The Magnet is You. The Magnet is Your Life.

This is part 3 of our series on finding love. Read part 1 here and part 2 here.

If you open up Instagram and type in #manifestation right now, 5 pounds of amethyst says that within 30 seconds you'll stumble across a video of someone draped in linen proclaiming "I don't chase, I attract" is the secret key secret key to manifesting The One. But they never explain how beyond vague advice to "trust the process,” “you can’t miss your path,” and “everything you’re seeking is seeking you.”

The real key to manifesting your wildest dreams isn’t about chasing and attracting what you want but becoming the version of you that has it—your absolute FAVORITE version of you.

To become your Favorite Version of You and find The One, you have to unmask…Shel Silverstein got it.

If you don’t know the what, why, and how of what you’re seeking, and you’re also hiding yourself cloaked in the carefully curated version of yourself—the one you forged in the fires of seventh-grade cafeteria rejection and perfected through years of first-date performances—you won’t miss your path, you’ll just never find it.

Why? Because this “perfect” version of you is an inauthentic mask that’s not only morphing your features and hiding your heart but also stretching across your eyes in an envious curmudgeony green sheen, distorting your vision.

When you present the "perfect" yet inauthentic version of you, not only will your dream partner and lover not recognize you—you won’t be able to recognize them either.

What you seek is seeking you (that’s just physics). Seeking can sound a lot like chasing, and chasing is just scarcity wearing desperation as perfume.

Chasing anyone and anything is the sign of a frantic need to prove your worth.

It's abandoning yourself at the exact moment you’re meant to be embracing yourself.

When you're constantly squeezing, molding, remodeling, and upgrading yourself because you're trying to be someone else's version of "perfect," you're broadcasting on a frequency your soulmate can't even hear.

Chasing looks, smells, and tastes like:

• Making yourself available at 10:47pm on a Tuesday night when they text "you up?"—the right person respects your time and plans proper dates that honor your schedule.

• Dumbing down your wins and whip smart intelligence to be less intimidating—they introduce you to their friends as the brilliant one and proclaim your success from the rooftops because your joy is their joy.

• Becoming a tactical CIA agent decoding their "haha yah" texts and convincing yourself their lukewarm interest is just their "mysterious personality”—they communicate their interest in you clearly, directly, and openly because they want to be understood by you.

Bestie, your dream partner doesn't require chasing.

As Anne Hathaway once said, "Individually, we are whole but together, we are more."

Molly, one of my dear clients was stuck in exactly this passive-Sunday-Scaries-esque manifestation trap.

Molly (name changed for confidentiality) was navigating a truly horrendous dating slump, operating on negative 20% confidence after a parade of men who had collectively obliterated hope that finding anyone who didn't send an extremely low-effort "hey what's up?".

Molly, like many of us spiritual seekers and curious thinkers who are chronically online, had memorized the manifestation affirmations and repeated them daily.

Yet every time I asked her what she craved in a romantic partner, she just recited a carefully curated list her past relationship failures and qualities about herself that make her wifey material. None of what she shared had anything to do with her life, her goals, her values, and her growth.

If you not taking action towards what you want, do you really trust?

Trust is the foundation of attraction and the underlying intention of the affirmations, “I don’t chase, I attract,” “what you seek is seeking you,” and “you can’t miss your path.”

But in modern society, trust is so often associated with passivity. It’s why the concept of "attracting" often stinks of rotten, poorly repackaged, antiquated gender norms that keep you small, powerless, and at the mercy of toxicity.

Trust is a subtle yet profoundly powerful state of being. It’s an active choice but it’s perceived as passive because it begins within.

Trusting doesn’t mean you wait around for what you want to find you up as you teeter up in your impenetrable tower. The definition of confidence is to trust yourself, which means doing what you know is right for you even though it’s out of your comfort zone.

Molly realized she was hiding herself to make herself more palatable.

When I showed her the Shel Silverstein poem, she realized that she kept striking out with dating because she wasn’t actually being herself. She knew she wanted different but she’d never gotten clear on what different actually looked in her future partner, but more importantly, within herself.

Molly had no idea how to unweave the fear and passivity. At least until one particularly mind-blowing coaching session when she met her Future Self in guided meditation.

What Molly witnessed in her future life left her shooketh, wide-eyed, and starstruck. It was loud, vibrant, colorful, and expansive. Her home was filled with the most vibrant colors, eclectic art, luscious plants, and the comfiest of furniture. She was her favorite self living her favorite life.

And the partner she envisioned? He was there in all his RomCom daydream glory. Molly began to cry at the pure love and unconditional adoration he poured into her and their relationship. All because she was fully, authentically her Favorite Self.

Today, a year later, Molly is living in the home she saw in that guided meditation and she’s dating and finally enjoying the experience.

I’m beyond thrilled for her but not surprised. When you follow your dreams and give yourself permission to dream, you can do anything.

When you live life as your Favorite Self, you magnetize your future smoother, faster, and even more effortlessly.

Taking action is sometimes (in my experience often) hard but it’s 1000% times easier when you trust it’s taking actually moving the needle and getting you to the life you want.

When you live life as your Favorite Self, you naturally end up in places and spaces with synchronistic opportunities to meet attractive and aligned humans you’re actually interested in dating for the long haul.

Image credit: @vintagelart

Being a magnet for your soulmate is not backsliding into puritanical values so hard you end up in TradWife purgatory, and finding the princess-perfect way of existing in the world to FINALLY be seen as worthy.

Being a magnet for your soulmate is about constantly transforming into your Favorite You.