What is “Hotness”? Confidence – Dating in the Wild #3

Welcome to Hotness, the podcast that brings you practical tools to balance your hormones and rekindle connection, confidence, and desire in midlife and beyond.

I'm your host, Dr. Liz Lister. Hotiness is a safe space for honest conversations about menopause, sex, identity, love, loss, reinvention, and desire, because you can embrace your hotness at every age.

Welcome to Dating in the Wild, number three. This time, it is direct from my hotel room in Las Vegas. I am here for a business meeting. Of course, this is Las Vega, so I'm already having a lot of fun.

One of the topics for this episode is the topic of confidence, self-confidence. Where does it come from? So we will say more about that. We'll start by talking about solo travel.

This is really not something I ever aspired to do. I love travel. I've traveled all my life, a lot of times with family and visiting family. So I was really never on my own.

And I have to say that it's really quite an experience and a very eye-opening experience to be with yourself. to be traveling on your own, take care of all the steps of getting where you're going, it really does build confidence.

It can be interesting, right, because you get to make all of the decisions. What do I want to eat? When do i want It really can be really fun. One of the things that is so important is confidence when it comes from the inside rather than external validation.

That's a really important key to self-confidence. It's funny because when people are asked about what is an attractive quality in the person that they're looking for, A lot of people will say self-confidence in the other person because it's attractive.

What's happening, as you may have heard me talk about, I really love the tango dance analogy where you're danced with another person, but you have to stay on your own axis.

And you develop this confidence in yourself. It is a quality that other people get to experience. And it is wonderful, it's a very attractive quality.

So it definitely worth cultivating. Very important for dating because Coming from a place of confidence, I'm going to say is the opposite of coming from the place lack or a space of need.

So a Place of Confidence is a Places of Homelessness. It's a place where you are whole and complete exactly as you and exactly are not. When you come from that place, it's very attractive because you aren't looking to somebody else to fill a gap inside of you.

You are doing that for yourself. Sometimes a question that's fun to ask is, would you date the person that you are today? It's a fun question because it can really let you look at yourself and see how you feel about yourself.

So if you think about yourself as if your somebody else, would you date that person? And if not, why? Not as a place of criticism, but as place opportunity.

What are the areas in myself that I can work on, that can develop, That I find more peace, more inner peace for myself? That is the place that I want to be.

That's also the space that i am looking for another person to beat. I wanted them to bring peace, bring more peace to me, rather than to destabilize the peace that really work hard for myself to achieve and to maintain.

I remember when I was in my 20s and probably also my 30s, my confidence came from external validation. It came form performing for others, achieving in order to get accolades and recognition from the outside world.

And so I think that's true for a lot of people. And that is not because there is anything wrong with us. That's because that what it is to develop as a human being.

When we are babies, we're 100% reliant on the external world for everything. Then as children we start to grow and we look to people around us and that how we learn how to have emotional responses to things.

I remember when my son was little, and there'd be thunder, like a thunderstorm, and he would look to me to see if he was supposed to be scared. And I somehow had a moment of inspiration and made it a joke that the thunder was God farting.

And he thought that was really funny. That was that. Okay, another example that I know a lot of people give is when a child falls down. This definitely happened with my kids.

They fall down and they look to us. they looked outside of themselves. How am I supposed to feel? Am I supposed to be upset? Am i supposed be scared? A lot can happen in that situation.

So that is where we develop. The good news is that as we get older and we grow up, we have the opportunity to look within, to see and ask ourselves, what is the question?

What am I feeling? I can ask myself that question rather than looking externally. It's a choice that we learn to make. it's muscle that you get to build as you grow older.

And that muscle goes along with building confidence. When I'm not looking for external validation, I am then able to look within, turn in towards myself, towards my own relationship with Source.

Some people say God, some people divine intuition, a lot of different ways to refer to it, but that kind of oneness that we get to experience. For me, that is really where peace can come from, and it is the opposite of seeking external validation.

The external implying that there's something that I'm missing or something I am lacking. And so rather than coming from that place, again, I can look from a place of wholeness and build that internal validation and internal motivation and inner peace.

very soothing and very calming when one is in the dating world. Another development that I've pursued and been able to experience as I have gotten older is the difference between sharing or giving and receiving.

This is something that a lot of people are really terrible at. And it's very important, especially in dating and just in relationships in general. I think really a lot of people are terrible at receiving.

It really is a gift to the other person. it is the gift of the person who is giving to you for you to receive it well with grace and love and appreciation and whatever else is appropriate in that moment.

aspect of giving, however, is overgiving. This is something that I was very fortunate to learn pretty early on when I went back into the dating world last year.

Overgiving, and we talk about this in my Kabbalah studies as well. So, over giving is a problem for everyone. The best example is the kid of someone who's super famous and super wealthy, and they become a brat.

And the reason they became a brat is because they are being given so much that they did not earn. That leads to resentment. And they may not realize it.

They may think that they're happy and appreciative, et cetera. But if they are being bratty, that's because of resentment. And the reason for that is because they know at some little soul consciousness level that, they didn't earn those gifts.

This happened to me, like I said, early in my dating when I went back into the dating world where someone that I met that, I really felt very good with this person.

And I, went very quickly into over giving. always taking things over to his house, baking things, cooking dinner, which I am not a cook. I went there probably too quickly and definitely too much.

And the initial Part where I was really enjoying being treated to things and and not just the things themselves, but being cared for it was a really really good feeling and I crossed over from the receiving and giving in return to the over giving and i got to experience the little transition into little jabs, little resentment, telling me I was too thin-skinned for things that I didn't think were funny.

I did not think he was just teasing me, it did feel good. So that was a very profound learning experience. It was right around the time that i really started studying Kabbalah in earnest and luckily I came across this concept of over giving very early on.

because it immediately shed light on what was happening. So if you've had an experience like that, see if that applies. Try that idea on a concept I really think it's so important to get rid of.

And I've learned this from a few different teachers in a different ways. And that is to get rid of the idea of The One. It's just not true. I was very fortunate in my marriage to my late husband, I still refer to him as the love of my life, which does not mean that there won't be the next love my of life.

In Kabbalah, there's a teaching that everyone is your soulmate, everyone that you are in any kind of important relationship with, whether it's boss or someone that works for you or a romantic partner or parent-child, that every one is our soul mate.

Each person is there to engage with our souls and to give us a lesson. that sometimes it can be a painful lesson. It does not always have to be painful lessons, but it could be.

We tend to really learn from those, But we always had that opportunity. So a person being a soulmate, and this is from Kabbalah, this not from me, This is ancient wisdom.

Each person is a Soulmate to help us elevate our souls. So every person that I interact with in an important, significant way is an opportunity for me to elevate my soul.

And when I look at it that way, It is really helpful. It's supportive. I look forward to sharing more of the wisdom that I've learned from Kabbalah because it's super helpful.

And I also learned about this from other coaches because as I'm in this dating world, I am meeting men who listen to dating coaches for men. This is one of his foundational ideas for man.

So, of course, it applies for men and for women. When we interact with one person like they are the one and they're the only one, we will quickly, potentially cross over to expecting them to fulfill all of our needs.

all kinds of unrealistic demands and expectations that one person cannot possibly fill. So it's very important that ultimately your most important soulmate is going to be yourself.

Thanks for listening to this episode of Dating in the Wild. I am definitely in the wild here in Las Vegas. No question about it. It's quite the laboratory.

And I'll report back some of my findings over the next upcoming episode. So stay tuned and thanks for listening. Thanks for Listening to Hotness. Help more women find these practical tools by liking, sharing, and following the show, as well as leaving a review.

As a gift for listening, go to drlizmd.com forward slash hotness for your free midlife guide filled with powerful support for you mind, body and soul because you can embrace your hotnes at every age.