I have read a lot of research about dating and success and let’s face it – it is a lot harder than it looks. I am not discounting any of my dating relationships – I have always been blessed so if I dated you and you are reading this, got nothing but love and learning for and from you.
Recently I was in a class about mindset, learning, and resilience and learned the following that may help some of you…
I learned about a research study with mice – the cherry blossom spray was put into a cage and the mice were shocked (I didn’t do the study and I do not like it that mice were hurt) they did this for a period of time and then they stopped.
The mice were allowed to go live life and had babies. They separated the mice from parents and sprayed cherry blossom spray without any shock. Just the smell caused the parent mice to lose their minds and the baby mice without ever being shocked and not seeing their parents – had the same reaction.
This happened over 4 generations of mice – so no shock for 4 generations and the smell of cherry blossom literally caused fear, anxiety, depression, and trauma.
The parent mice who were shocked continued to have issues with the smell of cherry blossoms and had effects of trauma.
Interestingly was the experience of mice who had never been shocked – yet had similar effects of trauma without ever seeing shock or having first hand experience.
Everyone has baggage as you date and everyone has traumatizing situations. As you date, it is important to recognize the cherry blossom experiences that stunt growth, cause fear – it can be growing up in poverty, relationship with money, divorce, custody wars, death, and so on.
A situation where parents struggled financially in your childhood can have lifelong effects on how you respond to life and how you view money and a partner that has a laissez faire view of money may cause severe stress and anxiety as you become resentful when you are working as an adult. It is really important to know your own triggers and that of the person you are dating.
Sometimes you cause fear and anxiety and don’t even realize it – and sometimes you may feel or experience things without an understanding – just know – you are normal.
As you embrace the dating world – it is important to know there are lots of hidden land mines and you may hit one and not even know what caused it.
Similar backgrounds have an easier time of staying together based on outlook, expectation, and dreams. Religion, politics, and social status also impacts this.
Some people may disagree with me on this but I think it reasonable to go up one or down one socioeconomic status: it becomes a problem when it is more than 1 as the person may struggle with acceptance, norms, and expectations. While everything can be worked out – it is similar to some pop stars who do erratic things (sometimes mental health) equally rising to high too fast without adaptation of normal.
Hope this helps have empathy and a bit of peace. Stay tuned for the next episode.
