147. Dating After 40: Leandra Frey’s Blueprint to Find Love (Without Losing Yourself)

Welcome to Mind Power Meets Mystic. The show where practical mind power and mystical wisdom collide with humor and wild curiosity. Yeah, we're not here to play it safe. I'm Cinthia Varkevisser, your resident spiritual shit disturber. I stir things up with mystic power and bold action. And I'm Michelle Walters, coach and Hypnotherapist. I bring strategy and transformative hypnosis to help you turn subconscious blocks into unstoppable momentum. Let's shake up your thinking, dive into your soul and make bold moves in your life. We'll take you on a journey of breakthrough and aha moments, exploring spirit, business, love relationships and self expansion. We're connecting you with your highest self and flipping fear into strength. So buckle up. We're doing this one wild, transformative conversation at a time.

Let's go.

Welcome everyone. You are here with me. Michelle Walters and my podcast co host Cinthia Varkevisser for another week's episode of Mind Power Meets Mystic. We are really excited today to have our friend Leandra on the show. Leandra is a certified life coach specializing in helping women

recover from heartbreak after a divorce, her mission is to shorten the time it takes to heal and recover your sense of self after the trauma of a divorce. Her goal is to help women reignite their love with courage and attract the right mate. She helps women navigate the world of dating with an authentic approach of learning to have fun and confidence at the same time. Having been divorced herself, she knows the power of shifting your mindset from resentment to feeling love again. Leandra happily lives in the colony in Texas with her husband, Dale and their family of two dogs and two cats. Leandra, we have stuff in common, like, you're a dating coach and I'm a person who is presently still in dating phase, maybe not forever, but at the moment. So I am particularly excited to have a dating coach on our show. We we haven't had too many dating coaches. Yeah, and I want to be a wing woman. I want to be really, yeah, I think everybody needs a wing person. And there are certain qualities that people need to have. So if you can add that in our Convo, bravo. I love that. But Leandra, let's get started with

how did you get into this,

u dated? So I was divorced in: 2000

one of them was my dad, who was remarrying after he had lost my mom, and I went around the whole like the whole wedding venue, asking anyone that I knew that was divorced, like family members. I'm like, How long did it take you to find your person? And they were like, Emo, and the average was three years. And I was like, three years. I was like, that's so long. Well, in the end, it actually took me eight years between the two marriages. So that's part of where I talk about shortening the time, because there's a lot of time wasted with the recovery, the being upset, being unintentional, right? We're just like, Oh, I'll figure this out again. So part of why I do what I do is, you know, whether it's divorce or widowhood or it's just been a terrible breakup, and we just can't recover. I know how easily the time can just go right where it can just pass by and you say, oh, I'll just take a break from dating. And then, before you know it, it can be like, six months later, six years later, 12 years later. Now, thankfully that didn't happen. I was actively dating

in those eight years, and I did, I would probably say, and this is what I tell most clients, if they're coming off a divorce, I usually say, like, don't come talk to me until a year. So I was like, you can come to my events, but I'm not going to start coaching you until a year to get you out there, just because there's a lot of, you know, just a lot of stuff to uncover on the trauma part, and I definitely help with that. If they're like ready, you know they're going through the heartbreak i for during my divorce. I was heartbroken because I really was madly in love with my first husband, and so I was unprepared for, for having to go through what I went through, and especially at 30.

I I was divorced, like, right at 31 and so all my friends had just gotten married, they were starting to have babies. And so I was like, What is going on? So So, yeah, I was, I was really upset. And so probably it

took me the first year I probably shouldn't have dated. I was dating for the wrong reasons, which is, I want to solve my heartbreak. So I just thought, well, I begin to another serious relationship. Get married as fast as I can, you know, maybe I can, you know, bypass the three years and get it at one year or two years. I was dreaming. I see you laughing, Michelle, it's so true. I was dreaming. But, you know, kudos for the optimism.

I still get in trouble with my my timelines, but, um, but yeah, it's so true and so yeah,

you've been listening to Mind Power Meets Mystic with me. Michelle Walters and my co host Cinthia Varkevisser, we want to tell you about a special gig the two of us have going on. It's called mind power meets mystic, the project, and it starts off on a zoom call with Cinthia. Cinthia tell everybody what they can expect. So for the first half of our session, you will be with me, and Michelle will be very quietly in the background preparing to do her work. What we will do is that we will talk about the one thing that you either want to amp up or that you want to release. And through the intuitive work, I help you get boil it down to its essence, and then give you an RX of three practical things to do to set you on your way. And then Michelle magically appears. What is it that you do that Michelle, I have been listening in but not participating in the first half of the call. I have an excellent idea of what Cinthia means when she says something, and I have an excellent idea of quickly getting to what my client is all about and his or her individual strengths. I turn all of this into a 20 to 30 minute hypnosis session on the second half of the call, which, when we're done, I strip off and send you as an mp three that you can listen to over and over again. You also will have cinthias Three point recommendations and the recording of the Zoom call. It is a fantastic one hour offering a great gift for yourself or for someone you don't know what to get such insights, and we've gotten such great reviews. So if you're interested, send me or Cinthia an email. You'll find our contact information in the show notes, and we'll tell you how to get started.

So anyway, yeah, so what happened was, the first year or two, the first year was just terrible dating. I was dating for the wrong reasons, right? And then I did the like, oh, I'll just take a break from dating. And I lot. I thought at that time, like someone would just arrive in my life, right? And no one arrived. And then I looked at the clock, and I was like, Oh my gosh, it's been 11 months since anyone asked me out for a date, or that I've been on a date, and I was 32 years old. And I thought, like, I didn't know how that happened. Well, it happened when you have your head down and not doing anything about it, right? You still have to be active and talking to people and meeting people. And so eventually I became intentional and started going, starting to do online dating and things like that. And I did plenty of fish. I don't, I think it still exists today,

yeah, and it's a free online dating

website, dating app, yeah, creating app. And I did, I think I did Christian Mingle, but I did the free version, so I wasn't getting a lot of traction on that. But by the way, I used to work on Christian Mingle in my marketing career. I worked on many, many things. And one of the funniest ones was working, yeah, I worked on Christian Mingle and J date, because the same company, I don't know if they still do, but the same company owned, like, all these religious ones. Yeah, I remember grade eight. Oh my gosh, I was not on that, but yeah, Christian Mingle, and I didn't do the paid version. I remember, oh, then you got nowhere. Yeah, I got nowhere. And I just remember, I was like, well, I'll just go to plenty of fish. But that's where I started getting traction. And then in the middle of all of it, I found I want to at the time. It wasn't called Life Coaching, but it was transformational work with an organization called gap community, which still exists today, and they still I was probably the first time I understood like, how your thoughts create your results. And so in the middle of all this is when I found, or went through a four day training where I finally uncovered why I was struggling in my dating world, and not just the dating world, but my other relationships. Like everything was just very surface level and nowhere getting near to as we're about to talk about the heart right? We were no nowhere near the heart level. I just kept everything up here, and I came out of there thinking like.

Like, I really want to have deep relationships. I want to have. And I actually didn't start with the dating piece. I started with my brother, who my older brother at the time, that I didn't have, I didn't have an estranged relationship with him, I just didn't have much of a relationship with him. And I was like, I wonder, like, if I can really do this. And so he was my guinea pig. He didn't know what was happening. He's like, why are you calling all the time so,

but yeah. So now we're many years later, like best buds, but, but yeah. And then my dating just completely changed, because I wasn't going into a victim mindset. It was more like, how can I serve the people that are around me. And so I ended up through plenty of fish.

I made the commitment. I made a challenge where I would I was going to date, and I was going to do date 25 men in six months, like 25 different men, that was my goal. And I was it was a crazy goal, but I was like, I just gotta keep at it. And so I ended up meeting, I met a lot of great men. I got up to 14, but number seven was the one that I ended up dating in a serious relationship for a couple years, where we actually did get engaged. We didn't make it to marriage simply because we didn't have the same life visions. And so we broke up amicably. And so then I found myself in the dating world again, and I was like, you know, but I don't want to get out of here. I know. I'm like, how am I here again? And so that's why it was, like, even though it's eight years, there was some serious things going on. And so then,

but because I knew how to do the process again, like, I was just like, Alright, we're going to go and do the whole thing over again, but this time, the Tweak would be, even though I was going dating on values and, like, non negotiables and, like, in the man that I was with my ex fiance, had all that we didn't want the same things in life, Right? You can still have the same values, but your how you want to spend your time, and your future still has to align. And so

learning that, I was like, okay, so then I just got back out into the dating world, literally 30 days later, and then I just spent the rest of that summer having the best time of my life. And then I went speed dating on the last on the last day, and that's when I met my husband, who's my husband now. Now it wasn't sparks, like there wasn't sparks, but I was going through the process of, like, getting to know people, and then it didn't take that long, because he was just so kind and so sweet, and just, I couldn't get enough of him. So it adores you. Yeah, so, so, yeah. So, that's how so we have been now married seven years. Our courtship was a little over a year, because at that point you just know what. You know you have, you have some some ideas. So I knew I wasn't going to go into like, let's live together, or five years, or anything like, I knew I wanted to get married. I believed in the power of marriage. I still believe that today, and that's usually where I'm getting my clients to really think about that, like we're not just dating for the sake of dating, or companionship, or dating, yes, for companionship, but for the with an intention to tie the knot. Yeah, yeah. So I do make it clear because, you know, and most, most of the women that do come to me, that's what they're looking for, right, you know, but they've just been jaded or afraid, or, you know, whatever, but, but for the most part, the like, shorten the time if I had had a dating coach, or if I just had someone sat with me and said, stop screwing around. You know, it wouldn't have taken me that long. And then even the fiance guy, I probably would have been able to cut that off, like, at a year versus two years, right? There would have been a lot more. So that's where I help women, where they're like, why he's a really nice guy, or he's this. But then there's this thing that doesn't align. At least I can cut through and say, what does that look like in five years

you go, Leandra, I totally, I can totally see where your perspective would be really helpful, and you're coming at it from a perspective of like, this is what you focus on and what you do. I think, like most people try and get this input from their girlfriends, right, or most women do, and sometimes your girlfriends really do have good advice, and sometimes they don't. They're not experts. They don't know. They don't know as much, or they might, they might be invested in the situation, right, like they know him, or they want to defend him, or they hate him, or whatever. And and they're not able to participate or be as helpful, because they're, they're, they're, they're rolled into the equation. You're, you're kind of this, just like me and Cinthia, when we meet with our clients, have like, a

layer of of separation or a little bit of distance to be able to kind of see what's what.

Going on. So Cinthia tell us a little bit about how leandra's work fits with the second chakra. Sure, the second chakra has to do with receptivity, connectivity. It's all the 80s that I like to talk about right femininity,

and so what these people are looking for with lander are all those things, all the things that are in the second shocker, right? Reciprocity. They're, you know, they're looking for for things. The thing that I find really interesting, because Michelle and I also have clients that are looking today and things like that, is they forget that.

Like you said, there's work to be involved. When they look to look at the work, it's a different kind of inner work. Even though it's heart centered, it is about alignment and things like that. So to go back to the second chakra, the second chakra ties into emotions. There's some ego in it.

And so knowing all that, can you see where your clients are? And do you have a thread? Because I can tell you, the thread of my clients are people who want

relationships, but they also want a certain amount of autonomy, and they're not necessarily tied to living together, but that doesn't mean they don't want to get married. They just want to have some form of independence. And so they're trying to wrap their minds around, what is family, right? What redefine family and redefine

a relationship so that they can have this super healthy relationship in a way that's, you know, that wasn't traditional even in the past 10 years. Yeah, yeah, no. And I do believe the whole what you were saying, you can still live, not live together, but be married and still be you don't have to be in the same household, because a lot of women that I work with are already autonomous, right? They've already been, you know, they're almost close to retirement. Some of them are already retired. They have their grandkids, they have their some of them have businesses. And some of them are just like, I'm done working, I'm I'm living my life, having a great time. But they're the thing that,

the thing that holds a lot of them back is obviously fear, right? And the fear that, especially if they're coming off off a divorce, is or in some of the some, a lot of women that I work with that have been divorced, this isn't a year out. We're talking 20 years later, where they're like, Oh, I, do want to be with someone, right? I do. They've either coming out of that, that fear base situation they've been in for 20 years, whatever they believe. Their ex husband said, whatever they believe. Their friends said, you know, whatever. Or they put all their their stock in taking care of their kids and grandkids, and then they get to a certain place, and then they're like, oh, wait, this is do I do what I want? But the biggest thing I see is fear that they'll bring back the same type of person that they dealt with 20 years ago, right? And so trying to work through a you're a different person now, working through the belief system that they have put in their heart, which is, you're too old, you're too late. No one wants you. You're a has been which women generally have, you know, some form of you're not enough in the back of their brain. But also, if it's been said to them by an ex husband or an ex boyfriend, that is, that is the, probably one of the hardest things to overcome. And so really learning to, you know, say, bring down that belief system. Because as much as I would like say, hey, believe this now. I can't, I can't. We have to step it up, right? We have to say, Okay, let's like one of my favorite books by sound soundtracks by John Acuff, he talks about lowering down the volume on something you've been sent. You've been saying to yourself for 20 years. And so that's one of the pieces that

that I see. And then the other pieces women that have been single forever. I mean, we're talking about, and I say forever, but like, you know, to what they're they've never been married, and so their their belief system is, it is never going to work for me, right? So that's a different, different one, because they do have evidence of, like, here I am still single, and I'm, you know, 50 or 60, or whatever the ages. And so it comes down to the heart. What are you believing? Right? And so that's where I work with them on their mindset, because if we still have the mindset of, I'm afraid I'll attract the same guy, or I'm afraid no one will want me. And yeah, we know through dating we will get rejected. And I usually say the word, it's not rejected.

Rejected. It's just that you're not each other's flavor, but society still says you've been rejected, right? Or they take that that's rejection, and really it's you just not compatible, and it's okay. And I just was talking to someone yesterday that she's learning, which is working through she's a she's a Christian, and she's like, it's okay that this one didn't work. God's got the next one around the corner for me, right? Mel Robbins even says that in her let them book The next person could be around the corner. You just got to keep going,

Yeah, but it can be hard to keep going. And I think, you know, per your point, that a lot of women I you know, oh, I'm going to take a month off, and then a month turns into six or seven or eight, and suddenly they realize, like, the better part of the year is gone, right? Yeah. So what I picked up as you were talking about this, that I think is really kind of exciting from some of the topics I love to talk about. I like to help people with decision making, because I think people really struggle with decision making and don't always know how to be good about decision making and when it comes to dating, because, like, I'm somebody who's had to do this a few times, and I'm still in the process right now, I'm looking I wrote down challenge 25 men in six months. Wowza. Not sure I could do that, but it's, it's here on the list of things to consider. But tell us a little bit more about how you can help your clients to accelerate their decision making, because that's a big part of it, right? You go out with a guy you like him, you go out another time. Like, are you going to go out with him three times? 20 times. Like, how do you how do you help people with that part? Because, honestly, I need help with that. Yeah, yeah, no, I'm good at decision making, but it's different in the dating realm. Yeah, it is. And I teach my clients to see me talking to multiple people at one time. So that's the first thing, and and even if they're online dating, as you you can remember from Christian Mingle, we're trying to get off the chatting part right and into an actual date. So even there, I will help them shorten the timeline, like we're only going to talk to someone for three text exchanges, and we're just going to get really clear, I'm not up for texting back and forth, because you don't. I mean, some people say I really got to know them, but I'm like, Really, no, we need to get into the in person. So that's always a challenge for them. I was like, and if they're like, three, that's, that's barely and I'm talking about three back and forth, right? And, yeah, yeah, no, I understand, yeah, yeah. And I'm not talking about, hi, hi, yeah. And I say, Okay, we'll go three to nine, but no more than nine, right? Three is the three is the goal, but nine, and if they're not open to, you know, engaging in real life, then you say, we go to next, right? There's plenty of people on the on the sites, plenty of fish. Yeah, plenty of fish, right? Just keep moving. And so, yeah. So that's one way. And then once they get out there, when they're dating multiple people, you know, I go through a process where we look at your values. We look at your non negotiables, not necessarily red flags, non negotiables, let's say if you have,

if you have someone that is has a small child like I have people that will cut off,

that will say, I don't want to dating anyone with a kid younger than 14, right? They need to be in high school. So that's not a red flag. That's a non negotiable. We've already raised our kids, you know? So there'll be certain things like that, because you can meet a great guy and they have everything, and then we get stuck in the like, but he has this kid and, but if you know, like, if you know, that's not your jam, like, we don't waste time, right? So that's, that's probably another thing that helps reduce the clutter, right? Because we'll be dating really nice men, but there'll be something that will come up like and necessarily, a lot of things don't happen on the first date. You don't know what type of person they are, you don't know if they honor their word. You don't know their kid. You don't know a lot, and you've got the profiles, but even if you're doing e harmony, that does extensive work. We still don't know. Okay, okay, but like, Insider's tip from, I don't know, 10 or 14 years ago, none of these dating companies really knew that much. Yeah, the algorithms were not the the genius part. They tell everybody, it's the algorithms. But you know what it is, Leandra, it's the inventory, the numbers, it's the numbers, it's the amount of people, and I think that's really important for people to realize, is like, right? The magic happens in other places, but there are deeper wells to fish in, right, right? Yeah, so, you know, and I tell people, just so that they don't avoid burnout.

r women that were born before: 1986

And so anyway, those are ways that it'll, I call it, it'll shake out, and then you just keep dating. Eventually, if you you will. Usually it comes down to two or three guys that you date for three or four months, right? Not also at the same time. Now this is the part where some people are like, What do I do with the sleeping around, right? Like, do I start having sex with them all at the time? I usually encourage, no, we're not doing anyone with anyone until until you're in a committed relationship. Now, I'm Christian. I encourage,

you. Know, we're not doing that until marriage, but I also understand, I, you know, the human design where we want to get with our people that we're in love with, but we want to, we want to wait until we're in a committed relationship. So does that mean holding out for 90 days, or, you know, four months. It is worth the wait.

And I could do a whole another topic on that, but, but, yeah, eventually it does look like that. And so if we date one at a time, that's where the part where we get sad and upset and, you know, this guy didn't work out. And then the the 12 Months passed by, we're like, I'll wait a month. That's usually when it happens. But if we're multiply, talking to many men, and I say many, okay, three to four. Okay, really, five would be ideal, but I'll give you three to four and and five, you could be talking to someone on the apps getting ready to go on a date as someone steps out, you know, they didn't make it to the ninth inning. So,

yeah, yeah.

want to go back to women pre: 1986

because the women that I work with tend to be a little bit

too goal oriented. I'm not sure if goal oriented is the word, but they know who they want, they know what they want, and then sometimes what happens is that they get a little bit invested too quickly, or too too strongly, I think is a as good word, because they they know what they want, and you've you know, and they

so what?

Questions is sometimes they are a little bit too intense, and they forget that dating is about having a good time and knowing how to, you

know, have a repartee and actually have conversation. And from conversation, you get so much more than you can from interviewing somebody. So have you had clients like that, and how do you help them walk that line between being really intense and being really, really bashful? Yeah, so I think that's a result of the hyper independence that I don't know if you've ever heard that term, but where it's like we haven't needed anyone in so long, part of the part of the feminist movement, right? Where even our parents, I would say my mom loved my mom. You know, she was an advocate for marriage, but she still was preaching. Make sure you have your job, make sure you have all your stuff together, that you almost don't need a man, right? And so a lot of our culture has been raised that way. And then when men do come into the world, we're like, you know, don't encroach on me or and especially if we've come from a failed marriage, we're like, oh my gosh, stay over there. And so,

so I have seen that, and they tend to

part of and I'll just be honest as a dating coach, when I've run into them and they've come to my event, they normally don't think that they need a dating coach. So they'll come and be like they don't like what I have to say about treating men with love and respect. So normally, they'll still go at it their own way. So most of the clients that I work with that are attracted with having a meeting a dating coach, because that is account built in accountability. Them willing to answer the hard questions, right? Someone that is like and I'm not dissing any harp you know, very independent women. We, we all come from that, but sometimes I we don't. We're not compatible as client and coach, because they have to be willing to go into that vulnerable space. But if their mindset is we go hard too fast, and then they find out that, oh, I should have taken my time, but I was in the results oriented space. So if they work with me, and we're, you know, some of this, you know, I start with my clients three months. You know, sometimes it takes six months, right? That's usually where I'm like, hey, you know, some some people I'm starting, hey, can we just go talk to a man? So I got them that they're raring to go and let's go have a good time. But for the most part, we're stopping, starting a baby steps. So sometimes a woman of that nature, who I give kudos to, I can see how they would get into that trouble. I would love to attract them, but they come and they're like, I don't need a dating coach. And I get it. It's hard because they're so used to having their own thing. And that's probably one of my goals, is like, How can I help them? Because I know how to help them, but they also have to believe that they are willing to be helped.

I understand it makes perfect sense to me. Leandra, one quick question for you. Do you coach men? I don't, they don't,

and it's not a no, and I'll just be they're very similar to my very independent women that Cinthia just mentioned. They do come to my events, my online events, I have a in person event that's only exclusive to women, and then I have an online event, event that men do come to,

and they actually ask me a lot of questions. But anytime I've asked like, Hey, you ready to work with me, they just look at me like, I'm crazy. And so they also don't think they need help, but they do show up. So it's not a No, I just never gotcha. Gotcha. It's just not it. I hear you. We've had such a delightful conversation. Leandra, thank you so much for being on mind. Power mates, Mystic, today, what would you like to share with our listeners? Yeah, that I definitely want them to believe that they are created for love and connection. Don't give up. Keep going. It does not have to be 25 dates in six months that was

just keep going. And if you find yourself, you know, after a bad date or no one's you know, responding to you, you know, come listen to, you know, when I look at me on my social media, I'm always saying encouraging stuff. I'm always hosting an event once a month where you can come online or in person, where you get encouragement to meet women that have been where you have been, and they're succeeding now, beautiful. Thank you so much. Leandra, and that is a wrap on another episode of Mind Power Meets Mystic please. If you have enjoyed this episode, we would love it, if you would rate us, if you would review us, and if you would hit the little subscribe button and join us. We are here every week for you, and we would love to have you as part of our community. Thanks and bye, thank you. Bye.

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