[ESE H]

Hey Heidi,

Sorry it took me longer to digest this one. Sounds like you have a great understanding on how NPD works. The word “manage” is a familiar territory to me and I have had to do that. They tend to do the opposite if what you ask. I’ve tried that to my advantage and that worked. For example, if I want him to bring my daughter home earlier, I just asked him to bring her home later. This way, he thinks I have other fun plan so he will try to ruin it by bringing her home earlier. And I got what I want. Or vice versa. It’s pretty sad and I feel ached every time I have to be not authentic and expressive around him. I thought I have improved in being able to handle my reactiveness but I guess I still have a lot of work to do. Why do I get triggered when he accused me of something that is untrue? I understand what you are referring to and this interaction feels a bit different with him. When he double accused me of not letting my daughter talks to him, then further, he accused me of leaving my daughter at home alone like I am a bad mom who is selfish and neglect her daughter. The feeling was I despised him for thinking I have ill intention. Why does that bother me? This brought me back to my childhood when I used to be super shy and easily cried. When I was in elementary I was very quiet and every time the teacher called out my name, I started crying like I am in trouble, even though I wasn’t in trouble. Why is that? I don’t recall the root of this emotion and sense of ownership to guilt that I don’t think I caused. Heidi, do you have any insight about this? This has puzzled me for a while. I tend to allow my emotion to get bullied by whoever stronger than me with not the best intention. Like I am watching myself being bullied but I am helpless about it. MJ called me out recently about this. With him, it’s all about being authentic. He almost can sense when I am on a fence and he gave me advice to keep my stand but then I got triggered by him (MJ) for bringing it up like I am not strong enough to have my own voice. I almost got upset with MJ for implying that I am wishy washy about something. Although I explained to him that I wasn’t wishy washy, I was simply learning a new situation and adjusting my post according to what I learned, like about BLM movement recently. He thought it took strength and wisdom to be open minded, learn and adjust my point of view in public. He was glad that I was being authentic. Eventhough he said this, my heart still questions myself. Why am I questioning myself and get triggered when someone with strong opinion like my ex (not good intention) or MJ (good intention)? There is something in me that is shaky, I feel. How can I get more stable with myself? So, recently I did a great work for MJ after our last meet up and he is quite happy with it and excited. Then, he again went to another trip with his gf right now, enjoying life. My mind played trick on me again thinking I am a fool for helping him without getting paid accordingly, instead of focusing in building my own venture. I did it out of the generosity of my heart for our friendship and my wish to deliver what I was hired to do 3 years ago. The generosity is not the problem here, I think. The part that made me cringed is the thought that I am being a fool and I question if I value myself enough by being generous. What helped me the past 2 days is the new affirmations that I wrote after we last spoke. I am practicing my focus on the “feelings” of receiving all of those vision. The one that I struggled the most is “true love” part. I am still uncertain if feeling okay/ happy on my own will actually do me good or actually back fire. I’ve heard that I sent a strong vibe to the universe and made men think I don’t need them. I sometimes feel that MJ feels that way. Like he wants to take care of me but I am quite independent as woman that he feels he couldn’t be my hero. The reason why I was attracted to MJ was because I feel like I am a caring person who likes to help people. Then MJ came to my life being honest and authentic about his wishes and inner struggles, which made me invest myself into helping him, which gained my feelings to him. So, his vulnerability gave me the space to enter into his world. I hope this makes sense. So, I feel that I don’t necessarily need to be completely have my love tank full in order to find my true love. In theory, that would be great to have both people’s love tank to be full but in reality, I feel that many of us are pretty messed up and the beauty of sharing some of these pains and journey to healing could actually bring 2 people closer. Am I getting my understanding incorrectly?

Not sure how to explain this but when I met MJ last time, I feel that we both are still deeply connected in our hearts. Like we understand each other’s pains better than other people. We both are parents so we have more things in common to share like our kids and parenthood. The problem is we both are in not ideal situations. He is still living with his wife trying to file for divorce and having gf who is accepting to his current arrangements, while I have an NPD ex and have to put my divorce filing on hold due to covid 19. We don’t have capacity for each other to be in relationship. This reality pains me often even now. Like I feel like a coward to love and true feelings. But then again, I feel that MJ is too sensitive and easily triggered. I will find it stressful to be in a relationship with him especially with his current situation, even if he doesn’t have a gf. So, I’ve started a new non-negotiable list which I’d like to share with you:
1. Passionate in the work he does, and in his past relationships (like he values them by being his best but when things didn’t work out because they aren’t a fit for each other, he will respect himself and the other person to not stay in that relationship, just like my point of view with my ex).
2. High EQ – self confident, understand himself well, has self respect, can insert witty humor with proper boundaries, not easily offended, emphatic.
3. Thoughtful – think of other’s needs and feelings. Knows when to give meaningful gifts to make people feel special. He will plan dates thoroughly (I am this quite detailed when I plan something).
4. Good Communicator – listen well, address issues effectively, sensitive but take accountability when someone misunderstand him by proactively listening further. He strives to ensure that his messages are understood as intended.
5. Generous & Abundant Mindset – loving and giving out of joy, not expecting anything in return.
6. Mature and intelligent: think wisely before acting, and act responsibly. Strive for win-win long term solutions for everyone including himself. His mind is strategic and resourceful to do that.
7. Fun and creative: knows how to insert fun or light-hearted jokes even in stressful situations.
8. Optimistic: not ignoring issues or be in denial on challenges, but fully grasp the reality while having strong beliefs that we will pull through with whatever God has given to us. All we need to do is our best. He is a big believer in teamwork and working together to solve problems.
9. Spiritual and humble: strong faith, humble to God, not arrogant.
10. Has Inner peace: know his healthy boundaries from toxic people, not letting unnecessary people or financial stress to take over his mind and sense of self control. Practice self-care, and allow enough space in his life to fulfill his spiritual needs.
11. Love personal growth. Always learning new things, expanding his knowledge and wisdom. Seek to understand people more. Live a purposeful life without being self-righteous.

When I imagine this future man, I imagine feeling attracted to a man similarly to MJ but he is more real to me. He has more inner peace and more stable in his sense of self. He is kind, thoughtful and more courageous in showing up for me. I want to feel vulnerable and completely taken care of by him even when I am being strong as a loving woman. Like he loves me enough to know me when I am sad or bothered by something, and know how to listen or ask the right questions to get to know me more. MJ sometimes does this but his mind is so all over the place, and sometimes I feel that he doesn’t see me as equal. He tends to want to correct me instead of asking why I feel certain ways. I am not sure of men do this type of digging to the woman he cares about. I sometimes do this deep dive questions to get to know him. Curious to know your thoughts about this.
This is where I am now.

The last thing is I asked my younger daughter (11yo) yesterday if she is happy. From scale 0 to 10 (10 being the happiest), she said she is at 7. Not bad. So I asked her what will push her scale closer to 10. One of them is about her Minecraft server which I have no control over. But there is one thing she told me. She likes to stay with me more because I let her chill with her choice of activities, while her Dad limits her computer use and made her do too many activities that she doesn’t feel like doing. I personally don’t think the activities are bad. But my girl said if she has the choice, she prefers to stay with me the whole time, which I know will cause my ex to be super angry cuz he loves her companion. I feel really bad for my girl because she 7 more years of this situation before she can be free from her Dad. I shared with her what you told me about managing the conversations with her Dad. She understands. Since you have had experience with NPD Dad, do you know anything else that I can do to help her as her Mom? Hope you can advise as I am feeling rather hopeless. Thank you so much Heidi.

[ESE H]

Hi Heidi,

I must say WOW! I love how you explained this depth of understanding. Thank you for listening deeply to what I am asking and sharing great insights. Also, you made me feel validated. I don’t think coming from my cultural background, I have ever met anyone who could embrace this view, at least not in my family or friend circle. I often feel alone to think and feel the way you described about God. Since I got to know Jesus in my teenage years, I’ve always experienced the special relationship with Him and I feel that He has been guiding me. Even when I didn’t go to Church much after I married my ex-husband, since we didn’t share same religion, I still pray often and feel connected with Him. He definitely helped me get through the beginning of my career and marriage life, as it was the worst time of my life in retrospect. I didn’t feel that way when I was living it because I’ve always tried to look at things optimistically. I recalled my lady boss was not very nice to me and border-line discriminated me because of English as my second language and where I came from. I’ve never let that stopped me from growing though. So I used to pray every day on my 1-hr commute to work and aim for my next promotional goal. God has sent clients into our workplace as my opportunities to be visible, and those clients edified me to my boss so she had no choice but to pass on the compliments to me. That’s when I felt that she started seeing my credibility. I’ve always invested into my work passionately and I took care of people (no matter big or small accounts) with respect and care. God has given the strength and tenacity during those times because at times, my boss might not appreciate me because she just gravitates towards the fame and $$ (superficial stuff). Fast forward to now, God has been with me. I feel guilty sometimes for missing church (I’ve been pretty discipline before Covid) but I am tired of feeling the guilt almost all my adult life. I’ve put a lot on my plate the past couple of months to build my new creative community to realize the vision that God instilled in me. Sometimes I don’t go to sleep until super late, so I sometimes feel too tired to get up for LIVE mass. I still listen to bible study youtube links to learn more about my faith. I felt unfulfilled when I force myself to go to every single LIVE mass, every single bible study, etc because I feel that I’m just going through the motion and stretching myself too thin. While when I take a break here and there, those religious teachings are actually sinking in more in my mind and heart so I can carry them into my day to day life. I feel right about this pace at the moment. I feel inner peace and loving to God and myself. When I feel that I am not at my best self, I apologized to God and asked Him to make me understand certain things that I am still not good at or wise at. Believe it or not, I think MJ helped me learn to have real relationship and being open in expressing my feelings, which in turn, helped me reconnect my relationship with God. Maybe He sent MJ into my life to get to this point. Could it be?

From what you just said about affirmations, I just ripped off my old list (I capped God on those) and wrote a new one. This is the first time I’m putting my new vision like this: 1. Unlimited growth, 2. unlimited impact globally, 3. true love, 4. inner peace, 5. purposeful life, etc. I expanded some of them (like the impact one and the purposeful life one). I LOVE how you explained about focusing on the feeling. YES! I can feel it now. You just reminded me that I have had those moments when I wonder maybe my life is perfect the way it is. Simple, not too extravagant but comfortable. I love my humble home, I love my routine with my girls, I love doing zoom calls with my team and my friends. Just hanging out with MJ. Doing some creative work here and there. A part of me is quite fulfilled right now even with my limitations, financial challenges, relationship reprogramming, etc. I feel more in peace with myself than I ever been when I was making my 6-figure income full time. My life is more balance. At times I asked myself, so why add more ambition into my life like launching my big vision? I feel that because I want to help others have the life and inner peace that I have, and I also want my friends to feel fulfilled in their life. That’s why I want to do my new venture. I love my new team. I feel that they carry my spirit at times of low energy days. Btw, yesterday, we had our team group zoom meeting, and I shared about your insight” (told them about you as my forum coach) to live your vision daily. We had a great discussion about everyone’s vision and how to live it daily or how to incorporate those now in smaller ways. It was fun.

With that said, I will practice more in feeling tone with this new vision list. Thanks for this new insight.

I have 2 uncomfortable topics that I’ve been battling for a while. They are considered taboo topics but I am curious about them and I feel that you might have good insights on these. If this is not something you want to get into, that’s alright to me. One is about my ex-husband’s harassment tones. I will share the second one later.

So lately, I have stressed my boundaries to him more than 3 times. The boundary is whenever my younger daughter (11 yo) is staying at my place (we trade time every half week with him), he is not allowed to interrupt our peace. This includes calling us multiple times and showing up uninvited. Although he is better at not calling as often but he is still having this tendencies to expect us to answer his calls and he got upset when he didn’t talk to my little one or my older one. Most of the time, whenever he wants to talk to the girls, our girls don’t feel like talking to him but I always relay the message. I don’t want to force our girls to talk if they don’t want to. Usually it’s because they were busy playing, crafting and doing kids stuff. I’ve told him multiple times that I don’t want to force the girls to talk when they don’t want to. Not sure if I’ve mentioned to you that he is mentally abusive in our relationship and still currently but in different ways. He is very needy, suspicious and quite insecure. I believe he shows signs of NPD. About 2 days ago, he really upsets me because he accused me for not letting the girls talk to him because I don’t want him to find out when I leave my girl home alone. Then he looked at me with 110% certainty that this accusation is true. Then I got scared and furious at the same time. I feel that he is nuts, border line psychotic. He could believe something untrue and negative as if they are real. This is his truth, which was one of the main reason I left him because I had fear he could hurt someone or me. I immediately called DV hotline and shared about this as well as my therapist. I almost feel that he might have put a tracker in my car, and I am not sure if I am losing it or what. This is true emotional abuse. No? Why do I let him trigger me this way? How can I gain inner strength to guard my inner peace? Should I put restraining order against him? I’ve been pretty patient and forgiving to hims that I’ve let him back into our family about a couple of weeks ago. But every time I let him in a bit, he took a mile and when I said my boundaries, he got worse. I am at a point where I lose all hopes to see him being better. I don’t like to give up but I feel defeated in faith about him. I feel that I have to accept the reality that he will never going to be my friend. The only reason I will want to interact with him is because I have to for my daughter’s stay exchange. I have moments when I want to just run away, disappear and change my identity just so I don’t ever have to see him again because he causes me so much irritations, anger, and pain with things that he says and instigates. He is just so not trusting nor trustworthy, and seemed to put his needs first above others but not in a healthy ways. He will pressure our girls to follow along what he wants. My girls are good girls so they won’t ever disrespect their Dad but I feel that I need to protect their well being but putting this boundary. Am I wrong to do what I do? To stand up for my girls and draw this boundary between us and their Dad? Do you have better suggestions? I am most disappointed in myself for not being able to stop reacting to his behaviors. I want to get to a point where I don’t feel any need to defend myself no matter what he is instigating. Is there a phrase you can recommend to me to calm myself down to avoid spending my energy for him? I feel that he knows my triggers. Not sure if he is doing it intentionally to get my attention. But I feel that he always try to interact with me and come up with excuses for me to have to respond to him daily. I am so tired of this. Aside from him I feel that my life is pretty decent. My therapist told me maybe it’s time for me to consider legal action and draw the clear line through official custody. Hope you can shed some lights, Heidi. Thank you again. Really appreciate your share.

[ESE H]

Hi Heidi,

Thank you for clearing up my confusion there. All points are amazing takeaways and I will put in-depth thoughts into these areas. Fun! I didn’t realize about that 3rd entity. It’s a great visual to have.
I am very blessed to have you be a part of my path explorations too, Heidi. You are an amazing woman and I wish you all the love the life could give you. Hey better be single and happy then miserable in a toxic relationship right? I’ve shared this to my younger daughter when she used to have a girlfriend who bullied her daily. She understood the concept of being independently happy and I am very proud of her transition since. She even went a step further turning a bully into a good friend now. Amazing!

One more thing about mindset and daily routine. I used to hear and believe that affirmations are key for successful people. What we do is say your affirmations daily for example “I am worth $8 million or I will be debt free by… year, or I will be featured in so and so magazine, etc ” Like specific things. During my full time career as Creative Director before, I used to do that without knowing about affirmations. For example, I used to choose the salary that I want in my mind, and I worked hard for it, and I’ve always achieved it. Then, I’d set another goal and the process continued a few more times until I reached my peak of my creative career as Creative Director (I started as Graphic Designer). But recently, I learned the concept of humility and letting God into my life and not to put a cap on my growth like we discussed the past couple of days. So… now what? How should I change my affirmations? My sister told me if I used the words “I” too much that I am being arrogant towards God, and I saw her points so I changed those affirmations to “God and I”… I personally feel humbled but at the same time didn’t get the same empowerment as before. What am I missing here? Right now, I wrote my affirmation like this: My name, then the list of things I want to be known for and the legacy I want to leave behind as well as the list of “I am” affirmations like “I am resilient” for example. Thoughts on how to make this better? I do feel daily affirmation help me stay confident, faithful, grounded and focused on the vision that God has instilled in me. Thanks in advance, Heidi!

[ESE H]

Hi Heidi,

Thank you for all of these great answers and examples, Heidi.
This is the link to James’ article in case you want to double check: https://beirresistible.com/destined-for-love/?utm_campaign=continueReading&utm_source=email_BIE1cp54&utm_campaign=1&utm_medium=email

I think I need to review that non-negotiable list as well. 4 things are important to me in a relationship: feeling, happy, respected, safe, and proud to be in that union. So I need to reverse engineer these to get to my new non-negotiable list. Good point on the choice of word “harmful”. I need to watch out for that. Do you mind me asking this? Are you in a healthy relationship or are you still open to searching? Either way it’s fine because I will have follow-up questions if you are in it.

OMG, you are totally right about that not being related. Again, I need to stop creating those untrue connections and limiting stories. Instead, I need to learn to view life and my vision with more optimism driven from my passion, faith, and the beauty of being vulnerable to God’s plans. I will take up on your advice to focus on the core of my vision. I love how you said it: living your vision each day. I am doing that at the moment, and not even realizing it. I can feel that I am growing and I’m slowly learning to quiet the noise and temptations to fear, ego, limiting beliefs. I love focusing on the quality of my vision and what feels right to me. I truly enjoy helping purpose-driven business owners and passionate solopreneurs realize their vision. They are generally smaller and middle size businesses but these clients are kind, respectful and inspiring to me, which fulfills my purpose and make me happy working on the creative design. Vs the normal business expectations is to help the big corporation with huge budgets but the management might not be the most respectful people. I am not saying I won’t help the big corporations but I will stay true to my core by analyzing who I am helping on humanity level and what purpose are they promoting. If I can get behind those, I am in. Thank you so much, Heidi. You helped a lot in my inner peace and growth.

[ESE H]

Hi Heidi,

Those are great questions to ask myself. I’ve never dived into them this way and your advice really helps. You are right that sometimes I feel that old feeling with my Dad, that again, a man whom I love chooses a prettier younger woman over me. Just like my Dad loves my younger sister more. Eventhough I know now that is silly and not true anymore. That pain still lingers a little. I have come a long way the past couple of months in overcoming my own self critic, but before you suggested this, I think I repelled asking this really important question. During my meet up with MJ, I caught something he said that he is with his new gf because no other woman could accept his situation being still married paperwork wise and have a new relationship with him. So, I didn’t get a sense from him that I wasn’t pretty nor I wasn’t fun. He always has fun with me because time seemed to pass so fast when we meet. It’s because his new gf is willing to accept his situation as is, while I chose to keep my boundary intact by not getting romantically involved with a man who is still married on paperwork, eventhough he claimed he has been separated for 6 years. I just won’t be able to be happy in that relationship arrangements until he made the decision 100% to move on. MJ shared that his situation indeed bothers his gf although she doesn’t complain much about it due to her respect level to him. So that validated my concerns and my wise decision. Anyway, back to my inner struggles. First, I hate feeling negative about myself due to MJ relationship, but my approach hasn’t been gentle with it. So thanks for reminding me to embrace and connect to myself even deeper. I feel that I’ve worked alongside him for over 3 years now and I’ve compiled a few vision boards for his brand which he always calls it “our brand” all along. He wants me to feel it’s mine too. So, it took the sense of ownership to my core, maybe even too far. But a part of me tried to protect me by keeping a shield not to get my hopes up because he could let me go anytime if I upset him because of misunderstandings for example. Then my greatest fear was for him to take all of my greatest ideas to build his own wealth with this new gf, and I am no longer even in the picture to enjoy the labor of my work that I’ve put my heart and soul into it. I will feel very shitty again like when he didn’t pay me on time without prior notice or cut off funding during covid. The later is not his fault and understandable of course. After this last meet up, I have eased this fear because he doesn’t strike me as this type of man, but there is still a little fear on this that lingers. Second emotion that I’ve experienced was feeling bumped out. He has told me and my other photographer coworker to travel together for the brand (like we almost go to China together and go to The Great Wall of China, then pandemic happens which canceled our trip). My other coworker is probably feeling the same way as I am. Bumped out. Like we were first in line to travel with MJ and suddenly this gf who didn’t do anything for the brand suddenly got the first seat at fun traveling with him to the places that we were supposed to go to like Big Sur and Redwood. My co-worker was at least only been with us for a few month while I’ve been with him for 3 years and being there through his 2 financial challenges. So yeah, I didn’t feel it’s fair. At the same time, I can simply shift my mindset by reminding myself why I am not traveling with him. It’s because I don’t want to be in relationship with him due to his situation. So technically, she has the rights to the front seat now because she is willing to go all in with him. Ya know? Talking out loud about this helps me unravel that my negative feelings are not necessary because it is fair. If I can do it over, do I want to change my decision? No. I will still choose the same so I am honoring myself in a way by being authentic on this. Is that trip that he took really fun? Who knows? Maybe it wasn’t that fun. Visiting a dying friend could be draining. I know MJ has always been thoughtful to me and want to make me happy, if I just allow myself to see it. He doesn’t want to add burden to my life and I feel that he doesn’t want to burden me with his situation. Every time I am being emphatic with his situation, he immediately reminded me that I don’t have to take on his issues because he is well aware of my own situation as well. He said this a few times in various ways. He seemed to always want to include me when it’s truly fun and make me happy. So, in that sense, I am actually being treated better in his mind. Recently I caught myself a silver lining. I caught my thoughts wanting a man whom I love to take me places so when I saw him taking his gf, I wandered off to his world and completely forgot about my own dream world. Like I felt unwanted or I am not the main character in my own story. I only saw happy couple passed by but it’s not for me. I used to let myself get sucked into this mode for a while, but lately, I caught myself doing that, learned to stop my process, and shifted my gear to my own vision and dream with the love of my life (the man with my non-negotiable list). Then, I feel empowered and didn’t feel bad about MJ and whatever he chooses to do with his life and gf. I feel okay and have my faith back that my own time for happiness will come. It’s a soothing feeling to have this control, and it’s a new habit that I am learning to master. About my non-negotiable list, I recently read James Bauer’s article about not being rigid about this list. His article suggested that even in the best relationship, we still need to work on them and we need to stay open to be flexible on the list. Then I want to ask your opinion. So, I have a long list and when the right man comes, and didn’t meet that whole list but he makes me happy and feel secured. Is that the feeling I am looking for? I’ve felt love could be blinding, just like with me and my ex-husband when I first met him that I missed his red flags. So I am a little bit afraid not to stick to my list and end up settling. Do you have any advice on the important gauge in the gut? How to balance between my standard and not settling, to embrace the vulnerability of healthy love process? Is it the feeling that I can love and accept this man as a whole without wanting to change him one single bit? Is that the feeling about the right man for me?
And he feels the same way about me? Further, at times, I want to say I can travel the world on my own, without a man. But I don’t want to feel too strong that I repel men who want to take care of me. How do I balance this emotion in being strong yet vulnerable?

If so, then I can be certain that MJ and I aren’t it because I feel that both of us constantly suggest to improve each other, even though for good reasons. Or is this part of a normal relationship growth with another person who value growth too? We do accept each other whether we change or not because we want the best for each other. What’s the difference here between MJ and what I could anticipate with my future man?

About co-dependency. Sorry for the confusion, yes, I ran my sentences together. Co-dependency is not part of healthy love relationship. I meant to say, I shared with him the difference between healthy relationship (two people that have their love tanks full on their own so they are giving to one another out of joy) vs co-dependency (two people relying on each other to fill their empty tanks which I think is what he has with his gf and my relationship with my ex). I’ve told him that I am learning to fill my love tanks independently and suggested that we all should do so as well, so we can actually love someone in a healthy way (out of joy of giving). Am I interpreting this correctly?

Last but not least, as I am growing stronger in showing up as my authentic self, I realize that I am feeling more alone inside (in more peace with myself though), and different in the way I perceive things and go about my life and how the world should operate. I am facing the reality that I may not be successful in my mission to reach that 10 Million impact if I don’t deliver my message correctly and no one buy into the vision. Knowing that failure is a big possibility, I still have my drive to try and pursue it so I can see it for myself how far I can go. In a way, I feel that I am doing this only to dedicate myself to Jesus’s calling. And no matter what, I feel that He will always love me even when most people reject me and my gifts. I’m simply talking about worst case scenario as I don’t think I will get to this point. But I am having this discussion with myself. Have you had this talk with yourself? Like I am faced with a decision to go big or go home. Someone posted on FB group with a question, if money, time and location are not an issue to you, what would you rather be doing? My answer was simple: I want to paint large murals on canvas in my silk night gown at home by lakeside (nice view) with chocolates and mini quiches. That’s how I picture my retirement. Then, I wondered am I okay to just aiming for a simple life like this without aiming for this large vision? Or am I simply taking the easy route by not trying the hard route to my real greatness? Any advice on how to navigate this Heidi? I think if I have found the love of my life, I will be okay with either lifestyle. The humble lifestyle will probably be more appealing to me. Because I recently read about this couple that I’ve admired for a while because they have great venture together and seemed happy just announced their separation. This made me wonder if women with great visibility and career will always end up losing their loved one. A big part of me doesn’t want to believe that and a part of me know that I can’t predict the future nor any relationship I will be in. All I can do is cherish every day as they come to me. Maybe that’s enough for my happiness? Just choose to be happy and maximize each day. How about you? Looking forward to your reply.

[ESE H]

Hi Heidi,
Thank you for your prompt reply. I read it before I went to see MJ so it helped. First of all, I sent my name change video link through your support email to Julie.
Here is the PW: 108$ because you will need it for security reasons. Lmk if you didn’t get it or couldn’t access it.

I love your explanation about how to be authentic, trusting ourselves as a practice and being resilient. I added that word into my wall of affirmation last night. Thank you.
Your example about how you hold yourself from oversharing what might not be productive to others as being authentic is HUGE!! I am that way and I was wondering about that too. I used to question if I was being authentic on that. I rarely ask myself if I was loving to myself with certain decisions. You answered so many of my past questions with this example.

I recently posted something about Black Lives Matter on social media, but more focusing on humanity, and some people didn’t quite grasp my point and complained about me not posting the black screen or properly used the exact phrase. During my meeting with MJ, we practically spent 2 hours talking about this matter. How Humanity is the higher problem etc (life and death of human beings). At one point, we decided we are on the same page, agreed that people shouldn’t bully others to jump on the band wagon if we disagree on certain approach or simply still processing everything without jumping to conclusions. That doesn’t mean we support racism. It’s the opposite. We want to find ways to fight racism effectively with peaceful strategies through win-win solutions. The goal is not riot and violence. The goal is respect for humanity for all races. But we had different opinions before we even get to this point. During the process, MJ gave me a valuable feedback about not accepting bullying by changing my stand on humanity because of it. He called me out on it and I am glad. I realized that my voice is as good as others and I can make a unshakable stand when it comes from the heart.
After I got home, I did an art to promote humanity because I feel that a simple, beautiful art speaks more about my heart than a thousand words, and posted them. If you’ve watched my dropbox link video, then you can search me and find this art on IG since it’s practically my new full name. It got better reception but that’s not what I am going for. I feel that it’s my authentic way of expressing my opinion as an artist. So as you said, learning to trust myself the more I experience being authentic and stumbling through mistakes.

Back to my meet up with MJ. Surprisingly, we found our local eatery allowed us to sit down and eat inside. So it was a good break for both of us. Going into the meet up, my goal was to simply check in on our friendship and learn where we are at with each other authentically. The business part was second in my priority. So, that’s what happened. We simply caught up about life, relationship with ourselves and others, as well as where his business vision is. I can tell he is under a lot of pressure financially, and have tried to take of people as much as possible. I had my moments to ask myself the questions you told me. Am I being authentic to withhold my questions about work arrangements and am I loving by waiting just a bit longer? My sure answer was yes. I feel good about not asking about it and simply listened to where he was thinking because I know he knows he needs to pay me to work for him. However, I completely understand he can’t waste his limited funding if he doesn’t know what he needs me to execute. I won’t feel right accepting money from a friend who is still lost and searching for this answer. Before I even need to say anything, he already came up with a fair plan. We both will look through our old stuff and Pinterest to find inspirations and secure some initial directions then put a budget after that is clearer. I enjoy this research and it shouldn’t take too long for me to do, so I am being authentic by doing this task since I have the time to do this, and I truly believe this step will help both of us for the long run. Is there any risk for me? Perhaps, but the risk is minimal compared to what I will gain from the fulfillment of helping a good friend. During this meet up, I’ve shared that he is one of the most authentic person I’ve known in my life. In a away, I think that’s why I really love him to be in my close circle. He helps me be stronger in being my authentic self, even when we sometimes disagree on things at first. We always able to work through our differences. Hold up… as I am typing this to you, guess what? MJ sent me a surprise payment. Didn’t expect this at all so I just thanked him for it. He is earning my trust big time, and I need to stop doubting myself from trusting that I made the right decision to support him in whatever capacity we can.

He called out something that I noticed I need to work on next. I am hoping you have some advice to cope with this. My tendencies to assume negative stuff vs not to think about it and let this thought consume my time and energy. For example, I’ve mentioned to you MJ went to a long trip with his gf recently. I thought it’s for fun but he told me that it was to visit his dying old friend. I am completely being vulnerable about this shame. I noticed that I have fear of rejection and when communication is lacking, I sometimes wonder off from my stand in trusting him. Not because of him. It’s my issue. I still want to trust there is good reasons, but my ego seemed to try to protect my soul by assuming the worst so I don’t feel like a fool to myself. Then again, I don’t feel proud about this. I feel that it’s better to be kind and a fool when the wrong person came to my life, than to change myself to over protective and numb to feeling vulnerable. Am I making sense? What can you advise me on this?

This happens quite a bit with MJ whether he knows it or not. I am the one suffering from my own assumptions. Whenever I voiced it, MJ always has a great explanation and I can be certain now that he is thoughtful and methodical in his approach, which I like. He is also being authentic and not gonna let other people’s insecurities or problems consume his time and inhibit his goals. I respect that. I do know that it bothered him when people do this to him because he care about others but he is good in being discipline to protect his resources. I want to get to that point. Hope you can help me.

BTW, I’ve shared with him about I’m working with a forum coach (you) and shared a bit about how your assignment on non-negotiable list has helped me found my own values and realizing how much I didn’t include myself often times to uphold the values for myself. I think that hit his light bulb moment too. Also I shared about healthy relationship between two people that have their love tank full on their own so they are giving to one another out of joy and co-dependency. He was very receptive and thought it’s brilliant. I thought you should know that. Overall, I think we spent 3.5 hrs catching up about philosophical stuff and life and 0.5 hour on actual task because we are so connected that this part doesn’t take long. It was a nice meet up. I helped me feel secure that I do have a strong friendship with him and he hasn’t changed on his original vision and who he is, even through all challenges, and that’s who I’ve signed up for. Since pandemic and our relationship has been tested. But yesterday meet up has raised our trust level in validating our values on many matters. So, I am happy about this outcome and progressing with our collaboration. If you see any other concerns from what I shared, please let me know my blind spots. I always appreciate it. Thanks Heidi. Enjoy your weekend!

[ESE H]

Hi Heidi, thank you for sharing your past. Wow, you’ve gone through a lot worse than me I feel. Way to go, Heidi! I admire your positive spirit, resilience and huge transformation. Do you have a particular mantra or phrase whenever you encounter doubtful moments a times?

With all of these black lives matter movement, I feel I can relate to the African American Community pain to my under the radar pain being an emotionally abused past being married with an NPD man for 18 years. I’m feeling a bit nervous launching my venture in the middle of the chaos, although some stuff are going my way as far as location for my video editing, getting the video team together, etc.

Also, as I’m getting closer to my meeting with MJ, I am a bit nervous too. I don’t know what to expect and I hate the feeling of the unknown. He mentioned he misses our time together working at the nature areas where we used to go. Honestly, I do too. I almost feel a slight pain feeling excited to see him because we do enjoy spending time together like naive friends back in school. I taught him to play chess there and we had fun. He even taught his daughter to play chess after and texted me the fun they had. Now, whenever I remind myself that he has a girlfriend, I want to shut off my heart and keep all the good stuff in like I should be saving my heart for my future guy who fits my list. Do you know why I am feeling this way? Am I doing the right thing by keeping some stuff in? I so want to stay authentic by sharing, and normally that means giving my heart and advice generously to him. Since he knows I am that way, if I suddenly a bit closed off, he will be able to tell. He is quite sensitive because I know he cares enough about me to notice my behaviors.

Do you have any advice on how to center my core thinking to prepare for this meet up? I got a sense that the meeting won’t be too productive for me if I don’t plan my mindset right. Then again, a part of me just wish to catch up like friends and talk about life, without thinking about ROI for just this time. With pandemic and now the rioting around, I just want to distress and not trying to control all the outcome. But I do want to focus on being authentically me (happy to see him and to catch up on my new why) and listening where his mind is too. Like a calibration. I think that’s what he wants and needs too. Before pandemic, I’ve noticed that whenever he shares about his girlfriend before, he almost always tells me something about why it wasn’t the perfect trip, or it wasn’t that great such as she was sick, or his mind wasn’t fully there because of the business financial stress. From this recent trip, he said he had fun and he needed that. But he didn’t say “we had fun.” Like he wants to be cautious about my feeling with the whole gf thing. I just wish I could start our relationship all over with the new me. How to do that? I want him to be in my life even in friendship capacity because he is one of those people who understand and accept the crazy part about me. The part that some other people might misunderstood me about. He made me embrace myself and not be apologetic, like he gives me the strength to own it. I know I need to gain the strength from myself, but at times, I feel the need to have this support from close circle of friends. You know?

I am wondering if it’s wise to simply put him in my friendship bucket, not business bucket because that could just complicate things in my mind. On the other side, what’s wrong in enjoying the friendship while earning from doing a fun project with the person I like? It’s almost a win-win. Right? Any cautionary thoughts I should consider, Heidi? For sure, if I have to choose between being my most authentic self and not get the project, and getting the project by restraining my authentic self, I would rather choose the first one. Going forward, I will always choose being authentic. The way I look at it, if I am being authentically me and the person don’t value that, It’s not meant for me anyway. I guess it’s most peaceful this way. If you want my honest truth,

Last thought of the day, my new team is great. They’ve been sending me their assignments today and I feel grateful that they respect my leadership and following through. Mind you the assignments were not mandatory but it’s for a contest (unpaid if they don’t win). I feel a bit nervous but cannot admit this to them because they trust me. It’s my self talk doubting me “what if this .. what if that..”. I am sharing this with you because I need your help to diffuse the build up of this small inner talks by letting it out, vs suppressing it. I sometimes feel small in the world of so many great leaders, successful people, talented individuals. Not that I am comparing but I feel scared…. like scared of greatness. Am I really going for this big dream? What if I fail big time? … sorry I gotta vent a bit as I am rambling as it comes. The potential failure wasn’t the worse part, .. my biggest fear is if I lost my close friends and become alone in the process? Then, again, a big part of me is not afraid to be alone in pursuing this dream and my why. Like I can simply lay on the bed, take a nap and get back up again sorta speak. A day might knock me down, but I can always get back again with fire in my heart. I guess that’s what true passion is about. It trumps fear. Do you have an advice on how to show up as a leader that is vulnerable but at the same time courageous? I always believe that showing vulnerability is courage in a way. Being optimistic even though current situation is not ideal, is kinda inspiring. Thoughts on this? Looking forward to your reply. Thanks, Heidi. Stay safe out there!

BTW, I got an idea. I could email you through the support team email and share my name change story link. What do you think? Is it possible to keep it somewhat confidential within your team though? Thanks in advance.

[ESE H]

One more thing, yes I have gotten that new project started for over a month now. It’s basically my current company but 2.0 version. So I’ve technically been working on it for over 4 years but working for MJ has derailed that focus but at the same time no regrets. Since MJ helped me find greater clarity on myself and in getting in touch with my feelings again, as well as getting the emotional and financial support while getting through my separation. So things are meant to happen this way I guess.

[ESE H]

Hey Heidi,

Thank you for sharing your story. If I may ask, what type of trauma did you have to endure growing up? Just a category as I am sure you prefer not to get into details. I had moments when I was quite depressed in early teens because I felt my life had no purpose. Then, I naively prayed and little that I know, that prayer is working for me. I wrote about it in a small diary book and I forgot about it. Then I got chosen by a teacher to attend a leadership camp, which I couldn’t believe since I was super shy. I asked him are you sure he didn’t mean to send someone else. He said no, he was sending me. At that leadership camp, it was the first time I become visible. In a smaller group of 6, I was chosen to be the spokesperson for the team to the larger group. I didn’t realize I had to go on a stage to present. I was so freaked out that the whole time I was on the stage, I was squeezing my fingers nervous but I survived. Since then, opportunities to lead keep coming my way. Few years passed, I found my old diary and I saw the part when I prayed. It blew my mind how far I’ve come. Since then, I have stronger faith and it has carried me through my toughest challenges until now.

Yes, I was hired to be Co-Creative Director for MJ’s new brand relaunch. Designing new logo, packaging, product design. But I haven’t just been doing that. I’ve built websites for his business and managed his social media, as well as helped with team development without his knowing behind the scene. He eventually was looped in and appreciate all that I did.
That’s why he still keeps me around I guess because I provided him with so much well-rounded value. At first, I saw him as a mentor, but now I feel that he sees me as mentor equally in another area and he said he is one of my biggest fan too. There is mutual respect on that sense between us and I want to keep it cool between us if I can without sacrificing my values and boundaries.

I’ve been putting quite a bit of thoughts since last night about what you suggested. What do I really want to get out of this meeting? Then, I noticed my pattern to stay open to his suggestions, which is not good because that’s a reactive mode. This morning, I am slowly correcting this habit in myself. Knowing what I know about him, and how our interactions have been, as you warned me, I need to be super intentional about the outcome and my stand on vision. So, I asked MJ for the agenda for this coming meeting so we can stay productive and focused. Then his reply was he wants to just catch up and go through our design binders to see what still move us, which to me, could get kinda unproductive or too casual. I asked myself with my new name, what will the new me do in this situation? How should I lead this meeting and be proud to tell my future man and my team? I have some good ideas on managing some of the topics to keep us moving forward professionally while still staying personable without giving in too much private info. Wish me luck! Yeah, keep me posted about the email. I will reach out to James at that email address one of these days. Thank you so much, Heidi! I’ll keep you posted on how my meeting goes or if any other questions come up in the meantime.

[ESE H]

Hi Heidi!
Thank you! You did too? yes, I feel so excited every time I say it vs I used to cringe with my previous names. I want to share my new name with you along with Youtubelink of the video, if I can send you an email on the side. I feel that you are an important part of my journey and hope to meet you in person one day. Is that possible?

I love your spirit in giving to life. You are a wonderful woman. I sometimes picked up the trash from the floor in the office or even in bathroom and throw them into the trash can. I will wash someone else’s dishes. I am kinda wired to help people when I saw a need, even when it inconvenient me like I gained fulfillment from it. Maybe that’s why I got quite lucky when I went to Vegas lol. Once I was on the way to work and didn’t eat breakfast, and I thought in my head, I wish someone will bring breakfast to work, and someone actually DID! This happened TWICE! My ex likes Vegas and I actually am not so much but I went to a slot machine (not a big gambler here) with his friend’s wife. Then I always look for certain slot machine with flames icon at Bellagio. I was showing her my strategy to win at $1 slots and as I was showing her pretending to be the expert, the machine cooperated and gave me $600! We laughed because it was almost look like staged lol. I am pretty lucky when it comes to winning prizes when I least expect it. I’ve never realized that circulation could come from life or God/ Universe. He does take care of me when I thought I was all alone. Wow! I’ve been pretty oblivious. I tend to help the underdogs, good people that sometimes higher level people tell me to ignore. I used to work for a company with 1 client who asked for help on our excess inventory. She was recently going through tough divorce and need this help. My lady boss didn’t really care to help her and advised me not to spend too much time. I didn’t spend that much time but I did go out of my way to listen to her story and to comfort her soul. Guess what? After I left that company and started my biz, my previous company collapsed and I became a great friend with this lady whom I helped. She then introduced me to her daughter who started her own brand and she has been my repeat client for over 2 years. Isn’t that a great circulation?

Oh! What you call EQ, I called it EI (emotional intelligence). My bad! Thanks for that explanation and for reaching out to James. It’s so weird that I don’t even know how James looks like. My new venture is the next level project for my creative studio. It’s services, tools and youtube entertainment in a form of podcast interviews of inspiring people and round table discussions of what usually discussed behind closed doors about leadership, trust, biz etc. This new organization is built based on my recent discovery of my WHY. To utilize my creative, biz, and mindset skill to help business owners and passionate/ visionary individuals gain clarity in their brand design, sustainable biz model and purposeful life, and grow their positive impact in the world. I am setting a high goal of 10Million impact within 10 years so I have a place to shoot for. Honestly, I scared myself with this vision sometimes, but like someone said, if your dream doesn’t scare you, it’s not big enough right? I really just want most people to wake up feeling happy, successful and fulfilled every day doing what they love in the community they love. I start with myself because if I can figure out for myself, I can share with others like a role model. Is relationship coaching your passion? How did you get to this point, if you don’t mind sharing?

BTW, MJ asked me to meet and catch up on things next week and mentioned to do lunch somewhere. I said sounds good but at this point, I don’t really expect much happening. This is my practice in being strong and authentically me. This new name will, I think. I will remember what you told me about having those qualities to myself.

One question. I’ve told MJ one truthful thing about 2 team members who talked behind his back. I felt that he needs to know since if he doesn’t, it could hurt his decision for the company. I felt that I did the right thing to do to protect the greater goods. Today, one of that team members told me that MJ asked them about it but didn’t mention my name. I know MJ, he is trying to test them to see if they will come forward but they didn’t. So I think he made the right decision for the company. I kinda felt bad to that person because I couldn’t tell to her face that I mentioned it to MJ. Am I wrong to keep quiet? How would you handle this situation? I felt that at that time, I’ve chosen MJ to have my loyalty over this team member because he has been the one paying my salary so naturally my loyalty should be to MJ. These other members are not even part of the company but was going to be hired to manage the whole company. So it’s kinda risky, I thought.

[ESE H]

Hi Heidi,
Yes, I’ve had my share of doubts about men, love and myself. 100% guilty of this for many years, which rooted from watching my parents’ relationship and some others.
However, that burden has been let go quite a bit, since you helped me see the root of my patterns in my relationship. Guess what? I am doing something bold tomorrow. I am changing my last name to a name that I feel belongs to. Not my maiden name, not my married name. A made up name that is inline with my why discovery. I feel strong about it and saw my inner shift. At first, I was starting to ask my sisters what they think about it. One sister immediately said she didn’t like the name but cared enough to ask me why. The other one didn’t respond. But then, I thought why am I even asking for their permission. I am doing this for me. My reason for changing my last name is I’ve never felt belong with my previous names for a while now. I respect my parents for giving me the starting point but I can take it from here. Then, I wrote a post about this move, and created a video with my voice over for tomorrow post. I shared with my sisters in case they can point out some grammartical errors. When they both saw my heartfelt writing and video, they were both inspired and totally supportive, and called me “so brave”. I’ve never felt so authentic in my life and cared about myself this much beyond what other people or my cultural upbringing was.

I LOVE your questions. Thank you so much for pursuing them as I learned more and more about myself and realized how much I haven’t included myself as a valuable entity in my life. Crazy!! Those qualities came from what my family and close friends said about me and qualities that I am proud to be a part of me. High integrity in my definition is doing the right things. But I’ve never seen it as doing the right things not only for others, but especially for me too. Come to think of it, MJ is not all that bad because I recalled him reminding me to take care of myself and not too spend so much energy in caring about others. He must care about me too and that’s probably why I felt so taken care of sometimes. He was the first guy who puts me first before his own needs. Things have changed for both of us in a sense that we both are working on our self care now. He came back from his trip last night and just texted me to ask how I am doing and proceeded in telling what a great trip he had and he needed it. A part of me want to say I wish I am the one to go on the trip because I just enjoy to be on the move, especially nature, but a big part of me don’t because I’d rather to take a trip with my future love of my life. I guess I just miss a companion and that’s the truth. I will be as happy to take a trip with my daughter somewhere. She is going to Texas now for 3 weeks. I’ve never realized how much I enjoy living alone and working on my self growth.

Do I trust myself? Honestly, I haven’t until I was losing MJ. It gave me a wake up call on how much I gave him too much control over my self worth. I suddenly feel something so deep that I searched myself more. For that reasons, I am forever grateful to get to this point. You have introduced me to a new healthy habit, Heidi. On all of those qualities and questions, I will add “to myself” and that reminded me not to disregard myself. No wonder all of the men whom I was in relationship didn’t put me up on a pedestal eventhough they all did what they could to care about me. MJ especially. In retrospect, I felt that he tried to show how much he care about me but he didn’t care about himself either, so I started to question him. If he would have respected himself and got out of his toxic relationship and free himself from the misery to be in healthy relationship, I might have given him a stronger chance. I learned that this downward spiral goes both ways. I understand now what codependency relationship feels and look like and why it should be avoided.

I can see now that a healthy relationship, like you said, need two healthy happy individuals coming together and caring to one another out of the spirit of giving and companionship. Not full of expectations to be fulfilled by the other person. I was living simply in reactive mode vs being proactive in giving loving and caring because it’s the true me.
Before I spoke to you, I feel that I have been more loyal to him than to myself. As with anything else, I do all of those qualities for others, and I discriminated myself which is not good for me. Asking those questions you listed to myself will definitely give me clarity on what I want to say. Since I couldn’t change the past, I will start by saying the truth that is high integrity, courageous, thoughtful, loyal, respectful, effective communicator and trustworthy. You might be surprised about what I would do or say. Since he just reached out and we are actually responding via text. I simply told him I miss him but I didn’t linger there. I shared my self discovery and my new project that I am excited about. I am truly not wanting to spend negative energy in the past. I want to simply move forward with what makes me alive, excited and happy. From now on, I will calibrate with myself on those qualities and make sure that I am including myself in the equation as top priority. Heidi, I feel so much peace, love and CONFIDENCE grew within me by asking those questions. I can see the other side sorta speak in being the one to project the light from within. I can see how this new me could attract better people in my life, because I can see better on who to weed out. The definition of Emotional intelligence came from MJ giving me that credit. I have EI towards him. I can read how he thinks, feel and address them to move him forward. I feel that he gained value from this part of my insights. Like he paid me for that insights not just my design work. Almost 100% certain about this. However, like I said, I was not doing the same thing for myself, which was the mistake I just learned from you. The past few days, I gained awareness at catching myself when I slacked off here and there. I’m getting there. I have never heard the EL, EQ, EIQ. What are the difference between all of them? What else should I learn from myself today? I am like a sponge. Self growth is my passion. BTW, how did you get to do what you do now? May I send James Bauer a message? I am a fan of his work and I always enjoy his email articles (the ones without those suspenseful sales links). Will you or James be open to appear on a podcast that I will start with my new venture? I feel that I’ve grown so much in my view about relationship and myself from being in your community. Please let me know. Thank you in advance, Heidi!

[ESE H]

Hi Heidi,

I’ve put some thoughts on my Non-Negotiable List descriptions. Here they are:
– High integrity: he will choose to do the right thing even if it means it’s the harder road to take, and without someone watching. He is honest and don’t take what he didn’t earn unless if it makes the other person feels good. He is reliable. His words are enough for commitment. He will stand up for what’s right and defend the underdogs who are good and hard working. He will follow through on his promises.

– Courageous: he is strong in his stand and mindset, but can be vulnerable with his feelings. He takes calculated risks. He has faith and take chances to pursue his vision, even when others don’t believe he could do it. He is the first to take accountability when mistakes happened and immediately fix them. He is not afraid to admit defeat when it’s not his path anymore.

– Thoughtful: he pays attention to things that matter to me such as my birthday, my favorite food, what makes me happy, how to comfort me when I am sad or ill, choose mindful words when communicating, sending thoughtful messages throughout the day to let me know that he is thinking about me. Setting up a baby sitter for our date night. Giving me spa gift card and offer to watch the kids when he knows I need a “me” time without being asked. Always ask before he finished some food in the fridge that I might like to eat. Putting toilet seat down. Clean after himself. Proactively doing chores when he saw me super busy. He doesn’t cancel lunch or dinner dates, which I’ve been looking forward to. When emergency comes, he communicates and apologized if he has to cancel our anticipated plans but then do his best to make it up to me.

– Romantic: he embraces his feelings and know how to express his love to me. He always remember our anniversary because he cherishes our relationship. He would write me romantic notes in the morning, sending me flowers or chocolate without special occasions, remember our special moments, making me breakfast in bed sometimes, great at planning dates for us including arranging baby sitter, know how to give me wonderful surprises at the right time. Can create romantic ambiance with relaxing music and know how to give a nice back massage. A great, passionate hugger and kisser. He loves taking picture of us together or me so he can look at them when we are apart or when he misses me. He likes taking me to watch romantic movies because he knows I enjoy them and those movies help him get to know my heart even more. He is a gentleman who opens the door for me and the girls. He loves to slow dance with me in our room and in public. He embraces our playful sensuality for one another. He attempts to make creative, meaningful gifts.

– Trusting and Trustworthy: he trusts me to pursue my dreams and not worry about being jealous when I collaborate with opposite sex clients or team members. We have strong trust for each other and know that we are the best for each other. He has many friends who trust him and count on him for larger matters. When conflicts arise, he always choose to trust me first and hear out my side of the story before jumping to conclusions from other people’s story. I can trust him on important matters without any doubt (such as integrity, finances, good intentions, work ethic, making wise decisions for his life and for our family when I am not around, taking care of my girls as his own, being there for me when I am not well, etc). He believes in me and support me to reach my greatest potentials. And I am passionate to do the same. He trusts me with his feelings and situation, that I won’t judge his being. Instead he trusts that I will be there for him through thicks and thins and we will always figure things out together.

– Loyal: he doesn’t flirt with other women even though he could be attractive to them. When another woman approaches, he knows how to get out of flirtatious situation as a gentleman. When I see his eyes, I can feel his heart only belongs to me. He defends me without my presence because he knows me well. He cares about me deeply and will always be there through the good times and bad times, especially the challenging times. He is not afraid to face my challenges with me and finding ways to get through them together.

– Respectul to all people, dogs and cats: he doesn’t judge and talk bad things about people maliciously. He doesn’t make fun of handicapped or poor people. He could vent about frustrating situations at work for example, but I can see that he means well to people from different walk of life and he is always doing his best to be emphatic on others’ shortcomings. He understands that each person or animal is a beautiful creation of God and that he should respect it. He treats people with equal respect. He wants them to be their best.

– Effective Communicator: he knows how to express his ideas and feelings. He is clear about what he wants to say and is direct with his communication. He knows the timing on when to delay info for the people who aren’t ready to hear certain things, but follow-up when timing gets better. He doesn’t forget to communicate important matters, such as things that he knows I can improve on, but in loving and trusting tones. He takes the time to respond when he is stress and communicate efficiently on what he is going through or simply to say “sorry I will be coming home late because xyz and I will share later”, then always loop me in on the details after without my reminders. He doesn’t disappear without communication. He is comfortable to speak in front of a group and people understand what he is saying and inspired by his insights. He is not arrogant nor aggressive. He is calm and confident.

– Generous / Abundant Mindset: he always offers to pay for dates or be the first person to offer to pay in his circle of friends or family members. He is not afraid to give to others, whether it’s his precious time to mentor someone who needs his mentoring, giving charity donation, and/or sharing great insights to help an organization with mission that he believes in or friends.

– Spiritual: he has peaceful relationship with Jesus and himself. He has gone through challenging tough times but he has found his recovery and inner peace with his past. He remembers those tough times because he cares about every important moment of his life, but he always choose gratitude for the lessons and have a good handle in how to move on in healthy ways (not ignore the problems nor stuff it down, but let them out on surface and make peace with them as they are a part of him). He has strong faith and optimistic look about life. He believes that things happened for him, not to him. He is willing to sacrifice himself for greater goods.

– High Emotional Intelligence: he is sensitive to people’s emotional state through intangible signs whether spoken or not. He cares deeply about people, both men and women. I don’t get jealous because I can feel that his care about them are platonic and pure. He can feel my emotions and know when I need his comforting and when I need to be care free at times.

– Great role model or leader: he has a great vision but he is a simple human being who is not trying to be someone else nor impress others. He is authentic to himself and comfortable in his own skin. He is inspiring because he speaks from his heart, and believes in his vision. He has a beautiful mind that is wise, selfless and peaceful. He is not a doormat because he is charismatic and has attractive/dynamic personality. He is a leader without a title necessarily. He only competes with himself and always strives to be a better person every day, just like me. He makes little impact with everyone he meets. He appreciates life so much because he has experienced great lost of someone he loved perhaps or he has made mistakes that got him to make meaningful shift in his life. People respect him for who he is and will support his causes because he has been there for others. He has healthy ego (know that he is worthy and a great man with much to offer to others). He makes great financial decision. He is a safe driver.

– Fun and great sense of humor: He is not easily offended and can make me laugh. He is young spirited and know how to have a good time. He doesn’t take himself too seriously. When we are together, we can do cute banter to one another and have lots of fun. We are comfortable around each other and we can share the deepest darkest secrets and feel save from judgements. He likes comedy and can be super funny at skits and games. His focus is for everyone including him to have a good time, when we socialize by ourselves or with larger group of people. He is a good host when we have parties at our house. He enjoys karaoke even if he doesn’t sing much but he loves listening others sing and having a good time.

– Humble, patient and emphatic: he is not expecting to win all the time nor expect people to hand him the silver platter. He works hard; he is persistent and consistent in his progress towards his vision. He is willing to ask for help. He doesn’t buy expensive cars to show off. He has modest, decent cars for everyday use but could buy extra stuff for our business needs and lifestyle leisure so we can experience more of what life has to offer. Never for show off. He is practical and responsible in his spending habits. He doesn’t gamble. He expects high standard from himself, but he is forgiving when others don’t measure up to those standards, as he knows everyone has their own growth pace. He shows others empathy when they need it. He is grateful for his blessings.

– Active: he feels purposeful when he is busy. He is mindful when filling his days with meaningful activities towards his goals and dreams, and to fulfill his passion and life priorities such as our relationship. He has 1 sport activity (maybe martial arts) to keep himself healthy or fit. He is a bit adventurous and will try new things but not dangerous activities like sky diving or bungee jumping. He will try kayaking, river rafting, snowboarding or skateboarding.

– Love nature and creativity: he enjoys walking in nature (beach, mountain, lake, park, etc) by himself or with me to unwind or re-center ourselves. We both love going to musical plays, movies, music performances, art museums. We enjoy dancing, creating art / writing projects together, and supporting creative community.

– Curious about life and personal growth: he is always excited about getting up every morning ready to explore the day on his own and even more, with me and my girls. He puts family first and work second. He loves reading personal development books and shares them with the family. He will help me and my girls grow in our mindset. He pushes himself and all of us to try new things and grow with him. At times, he may get me uncomfortable to try something new but he gives me the confidence to try them anyway because I trust him and his love for me. We both love to build people up. We don’t push people down for our own victory. We include people in our journey of love and growth.

– Successful or on his way to sustainable lifestyle: I can feel that he has put a lot of thoughts into his life directions from what he has experienced. He has been working hard to build a future towards sustainable living, as I am now. He is financially stable and is successful in his being. He doesn’t stop growing and going after his dreams, but he mindfully takes the time for self care, mini breaks, and vacations. He encourages me to do the same. He is discipline in saving money so we can afford to take these fun trips or not work when we don’t want to. We understand each other’s purposeful life and mission. We don’t compete with each other, we build upon one another. We are a powerful loving couple.

Heidi, I am getting very specific here and sometimes my self doubt took over that no guys out there are this perfect. Any suggestions on how I should handle this self limiting beliefs? Should I simply just focus on myself in building the above traits and naturally the right guy will come? Like I attract who I am? Looking forward to your insights. Thank you.

[ESE H]

Hi Kanya,

Yes, that’s correct. Unfortunately, I have given the list to him. I felt that I have nothing to hide or he would want to do anything with them. He claimed that it’s business 101 to ask this question and he said he is not stopping me to take those projects, he just needs to ensure that there is no conflict of interest since some projects could be for his competitors, at least that is what he thinks. I don’t they are his competitors at all. My uncomfortable part is that I’m feeling that he is trying to control my growth since he is now becoming insecure with his funding. I felt quite uninspired when I feel that he couldn’t trust my ability to not create conflict of interest. He hasn’t been unable to provide directions in timely manner due to his lack of ability to lead the team through effective communication, and his overspending habits while lacking of funding. He just received PPP loan but he didn’t hire me back, instead he just took his new gf on a weekend getaway and a week trip with Oregon for fun. I don’t know the exact details but this made me question his true intentions and respect level to his team members like me who is relying to his income and been loyal to him. I question the same thing if this friendship is even worth it for my personal healing. Maybe it’s best that I come forward to tell him that I am no longer interested in working full time for him. Thoughts? I really want to move on and let my faith lead me to the light with healthier boundaries as I have come to my inner peace from Heidi’s help in my self discovery. I just don’t like to burn bridges with people. What do you think how I should move one without burning the bridges as I want to be free to help any new clients, whether it’s his competitors or not since I know my own integrity to not hurt any clients by sharing ideas that don’t belong to them. I also don’t want to jump into conclusions about him since his income could be needed during Covid time. I am thinking of giving him 1-2 more weeks to reach out. If he doesn’t by then, I will let him know my decision. It might actually relieve him not to feel pressured to hire me full time anymore because he is limited in funding right now. So maybe that’s my win-win way of moving one? Let me know your thoughts. Thanks in advance, Kanya!

[ESE H]

Heidi,
I need your second opinion. I’ve written an email to MJ today stating that I am no longer want to be full time potential for him since I’ve discovered a new life calling to pursue my own creative venture. However, I still am open to be his outsourced creative studio on some projects, and I could use the funding to build my venture. I feel conflicted inside because I don’t want to be impatient in waiting for his directions on projects and shoot myself in the foot by claiming this decision so soon. Why am I doubting myself? This is the problem. Eventhough he hasn’t hired me full time and has stopped our work pay for the last 2 weeks now due to Covid financial stress. However, he asked me to list all of my clients whom I work with in his industry. He didn’t say that I shouldn’t take those projects. To me this is crossing my boundaries, especially when he doesn’t even pay me. This is the main reasons that I feel like cutting the cord although I still want to do the creative projects. Any advice on how to be decide this?

Thank you in advance.

[ESE H]

Hi Heidi,

Thank you for your words of encouragements.
The two qualities that I am still working on are great role model (partially working on it still because I am a great role model for some stuff but I feel that I am not a great role model as mom yet due to my circumstances), patient (to certain things like not getting immediate result on certain goals or the fact that some people just don’t value improvements). Actually one more thing: successful. I’m referring to financial stability. However, I feel that I’m successful in other aspects of life such as my heart, ability to connect, finding happiness, making genuine connections, etc. However, I believe I’m on my way to sustainable lifestyle. I’ve been on this journey of entrepreneurship for 5 years and I strive to find this work and life balance constantly, and I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. I am an advocate to help others to realize this potential in their life too which is part of my work mission that I am building with my team.

I will go through the list and put more descriptive visuals so I can truly understand those myself. Thank you for this assignment, Heidi.
I’ll get back to you!

[Author]

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