Author Archives: Katherine Baldwin

It’s that time of year again – a time of TV adverts portraying happy families, couples and children gathered around tables of food or brightly lit Christmas trees surrounded by gifts; a time of parties and gatherings and people making plans. It’s a time of year that can be tough if we’re single, triggering and isolating – a season that sometimes accentuates our aloneness and reminds us of the things we don’t yet have. Unless, that is, we can hold onto hope. Unless we can expect for a brighter future. This is the message of Advent – a time of preparation, preparing for a celebration, preparing for Christ’s arrival, for the light to come and break through the darkness.

If love knocked on your door, would you fling the door open and welcome it in with open arms, would you peer at it suspiciously through the letterbox, or somewhere in between? I ask because I know from experience that looking for love and being ready for love are two different things. We may be dating online, sending messages and meeting for coffee, but we may be doing so with walls of steel around our heart. So how do you unlock your heart and prepare for love?

I spent some of my late thirties and early forties feeling depressed. There were a few reasons for this. I was single, childless and living alone at a time when I always imagined I’d be happily married with a couple of kids. My life hadn’t gone to plan and I couldn’t understand why. But my depression had another source: I wasn’t living an authentic life.

Looking for love can be challenging. I know from my own experience and from speaking with my coaching clients that we can end up feeling disappointed and downhearted, hopeless even, ready to throw in the towel. If this is you, it might be time to reset your romantic life. A reset will look different for everyone but here are eight steps that might help you to feel optimistic again.

Couples who play together stay together. I love this expression and it rings true for me. If two people can sing, dance, paint, hike, bike or swim together, and support each other despite different levels of ability, I believe they are on to a good thing. My husband and I did most of our courting on mountain bikes. I remember one bike ride clearly – I was struggling to get up a steep slope and he was pedalling alongside me, cheering me on. Without his support, I likely would have got off and walked. As it was, I made it to the top without putting my feet down.

When it comes to mountain biking, I can’t compete with my husband – he’s bigger, stronger and faster than me – but we still enjoy biking together. As a laid-back guy, he’s happy to go at my pace, to wait for me now and then and to tell me that I can do it when I think I can’t. He encourages me but doesn’t push me. Not everyone is like this.

When I was dating, I had a pretty clear picture of the man I was looking for, only I couldn’t find him anywhere. I took heart from the Michael Bublé song, “I Just Haven’t Met You Yet”, and continued my search. Still single in my early forties, I finally realised that the person I’d been seeking actually didn’t exist. I saw that I had a rigid idea of my future partner and I wasn’t open to anyone who didn’t fit the mould – and this was thwarting my chances of finding love.

Three years ago, a friend died in her early fifties from cancer. It was sudden and a shock to us all, a shock that prompted many of us to re-evaluate our lives. We vowed to focus on the important things – our hopes, dreams and deepest longings – and to stop sweating the small stuff. I said I wanted to get a dog, something I’d been talking about for a decade or more. Another mutual friend said she wanted to travel the world. I met this same friend a few days ago and we noted that, three years on, I still hadn’t got a dog, although I’d begun my search in earnest, and she hadn’t travelled the world (or found a way to do so once the pandemic eases). It happens, doesn’t it?

It took me years to understand that I had to heal in order to feel. For decades, I ran from my feelings. I ate on them, drank on them and over-worked to avoid them – until I realised that my disconnection from my feelings was sabotaging my relationships. It seems obvious now but for a long time, I was unaware of the importance of feeling my feelings. If I could just keep moving – running or working or travelling or falling in and out of relationships – then they wouldn’t catch up with me. I wouldn’t have to feel the grief, loss and pain that was stored deep inside and that I’d been avoiding since I was a child. I wonder if you have done this, and if you do it now?