Pattie Martello: Episode 567

Transcript

[0:00:25] EG: After a divorce, Pattie Martello found herself back on the dating scene for the first time in over two decades. After a string of bad dates with liars and con men, Pattie realized she needed to put a pause on dating and take time to reconnect with herself. She shares her process for learning to love herself and launch back into the dating pool in her new book, Meditate to Date: Finding Love through Self-Discovery. Today, I’m joined by Author Pattie Martello. Pattie, it’s such a pleasure to talk to you about your book, welcome to Author Hour.

[0:01:00] Pattie Martello: Hi Emily, thank you, I’m glad to be here. I’m so thrilled that your book is coming out in the world because it’s a topic that I think so many people, women in particular grapple with, and not many people really talk about.

[0:01:16] EG: Do you want to describe a little bit about what inspired you to write this book?

[0:01:19] Pattie Martello: A lot of painful lessons that I’ve lived through. I figured, if I could share those lessons and what I’ve learned from them, from my experiences that other people could perhaps avoid the mistakes that I’ve made or at least be more or at least be more capable of recognizing them earlier so they can avert potential disaster.

[0:01:46] EG: The premise of your book of course is that to improve your dating life really requires not improving yourself necessarily but being really aware of yourself and kind of rediscovering who you are. In the introduction of your book, you give a snapshot of what your dating life looked like before you went on that journey. Do you want to give us some of the highlights?

[0:02:06] Pattie Martello: Yeah, some of the highlights are, I went on many first dates with people that probably didn’t align well with who I was because I felt like I was in a hurry to find someone to basically validate me. Because a lot of people feel that they have to have that plus one to feel like they’re important or special or loved and I had it recognized that I needed to love myself and realize that I was special by myself — that I didn’t need someone to make me a special person or I had to love myself first and so I went into a lot of very unproductive first dates with people that I probably shouldn’t have spent time with so those are hours I can’t get back. But at the same time, I feel that every date that I’ve gone on, I’ve learned something more about myself so it wasn’t necessarily a waste of time but I could have used my time a little bit more wisely, I’ve dated some really nice people that just had different viewpoints or different goals and aspirations that did not align with my life and I’ve dated some of the people that are very questionable characters, I’ve dated a con man. That’s basically what started the idea of writing a book is because it scared me to death. He lied about his identity, he lied about a lot of things like what he did for a living, what his background was, he was very charming, basically inserted himself into my life but thankfully, I followed my intuition and my gut and I recognized pretty quickly that there was something not right and something was amiss. As a result, that scared me and I realized that I did not really take note of all the red flags that had occurred while I was talking to him, while he was courting me, and while we were dating and I think that’s what scared me and after I dated him, I dated a gentleman who was a nice man but I was just constantly frustrated because I wanted him to be something that he wasn’t and it wasn’t fair to him and it wasn’t fair to me because people shouldn’t have to change for anyone including him. It was then that I realized, I have to get off this dating hamster wheel and take a break and regroup and start over because I just kept going from one mistake to the next, the mistakes were different but they were probably all rooted in the same cause.

[0:04:42] EG: I know you eventually developed a framework for improving dating life, a framework that follows these three steps of pause awaken and launch. Is that how you started navigating these improvements in your own dating life for whether some missteps and missed turns along the way?

[0:05:00] Pattie Martello: I think that I followed a process and then I went back and discovered what that process was and pausing and taking a break completely form dating was the first step that I took and I have to admit even in the book I mentioned about how my daughter and my friend laughed hysterically when I told them I was going to take a break because I think I mentioned several times previously that I was going to do that and then before I knew it, I was back online, chatting and it’s ego-fulfilling when someone’s interested in your profile and they see you and they want to talk to you and I feel so special, that’s so nice. It’s so easy to get caught up in all that when a lot of times, you don’t even know who you’re talking to but it’s just nice to hear that little ding when the email comes in or the phone call or the text but I decided to pause this time and I knew it was going to be different because I just had a different mindset going in and so I decided to pause and during my pause, I took a lot of time just for me and to understand who I was and enjoy the time that I spent by myself. Doing things that I really always wanted to do, I had a lot more time because I wasn’t swiping left or right online or I wasn’t talking to guys on the phone, I had time to focus on which I started meditating and that was what kind of led me through the rest of the process.

[0:06:24] EG: How did you meditation was a good gateway for you?

[0:06:27] Pattie Martello: Actually, I started meditating because of my job – I’m a project manager, an IT project manager and I found myself constantly frustrated at work because things weren’t moving as fast as I wanted them to or people weren’t reacting the way I thought they should react. Those sorts of things, was more for my peace of mind and to calm down and kind of accept certain things that I couldn’t control because as a project manager, you’re trying to control all the pieces, you're trying to control the schedule, the cost, everything. The people to get done what they need to get done. I started meditating for that reason and I initially was doing it on my own and recognized a lot of the benefits I was coming down, I was feeling more at peace but it was after I stopped dating that I realized that maybe I need something a little bit more formal. That’s when I started to attend classes and meditation to expand on that because I did have the time to do it at that point and that’s what led me to meditation.

[0:07:29] EG: What kinds of impact did you see that meditation had on your dating life and was it a fast effect that you noticed or did it take a long time to figure out?

[0:07:40] Pattie Martello: I think because I took such a long break, I took like a year break from dating and I was meditating during that time, I was taking classes, I would say that I noticed an impact on my overall feeling of wellbeing and peace rather quickly, I’ve had people in my life comment that I seemed a little less edgy because I’m a type-A personality and I’m always, when good things done, I’m always running around, trying to multitask and not spending enough time to just slow down. A lot of people noticed the change in me and I think that the change was good because when I did start dating again, I started to attract people that kind of aligned more with who I was, really was, not the hurried desperate person looking for the one to fill that void because that void was filled through the meditation.

[0:08:35] EG: You write about this quest to find the one, can create some real delusions for people and especially it can foster unrealistic expectations of what a relationship should look like. What were some of the unrealistic expectations that you used to hold?

[0:08:53] Pattie Martello: That I thought that if someone love me then I was worthy of the love rather than realizing I’m worthy of love to begin with, I don’t’ need someone to love me in order to be a lovable, sexy, interesting person. I had to feel those things about myself first. I think another delusion is that we all think that one person in the universe is going to fulfill us in every way, shape and form and that’s not the case. That’s why you have maybe a job that interest you or you read books that fulfill you or you have hobbies that you do or you have friends outside of your significant other or you spend time with family without your significant other. One person isn’t going to meet every requirement that you have, there is no perfect person, there might be a person that’s perfect for you but there is no perfect person, including me. I’m not perfect either, no one’s perfect but I think as close as you can get to perfect, that’s a good thing but that doesn’t exist, that was another delusion and the romantic facet of it all, we all, when you first start dating, the racing heart and the butterflies and it’s all exciting because it’s new and you find a way to juggle your schedule to fit that person in because it’s new and exciting and then after a while, you start to settle down and it’s not as exciting as it used to be. Doesn’t men it’s not as good, it’s different, sometimes people confuse that excitement with real love when it’s really not, it’s just – it could be just hormones, it could be just you know, an attraction that has nothing to do with a long term possibility.

[0:10:40] EG: Earlier on in your dating life, kind of before you did this work, did you find that you were getting those feelings confused?

[0:10:46] Pattie Martello: My gosh yeah. Because I thought the last person that I dated before I took the break, we had a very strong physical attraction, cannot be explained because I was not his type and he was not my type.

[0:11:01] EG: Well there’s the explanation.

[0:11:04] Pattie Martello: Yeah, I just could not break the bond because there was no explanation for it. It was just a strong physical attraction and I kept trying to fit that square peg in a round hole because that was – it felt good, I mean, if I have someone that makes you feel that way, that could also borders on being psychotic. I mean, I don’t know, it’s just – it wasn’t going to work and it didn’t but yeah, that was something I struggled with, you know, you get that feeling and then you operate and react to that feeling rather than thinking with your head too because you need to think with both your head and your heart. Just using one versus the other doesn’t work, you need both.

[0:11:50] EG: You spoke a little bit ago about this journey into deeper self-love and understanding that before looking for love from another. It seems like meditation was part of that, were there other things that helped you really get in touch with that love for yourself?

[0:12:07] Pattie Martello: Journaling, I journaled a lot, I’ve always been someone who likes to journal, I’m not consistent about it all the time but writing down how I feel or my thoughts helped clarify things for me. Meditation for sure, as far as the self-love, I would attend these classes that were down at the meditation center and it was a series of classes like joy in everyday living, contentment in everyday living, fearlessness in life about facing your fears and I think those classes helped me learn to love myself because everybody in the class was there for the same reason. They wanted to improve their lives. They wanted to be more peaceful people. They wanted to be better people but we all have our flaws and I think talking openly about our flaws and the things that we struggle with, we realize that we are pretty much all very similar like where everybody was in the same boat, I think it became easier for me to forgive myself for my flaws and my shortcomings and in doing that, I started to love me for everything both the good and the bad. And I think being around people who were on the same journey helped me do that probably more quickly than if I would have done it alone.

[0:13:24] EG: That’s beautiful. As you started to get to know yourself better in this pause period and you are doing this process of awakening, was there anything you discovered about yourself that surprised you?

[0:13:36] Pattie Martello: It didn’t surprise me but something basically was enforced. So before I took a break from dating, I was sitting down with drinks with a girlfriend and I actually mentioned this in the book and she said, “You know, when it comes to business you are a very strong independent woman who has a lot of…” I don’t know what the word that she used was but she basically said that I don’t compromise on anything when it comes to my career. But when it comes to me, I’m exactly the opposite and when she said that it stung but I knew she was right and even with my dad when I open the book, I say that my dad always said that if I were in a room with a 100 men and 99 were perfect for me, I’d always leave with the one that was not and as much as I hate like I say in the book, as much as I hate to say that my dad was right, he was right. So I knew I had a tendency of attracting the wrong kinds of people. And people that were not a good fit or people that would not I felt like not that I was better than they were but they were not living up to my standards in certain areas and not to sound like a snob because it does sound kind of snobby but you know, you have certain things that you want in life and if they don’t want the same things, it’s not a good match and so I kept finding people that I wanted to fix to meet my requirements rather than just say, “Hey, this person doesn’t meet what I want and so let’s just move along” but I think I had a god complex to be honest with you. Where I thought that, “Oh, here is somebody, I can fix them and I’ll make them exactly the way I need to make them and then everything will be good” and that wasn’t fair to anybody and especially the other person because they could never make me happy if they didn’t meet my criteria or my requirements and that is not fair to anybody.

[0:15:38] EG: You had mentioned that part of what you are seeking in relationships was this validation and I know for me, sometimes it’s partly about that like, “Ooh I am special if I can fix someone” but it’s also like, “I’ve got to fix this because otherwise I lose that validation that I have from this relationship” yeah.

[0:15:56] Pattie Martello: It’s true. Yeah that’s true.

[0:15:58] EG: Yeah, it’s terrible. So as you’re doing this work and when you started to then decide to get back on the dating scene, the next step in your book is to launch as you say. Was there some part of the launch that was harder for you than anything else?

[0:16:16] Pattie Martello: I think it is like riding a bike. You haven’t ridden a bike for 10 years. You know when you get on, you’ll know how to ride the bike but you are scared for the first few pedals. So I think I was just nervous thinking I am putting myself out there and it is not a happy place. If I am going to be completely honest about it, it’s like looking for a diamond in the rough, to find in a person that would be a good match because there is so many people out there that are con artists. I think the statistic is only one-third of men online are actually single and actually dating. A lot of married men are online looking for a little fun on the side. I mean there is just so many and the scam artists trying to get money from people and there are some women that really think that they – there are women out there that can benefit from the book because they need to love themselves because a lot of women who are getting ripped off. I mean they want to be loved so badly they’re willing to empty their bank accounts or they are willing to agree to things before even meeting this man in person. It is a scary world out there. So knowing that I was going back into the jungle, yeah I felt a little nervous and I did enjoy my alone time while I was alone. So moving away from that was a little different because now I was back into the dating scene, trying again back on the hamster wheel so to say. So that was kind of unnerving but once I got in there like riding a bike, it was like where I started but it was with a completely different angle or point of view. I was not going to waste my time with people that didn’t meet my criteria was not going to have conversations with people that I knew that weren’t going to go anywhere. So yeah, it was a little scary but I jumped right in and it wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be.

[0:18:07] EG: I’d never heard that statistic before that only a third of men on dating apps are “available” that’s insane. No wonder it is such a jungle out there.

[0:18:16] Pattie Martello: Well the pictures, I mean like it is any kind of scam online. In Facebook, they have scams, all of the different social media platforms there are scam artists and women and men like the ones that are really honest and they are out there to find true love or the person that they want to settle down with, they are not playing on the same playing field as a lot of people. The rules have changed since I’ve been young. Like when I was young, you’d met somebody at work or you met somebody at school and they may have lived in your neighborhood and you dated them and either it worked or it didn’t work. Now, you can be talking to a complete strangers and their pictures might not be who they are. They are just pretending.

[0:19:00] EG: It requires so much more discernment.

[0:19:02] Pattie Martello: It does. I am a pretty trusting person at the beginning like I am not gullible but I am a very honest person. So I assume that everybody else in the world is being honest when they are talking to me because those are the rules that I am operating from because I had to go in with a different point of view. Most people are lying and I have to be very careful about everything they say because it might not even be. It could be a woman in a foreign country I’m talking to trying to steal my money. It is not a man in a different state who is like I am and wants the same things that I want.

[0:19:38] EG: Yeah and going from kind of assuming trust to having to earn trust that is such a flipping world view.

[0:19:46] Pattie Martello: Yes. Yes that part is difficult yes. So you don’t want to ruin your general outlook on life. I want to keep a positive slant because a lot of the people that I met down the meditation center they were like I was most of them and you could see them, they were right there. They weren’t behind a screen hiding. So those people are probably very much like I was wanting the same kinds of things in life with the same goals, same dreams and wanting to be better people as opposed to people that are online or that you can’t see.

[0:20:24] EG: And after doing this work, was there any particular moment when you realized that this new approach was working for you in dating?

[0:20:33] Pattie Martello: Yes. So actually it was the first date that I went on after I stopped my break. So when I started dating again, I met this gentleman online. He seemed perfect. Well, like I said there is no such thing as perfect but he liked to read the same books I did. He was into meditation, he seemed very open-minded, he was a creative person I like creative people because I like to consider myself creative. Actually he was a graphic designer and I’m a writer. So I was like, “Wow that’s a great combination.” We went on our date and it was not good at all. He kept talking about his ex-girlfriend and his ex-wife the entire date and he even said to me on the date he goes, “You know whoever ends up with me I’m a pretty good catch” and I thought to myself, I said, “Oh and you’re humble too I can see” he realized what he said was completely crazy and we’re walking down the street together and he says one more thing about his ex-girlfriend and I just stopped in my tracks. And said, “This isn’t going to work.” Now the old me would have said I would have been his therapist. I would be the one to help him through this process that he’s in so that eventually, he’ll see that oh I’m the right person. I am better than those people because I care about you and I am going to make you better and I figured no. This is another construction project and I am not a construction worker. I don’t want to do this. So I stopped and said, “This isn’t going to work” and he’s like, “Why?” and I said, “You’ve been talking about your ex-girlfriend and you ex-wife like the entire day. You’ve never really asked me anything about me” I said, “And I haven’t really gotten to know you” and he says, “Oh, can you give me another chance?” I said, “No, I can’t” I said I don’t have time and I knew at that moment that something had shifted and something had changed because I didn’t waste my time anymore on things that just weren’t going to work.

[0:22:39] EG: Oh that’s amazing. I love that story so much and I think we should make t-shirts that go with the book that say, “I’m a catch not a construction worker.”

[0:22:51] Pattie Martello: I like that. That’s very good.

[0:22:55] EG: Oh that’s awesome. Well Pattie, thank you so much. It’s been such a pleasure talking to you about your book and if you wanted people to take away one or two things, what would they be?

[0:23:07] Pattie Martello: Meditation really does work. Anybody can do it. It will change your life. I can attest to that and I know a lot of other people that can attest to that. That’s number one. Number two, take the time to learn to love yourself. You’re worth it, you deserve it and I believe you can make it happen. You just need to take a break. Love yourself before you go out and find someone to love you.

[0:23:36] EG: Such an awesome message. Pattie, thank you. It’s been such a pleasure. The book is called, Meditate to Date, and besides checking out the book, where can people find you?

[0:23:46] Pattie Martello: Oh, www.pattiemartello.com.

[0:23:57] EG: Perfect. Well thank you Pattie.

[0:23:59] Pattie Martello: Thanks Emily, it’s been a nice conversation. I appreciate you talking the time to talk to me.

[0:24:04] EG: Absolutely. Thanks for joining us again for this episode of Author Hour. You can find, Meditate to Date, on Amazon. A transcript of this episode as well as all of our other previous episodes is available at authorhour.co. For more Author Hour, subscribe to this podcast on your favorite subscription service. Thanks for listening. We’ll see you next time, same place, different author.