Are you in a rocky relationship?  Feeling resentful, anxious, distant, or lonely in your situation?  Whether you have been dating two months or married 10 years, things can go south all too easily in a couple.  Yet there is nothing quite as painful as when things are falling apart, when you know that your love might be lost forever.  Can I turn it all around, you wonder?  Is it even possible now?

Well I have great news for you.  It is possible.  If you have the courage to go for it.  All you need is to follow my three simple steps and you can become super happy with your partner.  Here is the three-step secret sauce, adapted from my new paperback, Sealing the Deal: The Love Mentor’s Guide to Lasting Love. It’s on sale now and comes with 30 awesome bonus gifts which you can claim at www.lovein90days.com/your-bonus-gifts

1.   Identify what I call your Relationship-Killer Beliefs.  These are beliefs like, “All men are jerks,” which kick in when you are in love that cause you to go on emotional rants in your mind instead of dealing with what is actually happening. Let’s look at a Relationship-Killer belief in action described in an email that Joanne, one of my readers recently sent me:

Dear Dr. Diana,

Sealing the Deal just saved my relationship. I was ready to break up with my boyfriend of 10 months because he was recently divorced and not meeting my emotional needs. I was out of town for the holidays and contemplating if this would be the last time we would be together. When I got to his house he had a big smile on his face and was so loving… but that wasn’t good enough for me. I had to punish him for all the times he wasn’t loving so I was standoffish.

  While sitting next to him watching the football game, I began reading your book, Sealing the Deal. I had already read Love in 90 Days. I read for several hours while completely ignoring his love and advances, something I’m always complaining that he doesn’t give me enough of. I finally got to the killer beliefs.  I had killer belief #5 “This is not exactly right.” and #6 “Relationships mean that one person has to give him- or her-self up”. But what really hit home was the research that unhappy couples discount their mate’s actions because they don’t think they have good intentions. BINGO! That has been me all the way. I want my boyfriend to behave a certain way and when he does, instead of encouraging him and being happy, I punish him because he wasn’t doing it all along! I am so thankful that he has loved me enough to not throw me out on my butt.  The first light bulb just came on! Because of all my killer beliefs in action we went to bed with a little tension between us. I kept laying there thinking, Joanne, you are so blowing it here. I also kept thinking negatively about my boyfriend lying right next to me and all he doesn’t do.  

2. After you have identified your Killer Beliefs, like Joanne did, journal about them and compare them to what is truly going on in your relationship. Let’s continue with her breakthrough story.

I got up about 3 a.m. because I couldn’t sleep because of a sudden head cold. I took your book into the kitchen with me and read it while getting some cold medicine. I wrote down my Killer beliefs and then made out a long list of all the great loving things my boyfriend had done.  I felt freed of an enormous burden.

 3. Create what I call a Love Intention, which is a one statement affirmation about the kind of super happy relationship you would like to create. If it feels right, also help create one for your partner. Let’s see how Joanne did it:

Then I got to the part about creating a Love Intention and focusing on what you “want” instead of what you don’t have. I created the love intention, “Jon and I have an exciting, fulfilling, growing, passionate, and nurturing relationship.” I kept meditating on this. When I got a negative thought about my boyfriend, I pushed it aside and mentally repeated the intention. Then I decided to make one for my boyfriend who is always trying to explain to me that he loves me but he needs his man time. I went back to bed.

 When we woke up I told him about my love intention and that anytime I had a negative thought about him or our relationship that I am going to meditate on my intention instead of what I don’t have. Then I told him that I created one for him to which he quickly replied, “You can’t do that.” But then I said,” Just hear it. I told him that the the love intention I created for him was, “Joanne and I have a growing relationship that is balanced with the perfect amount of togetherness and independence.” He loved it! He only wanted to add one thing. He said put “happy” in there so that it would read “a growing and happy relationship.” He kept saying it over and over until he memorized it. Then he said, “That really empowers me.”

 The rest of the morning was beautiful. We talked in bed. He made me breakfast. I put on cute clothes, fixed my hair, and put on a little makeup (something he likes). He told me I was so sexy. He was so attentive and loving (what I want). He asked me if I wanted to workout with him at my gym tomorrow (he’s hasn’t asked me that in 4 months).  When I was leaving he gave me a big hug and told me he’d call me later to see if I needed anything for my cold. Diana…. everything I wanted just materialized by making a shift in my thinking which came from following your book. I now realize that my man isn’t the problem, I am the problem! Over analyzing, being negative, and pushing him away.  I am so thankful to your book and that I picked it up and started reading it at just the right time. If not, I would have let this good man go.

So there you have it.   Use these three simple steps, Identifying your Relationship-Killer Beliefs; Journaling about them and what is happening in your relationship; and creating a Love Intention for you (and possibly your partner).  Then go ahead and enjoy your super happy love!

For more on Relationship-Killer beliefs, how to go from casual to committed, and how to move from love problems to solutions that deepen any love relationship (even after cheating), pick up a copy of Sealing the Deal: The Love Mentor’s Guide to Lasting Love.  It’s on sale now and comes with 30 awesome bonus gifts which you can claim at www.lovein90days.com/your-bonus-gifts

Wishing you love,

Dr. Diana

Diana Kirschner, Ph.D. is a frequent guest psychologist on The Today Show & author of the highly acclaimed relationship advice book, “Sealing the Deal: The Love Mentor’s Guide to Lasting Love” as well as the best-selling dating advice book, “Love in 90 Days.” Dr. Diana’s revolutionary work is the basis of her PBS Special on love and dating. Connect with Dr. Diana through her FREE Relationship Tips and Dating Advice Newsletter.

Dating Advice for Women

Next week is the blast-off for the paperback version of Sealing the Deal!!!!  30 Free bonus gifts are available if you buy it this week!   Click here for details.

To celebrate I will be speaking and signing copies of Sealing the Deal and Love in 90 Days at two  fun free events in NYC.  In addition to other self help gurus, both will have editors and literary agents there also!  Please let anyone who could benefit know about them.  And folks need to come early, as the events will be filled up very quickly. xoxo Diana

 Change Your Life: A New Year’s Resolution Book Panel

Strand Book Store, Tue Jan 10  at 7pm.828 Broadway (at 12th St)

(212) 473-1452strandbooks.com

Subway: L, N, Q, R, 4, 5, 6 to 14th St–Union SqGet directions

Critics’ Picks: The Five Best Events this Thu 29-Wed 11

Shapiro, the author of Unhooked: How to Quit Anything, brings together distinguished and varied panelists A.J. Jacobs, Diana Kirschner, Kate Hartson, Wendy Sherman, Frederick Woolverton and Tony Lyons to put audience members on the path of achieving “everything  they  want.”

http://www.strandbooks.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/event.show/ID/0fc76046-555b-47a6-972e-b62790d790f0

SPEED-SHRINKING FOR THE NEW YEAR

Wednesday, January 11 at 7:00pm

It’s hard to find a great new shrink and in this economy, many New Yorkers can’t afford psychotherapy. At this fun, free “speed shrinking” soiree you can speed date with top Manhattan mental health professionals to look for a new guru or just to get smart advice about something that’s bothering you. Whether you need an addiction specialist, a sex therapist, a Jungian astrologer, a gay/lesbian expert or a marriage mentor, this stellar line-up of licensed therapists will guide you towards better karma in the days to come. Refreshments and treats will be served.

• Frederick Woolverton, Ph.D., author of Unhooked & founder of the Village Institute for Psychotherapy
• Psychologist Diana Kirschner, author of the new book Sealing the Deal and Love in 90 Days
• Long Island–based acclaimed Jungian astrologer Robert Cook
• Jungian psychotherapist Sherene Schostak, author of Surviving Saturn’s Return: Overcoming the Most Tumultuous Time of Your Life
• Upper East Side–based sex therapist Cathy Beaton, M.S.
• Dr. Robert F. Scherma, a Village psychologist who works with both LGBT and straight patients
• Diane Spear, family counselor and psychotherapist
• Sherry Amatenstein, licensed clinical social worker and relationship author of The Complete Marriage Counselor
• Upper West Side psychiatrist and psycho-pharmalcoogist Sheri Sprit

PLUS! LITERARY GURUS: Agent Ryan Harbage, NAL book editor Danielle Perez, Marie Claire editor Elise Nersesian-Sole, Out editor Jerry Portwood, and Frisky.com editor Ami Angelowicz, and literary agents Ryan Harbage and Kimberly Perel (editor of the upcoming anthology Wedding Cake for Breakfast).

The whole event is MC’d by neurotic comedians Royal Young and Libby Segal.  Here is the link:

http://www.housingworks.org/events/detail/speed-shrinking-for-the-new-year-with-susan-shapiro

 ♥Dating Tips & Relationship Advice from My Heart to Yours♥

Diana Kirschner, Ph.D. is a frequent guest psychologist on The Today Show & author of the highly acclaimed relationship advice book, “Sealing the Deal: The Love Mentor’s Guide to Lasting Love” as well as the best-selling dating advice book, “Love in 90 Days.” Dr. Diana’s revolutionary work is the basis of her PBS Special on love and dating. Connect with Dr. Diana through her FREE Relationship Tips and Dating Advice Newsletter.

Dating for Over 50s -Advice for Women

This dating for over 50s blog is an interview with one of our awesome professional Love Mentors®, Karen Holland.  Karen is a Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist who specializes in working with couples and individuals getting in and out of relationships.  She works with couples to create passionate, fulfilling relationships.  She works with singles to help them heal from broken hearts and  find the relationship of their dreams. Now here’s Karen on dating for over 50s:

I work with lots of 50 plus women looking for love and I’ve come to the conclusion that women of this age, in general, are by far the most interesting, accomplished, and sexy. Once a woman reaches her middle years she often has the self possession it takes to really know what she wants.  She’s lived through a multitude of experiences and is less plagued by the anxieties that consume the minds of younger women.  She may have raised children, been divorced a time or two or, perhaps, has never found love.  But she has learned about herself in the process. In this way, mature women are in the perfect place to find real, lasting love.

News Flash:  Tune into Karen as she is interviewed on the nuts and bolts of successful dating for over 50s on our Love in 90 Days- Blogtalk radio show, live on November 22!   (And archived thereafter!)  To listen, Click Here!

Still women, as they age, face certain realities. They may have been out of the dating game for a while. They may not understand these new ways to date. It can all be a little intimidating. They wonder if men only want to be with younger women. They wonder if they have to “put out” and when. Some look at their changing bodies and say “To hell with it; I better just stay home.”  If they’ve been looking for a long time, these sometimes highly successful career women, are burnt out and certainly turned off by men who have either played badly with their hearts over the years or are simply just too boring!

For these mature women whom I love to mentor, I give the following advice in dating for over 50s:

1. Mind the Frump- It is incredibly important to make yourself beautiful in your own eyes. It’s not about competing with younger women. It’s about bringing out what women over 50 undoubtedly have- sex appeal. Really. Update your haircut and your wardrobe. Tone your arms and strengthen those legs (very important anyway to avoid that walker when you’re 80!).  Check out books like Younger Next Year (for Women) by Crowley & Lodge which makes the whole diet, exercise and aging thing incredibly simple (and very funny).  For beauty help, I love Charla Krupp’s books How Not to Look Old and How to Never Look Fat Again.
2. Get online! -  Did you know that the largest group to try online dating is 55 and over?  Everybody’s online these days.  In addition to the big dating sites like Match.com, PlentyofFish.com and eHarmony.com, which offer dating for baby boomers and dating for seniors, check out seniorpeoplemeet.com and silversingles.com as well.
3. Keep those legs crossed (for now) –  Don’t jump into the sack so quickly. Yes, you went through the sexual liberation movement but it doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t keep a little mystery and a make a man work harder for you.   And, yes, you do have to worry about STDs and HIV.  In fact, in 2005 15% of all new HIV cases were in people over 50. Additionally, older women are more susceptible to STDs because they can have lowered immune systems, thinning vaginal walls and are much less likely than younger women to bring up the subject of STDs with their potential lover.
4. Play, Play, Play! – As a dear friend of mind says, “Sit loose in the Saddle.”  If you approach dating like a delightful experiment, the world as your playground, it will be so much more fun and you will experience much less burnout.  You don’t have to do it perfectly. You just have to get out there and not take yourself and dating so seriously. Though, I do want you to take the business of love seriously! For what is life without love?
5. Don’t Do it Alone! -  Read good books, like Dr. Diana’s Love in 90 Days which has a special section for women over 45 and her new book Sealing the Deal to help navigate a relationship with a potential life partner.  Get a Love Mentor ®! Stop trying to do everything on your own (Come on, you know you do!). Finding love can be challenging and it helps to have someone by your side guiding you and cheering you on.

Follow these dating advice and just get yourself out there. I’m pulling for you,

Karen Holland

You can get your own one-on-one free 40 minute Love Mentoring® Session with Karen by phone or Skype! Just click here  & fill out the form, requesting Karen.  Hurry–her time will fill up quickly!

Tune into Karen as she is interviewed on the nuts and bolts of successful dating for over 50s on our Love in 90 Days- Blogtalk radio show, live on November 22!   (And archived thereafter!)  To listen,Click Here!

“Finding Love After 50 – Without Being Turned Off Or Burnt Out” -The interview with Love Mentor® Karen Holland

DATE: Tuesday, November 22, 2011      TIME: 5:00 pm Pacific/8:00pm Eastern for one hour

COST: No charge  JOIN US LIVE VIA: Telephone, Skype, and Replay Access-Click Here For Details

     In this free dating for over 50s seminar you will discover . . .

• What the “new rules” are now in dating for over 50s
• The myths that keep you single and alone
•  How to spot a good guy when you see him
• Avoid getting burned out and turned off when seeking love and companionship
• The keys to successful dating for over 50s
• The best way to reinvent yourself and emerge as a brand new dating you
• And much, much more  . . .

Please interact with us live during the dating for over 50s show by visiting:  Facebook.com/DrDianaKirschner
Twitter.com/drdiana or Blog Talk Radio Chat

Thank you, Karen for your wise words and dating for over 50s advice. If you would like a free 40-minute love mentoring session  by phone or Skype with Karen, click here or go to www.lovein90days.com/coaching and ask for Karen on the form. For more information about this and future Love Mentoring® Seminars please visit-
http://www.lovementoring.com

Wishing you love,

Dr. Diana

♥Dating Tips & Relationship Advice from My Heart to Yours♥

Diana Kirschner, Ph.D. is a frequent guest psychologist on The Today Show & author of the highly acclaimed relationship advice book, “Sealing the Deal: The Love Mentor’s Guide to Lasting Love” as well as the best-selling dating advice book, “Love in 90 Days.” Dr. Diana’s revolutionary work is the basis of her PBS Special on love and dating for over 50s. Connect with Dr. Diana through her FREE Relationship Tips and Dating Advice Newsletter.

Summer’s fading away can lead to a dip in your mood.  When it turns cloudy and the air is cooler it may be a bit of a let down when you realize that winter and the holidays are just ahead.   But there is also good news when the weather turns. And I don’t just mean the amazing foliage, crunchy apples and fresh pumpkin pie.  In my experience, it’s easier to find love in the Fall!  There are three reasons for this. First, singles, like all of us, raised in the rhythm of a school calendar, are conditioned to buy new wardrobes and give themselves a mini-makeover in the fall—so they feel more attractive and ready to go for it.  Second, for around the first 20 years of our lives, including preschool and college, we are encouraged by our families to socialize in autumn as we enter a new grade with new peers. This form of conditioning tends to shape our behavior even when formal schooling ends.

Finally, the fall is a signal that the holidays are coming up and nothing can be more depressing than facing another round of holidays alone. This realization mobilizes singles to roll up their sleeves and work more proactively on their dating, so there’s more love to go around. In fact, two studies have shown that dating in the fall can lead to increased romantic involvements later in the year.

Fall also provides an influx of new students for graduate school and college dating. Being in a new dorm or school often creates loneliness and social anxiety and increases the need to form a love attachment in order to feel secure. But for you students going back to school, and especially those leaving home for college, don’t commit the single biggest mistake singles make: hooking up and coupling too soon. Play the field and don’t get boxed into a committed relationship before you have a chance to learn more about yourself.

So, no matter what your age, Fall is a great time to network. The secret to falling back to real love is to take advantage of all the new connections by networking and meeting as many people as possible. My Dating Program of Three is a powerful strategy that has you date three people casually with no sex and is your ticket to a real relationship. Meet as many people as possible: use the Autumn dating advantage!

You can learn much more about this topic and how to create love that is just right for you in my best-selling dating advice book, Love in 90 Days: The Essential Guide to Finding Your Own True Love.

Wishing you love,

Dr. Diana

Diana Kirschner, Ph.D. is a frequent guest psychologist on The Today Show & author of the highly acclaimed new relationship advice book, “Sealing the Deal: The Love Mentor’s Guide to Lasting Love” as well as the best-selling dating advice book, “Love in 90 Days.” Dr. Diana’s revolutionary work is the basis of her PBS Special on love. Connect with Dr. Diana through her FREE Relationship Tips and Dating Advice Newsletter.

Dating Advice for Women

‘Rachel,’ one of the awesome women in our Love Mentoring® program is rockin’ it on her journey to creating an extraordinary love relationship.  How?  She took on one of the most powerful and yet most challenging exercises in the dating advice book, Love in 90 Days, the “Loveless Eulogy”.  In this writing exercise you fast forward to a vision of the life that your deadly dating patterns, fear and self sabotage have laid out for you—a loveless life.  And you write your own eulogy.  

So you can then decide if this is the reality you want to live into.

I wanted to share Rachel’s journaling with you (with her permission, of course!) in this dating advice for women series. 

Writing Exercise #1: Rachel died today and it is with sadness that I say… that she was happiest when she was coupled happily and I believe that to be true, for she was unbearably romantic. The problem came when she began to develop intimacy with another; she found reasons why the relationship, deep down, would not last. Sometimes she told herself that it was her partner who did not quite measure up to her expectations, or was flawed in certain ways. Other times it was when her partner unknowingly and unintentionally did something to hurt her. She would allow that pain to penetrate to her deepest pain center and there it would sit and fester—the old wound opened anew that she never allowed to heal

As much as she outwardly proclaimed her love optimism, inwardly, she was the consummate pessimist, she would bristle when confronted with this possibility, and intellectually would qualify her pessimism being more akin to realism or at the very least, wise skepticism.  This conflict of head and heart was terribly confusing to her friends, her partners, and mostly to herself. Yet, it was simply too difficult for her to change. Her indelible conclusion was that if she truly gave her heart, it ultimately would not be wanted by the one she offered it to. And so, instead of having faith in love and holding hope in the face of set-backs and disappointments, she allowed those set-backs and disappointments to erect an impenetrable wall around her heart. She became lost in the grief of rejection that she assumed would happen,

The truest of tragedies about all of this is that Rachel had an infinite capacity for love. Indeed, if you asked her what she believed her soul’s purpose was, it was for love. Her heart was filled with potential and it soared with the feelings from another and for another. She lived too much in her head, though, over thinking, and unfortunately, talking her heart into destroying love. If only she had listened to her heart, followed her heart, and quieted her frightened, doubtful mind, she could have taken the leap. She could have found the faith that was barely beyond her grasp.

She wanted love, oh how she wanted to love and to be loved!

Wow, Rachel did an awesome job on this exercise—and spoke about issues of the heart we have all experienced at one time or another.  She worked very closely with her Love Mentor® and then she tackled the next exercise from Love in 90 Days, called the Right Time to Believe in Love.

Writing Exercise #2

Why now is a good time to love and why I am ready for the first time in my life    to love with complete trust, faith, and belief in myself, my partner, and my relationship

 This exercise is every bit as humbling as the previous one, for if you ask me to be absolutely honest. I will say that I believe I am ready for a relationship, yet is anyone ever completely ready? Are not the dynamics unpredictable when two hearts, minds, and spirits interact teach and learn from each other? You simply don’t know until you dive in and try. That’s my lesson from our Love Mentoring® work so far: to strip away the shroud of fears and jump with joyful faith into the risk. Once there, I believe I am far better prepared to flow with the give and take of relating.

I can say that I am more emotionally equipped to be a solid partner as I deal with my core fears and killer belief of “the chase me problem,” I can say that I am encouraged, feeling stronger by the day, more in tune and more fond of myself as I grow. I can say that my Love Mentoring “boot camp” of self love, emotional strength building, and physical fitness is being noticed by me and others. I can say that the issues raised by my partner were key and have haunted me long enough so that each day I pour my passion and exert my will into resolving them permanently. I am pleased by my progress. So in this regard, yes I am ready.

Given that my sight is crystal clear and my motivation akin to critical mass, I have set the following goals for myself. I read them and take them in a few times each day. They speak to my readiness for love. They are written in the present tense to underscore my achieving them.

• I trust love in my life.
• I release the belief that I will be abandoned when I love.
• I am at peace with my birth mother abandoning me. She recognized her mistake.
• The strong adult I am is nurturing, embracing, and adoring my inner child.
• The wall around my heart is gone.
• I love my partner and everything is alright.
• I permanently release the fear of love rejection.
• I permanently release the belief that I am being rejected.  My confidence is strong!
• My heart is open, bold, and free –I welcome love!

__________________________________________________________________________

Thank you Rachel, for your inspiring work!  If you would like to work one-on-one with a Love Mentor® like Rachel did, contact me ASAP for a session by phone or Skype at http://www.lovein90days.com/coaching/ .  You can have a free 40 minute Love Mentoring consultation with one of the handpicked, expert Mentors who work directly under my supervision.  Let me tell you, they are devoted, wise, loving and can help you get exactly where you want to be.

Wishing you love,

Dr. Diana

Dr. Diana Kirschner        ♥Dating and Relationship Advice from my Heart to Yours♥