Serdar Hararovich

VULNERABILITY IN DATING (Pt 2)

"I really like you, but we only just met and I'm afraid that saying this is going to scare you off."

"The way you look at me, and touch me, is a level of intimacy I haven't experienced in a long time. I want this, but I need a moment to fully take this in."

"There's a conversation I want to have with you, that I haven't yet because it shows how much I care. I want to try leaning into that fear with you."

"The closer we get, the more fears I notice arising in me... I'm not used to feeling safe to talk about them, but I want to try something new with you."

"This is going slower than what I'm used to, and I've been making that mean that you're not that into me.. Could we talk about this?"

"I don't feel the exact same way you feel, but I love what we are experiencing, and I feel open to seeing what happens from here. Would you like to continue exploring this with me?"

"The way I'm feeling is so vulnerable for me, that there's a part of me that wants to reject you before you can reject me... I don't want to let that part of me take over - I want to open deeper to what's here between us."

"The closer we get, the more I'm seeing things about you that fill my heart with joy."

- Serdar Hararovich

NEW SKILLS, NEW DEPTHS OF LOVE.

I have a client who is often says that the things I share with her, are the complete opposite of what her friends are telling her, and it's been helping her grow in completely new ways.

She would often listen to her friends telling her "you deserve better", ending connections when something became too challenging. Yet she wasn't actually EXPERIENCING better. Patterns kept repeating in her life.

Here's the difference between pseudo-empowerment and real empowerment:

No amount of "I deserve better" prepares a person to actually EXPERIENCE better. For that, people need to learn new skills, which includes how to NOT leave when things get hard. They need learn how to NOT to stay unhappily - as many people do - but to actually talk about challenges in new ways, which creates new outcomes.

To NOT stay resentfully, or to stay in unhealthy connections, but instead, to learn how to address issues so effectively that they are easily resolved in a beautiful, harmonious way.

They need new skills and new ways of approaching familiar situations. New skills that help them to resolve issues, concerns, and doubts that they have never before even imagined can be resolved with such ease, or even at all.

THAT is when a person starts experiencing better. This is what I've been supporting my client with - learning how to deal with situations that used to have her either stay while suppressing her feelings, project them onto her partner, or leave without fully addressing something in an effective & healthy way.

I helped her learn how to communicate her triggers, how to feel heard, and how to address issues and complaints without pushing the other person away. How to actually have those issues and concerns fully resolved with him and feel fully and truly met by him.

Now, despite the inevitable challenges of any deep connection, she's 3 months into the healthiest and most fulfilling relationship she's had in more than 10 years. This never would have been possible if she listened to some of her friends constantly projecting their own distorted ideas and experiences of men onto every new man in her life.

Does that mean friends can't have helpful advice or that we shouldn't turn to them in times of need? No, that's not what it means.

Our friends have a very important place in our lives, but it's not as replacement coaches & therapists who will help us transform decades-old patterns, habits and ways of relating.

The degree to which we invest in ourselves, our growth and our healing, is the degree to which we get to experience new depths of love, intimacy and fulfilment. Everyone deserves healthy love, but nothing new can emerge in our lives while we do the same old things.

- Serdar Hararovich

I have a client who is often commenting on how the things I share with her, are the complete opposite of what her friends are telling her, and it's been helping her grow in completely new ways.

She would often listen to her friends telling her "you deserve better", ending connections when something became too challenging. Yet she wasn't actually finding & EXPERIENCING better. Patterns would keep repeating in her love life until we started working together.

Here's the difference between real empowerment and pseudo-empowerment:

No amount of "I deserve better" prepares a person to actually EXPERIENCE better. For that, people need to learn new skills, which includes how to NOT leave when things get hard. They need to learn not just to stay unhappily - as many people do - but to talk about challenges in new ways, which creates new outcomes.

To NOT stay resentfully, nor to stay in unhealthy connections, but instead, to learn how to address issues so effectively that they are resolved in a beautiful, harmonious way.

They need new skills and new ways of approaching familiar situations. New skills that help them to resolve issues, triggers, concerns, and doubts that they have never before even imagined could be resolved with ease.

THAT is when a person starts experiencing better. THAT is real empowerment. This is what I've been supporting my client with - learning how to deal with situations that used to have her either suppress feelings, project them onto her partner in a blaming way, or leave without fully addressing something in an effective way.

I helped her learn how to communicate her triggers, how to feel heard, and how to address issues and complaints without pushing the other person away with blame and resentment. How to actually have those issues and concerns fully resolved with him and feel fully met with him.

She wants to feel fully met by a partner - something she absolutely deserves - and I'm supporting her in experiencing that with the skills needed to make it a reality, rather than the fantasy that it's just something that will automatically happen with the right person.

Now, despite the inevitable challenges of any deep connection, she's 3 months into the healthiest and most fulfilling relationship she's had in more than 10 years. This never would have been possible if she listened to her friends often projecting their own negative experiences of men onto every new man in her life.

Does this mean friends can't have helpful advice, or we shouldn't turn to them in times of need? Of course it doesn't mean that at all.

Our friends have a very important place in our lives, but it's not as replacement coaches & therapists who will help us transform decades-old patterns, habits and ways of relating and open up to a deeper level of relating that we've never before experienced.

That's not their role, and to use them for that will result in ongoing stagnation, resentment and frustration.

The degree to which we invest in ourselves, our growth and our healing, is the degree to which we get to experience new depths of love, intimacy and fulfilment. Everyone deserves this, but it's an active choice that needs to be made - a stand for something new, an opening and an invitation for new energy entering your life.

- Serdar Hararovich

ENTITLEMENT vs EMPOWERMENT

- Entitlement: My partner should meet my needs. I'm justified in being angry when they don't.

- EMPOWERMENT: I am learning how to self-regulate, and to get my needs met in a multitude of ways. Instead of blaming my partner, I'm learning how to collaborate with him/her to get my needs met more effectively and harmoniously.

- Entitlement: I am an expert communicator. I've read all the books, did all the workshops, and read all the articles. Everything that goes wrong in my relationships is other people's fault.

- EMPOWERMENT: My humility - and my recognition that learning about something, is radically different to learning how to actually embody it - is the secret to overcoming my relationship patterns.

- Entitlement: My partner needs to stop being so defensive. They are the problem.

- EMPOWERMENT: I am willing to acknowledge the ineffective ways I communicate sometimes, and to seek tools for more effective communication.

- Entitlement: If my partner really cared, they would do ________ for me.

- EMPOWERMENT: It's my responsibility to communicate clearly & openly. I no longer blame other people for not reading my mind.

- Entitlement: I have done the work. Most people are just not on my level.

- EMPOWERMENT: Feeling superior to other people is a defence mechanism that I no longer need. I am willing to recognise how I contribute to my relationship patterns in a serious way. My self-esteem is strong enough for me to look at my behaviours with honesty, self-compassion, and true accountability.

- Entitlement: I deserve a healthy relationship. Things will just magically work out with the right person. All the healing happens in relationship, there's nothing more for me to learn until then.

- EMPOWERMENT: Most relationships don't work out because one or both parties chose not to learn deeper skills of relating, because they believed they already knew everything. I wont make the same mistake everyone else is making. Yes, I deserve a healthy & thriving relationship, and I will turn that desire into a reality by learning the skills to co-create it, nurture it and keep it with the right person.

- Serdar Hararovich

SECURE vs INSECURE Attachment

Insecure Attachment: If he/she doesn't message me quickly, it means they're losing interest or they're an Avoidant.

SECURE Attachment: If he/she doesn't message me quickly, it's fine because I feel secure within myself and in the connection.

Insecure: I often pick emotionally unhealthy or unavailable partners - and I assume the worst about them, which brings out the worst in them.

SECURE: I often pick emotionally healthy and available partners - and I assume the best of them, which brings out the best in them.

Insecure: I pick partners based on their lifestyle, income level, or how intensely attractive I find them. Then I often get frustrated when they aren't able to meet me emotionally.

SECURE: I pick partners based on emotional availability, personality connection, and their relational skillset. Attraction matters and other things matter - but not as much as these things.

Insecure: I'm attracted to people who aren't sure about me, and when they ARE sure about me, I start wondering if I could do better than them. I lose interest in people who are enthusiastic in me.

SECURE: I'm genuinely attracted to people who see my value - and I invest my time, energy and heart into those connections much more than any others.

Insecure: I need intensity to feel anything. If someone showers me with gifts and signs of investment, that makes me feel safe and I need that kind of certainty.

SECURE: I don't need intensity. I am neither afraid of deep intimacy, so I don't need to take things overly slow - and nor do I need to rush into it to 'seal the deal'.

Insecure: I blame other people when things don't work out. Other people are responsible for my unhappiness. All my friends agree - it's his/her fault because he/she's an avoidant/narcissist/etc.

SECURE: I take ownership of my own happiness. I have the inner security to see my side of things, to take responsibility for what is mine.

When I need extra support to see my blindspots, I get the kind of professional help I need - without shame, and without spiritually bypassing my life by saying "everything I need is within me" or "if it meant to be, it'll be".

Insecure: I believe that having awareness, going to workshops and learning about Polarity means I "did the work" and other people are not at my level. I choose not to get the deeper attachment-informed help I need, which is why I keep attracting unhealthy relationship dynamics.

SECURE: I became Secure through the humility to do genuine healing work, and by taking my happiness seriously - which is why I now experience depths of love, intimacy and fulfilment that I used to dream of.

- Serdar Hararovich

When the ANXIOUS part of you is dominating your love life:

- You put a lot of emphasis on how often someone texts you
- You often create a lot of meaning out of indirect signals of interest & availability
- You mainly - or only - want to date people who you put on a pedestal
- You either feel intensely attracted to someone - or you have very little interest in them
- When people like you just as much as you like them (or even more), you start losing interest in them
- When someone isn't sure about you, that's when you are most sure about them
- You avoid bringing up complaints & difficult topics, OR
- You bring up complaints & issues often in cold, reactive, or impatient ways
- Once you feel less strongly for someone, you make that mean they are not 'the one'

When the AVOIDANT part of you is dominating your love life:

- You quickly find both big and small flaws in others
- You get "the ick" with people easily, and use it as a reason to distance emotionally
- You pull away when things start to get challenging
- You don't usually talk about things that are bothering you
- Other people's needs and desires feel like they constrict your freedom
- When someone gets too close, you start needing a lot of space
- You tend to date people who want to be with you, more than you want to be with them
- Issues & challenges in the relationship are taken as a sign it's not 'the one'
- When you feel less strongly for someone, you make it mean they are not 'the one'

IMPORTANT: Both the Avoidant & Anxious parts of a person can, and often do, dominate a person's love life interchangeably.

For example, you might be Anxious/Preoccupied with people who you put on a pedestal - but then you become Avoidant with the people who are actually emotionally available.

You might easily find flaws in the people who want to be with you - while becoming fixated on people who are unavailable in some way.

In this way, you push away both the people you are most intensely attracted to, AND the people who would actually be emotionally healthy partners. You need to work on both your anxious side - AND your avoidant side - in order to align with healthy partnership.

Most people - if they ever do any Attachment-based healing work - only work on one side. This often leads to an imbalance towards the other side, leading to more unhealthy relating, rather than towards embodied Secure Attachment.

Additionally, unless a person is directly addressing their PRE-VERBAL blueprint of attachment, they cannot become securely attached.

No matter how many times we repeat the same cycles, or how much we learn about relationships consciously, our preverbal attachment blueprint - and all the unconscious fears contained within it - will continue to determine the course of our lives until it is directly updated with a new, healthy blueprint that allows a person to align with healthy partners and secure relating.

This is why there are millions of people who are now CONSCIOUSLY aware of Attachment Styles, conscious relating, etc - but who continue to UNCONSCIOUSLY repeat similar patterns in their lives.

Genuine healing work has to go much deeper than awareness in order to create lasting change. It has to reach the preverbal attachment blueprint. This is the most powerful & lasting form of healing work.

- Serdar Hararovich

YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH YOURSELF, IS YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH OTHER PEOPLE.

When you have a healthy, loving, grace-filled relationship with YOURSELF, this is what happens in your dating & love life:

- You learn how to process your anger, without taking it out on your partner. Knowing how to LISTEN to your anger, without lashing out from it.

- You speak up. You are clear about what matters to you. You advocate for it consistently. And you do that with attunement, curiosity and warmth towards the other person.

- You don't stay quiet about things that bother you - AND, you express boundaries, needs & desires in collaborative, loving ways.

- You no longer experience relationships as a fight to have your needs met. Your inner world is a collabortive, loving, & integrated place where all the different aspects are taken into consideration - and that's what your relationships become.

- You have grace for other people's humanity, their imperfections, and the ways they sometimes disappoint you. The grace you extend to yourself, becomes the grace you extend others.

- You learn how to deal with disappointment, hurt and frustration in healthier ways. You honour these feelings and their message, without making stories about your partner in response to them.

- With emotionally healthy & available people, you look for what's right about them, not what's wrong with them and why it wouldn't work based on premature judgements.

- With emotionally unavailable people, you establish what they are available for (and NOT available for) quickly & clearly through direct communication (not indirect signals) - and you move on once it's clear that's what needs to happen.

- You are able to see differences in potential partner's as expanders, not limitations. Just as the various parts of you feel welcome inside you, you have openness towards differences in others.

- You view most differences in your partner as an asset, not a liability, and that becomes the reality you experience.

- You approach the more challenging differences with grace - the same grace you offer the more challenging parts of your inner self.

- When dating, you talk about your fears, insecurities and concerns - and you do so in a warm, loving way.

- You start being able to hear your date's or your partner's fears, insecurities and concerns in a patient, accepting and loving way.

- You rarely, if ever, speak harshly to your partner - just as you rarely, if ever, speak harshly to yourself.

- You express appreciation & love for your partner often.

- The kinds of people you are attracted to change. You are no longer attracted to people who reaffirm a negative view of yourself.

- You start picking emotionally healthy & available people, because you are becoming genuinely emotionally healthy & available. You don't get caught up in power struggles with other people any more.

- You don't blame other people (or other genders) for the choices you make. You recognise that the most loving thing you can do for yourself, is to take responsibility for your choices, so that you can create a better life for yourself.

- Your romantic relationships become a place of solace, deep love, acceptance, belonging and healing. Just as your inner world has become.

There's no shortcut to doing this work. There's no communication technique you can learn that is more powerful than developing a healthier, more grace-filled relationship with yourself.

This is the core of the work I do with people. There's nothing more important, and nothing that helps someone align with healthy partnership, more than this.

- Serdar Hararovich

There are thousands of companies & individuals that directly make money from you being distracted and/or angry about something, or the latest hot take from another performative influencer. Their entire survival depends on how much they can capture your attention, every second of every day.

Taking back your power means choosing to invest your time and energy into endeavours that are generative FOR YOU - not for them.

Endeavours that are generative, are ones that allow for more love in your life. Endeavours that allow for more grounding in your life. Nothing is more generative for human beings than safe, loving, authentic relationships that you can truly rely on and feel secure within.

Insecure, inconsistent love costs people their happiness, their emotional stability, their time, and in many cases, their financial & physical health. Loneliness, disconnect, and insecure connections harm us over time because we are wired to thrive in the context of secure attachment.

This is what it means to be human: To come alive and become most fully ourselves in the loving, accepting embrace of others.

Secure love allows people to fully settle into themselves - to prosper & thrive in ways that we often only can do when we have the nourishing foundation of secure, loving relationships.

Secure Dating isn't just another program. It's not just another hot take from misguided influencers who have no understanding of the nuances of true intimacy, leading people to more confusion and disconnect.

It's a decision to invest your time, energy and money in something truly generative for your life.

It's a decision to focus on + commit to something healthy & healing, and stick to that, in a world of confusion and distraction.

It's a decision to make a bold stance for something new. It's an opening up to something beautiful.

I created this program in reverence for - and inspired by - the healing power of love.

Instead of pushing away our longing for more love with clichés like "If it's meant to be, it will be" - it's an embrace of our humanity, and a recognition that you can actually learn the practical skills that will allow you to CO-CREATE deeply fulfilling relationships, and open up to the deepest love of your life.

It's a recognition that when the old ways aren't working, it's an invitation & a calling to be courageous and try something new.

Most people reading this will simply move on to the next thing that captures their attention. The painful cycles of their life will quietly continue for many more years, before they ever listen to that calling within them that gets louder and louder.

This is an invitation to make a new move. A new step in the trajectory of your life. A step that could change everything. Within 6 powerful weeks together, with a group of like-minded people, entering a portal into depths of intimacy & love few people ever get to reach.

Secure Dating: Deep, Soulful, Easeful Love made Practical starts September 20th. If you resonate with this, I'd love for you to join us.

Soulful, nourishing connections + community is a human need.

Authentic Connections is a place for people to come together, meet new friends and deepen their existing connections.

In a grounded & mindfully facilitated environment, we'll be practicing authentic connection exercises, deepening our self-awareness and enjoying the benefits of connecting with others on a more soulful level.

Friday, August 30th, 6:15PM - 8:30PM
Tallebudgera Valley Community Centre
$25. Limited spots.

* LETTING LOVE IN *

The thing that keeps many people in unhappy relationships is not just love - it's also their unworthiness wound that has them trying to prove themselves to someone who feels distant in someway.

When they meet someone who they don't have to prove themselves to - or, the person they were originally trying to prove themselves to, finally comes closer to them and develops love towards them - something very interesting happens.

You might think they would be over the moon... but instead, it often creates ruptures in the relationship.

Fault-finding, distancing and resentment can start arising as a defense mechanism against the thing that the person consciously wanted, but is unconsciously unable to allow in: actually being loved.

In some cases, the person will end the connection around this time, because they're not 'feeling in love' anymore, now that they actually feel loved.

Now that they have proven themselves - by receiving love, or by being chosen - they don't feel the intensity of desire that they believe is love, and they think this means that the person they loved is not the right person for them.

The reality is that they simply cannot take in love from people who can actually give it to them.

In moments like this, there's an opportunity to settle into a deeper kind of love - one which is not based on the unworthiness wound, but on a grounded and reciprocal appreciation for each other that grows through time.

But when we are driven by these wounds, we can only love a partner when they feel distant and unavailable in some way.

How do I know all this? Only because I used to be this way too. Even though I thought that I was very loving person, in truth, my strongest feelings were always reserved for people who were emotionally distant in someway.

That was before I recognised what was happening inside me, and began the long road of healing the part of me that couldn't take in love.

The part of me that could only love people when they didn't love me. The part of me that would find flaws in people when they actually saw me.

Having such personal experience with it, I can see it in others. And since then, I've also experienced what it's like to love someone like this too.

It's not something to judge nor shame. It's a tragic affliction that many people struggle with, often without realising what's actually happening.

On the surface, it can feel like 'I can't find an emotionally available person' - or 'the people I love, don't love me the way I love them'.

The biggest blockage in my journey was the belief that this was about other people. I would focus on how other people lacked openness. I see this in many of my clients too - the focus is always on other people.

In truth, it was entirely about my unconscious blueprint of love that meant I was attracted to people who weren't able to show up fully - and repelled by people who were.

Repelled by people who actually saw me and loved me.

In truth, it was about my relationship towards myself and my unconscious belief that I wasn't worthy of being loved.

That is what childhood emotional neglect does to people. It creates a blueprint of love that has us looking for it where we'll never find it, while devaluing and finding reasons to reject it and judge it when it's actually there.

This is why I do what I do. This stuff is personal. People deserve to live a life where the wounds of the past don't have to be the pain of their future anymore.

Everyone deserves to receive the love that is trying to enter their lives.

But first, we have to learn how to open to it. The first step is to stop focusing on other people, how they aren't showing up, how there's no good men/women etc - and instead, turn the attention inward.

For many people, this is the hardest thing of all: to reclaim their power from the same old story that's been playing on repeat, and to begin the healing process.

The blueprint we were imprinted with was not our choice. But we can choose to recognise how it's effecting our lives, to take action and have the courage to ask for help.

We can choose to show up for ourselves in ways that nobody showed up for us back then - by reaching out for support.

We can choose to learn how to open up to love in ways that we never imagined were possible.

This is what I help people with. It's a profoundly beautiful thing to be part of & witness: when a person who has felt deprived of love for so long, starts to be able to truly take in that love and feel worthy of it - not just consciously, but in an embodied way...

Sometimes after 30, 40, 50 years of not feeling that kind of love, worthiness and wholeness... Those moments of healing and magic stay with you for life.

- Serdar Hararovich