Here we go again! Can you believe the holidays are almost upon us? For singles, holidays can be difficult in unique ways. While couples may be stressing out over which family to spend the holidays with or, arguing over how to budget for gifts, singles are often feeling lonely and ‘left out’. And, financially speaking, many don’t realize being single during the holidays can be tough in that you don’t have a partner to share the costs of gift giving.

Many singles dread the holidays because they fear going to parties and events alone. It’s easy to suggest to singles to ‘go with a group to parties’ or ‘call and invite a friend’, however, these solutions are not always practical or realistic.

Most singles will have to go to some events alone during the holidays.  What’s probably most upsetting about this for many singles is knowing there isn’t a partner to go to some events with, like they see their friends and family members doing.  When you have a partner, going alone to some events, when it’s necessary, isn’t as much of a bummer because you know you are going home to your partner.

While attending events with family and friends is nice, but it’s not the same as having a romantic partner to share time with during the holidays. Coupled lesbians often forget how it felt to be single during the holidays. If that’s you, ‘remember to remember’ your single friends this holiday season when you can.  Or, perhaps more importantly: just stay tuned into your friend. Does she (or doesn’t she) get upset during the holidays? If she does get bugged, what bugs her and how does she like to be supported when frustrated or experiencing negative feelings?

For those of us who celebrate Christmas, who hasn’t walked under the mistletoe at a dinner or party?  New Year’s Eve tends to be a particularly difficult holiday for many singles. Just imagine your favorite image of New Year’s Eve. Chances are you see couples partying the night away, including the proverbial kissing that goes at midnight.

So what’s a single lesbian got to do to get a date for New Year’s Eve?

If you are single (and not dating) right now, you can still find a date in time for New Year’s Eve, if you want one. It’s far from too late to get started. In the meantime, you may even find more than just a great date for the evening.

One secret to finding a great date for New Year’s Eve is taking some time today to begin getting focused on reaching your goal. You can easily start by setting aside 5-10 minutes to find a quiet, comfortable place to sit and visualize ‘in your mind’s eye’ that evening, complete with what you will be doing, where you will go, etc.

While you are dreaming up this wonderful vision, use ALL of your senses. Don’t just stop at the visual. Also dream with sounds, tastes, smells, touch, etc. Enjoy the process. After you’ve created a really cool ‘day dream’, just let your vision go. Then trust that you’ve already begun to set into motion your reaching your goal.

Want to learn four more secrets to attracting a great date for New Year’s Eve? Join me for Coach Sappho’s 5 Secrets to Finding a GREAT Date for New Year’s Eve.  We’ve offering three different days and times for the tele-seminars, to accomodate a wide variety of schedules and time zones.

Barb Elgin, MSW, LCSW, Certified Singles Coach, is Coach Sappho: America’s Favorite Lesbian Love Coach and Matchmaker. Are YOU ready for love? Ready to find out? Take Coach Sappho’s FREE Love Quiz.

© Copyright 2009, Barb Elgin. All Rights Reserved. Feel free to forward this article as long as attribution remains intact.

Disclaimer: The suggestions and feedback offered in this column are but one perspective of multiple approaches to dealing with problems or challenges. Information provided in articles and advice columns should not be used as a substitute for coaching or therapy when these services are needed. None of this information should be your only source when making important life decisions. This information should not be used for diagnosing or treating a particular problem, nor should it take the place of a consultation with a trained professional. It is your responsibility to consult a professional prior to making any life decisions.

Perhaps you’ve never realized it before, but did you know there are some very powerful chemicals in your brain that can ‘control you’, if you let them, when it comes to romance?  I am talking to you in this way because I think it’s very important to add some realism to balance these strong emotions, which always come with romance.

What is so helpful about having a love coach comes into play here: You need someone who is going to ‘be your head’ right now.  When it comes to love and partner selection, most of us are way too emotional.  Well, you say, why can’t I just rely on the opinion of good friends or family members?  Because they too are ‘too close to’ your situation to not have an agenda or two.  A love coach has no ulterior motive.

It’s a well known, researched fact that new, or young, love, is a very powerful experience, one that actually creates for some of us, a type of ‘temporary insanity’.

That temporary, emotional insanity or ‘high’ is not just psychological.  When two individuals are feeling like ‘more than friends’, some very special chemical reactions are occurring between each of their pairs of ears.  When we are first ‘falling for’ or becoming ‘infatuated with’ someone else, powerful brain chemicals are being released at unusually high or low levels.

Most scientists who study the chemical phenomenon of ‘falling in love’ say it’s mother nature’s way of ensuring people come together.  After all, in earlier times, when humans faced life-threatening challenges more often than we do today, it was especially vital to form ‘bonds’ or ‘units’ to survive.  Even today, we haven’t lost our need for social contact and security.  And, of course, the second biggest reason nature needed to bring us together was to perpetuate our species.

Here’s the challenge for new couples: The challenge for all new couples (and each individual in the relationship) is to slow down and recognize that these feelings are normal for the stage you are in, but not likely to last.  So it’s normal right now to never see (or care about) your date’s obvious flaws, to feel very upset when you are separated from one another and to catch yourself daydreaming about your new ‘friend’ a lot.

The challenge is realizing you will need to re-focus on the rest of your life too.  You know, your responsibilities, your body, your health, your family and your work.  Don’t let your friends fall by the wayside.  Remember back to when I said that you are on an ‘emotional high’?  What tends to happen with rational decision making when we are high?

What may be missing for you at this stage is the ability to discern if this relationship has long term potential.  You may be feeling that it does, but does it?  Only time will tell.  As I love to say to couples together only a few months, “Just go and have fun, get to know one another, but, whatever you do, don’t make a lifetime commitment, or, entwine your lives by moving in together yet or combining finances.  The first six months don’t count.”

Why do I emphasize that the first six months doesn’t count? Because you need to go through the inevitable ‘let down’ of the emotional high, and the emergence of what it’s truly like to be sharing life with this person.  Then, and only then, will you be able to balance out the highs with the lows and determine if the reality (somewhere in the middle) is something you are willing to commit to…seriously.

And here’s the challenge for established couples: As the saying goes, ‘whatever goes up, must come down’.  In the earliest stages of attraction, called ‘lust’, testosterone and estrogen increase for women, leading us to think of the object of our affection (and sex) more frequently.  And, as attraction builds, increases in dopamine and adrenalin and decreases in serotonin lead to a loss of appetite and sleep and emotional highs and lows and more obsession on the object of our love.

After a period of time, our body ‘habituates’ or whatever it does (I’m not the chemist as you can tell!), and dopamine and adrenalin decreases back to it’s more normal rates and serotonin, which had decreased during the ‘love struck’ stage of early love, goes back to it’s usual levels.

Women with lower than average levels of testosterone normally (when not in the ‘falling in love’ stage) may find their desire level is lower than their partners.  But, that doesn’t mean you can’t raise them, by what you do.

The good news for ‘established’ couples, who sometimes wonder what happened to their sex drive is that these initial ‘rush’ chemicals can be raised with a little attention on their parts.  Ha…didn’t realize that pun till I’d written it! 

So, if you’re no longer a couple in the early days of your relationship, that doesn’t mean you need to trade your partner in for a new love.  You just need to keep dating your current love.  Don’t ever stop dating.  Don’t ever stop doing (and trying) new things together.  Keep it interesting, in and out of the bedroom.

The other really cool stage of love is the last one, called attachment.  This is where the chemical oxytocin is released, which helps us feel more bonded to our partner.  Want to feel closer to your partner?  It’s easy, just have a great sex life.

One of the big secrets to creating lasting, deeply satisfying lesbian love begins and ends with an understanding of your chemical makeup and, making those chemicals work for you rather than against you.

Barb Elgin, MSW, LCSW, Certified Singles Coach, is Coach Sappho: America’s Favorite Lesbian Love Coach.  Attract Mz. Right Summer Camp for Single Lesbians starts 6/23/09.  Register by midnight PST on 6/20/09 and save 25% off – click here to learn all the details.

©2009, Barb Elgin.  All Rights Reserved

Disclaimer: The suggestions and feedback offered in this column are but one perspective of multiple approaches to dealing with problems or challenges. Information provided in articles and advice columns should not be used as a substitute for coaching or therapy when these services are needed. None of this information should be your only source when making important life decisions. This information should not be used for diagnosing or treating a particular problem, nor should it take the place of a consultation with a trained professional. It is your responsibility to consult a professional prior to making any life decisions.

“One of the important principles I live by is the idea that you have to contemplate yourself as surrounded by the conditions you intend to produce. The difference between highly functioning people – the people Maslow called self-actualizers – and people who live with ordinary levels of consciousness is that the self-actualizers never put their intention on what they don’t want. They know that what you think about is what expands.”
- Dr. Wayne Dyer

So, here we are – you and I, coming together today.  Now, technically, we aren’t sitting down in front of each other, or, even speaking live and listening to one another’s voice or even instant messaging.  But, that is not what matters.  What matters, I  know deep in my heart, is that what we are doing here is forming a powerful, positive, connection between us for your greater good.

There is beautiful music that you and I can make together that you can’t create anywhere else.  Our relationship offers you something special that will inspire you to live the life your heart (instead of your ego) desires, because it is my intention to help you connect with the part of you that can give you what you need to create such a life.

My work, my legacy, my passion…is about offering you places…spaces…and faces, that support you for becoming your most magnificent self.  Period.  And, that is why I want to get to know you and why you’ll want to get to know, and hang around with, me.

HINT: This site is a blog.  That means it is a place where we can talk.  I will post lots of entries, sometimes daily.  The point of the posts is simply to create an ongoing dialogue of health, wellness, prosperity and fun.  A dialogue that creates an intimacy that…

• helps us build bridges by identifying the life-affirming and respectful values all of us can agree upon, in spite of our differences
• inspires us to enjoy discussions that help us live, love and work smarter
• reminds us to partake of discussions that follow abundant mottos such as, “givers gain” and “in our diversity lies our strength”

One of the most powerful ways I know to create what I want is by planting myself in the fertile soil of people, ideas and activities that help me be who I most want to be and do what I most want to accomplish.  That is what I sincerely hope this blog will help you do.  All you need to do is water the soil and spread some sunshine by showing up and participating.  Then, watch the quality of your life grow, like a beautiful flower.

So, please get involved by commenting on my posts.  You can do this whenever you want on any post by clicking on the ‘comments’ link at the bottom of each post),  What’s cool about this is that by publicly commenting, others will see your posts and be encouraged to offer wisdom or information that can help you and even the rest of our readers.

Or, if you’d like to keep it private, between you and I, call or email me.  Either way is fine.

So, please, feel free to click on the ‘comments’ link below and post or tell me by emailing me what you want to read and hear about.  I’m all ears (and eyes)!!!

Don’t be shy, send me a line and let me know what you need, I want to help you get it.

Barb Elgin