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Mindfulness helps us be fully present and aware. So, could there ever be a time mindfulness mattered more than when choosing a potential life partner? If you look around you, you probably see many dysfunctional relationships because two people entered into a commitment without being mindful. Then things like sex, anxious attachment, codependency and other factors made it hard for them to leave. Having companionship – even less than ideal companionship – can be addictive. That’s why it’s so important that you have your eyes (including your third eye) wide open in the dating process.
Naturally, there are a lot of stimuli and distractions in dating. Maybe your date makes you laugh a lot, or is painfully good-looking, so you sort of gloss over the important stuff (like compatibility). Sometimes, the types of dates you’re going on are so fun and intoxicating that they create a sense of chemistry that is not there. The great news is that if you are well-practiced in being mindful in other areas of your life, you can apply that to dating. Here is how to be a more mindful dater so that you can get the most out of your dating experience and increase your chances of finding a true match.
Re-Think Your Type
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Take a moment to write down your type. It’s common that more surface-level things come up at first like what someone does for a living, what someone likes to do for fun or what someone looks like. Now, challenge yourself to dig deeper and figure out what the real, underlying characteristic are that you like.
Maybe it doesn’t actually matter what someone does for a living – you just want someone who is passionate about what they do, who is ambitious and/or creative. Maybe you don’t actually care what hobbies someone is into, but you’d like to meet someone who is adventurous, social and cares about making the world a better place. Once you’ve figured out these true, root traits, you can cross out those surface traits – they never actually mattered.
