Things we dive into in this episode:
The difference between attracting the right person and playing games in dating and relationships
How to approach dating when it feels like you’ll never find love
Tapping into the energy of receiving in dating
📘Resources
Chantal Landreville is an author and certified love & relationships coach.
📌Episode Highlights
Q&A:
What is the difference between trying to make yourself more attractive to the right person and manipulation or like playing hard to get or playing games?
Ask yourself the below to explore this question and date from a genuine place:
What is your relationship with love and what do you want your relationship with love to be? - It's really important to define what kind of relationship you want!
Am I being genuine? Am I being desperate or not? Am I really being the true me?
Who am I? What do I deserve? What do I desire? - Rather than who are they and what does they want and what's going to make them want me and how can I be what they want?
Get to know yourself intimately so that you can operate from a lens of self-awareness, rather than a lens of what's going to get this person to like me.
Good relationships aren't just created.
A good foundation for a good relationship isn't manipulation. A good foundation for a relationship is honest self-expression.
What would you tell women who fear that they'll never find love, but deeply desire it?
Process your relationship to love by asking yourself the below:
Do I understand why I have been attracting the kind of people that I have been attracting?
Why haven’t things worked out in the past?
Am I always going to the same places? Am I always hanging around with the same kind of people?
Expand how you're doing things or go to places to increase the chances of meeting someone.
Not only is it important to rewire the limiting beliefs keeping you from finding love, but it’s also important to assess everyday habits. See how it feels to try things differently.
Are you ready to receive in the love that you are calling in? And are you actually making room for it in your life?
How do you want to grow and evolve in relationship?
Chantal’s Love Triangle
There's a massive difference between what we think we want, what we actually attract, and what's right for us.
We think we want something, but we attract a certain kind of thing because of our subconscious minds and old stories.
Look at your patterns and your “type” - these probably cause you to find the wrong people, so try dating outside of the comfort zone.
Trust divine timing!
Thanks for listening! 💖 Stay tuned to Caitie’s website for more episode updates and other exciting programs and resources.
Transcript
Chantel: There's nothing sexy or romantic about the kind of love that I teach, but it's deep, it's safe, it's beautiful, it's magical. It's been a whole other world that I never thought I'd get to experience. What I mean by that is that, you know, it's not a rom-com or it's not Disney-fied and it's everything we've been conditioned around love is that, including when you're talking about these articles in these magazines, is that we were in love with the idea of being in love and the idea of what we think about love is not enough to sustain a long-term committed relationship.
Caitie: Welcome to Whole, Full, & Alive, a podcast helping you feed yourself, feel yourself, and be yourself. I'm Caitie Corradino. I'm a registered dietician-nutritionist, a body image coach, and the founder of Full Soul Nutrition, a method that combines nutrition counseling with a powerful toolkit of somatic healing modalities. I have guided hundreds of clients to freedom with food, their bodies, and every aspect of their lives. I've also been through this healing myself. And on this podcast, I want to help you eat with confidence, embrace your body, form aligned relationships and create a life that you're in love with. I'll share actionable tools, no bullshit stories and interviews that will remind you why you have everything you need within you to feel whole, full and alive. Are you ready? Let's get into it.
Hey, welcome back to another episode of Whole, Full & Alive, the podcast helping you feed yourself, fill yourself and be yourself. Thank you so much for tuning into today's episode. We are talking about love and we are talking about trusting the timing when it comes to finding love. And we are talking about what it's like to be a single lady for a long time today. And I have an amazing guest on the show who very serendipitously entered my life over the last six months and just happened to publish a book a couple of weeks ago. And I'm so excited to have her here and talk with her more about this topic.
But before we dive in, I want to invite you to take the deepest breath that you have taken all day today, wherever you are, wherever you're tuning in from, take a moment to just like shake out your hands, shake out your arms a little bit. Remember that you have a body. Roll your shoulders down your back and just take a nice deep breath in through your nose, fill your chest, fill your belly, feel your back expand, fill up, fill up, fill up. And then take a nice big long exhale out your mouth. Let some pressure off. Take as many of those as you need to feel like you're just coming back to you a little bit because that's why you're tuning into this podcast. It's for you. Hopefully it's not for me unless you're like my brother or my dad or someone tuning into this for me, but you're hopefully tuning into this for you to get something for you. So drop in, ask yourself what you need, meet yourself where you're at. All right.
Today's guest, Chantel, Landreville. How do I do?
Chantal: Amazing. I love how you rolled your R, girl.
Caitie: My French is very, very elementary. It's not even elementary. I don't even know if you can go lower than elementary. But the very beautiful Chantal is here today. She is a recently published author. She is a love and relationship coach, a love and relationship expert, also a sommelier, a wine expert, hosts events, lets wine about love. She is a multi-passionate, enthusiastic ray of light. I am so excited that I met Chantal in Maui earlier this year and that we can sit here and have this conversation today. Welcome to Whole Full & Alive.
Chantal: Wow, what an introduction, especially not how you introduced me, but just the, take the time to breathe, which we all forget. And your voice is always so soothing. So thank you. It's, uh, I'm excited to just sit here and have this amazing conversation.
Caitie: Can you please introduce everyone or introduce yourself to everyone in your own words and also just tell us a little bit about the career pivot that you made recently. You were in the wine industry and now you're an author and a coach. And I just would love for people to hear a little bit more about that, just a little taste of that.
Chantal: Awesome, so yes, I am an author now. I published my first book, Raise Your Love Signal, a guide to attracting and keeping the love of our lives on Valentine's Day, last Valentine's Day. A book on love, the day of love. And I'm a certified love and relationship coach and this is something that I didn't realize was always following me actually without even knowing that it was always a passion. So even in my 20s, I was working on a documentary at one point with a girlfriend of mine because we were struggling dating and we wanted to try and figure out why is human behavior so bad, especially when we're dating. And she sadly got very sick, so we put everything on hold, but my personal curiosity just to try and understand the human brain and how we think and how we process and I was just always fascinated with humans. Are you surprised I actually used to work in sales for all of my life? Hence the wine business. I was in the wine business for the last 20 years doing export sales for a winery out of California. And you know, the one thing that I realized, wine is always an excuse. The product is there, but the relationship building that you create is the magic.
People will, you know, there's what's the difference between my wine and all the other wines that are out there? It's often the person behind the actual product that's selling it. And I realized the power of that because I would listen, which is a great skill, as you know. When we listen and we're curious about people, people will literally vomit their lives to you. And very quickly I became a confidant and would share a lot of the stuff in the backend for my personal interest that I would learn about anything around personal development. And I over consumed actually personal development a little too much.
And just so people know, I'm gonna, sorry, I'm making this story a little bit longer than I expected, but just so people know, I was single for almost 18 years. And I was also in a long-term relationship, very young, from 19 to 26. And when I left that relationship, I realized I was living this adult life, very young. I couldn't really be myself in the relationship. So I left the relationship because I knew there was something more out there and I needed to discover who I was. And I remember writing a list down of everything I wanted to live and experience. And that list actually ended up taking me 10 years to go through. So by the time I woke up, I was 38 years old. I was like, holy shit, like I need to, I want to settle down. I want to meet someone serious. I'm ready. This is it. And through that journey, I also realized that everything I had been consuming, I had not necessarily applied it. So through my dating journey, I was still repeating a lot of those behaviors and patterns that I had over the last 10 years that I didn't really pay attention because I wasn't necessarily looking for a serious relationship. But when I was, I kept attracting unemotional available people and I needed to figure out why that was. And that's when the work took me even deeper and when I say applying the work because we're really good about talking you know today's spirituality and more mental health and we're learning and we're consuming but I'm realizing that a lot of people are not necessarily applying the work and this is where it's key.
And it's also where I decided to take my coaching certification back then. And I realized it wasn't the right timing. So we'll talk about timing today in your episode too, but it wasn't the right time for me to venture off to that. I still felt I needed to learn a few things, including patience, including empathy, because everybody has their own journey and you're there as a guide. You're not there to tell them what to do. And when I met finally my boyfriend, today Mike, and actually say my fiance, because we just got engaged last week. So there is hope out there. That's when I realized it's one thing to attract the right person in your life, but it's a whole other thing being in relationship. And we've never been taught the skills on how to be in relationship. So you can actually meet the right person at any given time. And it doesn't mean that it's going to make you succeed in your relationship. And because I had learned a lot of this stuff, I was able and I saw applying it in my own relationship, how it changed the dynamic and the quality. And it still does today.
Hence why I decided to write the book. And when I was going through that whole journey and founded the business, my business was a COVID baby as a lot of stuff was not necessarily great but a lot of great things came out of COVID and that was one of them. And my heart was just pulling me more and more. And I knew that this is what I needed to teach people because of my own personal struggle getting to where I was. And I always say there's never been a better teacher than someone that's been through what you're going through and understands fully what it is. So that's how I got here and decided to leave the wine industry last spring, which was not necessarily an easy decision because it was a great, great company, great money, great industry to jump ship and follow my heart and my dreams. But I wouldn't change anything. I'm very happy to be here and doing this 100% of the time now.
Caitie: Mm, I think there is no greater teacher than the person who's been through what you've been through is coming through what you're going through. It's like taking surf lessons with a guy who doesn't surf. Like, why would you? Yeah, and I, you know, I'm so inspired by you as a single lady that sometimes is convinced that I'm gonna be single forever. Seeing you and the way you've squeezed the juice out of your life so fully and so passionately and then didn't give up on love despite many years without a partner. It's so expansive to meet women like you and I'm so excited to ask you these listener questions and then chat a little bit more about your book. So your book is called Raise Your Love Signal and I think of the love signal as like, I don't know, the bat signal. It's like you're calling in love, right? Like how to raise your love signal.
And this is great because the first listener question is, you know, what is the difference between trying to make yourself more attractive to the right person and manipulation or like playing hard to get or playing games? And so I guess another way to put this is like, what is the difference between raising your love signal and the old school like manipulation tactics that we used to read about in like Seventeen Magazine and like, you know, all those things about don’t call him back right away. Don't text him for three days. Don't be available all the time. What's the difference between that stuff and what you consider to be raising your love signal, what comes up for you there?
Chantal: I love that question. Thank you to the listener. That's such a beautiful question. And I want to specify that everything I talk about and teach, especially in the book, is not about bubbly love. You know, there's nothing sexy or romantic about the kind of love that I teach, but it's deep, it's safe, it's beautiful, it's magical. It's been a whole other world that I never thought I'd get to experience. What I mean by that is that, you know, it's not a rom-com or it's not Disney-fied and it's everything we've been conditioned around love is that, including when you're talking about these articles in these magazines, is that we were in love with the idea of being in love and the idea of what we think about love is not enough to sustain a long-term committed relationship. So I want to kind of put that out there so people can like...
So one of the first questions I ask about in the book is that what is your relationship with love and what do you want your relationship with love to be? And most people have no idea. And when I started doing the research for my book, I asked myself that own personal question. I was like, oh, I'm like studying this stuff for years. I've like fascinated by it and everything. And it was hard for me to answer that question for myself. So I was like, how does the average person do it? So it's really important to define and what kind of relationship you want. Now you want the superficial and the romantic movie, or you want something that, as I described, that's safe, that's beautiful, that's an exchange, that's supportive, that's vulnerable. Name all the words that, you know, when I talk about conscious relationships is that.
So I wanna give an example because at one point, I had moved to Toronto. This was almost 10 years ago. And when I moved to this city from Montreal, it was a very different energy. People are a lot more conservative here and not as bubbly. And I mean, I could not for the life of me, I remember being out one night with my girlfriend and have more red lipstick on, have more beautiful curly hair, have like my curves showing everything and could not get the attention of one single man. Like there was nothing that was working. And I got home that night and I cried my ass off, and I called my girlfriend the next day telling her, I don't understand what I'm doing wrong, am I not this, am I not that? And she's like, Chantal, your energy is so desperate right now. You are not genuinely being you, you are trying to be someone because you're desperately looking for love or a partner.
And God bless her heart because that really resonated with me. I was like, oh my God, I'm trying too hard. I'm forgetting to be who I am. I'm trying to be this person that doesn't, you know, need to try this hard actually because I was craving the attention for the wrong reasons. So when you ask the questions, what's the difference between both? It's asking yourself these questions. Am I being genuine? Am I being desperate or not? Am I really being the true me? And I think that when we're going out and putting ourselves out there and we're looking for an outcome, which is probably 99% of what people do when they're out there dating, instead of being in the actual act of an experience and learning to observe themselves, that's where disappointment sets in and you get lost. And one of the things that I realized, and this I realized at 44 years old, 44 years old with the first man that I had actually been myself 100% of the time because I realized I had never been myself with any of the other men that had came into my life. And that's not genuine. That's manipulative.
Caitie: Yeah, I think people are always surprised to find that the number one relationship advice is get to know yourself and work on your own self-worth wounds. It's not like figure out exactly what you want in a partner and figure out how to attract the perfect partner. It's like honestly attracting the partner that's genuinely the best for you is about knowing that you're worthy of the partner that's the best for you and legitimately really getting to know yourself. I remember when I first found Mark Groves’ Breakup Recovery Course, it was all about, what are your personal values and what makes you who you are and what do you like to do? And I was like, what does this have to do with getting over my ex? What is this? And it was life changing and life giving and completely changed the way that I approached dating because it was from this perspective of, you know, who am I and what do I deserve and what do I desire rather than, okay, who is he and what does he want and what's going to make him want me and how can I be what he wants?
Chantal: When you get to give yourself the gift of getting to know who you are so well, this is what happens. You know who you are, you can actually express what it is that you want and don't want. You're not guessing or accepting things that you never would because you know, I do not like this. I do not want that. No, chocolate ice cream is not for me. I prefer vanilla. And what this does too in relationship is that you're able to communicate, and not just in a romantic relationship, but you're able to actually state, I react this way because of something that happened to me when I was young, so it has nothing to do with you, it's just, it takes me back to this memory. I had this client at one point and I still love this because it was such a great eye-opener for me.
She was like, at the end of our session, I was like, okay, we're running out of time. I have to go. And she's like, can you please not say that to me going forward when we work together for running out of time, because it triggers something from me, from my childhood, my father, blah, blah. I used to say X, Y, Z. And I literally like, I praised her for actually saying that because I would have never known and she could have gotten off the phone call being pissed, being triggered, not being feeling great. Right. And I wouldn't have known anything.
But the power of self-awareness is exactly that. So you can bring that everywhere in life, with your friendships, with your family, at work, anywhere, because you understand who you are. And I think people don't realize the power that's in that. And I see it now even in my own relationship, how I walk in my relationships with my friends because I'm so self-aware. I catch myself when I'm reacting for something that has nothing to do with the person that's in front of me. And I'm able to say, you know what? Okay, you reacted this way because of this, and then I can apologize easily. There's a lot of humility that's coming on instead of like ego or resentment. It just transforms everything. So I really invite people to take the journey and getting to understand themselves fully. And that brings you, also gives you clarity when you're dating and not settle for things that you typically wouldn't or accept things that you're gonna shove under the rug because you're gonna pretend that they'll go away. So there's a lot of power in it.
Caitie: Yeah, yeah, get to know yourself intimately and operate from that lens of self-awareness rather than a lens of what's going to get this person to like me. I mean, that's what it is. And yeah, good relationships aren't created. I mean, a good foundation for a good relationship isn't like manipulation. And like a good foundation for a relationship is honest self-expression, right? So it's like if you're finding yourself like…oh, I've got to wait two hours to text him back. And like, it's like, you're building the foundation of your relationship off of like this arbitrary algorithm rather than just like honesty. What do you want the foundation of your relationship to be? I don't know, that's just something that's coming up for me.
Chantal: And I agree and I just I had a client last week that's going through the whole dating journey thing and she was freaking out on how to text and interpreting, you know When we text this leaves a lot of room for misinterpretation and I asked her the question like why are you bothered by this? Like she was stating certain statements that you know, she loves her freedom, but she wants him to text her every day I'm like you're contradicting yourself. Why and it's it would actually trigger her anxious attachment style. And I said, remember when we did this work, you understand why you're like this, so this is what you can do now. Instead of reacting to him and saying, you know, why didn't you text me? Or you just start being pushy for nothing. You can say, you know, just so you know, this is what happened to me in my past when I used to have an ex-boyfriend for, I don't know, he would disappear for days and I just, you know, he cheated on me. So I do have trust issues. So it would mean a lot to me if you can check in once a day because this way it helps me to stay calm and not panic. Is that an option that you could consider?
Big difference, massive difference between panicking and attacking people. People do not know you yet. We expect people to guess how we're thinking and feeling, but they don't know us. So again, that goes back to the self-awareness piece. If you're able to know why you're being acting the way you are, you can actually communicate it and say so. Say what you actually want and need.
Caitie: So the second listener question that I got is from someone who is 41 years old and single. And it's a very broad question. So I'm curious to see what comes up for you. What would you tell women who fear that they'll never find love, but deeply desire it?
Chantal: It's funny because I had to do this exercise literally two weeks ago where they asked us to go back to eight years ago. Where were you eight years ago? And I was 40 years old. It's the year I took my coaching certification. It's the year I turned 40. I said that. And it was also the year where I had decided this was the year I was going to find my person. I was desperately looking, needing, feeling love. Like I was reading through my notes and my journals and I felt so sad. Like I was just like, why isn't this happening to me and for me, I don't understand. And again, you go into that cave, right? What's wrong with me? What am I not doing okay? Like, am I not pretty enough? Am I not this? Am I not that? And the one thing that I realized, and that's the first question I would ask someone to ask themselves is, do you understand why you have been attracting the kind of people you have been attracting and why things aren't working out. So in my case, I kept attracting non-emotional available men all the time. I was really good at long distance relationship. I was really good at dating young guys and men that were already taken as well.
But I needed to understand why that was. And when I finally dove, I did the digging to figure out that's when I realized I don't wanna dive into this too deep, but my dad died when I was very young. So for me, men represented that they abandoned you. So for me, it was a way, my subconscious was protecting myself. I just, it was a way for me to know I would always stay in control of the situation. So ask yourself, like, am I always going to the same places, for example? Am I always hanging around with the same kind of people? So you have to kind of expand how you're doing things or going to places, and this is like not just from a rewiring your brain perspective, it can be from an everyday thing, habits that you have. You have to try things differently. So we often think, so here's a great thing that you'll love, I think. I call it the triangle of love.
There's a massive difference between what we think we want, what we actually attract, and what's right for us. And we spend our time in between these two lines all the time. I think I want this. I think, you know, I want, I want, I want, I want. But we attract a certain kind of thing because of our subconscious minds that are related to, you know, old stories. And what's right for us is where we want to be. But we don't listen to what's right for us because we don't do this kind of work first. So if you master that triangle and are able to break it down, then you can start dating outside of the comfort zone. So for example, you know, I always thought I had a type. Of course, we always think we have a type. And would eliminate anybody that wasn't my type to just date these guys. The problem is that type never worked for me. Ding, ding, ding. So if that type's not working for you, maybe you need to look at something else. And I remember this is one of my numerous witches that I worked with in my life that said, Chantal, you need to date a man that's not a type A personality, that's probably a little bit more feminine in his energy, that doesn't have that rugged look. Like, you need to think outside the box. And I remember leaving that session, I was like, oh my God, like, what does she know? Sure enough, I mean, Jeff, at the end of the day, is nothing like I ever thought I would end up with, but he's the best thing, that he was right for me. It's not what I thought I wanted. It's not typically who I attracted, but he was definitely the right person for me.
So I would say definitely take some self-reflection time to understand and all understand like all my past behaviors, why haven't my relationship worked out? You need to identify what those things were. And maybe it's a lack of, again, we talked about this worth, you're not feeling deserving of a certain kind of love. You know, if your relationship with love, and I'll take it back to that, what I said at the beginning too. If your relationship with love, what for example, if you saw at home that your parents were, I was a very toxic environment, they would scream at each other, they were verbally abusive for you, you might consistently think that's normal in a relationship today. So you tend to attract narcissistic people, right? Or you tend to be a yes-man because you wanna be a people pleaser so you don't create the fight and the toxicity. So you're not in love for the right reasons. So you need to understand what your relationship with love was, what do you want it to be, to really be able to see how you can change things. And then I would also say, so self-reflection, think outside the box.
Trust divine timing, and I know people hate this thing, but it really is and I'm going to give an example. I would have met my boyfriend or my fiance to get used to this. I would have met him four months prior to when we met and it would have never worked out. Four months is not a long time. It's nothing actually. Well, four months is when I met that guy that gave me my aha moment. So he literally completed the last piece of the puzzle to my puzzle that I needed to understand to be able to attract and receive. Because this is the thing I want these women to ask themselves, are you ready to receive in the love that you are calling and desiring in? And there's a lot of people like that out there. I was one of them where my heart was a friggin' wall of brick. My heart was not open. And I would say most people's hearts aren't open. How do you want to be in a healthy, vulnerable, safe, loving relationship if your heart is guarded and protected.
So one of the things I had to do, and this I started years ahead of time, because a lot of these behaviors, when you understand our patterns or beliefs, they've been there for a long time, and you know this, your audience knows this as well, you have to rewire your brain. It's a new muscle you need to develop. As I said, my heart wasn't open and my roommate at the time, and thank God she told me that, she was like, how do you expect to one day be in a relationship if you can't be vulnerable with your own close friends? I was like, you're right. How? Because I would never say anything to anyone. I was a type A personality, very self-reliant. I just do shit on my own. I figure it out on my own. Everything's on my own. So that makes it really hard to be able to be in a partnership/relationship, especially if you're with a man, because men love to provide. And it doesn't mean necessarily financially, as you know. So you need to be able to receive them providing.
So I started with a girlfriend. I called her, I told her, I'm working on this new muscle, vulnerability. This is what I need from you. I need you when I'm calling you. It'll be really hard for me. I need you to listen. I don't need you to give me advice. I don't need you to judge me, but this is what I need. I just need you to listen. And if I do need advice, I will ask you. And I started like that. And that took a good seven, eight months for me to get used to. And I started with a second friend and then a third friend and a fourth. And then I started doing that and applying it at work. When I couldn't do something, I would ask for help. I would say to a colleague, for example, I can't deal with this, can you help me? Instead of being proud or trying to figure it out on my own. So by the time, and this took like years. So by the time though I got into my relationship, the muscle was already worked, so it was really easier for me to receive.
Especially in my case, I'm with a man that's like an old school provider, like is just like, you know, the, the woman is his queen and he likes to take care of his woman and every area possible of his life. That's huge for someone that's never been, that's never received. So I want to invite people to think about that because are you even making room to receive the kind of love that you're calling in? And that's a big one. I would say 99% of my clients that I work with are, it's exactly one of the biggest issues.
Caitie: Yeah, I've been given that advice many times because I need that advice greatly. I am certainly someone who likes to get a lot of shit done by myself. I'm a very independent woman traveling the world on my own. I really don't, I'm not going to ask a man to help me with my suitcase. I'm not going to ask a man to, whatever. And there are some bars around my heart because of some of that energy, right? Like I don't, it doesn't mean that I believe in like traditional gender roles at home. And I need to open myself up to receive soft support from someone to allow myself to be supported by another person because at the end of the day, that is what I desire. Maybe it's not what I desire in like a traditional gender role type of way, but it is what I desire in more of like a soft, like emotional kind of sense. I desire for someone to hold space for me to fall apart, but I haven't been open for that. I haven't given myself the opportunity to unravel into that kind of vulnerability, because I've just continued to provide for myself in all of the ways and not create space for that soft landing, yeah.
Chantal: Yeah. And if you want to be in a beautiful relationship, and again, I will say this, this has nothing to do with just romantic relationships. If you don't, if you can't be in that space of, and I love that you use the word soft, because soft for me equals like, I think about tenderness and it's safety. And again, what I was saying earlier, how, you know, we're desperate for human connection, but we're disconnected because we don't invest the time. And then, you know, that doesn't create a safe space for us to actually be vulnerable. And I was working a lot with this example, especially for us in Maui, we were eight strangers that came together in three days, didn't know anything about each other. What did we do? We had time, we created a safe space, and we all probably shared stuff amongst each other that we didn't even share with our own close friends or family.
And it was the same thing again a month later I was at a dinner for an entrepreneurship dinner where 12 people never met and we his the guy was great because it was he couldn't talk about work initially it was only later in the part of the night. So what did you do? You were in a room safe space, no phone, no nothing, so there is time. You're making people feel safe and you get curious about people. So naturally people become vulnerable and feel safe to share, open, and this creates human connection. This is where you're like, oh. So, for you, for example, as you were saying, you travel the world, you know, you don't even want a guy to help you with or anybody to help you with your luggage. And I remember, I remember this story. I was coming out of a hotel when I used to travel that much and there was this old lady and she was insisting, the bell guy was like, I'll help you. And there were three stairs and she was like, no, I can do it, I can do it, I can do it. And I stopped at her, I said, can I ask you a question? And she was like, yes. So why wouldn't you let this nice, kind man help you? And she says, because I can do it by myself. I said, we both know that you can do it by yourself. But why would you? And she looked at me, you know? And for me, it's like, if we can't receive the help like that from a stranger, we need to ask ourselves the question, what, what? You know?
So the muscle for you, Caitie, next time you travel and somebody offers to help you with your bag, you're gonna say yes. And it sounds ridiculous, but these are the way to build the small muscles for the big one. And that's what I say to anybody that's doing the work, that's like working on themselves, that's trying to change and integrate a new habit, a goal. What can you do every day on a super small baby step that's going to get you to the big goal? Because when we're trying to change everything overnight that's often been part of us for 20, 30, 40 years, it's not going to happen. So we need to be kind to ourselves. We need to be gentle to ourselves. And we need to start on a small scale. And that starts with small gestures like that. To be able to receive when a man, and you will find your person one day and that says, as my man says, you know, I was like, okay, how are we gonna do this? Who's paying what? When we moved in together and he grabbed me by the shoulders with his big blue eyes, looking at me straight in the eyes. And he was like, Chantal, do not take away something from me that I can and that I want to do for you. And right then was the inner chat that started, this is everything that you've worked for, this is everything that you wanted, this is time to receive. And it doesn't threaten you, it doesn't take away who you are. You're still strong, you're still independent, you're still self-reliant, what the hell? You can have it all. So I think it's really important, especially for women to really question themselves on that because we do end up being our own worst enemy, especially when we've been single for a long time because we can, it's easy to get trapped into our selfish ways and just do our own little things. And I, I was like that. So you need to make room to have someone in your life.
Caitie: Yeah. Yeah. I love that idea of just making space for connection as well. You know, I have my retreat coming up in a week and a half and I'm creating the itinerary for it and the workshops and whatever. And I keep trying to remind myself how so much of the power of this retreat is just that there's space. Like just that people are going to be in a room together with beautiful views and whatever, so it's extra cozy, and just not on their phones. What happens in that space will be beautiful. When you just create the space, then you can receive. That's what so much of manifesting, if we want to go in that direction. I like to talk about manifesting in terms of very practical ways. We're going to go into this in a second, like practical things, not just like this magical thing that like showers down upon you from the universe. You know, the practicality, the practical way to manifest the thing that you want is to make sure you actually have space to get the thing that you want, right? It's like, yeah, how are you gonna get five new clients if you don't have five hours on your schedule available? How are you going to receive support from another human being if you're doing everything yourself? There is no space for you to receive because you're doing it all yourself. You're covering all your bases. You're not open, you're closed. So I do want to circle it back to that because I really love that.
Chantal: Yes, so Caitie’s talking about a great story that we shared when we met. That was a massive piece of how I love to say all the time, eating my own humble pie. So I had been studying manifestation for years and I have always been passionate about it. And I was actually traveling, I was coming out of a yoga class, and this woman, as I'm walking down the street, backs up her car randomly and tells me, you know, I don't know why, my intuition told me that maybe you might be into this. I'm a speaker, I'm an author, I'm doing a thing on manifestation tomorrow. Would you be interested? I was like, oh my God, your intuition was so right. Yes. And I said yes to the event and I went the next evening and as I'm starting to hear her talk, I all of a sudden went into the mode of like, why am I here? I already know so much about this stuff. It was a mistake for me to come. And I'm just having this inner chatter with myself. And she starts asking, what keeps people from manifesting? There's two magical words that keep people from manifesting. And of course in my head, I'm like I know, I know, I know. And then what's the second word? And she says, I know. I got like literally so bitch slapped behind the head. Like it was just like a real humbling moment for me because, and then she went on, a humbling moment because she went on to say, sometimes we think we know it all.
And I invite you as you're listening to this, whether you've heard it for the first time or the 155th time, it's like literally she was talking to me straight in my face and she was reading my brain. I invite you to see and hear all of this with children's eyes and ears, like you were hearing it for the first time. And I have applied that in my life in every area ever since that moment. And as soon as I tell myself I know, I actually will have this like bell that goes on to say, uh-oh, why do you think you know? Do you really know? Because here's the thing, as I was saying, especially if you've been single for a long time, we get caught up in our own little ways. It's easy for us to stay stuck or in safety, right? Like this is what I do, this is my life. As human beings, you know, we hate change. Change is uncomfortable. So, to be able to change things that are not happening for you, you have to get uncomfortable and do things differently.
And that's why I always say to people, be open. If you're gonna cultivate one thing, be open. And when I say open, it's like be open to hearing things differently, be open to trying something you never would, be open to having a conversation that even though you don't agree with, you'll say, you know what, I never thought about it that way. Let me process this. It's actually probably a really different way of looking at it than I never thought of. Because what this happens is that when something shows up on your path to either make you grow, evolve, heal, date, whatever that is, date outside the box, a man or a woman that you would have never given the chance to. If you're open, you'll try something different.
Caitie: Yeah, so getting attached to what you think you want. And when you keep saying, I know, I know, I know, when you get so certain about what you want, you end up closing yourself off to what you actually need or what you might actually benefit you to be open to.
Chantal: You know, one of the things I wanted was to be with someone that knew how to dance and it was almost a deal breaker for me because I love to dance. We love to dance, Caitie. It's part of our DNA, girl. Like we love to dance. And I had this fantasy where we would go salsa dancing, ballroom, like doing some shows and all that stuff. So when I met him, I'm like, first question, it's like, do you dance? And he's like, actually I'm known to have two left feet. And I'm just like heartbroken. I'm just like, are you kidding me? And my head, I'm like. Oh my God. I said, well, do you at least have rhythm? And he's like, what do you mean? I said, well, can you do a little like shoulder roll or something? And he's like, this is the extent of it, right? And I'm just like, I can't believe it. I'm like, did I not manifest properly? Like, so with time, what I came to realize is that was a want and it's not what would sustain us and make us grow together in a long-term committed healthy relationship.
It was though, acceptance, support. You wanna go dance? Go with the girls. Never he questions me. He'll actually go to a frigging music festival. We're at a wedding, you know, I'm like, you need to give me at least one dance. He'll like have four shots of tequila. And it's like, okay, I'm gonna give you one dance. That's it, you know? So that's more important. That's what's going to sustain a long-term relationship. And I think that people get hooked on little things that don't really matter. And that's why this exercise of questioning yourself on what really matters, what can I live with in the long run, you know? And that's why asking yourself questions about the relationship is really important. And doing this work, if you're single, before you go into dating is also important because what this will do is help you filter better when you're dating. And not get lost and blindsided by the bling or the lust that could be happening or the excitement of something right because that happens a lot so I call it the eagle eye vision develop your eagle eye vision be so clear so clear what it is that really matters to you what you need not necessarily what you want.
Caitie: Yeah. And with an eye on the future, like an eye forward, obviously not future tripping in like a pathological, like, I'm not going to be present kind of way. But just in a you're right, how do you want to grow and evolve in relationship? Because if you are looking for a long term partner, if that's ultimately what you're on the search for, then you are looking for someone that you can have a future with. And so you need to think about how you want to grow and evolve in the future. And I will never forget this. This is my this is my one of my big realization moments. I had recently started dating someone who I was just so lusty in love with. I was just like, Oh my god, like he's he's perfect. He's the one. And one of my very close friends who is just one of the most mentally healthy therapists that I know, said to me, she was like, oh, what kind of person is he trying to become?
And I was like, what kind of question is that, Becca? I was like, why are you asking me what kind of person he's trying to become? I'm like, what about the person he is right now, today? And I really couldn't answer that question right away. I asked him about what he wants to do for a career in the future and where he's going in that direction, but what kind of person he's trying to become? I don't fucking know. And now when I actually am entering relationship with someone or starting to go on like three, four, five dates in, I actually am trying to assess in one way or another what kind of person are they trying to become? Because that is such a good point. You do want to have an eye on the future. It's better to say, how do I wanna grow and evolve through long-term relationship rather than, yeah, what is this person giving me right now? How can we grow and evolve together? Dancing isn't really like essential to the longer term growth and development of a successful relationship. Eventually our, what's that Ed Sheeran lyric? He's like, when your legs don't work like they used to before, they're not always going to work like they used to before. Eventually we're not going to be able to dance the same way. And what matters then? What matters then?
So yeah, thank you so much for your time. And yeah, that I don't know story as well. It's like whenever you find yourself saying, I know, I know, I know, let that be a little red flag as well. That's something that I'm just gonna take away with me and one of the practical tools of manifesting, you know, I believe in manifestation, I believe in intuition, but I believe that they can be broken down in really practical ways. And they're not these like magical fairy dust things. And that like, I know, tactic is so powerful. So I really appreciate that you shared that with me and my listeners. And I really appreciate that I got to have your voice on this show today, because I love your perspective. I love your energy. I'm so excited for people to read your book and to get to know you better. Can you please share where people can find you?
Chantal: Yes, thank you. What a beautiful conversation with you. I think we could have talked for like four hours, obviously. People can find me on my website at www.raiseyourlovesignal.com. It's where you'll be able to also get the book if you want to get it on all the different platforms like Amazon, Indigo, Barnes & Nobles, depending on where you are living in the world. I am, all my socials are there as well, but the most active platform where I am is on Instagram, and that's my name, @chantal.landreville.
Caitie: That's all she wrote everybody. All right. Thank you so much for being on the show, Chantal and thank you for tuning in to today's episode. If you enjoyed today's episode, please leave a five star rating on Spotify or on Apple really helps more people get the show. If you know someone who needs to hear the messages that we shared on the show today, please share this episode with another person. There isn't anything more special you can do than share this episode with another person. So I'd greatly appreciate you spreading the messages, spreading the good words, spreading this to your single lady friends, especially. We'll be back here next week with another episode. Thank you so much for tuning in. Have a peaceful rest of your day. Bye.