Ep #29: The Secret to Not Losing Yourself in Dating or Giving Up the Woman You Fought to Become

If you’ve ever felt afraid that once you really like someone, you’ll slip back into old habits… abandon yourself… and forget everything you worked so hard to heal—this episode is for you.

After a long pattern of anxious dating, emotionally unavailable partners, and constantly losing myself in love, I decided to do something radically different:
I took 12 months off dating completely.

In this episode, I share what happened during that year—what I learned, how I reconnected with myself, and how I became the kind of woman who dates from overflow, not emptiness.

Whether you’re newly single or dating again and terrified of falling back into old ways, I’m giving you the exact process I used to stay rooted in who I am, even when the chemistry is 10/10.

In this episode, I share:
- The single most important question I asked myself post-breakup
- Why dating from scarcity leads to self-abandonment (and how to stop)
- What I did during my 12-month dating detox that changed everything
- My “closet metaphor” for rebuilding your life around you
- How to meet your own emotional needs before inviting someone in
- The promise I made to myself before opening the apps again
- How to date without giving up the secure woman you’ve become

🎧 Tune in now! And if this episode resonates, send me a DM on Instagram—I’d love to hear your thoughts!

APPLY TO WORK WITH ME 1:1 [ONLY 2 SPACES AVAILABLE]
Click HERE to apply.

MIMI SOCIAL MEDIA
Come say hi 👋 (or DM me your biggest takeaway) over on Instagram HERE!

Got something you'd love me to record an episode on? DM me and let me know!

Transcript

0:00

You are listening to the Secure Love Club podcast. I'm your host, Mimi Watt. Hey friends. Welcome back to the Club. How you doing today? Hope you're doing well. I'm feeling rejuvenated this morning after an absolute ride off of a day yesterday. Isn't it just a wild ride being women? I mean, we can feel like absolute Wonder Woman one day and then. Some weird gremlin troll hiding under a bridge the next day, and you just, you don't know what your name is. You're like questioning your entire purpose. You feel exhausted and you don't know why. Oh my God. It's a fun time. Anyway, that was me yesterday and I took myself in the afternoon to go and get a Juicy 90 minute massage, and it was. Just what the doctor ordered. I came outta that massage, feeling like a new woman feeling like I had restored my faith in the world and myself, and I've had a good night's sleep and I'm really excited to be on the mic with you today and talking about a topic that I know it's gonna be so relevant to many of you. I've been having lots of conversations recently about this topic, and one in particular came up on my peacefully attached call this week with one of my beautiful women inside, and she is working on, of course, healing her anxious attachment and becoming. More secure. So earning her secure attachment, which is what we do inside, peacefully attached. And she is actively dating as we are going through the program. So some women choose not to date altogether and they just want to focus on the work and their relationship with themselves and take a break from dating and other people want to continue dating through the process and sort of get that live, uh, feedback of implementing all of the tools that they're learning. And of course, having my support. And so this particular client was talking to me about a fear that was coming up for her around. How to stop herself from wanting to dive headfirst into a new connection because she finds herself craving that sense of physical touch. Um, intimacy and connection. And she, yeah, she said, I, I'm worried, like how do I, how can I trust myself to not do that and to not just want this person to fill that need entirely for me. And, you know, if I do that, potentially miss red flags or not focus on if we are genuinely aligned and compatible, but I'm just. You know, going hot and heavy because I want this person to make me feel good and to fill a void. And I know that this is a very real fear. I had the same fear back when I was in the, the throes of my anxious attachment. And it, there was always that, that fear of like, I, every time I get into a relationship, feel like I am trying to escape my life. To some degree, um, never feeling fully happy in my life. Never feeling, feeling fulfilled, and I always got caught up in the other person's life and being obsessed with them, and I would lose myself in the process every time. And so if you can relate to feeling that way and you want to know how to remain grounded and. Fulfilled as an individual so that you can date from a place of security and groundedness and not lose yourself in the first person that you have a connection with. Then stick around for this episode because I'm gonna talk about how to do that and also share, of course, as always, personal experience, um, from my own journey and how I tackled this. So without further ado, let's dive in. I wanna start off by saying that I know you are probably someone who already has a lot going on in your life, because the type of women in my audience who I'm speaking to day in and day out, they are generally pretty happy in their life like they are in a job they enjoy, or in a career they've worked hard to be in. They do have good friends around them. Um, they have certain hobbies that they like to partake in, so I know that you do have stuff going on. It's not like you have no life and all you care about is a relationship or a partner, but I want this episode to be an opportunity for you to reflect on how much do you genuinely enjoy your life. Does it really excite you? Does it light you up? Or are you just going through the motions of a life that you built years ago and then got into a pattern of, well, this is just what I do. This is just who I am. This is my life and kind of, you know, living on autopilot where you think you are happy, but when we stop and we dig a layer deeper, are you really, do you really enjoy. The environment that you live in, do you really enjoy the area that you live in and the lifestyle that it affords? Do you truly love what you do for work or are you doing it out of a place of obligation or because you've spent so much time building that career, it now feels too late to switch? Do your friendships genuinely feel aligned with the type of person you are wanting to become? Or are they friendships that you've had for a long time and you're focusing on history over alignment? Because as we know, when you are someone who has a growth mindset and you are wanting to evolve in your life and change and grow, you can very well outgrow certain people in your life. It can be family members and it can be friends. Um, and so are your friends. The kinds of people you still wanna be hanging around, do they make you feel like your best self? Do they support your goals? Do they have ambitions that inspire you, or are they friends from high school who you've known for a long time, but they don't really get you anymore? You don't feel seen and understood as the version of you that you are today? Do you have hobbies that bring you pleasure and joy? Or do you not have hobbies or do you do things that like you don't even know why you do them, but you've just, yeah, again, you've got stuck in a rut. Okay, so I want you to really reflect on your life and just have a moment to self inquire of how happy am I. And what do I feel is missing now? I remember feeling this way when I back in 2020. You've heard me talk about this part of my life many times probably, but I'm gonna keep talking about it because it is important, and it was a very significant chapter that has brought me a lot of the wisdom that I can now pass on to you. So when I was, when I first moved out of home and I moved into, uh, my dream apartment in Bondi, this was like a dark night of the soul type of chapter in my journey where I had the biggest identity shift and identity crisis I've ever experienced in my life. And yes, it was terrifying and hard and challenging, but it was also profound and deeply transformative. And this was because for the first time, I had lifted the veil off my eyes of thinking that the only way I could be happy and fulfilled was by having. A partner having a relationship, and up until this point in my life, that's all I had focused on. I didn't know who I was. I didn't feel empowered in myself and in my life. And so I would spend all my focus, energy and attention on trying to just find the next person to date. Like I'm telling you, I was that bitch who went through relationships like it was nobody's business. Like it was rebound after, rebound after rebound. Half the time I didn't even like that person that much. It was just that they were there and available and to some capacity and wanted to date me, you know? So I was like, great, let's just replace this person with you and let's continue being internally miserable and unhappy and lost and just use you as like a giant bandaid for my emotions that I didn't know how to handle. And it sounds fucked up and you know, maybe it was. That's my journey and I'm sure you can relate. So that was, yeah, that was my life until this point where I went through the, the big breakup with the last person who I dated, who was heavily avoidant and emotionally unavailable and made me feel crazy all the time, even though. I did love him, and I can, I can look back and say, I, I know I loved him and I actually still care deeply for this person. We still are actually friends, amazingly. Um, but it was a toxic relationship and it was in, there was a lot of chemistry, not a lot of compatibility. And when this relationship ended, it was such a catalyst for me to finally take a look in the mirror and say, Mimi. You've gotta sort your shit out. Like you need to figure out who you are and what you want, and what you like, and how you wanna spend your time and who you wanna be around so that when you get back into dating, you are grounded and you love your life. I remember setting this intention where I was like, I don't want to feel anymore that I need to escape my life. Through another person. I want to build a life that is so fantastic that I'm so fulfilled by that I can invite another person into it. I wanna be that person who, my partner feels so lucky that they are with that they get to date because my life is fun, it's vibrant, it's fulfilling. I have amazing people around me, and they get to be a part of it. That's the difference, right? Is I wasn't standing from, or I, I set the intention of not wanting to be standing in a void. And hoping someone would fill it. I wanted it to be that my life was full and I got to welcome someone into my world as a beautiful bonus and addition. And when I set this intention, a natural process began to unfold where I started to do a bit of a life audit as I was changing and growing. I started to notice that how I felt about the people in my life, certain people, and the certain ways I was living my life and the ways that I was navigating relationships was no longer feeling aligned and. You probably know this feeling again because you are growth minded and you are taking your healing journey seriously and you're wanting to evolve. So maybe you're starting to set boundaries in your relationships with friends and family, or you're starting to think different and talk different and focus on different things. And when you do that, people in your life will challenge you. There are gonna be a lot of people who will not like this change that you start to make because it makes them uncomfortable and because they can no longer keep you in a certain box in their minds that they've had you in for your entire life. So. This is gonna start to all kind of unravel and it can be really uncomfortable as this is happening, but we need to go through this messy middle part in order to get the clarity. I always use this analogy of when you are looking at reevaluating your life, it's like you are pulling all your clothes out of your wardrobe and. They're all over the, all over the bedroom. Like there's piles on top of your bed, they're all over the floor, and it feels like a giant fucking mess. And you're like, why did I start this process? What have I done? But what we are doing is we're pulling everything out so that then you can look at your wardrobe with a clean slate and say, what pieces do I wanna put back into the wardrobe? And what do I want to leave out? So we are looking at what relationships feel really aligned and do I want to continue investing in a nurturing, okay, I'm gonna put those back in the wardrobe. What friendships no longer feel aligned and do I need to lovingly let go of, I'm gonna leave those out of the wardrobe. Then what parts of my career or my work. Still feel exciting and aligned. Okay, I'm gonna put those back in. What needs to change? What do I no longer want to take with me? I'm gonna leave that out of the wardrobe and so on and so forth. You get the picture so it's okay, but feels like a mess right now. And you dunno what's happening when you start to reevaluate everything. But I promise you it will get clearer and clearer as you start to put pieces back in the wardrobe. Now, this whole process, I took an intentional 12 months off dating because I knew that I was at a point in my life where I wasn't yet strong enough or stable enough emotionally to entertain dating whilst I was trying to get my life sorted. And that was honestly one of the best decisions I have ever made in my life because it gave me the chance to just give myself. Undivided attention and be positively selfish to get myself to a point where I felt really good about who I am or who I was and the way I was living my life, and the things I was doing and the people in it. So I took time off dating and because I finally had this mental clarity and I wasn't obsessing over someone or riddled with anxiety from a partner who couldn't meet my needs and yada yada. I could focus on what truly makes me happy, what do I want? And it's not until you have enough white space and enough mental clarity that ideas will start to naturally flow to you. You know, a lot of women I speak to and that I work with, they say I feel like I don't even know who I am because I have lived my whole life pleasing other people. I have been such a people pleaser because that's what I thought I had to do and had to be to get love and validation and, and all the rest, right? Which obviously stems from childhood. If you are anxiously attached, you probably didn't get your needs met, uh, emotionally the way that you needed them to, and so. You figured out very intelligently that you needed to morph and change and become a chameleon to please your parents or your caregivers, whoever it was, to please that person and be whatever you thought they wanted you to be in order to be loved. And you carry that belief throughout your whole life. So in your romantic relationships, it looks like self abandoning, never actually acknowledging what you feel or what you want, because the main priority is protect the connection at all costs. And of course, that leads to attracting people who will, on some level, consciously or subconsciously take advantage of that. If that's you and you're like, I just don't even know who I am. What I recommend is take some time for yourself. If you are dating, stop, set some time to focus on your relationship with yourself and clean out the wardrobe that is your life. What I said to another client the other day was, as you do more things. With yourself and you give yourself time to think. That is when you'll be able to hear your intuition because you probably have had trouble hearing your intuition and connecting with it. Um, with all of the, the outside opinions and the noise and the being gaslit in your relationships, you may feel disconnected to your intuition. And we need to remove those people so that we can be with ourselves. And slowly but surely over time, we will begin to hear the whispers of our intuition. And what I said to my client is, you don't need to have all the answers right now. You don't need to have your life figured out and know exactly who you are in a week's time or a month's time of, you know, uncovering this information. No. All you need to do is listen for that very first whisper that tells you, go and do this, or you want this, or This feels exciting. And then go and do that thing. And then as you do that, that will give you more clarity on what it is that you love and who you are and what excites you. And then another intuitive drop in will come in, a download will drop in. And you'll be like, oh, that's the next thing I want to do. And you just keep following your intuition and slowly but surely, your life will come back into alignment. Who you naturally are will come to the forefront. Your authenticity will begin to shine through, and that is when your magnetism comes back. So when I had this 12 months. Of being intentionally single. One of the things I did was reevaluate my friendships and my relationships. So as I said before, I did have some friendships, close friends who I'd had since high school, and I realized that I was holding onto history over alignment, and that we no longer actually had anything in common, and I no longer felt seen by these people. And so I had to. I gently start to distance myself and remove myself, and that was scary because when that's your only social circle, it's terrifying. The thought of letting that go. But what I knew was that I had to let go to let in. I had to create space for what was. Now going to be aligned with the version of me that I was becoming to come into my life. And trust me, it did actually way quicker than I thought it would too. It was crazy. So I did that. The next thing I did was I realized I needed to get some fucking hobbies'cause I didn't have any. And I was also starting my business at the time, and I knew that, okay, I need to have balance. I want to be active and engaged in my life as well as my business. So that's when I took up. Well, actually that's not, when I took up surfing, I'd already started learning how to surf with my ex and then when we broke up I decided for myself I wanted to continue that. So I joined, um, I joined a Facebook group actually for women who surfed in Bondi in the area I was in. And I literally just posted in it and I was like, Hey, I'm Mimi. I'm new to surfing, but I'd love to meet some other women who are also beginners and maybe we can surf together and. A few women replied and it was amazing. And I went down and met them like the next morning and we, we met at the beach and we went surfing together and that opened up a whole new portal of joy and connection in my life. And then I met new friends through my new housemate and through her friends and things just started to fall into place in the most. Random, miraculous ways, and that's kind of part of manifestation or part of getting into alignment is you don't need to have the how mapped out, as I've just said. All you need to do is follow your inspiration, follow your joy, your intuition and the universe will deliver things just start to happen for you. So without rambling on too long, what I really want you to think about is. What do I have control over in my life right now that I can change, that I want to change, that I know is going to bring me more fulfillment and joy. And how can I prioritize this so that I'm not turning to dating to be my main source of happiness? It doesn't mean that you can't hold the desire for a relationship at the same time, like I'm not saying that you have to live your life in a way where. We have this like toxic independence, like hyper independence, where you know the message is that you never need a relationship and you don't need anyone and you don't need a partner and you're just happy on your own and you could live your entire life that way. That's not what I'm saying, because we are meant to be in relationships. We are meant to procreate, we are meant to form connections, like that's the kind of animals we are, and it's completely natural and normal to want a relationship, but. You want to make sure you are continuously checking in with yourself and saying, where is my desire and intention to date coming from? What is it rooted in? Is it coming from pure desire to add to my life, or is it coming from scarcity and lack? In that I am lacking happiness and joy, and I think that a partner coming into my life is gonna be the solution to that problem. Okay? We do not wanna be dating from that energy because that is when we are giving away our power. We are giving away our responsibility for being a secure, fully evolved individual. And we are outsourcing our emotional wellbeing to someone whose job it is not, it's not someone else's job to take care of us and to take care of our emotions. Now of course, once you are in a committed relationship, that does come into it like you're there to support each other. It's the benefit of being, having a partner is you can support each other through life, but the person, when you're first getting to know them, it's not their responsibility. So. Let's move into a little bit more tangibility if you are having this fear. Number one is do an audit of your life. Pull everything out of the metaphorical wardrobe and look at what you want to put back in and what you do not want to keep, what you know what is no longer serving you, what no longer feels good on you. Okay. We wanna look at taking that out. Then you'll notice there is some space in your wardrobe. Okay? Because it's not as full as it once was. Then what I want you to do is ask yourself, what is the emotion that I am not getting on a regular basis? Where are the gaps here that I want to fill? So some common emotions that we might be seeking out as humans could be affection. Comfort, security, closeness, attention admiration. Control and power, yes. When you're in your relationship, you're going to get some of these needs met by your partner and by the connection itself. But we wanna make sure we know how to meet these sorts of needs for ourselves or with other people in our life before the relationship so that when your partner isn't available. To be there for you, for whatever reason you are gonna be okay. You are gonna be able to meet those emotional needs and so that you are, again, going into dating from a grounded place, not looking for that person to fill all of these empty voids that exist within you. So first of all, to identify what the emotional need is that you feel you are not getting. And then we wanna look at how can I meet this emotional need for myself. So I'm gonna give you some examples. If it is affection and comfort, you are like, I just feel like I, I'm not getting enough affection and comfort in my life, then what you can do some things could be a self hug. So I'm gonna intentionally hug myself. And yes, that might sound weird if you're not used to doing that, but a self hug every morning and every night. It could be more words of affirmation to yourself, focusing on the positives in your life, the the positive qualities within yourself that you can appreciate. It highlighting those for yourself. It could be that you cook yourself nice meals. Okay, so you bring more intention into how you're nurturing your body, just like you would cook with so much love and attention for the person you love. Can you do that for yourself? Okay. Maybe it's asking friends and family for some more physical affection, like asking for a long hug, getting a massage if the emotional need is security. Then look at, create a list of all the ways you can create security for yourself in your own life, whether that's through the types of friends that you have around you, the, the things that are within your control, right? When your mind wants to focus on a lack of security or scarcity. Reminded all the ways that you can feel secure and that you do have security in your life if you're craving, closeness. Pour into your friendships more. Be the one to initiate hang, hanging out with people and having catchups more like, stop waiting for everyone else to do it. You be the one to do it. Maybe you want to go book into a yoga class where you are surrounded by people just to feel that you're not totally alone. Maybe it's writing a letter to your future self from your current self, talking to them, noticing the ways that. Life is great in the future. Building that connection, that bridging that gap between who you are now and who you know you're going to be. If you're craving attention, take yourself on a date plan, an intentional day where you are gonna date yourself and you're gonna do the things that feel really good for you. Things that ring you. Pleasure being present with yourself on that date. If you're craving admiration, go and write a list of 10 things you're proud of about yourself. Journal on how far you have already come in the last 12 months in any area of your life, or go and watch a YouTube video on someone who you admire. Sometimes we can take the focus off of ourselves and put it onto someone else, and that feels really good. If you're craving control and power, set some goals that you wanna achieve in the next two to three months. Educate yourself further on a topic that you are interested in. Lean into this, the discomfort, and allow it to be there. Because when you run away from how you feel, you become powerless. But when you stop and face it, you become powerful. So show yourself that you can sit with discomfort and that you're going to be okay when you practice meeting your emotional needs in these different ways, and you make it an intentional. Practice in your life. Key word being intentional. Because if we are not intentional about this stuff, life does have a way of just getting busy and things just get out of hand. And before we know it, we feel lonely and isolated and we're like, what the fuck? How did I get here? So make this an intentional practice and. Keep doing it until you feel solid and until you can trust yourself to maintain these parts of your life. When you get back into dating, set that intention. Make that promise to yourself that, okay, I think I wanna start dating, but my relationship with myself and these pillars in my life that anchor me are my number one priority. Dating is a bonus. It is secondary to my life, to the people that are important to me, to my career, to my hobbies, to my downtime, to my self-care. It is secondary. Okay? That is going to ensure you are always dating from a place of feeling fulfilled and grounded and whole. And you know that, okay, if it doesn't work out with this person, I'm gonna be fine. I am gonna be okay because I have a full juicy life where I know how to get my emotional needs met. I don't need this person who I hardly know to be my life raft. Yeah, so keep this as an intentional practice and watch how you feel and notice the differences. A last note to finish my client said to me. I'm just worried that I'm not gonna be able to trust myself when I get back into dating. And what I said to her is, you have so much awareness now of your patterns, your triggers, what you want in someone, what you don't want, how to self-regulate, how to self-soothe, how to meet your own needs, how to communicate with confidence, right? All the stuff that we cover in peacefully attached. You now have all of this awareness and tools at your disposal and. Once we have awareness of something, we can't unsee it. You're not gonna all of a sudden slip back into your previous anxiously attached self with the wool, like the rug pulled over you, and you have no idea what you're doing. That's not gonna happen. And I want you to focus on trusting yourself just enough, backing yourself enough to get out there, to put yourself out there when the time comes and. Set the intention that you will remain conscious and present enough to back yourself, to trust yourself, and the version of you who does trust themselves is born in the moment when you take that action, okay? It's born in the moment. When you take that action, that version of you. So all you need to do is have just enough self-trust and faith to get yourself there to when you do have a little intuitive nudge come up. When you have a concern of, Ooh, that didn't feel right, that didn't sit right, that feels like a red flag. I'm noticing some incompatibility here. I don't like the way that person's talking to me. I don't like that inconsistency in communication. Whatever it is that you are going to catch it and you're gonna address it right away, and I know you can do that. So my loves. I'm gonna wrap it there. I hope this has been helpful for you. Do a little life audit, set some time aside this weekend or one day over the next week. Do an audit of your life. Of your friendships, your relationships, your hobbies, your career, the way you spend time with yourself, your downtime, pull everything outta that wardrobe and have a look at what you wanna put back in and work towards becoming the most secure, grounded version of yourself that I know exists so that when you date, you are not dating from fear, lack, or scarcity. You are dating from abundance and excitement and desire to bring that sexy, aligned person. Into your world. All right, my friends. Have a beautiful week and I'll talk to you soon. Bye-bye. If you enjoyed today's episode, hit that subscribe button and leave a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Share this episode with your friends and come find me on social so we can hang out between episodes. All the links are below in the show notes.