOT for you and I am happy for you, love is a beautiful thing. However, there are people that you probably know WHO are hurting and want to experience the same happiness and peace that you have found. So pay it forward and PLEASE PASS THIS INFORMATION ALONG TO THEM. Together we can break the cycle of painful relationships and unlock the door to the relationship of your dreams. See you on the radio!

Blessings,

Crystal

What An Earthquake and Hurricane Ireane Taught Me.....

The Guest House

This being human is a guest house.

Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,

some momentary awareness comes

As an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!

Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,

who violently sweep your house

empty of its furniture,

still treat each guest honorably.

He may be clearing you out

for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,

meet them at the door laughing,

and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,

because each has been sent

as a guide from beyond. ~Rumi~

Now, I am one of those people that believes that everything that happens can teach me something.  I don’t believe in coincidence or luck.  Call me crazy but I believe that there is a lesson to be learned, even though I may not like it (and trust me I don’t always like it), for whatever is happening.  So am always looking for the connection between what is happening in the world around me and what I can learn from it.  And last week was no different.  Except for one big difference, at first I could see no real lesson!

I mean, c’mon man!  We had an earthquake on Tuesday and a hurricane on Saturday in case you missed it, and I could find no real lesson?!?!   This has got to be some kind of cosmic joke, right?  

Then I came across this poem this morning and one huge lesson hit me like a ton of bricks!  The reality that life happens and there are times when there is not a whole lot we can do about it. Life can be stormy, windy and scary one day and clear blue skies the next. Or  it can be a beautiful sunny day and the earth moves under your feet shaking the very foundation you though was so solid.....

The hurricane and earthquake are such a reflection of life in so many ways.  The earthquake was one of those unexpected things.  No one knew or expected it. We are, after all on the East Coast! Earthquakes don’t happen here, right? The nervousness and uneasiness.  What if it happens again? How do you really expect the unexpected?

And then there was Hurricane Irene, well we all knew she was coming.  So, we nervously awaited her arrival.  We watch, we waited, we hoped and we prayed.  We prepared (and some of us bought wayyyyy to much food) for the worse and hoped for the best. Then we finally entered the storm half scared to death on one day(and if you weren’t scared to death, it certainly wasn't because the news didn’t try !) only to awaken to a sunny day.  

It’s almost like the universe was reminding us that there are times when that all we can do is learn to find peace with whatever shows up at our door.  That this human body is indeed our ‘Guest House’.  Be it external, like an earthquake under our feet or hurricane of anger, resentment or pain from within.  

There is something to be learned, the possibility of seeing our ‘bad’ experience as something that we can learn from, instead of something to run away from or try to forget.  Who knows, maybe this experience could actually be preparing us for something wonderful if we learn what ‘it’ came to teach us.  Not that it will always be easy to do or that we should pretend that things are okay when they are not.  But there is definitely a gift in learning to accept and find peace with the seemingly ‘bad’ parts of ourselves and the world around us.  Where are you holding on to anxiety, anger or hurt?  What lessons could they be trying to teach you?

Why He's NOT Asking You Out

Has it been weeks, months or even years since your last real date? Or have you met nice guys, exchanged numbers, talked on the phone (maybe for hours), even shared GREAT chemistry BUT you seldom if EVER get asked out? I have heard quite a few women complain about this exact thing! Either great dates are few and far between or when they do meet someone they wait 2, 3 even 4 weeks and still no date! What the heck is this all about? Well, join me tonight where I will get to the nitty-gritty and give you the real deal on: Why He's Not Asking You Out!

Breaking Up is Hard to Do But Moving on Can Be Harder.

When my first husband passed away, I learned quite a bit about letting go and moving on.  I experienced, first hand, the pain of having a hole in the middle of my life and not being able to do a darn thing about it.  I know what it means to dial a cell phone number and get the voice mail, knowing he'll never answer again.  Like I said, life has taught me quite a few lessons about letting go and moving on.  

Breaking up is seldom easy to do but it can be the moving forward and getting on with life that can feel like torture.  Letting go of a past relationship requires that we let go of not only the past but of all hopes and dreams that we had for our relationship.  All of the familiarity, inside jokes, silly sayings and whatever else has been built over the course of the relationship gets stripped away and we are left with a very harsh reality.  IT IS OVER!   

No wonder we don't want to let go!  Can you blame a girl for pining away, hoping and or  praying that he will come back?  Maybe he will change his mind or magically change into a completelydifferent person and FINALLY be the partner I've wanted him to be for all these years!  I know it sounds silly but honeeeyyyy, we can conjure up all kinds of unlikely outcomes, when we don't want to deal with the pain that is looking us in the face.  Unfortunately this is one of those places in life that you can't go over, you can't go under and you can't go around it, you have to go (and find a way to get) through it.  So what is a broken hearted girl to do, when clearly her relationship is over and she still can't seem to move on?

Here are a few things that helped me to move on in my life after being widowed.  Maybe they will help you too....

1. I had to stop running from the pain.  Mainly because I began to realize that I could not outrun it.  This meant that I had to slow down and feel what was happening and let me tell you, this part sucked!  This part of the process that was probably the most gut wrenching but this part also allowed me to begin to deal with reality.  And the reality is; letting go of someone that you still love it is going to hurt like the dickens and the longer you run the longer it stays with you.
2. I had to get real.  No person or relationship is perfect .  Although that is exactly how we want to paint them when we don’t want to let them go.  I had to admit my life and relationship were not always rosy.  This step was tough because my first husband passed and you know, once someone passes away it is easy to make them a saint.  But when I got real, I had to admit that he was not perfect and nor was I.  Our relationship was a real relationship with some really great times and some times that were hard as hell.  Getting real helped to bring me out of denial and if there’s one thing that will slow your progress to a halt, it’s denial!
3. I had to remind myself that life could and would be beautiful again.  Although I had a wonderful relationship in the past, that was not the end of happiness for me.  So many people told me that you only get one great love in you’re life, that I believed them, for a while.  But you know what, that’s not true and don’t let anyone convince you that that was your one shot at love and happiness.  Only YOU get to decided that and if you decide that you’ll never be happy again, you won’t (until you decided to be happy again).  
4. Lastly, I had to make a conscious effort to find my happiness and see the beauty in my own life.  This did take time and energy and there were times where I would slip back into moping.  However, slowly but surly I felt myself moving away from feeling stuck in sadness and enjoying my life again.  I admit, this is not always easy but it is definitely an important part of moving on.  Because if you don’t see your life as great, who else will?

Although moving on after a breakup can be tough, it can be done.  It just takes a little time and effort (okay, okay maybe a lot of time and effort) but the point is it can be done.    So take courage and know, as the old folks say, “This too shall pass”.

Are You Dating An Emotionally Abusive Man?

Life has a way of teaching us what we need to learn.  With this weeks SoulMate Coach Crystal show being about emotionally abusive relationships, I can’t help but to think of all the things that I have experienced in this life and all the lesson that I have learned.   

The lesson of what emotional abuse looks like is one that I learned, at he hands of an ex-boyfriend, over 20 years ago that stays fresh in my mind.  It is something you never forget.  It can range from that subtle feeling of not being good enough all the way to feeling outright disrespected and everywhere in-between. 

I will never forget the very first time I experienced it.  It was a small statement but one that rubbed me the wrong way instantly.  I don’t remember the exact conversation but I do remember making a statement about something.  I don’t even remember what the statement was BUT boy do I remember his response.  First came a face that he made.  It was an expression that mixed confusion with bewilderment.  Then can the question followed by a comment, in an almost innocent tone, “ How could you ever think that? I’m not saying that you are stupid but that comment sure sounded stupid.”   Just like that I had entered the land of being verbal abused. 

Did he just say I was stupid?  My mind reeled.  No, he said, I SOUNDED stupid and I was overreacting.  He laughed it off and I tried to do the same but something big had shifted and I knew it (even though I wasn't ready to see it yet).  A small voice inside said,  ‘Someone who says they love you shouldn't make you feel like this’.  But I stayed anyway and the comments grew more aggressive and the arguments became venomous.  I’d say I was leaving, he’d woo me back in and the cycle would start all over again, each time a little worse than the last.  It slowly moved from emotional to really vicious verbal abuse and finally I knew, without question, that it was time to go, for good.  

  
When I look back on that time in my life and ask why did I stay, although there were many factors it boils down to a pretty basic answer.  I didn't trust or want to believe that he was showing me who he was.  An emotionally, verbally and eventually (after we broke up) physically abusive man who needed to control everything around him, including me.  I told myself he didn’t mean the harsh and scathing things he would say to me.  I ignored my gut and convinced myself that he was just going through a really tough time and things would get better. When the truth was, what he was going through was only exposing that he had controlling and abusive tendencies that were not going to go away.  

So, what’s the moral of the story?   To trust and believe.  Learning to  believe what I see and trust myself when I sense something isn't right; serves me to this very day.   I knew with that very first comment that something was not right but I didn’t trust myself enough to believe what I saw and go with my gut.  Sure I loved him, in a teenaged love kind of way, and I was young (around 17 or 18) but I certainly can’t say that I didn’t know any better.  Because with hindsight being 20/20, I can see that I did know better, I just had to learn to trust and believe what I already knew.  If you are questioning whether your relationship is verbally, emotionally or physically abusive ask your self this question: Where am I not trusting and believing what I already know?

Are You Dating An Emotionally Abusive Man?

Have you experienced emotional abuse in past relationships? How can you tell if you are in an emotionally abusive relationship? Where does expressing anger and/or frustration turn into emotional abuse? What is the difference between constructive and destructive criticism?

Feeling 'less than', like you have to prove yourself to your partner or being constantly defensive in your relationship are all sighs that you are experiencing or have experienced emotional abuse somewhere.

Sometimes recognizing emotional abuse can be hard. Because a lot of us grew up experiencing it, so we think that it is normal. The problem is, over the course of a relationship emotional abuse eats away at our self esteem and sense of self. It erodes our confidence and can leave us defensive, insecure and unsure of ourselves. This costs us big time. Because even if the emotionally abusive relationship ends we still carry the scars with us into our next relationship.