Dating Empowerment Over People-Pleasing: Episode 7

This is Part 3 of our series on The Stop Chasing Unavailable Guys Podcast, The Worst Dating Advice for Women Over 40, and let me tell you, this one gets a little spicy! We're diving into some of the most toxic, unhelpful dating advice out there and flipping it on its head. Spoiler: If you've ever felt like you needed a PhD in "understanding men" to find love, this episode is for you.

Here’s what we’ll unpack:

Why advice focused on “attracting the guy” often backfires
How hyper-focusing on men’s behaviors keeps you stuck
My personal story of dating insecurity and toxic empathy—and how I turned it around
The #1 reason women chase unavailable men (and how to stop doing it!)

Dating should not feel like a high-stakes game where you're constantly analyzing, second-guessing, and morphing into someone else to fit what you think a guy wants. Trust me, I’ve been there, and I want to help you break free from this exhausting cycle.

Transcript

If you've ever been really confused by all the dating advice out there and whether it will actually help you or not,

In this episode,

Part 3 of 3,

I'll talk about the worst dating advice for women over 40,

And why it's the worst advice.

This episode may be a bit controversial,

But hey,

I'm here for empowerment,

Not people-pleasing.

Let's go!

Welcome to the Stop Chasing Unavailable Guys podcast,

Where I teach single women over 40 the fastest path to find Mr.

Right,

So you can stop wasting time on emotionally unavailable guys.

I'm your host,

Truly Eleanora,

And I'm here to give you the tools to find the love you desire.

After years of coaching women worldwide and breaking my own patterns to find Mr.

Right in my 40s,

I know love is closer than you think.

Let's get started.

Welcome,

I'm so excited to have you here,

And I'm thrilled to present to you part 3 of 3 in our Worst Dating Advice for Women Over 40 series.

Today's going to be really fun because I'm going to dial into something that might be controversial,

As I was saying,

But I'm here to talk to you and tell you what I know from my 15 years of experience coaching women around the world,

What I know personally from lived experience of chasing after love for decades until I was finally able to meet and marry my husband in my 40s,

The love of my life,

And to really overcome these patterns that you might be going through of having to chase after or prove yourself to be loved,

And so I really want to help you with that.

The way I want to really start today's conversation is to talk about something that I see quite often that is a little disturbing,

And it's this current wisdom of,

In order to catch a man,

Or similar phrases like that from love coaches,

You have to focus on how to attract the guy.

So there's too much focus on what the guy needs from you.

In other words,

You have to get the guy's attention.

There is also current wisdom from male love coaches and some female love coaches,

And I've read the books and I've heard the advice,

And first of all,

Even though they are saying outwardly to stand in your power,

Be yourself,

Evoke your divine feminine energy,

If you want to hear more about what I think about that,

Go back to my last episode for more on that one.

That's a whole can of worms right there.

Underneath what they're saying,

That you have to do is a significant amount of focusing,

Learning,

Researching men's behavior,

Becoming a PhD in men's inner workings in their psyche,

In order to be able to be worthy or capable of finding the right guy.

And underneath this advice,

It's like saying,

If you don't learn all about the guy,

And if you aren't 100% an A plus student on the man's psyche and what they need and what they're going to run away from,

And if you don't do this and learn this,

Then you're just going to keep getting the same kind of guys and you're never going to attract a quality guy.

And frankly,

That is very depressing when I hear these things.

And it's why it's part of the worst dating advice I've heard in part of this series.

A large part of their advice is based on all the reasons and troubles that men go through and leaning towards all the issues that they have in terms of fear of commitment,

Ego,

Fear of rejection,

Etc.

Ad nauseum,

As if that's your concern.

We're not here to fawn or people please or our way to a relationship and make sure he's comfortable and not threatened.

That is not what we're here for.

Let's go underneath that what this dating advice is really about what they are really actually saying is you are here to cater to what men want.

And if you're not making yourself presentable,

Palatable,

And making men comfortable by not being too much,

Not too threatening,

Not too powerful,

Then they will want to see you again.

If not,

Forget it.

They'll run for the hills and ghost you or overreact or get triggered by you.

If you don't spend all your energy and time focused on the guy and how he's feeling,

How he's responding to you.

Should I pull back?

Should I lean in?

Am I giving off the right wrong signals?

Is he noticing me batting my eyelashes?

That's being a bit facetious,

But I think you understand what I'm saying.

So I can talk to about my dating experience with decades of this kind of feeling so focused,

Like I had to learn all about the other sex.

And there was the women are from Mars,

Or men are from Mars,

Women are from Venus.

That was extremely popular.

And I'm thinking it still is.

And it's all based on this type of thing.

You have to know everything under the sun about the other sex.

And of course,

We're talking about a heterosexual relationship here.

You have to know everything about the other sex in order to even stand a chance.

Now,

Isn't that exhausting?

I would say that's extremely exhausting.

So I'll give you some of my dating behind the curtain,

My dating experience.

I remember going on a date in my 30s and feeling very extremely insecure.

If you go back to my earlier episodes,

You'll hear a lot about my sort of younger years in my,

My upbringing and what brought me to this feeling of always being not good enough or having that extreme self doubt.

Anyway,

Fast forward,

I go on this date with this handsome guy.

And I'm all dressed up and very nervous,

Very uncomfortable in my own skin.

And spending the entire time studying his face and being like in my head.

So he's talking and meanwhile,

I'm doing like an entire inner monologue of Oh,

He just looked at his phone.

I wonder what that means.

Oh,

He seemed upset when I said that.

And I feel like he's getting angry over this conversation.

He seems to be annoyed at what I just said.

Oh,

I better dial it back.

I better let's change the topic.

Let's change the subject.

Make myself more palatable.

Now the worst thing about this is I didn't like him.

If I had taken a few minutes to realize,

To tune into myself and say,

How am I feeling?

What do I think of him?

How am I responding to him?

Not the other way around,

I would have immediately realized,

I don't like this guy.

He's not my cup of tea.

He's not compatible with me.

I don't like his combative,

Aggressive nature.

But at the time,

I was like,

Oh,

I must be saying something where he's getting annoyed with me.

So I better I better change tactics.

Okay.

And it was all based on him.

What I thought he was doing.

It was almost like visually,

You could imagine I was taking myself out of my own body,

Going directly up into the sky and down into his body to see if I could see or feel an experience,

Literally what he was thinking,

Feeling and experiencing.

Now that's called empathy.

And that's like a whole other episode right there.

But that's the toxic empathy.

Okay,

That's empathy where yes,

Maybe you're very good at that.

Maybe you're very intuitive,

Very good at getting into someone else's experience,

Really dialing into what they're feeling,

What they're doing,

What they're experiencing.

But it's not coming from a space of,

I want to understand you so I can be connected to you.

No,

It's coming from a space of,

I feel very vulnerable and unlovable.

And I want to figure out I want to crack the code on how I can get you to love me.

And the more I know about you,

The more I can feel what you're feeling,

The more I can morph myself,

Become like the chameleon and become the person that you will want.

And that's why this advice is really so damaging.

I talk about how it's there's a light hearted,

This is a funny series,

Haha,

The worst dating advice.

But I would say underneath that it is a little disturbing.

It's more than a little disturbing that a lot of the advice out there,

The coaches,

Even like male coaches and women wanting to really get the advice from a male coach,

Which is fine.

But you have to be aware that if you're going to be doing that you might be more focused on learning about all the ins and outs of a guy instead of focusing on your true heart's desires,

Who you are,

Who you're,

Who is your true self,

Your true nature,

What are you here to experience?

What do you want?

When you show up like that,

That's when you become your most attractive,

Your most magnetic,

When you are not focused and just completely using all of your energy and all of your intuitive skills to tune in to the other person,

To the guy,

What's he doing?

Now you need to change the focus back to yourself and see what you're seeing through your eyes instead of trying to see yourself through somebody else's eyes.

Is that making sense?

So when you do follow this advice,

The ones I was talking about,

Like learn about the guy.

If you want to attract a guy,

You've got to know everything about him,

About men.

You've got to figure out the PhD of men's psyche.

It creates a huge amount of anxiety,

And I can say this from personal experience.

You are literally always out of your body.

You are ungrounded.

You are all over the place.

Talk about a chameleon.

I could morph myself into any date I went on to,

Went on.

I would become like,

Okay,

Who would this guy want to be dating?

And tune into them in such a way that I would be like,

Okay,

I feel like these are some of the insecurities,

So I'm going to make sure that they feel really comfortable.

And it was all about them.

You could say this is like a form of extreme codependency,

Codependent dating.

There you go.

So you've got a huge amount of anxiety.

There's second-guessing,

Extreme self-doubt.

You maybe feel frozen at times,

Just feeling really stiff on a date,

Coming off as aloof,

Uninteresting,

Because you're so focused on the other person.

You're just like a shell of a human being sitting there.

And the guy might be like,

Who are they?

Who am I sitting here with?

You're not interesting in that way.

You're stiff,

Even coming off as rude,

Maybe closed off.

You become more of a perfectionist,

Trying to perfect the,

I'm going to really get this time.

I'm going to crack the code on the guy.

I'm going to get the guy because I'm going to crack the code on the male psyche.

And you become obsessed with that.

There's a huge amount of self-criticism because you're like,

I'm not living up to the standards.

I'm not doing this right.

Because what happens is,

You are going out with someone that you don't like more than once.

The guy's not interested in you because,

Like I said,

They're just seeing a shell of a person.

They're seeing a people-pleasing version of you.

And maybe they want to run away because they feel like something is off.

And maybe they even feel like you're paying too much close attention to them.

Imagine how that might feel uncomfortable.

You're not giving someone a chance who might be amazing because you're like,

Oh,

No,

I don't feel this.

I'm not able to tune into them enough or I'm not able to understand them.

And so instead of going back within yourself and going deeply into your own experience,

You cut it off because you're like,

Oh,

I can't really do my usual chameleon thing with this person.

Or giving someone too much of a chance,

Chasing after them.

Like I said,

Trying to convince them,

Being like,

Wait,

Let me try this again.

Let me try this again.

Okay,

Wait,

Hold on.

I'm going to really get into your experience.

And you're going to be happy with me because I figured you out.

You're not in your body,

Which is creating a lot of anxiety.

And you don't know what you want.

Maybe you have a lot of confusion,

A lot of back and forth,

A lot of humming and hawing.

And so the consequences of dating the obvious here is you're going out with guys you don't like because they maybe are showing an interest in you and you're like,

I'm going to really dial into this.

And you're wasting months or years dating guys who aren't even that interested in you because you've trained yourself to work really hard to convince them that they like you.

Or prove that you're awesome if only he would give you a chance.

And that's why this podcast is called Stop Chasing Unavailable Guys.

This is the number one barrier and path to finding the right guy is by chasing the wrong guy.

And we're going into the reasons why we're doing this and why we get stuck in these patterns.

So I hope this is really resonating with you and making a lot of sense.

Okay,

So now that it's gotten a little bit depressing,

We're going to talk about what to do instead.

What is the deeper issue and why are you following this inauthentic dating advice?

My first response to this is a reminder.

Mr.

Right doesn't run.

The right guy will be attracted to you being yourself,

Being spontaneous,

Being real,

Being quirky,

Funny,

Messy,

Nervous.

However you show up,

He will love your authenticity,

Your presence,

Your honesty and integrity to your own values.

He'll be like,

Wow,

This woman is so interesting.

She's so different.

This is refreshing.

And they don't feel maybe under a microscope because you're focused on you.

You're in your body.

You're,

What's the word like,

Shining bright out into the world from within yourself.

And that's an extremely attractive way to be and way to show up.

And you can do it.

And it doesn't require you knowing anything about the other person or how to maneuver within their world.

You're showing up as you are and you are connecting.

The ironic thing is when you do this,

When you show up authentically and you're in your body and in your heart and in your experience and fully present,

You can connect with them in a very deep and meaningful way.

It's very counterintuitive.

But the more you are within yourself,

The more you can connect to others.

Fancy that.

Like it's that's the good news.

So focus on yourself.

Focus on your feelings.

Stay in your body.

Ask yourself how you feel.

How do I feel right now?

How do I feel before I'm going on the date?

In the middle of the day,

You can just do a little tiny check in.

How am I feeling right now?

And be okay with whatever's showing up.

Be listening to whatever is showing up.

Take it seriously.

That is your own body,

Your own experience telling you how you feel.

Pay attention to how you feel around them.

And when you think of the person,

This is a really important one.

Let go of the idea that you need to shelter or protect guys from the truth of who you are.

That is the opposite of what is going to lead you towards a true authentic relationship.

If a guy is triggered by you,

Meaning,

Wow,

I've never been out with someone who's so forward,

Or wow,

You really don't have a filter,

Do you?

Or some any comment of that kind,

Then you move on right away.

You know,

The person is not ready for authenticity.

And they don't want to be with someone like you.

And that doesn't mean anything about you.

And the more you get into your heart and focus on being in your body and present before,

During and after the date,

The more dynamic,

Attractive and fun you will be to be around.

For the right guy,

Not in general.

If you do all those things,

And you repel the wrong guy,

It's working.

Things are working when that's the case.

It's like you're propelling yourself through the wrong people,

The person is not going to really be in love with your true self,

So that you can find the person who will.

And the other good news,

It's not hard.

It doesn't take a lot of effort.

It doesn't require any preparation or psyching yourself out or learning or hitting the books on what do men think?

What do guys want?

What are their triggers?

Be careful never to say this,

Don't do that.

Don't do this.

It's this all goes out the window.

When you do this very simple technique,

It's powerful.

It's life changing,

But it's simple.

And I hope this has been helpful.

And I really want you to think about how you've been showing up.

And if any of this resonates,

Think about the advice that you're taking.

And know that ultimately,

Being yourself,

Being your true self,

And being present within the dating process is the fastest way to find an authentic and loving relationship.

Defining Mr.

Right.

Next week,

I'm diving into my signature framework that transforms your dating patterns from chasing love to finding lasting love with Mr.

Right.

So I hope you can join me because now we're going to really get into the fun stuff of the more detailed tips and techniques of what you can do to change this pattern around.

And remember,

Love is closer than you think.

Thank you so much for joining me.