What Men Really Want? Week 1 findings

Hello Readers, as you know I have started this amazing and eye-opening research titled ‘What Men Really Want? Honest Conversations with Quality Men‘. These are the three key findings from the last weeks interviews and I have decided to share them publicly, with you! Just so you know, the interviews themselves are unmissable, first hand  experiences and truth said from the men themselves. They are funny, raw and even hard to hear! Join my mailing list now at www.juliakeller.co.uk and get all past interviews as well as two interviews from quality men per week, till the end of May!

Now enjoy the findings,

1.       The importance of Eye Contact 
The use of good, flirty eye contact is not to be underestimated. This is the main thing that will signal that you’re interested in him and will give him the ok to approach and get him to cross the room just to say hello to you. (I teach a technique in my flirting module, both for my one to one clients and in my workshops.) But the use of eye contact doesn’t stop there. This is the most powerful way to establish desire on a date and during any communication with a man that you are attracted to. (This is again something that I teach thoroughly.) Almost all of the men that I interviewed mentioned eyes and eye contact among what they look at and what they are attracted to. One of my former clients even wrote a blog about my emphasis on smoky eyes before embarking on a date or night out. To read it, click here: http://juliakeller.co.uk/category/clientblogs/ and go to “Look in my eyes” by Natalie Davison.

2.       Show your interest
Nobody likes to be rejected, men especially. Hence, before most men will risk asking you out, they want to establish that you will actually say yes. This is where showing interest is so important. However, there is subtlety to showing this interest so that you don’t come across as desperate or needy. A warm smile and interested eyes go a long way, as well as finding activities and interests that you share that can help him find a reason to invite you to do something together. Subtle touch is also a good way to help him know that you’re actually interested in dating him and not just in hanging out with him as a friend (no one likes to be friend-zoned). This is again something that I teach in my one to one work with clients and my workshops. A man is more likely to venture to try and take your relationship to the next level if he believes that you also want to go with him there. This is especially true if your relationship up to now has been one of mainly friendship or if you know each other through the workforce (which is, after all, where so many people spend a vast majority of their time these days).

3.       Know where you stand
As much as he doesn’t want to be friend-zoned, you don’t want to be chasing a man who has already decided that he prefers you as a friend than as a potential lover, or that he sees you just as a short-term fling rather than as a longer-term potential partner. Hence, reading his subtle cues to figure out just how important you are to him really is key to making sure that you use your valuable time for the men who more deserve it. These cues include how often he reaches out to contact you and how he acts in your presence and even the words that he actually uses and how he treats you. If you’re feeling either neglected or ignored or mistreated, or if you get that nagging feeling that he seems to always have a million other priorities that creep up above you, that’s probably a good sign that you’re just not that important to him. You can do better. There are way too many other available men in this world for you to waste time on one who will never truly be available to you. Look elsewhere. Stuck on knowing whether you’ll ever be the one for him? Let me help you to interpret his cues and teach you how to meet that special someone who actually will care about you and treat you in that way that you truly deserve.

Research and Realisation

As I mentioned on my video in last week’s mailer, I’ve been doing some very interesting research to try and understand What Men Really Want. Interview after interview and the learning from this research has began to take on a life of its own with dramatic and incredible results.

Armed with enough of a sample size to understand what works and what doesn’t — not just from what I believe, but also from what men have told me — I’ve helped women to improve their energy, their look, and their self-esteem and to flirt and come across as more desirable for men. I’ve also helped them to improve their online and swipe app profiles: both in how they appear and in what they say that gets noticed. This stuff really works!

At the same time, a good friend of mine handed me a book that further has added to what I teach clients. “This sounded like so much of what you say,” she told me, “so I knew you had to read it”. Seeing much of my own research and beliefs that I pass on to clients backed up by a well-known and highly-respected Therapist living and working in America for decades who gives talks and runs groups on the topic further gave me credence. She had come to the same conclusion that I came to and was delivering it as I was, with the same mission.

But there was an additional finding in her research which gave me a huge realisation. I had always believed that men and women have different roles in a relationship and that one should not try to be the other. But I had been puzzled by relationships that were very successful where the woman played the stronger role. Surely, I reasoned, there is something here that works and that I’m missing. The writings of Dr Patricia Allen gave me the realisation that I needed.

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As I’d always believed, the roles in a successful relationship should indeed be different for the masculine and the feminine partners in the relationship. However, a woman can play either one of those roles as long as — and this is the key — her partner plays the opposite role. Hence, a relationship can work with a woman taking either of the feminine or the more masculine role, so long as her partner takes the opposite role.

Since reading this, I’ve re-listened to the interviews and even edited my questioning slightly for the future ones. I’ve also changed how I help women to meet men, finding out first which role they prefer to play and keeping this in mind when I help them to meet the men that they are most interested in. Again, with dramatic results as now my clients are free to explore the role that feels more comfortable to them and not the one that has been prescribed to them by the society that they live in. Again, more work to help women to stay true to who they are while becoming the best and most irresistible woman that they can be.

To find out more about this work and the results of the interviews with men, schedule a free one hour discovery session with me and stay tuned for the next couple of months when I will bring you some of the key findings in each of the interviews that I make available.

I have now almost filled up my one to one coaching cycle beginning end of April and am only taking 2 more clients until the next cycle in June. If you feel that you have a compelling enough need to be one of these two clients, please respond to this email with “ideal love life” and a bit about your story and why you would like my help to create that ideal love life that you’ve always wanted. If you qualify, we will contact you to arrange a free discovery session.

For those who want to work with me and find out what it take to become a truly irresistible woman, you can sign up now to one of my upcoming workshops which I’ll be launching next month.

What is Steak&BJ Day Really About?

So, here I was the yesterday just minding my business and finishing some work when a male friend of mine texts me asking me if I know what today is. It’s March 14th I texted back quickly, meanwhile thinking that he could just have seen that on his own phone without having to ask me. “Yes, I know,” he texts back. “Google it.” I was busy so I ignored the text, despite the fact that it had several exclamation points and a wink face on it. It’s just a date, I thought. But he was insistent and texted me again asking if I’d googled it. Two more texts followed so I finally caved and….. whoa!
No wonder he’d been insistent. After all, he knew that I was a Love Coach and that part of my work at least was with women in relationships. He’d also read my blog about Valentine’s Day and had made a joke that men should have a male version of Valentine’s Day to actually cater to their more basic needs. Hint, no chocolate or flowers needed here! Apparently there were enough men out there with the same idea as my friend to bring about an actual day that – yep, you guessed it – catered completely to the male more basic needs. In 2002, according to what I could find on google (and there was quite a bit by the way) “Tom Birdsey, a radio show host on FNX radio, started Steak and BJ Day on March 14th. Like a man’s version of Valentine’s Day, women are called to celebrate the men they love with two simplistic yet highly appreciated acts: providing a steak and performing ….” You can read more about this very interesting male response to Valentine’s Day on http://www.unfinishedman.com/march-14th-steak-and-bj-day/ among other copious articles.

So what is Steak and BJ Day really about and how is it a good thing for us women? Well, clearly it’s men asking to be celebrated in the same way that they agree (often grudgingly) to celebrate the women they love on Valentine’s Day, but in their own special way. Personally, as a Love Coach, I am happy with any day that celebrates love in any way. But I especially appreciate the meaning behind this particular date. Coming exactly a month after Valentine’s Day (no accident there), March 14th is a way for men to remind us women that they’re still men after all, and that they still want to be treated like men, despite the current confused ambi-sexualized and de-sexualized times when women are becoming more masculine and men getting in touch with their more female sides.

Anyone who’s dating these days, no matter what age, will admit that the whole dating game has changed, and not necessarily for the better. We’re all confused. How do you actually meet anyone these days? Well, if you’re young and technical enough, it seems that you must be using some kind of app. So when you’re out with friends, rather than looking around to see who’s there, you should, these days, be looking at your phone. There are apps to tell you exactly who crosses your path at any one time, so that you’re better off scrolling through their photos than seeing them directly at the table across from you. Now if you’re feeling lost and confused in this moment then know that you are not alone. Dating has changed and with it both women and men have changed. Or, rather, the women changed first, then the men to keep up with our changes, and then the entire dating game has shifted. And now we’re all just confused, unsure of what’s acceptable and what’s appropriate in this new high-tech feministic dating generation.

But there is something basic and freeing about the fact that men are still willing to take the plunge and be men, despite the potential outcry from women – or perhaps in spite of it. And why not? Personally, I think yes if any man celebrates my needs as a woman on a random day (or several random days) that I absolutely insist on, I am more than happy to celebrate him back. He deserves it! If we as women insist on having our cake and eating it too and want our men to be men when we want it – but not too much so that it steps on our independence or our personal feminine power – then we need to make sure that we give our men what they need as well, whatever shape that should and could take. So bring it on! I’m all for any day that gives me an excuse to help women to fulfil the needs of their men. We should be fulfilling each other’s needs anyway.

But if men are crying out for more attention, then by all means we should listen and thank them for this very useful feedback. Listening to your partner’s needs (even when he doesn’t spell them out quite so clearly) is already something that I work on with my female clients who are in relationships or beginning them. Now I have even more reason behind my push. Steak anyone?

Julia xx

Committing, Focusing, Celebrating

Committing, Focusing, Celebrating

This month marks the one year anniversary of me committing to being a
Love Coach full time and completely. It’s one year since I stopped
doing any other work that doesn’t go along with my mission of
empowering women and that I began to devote all my time and energy
towards helping women (and occasionally men, and sometimes even
couples) to significantly improve  their love life. So with this
graduation to my first year anniversary as an official
Transformational Love Coach for women, what have I learned that can
benefit those of you reading this newsletter?

Well first of all, I’ve come to realise the power of committing to
something, and I mean committing really. It was when I really
committed to being a Love Coach, and even began calling myself that
when meeting new people, that my business really began to take off.
There was something about saying it and owning it that bridged that
gap between what I wanted to be and what I truly was allowing myself
to feel that I was. There is something that happens after committing
to doing something so fully and completely for a year. It happens with
whatever you do, whether committing yourself to a relationship or to a
full-time job. Whatever it is that you put yourself into fully for
that length of time, it gives you a pretty clear feeling of whether it
is meant for you (and you are meant for it) or not.

That is something that I help empower women I work with to do as well.
When they find themselves at a crossroads and unsure of whether their
relationship has the potential to give them what they want long term,
or whether one course of action is better than another, one of the
things we do is run through both scenarios and then have them choose
one and completely commit to it, putting all their eggs into that
basket so to speak. There is something amazing that happens with this
kind of full commitment that strengthens and reinforces the chosen
path and the dynamic totally shifts into the chosen direction, as does
the mindset and feeling around it, thereby making the chosen path that
much more successful and fruitful.

The next realisation has come with the focusing of my business on a
small chosen niche and a smaller target group. Rather than that focus
costing me potential clients, as I’d originally feared, it actually
caused me to be more able to deliver a better service to those
clients, as I was then able to focus on them completely and to really
put myself into their mindset. It also helped those chosen clients to
more easily find me, and me to more easily find them, as it became
that much more clear what I actually did and what I actually stood
for.

This focusing is something that we can all benefit from in our lives
and especially in ourselves. Becoming more clear on who we actually
are, and what we actually stand for, may cost us some potential
partners in the short run, as they may not want what we are. But it
will make it so much easier for that right partner for us to find us
among the masses, as we will really be showing the true essence of
ourselves; and it will lead to us being so much more attractive and
exciting in the long run (not to mention to us living a truly
fulfilled life knowing that we are completely authentic to ourselves).
This uncovering of who we are, and digging into the true essence of
what drives us — and that showing of one’s personality, and even
one’s vulnerability — is something so amazingly attractive and unique
that women who stick out from the crowds generally do just that and it
is something that I empower my clients to uncover and to get back in
touch with, sometimes returning back to the things in their life that
they were really passionate about but that they’d given up because of
fear, or lack of encouragement, or whatever.

And the last lesson is that of celebrating. This includes celebrating
our life up to now, celebrating ourselves, and celebrating our
achievements, among other celebrations. Sometimes we become so
consumed in the journey towards some hazy destination that seems
really out of reach, that we forget to celebrate the achievements
along the way and the everyday moments that make us feel and that
renew our fervour and our drive, and that remind us of why we are
where we are along this road to begin with. Life is something to be
celebrated. Even in the down moments, there is celebration in the
dreams that have been given to us and the excitement of our reaching
towards them. Think about the last time that you celebrated a year at
a job, for instance; or the last time that you celebrated your first
year anniversary in a relationship; or even a first year birthday of a
child. There is something special in that first year, as there is in
every timepoint that you made it past. You’ve made it that long;
you’ve survived. And oh how you’ve grown and learned in the process of
the journey!

In my work with clients, I help them to firstly celebrate who they are
and what they’ve achieved up to now. They become empowered to become
their own pat on the back congratulations and their own choir of
applause. After all, if you don’t celebrate how amazing you are, then
how can you expect anyone else to ever celebrate you. If you don’t
celebrate your accomplishments and how far you’ve come and the wise
decisions you’ve made, then you are leaving them to escape unnoticed.
In my work with clients, I often find that it is that lack of
celebration of the times with someone that leaves couples feeling
empty and unnoticed by each other. But even in my main work, with
singles, it is the forgetting to celebrate yourself that makes women
often feel unfulfilled in themselves. There is an amazing shift that
happens in self-confidence with clients who learn to celebrate who
they are and everything that they’ve achieved in their lives up to
now.

 If you want to feel that shift as well, and you are    ready and serious about creating that love life that you’ve always wanted, then reply tothis email with “ready for love” and the best number to contact youon, and Maria, my PA, will arrange your free discovery session withme.
Want to work with me but not sure that you can afford one to one
coaching, sign up now for my upcoming “unleash the irresistible woman
within” workshop at the pre-aunch price.
Julia xx

What we can learn about love from Downton Abbey

It’s the beginning of the newest year now, the beginning of 2016, and I must admit that I spent quite a bit of my time stuck in the past – very much in the past in fact. I spent it stuck into the latest several series of Downton Abbey. Ok I must admit that, though I am normally too busy doing too many things, occasionally I become one of those people who becomes so involved in a series that I don’t want to do anything at all, except sit home and watch it. Not many series have that effect on me. Downton Abbey is one of them. Considering my weakness for historical dramas of any kind, Downton grabs me not just for its’ so interesting portrayal of history from different sides of life on a wealthy estate (the owners and the servants and the people that interact with them), but also for its gripping characters who have stories and back stories that make us more sympathetic to their plight, in particular to their changing love lives and quirky romances (or lack of romances for some of the characters).
Being a Love Coach, this look at how love took place (or was meant to take place), back at the turn of the previous century, is fascinating for me. I became gripped with the stories of some of the characters’ struggles between doing what they wanted to do and what was expected of them from the society that they inhabited.

The thing about Downton Abbey which I found most fascinating was its inclusion of all ages in the possibility to find love. In fact, that may be one of my favourite things about the series. We watch an elderly widow find love again with another widower, both probably in their late 50s or 60s. Currently, I have several clients in their 40s, 50s, and 60s who come to me complaining that they’re probably too old for love (and for big life changes). But Downton teaches us that it’s really never too late to find love (after all, that was more than 100 years ago and they managed it). Even the beautiful and elegant mother in Downton, for example, is likely herself in her 50s in the series where she is flattered and flirted with (very openly) with a wealthy art expert that comes to look at a painting in her home. This happens even though she is married! He doesn’t seem to mind her age any more than he takes issue with her marriage situation when he makes a very obvious pass at her.

Clearly, I’m not encouraging adultery. What I am supporting, however, is the fact that we can be, and are, beautiful at any age – and this is not something that we should forget or disregard. I myself often do all I can to run away from my years and to fight all of the signs of aging that will one day betray me. I am not saying that fighting aging is a bad thing necessarily. Personally, I believe that we should do what makes us feel best about ourselves. So if having more beautiful skin makes you feel good, by all means do what you can to have it (including looking after your skin on the outside but on the inside too with good nutrition). But, eventually, despite all of our best efforts, time will always win, and we must be able to look at ourselves and be satisfied with what we see at any point in our lives, and not only when we are young and youth is our prize. Both my mother and my grandmother are two examples I often site of women who I have seen have great beauty that shone from the inside out despite their years. My kids’ nanny and my former father in law’s girlfriend are always women that I site as examples of beauty and elegance that is with them even well past their 30s, and without investing in expensive or radical surgeries to ward off the process of aging. My nanny, for example, swears by treatments that she creates herself out of things that I can find in my refrigerator. These are women that I know personally and who I know also that men still find attractive.

Though, as women, we are sometimes shown by society that our age will work against us, when we pass a certain point, one of the things that touched me most about the Downton series is its’ demonstration of the fact that this doesn’t have to be the case. The majority of the strong characters in the end series, for instance, find themselves singles and over 30 contrasting what too many people still like to claim as a truth in these modern times. Some time ago a single male friend of mine in his 50’s alerted me to an article published in The Sunday Times insert about women over 40 not being able to find any men who have interest in them (even sexually).This was written from one female writer’s personal experience faced by her and her friends. Recently, there was another article about why older men prefer younger women in a different magazine which another of my successful and older male friends referred me to. Personally, I think we should stop brainwashing women with this idea that they lose their potential as a woman the minute they allow some fine lines or grey hair to show. I know enough successful, single older men who have learned from experience that they will only find their match in a woman who is also their match in age. Many have been there, done that and tried to find love in youth and beauty, but found it lacking. My ex-husband was with a woman 10 years my junior after we split. After seeing that she was clearly not his match, he found a woman who is elder than me and much more suitable. Unlike the younger woman, his current girlfriend has lived as he has and one of her many strengths is the fact that she is a wonderful mother, as well as a character that developed thanks to her age and her time in life. They have been together for several years now and I am always so happy to tell everyone of his wonderful match. It shows his quality as a person and as a man that he did not just become another statistic of the typical man looking for a much younger woman.

Even Downton Abbey has allowed the elder characters to find love despite the times, the society, and their age. So why can’t we allow ourselves the same right? Even the Dowager Countess, the eldest woman represented and in her 70s, is allowed love when an admirer from her past comes forward with interest in renewing their past love affair. You might say that this is a made for TV series and not real life. But I will counter with “and? Who cares?” If these characters are supposed to be a semi-accurate representation of the days at the turn of the previous century, and if in those days you were allowed love at any age, then why do we deny ourselves this right in these modern times? Certainly today we don’t need to hide the fact that we want to be physically intimate with someone who isn’t our husband, as some of the characters had to. We also don’t seem to worry about having children out of wedlock, as a character on the show did. So why do we worry that aging means that we can’t live the life that we want to have? These days our medical care, as well as modern technology and our access to information and alternative care, is so good that we can live decades longer than we did in those times. Plus, it is a well-known fact that women tend to outlive men, so there will be many more women living as widows and as divorcees well into their years. Are we then supposed to give up on all hopes of companionship or romance just because we are no longer considered young? I know that I don’t plan to. I won’t be giving up this battle ever. That’s why I choose to work primarily with women over 30, and I have no upper age limit to who I want to make a significant difference for.

The one thing I can say is that your time is now. There is not time like the present to start to find the love that you seek, or to improve on the love that you already have. If you’re not sure whether to act or to wait, just imagine how it would feel if you were in exactly the same place that you are now five years from now because you keep stalling. And if you’re still undecided about what to do, why not speak with me. Reply to this email for a free half hour consultation call or join one of my workshops listed below. Take advantage of my Valentine’s Day promotion that’s only good until Valentine’s Day to join one of my workshops for almost half off the price.

The Art of Manifesting Love

The Art of Manifesting Love

Valentine’s Day has passed, bringing with it that crystal clear sentiment of feeling more single if we’re single. We live in a world these days that doesn’t allow us to sit and wallow for long. Work, life, and the everyday get in the way. But if you’re single, and you don’t want to be single, then that feeling of being singled out isn’t one that disappears. In fact, it’ll come back to haunt you in those unexpected moment. You’re on a tube or a bus and you see a happy couple leaning against each other. You’re in a restaurant with friends and you see another happy couple holding hands on the table and stealing kisses from each other when they think no one is watching. You’re walking in the park and there’s a couple walking together happily flirting and giggling with one another like two teenagers. And then it happens. That creeping feeling that you don’t want to let in, that you’ve spent all this time keeping out, that you’ve filled with whatever you can to try and suffocate it; it comes creeping back in. And it sounds something like this: “Why don’t I have somebody special in my life? What is it about her that makes her lovable that I’m missing? Why doesn’t anyone love me like that?”

The thing about love is that it is out there and available to all of us, just like sustenance of any kind. Whatever higher being you believe in – which I’ll just call The Universe for now – it wants us all to find what we’re after. It wants our success and it desires our happiness. Then the question of all time arises: Why is it that some people find happiness, love, financial security and success…; while others don’t?

Ever since I began coaching clients on improving their love lives some time back, I have tried to isolate the key ingredients that some possess that ensures that they are successful in love. Even with my clients, I’ve seen some find success immediately, while others take longer to understand and act on the principles that I teach them. In my quest to understand what works, I’ve began to watch and question the women who I find successful and to dissect what makes them that way. I’ve also started quite a big research project with men, which I’ll be telling everyone on my mailing list about very soon. Let’s just say, it’s BIG and I’ll be sharing it will all of you loyal readers and allow you to partake in some incredible findings.

But other than all of these clear ingredients which I’ve learned about, I’ve also discovered a key principle which I’m now sharing with my current clients to unbelievable success: I call it The Art of Manifesting Love. Like all success in life, love is something that we need to learn to manifest into our lives and there is a way to manifest that brings about miracles. I have seen it clearly in my own life over the years: both for my career and for my love life. I have also seen how forgetting about the principle, and ignoring some of the rules of success, led to long moments of lack. As happens to many people, the feeling of lack then increases inside me that lack which then surfaces in life as more of that lacking. If I would allow myself to get stuck and sink into that feeling, that would then have the effect of further eroding my life. Believe me, I’ve been there and I’ve done that. Luckily, however, this distance from the life I want to live would serve eventually to wake me up into pursuing what I want once again, and I would reconnect with the principles and bring my life back in order and flowing in the right direction.

All of us will go through moments of emptiness, moments of unhappiness with our lives, moments of feeling alone in our journey and realising that we don’t want to be alone. The trick is to use that feeling of dissatisfaction to propel us forward, and not as an excuse to wallow and to sink into the beckoning unhappiness. It is always easier to complain, to sit at home and moan about how poor the options of great men out there are while sinking a spoon into a pot of ice cream and watching a chick flick on our own (or whatever your poison). It’s much more difficult to come to grips with the fact that we’re unhappy and to do something about it finally. I’ve had clients that I met for the first time a year before they decided to finally sign up and do something about their lives.

Sometimes it takes many years to be ready to change; after all, change isn’t easy. Some clients I met at the beginning of my coaching and they weren’t ready to take me up on the offer. At that time, though my prices were low, they seemed too high because they were still in a place of complaining and wallowing. Months later, however, something shifted and they realised that they didn’t want to be alone anymore and that they were finally ready to do something about it. By that point, my prices had increased, but they were ready to act and so they paid without hesitation. I have unlimited patience for people to be ready to act, because I know that until they’re ready, I can’t really help them. Thanks to this realisation, I’ve now implemented a short set of questions that I ask clients to make sure that they’re the kind of client that I want to work with and that I feel I can help in ensuring a success story for. Now I only take clients who are truly ready to begin their journey to a better love life, and the results achieved are profound.

Without darkness, there can never be light. Without failure, there can never be success. Without obstacles in our way, we can never feel that incredible feeling of successfully surpassing them. If you are ready to begin your journey towards a better love life, I am here to help you get there. For those that qualify, I am offering a free session to help you on your way. Reply to this email with “Better love life” in the subject field to receive my list of screening questions to ensure that you are ready to pursue your own love success story.

TIME TO ACT IS NOW

Time To Act is Now

Ever since I’ve began telling people that I’m a Love Coach, the response I get has been very often a resounding “Oh I really need you!” While this is obviously great for my coaching career, and while I’ve won quite a few clients just by meeting them, it’s also unfortunately a sign of our times when there are more singles than ever and where people struggle more than ever before to truly connect (in person) to another human being.

The problem with today is that we all walk around being extra polite and PC to one another and playing some game that makes us seem like everyone else playing the same game. But this doesn’t work. It doesn’t get us what we actually want, which is normally to be really loved and accepted by another human being and to truly love and accept them back; and it doesn’t bring us any closer to happiness.

On this coming Valentine’s Day in this year of 2016, have the rules of dating changed so much that we don’t even recognize what we’re meant to be anymore? We’ve forgotten what it feels like to love for real (and that’s a word few dare to utter anymore), to fight for what we truly want, to put our hearts out there and possibly have them ripped out. We’re so afraid of getting hurt, that we don’t allow ourselves to feel anymore. But can we ignore the fact that we cannot fly unless we jump. We cannot soar unless we take a risk and at least attempt flight.

We are so afraid of getting hurt, that we do nothing. We are so fearful of crashing that we take no risks. Instead we flick from one image to another on our Tinder screens, because that is a safer type of rejection than actually putting ourselves out there and being rejected. We go through bodies like they’re disposable but we don’t get past the limbs into the soul and we don’t allow anyone into our soul. Everything seems too replaceable, too ready to be discarded. There is always something better around the corner, isn’t there? Why work on anything? Why try to make anything last when there is always something else that is younger, more shiny, more new, and less full of cracks.

We are so fearful of the pain that will maybe possibly come from being hurt one day if someone doesn’t love us as we are that we hide who we are under layers of protective unfeeling instead. We take no risks; we jump no leaps; we stand for nothing; and we never stand out of the crowd of everyone else who stands for nothing too. We blend; we fit in. We forget that what actually makes us special — what makes us amazing — is that fearless individuality that we’re trying so hard to hide.

I have been hurt and I have done the hurting. I have cried buckets for both. But it has passed and I’ve healed and I’ve moved forward. But of all the pain  that one can feel in this world, there is little that feels as bad as loneliness. There is little to cure that constant ache that comes from hiding behind all the layers that stop us from ever reaching what we really want to hold. It isn’t constantly changing bodies that we’re after; not really. Even those who are temporarily distracted by bodies are actually after something much more profound eventually.

But as it works in finance; it works the same in life and in love: no risk; no return. If you risk nothing — nothing of yourself and nothing of your heart — then you end up with nothing. You end up alone. Or worse, you end up with the wrong someone and just as lonely as if you were alone. As someone who has been in all directions of pain, I think that one is the worst.

Valentine’s Day is coming this week, and I know the feeling of wanting to hide, hibernate, escape, whatever. I know the feeling of wanting to run away and ignore that ache that comes from being lonely on a day that seems to celebrate love. But what if we took a risk and did something different this time around. What if instead of running, hiding, hibernating, escaping, or whatever; we stood still and faced the reality of our situation and actually looked it flat in the face and said “no more!” What if we did something about it. What if we took a risk. What if we jumped. What if we laid our heart raw and took the risk of someone trampling on it. What if we said, “that’s it! Now I do everything I can to make sure that from now on my life will be different.”

We will never win another’s heart if we are constantly afraid of letting ours go bare. We will never set ourselves apart from the masses if we always just say the right thing that we hope they’re wanting to hear, if we just blend. We will never stand out from a crowd of everyone else if we behave like everyone else. To be noticed, to be seen, to be felt, to be desired above every other person, we must be different. We must be brave. We must risk everything. And if we feel that we have nothing; well then we have nothing to lose. We must ignore the fear; we must take a risk. We must jump and even if we fall flat on our faces, those moments of excitement, the moments of passion — those moments when we really feel that we can only experience if we take a risk — they will be bigger and better than anything we can imagine if we play it safe; and they will last us a lifetime of memories and maybe even will create a lifetime of love.

If you’re ready to leap and take a risk and to improve your love life, then take advantage of my Valentine’s offers:
One free hour love tune up session for the first 5 who respond with “Valentine’s deal” in an email. Or take close to 40% off my Irresistible Woman workshops coming up later this year, either in London or online.

Julia xx

Why celebrating love brings love our way (even if we don’t feel loved at the moment)

Why celebrating love brings love our way (even if we don’t feel loved at the moment)

Ah it was the Day of Lovers again, the day when lovers seem to be seen everywhere, sometimes forced into celebrating, and the singles want nothing more than to hibernate and hide out for an entire day. Why is Valentine’s Day so much pressure and annoyance for so many?

Personally, as a Love Coach, I like the idea of a day specifically designed to celebrate love. What more important emotion could we celebrate after all? But I’ve also been in the situation of being single on Valentine’s Day and I fully recognize how difficult it could be to be surrounded by couples when you yourself are alone; or even when you have someone, but that someone makes you feel just as lonely as if you were alone.

I can fully understand how many people don’t like the feeling of others having the happiness that they lack, and I can see why seeing others in love can make you feel even more alone if your own situation isn’t one that echoes that love. I’ve been there; so I get it. Since I’ve become a Love Coach, however, I deal with the idea of love on a regular basis.

Now I think of couples in love in a different way, as I know just how special having love really is. The thought of so many people out there finding love, despite all odds, is hugely comforting. After all, love is something that seems rarer and more challenging both to find and to keep these days with the advent of the swipe generation.

Love is an effort that must be made. It is a challenge that must be handled carefully and touched softly.

Careful not to push or pull too hard, but also something to lose ourselves into while keeping ourselves intact – a delicate balance that is much too often lost. There is a comfort in knowing that there are still people out there who, every day, find and uncover this delicate balance.

I like to think that if others can find and keep this amazing thing called love, it means that someday all of us could uncover the secret of this perfect balance for ourselves. Sometimes, in the moments when love seems more challenging or particularly scarce, it is this hope that keeps me going and keeps me positive.

I’ve spent a lot of time watching people who are successful at love and trying to isolate those exact elements that create ideal love life and love life shared as a true team with someone. I’ve spent time interviewing and watching the behaviour of both sexes to uncover what truly makes one successful in finding and keeping love.

One of the main things I’ve found is that it is those people who wish well for others who also find well for themselves.

Everyone I’ve spoken to claims that they want to be with someone with a positive outlook on life, no matter how negative their own outlook is. Those with a genuinely positive outlook on life attract more people in general; they have more friends; and they are nicer and more pleasant to be around.

Being likeable is the first stage towards being lovable. Obviously, there are exceptions to this rule and we all know people that we think are horrible that somehow land themselves a fantastic partner. But these are exceptions, and they often don’t bode well in the long-term. Imagine women you know who spend loads of time primping for a party and look a million bucks, but who wear a sulky or pompous expression when they actually go out. Though they may look beautiful, they generally don’t manage to attract quality people to them because the attitude they wear on the inside shines through and gives them away.

Such is everything in life. People who are attractive on the inside are much more successful in attracting quality, long-term partners to them.

When we wish well for others, even the things that we desire most and may not have ourselves yet, we open up that channel into the universe to allow those wonderful gifts to flow.

Wanting well for others also keeps our hearts more pure and our smiles of happiness for others’ successes more genuine. And this will radiate from us and create positivity that in itself is attractive.

One of the things that I’ve loved most about being a part of DrivenWoman is having that network of amazing women that genuinely wish each other well, being there to help during the failures and to congratulate during the successes. It means that we can truly be ourselves, filled with questions or happily finding answers, while improving ourselves at the same time, becoming the best version of who we really are.

So let all of us learn to smile at love! Let us celebrate the fact that there are many who feel it strongly and who want to show it – even if we ourselves don’t feel it immediately at the moment, or even if it’s a bit dangling in distress, we know that it’s out there and that someday we, too, have the potential to bask in all its’ glory.

Let’s wish others well and open a positive window to all possibilities.

Julia

Julia Keller is a DrivenWoman member and Group Leader; and a transformational Love Coach.

Being Grateful On Thanksgiving

Being Grateful On Thanksgiving

The Americans have just celebrated Thanksgiving, the holiday that is very close to my heart being raised in the US. We gather with friends and family to celebrate an important time in history when the Pilgrims, in what is now the US, gave thanks for a good harvest that year.

I still remember a lesson my cousin taught us many years back on one of the last Thanksgivings that I was able to spend with my family in the US. “Thanksgiving is about giving thanks, being grateful,” she told us and asked us all to go around the table to tell everyone what we were grateful for.

So this year, I find that it’s me ushering both my Love Coaching clients and my kids to consider what they’re grateful for. There are many people I know who spend much of their time thinking and talking about the things in their lives that aren’t working and that they’d like to change. While growing and improving is something I am a very big supporter of (and something I myself am always doing in my own life), complaining about what’s not working on a regular basis is usually not an effective strategy for a successful life.

In fact, most of the people I know who spend a lot of time complaining, actually spend very little time really doing something to change their circumstances.

Some people have simply become accustomed to only talking about what’s not working in their lives. What’s interesting is that those same issues that they’ve always had are still there many years later. Sometimes, the issues even seem to get worse as the Law of Attraction states: like attracts like. Thinking and complaining about what’s wrong and what’s not working, will inevitably draw more of that into your life and you keep paing more attention to it.

This is why gratitude is so important.

When we’re forced to look at what in our life is actually something that IS working and that we feel gratitude for, it introduces a completely different way of looking at our life in general. One of the exercises that I do with my clients suffering from issues of self-confidence, for example, or with issues in their relationship, is force them to look at what they DO like, either in themselves or in their partner. Often, just that little exercise forces a dramatic shift that completely changes the mentality of the person.

That’s not to say that we should rest on our laurels and just be happy with everything we have without ever asking for more. Not at all. Asking for more – and then acting towards those goals – is what drives success.

But we also will never find contentment if we spend all of our time just asking for more. There is a balance that must exist between asking for more and thanking the universe (or whatever force you believe in) for what you’re being given.

Most of us have small miracles coming into our lives on a regular basis. The problem is that we often miss them.

That’s where gratitude is so important.

When we force ourselves to look for what we are thankful for in our lives, we often begin to realise just how amazing and miraculous our life really is.

I always think of my parents and how they speak about each other when asked. After more than 35 years of marriage, they are more integrated and united than ever and each still claims that the other is their ideal partner in life, even with occasional issues that arise and have arisen over time. It may not be possible to have the ideal partner, or the ideal life. But what is within our grasp, is how we look at what we have and what we’ve been dealt, and how we react to it.

The same incident has the potential to be both a blessing or a curse, depending on the perspective from which we look at it. That, in itself, seems to be what makes the biggest difference in how things actually turn out in our lives.

Today, I’m incredibly grateful for my children, my family and my good friends. I’m grateful for all the amazing women I meet who help me realise every day why I do what I do, and a big I give a big thanks to all my clients who have trusted me to take them on a journey of self improvement and self discovery.

What you are grateful for today?

Julia

Julia Keller is a DrivenWoman member and group leader; and a transformational Love Coach.

Time To Life Is Now

Time To Life Is Now

Ever since I’ve had the courage to truly pursue my long dream of becoming a Love Coach, I’ve found myself meeting the most incredible, interesting people who have the potential to be truly great and live a life that is amazing, but who find themselves stuck in one way or another, incapable of truly living or enjoying the life they find themselves in.

I have met men who fear commitment so much that even though they yearn longingly for that incredible love, marriage, and family, when it finally comes along smiling and beckoning towards them, they find every possible excuse not to claim that potential love that is right there in front of them. I have met them years later too, when that love is now someone else’s prize and they are filled with bitterness at that moment when they failed to act and claim that ideal life for themselves.

I have met women who were so hurt by some man who never valued or appreciated them that they wasted precious extra time (sometimes years, occasionally even decades) moping and crying over him rather than stepping out and using the opportunity to meet someone wonderful who could truly be “the one”. Years later, these same women, who wasted their 20s and early 30s in tears and wallowing find their biological clocks ticking against them and their desperation growing and spend that same precious time lamenting how they wasted too much time lamenting!

I know that it’s hard to put the pain away and to stop running after the lost moments. Believe me, I have been there myself. I still occasionally catch myself saying things like, “if I’d only known this when I was younger…”

Time isn’t going to wait for you to find that perfect moment which doesn’t exist and in which everything comes together beautifully.

It isn’t real and there is no point in wasting yet more of this precious time in fear, in hiding, in lamenting, in regretting, in holding back so much that you don’t even allow yourself to feel. You see, life stands still for no one! Time doesn’t have mercy; it doesn’t feel your pain; it doesn’t understand your grievances or your perfect reasons for not being ready just yet. Time is just there ticking away, taking all of your precious excuses and all of your precious hours just the same, whether you live them or not.

I know this now and I know many people who have learned it too late and who still grieve the many moments that they’ve wasted. Most of the people that I know who are filled with regrets live to regret the things that they didn’t do and not the things they did do. The majority of time we suffer for our lack of action; and not for the bold acts that we took bravely. In my own life I’ve come to realise that it is the words that I didn’t say, the emotions I didn’t express, and the things I was too scared to do at the time that still haunt me.

Failures that come from the brave acts I committed I still look upon fondly as one looks upon battle scars that were not too grave and that left only the slight impression of some daring act in the past. But I remember still the waterfall where I was too frightened to jump off the hill that other more courageous (crazy I thought at the time) people jumped off of proudly. I remember the time I didn’t fly in that single engine plane when I had the chance and I missed the opportunity to see the beauty of nature from above; rather choosing to stand watching safely on the ground too afraid to fly while others soared in the clouds and marvelled afterwards about the beauty that I could only imagine for my fear.

And, of course, what I still regret most are the love affairs never attempted because of so many excuses that seemed rational at the time: because I wasn’t ready then, or it was too complicated, or I was too lost in some secret insecurity within myself to even bother saying “hello”.

Whatever excuse I gave myself then, life passed me by as it inevitably does with all of us.

Then there was my lost career path for a while as well; I still regret how many years I’d forgotten who I was and what I was meant for.

I consider myself lucky though. Somehow somewhere before my last birthday, something suddenly woke me up. It was the best wakeup call I’d ever received – one that many people never manage to receive in their lifetime – even if there were the moments of agony when the veil was finally lifted from my eyes and I realised just how much time I’d wasted up to then.

The one regret I still have: that I didn’t see it sooner. I spent so many hours, days, weeks, months, and years in inaction that a small part of my life disappeared with it. Now that I’m awake though I can’t bear to see those who still live in a walking daydream and pass their hours by complaining about the life they’ve never lived, when there is a life just within their reach that they are too scared to take advantage of.

I know many people personally who lamented wasting their youth and not getting married and spend so many waking days speaking of how they’re longing to find that ideal someone to share their life with. But whenever someone who seems like a great catch comes along, they find reasons and excuses of why that person too is not the right person for them. Time goes by and no one is ever right. Before they know it their thirties blend into their forties, and their forties become their fifties, then their fifties become their sixties, and they are still alone and still searching for that elusive match that doesn’t really exist.

The only one responsible for your perpetual unhappiness and lack of fulfilment in life is ultimately – you.

The time to act is now. The time to discover the life you’ve always wanted to live is in this moment. The time to live is now! It’s so important that I will say it again over and over again and it’s what I teach my clients, because it’s this lack of living I almost faded into that still haunts me to this day!

And if you don’t know how to get started on your own, ask someone who knows a bit more for help. For all the women who are reading this and who are ready to live but just don’t know how, and are frustrated with what seems like a constant array of shutting doors, let me be your guide. I have stood where you are standing before and I have known that same frustration and that same feeling of wanting to move but not being sure of how or where. Now that I’ve come out the other side, I know how amazing that light at the end of the tunnel really is, even if there’s another tunnel waiting later on down the road. There is nothing that feels as wonderful as truly feeling alive and truly being in control of your own life and your destiny.

The time to live is now! Why waste another moment in inaction and in a feeling of helplessness. Nothing good ever came out of persistent ruminating without eventual action. Live now! Breathe now! Love now! Feel now! 

Now is the moment to take that plunge, to find that love, to breathe in that moment, to take that risk.

Now is the moment to approach that attractive stranger you’ve been eyeing, or to go further with that friend you’ve been fancying for years (just learn to do it in the right way of course). Life isn’t going to wait out your fears. Time won’t stop or go backwards to accommodate you because you’re not ready yet. Giving into a fear of motion, or commitment, or action of any kind will just leave you alone longer. Yes you can always claim later that you’ve learned to depend on yourself better. But, let’s be honest: there’s no happiness in life as great as that amazing happiness that comes from having a truly fulfilling, loving relationship. Just ask any of those rare people who’ve had the courage to reach for what they’ve wanted and the ability to appreciate it. Don’t wait any longer to pursue it. The time to life is now!

Julia

Julia Keller is a Transformational Love Coach for Women and a DrivenWomanmember. She empowers women to Find the love they want, Improve the love they have, & Love the life they live. Join her DrivenWoman Workshop – Finding Your Femininity, Become Irresistible on 28. September 2015 6:30 pm in Soho, London. Find out more here.

Why So Many Women Are Single

Why So Many Women Are Single

I must admit that since I’ve decided to “own it” and commit to being a Love Coach full time, I’ve met some very interesting people and heard some fascinating stories which bring new light to why so many women are single.

Just the other day, I was at a theatre event, with my boyfriend, that was preceded by some mingling time for guests. As I teach my clients the importance of chatting to people and mingling at social events (including skills for “working a room”), I decided to put those techniques to use in this real-life situation. So, after turning to a couple beside us and ensuring that my boyfriend was happily in conversation, I walked off and eyed the room for interesting people to speak to. Immediately, I caught sight of a woman who I thought was cute, but, from her energy and look, I figured was definitely single. She was standing beside another woman looking rather uncomfortable, her mobile clutched in her hands nervously as if she’d turn to it the minute that her friend found someone else to converse with. This happened pretty quickly as the friend was greeted by someone she knew with whom she began an enthusiastic conversation. As I expected, rather than looking for someone else to speak with, this woman began instead to scroll nervously through her phone.

I decided to rescue her. Walking in her direction, I met eyes with and smiled at a man I’d never met who was clearly eager to chat with someone. I introduced myself to the woman on the phone with an admiring line about her handbag. She seemed extremely relieved to have someone actually approach her and we immediately began to converse. She seemed very sweet and I liked her energy. Upon discovering what I do, she launched into a hurricane of just how difficult it was to meet men in London and how “she’d tried everything”. I listened attentively but didn’t offer any advice, as I would have normally a year ago.

My very supportive boyfriend encouraged me to follow my dream of helping to empower women to find love, and paid for me to be coached by a well-known “Supercoach”, named Judymay, who coaches other coaches on how to get themselves out there and succeed as coaches. Judymay explained to me the importance of “not giving free advice” to people I meet. Clients value much more what they pay for and will actually put that into action. It was true. My parents, who are therapists, had always told me that “if someone wants professional advice, they will pay for it. If they won’t pay for it, they don’t really want it or aren’t ready to hear it”.

Thanks to Judymay’s advice, I was able to avoid telling this woman that she would easily meet someone if she would just mingle rather than looking at her phone. At that moment, the man I’d exchanged a glance with came over and began speaking with me. The woman by my side was just about to shrink away and scroll through her phone again when I introduced her to this man who seemed very keen to chat. I noticed my boyfriend looking at me a bit warily, so I came over to him, gave him a reassuring pat and introduced him to another group standing beside us that I’d never even met before. He easily began to converse with the man in the group, so I moved on.

This time I spotted a woman sitting on one of the chairs to the side of the room reading a book. Yes, that’s right: she was actually sitting and reading a book during a mingling event. I decided to give her the benefit of the doubt and consider that maybe she was married and didn’t want to meet anyone (though I think we should all be meeting new people all the time regardless of our couple situation). I sat down beside her and asked a question about the book, remarking that I’d heard the author’s name (I hadn’t) and wondering what she thought of it. She seemed pleased to have someone who actually came over to speak with her and spoke animatedly about the various books the author had written and how much she enjoyed his writing style. When she discovered that I was a Love Coach, she right away said, “oh gosh, I could sure use one; I haven’t had a date in years”. “Yes,” I thought. “That might have something to do with the fact that you are sitting and reading a book rather than taking the opportunity to mingle while at an event loaded with available men”. I said nothing but instead began asking her more questions about her. In fact she was easily engaged, very well spoken, and had a fascinating life. I was captivated and saddened by the thought of this fascinating woman not being able to find a man.

Just then, a man with an cute white doggy sat down beside us and I immediately went to stroke him and commented on how adorable he was. From my many dog-owner friends, I even knew some of the key questions to ask to keep a dog conversation afloat. The woman beside me was just about to launch into her book again when, instead, I introduced her to the man with the dog (who I’d never met before). As it turned out, she too was a dog owner and the two easily chatted about the funny things their two dogs did (that wasn’t so hard). Considering my job there done, I noticed the woman with the mobile phone was once again back on her phone as the man I’d introduced her to had moved on.

I was about to return to rescue her again when a man with a lovely knitted scarf beside me caught my eye. I smiled and commented on his scarf. He told me that his daughter had knitted it and we began a lively conversation about how lovely it was that children were being taught how to knit in school (my daughter’s school had a knitting club and she was eagerly knitting a scarf for her little sister). At that point, I noticed my boyfriend looking like he needed rescuing, so I introduced the man with the scarf to the woman with the phone. By the time I walked over to give my boyfriend a warm squeeze, the man with the scarf had moved on and the woman was back on her phone. Luckily, the performance was just about to start so we were all called to sit down.

During the intermission, the woman with the phone approached me eagerly and asked me if I knew the two men that I had introduced her to. “No, I just met them,” I replied. She seemed shocked. “But how did you talk to them so easily?” she asked. “It was like you’d known them for ages!” “Actually, that’s one of the things that I teach my clients,” I replied, shamelessly giving myself a plug as Judymay had instructed. She quickly asked for my card. I apologised that my new logo wasn’t ready yet, so I didn’t have any cards, but promised I’d email her if she gave me her email address. The woman with the book approached me as well at the end of the play and thanked me for introducing her to the man with the dog. It turned out that she and the man were almost neighbours and the two had a dog-walking date planned for that coming weekend. She was nervous, she said though, as she hadn’t had a date in years. I said that I’d be happy to guide her as “that’s one of the things that I do with clients”, and she gave me her card.

My boyfriend meanwhile had made a good work connection. There was a queue for picking up the coats on the way out so I took the opportunity to chat with a couple that was waiting beside us. We found out that all four of us were going to be at the same art exhibit the following weekend so we exchanged numbers saying that maybe we could grab a coffee there.

At the end of that event, I walked out with two perspective clients and some possible new friends. My boyfriend had made a good business connection; and a date between two complete strangers was arranged. All of that was made possible by some simple mingling.

So why are so many women single when it’s just a matter of an easy conversation? I asked some of my shier single friends that question. “Maybe we just don’t feel confident enough to try,” one told me. Or maybe they just don’t know the techniques for mingling in a social situation.

~ Julia

We Cannot Fly Unless We Jump

Ever since I’ve began telling people that I’m a Love Coach, the response I get has been very often a resounding “Oh I really need you!” While this is obviously great for my coaching career, and while I’ve won quite a few clients just by meeting them, it’s also unfortunately a sign of our times when there are more singles than ever and where people struggle more than ever before to truly connect (in person) to another human being.

The problem with today is that we all walk around being extra polite and PC to one another and playing some game that makes us seem like everyone else playing the same game. But this doesn’t work. It doesn’t get us what we actually want, which is normally to be really loved and accepted by another human being and to truly love and accept them back; and it doesn’t bring us any closer to happiness.

On this coming Valentine’s Day in this year of 2016, have the rules of dating changed so much that we don’t even recognize what we’re meant to be anymore? We’ve forgotten what it feels like to love for real (and that’s a word few dare to utter anymore), to fight for what we truly want, to put our hearts out there and possibly have them ripped out. We’re so afraid of getting hurt, that we don’t allow ourselves to feel anymore. But can we ignore the fact that we cannot fly unless we jump. We cannot soar unless we take a risk and at least attempt flight.

We are so afraid of getting hurt, that we do nothing. We are so fearful of crashing that we take no risks. Instead we flick from one image to another on our Tinder screens, because that is a safer type of rejection than actually putting ourselves out there and being rejected. We go through bodies like they’re disposable but we don’t get past the limbs into the soul and we don’t allow anyone into our soul. Everything seems too replaceable, too ready to be discarded. There is always something better around the corner, isn’t there? Why work on anything? Why try to make anything last when there is always something else that is younger, more shiny, more new, and less full of cracks.

We are so fearful of the pain that will maybe possibly come from being hurt one day if someone doesn’t love us as we are that we hide who we are under layers of protective unfeeling instead. We take no risks; we jump no leaps; we stand for nothing; and we never stand out of the crowd of everyone else who stands for nothing too. We blend; we fit in. We forget that what actually makes us special — what makes us amazing — is that fearless individuality that we’re trying so hard to hide.

I have been hurt and I have done the hurting. I have cried buckets for both. But it has passed and I’ve healed and I’ve moved forward. But of all the pain  that one can feel in this world, there is little that feels as bad as loneliness. There is little to cure that constant ache that comes from hiding behind all the layers that stop us from ever reaching what we really want to hold. It isn’t constantly changing bodies that we’re after; not really. Even those who are temporarily distracted by bodies are actually after something much more profound eventually.

But as it works in finance; it works the same in life and in love: no risk; no return. If you risk nothing — nothing of yourself and nothing of your heart — then you end up with nothing. You end up alone. Or worse, you end up with the wrong someone and just as lonely as if you were alone. As someone who has been in all directions of pain, I think that one is the worst.

Valentine’s Day is coming this week, and I know the feeling of wanting to hide, hibernate, escape, whatever. I know the feeling of wanting to run away and ignore that ache that comes from being lonely on a day that seems to celebrate love. But what if we took a risk and did something different this time around. What if instead of running, hiding, hibernating, escaping, or whatever; we stood still and faced the reality of our situation and actually looked it flat in the face and said “no more!” What if we did something about it. What if we took a risk. What if we jumped. What if we laid our heart raw and took the risk of someone trampling on it. What if we said, “that’s it! Now I do everything I can to make sure that from now on my life will be different.”

We will never win another’s heart if we are constantly afraid of letting ours go bare. We will never set ourselves apart from the masses if we always just say the right thing that we hope they’re wanting to hear, if we just blend. We will never stand out from a crowd of everyone else if we behave like everyone else. To be noticed, to be seen, to be felt, to be desired above every other person, we must be different. We must be brave. We must risk everything. And if we feel that we have nothing; well then we have nothing to lose. We must ignore the fear; we must take a risk. We must jump and even if we fall flat on our faces, those moments of excitement, the moments of passion — those moments when we really feel that we can only experience if we take a risk — they will be bigger and better than anything we can imagine if we play it safe; and they will last us a lifetime of memories and maybe even will create a lifetime of love.

What we can learn about love from Downton Abbey

It’s the beginning of the newest year now, the beginning of 2016, and I must admit that I spent quite a bit of my time stuck in the past – very much in the past in fact. I spent it stuck into the latest several series of Downton Abbey. Ok I must admit that, though I am normally too busy doing too many things, occasionally I become one of those people who becomes so involved in a series that I don’t want to do anything at all, except sit home and watch it. Not many series have that effect on me. Downton Abbey is one of them. Considering my weakness for historical dramas of any kind, Downton grabs me not just for its’ so interesting portrayal of history from different sides of life on a wealthy estate (the owners and the servants and the people that interact with them), but also for its gripping characters who have stories and back stories that make us more sympathetic to their plight, in particular to their changing love lives and quirky romances (or lack of romances for some of the characters).
Being a Love Coach, this look at how love took place (or was meant to take place), back at the turn of the previous century, is fascinating for me. I became gripped with the stories of some of the characters’ struggles between doing what they wanted to do and what was expected of them from the society that they inhabited.

The thing about Downton Abbey which I found most fascinating was its inclusion of all ages in the possibility to find love. In fact, that may be one of my favourite things about the series. We watch an elderly widow find love again with another widower, both probably in their late 50s or 60s. Currently, I have several clients in their 40s, 50s, and 60s who come to me complaining that they’re probably too old for love (and for big life changes). But Downton teaches us that it’s really never too late to find love (after all, that was more than 100 years ago and they managed it). Even the beautiful and elegant mother in Downton, for example, is likely herself in her 50s in the series where she is flattered and flirted with (very openly) with a wealthy art expert that comes to look at a painting in her home. This happens even though she is married! He doesn’t seem to mind her age any more than he takes issue with her marriage situation when he makes a very obvious pass at her.

Clearly, I’m not encouraging adultery. What I am supporting, however, is the fact that we can be, and are, beautiful at any age – and this is not something that we should forget or disregard. I myself often do all I can to run away from my years and to fight all of the signs of aging that will one day betray me. I am not saying that fighting aging is a bad thing necessarily. Personally, I believe that we should do what makes us feel best about ourselves. So if having more beautiful skin makes you feel good, by all means do what you can to have it (including looking after your skin on the outside but on the inside too with good nutrition). But, eventually, despite all of our best efforts, time will always win, and we must be able to look at ourselves and be satisfied with what we see at any point in our lives, and not only when we are young and youth is our prize. Both my mother and my grandmother are two examples I often site of women who I have seen have great beauty that shone from the inside out despite their years. My kids’ nanny and my former father in law’s girlfriend are always women that I site as examples of beauty and elegance that is with them even well past their 30s, and without investing in expensive or radical surgeries to ward off the process of aging. My nanny, for example, swears by treatments that she creates herself out of things that I can find in my refrigerator. These are women that I know personally and who I know also that men still find attractive.

Though, as women, we are sometimes shown by society that our age will work against us, when we pass a certain point, one of the things that touched me most about the Downton series is its’ demonstration of the fact that this doesn’t have to be the case. The majority of the strong characters in the end series, for instance, find themselves singles and over 30 contrasting what too many people still like to claim as a truth in these modern times. Some time ago a single male friend of mine in his 50’s alerted me to an article published in The Sunday Times insert about women over 40 not being able to find any men who have interest in them (even sexually).This was written from one female writer’s personal experience faced by her and her friends. Recently, there was another article about why older men prefer younger women in a different magazine which another of my successful and older male friends referred me to. Personally, I think we should stop brainwashing women with this idea that they lose their potential as a woman the minute they allow some fine lines or grey hair to show. I know enough successful, single older men who have learned from experience that they will only find their match in a woman who is also their match in age. Many have been there, done that and tried to find love in youth and beauty, but found it lacking. My ex-husband was with a woman 10 years my junior after we split. After seeing that she was clearly not his match, he found a woman who is elder than me and much more suitable. Unlike the younger woman, his current girlfriend has lived as he has and one of her many strengths is the fact that she is a wonderful mother, as well as a character that developed thanks to her age and her time in life. They have been together for several years now and I am always so happy to tell everyone of his wonderful match. It shows his quality as a person and as a man that he did not just become another statistic of the typical man looking for a much younger woman.

Even Downton Abbey has allowed the elder characters to find love despite the times, the society, and their age. So why can’t we allow ourselves the same right? Even the Dowager Countess, the eldest woman represented and in her 70s, is allowed love when an admirer from her past comes forward with interest in renewing their past love affair. You might say that this is a made for TV series and not real life. But I will counter with “and? Who cares?” If these characters are supposed to be a semi-accurate representation of the days at the turn of the previous century, and if in those days you were allowed love at any age, then why do we deny ourselves this right in these modern times? Certainly today we don’t need to hide the fact that we want to be physically intimate with someone who isn’t our husband, as some of the characters had to. We also don’t seem to worry about having children out of wedlock, as a character on the show did. So why do we worry that aging means that we can’t live the life that we want to have? These days our medical care, as well as modern technology and our access to information and alternative care, is so good that we can live decades longer than we did in those times. Plus, it is a well-known fact that women tend to outlive men, so there will be many more women living as widows and as divorcees well into their years. Are we then supposed to give up on all hopes of companionship or romance just because we are no longer considered young? I know that I don’t plan to. I won’t be giving up this battle ever. That’s why I choose to work primarily with women over 30, and I have no upper age limit to who I want to make a significant difference for.

The one thing I can say is that your time is now. There is not time like the present to start to find the love that you seek, or to improve on the love that you already have. If you’re not sure whether to act or to wait, just imagine how it would feel if you were in exactly the same place that you are now five years from now because you keep stalling. And if you’re still undecided about what to do, why not speak with me. Reply to this email for a free half hour consultation call or join one of my workshops listed below. Take advantage of my Valentine’s Day promotion that’s only good until Valentine’s Day to join one of my workshops for almost half off the price.

Happy New Year 2016! – Let the singles learn to mingle this time around!

So this is it: the last days of the last month of this year (2015). As always, New Year’s is a time of celebrations, festivities, and the making of resolutions. After all, there is the potential of so many exciting things coming around the corner and in the New Year. But, for many, there is also something that the end of another year gone by that could feel somewhat ominous, especially if we’re not quite where we want to be for that year.

The problem with another year past and you feeling not at all closer to achieving your own love and life goals is that it has the potential of knocking you down and making you feel that achieving what you want is so far away that it almost feels impossible. The problem with that mindset is that we attract the reality that we imagine, even in our worst case scenarios, which often tend to emerge at this ominous time of years ending (yes even among the happy, celebrating faces). Another such pensive time, by the way, when thoughts of “what have I really accomplished with my life up to now?” crawling in as you get older, is the time of the birthday. For my kids, who are still little, both New Year’s and their birthday is an exciting, happy time of celebration that they highly look forward to, just as they look forward to being allowed to stay up past midnight on New Year’s Eve. For most of my coaching clients, at the beginning of their love journey, these two events bring more misery and dread than they do excitement. While my kids are counting down the days to their birthday parties and to Christmas and New Year’s Eve when they have either gifts to unwrap or a party to go to, my clients are trying to figure out how they can avoid the party and maybe sleep through the event altogether to pretend it never even happened.

Many of my clients are faced with families asking them, as they have for years, why they’re still single; or — even worse — not asking anymore as they’d given up years ago. Christmas and New Year’s is a time that can feel especially alone if you’re alone. I know as I remember a Christmas that I spent alone when I’d just finished with a relationship that wasn’t working. It can be a very lonely time for singles. The problem is that my clients (who often come to me around these momentous seasonal occasions) aren’t yet looking at the benefits of the timing itself.

The good thing about times of the year when singles feel more single is that it is actually not just an individual feeling. Everybody’s feeling the same. Other singles are feeling just as lonely and alone as you are. Hence it’s the ideal time for singles to mingle and to meet each other. Plus, Christmas and New Year’s bring with them ample opportunities for meeting others: whether for friendship or for love. This is the time of drunken Christmas parties where everybody is much more inclined to be merry and friendly. So, rather than trying to hide the seasonal time away, take any and every opportunity to be out and about where the other people are. Fight your inclination to say “no thank you” to an invitation to yet another Christmas or New Year’s party or your desire to celebrate on your own in the closed confines of your home, hiding with a box of tissues, a tub of ice cream, and a romantic film. Who will you meet there? The pizza delivery guy? Is that who you want to go out with?

Need help figuring out where to go and what to do? Let me be your guide. Email me to schedule your free half hour session to juliakellercoaching@gmail.com or sign up to my upcoming Irresistible Woman workshops (listed below). Or join me and over 20 other Love Coaches for the Irresistible Woman Summit organised by Nicole Moore to find out some of our free tips on How to be an Irresistible Woman by clicking HERE

New beginnings

This year is the first in so many ways.  It is the first year in which I truly feel that I am fulfilling my mission in life.  It is the first of so many important opportunities to fully have looked into myself and discovered who I really am and what I am meant to do in the bigger picture of life.  And it is, most importantly, the first time in a very long time that what I do as my job is what I have always wanted to do: to help women learn to feel good about themselves and to empower them to create the lives that they truly want to have, especially to create the love life that they ideally want. I have been doing this for years already, but now I am doing this for a living and able to focus on it entirely and completely – which means that I can do it better.206bef42-953d-4f22-a695-432d94ea1e49

For the first time ever, I can spend as much time as I want really helping women to find that inner love and personal confidence in themselves and then to teach them how to go out there and take control of their lives to make their love life happen as they want it to, not waiting for someone else to do it for them.

Not too long ago I ended some very important relationships in my life because I did not feel that they were right for me long term.  Several years before that, I ended, with the paperwork to demonstrate its finality, my relationship with my husband (and the father of my children) of more than eight years.  I did not stop to worr

y at any point in any of these finalities of whether I would ever meet someone truly suited to me who I’d want to spend the rest of my life with. I just knew that I eventually would, if I wanted to. I never worried when leaving my husband – who was the main financial provider of our family – whether I would be able to survive without the ample financial means that marriage and life together with him provided. I just assumed that I would be fine. Now, many years after I took that brave move that set my life initially into darkness, I know that I will be much more than just fine. And I can honestly say that I have been more than fine after the end of each relationship that finished after that.

Not only that I was more than fine, but every ending brought about what was necessary for an even better beginning. Everything that didn’t work brought a further learning, both of myself, and of relationships in general. So that every time after the end of each relationship, I took the time to really meditate and consider my part in all that happened and what I learned from it, thereby further perfecting my knowledge and myself. Every new beginning to every new relationship created something that was better than what I had left behind.

This is not of course to say that we should always leave something in the hopes of finding something better. In fact, much of my coaching is done with women who are in relationships already and who I help to value what they have so that they can truly appreciate how lucky they are to have it and then to even improve on it to such a degree that the relationship that they help to create, with just the right amount of coaching to empower them to create it, is a relationship so vastly improved from what they had when they first came to see me. So no I am not a supporter of walking away always in search of the better thing around the corner. But I do advocate walking away from something that isn’t working if it really doesn’t feel like it ever will be that which you seek. This is courage in and of itself; and it is a courage that comes from valuing who you are and what you stand for, and from knowing that you are amazing enough to have many other, better options than being stuck in something that isn’t working. This is what I do in my practice: I empower women with this kind of self-belief so that they never feel stuck again.

Want to learn how to become that ideal woman who has the power to attract the right kind of man? Join me for one of my upcoming workshops or work with me One to One for an even deeper transformation.

A Highly Irresistible Christmas Offer

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It’s that time of year again… There are lights hanging around Oxford Street, one of the big shopping areas of London, and the tree is up in Rockefeller Center, as the ice skating rinks get full and that familiar, festive aroma of mulled wine, hot cider, and winter holiday cheer is in the air again. Are you in the Christmas spirit yet?

While for many Christmas is an exciting, beautiful time of love, family, gifts, and wonderful connections; for too many others it’s a time of too much stress, family they don’t want to be with, friends that seem to be having a better time than they are, and that feeling of loneliness due to the fact that they don’t have that someone special to share the holiday with.

How about you? What does Christmas feel like to you? Are you happy and celebrating with family and loved ones that bring a cheerful smile to your face and a feeling of happiness to your heart? Or do you feel lonely and alone with that gnawing sensation that it’s pretty much impossible to attract the kind of partner you really want AND to keep him long enough for the next Christmas to come?

Do you feel often that the truly good men are taken, OR that you’re a magnet for the wrong men? OR that even if you do find a man you like, it’s a struggle to get him to commit and stick around for the holidays, like Christmas, or your birthday, that you keep wishing you can spend that someone special with?

If this is how you’re feeling now, don’t despair…help is here and it’s my very special gift to you this Christmas: so that next Christmas, you’ll be one of those women who you envy with that special someone devoted to you and excited to spend this festive time of family and love with you. Does this sound unbelievable?

Some months ago, I was approached by a well-known Love Coach living in Los Angeles, California to participate in something ground-breaking that allowed me to begin to fulfil one of my many missions: to help women to become that elusive Highly Irresistible Woman that they all want to become but don’t know how. I’ve been working towards fulfilling this mission for some time, in fact, with a book on the subject in the works and my many online and in-person workshops about to be launched next year. So when Nicole Moore, of The Love Works Method, approached me to ask me to be one of her small, elinicole-moore-julia-kellerte group of Love Coaches (mainly from the US) teaching women our techniques to become irresistible, I of course jumped at the chance! I’m thrilled to announce that I’m a featured guest expert on The Highly Irresistible Woman Series, a free virtual video series hosted by my colleague Nicole Moore.

In this series, you will learn how to be a Highly Irresistible Woman from many of the world’s experts on love, dating, and relationships. During this free virtual event, I’ll be sharing my top strategies to be a Magnet for High-Quality Men along with more than 30 of the World’s Leading Love Experts. You’ll discover how to be that Highly Irresistible Woman that men crave and want to commit to and learn how dating can stop being a struggle and start being really fun.

This is my free Christmas offer to you. If you want love, you don’t want to miss this event. Click here for your all access pass to The Highly Irresistible Woman Series. Click here to register and join in on the fun.

And then once you’ve gone through the series, I’m offering you one free hour-long session with me to be taken in January or February only, to make sense of all you’ve learned or to ask whatever pressing question you may have about love or a current relationship. Just email me to juliakellercoaching@gmail.com quoting “Free Christmas Offer”. And please do feel free to share this newsletter or the link above with anyone who you think can also benefit from this offer or from the Irresistible Woman Series. Our mission is to help every woman uncover her own person Irresistibility; so here’s to yours! 

Julia xx

“What the world needs now is love, sweet love…”

Friday the 13th of November 2015 in Paris will now be a date that’s deeply etched into the memories of most of the Western world, especially of those of us in Europe. Just as September 11th, 2001 is still a date that most think about and shudder, the ruthless shootings of innocent people in Paris is another terrorist act that makes us question the anger in the world today. But these dates are in no way isolated incidences, nor, unfortunately, are terrorist acts something rare or novel. When I was thinking about writing this blog, I was really stuck on how to adequately phrase my reflections and my emotions about what happened in Paris just recently. Though terrorism is nothing new and terrorist acts of some kind date all the way back to the 1800s and before, terrorism has, frighteningly, become more prevalent and more violent in our modern times.

So what can we do? Is there any way to change the anger hidden that inevitably causes these crimes against innocent people? Though I wasn’t alive in the 1960’s, the song that came into my head immediately is the one that used one of my favourite words in the chorus: “What the world needs now is love, sweet love… It’s the only thing that we have too little of…” As a Love Coach, of course I will always revert to talking about the importance of love. It’s my job, after all. But, for me, it’s become much more than just a job; it’s become a calling. When I look at the world now, I see a much more dispersed and disillusioned world than ever. With each decade even, certain trends seem to worsen. The divorce rates go up; the marriage rates go down; more articles are written about how many people are single and lonely, but also more difficult to please; and more unhappiness and anger is seen throughout the world.

Something has to change. The growth of online dating, and dating apps, which should serve to help more people connect with other people, rather seems to lead to an increased disconnect, where the search for the superficial and the ease of always finding something better becomes that block that keeps people from attempting to go deeper into each other. A friend of mine who felt this disconnect deeply, even though he was dating many women at once, said to me: “The problem is that everything is about the next best thing. No one sticks it out anymore; no one tries to improve a relationship that’s broken. Why should we when there’s always something better around the corner?” Interestingly enough, after years of dating many women at once, he’s now back together with his ex-wife, with whom he says he always had “a very deep connection”.

I am not saying, of course, that we all should seek out that one partner with whom we ended it years ago and try and make a go of it again. Of course not! Usually things end for a reason. But perhaps maybe we should ease our trigger fingers from ending relationships too quickly too because of some small inadequacy or because we believe that something better might come along and not just with lovers and Partners, but also the relationships we have with family and friends. Perhaps we should make more of an attempt towards a deeper connection and a deeper understanding of people in our lives: be it lovers, friends, or even neighbours. Maybe we should take some time to step away from our computer screens and actually see and get to know the people who live beside us and are around us. Why not actually greet our neighbours and call those family members who we haven’t spoken to in a while?

Human relations are still about actual face to face contact, and that is not something that we should ever give up. People who feel touched and truly loved then do not have the compulsion to hurt others in such a violent and pointless way. Plus, let’s not forget about the idea of the “butterfly effect”. If we are compassionate and show love in one part of the world, that love will then echo throughout the rest of the world and maybe land where it’s most needed. If we all can open up our hearts and show compassion for others, perhaps the world would indeed be a better place.

Julia xx

Giving thanks on this day of Thanksgiving

This month is the month of Thanksgiving (at least in the US). Thanksgiving, officially is a holiday celebrated in the United States on the fourth Thursday in November and is now known as the “eating holiday” because it is more defined by eating an abundance of turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, yams, pumpkin everything, and all kinds of pies (pumpkin, pecan, apple…) than by actually remembering to be thankful for anything (which was really the original point of the holiday). According to Wikipedia, “the event that Americans commonly call the ‘First Thanksgiving’ was celebrated by the Pilgrims after their first harvest in the New World in 1621.The New England colonists were accustomed to regularly celebrating ‘thanksgivings’— days of prayer thanking God for blessings such as military victory or the end of a drought. So it is these colonists that we can thank for the idea of giving thanks.

The idea behind Thanksgiving was supposed to be a day when we think about things and people that we are grateful for and when we remember those things and give thanks for them. Even though I am currently living in London, I still celebrate Thanksgiving every year. When I was in the US, Thanksgiving dinner would normally be a big group of family and close family friends gathering at my parents’ house. My home these days is too small for a big group, so my celebration every year is a smaller one, just with close friends and their children. I do focus on the food of the holiday of course (that is after all one of the best parts). But I also think it’s important to not forget the thankfulness part of the holiday. After all, how often do we really remember to be grateful for what we have. Normally, it’s the opposite: we walk around thinking about what we lack, what we don’t like, and what we’d like to change, or at least where we’d like to be eventually (that isn’t where we are at the moment).

But, though looking to better ourselves in our lives is of course a very important part of self-development and achieving success, it is no less important in the achievement of happiness than being grateful for who we are and what we’ve already achieved. In fact, according to Harvard Health Publications in their online article about the research about gratitude they write that “In positive psychology research, gratitude is strongly and consistently associated with greater happiness. Gratitude helps people feel more positive emotions, relish good experiences, improve their health, deal with adversity, and build strong relationships.” Getting in touch with what one is grateful for, either about themselves or about their life or Partner, is an exercise I do with my clients when I help to refocus them on the positive. By looking at what we do have, rather than focusing on what is missing, we are able to very dramatically begin to change our life outlook, which therefore begins that change towards that better life and love life that we crave.

So in this very important time of Thanksgiving, I want to give thanks to the important people in my life who are the reasons why I am here and why I’m making the work I’m doing with clients and with women in my workshops and women’s groups into my mission. Thank you. I appreciate you all.

Julia xx

First in so many ways

Dear All ,

This year is the first in so many ways.  It is the first year in   which I truly feel that I am fulfilling my mission in life.  It is the first of so many important opportunities to truly have looked into myself and discovered who I really am and what I am meant to do in the bigger picture of life.  And it is, most importantly, the first time in a very long time that what I do as my job is what I have always wanted to do: to help women learn to feel good about themselves and to empower them to create the lives that they truly want to have, especially to create the love life that they ideally want. I have been doing this for years already, but now I am doing this for a living and able to focus on it entirely and completely.

For the first time ever, I can spend as much time as I want really helping women to find that inner love and personal confidence in themselves and then to teach themhow to go out there and take control of their lives to make their love life happen as they want it to, not waiting for someone else to do it for them.

Not too long ago I ended some very important relationships in my life because I did not feel that they were right for me long term.  Several years before that, I ended, with the paperwork to demonstrate its finality, my relationship with my husband (and the father of my children) of more than eight years.  I did not stop to worry at any point in any of these finalities of whether I would ever meet someone truly suited to me who I’d want to spend the rest of my life with. I just knew that I eventually would, if I wanted to. I never worried when leaving my husband – who was the main financial provider of our family – whether I would be able to survive without the ample financial means that marriage and life together with him provided. I just assumed that I would be fine. Now, many years after I took that brave move that set my life initially into darkness, I know that I will be much more than just fine. And I can honestly say that I have been more than fine after the end of each relationship that ended after that.

Not only that I was more than fine, but every ending brought about what was necessary for an even better beginning. Every new beginning to every new relationship created something that was better than what I had left behind. This is not of course to say that we should always leave something in the hopes of finding something better. In fact, much of my coaching is done with women who are in relationships already and who I help to value what they have so that they can truly appreciate how lucky they are to have it and then to even improve on it to such a degree that the relationship that they help to create, with just the right amount of coaching to empower them to create it, is a relationship so vastly improved from what they had when they first came to see me. So no I am not a supporter of walking away always in search of the better thing around the corner. But I do advocate walking away from something that isn’t working if it really doesn’t feel like it ever will be that which you seek. This is courage in and of itself; and it is a courage that comes from valuing who you are and what you stand for, and from knowing that you are amazing enough to have many other, better options than being stuck in something that isn’t working. This is what I do in my practice: I empower women with this kind of self-belief so that they never feel stuck again.

Julia xx

LOVE IN THE SLOW LANE – Take Flight

Natalie Davison’s Personal Blog 

So last Friday night the wing ladies assembled again. Preened and ready for the kill (I mean the flirt).

We hit Soho, and after a false start in a very “coupled up” piano bar we decided to begin practising on the patrons pouring out of a bar nearby (and no – it wasn’t a gay bar).

I started early, doing the look into my eyes trick and was having fun locking eyes with a chap across the bar while we were waiting for drinks to be served. He was a good-looking bloke and I was mindful of the Love Coach‘s advice about practising on those that you’re not interested in before being confident enough to try it out on those that you fancy.

So as our drinks were ready and Julia ordered us outside to begin flirting, I led the charge…

To continue readings click here