Competition. What competition?

In looking back on my foray into dating, I recall the fears that I overcame.

I had heard that, in my age group, there were more single women than men. Another opinion I had heard was that there were few men in my age group who were willing to undertake the effort that was involved in maintaining a relationship.

I also suffered from a mild body image problem. I'd been embarrassed by my pear shaped figure ever since my teens. Once I reached middle age, I encountered the additional challenge of aging. When I looked at photos of myself, I felt ashamed of my wrinkles.




Although I was tempted to focus on lack rather than on abundance, I forced myself to feel the fear and do it anyway (to paraphrase Susan Jeffers' book). "It" in this case was registering with a match making website and posting my photo there.

Later it was very instructive when David volunteered to me his methodology for filtering women on match making websites. He said he quickly scanned the profiles for factors that were deal breakers for him, e.g., smoking. Next, he looked at photos. He said that only once in a blue moon did a woman's face jump off the screen and gain his attention. The deciding factor for him was the eyes. He said that a "conscious" woman had eyes that were alive. Apparently this "life," at least in the form that appeals to him, is something that he recognizes instantly. He reported that the eyes in my photo had that quality.

That was where I chuckled to myself, because I realized that my fears about the amount of competition I was up against had been unfounded. The Busting Loose model states that my Expanded Self creates everything that shows up in my hologram (the life that I perceive in the Earth Amusement Park). My Expanded Self creates the people around me and hands them scripts that they then act out. If there is a man out there who likes my eyes, it's because my Expanded Self has created him. The notion of so called competition is utterly irrelevant.

I have used the example of dating but, according to the Busting Loose model, the principles would be the same if we were discussing business, career, or any other area of life. As Robert Scheinfeld says, if you (the Player) are aware of something, you (your Expanded Self) created it.

After my initial exposure to the Busting Loose material, it took me quite a while to accept that. But that's what I now believe.

There is just one caveat. It is not I, the Player, who conjurs up a date or a client or a job. It is my Expanded Self.