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Book Title: #IsHeHereYet: Being the person you want to be with
Author: Dr. Tony Ortega
Publisher: Ortega Psychology LLC
Genre/s: Non-Fiction, Self-Help, LGBT, Dating/Relationships, Motivational, Psychology
Length: 172 pages
Blurb
#IsHeHereYet: Being the Person You Want to Be With is an extremely raw (and funny) look at the perceived epidemic of being single in our quest for love. It dismantles the notion that there is something that we need to do in order to bring in “The One.” Instead, it challenges you to be “The One” and see what shows up then. Regardless of the outcome, the end result will be the best version of you possible. This book is geared toward single and partnered people alike. Through personal and professional accounts of real life situations, as well as thought expanding exercises and meditation tools, the reader will leave with a greater understanding and concept of themselves. They will be able to “date themselves” and create the space to naturally attract loving and authentic relationships.
Buy Links – Available on Kindle Unlimited
Availability: Paperback, eBook, International distribution
Stop making relationships your higher power…
Throughout my life, I placed more importance on being in a relationship than in discovering my core value. I looked around me and saw other people could get into relationships with much
ease, or so I thought. I did not believe I had the same capabilities to do so. Every time someone didn’t like me back, or a date did not lead to a relationship, I felt like there was something innately wrong with me.
Why could other people find a healthy and loving relationship with the person of their dreams and the only way I could seem to be in a relationship was with some troll I was not interested in? I could have been in a relationship anytime I wanted to–if I was not selective in my choice of mate. I have some standards, most of the time. This led to constant feelings of low self-worth, as I would constantly compare myself to my coupled counterparts.
When I am not okay with being single and not okay with who I am regardless of my relationship status, the universe reflects back my perception, and I create the reality of feeling separate and defective. The moment I relinquish the need to be in a relationship to validate my existence, my energy shifts and different things start to happen.
This is proven to me more times than not and I often experiment with the concept. On days I feel down on myself, I check dating/hookup apps and get virtually no results or get results I don’t like. However, on the days that I feel good and don’t care what happens, the opposite is true. So even online, this concept works. Your energy will transfer regardless of the medium you are using to meet potential suitors.
I feel that one of the reasons why I and others make relationships our Higher Power is because it normalises things. Relationships engender a sense of belonging and a feeling of being “just like everyone else.” Advertisements and TV shows rarely do anything to promote being okay with being single. You either see couples and/or propaganda geared towards getting to buy a product or service that will make you part of a couple. Rarely do you see product/ service endorsements that say, “Hey, buy this product/service and you’re going to be so okay with being single.” Instead, we get, “If you buy this, you will get the boy/girl” or “this (being in a relationship) is what normal looks like.”
One of the biggest hurdles I have overcome in my dating and relationship history is not making relationships my Higher Power. This concept came to me via something a client of mine said. He was talking about how he was making money like a god and I sat in my chair and thought to myself, I make being in a relationship like my God. When I connected the dots and realized that I was making dating and relationships my Higher Power, things began to shift. In my quest for love, I was so consumed by when was it going to happen that I neglected to be grateful for what was already in front of me, and neglected my self-care. When I embarked on a journey with a life coach to get to the heart of my “bad relationship” history, I was still determined to get a relationship.
By making relationships your Higher Power, you continue to play small, to play the victim, to not take responsibility for the actions and choices you make; and to continue to blame others for any “misfortune.”
Making a relationship my Higher Power allowed me to stay exactly where I was, in the space of fear and familiarity. It is in leaving the comfort of the familiarity that I can create change in my life. I see that my interest in being in a relationship was my selfishness. I did not have altruistic motives to be in a relationship. The relationship meant that I would now be like everyone else. When I moved from the notion of being in a relationship for my own needs and focused more on the notion of being in a relationship to love and be loved mutually, things started to shift.
Ask yourself these questions (featured in more detail in #IsHeHereYet as one of the Makeover Moments):
- In what ways have you made relationships your Higher Power/power greater than yourself?
- Energetically, how does it feel when you are making relationships your Higher Power?
- What is manifesting in your life when you are in this energetic state?
Work with these affirmations during your quiet time:
“I am comfortable in my skin.”
“A relationship does not define me.”
“I am single by choice, and my life rocks.”
“Every relationship is an assignment.”
“I learn from every relationship in my life.” “I am a powerful person.”
Getting to the point where we are wildly comfortable with who we are despite our external circumstances is the greatest gift we can give ourselves and to our partner. This way of being allows us to step into our innate power so that we can make any task ahead of us a success.
They say your deepest pain becomes your greatest purpose. And this pain was fucking deep.
The catalyst of this book was a breakup. It is ironic that a breakup influenced the development of a relationship book; or, maybe not so ironic. For centuries, artists have created beautiful things from unrequited love. A broken heart has been at the foundation of many of history’s greatest masterpieces.
So, here is a little history: I pride myself on being a very accomplished man. Most of my endeavors are met with a great deal of success. However, there was one area that had eluded me most of my life: relationships. I was convinced I was doomed to be single—as every relationship with a guy I ever had ended in a disaster. I was so miserable being single that I would do everything in my power not to be single. When relationships ended, I did everything I could to avoid the pain. I thought I wasn’t good enough for relationships.
I lived in this story for many, many years. As relationships kept failing, I would shake my fist at God, or see myself as “different” or “less than” because of it. This all led to me getting into some very dark places in my life.
The evening of Friday, November 2, 2012, I was sitting on the toilet in my apartment in Queens, half drunk on frozen margaritas, smoking a Marlboro Light, and arguing with my “boyfriend” over forty dollars. (I use the word “boyfriend” in quotations because it was a relationship he had no idea he was in.) At that moment, I woke up—with a deep knowing that this relationship was over. I felt so pathetic that I ended the conversation, took a long last drag off the cigarette, and knew something had to change.
I decided to take hold of the wheel of my life and change direction. Over the next couple of years, the right people, the right books, and the right programs came my way. While some bounced in and out just to jumpstart my spiritual path, others have remained, mainly my study of the metaphysical text A Course in Miracles. It was the teachings in this text, combined with my spiritual and metaphysical work, which led me to unravel the things I was using to numb out and begin to feel more alive.
After beginning my spiritual journey and immersing myself in A Course in Miracles, I decided to work with a life coach; someone who seemed to have the well-rounded kind of life that I wanted— including a wonderful relationship. A relationship was one of the things I had not yet been able to successfully work out at the time, maybe because I was avoiding, or too busy working on myself. Through my work with this coach, I was able to rewrite the scripts I had been living under for most of my life and dive head first into the dating pool. It was easy at first, and I still stumbled on many occasions as my dating muscles had atrophied quite a bit in the years that I had not exercised them, but I kept taking that next right step.
On March 3, 2016, I met Fernando, the man of my dreams (or so I thought back then). While we had been talking for months online, we had not met before our date. I turned him down for sex over and over again as I was initially not really into him. But I began to think he seemed to have all the qualities I wanted in a man, which is why I continued to hold off on a one-night stand. He was equal parts sexual and spiritual. He was gainfully employed and seemed as motivated to work on himself as I was.
Fernando even matched most of the qualities I had listed in my “Manventory” I had completed New Year’s Day 2016 (more on Manventories later). I figured, Let’s meet and see what happens. When I first met him, I was like, Homeboy photographs a lot better than he looks in person. After chatting with him for a while over drinks and then ending the date with an intense make-out session in the streets of New York City, I was smitten.
However, there were some speed bumps along the way. He was dealing with some personal issues that I felt would get in the way of anything blossoming from our union, but something told me to give him a chance. I made myself wrong for feeling this way and dove in with my eyes closed. We had a lovely relationship that lasted sixty-nine days. It wasn’t perfect, but it broke my then eight-year dry spell, and I was in love.
After a few weeks, he even said, “I love you.” This was thrilling because no one had said that to me in such a long time. I thought that I had achieved the prize from all my hard work since that fateful Friday night in 2012. I had learned my lessons from all my previous failed relationships and now found what I was longing for.
He even gave me the title of “boyfriend,” which only lasted seventy-two hours before he decided to take it away.
I turned into a state of fear for the remainder of the relationship and he ended things quite abruptly on May 10, 2016. I was devastated.
For the next six weeks, I felt completely at a loss over what to do to manage the pain. I numbed it through alcohol and sex. When I was more rational, I searched the Internet for books on gay relationships and breakups, but everything was so out of date. My coach was very supportive, but he was still in his wonderful relationship, and I felt like I couldn’t relate to him because he had what I wanted and but just lost. This is no reflection of his capacities as a life coach. On the contrary, the man is simply amazing. I just had to go through the emotions.
I decided that if there wasn’t a good, up-to-date, dating and breakup book for gay men, then I would write it. I was fed up with the “single-to-relationship” books that were currently on the market. It seemed that all of these particular books were “do this and get the relationship.” I decided it was time to write a dating and relationship book that was more along the lines of “do this, be the person, see what shows up.” At the time of writing this book, I am still single and dating.
Dr Tony Ortega is a first-generation Cuban American gay man. He is a licensed clinical psychologist, life coach, and author who has been in practice since 1992, currently serving the LGBTQ population in his private practice located in Brooklyn, New York. Tony (along with his teaching partner, John Davisi) is the co-creator of the movement, RawSexySpiritual: Spirituality for Gay Men (www.rawsexyspiritual.com). Tony combines cognitive behavioural techniques along with active coaching and metaphysical principles in his work with clients. Additionally, Tony provides spiritual life coaching for individuals seeking a different way to live. He works with his clients within these three principles: Rewrite Your Story, Find Your Voice, and Live Authentically.
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This is a really brave and thought-provoking post. As a fellow singleton, I definitely find society’s messages about love to be a minefield!