Welcome to phase two.
This is August 27th weekly check-in.
I'm excited to be here with you tonight.
I actually have a co-host on,
and as soon as she gets here,
I will introduce you to her,
because we're bringing on another OG
and another coach on the team.
So you will start to hear from another person
that has been under Jackie's teaching,
and it's gonna be fabulous.
But I'm gonna try to keep us on time tonight.
So if you are just coming on,
this is our check-in, regular phase two check-in.
Next week, September 3rd, the day after Labor Day,
y'all will be merging with phase three
and the men for a single spotlight,
which means she spotlights a hot dude,
a great dude, a nice dude, or two,
and then she goes into love seats.
And love seats, of course,
is just a very big version
of what we're doing here tonight.
So sometimes people are like,
there's not any guys on,
and what's the point of trying to look good?
Guys watch this stuff in replay.
They're bad, they're horrible,
they don't always come live,
but they will watch it in replay,
and you never know.
You never know, you always wanna make sure you look good.
So if you forget and you come to this link,
I will be here, and I will boot you off
and give you the other link.
And so we are trying to make sure in phase two on the app,
this is why you should be on the app,
that the link, if you click on the link in events,
we're hoping that she can change it
so it goes right to the correct place.
But if it does not, and you end up here with me,
we will also do a post about it too next week,
but I'm just warning you ahead of time.
All right, housekeeping items.
Is anybody here for the first time?
Do we have any first time newbies here?
First time.
Laurel, now is it your first time live?
Yeah, well, I went, I actually did a lunch live
a long time ago, or like a few weeks ago,
but this is, I'm like, here.
I love it.
Emily, this is your first time too, awesome.
Well, I'm glad you guys are here.
So there's always at least one new person,
which is why we read the housekeeping every single week,
and you're like, I don't wanna do it, but it's good.
It's also good for you guys to know it.
So we are so glad you are here.
The intention of phase two is that you are here
for about four weeks.
We don't want you to go shorter, for sure,
but some of you will stay in phase two
until I kick you out, because you're like,
oh my gosh, it's so fun.
It's a nice small group.
I don't wanna move on, but fly birdie fly.
If you've watched all the videos,
if you've come to all the check-ins,
and you've been here at least four weeks,
maybe three months, it is time to move it on along
to phase three.
If you don't know how to get to the app,
you don't know how to find phase three on the app,
just email us at admin at JackieDorman.com,
and we will help get you there.
There are five main videos in phase two.
The first one is the Love Story Accelerator,
where Jackie kinda kicks it off.
She also gives you some goals.
She gives you a eating whole food goal,
a getting dressed up in skirts and dangly earrings,
and all the good stuff, like start to look girly girl
just a little bit, letting people hold the door open
for you.
She gives you a water challenge, a step goal challenge,
and she even gives you a dating challenge.
She does say seven dates, and you guys,
you know how the seven dates came out?
I taught the online dating class September of 2021,
and she randomly said, Renee, how many dates
should we give them as a challenge?
And I was like, I don't know, seven, God's holy number.
And that's how the seven date challenge came to be.
It's not some magic number, it's just this goal.
Now you might be like, Renee, I haven't been out
on seven dates in the last seven years,
and you want me to get out on seven dates
in the next seven weeks, it's impossible.
I know, it might be, and you might not hit it,
and it's just okay.
We just want you to just get out there and start trying.
Sometimes when people come out of phase one,
they just don't wanna move forward.
We wanna get you moving forward.
You get to leave phase two if you do not need to be
in a level three relationship to go to phase two.
You also do not need to have completed
the seven date challenge.
You just need to have been here at least a month,
watched all the videos, come to the check-ins,
and you feel equipped to go to phase three.
In phase three, you will be with a thousand other women
who are at various places of their dating life.
They are in a serious relationship,
they're in a lot of discovery dating,
or they might be on a dating pause.
And so you are not gonna be the only one
in whatever scenario you think you're in.
So I just wanna encourage you on that.
These are one hour videos,
so unlike the short 20 minute videos of phase one,
it's a full teaching.
So make sure you budget the time,
have a pen and a paper, take some notes.
There's not a book to read for,
it's new content that Jackie.
I came up with that even didn't exist
when I joined the program a few years ago.
And so take notes, share your wins, share ahas.
Feel free, if you also listen to a section
or like, okay, that just doesn't make sense for me,
you're allowed to ask me questions about those videos.
I've watched them backwards and forward.
So if there's a part of the video that you don't get,
feel free to come here and ask a question about it.
Okay, so as you know, just like in phase one,
the briefer you keep the post
when you put them in the community chat,
the more likely that someone's actually gonna read
the whole thing.
The longer your post,
the more they're gonna start scanning that, right?
Nobody wants war and peace or a five minute novel.
And I don't know about y'all,
but like, I feel like in the new app,
the font is really small.
And so it takes me a little bit of work
to be able to read it.
And I wanna make sure I get to it all.
So just try to be brief and powerful in your post.
Also, remember, we wanna lift all boats.
And so if you are down, try to end on the positive.
And if you are down in your post,
ladies don't just go, oh my gosh, yeah, dating sucks.
Where's the man?
Like, don't drag her down with you.
It's your job if she's having a bad day to lift her up.
Just like in phase one,
we don't link to other influencers, other books,
other authors, other pastors.
There's great other stuff out there.
We get it.
We love our Dr. Cloud boundaries guy.
And so there's great people that we love.
We just find it really confusing for some folks
when you start sharing stuff that we're not quite sure
if we align with all of the things that they have to say.
Like I said, if you did not watch the replay
from last week or you didn't come,
I did a live demo of how to navigate the app.
There's also a five minute app tech video
that's in the welcome section of the training tab.
So feel free to watch that.
If you're finding that you're putting a post
and you think you're putting in ask a coach
and it's also showing up at all,
means you're not doing it correctly.
And so we want you to go back to that cute little video,
watch it and learn how to post correctly.
When you click on it, you have to write your post.
You have to click on ask a coach
and you have to click off all.
It doesn't automatically do that.
And the coaches, me, now Ebony and Carla,
we will be focusing on your response
in the roll call posts every week
and in the ask a coach tab.
And a lot of you have a lot of things to say
and you wanna share stuff and that's great.
Y'all keep talking to each other.
You guys engage with each other's posts.
Like if somebody asks a question or wants to share a photo,
speak up, encourage your sister,
like chit chat with each other.
We are gonna focus answering the posts
where you're specifically asking a coach a question.
All right, that's it.
So I'm gonna introduce now Ebony to you.
Let's see, Ebony, raise your hand, everybody.
Let's see if I can pin you.
I think I can pin you.
And now if you guys go to view,
instead of going to gallery, go to speaker view
and you can see Ebony's gorgeous face all in the camera.
She's got this beautiful smile.
Y'all, she teaches third graders.
Like there's a special place in heaven for her.
And so we're gonna make sure that you do that.
Okay, so Ebony, she will be chiming in with me at the end.
Let me remove that pin.
Okay, now we're back to everybody.
So she will be chiming in at the end
and in a couple weeks,
she's gonna actually start helping co-lead with me.
And so we are super excited for y'all
to hear what she has to say.
All right, so this week, the topic is,
y'all, like I talked way too long last week.
So I'm gonna model to Ebony that we can stay on time.
This week, our topic is boundaries.
So remember there's four videos.
The first video, I started to describe it, see,
and I was so busy and I rushed right through it.
So the first video was Love Story Accelerator.
The second video is Dating 101.
That is where Jackie teaches you how to do dating levels.
I promise you, we've all been dating incorrectly.
And this is a healthier, safer way to date.
It actually, she took it from Dr. Cloud
and she's kind of adapted to it.
And so like psychologists have approved this.
This is a way to get to know people
without vomiting your whole life story
and giving away the cookie, as Steve Harvey would say,
before they've earned the right
to get to know you that better.
So if you've got deep, dark secrets, you don't share them.
And so if you've had trouble knowing when
and how to say things, Dating 101 is a great place to start.
The next video after that is Divine Feminine.
It's really about embracing our divine feminine traits
and understanding the divine masculine traits
that are out there that we want to attract.
And she also kind of goes into that.
with the unhealthy or overextended version
of those divine feminine traits look like
when you have an unhealed heart.
And most of us ladies fall in that category
and it's really hard to break that habit,
but it can be done.
And then of course the video we did last week
was online dating.
I would argue even if you're in a hiatus
with online dating,
there are some really great tips there
of how to present yourself to what I would say
is a perfect stranger.
Somebody you would meet at the store,
at Pup Putt, at a bar,
at the flea market,
at a volunteer give.
So the same rules kind of apply with online dating
as they do meeting a stranger in real life
because they are in fact a stranger,
which is just like online dating.
And so tonight is boundaries.
I kind of feel like boundaries is the topic
that we can talk about until the cows come home, right?
It is like I've been teaching
and setting boundaries for over 20 years
and I'm still working on my boundaries.
And boundaries influence the way you deal
with all of your relationships,
your work relationships,
your church relationships,
your girlfriends,
your husbands,
your children,
the people that you are dating.
You may find that there are some areas of your life
that you're really good
and you've really worked hard
to get better with your boundaries.
And other areas of your life,
you're like, man, I just suck it there.
Like I just keep going right back to the old habits.
And that's why that video is great to go back to.
I'm just gonna highlight five main points from that.
That video is so good.
It has like 16 pages of PowerPoint slides.
And that's what I'm gonna be referencing off of.
So if you're like, gosh,
there was a PowerPoint.
Yeah.
When I did online dating
and when I did the boundaries,
there are like a dozen PowerPoint slides
that are saved as a PDF for you to be able to download.
That's true in the portal
and that is true on the app.
And so you should be able to get to that
because those are great cheat sheets for you to have.
The first things I like to remind people about boundaries
and Jackie always says this too.
What are boundaries?
Boundaries are fences with gates.
So fences with gates.
When you think about a fence,
it means that people can go,
you can let people in,
you can kick people out.
You kind of decide who's coming in
and who's going out.
And usually with the gate,
they have to knock on the gate to get in.
So nobody can come into your home or your space
without you giving them permission to do so.
Unless of course,
it is a horrific assault type situation.
Most people somehow kind of show you who they are.
So boundaries are fences with gates.
They are not walls.
They are definitely not concrete walls.
And they define you and protect you.
One of the best examples of how important boundaries are
is when I was in Haiti and I was on a mission trip
and I was kind of going through this village of Sousavon.
And it was like,
I couldn't find a boundary to use as an example
to save my life.
There weren't guardrails on the road.
There were no fences.
They had homes that were literally one large room.
So they didn't even have divider walls
separating their rooms,
not even separating the bathroom, right?
Or where their parents slept or where they cooked.
They actually didn't even have in Haiti,
which is like a French Creole language.
They don't even have a word for boundaries.
That's how much boundaries just don't exist in their life.
And so it just made me realize
when you think about boundaries,
it is just so important to think about how helpful they are
and what it is like when you don't have them.
There are a few things that get in our way
of having healthy boundaries.
And I forgot to put this in the notes for Carla,
but this is what's being recorded tonight.
And I think it's super important for me to share this.
How many people want healthy boundaries?
Do we all want healthy boundaries?
Yeah, right, we do.
How many people have suffered
from not having healthy boundaries, right?
Okay, so usually we've suffered
from not having healthy boundaries
because something happened early
in our developmental time period.
So we get what's called boundary injuries
and boundary injuries can look like over-controlling parents.
So sometimes you have a helicopter parent
and man, they don't let you fail at anything.
They just, they are hovering over you
like no one's business.
And a lot of times,
helicopter parent, over-controlling parents
usually comes from a place of fear.
They're afraid and anxious about something
and they're so afraid and fearful for you.
They feel like if they can control your life
and your boundaries, then you will be safe.
That's usually at the root
of over-controlling helicopter parents.
So the other end of that spectrum
is parents that have no boundaries.
You know, like the hippie parents.
I just want.
be my kid's best friend. I don't want to be the parent. I had controlling parents and I'm going
to not have any roles. Well, that's like the other side of the spectrum. We need boundaries.
And the same way that I told you, I watched a whole culture not have any boundaries and the
detriment that that did to that community. So we all know it is not good to have no boundaries.
And usually parents with no boundaries came from that environment of that over controlling. So
they're trying to course correct. They've just course corrected too much. And so it is okay
for a young child to learn what the word no means. And I will tell you this, when I was running my
nonprofit, the type of employee that I never wanted to hire, if I had somebody who was a single child,
an only child who never played on a sport, was never part of any team club, and their parents
didn't have roles, I do not want to hire them. Because that person does not know how to work
in a team. That person does not know what boundaries look like. They don't know what
a healthy yes looks like and a healthy no looks like. And so over controlling or free willy,
that can set us up for failure. The other one that's even worse than the over controlling parent
or the free willy parent is an inconsistent parent. And that is typically when you have a
home with somebody with an active addiction, whether it's drugs, alcohol, and sex. When
someone's in active addiction, they don't have boundaries. They are not safe and they're all
over the map, which means one day you may have a lot of rules and the very next day you don't
have any rules. That's actually the worst scenario. So if you grew up in a home where an active
addiction was going on, you might be going like, yeah, Renee, like I just didn't know what parent
was going to show up. And so some days they were like the best friend and we could get away with
everything. And then other days, like I couldn't like turn off the light fast enough when I walked
out of the room. The other way that you can have unhealthy boundaries is if you have trauma,
something either happened to you or around you. I think a lot of you guys know that I grew up in the
hospital. I've had a lot of surgeries. I probably booked 10 surgeries before I was 18 years old.
So I have a lot of childhood trauma from that. Surgery was very different back then too.
It impacted me and it impacted my siblings. And so it wasn't my parents' fault, but that outside
trauma created some boundary issues for me. And then the last thing that can mess up your
boundaries is sin in the family, especially some sins of secrets. If there is active sin and
secrets going on in your family, it will be really hard for you to have healthy boundaries. So that's
why we all want them. So I don't know about y'all, but probably most of us can claim one of those
things that happened to us in our childhood, right? Like we could. So now we kind of know, well, that's
why I didn't have healthy boundaries. And you don't look at it and blame anybody, but it just
gives you some grace about it. So the first thing that we notice when you don't have healthy
boundaries is how many you've ever said, I'm the codependent, I'm the rescuer, I'm the helper. How
many have ever said that, right? We get a lot of the women in the group who say that. Okay.
The other time is how many of you ever said your husband or your ex-boyfriend was a narcissist
or he was controlling? Okay. If you can claim that, how many of you dated somebody who was
the victim? Like you guys, I just broke up with somebody who vacillated between victim and
narcissist. I mean, I couldn't even figure out which one it was at times. He was always the
victim. All right. If you are dating somebody who was a victim or the narcissist and or you identify
as being the codependent, you are what's called, you're on the drama triangle or the Cartman
triangle. And it means you learned unhealthy ways to do relationship because you didn't have good
boundaries. So that's how you know your boundaries are amok. You can't say that you are still dating
the narcissist or the victim without going, oh, my boundaries are totally okay. Probably not.
You just don't know it because you're in that triangle. So let's talk about the major things
that happen in that triangle because there's something alluring about it because we fall back
into it. And a lot of times we fall back into that with people that we have a history with.
Like you guys, I've developed really good boundaries, but when I go home to Connecticut
with my family, if my siblings start to pick at those old wounds, man, I can get right back there
and being totally like the people pleaser, the codependent, I can get right back there
in five hot seconds. So I have to really protect myself. So I'm going to read the description of
the codependent, people pleaser, performer, because that is a lot of us ladies. That's a lot of us.
Now, people pleasing, performer, codependency, we cannot confuse that with empathy.
There is a thin line. So kind of...
Think about the four inches on a balance beam.
Is it four to six inches right in a balance beam?
So on one side is empathy,
on the other side is no empathy,
and in the middle is healthy,
healthy relationship with people.
And so we wanna make sure that we have
a healthy amount of empathy with somebody
that doesn't get us into that codependent kind of stage.
So here's how you know this.
When you have healthy empathy,
you feel responsible to others,
but you don't feel responsible for others.
If you think something is gonna go down and it's on you,
even as a parent, you guys,
you're responsible to take care of your children.
Now, obviously, if they're under a certain age,
you are in fact responsible for them.
But as they become mature and older,
you are responsible to them,
you're not responsible for them.
If you are the boss,
you are responsible to your team, not for your team.
And so two and four are very important.
You're like, well, Renee, how do I know the difference?
I'll tell you how you know the difference.
When you feel responsible for other people,
that's the rescuer, the performance, the codependent,
you like to fix, protect, rescue,
you like to carry other people's feelings.
Sometimes you do like to control.
You are usually feeling tired, anxious, and fearful.
You are concerned with solutions and answers.
You like to be right and you like to perform.
And you hate to admit this,
but sometimes you will manipulate other people or situations
so you can feel better or safe yourself.
And you actually expect other people
to live up to the set of expectations
that you have for your life.
Here's the difference.
Here's the empathy side that you want.
When you feel responsible to other people,
you can show empathy, you encourage, you show compassion,
you can confront, we're gonna talk about that in a minute.
You can share and you can listen to hear and not respond.
You are relaxed, you are free, you are aware,
you are reliable.
You relate to a person to person,
but you feel your own feelings.
And you expect other people
to be responsible for themselves.
So hopefully that little summary now,
if I just kind of piqued your interest
and you're like, oh my gosh, I need more,
go back to the video because I talk about that a lot more.
So that's how you know the difference
between when you're being empathetic
or being kind of codependent.
The second topic is that controlling person.
Now you guys, we throw around that phrase,
narcissist around a lot.
And I just took a training with a bunch of therapists
and literally less than 5% of the population
is actually diagnosed narcissist, right?
But we all have narcissist traits
and that's what Jackie teaches all the time.
So we're all capable of going to the crazy place.
And in fact, if you are the codependent
who has been rescuing,
have you ever just blown up at your staff
or your children or your friends
because you finally reached the tipping point
where you cannot take it anymore
because you're giving and you're giving and you're giving
and then you either implode or you explode.
And all of a sudden for a hot minute,
you look like the control freak,
you look like the narcissist.
You're not, but you have a response
that kind of puts you in that category.
So there are two types of controllers.
There is the more obvious,
I would call it the overt.
It looks more aggressive and obnoxious.
They do not stop to listen to people.
They tend to rush over people.
They neglect their own responsibilities.
They blame everything on other people.
They don't accept others as they are
and they're constantly trying to change them.
Here's what a manipulator, a controller looks like
or what I call the covert.
This one's like sexier.
The covert controller,
these are the ones that usually woo me, right?
Because they look slicker and smoother.
They can persuade people away from their boundaries.
You know, you go on a date with a guy and he's like,
oh yeah, I'm totally fine with the no sex before marriage,
but he like tries a little of this and tries a little,
he's trying to woo you away from your boundaries.
So they woo when other's over
and they talk other, they persuade you into a yes
when you had a no.
They indirectly manipulate the situation
to stack the deck towards a yes and then they seduce.
So both of those are unhealthy.
We are both all capable of sliding into one of those,
especially if we've been a victim too long
or codependent too long.
At some point, our body wants to reset, recalibrate.
Okay, so then that third one is the victim in the middle.
They will like to believe
that they are the victim of every story.
How many of you remember Jackie saying,
there are no trophies for trauma,
you cannot be victorious and a victim.
So we have to choose, y'all crap happened to all of us.
I get it, life sucks sometimes, but we are here on the other side.
The truth is that no matter what our past says, it does not need to be our future.
And so when we start to blame other people, become the victim, blaming actually squashes
empathy and it forces us to always look at the other person without being willing to
look at ourself.
Blame and being a victim actually blocks true vulnerability and real connection.
So if you become the victim and or you're in a relationship with the victim, you cannot
have true vulnerability.
Um, okay.
So be looking for these types of behavior.
Oh no, did I print the wrong, hold on, I don't think I printed all the right pages.
Dang it all.
Did not print my last two pages.
Hold on, pause that for a second.
Woo.
All right.
It's a good thing I know this content really well.
Okay.
So the next thing I want to talk about with your boundaries is, and this is really good
as you are doing level two and level three dating.
Men are going to like, want to like go serious right away or not right away at all.
They're going to want to push your boundaries with sex, with, um, physical intimacy.
So you guys, there are four, let me go back to my notes.
I don't want to get ahead of myself.
Yeah.
Okay.
Healthy confrontation.
So healthy confrontation, the word confrontation literally just means with full front, with
your full front.
It just means being super honest.
Healthy confrontation doesn't mean yelling and screaming, does not mean that.
So healthy confrontation, I'm going to teach you a little phrase I learned.
It's on a sticker that's actually starting to wear out and I'm very excited about that.
It's called slower, lower, softer, SLS.
So when you want to confront somebody, you want to come in slower.
You want to drop your voice and come in a little lower and you want to add some softness
to it.
Vivian, doesn't it make it just by me changing that, and I'm talking a little slower, I'm
talking a little lower and a little softer, and then I even add a breath in, doesn't that
just like make you just a little bit calmer listening to me?
Like doesn't that just change the tone?
So you want to come in slower, lower, softer and take deep breaths.
You want to make sure that you are willing to be uncomfortable, you are willing to own
your side of the street, and you really want reconciliation in that relationship.
So it's about reconciling the relationship and not about being right.
And here's the thing you guys, people are so afraid of confrontation.
I can be afraid of confrontation.
Everyone's like, oh my gosh, you're such a badass.
I can be, but there are certain people I'm really afraid to confront.
If the environment feels unsafe, even I don't like to confront.
So I have to be really careful that I've been prayed up, that I am relinquished in the outcome,
that my only job is to confront and hold my ground on how they respond to me.
If it's unhealthy, I walk away.
So I've now learned if somebody starts yelling and screaming back at me, I just say, you
know what, we're going to press pause because there's just too much energy going on right
now.
It's not matching the situation.
We're going to do this again when we can both come back calmly.
And now I may not come back with that person because they may have shown me that confronting
them is not safe for me.
And so it is okay to pull back from the situation when you're doing confrontation.
Number four, keep your pies in order.
So remember I talked about intimacy.
So men and women, because men just don't do this with women.
Women do this with women, pastors do this, your friends do this, your boss does this.
You have to have healthy pies.
I call it a healthy pie.
A pie is in a circle, right?
Like so a circle can only be so big.
And so the first part of that pie is P, physical.
Physical boundaries.
Girls, we try not to be like too physical with men, especially when we're in level one
and two dating.
We don't want to be putting the cart before the horse.
If he's a hot kisser, it's going to just take off all the red flags.
You're not going to see any of them and you're going to be like, oh my gosh, but he kisses
so good.
I'm going to be able to fix him.
No, don't do it.
The other boundary that you need to think about is I, intellect.
You want to make sure that you don't share too much what's going on in your head, especially
with somebody you just met.
That is information that they may not need to know yet about you because you don't know
that they're safe with that information.
E, emotions.
You don't want to make sure you're not oversharing in the emotion land with him.
Don't talk about how much he's like your dream guy or she's like, oh my gosh, she's the best
friend in the world.
Watch your emotions when you get caught up in the beginning.
And then of course, spiritual.
Jackie talks about this a lot.
She does not.
I recommend you guys praying together right away,
doing a Bible study together right away,
reading the Bible together right away,
and are going to church together
because it can create a false sense or spiritual intimacy
that the relationship is not ready for.
So keep your pies in order,
physical, intellectual, emotional, and spiritual.
Okay, boundaries in level two and level three dating.
I kind of alluded to this.
And we like to say in level two dating,
that is where you're having a face-to-face
or video one-on-one date.
We just really want you guys to say super high level
in your physical that you do,
the stuff that you share about your past
and how much you're gonna get emotionally invested.
Somebody actually had a great question on the community app
and she said she was concerned about his finances,
but she also, he said he wanted to be exclusive.
And she was like, well, I'm not ready to be exclusive.
And I said, well, if you're not ready to be exclusive,
he doesn't have to share his finances with you.
I don't know about y'all,
but I ain't sharing my financial situation
with some guy that's not willing to commit with me.
And so you have to make sure the content
that you're talking about stays high level
and you learn a little bit more and a little bit more.
So whether it's about your faith, your family,
sex, food, finances, whatever the topic is,
you start high level and you only start to share more
as you guys get more committed to each other.
So that's super important.
Obviously we are hoping that the handholding,
huggy, huggy, kissy, making out
is not happening until level three.
Jackie did a whole sex talk with me,
I don't know, last Christmas.
It was hilarious.
I did not know she was gonna ask this question
because she's even stricter than I am
on the whole sexual touch stuff.
And I was like, and she's like,
well, Renee, you haven't had time
with the guy that you're dating, have you?
And I was like, ah.
And so it was quite funny.
I will say this, you guys,
everybody is gonna have different sexual boundaries
because you know your sexual trauma,
you know your sexual past.
I know that if I'm like super horny and he's super hot
and I'm feeling lonely,
there's not a safe room in my condo.
He ain't showing up that night.
So if you have a hard time with sexual boundaries,
then don't be alone with him so much.
Don't let him in your condo.
Willpower will give out at some point, I promise you.
The fear of Jackie's face, your mother or God,
will lose out at some point.
Okay, now, when we get to the Q&A section
after the breakout, you are allowed to ask each other,
ask me questions about what I'm saying right now.
Other topics this week.
There's only four other topics.
Oh, I'm doing really good.
I'm only gonna take five more minutes
before we go into our breakout.
All right, other topics this week.
First one, how to move forward in phase two
if you're not ready to date.
This is a common thing that we see
with people that first come in.
How do you move forward?
Well, kind of follow the Love Story Accelerator guidelines,
which is start doing your hair and makeup
when you leave the house.
Don't look like you're ready to go to like the Walmart.
I'm just saying, look like you're ready to go
into something a much cuter version than Walmart.
Hey, we all got our Walmart outfit on,
but don't have your Walmart outfit on.
Okay, do things like starting to say hello to people.
Henry Cloud kind of gives this thing
of try to meet five new people every day.
You know, just like, hi.
Just like talk to five people.
Say, hi.
Say, how are you today?
Like compliment somebody.
Like, oh my gosh, your hair looks so pretty.
You guys, I compliment people all the time.
Like I see somebody and I try to find something about them.
Like, oh my gosh, that is the coolest shirt.
I really love your shirt.
You don't know who's having a really bad day.
So even if you just start to be friendly,
like don't pick up your phone
when you're standing around everywhere.
Actually like talk to people.
Go have dinner at a bar at a very nice restaurant.
You'd be surprised at how many people
are eating dinner by themselves.
Like in that 4.30 to 6.30 range,
people are eating dinner by themselves at a bar.
It's a great way to talk to people.
If no one else is gonna talk to you,
the bartender will talk to you
because they will feel bad for you.
And it's all good.
You can practice your talking skills.
Join meetup groups, join volunteer groups.
Just start getting used to talking to people,
especially if you've been hiding behind a digital screen
for a very long time.
Those are really easy ways to get yourself out there
before you start dating.
So just start there.
It is okay.
All right, which kind of leads into the second question.
How do you meet people
if you don't want to do online dating?
I always say this.
You guys look at what's happening
in your local community to volunteer.
Men like to show up at things like Habitat for Humanity,
feeding the homeless,
or like you're at a church thing
where you're like putting together food baskets.
Anything that's going to require men, men, painting, lifting, building, men will show
up for those volunteer gigs.
So try to find those in your community.
Google meetup group.
It's literally www.meetup.com.
They are always offering, um, meetup events.
And sometimes you guys, it's not always just single people, like sometimes empty nesters
will show up at those, but you have a good shot of men and women showing up at meetup
groups.
And again, it's just getting you practice talking to people.
And you guys, when you show up for a volunteer gig and or a meetup group and you only see
a bunch of women, don't get all pissy.
It's possible that your spirit mate is the brother or the uncle or the cousin of the
woman that you're blowing off because it's a chick.
So you never know.
Remember Jackie believes in community matchmaking.
Back in the day, our, our family and our friends used to meet people by word of mouth and by
networking that we have lost that art, but we need to bring that art back.
Um, try to pick a community activity, see what's going on at the YMCA in your area or
the community club, pick, um, salsa dance lessons, pick how to play poker, pick how
to golf.
You guys, I, I'll tell you what, for my seminary class, I just took like a series of golf lessons.
Y'all, there's a lot of hot golfers.
I'm just saying like, I'm going to take my little golf clubs and go hit a bucket of
balls at the driving range.
Here's the best place to meet them at the driving range and the putting green and the
chipping green.
Cause once they're on the course, you can't really talk to them.
So that's not a good place to talk to them, but at the putting green and the chipping
and at the driving range, you have a better shot of chit chat.
So be creative, go out there and start looking for guys.
I mean, go to Home Depot or Bass Pro Shop.
You'll find a dude.
I'm just saying, um, during football season, find really cool sports bars where your local
football games are going to sit at the bar, sit with a couple of girlfriends.
I'm telling you, you guys, during March Madness one year, there was no place to sit except
with a bunch of guys.
There were two open seats.
Me and my girlfriend said, Hey, you know what?
There are no open seats.
Do you mind if we join you guys?
They were like, sure.
And we ended up hanging out with these guys for like four hours.
Okay.
I did end up making out with a guy who was like 20 years younger than me.
Totally inappropriate.
That was way before Jackie.
Don't recommend that part.
However, it was really fun.
Um, okay.
Let's see.
Next question.
How heartwork continues in phase two.
So people are like, it's not like heartwork is one and done.
The heartwork that you do in phase one is so good because you're kind of digging into
who you are and you're kind of resolving the past.
When you start dating, you're actually trying to do heartwork while you're dating.
So all of a sudden you're going to get new triggers that you didn't get through in phase
one.
That doesn't mean you need to go back and redo phase one heartwork.
No, it just means you need to now go, how do I practice what I learned in phase one
in this current scenario in phase two, Jackie has helped me so much in this.
Like she, I always used to think like, Oh my gosh, I'm healed.
I'm ready.
And I would go in a relationship and it'd be a hot mess express.
And I'm like, Oh my gosh, what happens?
And Jackie's like, well, you can only do so much healing of the heartwork single.
Some of the healing needs to happen in a healthy relationship.
So that's why it's important that you meet a guy who is the three M's, marriage minded,
masculine, and mature.
And he's also on a path of heart healing.
So the goal is to not find a guy that doesn't trigger you.
That's not going to happen.
A guy is human with his past, y'all will trigger each other.
The goal is that you will both have the tools to get through your triggers together instead
of cutting and running.
So that is the goal with doing heartwork in phase two.
Number four, this is just a quickie.
Women ask me this all the time, and I'm going to actually even read you a personal text
because I just asked this of a guy.
And how do you ask the faith question to a guy that you're just starting to date?
I don't say, are you a Christian?
Do you go to church?
Do you speak in tongues right away?
I don't do that.
But here's what I do say.
I say, he's like, well, what do you want to know about me?
And I said, tell me about the things that take up your time these days that are super
important to you.
Tell me about the things that take up your time these days that are super important to
you.
Now, mind you, he actually did not put his Christian faith on his profile, but he was
really cute and he was local, so I gave him a chance.
I liked the rest of his bio, I'm like, all right, I'm going to give him a chance.
First thing he said, important to me, one, God, my relationship with my maker is the
most important thing in my life.
I would have never guessed that that was going to be his number one answer, you guys.
So that totally surprised me.
Then he talked about mentoring other people, the outreach work that he does.
And then I wrote, so he didn't really get into anything fun.
I said, awesome.
That's my number one thing too.
Now I will say he has, I can tell he has a 12 step background.
So it is possible his God is just a higher power and it ain't Jesus yet.
I'm not going to, I'm not going to pull that trigger yet.
I'm going to continue to get to know him a little bit.
And I just wrote, so cool.
Being a coach and a mentor is important to me too.
For me, I'm also focused on healthy mind, body, and spirit.
So my faith life, eating a health, eating healthy most of the time and exercise are
super important.
I also love live theater, local, love live local theater, college sports and outdoor
stuff.
How about you?
So then he started to give me a little bit more.
And so that's how I initiate the faith conversation.
If faith doesn't show up anywhere in there, I might make note of it.
And then later on, when we are live on a video, I do not try to do this by text.
That is the most I will try to uncover about their faith by text.
I will wait for a live video to say, Hey, you know what, like you and I are both old
enough that we've been through some hard stuff.
What have you been able to lean on and how have you successfully gotten through hard
stuff?
Again, as I'm giving them an opportunity for them to talk about faith there.
Now, if they don't mention faith there and they haven't mentioned faith there, I'm then
might be a little bit honest to say, Hey, I've noticed that you haven't really talked
about your faith much.
Obviously I've told you a little bit about my faith.
Would you be willing to share a little bit more about what your faith looks like in your
everyday life?
If at all, what does your faith look like in your everyday life?
If at all, Elizabeth, yes.
Meetup.com.
That's it.
So that's, those are how I ask the faith questions.
Okay.
I'm going to now send you guys off to your breakout room with three questions that I'm
going to put in the chat.
And I'm going to read them out loud too.
So you have them.
Now there's three questions.
You don't have to answer all three, but at least try to answer two of them.
And the goal, I'm going to put you in a room with three people.
Sometimes only two people show up and that's okay too.
All right.
So let's look at the questions.
The first question is what type of boundaries do you struggle with the most?
And this is like y'all being transparent with each other.
Physical boundaries, emotional, spiritual.
I could tell you this for myself.
I personally get emotional really fast.
Like I can go deep really, really quickly.
Like I'm a vomit, I'm an emotional vomiter.
And so I know for me, like that's my biggie.
Then the second question, it looks like number five, I apologize that it did that.
What areas of your life do you struggle with the most in your boundaries?
Is it dating?
Is it with your family?
Is it your friends, work, church?
It might be all of the above.
And then your third question, which looks like number 11, where do you go most in an
unhealthy cycle?
Do you tend to be the controller, the victim, or the rescuer?
Let me try recut and pasting these questions separately so it doesn't look this stupid.
Hold on.
I'm going to do this.
This is the first question.
And then I want you guys to start taking a picture of these so that one of you at least
has them when you go into the breakout room.
I will give you the lead into the question, but not all of the answers.
And then if nobody shows up in your room, come back into this main room.
Let's see.
I've got 30 people, so I'm going to do 10 rooms.
Okay, let's see.
Breakout rooms.
So going off, you guys have about, it's quarter of, I'm going to bring you back at the top
of the hour.
So you have almost 15 minutes.
I might bring you back a minute earlier, and then we're going to take a good 30 minutes
to answer all your dating questions.
So going off to your rooms.
I'm going to pause the recording.
Awesome.
Well, I've got you ladies back.
I hope you had a fruitful conversation talking about that.
Always is just one of those topics.
You can't not talk about it.
You can always come back and there's always places for you to kind of recalibrate.
So now this is your time.
You get to ask me any question you want, either based on something I taught tonight, something
that came up in the breakout room, and you guys all like, I don't know, something that
came up.
up during the week. It could be a dating situation. This is your time. I don't want to put you
on the spot and you don't need to go first, but Larissa, I think I did specifically ask
you if you'd be willing to bring your story tonight. So, Tanora beat you to it, but if
you're open tonight, I'd love to be able to unpack with you a little bit about your situation.
Cause it's so hard to just kind of text about it. And you guys, sometimes if you read a
really long thing about a dating situation, you may see me say that you may see me or
one of the coaches saying, you know what? I really want you to take that to the check-in
cause I want to be able to dialogue with you about it. And I want you to hear me tone inflection,
body language, all the things like, I don't want you to misread what I'm trying to say
or miss. I misread what you're trying to say. So Tanora, you are up first. Can you come
up? Oh boy. Oh boy. Oh boy. Okay. I'm ready for this, but boy, am I in trouble. Okay.
Yeah. Yeah. I'm in trouble. Grace abounds. I'll start there. Grace. Yeah. I hope so.
So I've been in phase two for the second week. I wasn't going to get on cause I just was
totally embarrassed, totally emotional. So I had a one night stand, um, last night and
I have been crying all day. It's just been, um, I always say no. I always say no. I haven't
had a one night stand since I was 17 and I am 38. I don't know how I ended up there.
So let's break it down. Like, what do you think, like, what was the situation? A, first
Tanora, you are in a safe space. No women here is going to shame you. Right? So maybe
not everyone's had a one night stand, but we all have had that morning wake up where
we're like, Oh, I can't take that back moment. Right. So let's help unpack why that was an
option for you. So were you coming into the day? Lonely, tired, sad, angry, hurt.
I actually was having a pretty good day. I think that when I saw him on the app, I'll be
honest. I immediately lusted over this and I was like, this was like a complete stranger
hookup. And I think that that's why I'm, I'm beating myself up completely. Okay. Okay.
So you met him on the app and you immediately agreed to a meeting. Yes. The problem was
the time of the meeting and the problem was at his house. So what? Okay. No shame in that
game. I'm curious what made you be willing to go over to his house? He was fine. And I
was surprised that he was interested in me. I was completely taken back that. Look, I'm
getting my blanket and I'm sitting on the couch for this one. Cause it's so big. Okay.
It's awful. Well, okay. So, and has it been a really long time since a hot man said that
you were attractive? Absolutely. My ex-husband was not cute at all and I just chose him because
he didn't help. And I felt like I could be the helper or the fixer or the mother in his
situation. And I've been single for two years and yeah. Did you at least, can you at least
let me know if you used birth control? I, my tubes are tied, but we did not use protection
and I am, I am, I'm sick. I'm sick to my stomach. Okay. Well, I used to run a clinic. So, so I did
for 20 years. So that's why, that's why I immediately went there. So, you know, you need
to go get an STD test and do the due diligent thing. You can either go to a clinic, the health
department or your OB or walk-in clinic. And I believe, you know, you just want to do it for you.
You just want to do it for you. Yes. So, um, thank you so much. This is the most honest somebody has
been in a very long time, um, in a check-in. So I really appreciate that. I really appreciate you
bringing that up, you guys, because sometimes you're just horny. Y'all like, I'm using testosterone
right now. I want to have sex all the time. Like, I'm like, I don't know what I'm going to do. Like,
so no hot man is coming in my house. Cause I'm just not safe. And, and there, I can't go in his.
So here's what I'm going to encourage you to do is, um, first forgive yourself, you know,
like that permit, that forgiveness page that you did in phase one, just forgive yourself.
But kind of also like, there's something that.
you said that really struck me.
You said he was gorgeous
and I can't believe that he thought I was gorgeous.
Y'all like, that's really tempting for all of us
when we finally feel desirable
when we didn't feel desirable before.
I've got to turn off the light behind me
cause it's bugging me that y'all like,
I'm like in this like weird thing going on.
So let's own that part of the allure of it
and attraction to it was because
you weren't feeling secure about yourself
in your own right.
Like you need to be able to say I'm hot, I'm gorgeous,
I'm amazing and any guy would be so lucky to find,
ooh, that might be too dark.
Let me switch the light so it's in front of me.
So just know that you're, remember I said to you,
like I said that if,
I think I said it at the beginning
before you guys did the breakout,
like I know that if I'm tired, angry, hungry,
lonely or not feeling good about myself,
that's when I'm going to be the most susceptible.
So that's when you're the most susceptible.
So next time you're going to give yourself some boundaries
and the boundary is your nuts,
your homes are off limit.
I don't care how hot he is,
homes are off limit and the first date,
no one after nine, no one after 9 p.m.
And if you have to have a girlfriend
that you need to talk you off the ledge,
if you cannot find that girlfriend,
I promise you people are on our app
all weird hours of the day or night.
I promise you if you put a post on the app and said,
y'all, someone talked me off the ledge,
there's a hot man that wants to see me.
I promise you some chick is going to respond to you.
And so just don't be afraid to use this community
to support each other.
And if you have somebody in real life that you can do that,
tell that person, like, can you be my girl?
Can you be the person that's going to say,
get your, no, turn your around, turn off the car,
do not pass go, like get back in your house,
put on your ugly stinking underwear
that you would never show up with a guy in,
like do something to kind of protect yourself.
Like it's okay.
But also recognizing that you were kind of in a needy place.
So I hate that that happened for you.
I'm so sorry that it did,
but I'm actually glad that you're safe
because Tenere could have gone in a bad direction, right?
Like he could have harmed you.
So, I mean, I'm at least thankful
that what you did was have sex.
He could have hurt you and you are here today.
So let's be thankful and grateful that you're alive
and that you're safe.
And I want you to just go get an STD test.
That's the clinic girl in me
that's going to talk to you about that.
I also, maybe, and this is not politically correct
for me to say this,
but next time consider having condoms near you.
And if he's not willing to put one on
and you're like, you guys,
I'm not condoning sex outside of marriage.
It's not what I'm saying here.
But I had a clinic full of women who were pregnant
and women who had an STD because 80% of the time
people were not using birth control and they had sex.
It's just the truth.
That's what the data says.
People are not having abortions because of rape and incest.
I know the data.
I've been living it for 20 years.
80% of all unplanned pregnancies happen
because somebody did not use birth control at all.
And so we know better.
So always have some backup plans ready to go for you.
That doesn't mean that you don't want God's best for you.
So I just want to encourage you
and you might want to do a soul tie.
The, you know, the soul tie prayer
that we all did in phase one.
You might want to do a soul tie
even though you don't even know who this dude is.
You did kind of create a soul tie with him.
So just do the soul tie,
what you'd forgive yourself,
go get an STD test and give yourself some parameters
of next time, how you're going to manage that.
And, but mostly I want you to realize
that you are amazing, gorgeous, valued, and loved.
And you deserve a guy who's going to date you.
I don't know.
Does that help at all?
Did anybody just say help you?
Absolutely.
It did.
I'm struggling with the forgiving myself part,
but I'll get there.
I'll get there.
So here's the phrase
when I have struggled with forgiving myself,
because let's face it,
we forgive other people faster than we forgive ourselves.
When I can't forgive myself,
my pastor's wife always used to say this to me.
So she said,
so are you willing to tell Jesus
he needs to get back up on the cross?
And I'm always like, duh.
Yeah, that's a good one.
I don't want him to get back up on the cross.
He got up there once, one and done.
So he's got you, girl.
Remember, it's like, here's our ego.
He can't love you anymore on your best day, right?
So that's for.
or ego, but he cannot love you any less on your worst day.
OK.
Larissa, just because I called you out on it,
are you willing to explain your little story for me
and catch the group up?
Yes, ma'am.
So you guys, I'm making her go because I called her out
in a few posts.
Like, I was just like, what are you doing?
And so it's been two or three weeks.
And I'm like, get your butt to a check-in
so we can talk about this live.
That's why I'm shoving her to the front,
because I really kind of called her butt out on it.
So are you still talking to this guy?
Yes, I am.
So this is a guy that wants to.
She's with a guy.
It's been a couple of months.
He wants to be level three.
And she's like, eh, not so sure.
And he's the guy that you're.
So tell us what you like about him first.
Tell us why you're even still talking to him.
The reason why I'm still talking to him
is because I've seen a few godly qualities in him.
Because Jackie always tells us to look for the fruits, right?
So he is patient.
He's kind.
He's gentle.
He's very peaceful.
I feel like I can be myself, just
express myself around him.
So those are the qualities I like.
And that makes me want to stay and just get to know him more.
Yeah.
That's awesome.
Those are really sweet.
That's why I'm glad I brought you on here,
because I did not hear you say any of those nice things
about him.
I've been saying those, Brittany.
And you guys, here's what happens.
Like, we forget to tell the coaches, i.e.
me and Kayla, or Carla, and now Ebony, like the good stuff.
Because all you do is come in and are,
here's something I don't like about him.
Well, then I don't like him either,
because you've just told me the crappy thing about him.
And now I don't want to root for him.
I just want to tell you to run.
So you just mentioned some really nice things about him.
What are your yellow flags?
They're not red yet.
What are your yellow flags, the things
that you're a little concerned about?
Yellow flags, like, I'm not sure if it's
because we had our first date at a tea house, right?
And then the second date, I suggested we go to a park,
which he accepted to.
So we went to the park.
And then I was hoping the third date was going to be
like somewhere different, you know?
So I suggested we go for like a fun activity,
bowling or something like that.
He said, no, he wanted us to go to a park so we can talk.
And he wanted us to talk about our do's and don'ts
and deal breakers.
So I thought maybe the third date was going to be about that
but he didn't mention that.
He said he brought up the topic
of being the girlfriend stuff, so, yeah.
I mean, I'm concerned, you know,
that if he's a generous person,
cause I like someone who's generous, you know?
He doesn't have to be rich or-
So when you say generous, so let's be clear.
So when you say generous, do you mean with his time,
with his resources, or do you mean specifically just money?
Money.
Okay.
And what do you consider generous?
What does generous mean to you?
So I bet you on the five love languages,
is gifts one of your love languages?
More quality time.
Interesting.
Yeah, quality time is number one for me.
So the man's giving you quality time
but you want him to spend money on you, okay.
I mean, spend a little.
Quality like it is, girl.
All right, so here's what you can do.
There's no shame in this game.
We all want to be treated well.
I just want to make sure,
would you be okay if he took you to a really great restaurant
that was more meat and three,
or does it need to be a five-star Michelin rated restaurant?
It doesn't have to be five-star, just somewhere, you know,
so that we can eat, yeah, just spend money, you know?
Right, okay.
So here's what you can do.
Cause you've been talking for about two months, right?
Right, two months now.
Okay, so you guys, they've been talking for two months.
So I do not recommend this in the first week.
How many live dates have you had in the two months?
Two months, we've had more video dates,
but so far, three live dates.
Last week's only made our third date.
Now, are you having more video dates?
How far away are you guys from each other?
I mean, the reason why we have just three video dates
is cause the first month when we just started chatting,
right, he had an exam he was preparing for.
Oh yeah, yeah, that's right.
Right, so we couldn't be doing that time.
This was the exam guy.
Right, right. That's right.
That was the other flag.
I wasn't sure about him
if he was kind of blowing you off with the study.
Okay.
Oh no, no.
He did take the exam and he passed, so.
Yeah, yeah, he did.
Okay.
So here's what you can say.
So here's where she gets to be a little more bold
because he already has asked her to go exclusive
and they've been talking for two months.
So when somebody asks you to go exclusive,
it does give you the right
to ask a few more serious questions.
And so Larissa, at this point, you can just say to him,
but I would wait to have this conversation live.
You are not gonna do it by video.
You are not gonna text it
and you're not gonna do this by phone.
The more delicate the conversation.
the more alive it needs to be.
Y'all hear me?
Confrontation, do it live.
Do not do it with a computer screen or something else.
Please, for the love of God, do not text this conversation.
It will not end well.
So you can just say, you know what?
You can just say, I'm just gonna say his name is Tom,
just for the sake of this.
We're gonna keep it anonymous.
So, hey Tom, I've enjoyed getting to know you.
I have to be really honest about a couple of things.
One, before I can go exclusive,
I think I need to have more dates
that are more live experiences with you.
It's been really nice talking to you,
but I need to make sure that your actions
line up with everything that you're saying.
That includes taking me out to dinner,
taking me bowling, having us go putt-putt,
meeting some of your friends,
meeting some of my friends.
You know, like treating me like a real date.
Like I don't wanna like fall into this trap
of just video chatting and phone call
and dating in each other's homes.
Like I wanna be courted.
I wanna be courted.
And I wanna be courted in person.
I feel like those are really good ways
to like drop the hanky, i.e. do take me out on a date,
like not at a park.
And if he mentions a park, you can say,
look, I really don't wanna just do
the park talking thing again.
Again, I wanna have real experiences with you.
I would like to feel special.
I would like to see you court me.
I like how you said that, like to feel special, yeah.
Well, I know.
So special is like, so say court me.
I want you to kind of treat these dates like real dates.
I think that our society has lost sight
of how to date well.
Now, if he still doesn't take the bait,
so why is him spending money on you important?
Do you feel like in the past men have mistreated you
or not seen you as valuable enough to spend money on you?
Like, why is that a concern for you?
It's not based on past experiences.
I just wanna be sure that, you know,
wherever I marry in the future,
you know, though I have my own finances,
but I want someone who is able to spend on me,
not me using my own money and doing stuff on myself,
but someone who can willingly, you know, just spend on me.
Yeah.
All right, well then here's, so you really are,
it's more than his generosity
is he fiscally safe and responsible.
And that's also a fair conversation you can have with him
because he's also asked you to be exclusive.
Like, hey, I have to, you know, be super honest with you
that before I'm exclusive with somebody,
I need to know that they are financially secure.
I need to know that they can afford
to take care of themselves.
They can afford to be kind and generous with me.
And that if we brought our finances together,
we would only both grow the pot
as opposed to the burden coming on me.
Where are you at with your financial situation?
Do you feel like that sounds about right with you,
where you're at or where you're heading?
So that's how you can kind of bring it up.
So that's talking about finances without saying,
I need you to like spend money on me.
You're getting there
because you're speaking to his fiscal responsibility,
his saving.
Again, ladies, she can start to ask these tougher questions
because he's wanted to go exclusive.
It is fair to ask certain things before exclusivity.
And you really wanna make sure
you're kind of on the same place.
Right, well, I mean, I'm happy that he said
I should ask him whatever questions, you know, so.
Yeah.
Definitely asking those questions, yeah.
Perfect.
I wanted to help kind of dialogue that with you
to give you some new ways to bring that up with him
and keep us posted and let us know how he responds, okay?
Definitely, thank you so much, Renee.
You bet, sweetie.
Okay, Becca, you're up.
So we were talking a little bit in our group
about like when you are dating multiple people
versus when you're dating just like one person at a time.
And I'm really thoughtful about this
as I'm jumping back into dating.
In my mind, I feel anxious about getting back into it
for a lot of reasons.
But in my mind, if I'm dating multiple people,
then it's like a method of boundaries
because I have to recognize multiple people.
And capacity-wise,
that can be slightly overwhelming for me.
So then I'm thinking, well, if I keep it to fewer people,
what are the things that I can still do
to be intentional about those boundaries
or things I can watch for
that is not just like sort of naturally created
by having multiple people?
Does that make sense?
Yeah, so here are the things I try to...
I will say this too, since I've been in this program,
I have twice taken,
I've dated multiple people at the same time
and I've taken two relationships
all the way to talking about marriage.
And in none of those situations did I have sex with them.
And that really helped me navigate those relationships.
I have had sex before you guys, sex is amazing.
I'm not saying that it's not,
but every time I've done that in the past,
it has just been a hot mess express and breaking up.
But that guy has cost me so much.
So even though God says it's the right thing for us,
I can just attest, I've been there, done it.
And so I appreciate that you're trying
to find healthy boundaries.
And I'm assuming not just physical boundaries,
like how do I not get emotionally attached to this guy?
So emotional attachment,
some of the best ways to keep your mind
like not getting too emotionally attached
is stay in the present
and talk a little bit about the future.
Don't talk about the past so much.
Usually when we start talking about the past,
like if I'm gonna talk about the past,
I might say things like,
oh, I used to cheer in high school and college.
Like I used to be really good in math.
I used to be an engineer.
Like I might say things like that,
but I'm not gonna talk about my relationship with my father.
I'm not gonna talk about my recovery work.
I'm not gonna talk about my eating disorder.
I'm not gonna talk about my sexual assault.
Like, you know what I'm saying?
I keep the content of my past very PG.
So keep the past very PG.
Keep the past something you wouldn't mind
telling somebody in life group or in a small group.
Like, you know what I'm saying?
So emotionally, I stick to the past
with only like G level stuff.
I talk about what I want today
and in the next year the most.
If I start dreaming too much with him,
I'm also gonna go on emotional rollercoaster.
Like, oh my gosh, like I want this house.
I want like two kids and I wanna be able to do this.
And we all start dreaming.
We like start dreaming of this life together
and we haven't even experienced today together.
So the more you stay in the present,
the more you can stay emotionally a little bit detached.
Do as much group dating and public dating as possible.
And when I say group dating, go out with like another couple
and somebody else that you're good friends with.
I'm not saying like 10 people.
Like, but I'm just saying do a lot of in public dates.
The more you play house in your home,
the more you're playing house in your home.
And y'all I'm the, you know, kind of like to Larissa's point
the last guy dated, I let his finances dictate it
and we started hanging out
in each other's homes way too fast.
And it created a lot of emotional intimacy
within six weeks.
It was insane how much we just started vomiting
with each other.
And so I would say stick to dates outside your home,
pick fun things to do where you're not just talking
to each other.
To Larissa's point, it's not even just a money thing
but if all you're doing is staring at each other talking,
you can't help but just vomit your story.
So try to do stuff.
There is, somebody said date the alphabet
and I loved this idea.
Like, all right, what are we gonna do
that starts with the letter A?
Like, what are we gonna do that starts with the letter B?
Oh, we're gonna go bowling.
C, we're gonna go pick up caterpillars.
I mean, you know what I'm saying?
It's like, try to come up with like creative dates.
And then obviously really limit how much sexual
and or spiritual connection you create.
So those are the ways I've helped manage
when I'm talking to different guys.
The other thing is it does ebb and flow.
Like I just got back online
after like three months of taking it off.
So of course, the minute you turn it back on,
like it's like all there.
And so like, but you guys, I'm really funny
because like right away guys wanna like
get all the information.
I'm like, those are great questions.
I'd love to have a video chat.
And then what's the next thing they do?
They throw me their cell phone number.
I didn't say I wanted your cell phone number.
And so I say, I'm sorry, I don't give out my cell phone
number when I haven't met you online.
I mean, on a video chat.
I'm sure you understand and you wanna respect my safety.
I would love to have a video chat.
I've got a Zoom account.
It's free to download.
Two guys literally never messaged me back after that.
I'm like, oh, so you were willing to chat with me by phone.
And so like me kind of setting up
those kinds of boundaries right away,
Becca, it lobs off a lot of stinky guys right away.
Like I'm not gonna even have the chance
of screwing up with them
because they're gonna pull themselves
out of the running really quickly.
And remember level two discovery dating
is not dating like we think.
So this is not like you're dating your high school boyfriend
and you're also dating the guy at the lacrosse.
That's not what this is.
Discovery dating is just getting to know people.
Believe it or not, Becca,
you and I can have a level two date together
where it happens all the time.
We meet somebody at church or in a group and we're like,
oh my gosh, Becca seemed really cool.
I want to get to know Becca.
Becca, do you want to go out for coffee or Mexican food
or let's go get a glass of wine?
That's us having a level two discovery date.
It is us just getting to know each other
and deciding if we want to hang out together again.
So that's also what I try to do to just think about it.
Like, this isn't dating like when I was 16.
This is like, I'm just getting to know people.
And again, because you're meeting strangers,
like back in the old day, this happened naturally
in the classroom and at work and at church.
You got to know each other.
You got to know some guy for a couple of months
that by the time he finally asked you out on a date,
it was a big freaking deal.
Well, that's not where we're at right now.
Like right now, you're just getting to know somebody.
And so just kind of, and you will weed out
the guys that just want to have sex,
the guys that don't want a relationship.
You're going to weed them out
because you're kind of setting all of this stuff up
and it's just going to save you.
I don't know, does that help?
Yes, hugely helpful.
Especially the, I'm not talking about the past piece.
Actually, that seems like a really,
like I can do that right away.
And that's going to be huge for me.
I also totally did the playing house thing.
I mean, like I, my food shopping went directly
into his fridge for like four months.
And so bad, bad story, wrong game, not doing that again.
But yeah.
Girl, I mean, I, it's my Achilles heel.
Like I've mastered the no sex thing,
but like I've not mastered the not cooking
because I'm a great cook and I, it's my love language.
And so you know what though?
You can cook and bring it to a picnic.
Bring it not in his house and not in your house.
So I give you guys all this advice
and I have broken all of it myself.
So like, I totally, totally get it.
Ebony, did you want to chime in?
I can't see where you are anymore, but I know you're here.
Did you want to chime in on anything I've answered so far?
No, that was all great.
I agree.
Okay, awesome.
Awesome sweetie.
Okay, but feel free to interrupt me
if I forget to call on you.
Okay, Phoebe, you're up.
Hi, thanks so much.
Yeah, what you've been saying in response
to Becca's question has been helpful too actually.
I, so I've just gotten back into dating.
I went to, on a speed dating event, met a guy.
We, I went on vacation.
So we were chatting a bit, voice notes,
that sort of thing, had our first dates
and we went stand up paddle boarding.
And it was, it was a lot of fun.
He kind of steered the conversation more like,
well, what are you looking for?
What do you want to read?
Like in a relationship, what do you like in guys?
Like when I was trying to do, as we've talked about here,
like present, you know,
surface level of stuff, just getting to know each other.
We have a second date and I'm just looking for advice on,
I guess like how to, I expect more questions
along those lines.
And I feel like I need to start being clearer about,
cause I just don't know.
I know he grew up, I think, you know,
like a little bit more legalistic religious background.
He says he talks to God, but like, again,
and it was just our first date,
so it wasn't going super deep on that.
But I just, he's pretty keen, which it's nice.
It's nice to have someone keen and interested,
all that kind of stuff.
But I don't want to give the wrong impression.
He doesn't have Jackie coaching him.
He probably has nobody coaching him.
And so I don't know about y'all,
but that's how I dated at first.
Like I had my dossier and the resume letter ready to go.
Like I got some questions, chop, chop,
let's not waste any time.
And so you can just say, look,
I totally get where you are
and you have a lot of questions.
And I really want to answer them as it's appropriate
as we're getting to know each other.
What I've learned, I'm actually working with some coaches
and what I've learned is it's also important for us
to just get to know who we are today
to see if we're even compatible.
And so sometimes my answer is going to be very surface
and it's going to say, but I might say to you like,
you know what, I'm just,
here's what's most important to me.
I'm looking for somebody who's mature,
masculine and marriage-minded.
Somebody who shares my faith
and shares a lot of the same interests as me.
Anything more than that, that's too much information.
Do I want to answer that to you at some point?
Absolutely.
But right now I actually want you to just get to know me
and I just want to get to know you.
I'm hoping that's okay.
Now, I will say Phoebe,
if he doesn't take that boundary and he busts it,
then he doesn't honor boundaries.
You guys, honoring boundaries.
honoring boundaries. And it starts as simple as, that's not an appropriate question for this moment.
I'm not going to answer that. Do you know what I'm saying? Now, you're not going to be a jerk
about it, but you're going to be like, that's a great question. I understand why you're asking
those questions. Those things are important to me too. But here's my surface answer.
Anything more detailed, I will tell you as we go along, but I really just want to get to know who
you are and you get to know me without that filter. Because here's what happens to you guys
when we define the perfect guy, they can pretend to be that perfect guy. Like I don't want to give
you the answer. I want you to just tell me who, I want you to show me who you are and I'll let
you know if he's the, you're the guy. You know, so sometimes we just have to be kind and direct
and we have to ask for what we need. And that is uncomfortable, but better practice it on that
second date, then wait till the 10th date, you know? And I love paddling, I stand up paddling. I
just went a couple of weeks ago. So it's lots of fun. That's a great date. I mean, because if you
fall in, it's even fun to see how they react to that. We did. There you go. Awesome sauce. Okay.
I want to answer somebody's question that they put in the chat. And they said, can you go from
not having sex or having sex and not having sex? You actually can, you guys. I dated somebody that
I almost married and we had sex very quickly into the relationship. And then I felt like massive
Holy Spirit conviction. I'm like, oh my gosh, this has to stop. Now, mind you, I was practically
spending the weekend there with his kids, but here's what we did. He just, we just didn't sleep
in the same room anymore. Like I slept in the spare room. And so we just started making sure
that either the kids were with us or our schedule was very, very busy in the beginning. We just had
to discipline ourself to not be alone so much. And that's how we kind of worked the muscle in
to kind of make it better. This last guy that I dated that I was telling you about, we started
like hanging out in each other's home too much. We were fooling around a lot. Like, and I think
we were supposedly in agreement on the no sex thing. And of course he wanted to do everything
but vaginal intercourse. And I was like, oh, I'm sorry. We're not going to build Clinton our way
through this. I didn't mean everything except that I actually meant all that. And so like I
had to really wind it back. I'm telling you what y'all pray about it. God got him sick for two
straight weeks. And then I went to Connecticut for a week. So we had three weeks where we couldn't do
any hanky-panky and it really helped set a good tone and kind of reset that. And so I'm not saying
you pray sickness on the guy, but you know, put real parameters and boundaries in place. Y'all,
like if you've had sex and it's good, like, don't just say like, oh, we're just going to try harder
and be good. No, don't be a dry drunk. You know, like go, you know, a dry drunk doesn't get any
better. So you've got to go to AA meeting. So the same is true. If you need to back up the sex or
back up the physical relationship, then don't do home dates for a while. Only do dates in public,
kind of try to put some boundaries back up and then just talk about it. Okay. I want to make
sure, did anybody have a question in here? Y'all, I'm so proud of you. You guys, you guys have been
so good with Tanora. I'm so proud of her for sharing. I just feel like this was a super
honest group. I love it. This is like literally the most favorite thing that I get to do with
Jackie and this community is having this night with y'all. So it's been an honor and a blessing.
Does anybody have any closing thoughts, comments, ahas before I close us out?
Look, we stayed on time and everything tonight.
All right. Father God, I just ask that you just be with every single woman on here,
that you bless her this week, that you give her the peace that surpasses all understanding,
where there needs to be grace and mercy and forgiveness for themselves. Father God, I ask
that you just lavish them with that and remind them how much you love them and you want to be
in right relationship with them. I ask that you just give them wisdom and encouragement and boldness
as they move forward in their dating season. And we just lift all of this up in the precious name
of Jesus. Amen. All right, y'all go forth and have a great week and we'll see you here. Actually,
well, next week we'll see you on the love seats and then we'll see you back here in two weeks.