Guarding your Heart Through Emotional Independence

Yo yo yo!!!

I’ve honestly had the busiest couple weeks. With moving out of Alberta and into BC, settling in and all the back-to-school shenanigans I just didn’t have time to update this blog. But the important thing is I am here and ready to end the guarding your heart series once and for all!

So one day, when I was about 16 or 17, my older sister who was still single at the time, offered me some words of advice that I’d like to share with you. It’s called not putting all your eggs in one basket. BOOYA! Mind-blowing! I think what it comes down to is developing emotional independence. I’ve separated what I interpreted from that into four different concepts.

Don’t dive in too fast

Let’s face it. Guys in their right mind don’t normally jump into a relationship right away without

getting to know a girl first and giving themselves time to evaluate their feelings. Some know right away they wanna be with a girl and some take longer. Guys are different! But what I’m trying to get to with this is don’t force a guy to quicken his pace and be willing to take it slow. Relax, sit back, and enjoy the ride! That doesn’t mean sit around all day and wait on a guy who’s taking however long he’s taking just to ask you out! In the meantime, be open to other guys that come your way and show genuine interest in getting to know them. You may find that by doing so, you’ve found someone you’re more compatible with than you were with the guy you were initially interested in. If you’re not in a relationship, it’s okay to get to know other guys and to date different people.

I know for me if a guy I’m interested in and I are in the getting-to-know-you stage and he went on a date with one of my friends I wouldn’t care! Who knows, he might even be more compatible with her than with me! We weren’t dating anyways! I went on a date with a guy once and we talked, hit it off and had a grand time and that same week he took one of my best friends out on a date to the same place and they had a great time too. Did I get mad? Heck no! We were never boyfriend and girlfriend, so he was free to date around and get to know other girls! If he ever asked me out on a second date I’d probably go considering I enjoyed the first one. But if he and my friend had started seriously dating and what not I’d be fine with that too!

There was another guy I went on a date with and he was a really good guy! I was super pumped up when he asked me out because I had my eye on him. Well, we went on a couple dates and eventually we both saw we weren’t really compatible. Didn’t change the way I saw him as a person though. It just showed me that there’s another girl out there who will be more capable of making him happy than I am and vice-versa. We’re still really good friends and enjoy hanging out occasionally!

So what I’m saying is, don’t dive in too fast. Play the field. Get to know a bunch of people. Go on lots of casual dates. Let guys get to know you and let them get to know other girls. Be open to the idea that you may be incompatible but you can still be friends! Don’t be one of those girls who claim guys as if they were their personal belongings. Singlehood doesn’t last for eternity so enjoy it while you can! So rather than thinking “I’m looking for someone to love”, think “I wanna really get to know as much people as I can” because as you do that, everything else becomes natural. When you have that relaxed attitude, you spare yourself from getting hurt because you don’t invest as much time, energy or feelings to one guy you’re not 100% sure you work well with.

Don’t let your life revolve around one guy

When we’re young we tend to make our lives revolve around one guy. If you disagree, go creep a teenage girl’s facebook right now and all you’ll see is pictures and statuses about her boyfriend.

Get busy with your lives. Don’t make your day consist of texting that one dude (which for me back in

the day was MSN). Take classes, think about the person you’re trying to become and set goals to reach that, serve people, develop a strong relationship with God, magnify your callings, strengthen your friendships, work, take care of yourself, learn new skills, read good books, attend firesides, go to institute! Focus on making yourself a better person! Have lots of things going on in your life so that if things don’t work out with
someone, you can easily move on by keeping busy with your own life. I want you to keep so busy that if a guy isn’t calling you, you won’t even notice!

At the same time, don’t be so busy that you’re turning the nice guys down for a date. It’s possible to take the time to get to know someone without getting hurt! In fact, it’s how it should be. Emotionally independent people are those who know how to develop a relationship with someone (and by that it can mean friendships or family bonds as well), without revolving their lives around them. I’m definitely not one of those people who have to call their best friends every day or hang out with them every weekend. And yet, I’m super close with my best friends! It’s the fact that my friends and I don’t revolve our lives around each other that we allow each other to breathe and find other sources of happiness that makes us happy in our relationships with each other.

Don’t hand someone a remote control for your emotions, as Jon Bytheway put it in his “What I Wish I’d Known When I was Single” fireside. I feel like sometimes we tend to do that. Guy asks you out, it’s like he turns the happy button on. Guy talks to other girl at a dance, it’s like he turns the jealous button on. You can still have crushes and dates though. So long as you have other things going on in your life as well to maintain that balance.

Don’t let guys make you cry

Don’t put your happiness on hold over a guy who hurt you, whether it was intentional or not. Remember what I mentioned earlier about giving someone the remote control to your emotions? DON’T DO THAT! No guy is worth your tears. So yeah, cry it off if you must but don’t sit around and wait for things to magically get better. Move forward with your life, especially when you catch yourself thinking about it too much. You might argue saying sometimes they don’t intend for us to be hurting, so they’re not necessarily a worthless d-bag we should just get over. Sure, that is true to some extent. But if the person who unintentionally hurt you is as amazing as you think they are, do you think they wanna see you like this? Let’s not even bother talking about the actual d-bags who hurt you for some selfish reason because we all know they don’t know and let alone care about how you’re feeling. So the point I’m trying to make is putting your happiness on hold for someone won’t benefit a single person on this planet.

One time I was really sad about something that didn’t go right. It wasn’t a guy, but having to go through what I went through is harder than going through any relationship heartache. In fact, I remember ranting to my buddy about what I was going through and said, “Dude, I’d way rather be going through the most painful breakup cuz even that wouldn’t hurt as much as this does.” It was an effort to get out of bed in the morning and do something with my life. Hanging out with friends, which for an extrovert like me is my favourite thing to do, became exhausting. All I wanted to do all day was to lay in bed, cry it all off and feel sorry for myself. I hoped that with time I’d eventually feel happy, but I didn’t. I learned that time isn’t necessarily the only ingredient to make you go through something; but it’s also your willingness to move forward. It wasn’t until I started working, magnified my church callings and went out with my friends again that I truly learned to be happy again. Had I stayed in bed crying I’d probably still be sad right now!

So don’t sit around and mope over someone. Get your butt out your bed and move forward. And you know, it’s definitely easier said than done. Some people need to cry it off a little to move on. And it’s personal too. There’s not a single universal recipe when it comes to moving on. We’re all different and we react to things differently. So I can’t say how one goes about not letting someone cry in a general perspective. But I can say that the best thing to do for everyone is to move forward because there is not a single heartbreaker out there worth anyone’s tears. I know it’s hard, and it takes time and strength. But as you work towards moving forward with your life, you will find how much more there is to life than some random dude who hurt you. Trust me.

If he’s just not that into you, it’s okay

Ever watched the movie “He’s Just Not That Into You”? If not, then watch it. This here is a link to one of my favourite scenes from that movie.

I’m sure you’ve been in a situation where there’s a guy you’re talking to and he’s super nice but you

only like him as a friend. But you still enjoy talking to him! He likes you though. Are you being a jerk for not chasing him that way? No, you’re just not into him that way! So let’s reverse the roles here. You like a guy and he’ll talk to you, but he doesn’t chase you enough. Maybe he’s just not that into you! Doesn’t mean he’s a d-bag or that he’s trying to hurt you!

And if that’s the case, then that’s fine. I think sometimes we hate admitting the ugly truth that the boy we like doesn’t like us back. We shouldn’t be so scared to admit it! Just because a guy’s not into you doesn’t make you any less of a person. For some reason we tend to assume that if a guy doesn’t like us it’s because there’s something wrong with us… we’re not pretty enough, not smart enough, not funny enough, not spiritual enough, not mature enough, or what not! I’ve been in a situation where I liked a guy and he didn’t like me back and I know for a FACT that I’m still hilarious! So don’t sweat it. And just because a guy’s just not that into you doesn’t mean you can’t still be friends! Friendships are awesome! I love having a bunch of guyfriends. Probably cuz I never had a brother, so I kinda have them fill up that void for me. I wish I had a bro! Think of a guy not being into you as your freedom to go out and find another guy!

Anyways, this wraps up my guarding your heart series. I’m very excited. Next post I can use the sky as the limit! WHATTUP! I hope you learned something out of this. I hope I was able to answer questions you had. If not, please enlighten me on how I must go about doing so. But yeah, I'm hungry so I'm gonna eat. BYE!

Stay safe,

Miss Mottola <3