Love Lessons
You’re likely going to be engaging with energy that’s atrophied because you’ve been asleep to it,
or actively ignoring it. In these pages, I invite you to allow that energy to be free and to allow
yourself to express your heart’s desire.
Introduction
This book is a product of my life experiences, relationships, and learning over the past forty
years. Much to my surprise, the process of writing this book uncovered a profoundly ingrained
coping strategy I had formed in childhood as a bi-racial African-American woman. Growing
up in the 1950s and 60s, as the daughter of a dark-skinned father and a light-skinned mother, I
had to stand by and watch them endure appalling verbal abuse and discrimination throughout
their marriage. They not only tolerated the mistreatment, but never complained and silently
accepted their plight. I grew up believing that I needed to find a way to avoid the pain of rejection,
but more important, to succeed without limitations in a cruel world.
My challenge in coming into my own self-esteem and personal power was compounded by the
fact that I look Caucasian and was allowed to pass through doors that my own dark-skinned
family and other blacks could not. You see, I was straddling two worlds. Part of me felt guilty
for escaping the judgment and limitations imposed on blacks. The other part of me felt shame
for being of African-American heritage. Overriding these two dynamics was my determination
to be successful and find my place in the world against all odds. I have suppressed these
feelings of guilt, shame, and rage (yes, rage!) all my life, and believe it or not, these emotions
have only come to surface since I started writing this book. I invite you to the Afterword in
this book on page 159 if you feel called to read more about my story.
In my desire to be truly authentic and certain that I’m walking my talk in all I’ve written in this
book, I was obliged to look at my own paradigm prisons. I have found that the power of writing
and delving into my deepest motivations has compelled me to peel back even more barriers
to my own self-awareness. This experience has evoked revelations that have led me from fear
of being who I am to embracing my authentic self and deeper self-acceptance. After decades of
talking with women about our concerns, our dreams, and what moves us, I feel confident about
the liberation we can experience when we free ourselves from the confinement of old identities
and step more into our truth.
Over the past decade, it’s been my modus operandi to support and champion women to overcome
fear and strive for their dreams. I have long been aware of the importance of the women in my
life. I have a remarkable daughter, three wonderful sisters I’m very close to, and my extraordinary
mother was a tremendous influence on who I am today. I am also blessed with many brilliant
women friends who have journeyed with me on my personal growth path. Whenever I have
succeeded in a challenge or experienced a new perspective, I have shared it with other women.
In the early 1970s, I was a twentysomething newlywed attending San Francisco State University.
This was one of the first times in my life that I actively sought out like-minded women to
talk about women’s issues and bettering our circumstances in life. And it wouldn’t be the last!
I started a small rap group of women, mostly comprised of the wives of my first husband’s colleagues.
This had nothing to do with the current genre of rap music. We got together to talk
about our truths and feelings about our society, spouses, roles, and purpose in life. We were
young housewives—many of us young mothers—who would sit on the floor around the living
room coffee table into the wee hours of the morning, drinking wine and delving deeply into
the meaning of life. Conversation usually centered on what was wrong with our cultural norms
and the empty, confused feelings we women were experiencing. We didn’t know what to do
about our frustrations. Percolating in the background was the fact that the ‘60s were behind us,
and many of us were experiencing the shift in consciousness through the women’s movement
towards equal rights. It opened our minds to the possibilities of new opportunities and new
ways of expression—but we weren’t seeing enough of these opportunities and expressions being
put into action!
We’d come a long way, baby, but we weren’t quite there yet. And we’re still not all the way
there today.
Fast-forward two decades to 1994, when I found myself with two divorces behind me, as well
as several other disappointing long-term relationships. I was now in my mid-forties, and ready
to pursue personal growth work to understand and heal the part of me that believed men
defined my self-worth, beauty, and lovability. I was frustrated and fed up that I didn’t seem to
have any control over this part of my life. I felt as if I was just supposed to wait for the next man
to come along and choose me; then I’d try to fit into his world and hope it would all work out.
Repetitive frustration prompted me to write out my original vision for what I wanted. I realized
that my anger was part of what helped me access the permission I needed to grant myself
to ask for what I wanted—not just what I thought might be possible in a future relationship. I
was a rebel with a cause for me.
Little did I know that this original vision would lead
me to help many women through the same process in years to come, and would serve as the
inspiration for the Dream Man Story Creator and the impetus for the Choose Him Process.
When I wrote out that original Dream Man vision, I decided to do it in the same way I
approached my professional achievements. I had pursued career objectives through clearly
defined goals and focused intention.
with your thoughts and feelings. Since that early time, anytime I wanted something important,
I made it happen through writing it out and then imagining what it would feel like to have it
already. I would think about it with confident expectation in vivid detail and hold the positive
feelings inside me many times a day. I’d done that for absolutely everything I’d ever wanted,
from material things to business and life experiences to improving aspects of myself. It finally
struck me that I could actually employ that same process to get a man. I thought of this man I was envisioning as my Dream Man because, until that time, I truly believed that the type of
man and relationship I wanted was a fairytale fantasy—something that could only exist in my
dreams. Given my life experience, I innately knew that I couldn’t just envision this man solely
from my mind or have him manifest after listing the qualities and characteristics I desired. I needed to create a vision of him through the feelings that I wanted to experience with him and
in our day-to-day life.
Eleven months to the day later I met my Dream Man, and we
were married ten months after that.
***
In 2003, after training to become a life coach, I started noticing a common theme among my
clients—they were stuck in various belief patterns that were preventing them from truly being
open to finding the man of their dreams. As part of my practice, I mentored women to envision
and attract the man of their dreams. Hearing women’s stories about their relationship experiences
and most intimate desires led me to start compiling data in earnest.
Using my original Dream Man vision, which had led me to find and choose my own husband,
I started working with women to extract and transcribe their exact words as they divulged their
most personal thoughts and desires about what they wanted in a partner and their relationship.
Their feedback, along with contributions from my expert consultants, resulted in a unique and
in-depth tool—
During my work as a life coach, I’ve issued surveys, interviewed over one hundred women, and
coached numerous others. My coaching style is what I call a “co-spiritor,” in which I connect
with my clients’ core essence through an intense probing technique. But this process also took
a lot of time, and I could only work with a limited number of women. As I started thinking
about the possibility of reaching a broader group of women, I realized that creating their own
stories was the thing that was connecting them to their sense of what was possible. Writing your
vision of what you want actually connects you to the feelings you want to experience with your
man and in your life together. It dawned on me that I was witnessing women connecting to
their own innate sense of power through their feelings. This is at the core of feminine intuition,
which so many of us unconsciously ignore because it’s not valued in our society. The idea that
it is possible for women to envision what they want and not just find, but choose, a relationship
is at the heart of Choose Him. And the Choose Him Process is the very process you’ll get to
experience and write out for yourself in the pages that follow. The result will be a new vision
for attracting the man of your dreams. But first, we’ll delve into some common belief systems
that have likely kept you stuck or prevented you from getting what you want. It’s important to
define what these are so that you can move past them and onto creating what you want.
***
Choose Him represents my efforts to advance a shift in women’s consciousness that is
progressively permeating throughout all arenas of our culture. Women are beginning to recognize
that despite our great social and economic progress, we are still subordinating many of our
feminine values in deference to masculine qualities and ideals that are deemed to be more
powerful. The irony is that while we’ve been compromising some of our most intuitive and feminine principles in our efforts to obtain some of that power, we continue to hold onto
antiquated models of mating roles and romantic partnering. Consider the fact that most
relationships don’t last, and fifty percent of marriages end in divorce. It’s obvious that it’s time
for a change in our current perceptions and cultural models. Current partnering paradigms
are outdated, and we’re stuck in a repetitive spin cycle while blaring signals are crying out for
updated perspectives. It’s time for us to pursue higher ideals and more realistic guidelines and
expectations for creating intentional relationships.
It’s a realistic guide that will support you to embrace the woman you
already are and who you are becoming—your potential. Your individual goals and dreams don’t
end when you meet the right man; it’s a new beginning that enriches your own life story, so it’s
important that he’s the kind of man who will support you on that journey. The first step is about
waking up and becoming aware of the paradigm prisons we falsely believe we’re locked into. The
second step is to peel back the layers and expose your authentic self by becoming honest and real
about what is true about you and what you truly want, which leads to authentic personal power.
The third step is to form enlightened, supportive, and evolving partnerships in which both
women and men hold balanced roles, where independence and individuality is honored. For this
type of relationship, today’s modern woman is looking for what I call a Dream Man.
For some of you, searching for a Dream Man may seem like some retro throwback to Leave-It-
To-Beaver land or Stepford wives. First, let me assure you that this process is no such thing. It
is, in fact, a very empowering process rooted in the latest research about how our minds work
and how we change old patterns into new models that can transform our lives.
You
know, the kinds of wishes and wants that often feel like fantasy, or something you can only
dream about.
A Dream Man is not a perfect robot without any flaws. The dream is about fulfilling your
desire to find a man who is a partner with you in navigating the ebb and flow of life, and who
can walk beside you through the joys and sorrows. He is one who is willing to fully participate
with you in authentic partnership. He’s not a knight in shining armor who’s going to show up
to rescue you from your life—we’re not interested in promoting the idea of fantasy happily ever-
afters. This process is about what happens in the “ever after.” Real life continues after
the newness of meeting, lust, and romance. It’s about the beginning of the real story: the ways
you interact day to day, develop intimacy, communicate, handle conflicts and life’s challenges,
rejoice in the gifts and the blessings, and fulfill your dreams. All these things comprise the true
story that determines whether a relationship is sustainable.
When I talk about the true story or the real story, I’m talking about authenticity. Most of us feel
authentic in many areas of our lives. We ask for what we want, know we deserve to have it, and
we choose what’s compatible for us. So why aren’t we exhibiting this same behavior where men
are concerned? We don’t have to wait to be chosen by a man. This book will guide you to ask for
what you truly want and show you how to get it. You’ll be surprised at all the things you have
never thought of that directly impact the success of a relationship. Choose Him points you in
this new direction, showing you how to choose true partnerships that reflect the real story. In
a true partnership, neither partner defines the other’s identity, nor are they codependent (what
you do reflects on me). I wasn’t one of those women who found her Dream Man easily. It
took me years of coming into my own—two previous marriages and lots and lots of dating the
wrong men. My Dream Man, to whom I’ve now been married for thirteen years, didn’t give me
my identity. And he certainly doesn’t define who I am today. But having my Dream Man has
provided me a supportive foundation for unveiling deeper layers of my authenticity, dreams,
grace, and my own identity as a woman. My Dream Man fully accepts me for who I am—my
authentic self—and supports my aspirations and potential for who I am becoming.
At the center of this work is the simple but profound idea that you choose your Dream Man.
Through the Choose Him Process that comprises the majority of this book, you will envision
your Dream Man through the lens of your authentic self and receive follow-through tips on
how to make him a reality. The message of this book is about starting with yourself—and that’s
exactly where the Choose Him Process starts: with you getting clear about you.
Choose Him is about awakening women to the things that aren’t working anymore. It’s a call
to action to get out of our old ways of thinking and to attract the man of our dreams by tapping
into our power and embracing our feminine attributes, such as intuition, creativity, and
receptivity . Once you discover or reclaim your true self, you will be on the path to bringing into
your life a man who inspires you to be your very best self. In the following pages, you will be led
through a very precise process that details how to get clear, define what you want, and attract
your Dream Man. All that’s required of you is true presence and commitment to the process,
as well as honest assessment of how you’ve approached dating and relationships in the past and
how you would like to approach them moving forward.
