Self-esteem and dating

A long ago I heard a quote that if you want self-esteem do esteemable things.  And while I don't speak for everyone out there, sometimes there are still roadblocks in the way of that.  Sometimes you have little patterns of thoughts that run in the background of your brain that are useless, yet continue to run.  In yogic philosophy they call these Samskaras.   On a simple level, they are how your brain learns.  But if they were learned in an unpleasant experience, they can run your life.  I'll use the example of the bad relationship, the one where the other person cheated and they gave some excuse.  It can be a completely invalid excuse like "you were unavailable so I found someone who was" or "I was lonely."  Or it could be something more personal "you were frigid" or "I found this person more attractive."  And those little things can chip away at self-esteem.   But they can also create what Eckart Tolle refers to as a "pain body" or a tone that we carry and react to others according to what experiences we had in the past. 
Having had the experiences of infidelity, breaking up and leaving under my own belt, I can tell you that there were periods of time where I felt less than adequate in the relationship department.  For two years I stayed single, not because I didn't want a relationship, but I was so angry at the last relationship it was impossible to get beyond my "pain body" to a real place of experiencing another human being for who they are.
Self-esteem not only affects how we deal with the world around us, but also the way we treat ourselves.  If we don't feel good enough, how can we expect others to treat us with dignity, respect and love?  If we don't love ourselves how is anyone else going to love us back?  In my adventures in all things online I came across this Short Sale of the Heart and it speaks to that place of being loving to yourself.  Enjoy.   

More Love

Bandits is one of my very favorite movies.  It has crime, drama, comedy and one of the best endings of all time.  If you haven't seen it, please stop reading this and go and watch it because I'm about to tell you the ending.  Why is it so great?  Because the girl, ends up with the guys.  Not the guy.  But guys.  She doesn't choose one, she chooses both.  Brilliant.  Loved it.  

Which leads me to this topic of polyamory.  Just to clarify, I'm using the term polyamory, which is defined as the desire to have multiple intimate relationships with the consent and knowledge of all involved.  Most of the time, people think of the sect of Mormans where a man marries multiple wives as shown in such shows like Big Love and Sister Wives.   I've been watching Sister Wives for a while and what I can say about the women on the show is that they all are very vocal about this life being a choice that they made.  They each have their own relationship with their common husband, they all appear to love each other and their children appear to be very loved and very happy.  Yet, this is an example of where a man can have multiple wives or relationships (as only one of wives is legally married to the man.) but not vice versa.  But there are other examples of this, more recently explored on Anderson Cooper's new daytime show where he invited three guests, two men and one woman who are in a polyamorous relationship, live together, raising the son that two of them conceived.    The two men are not involved with each other, only the woman is involved with both of them.   A lot was discussed, from shared parenting to dating outside the current relationship triangle and comments from the audience were mostly oppositional.  You can watch the episode online but Anderson Cooper's final comment really told the story "Clearly, there is a lot of love here."  And while the therapist on this show emphasized that jealousy is a particularly difficult problem for these relationships, this applies to all relationships.  One of the other claims is that these relationships often don't go as deep or intimate emotionally, and yet from both examples (Sister Wives and the Poly-couples) they would argue differently.  

I'm hoping to interview some people who are currently dating and identify as polyamorous as this is a great example of dating and relationships outside of the box.