Episode Description - Your Childhood Is Sabotaging Your Love Life
What if the patterns keeping you stuck in unfulfilling relationships trace back to wounds you didn't even know needed healing? Relationship coach and hypnotherapist Mina Yang reveals how unresolved childhood trauma can quietly sabotage your ability to choose the right partners. More importantly, she reveals how you can finally break free.
Through her unique approach combining hypnotherapy and relationship coaching, Mina helps you understand why you keep repeating the same relationship mistakes and how you can finally have the love life you deserve.
In this podcast episode, Mina explains how childhood traumas create subconscious beliefs that drive our adult relationship choices, often causing us to chase emotionally unavailable partners or to sabotage our intimate relationships. She also shows how customized hypnotherapy recordings and guided meditations can rewire our deeply ingrained beliefs so that we can stop chasing the wrong partners and finally become attracted to someone healthier.
We also talk about the practical issues of when you should start dating after a divorce, how to avoid dating app scammers, and how to recognize red flags early on in a relationship.
Healthy, drama-free partnerships do exist, and this podcast episode could be your key to finally creating the love life and relationship you’ve been dreaming of.
Show Notes
About Mina
Mina Yang is a former academic turned hypnotherapist, relationship coach, and author devoted to helping people thrive in love and life. Drawing on her 20+ years as a music professor, her certification in Rapid Transformational Therapy, and her deep understanding of human psychology, she guides clients toward emotional freedom, self-love, and authentic connection. Mina’s work, including her book Boss Lady Boss Love, blends science, art, and soul to help people release old patterns and open to relationships that truly expand them.
Connect with Mina
You can connect with Mina on LinkedIn at Mina Yang True Connection and follow Mina on YouTube at Mina Yang. To learn more about working with Mina, visit her website at Mina Yang.
More from Mina
Get your copy of Mina’s book Boss Lady Boss Love
Join her upcoming retreat in April: True Connection Retreat
Learn more about her VIP True Connection Circle
Key Takeaways From This Episode with Mina
- Mina Yang transitioned from academia to hypnotherapy and relationship coaching after her divorce revealed long-standing relationship patterns rooted in childhood.
- Through hypnotherapy, she learned to connect past experiences—especially parental relationships—to subconscious beliefs that shaped her romantic choices.
- Hypnotherapy works by accessing the subconscious in a relaxed state, helping clients reframe old stories and replace limiting beliefs with healthier ones.
- Customized hypnotherapy recordings function like guided meditations, using repetition to create new neural pathways and lasting behavioral change.
- Unlike generic affirmations, hypnotherapy is effective because it ties new beliefs directly to a client’s personal history and emotional insights.
- Unresolved trauma—not necessarily major events, but unhealed emotional wounds—causes people to repeat unhealthy relationship patterns.
- Healing begins with self-compassion rather than blame, shifting individuals from a victim mindset to one of agency and empowerment.
- High-achieving women often over-function in relationships, people-please, or choose emotionally unavailable partners, leading to resentment and imbalance.
- Divorce is reframed not as a failure but as a sign of growth, often indicating that someone has outgrown a relationship.
- Healthy, lasting love is possible at any age after divorce, but requires self-awareness, realistic expectations, and belief that such love exists.
Do you like what you've heard?
Share the love so more people can benefit from this episode too!
Transcript
Your Childhood Is Sabotaging Your Love Life
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
trauma, healing, transformation, hypnotherapy, awareness
SPEAKERS
Karen Covy, Mina Yang
Karen Covy: 0:10
Hello, and welcome to Off the Fence, a podcast where we deconstruct difficult decision making so we can discover what keeps us stuck, and more importantly, how we can get unstuck and start making even tough decisions with confidence. I'm your host, Karen Covy, a former divorce lawyer, mediator, and arbitrator, turned coach, author, and entrepreneur. And now without further ado, let's get on with the show.
With me today, I have the pleasure of speaking with Mina Yang. And Mina is a former academic, turned hypnotherapist, relationship coach, and author devoted to helping people thrive in love and in life. Drawing under 20 plus years as a music professor, her certification in rapid transformational therapy, and her deep understanding of human psychology, she guides clients toward emotional freedom, self-love, and authentic connection. Mina's work, including her book Boss Lady, Boss Love, blends science, art, and soul to help people release old patterns and open to relationships that truly expand them. Mina, welcome to the show.
Mina Yang: 1:22
It's great to be here. Thank you, Karen.
Karen Covy: 1:29
How did you get here? Like, how did you go from being an academic, a professor, to doing the work that you do now? Tell me about your journey.
Mina Yang: 1:40
Well, I would say that my divorce was a big moment when I realized that I had been doing relationships all wrong for decades. And I really had to come to terms with how I was going to show up in relationships in the second half of my life. And I needed to do some healing first. It was really of you know, it became apparent to me during my journey that there were things I hadn't really addressed from my childhood. And once I did, I was able to show up as my full self. I was no longer shrinking, I was no longer compromising myself, I was no longer choosing the wrong men. And that made all the difference.
Karen Covy: 2:19
So, I'm curious because how did you know or start to see that it would what it was from your childhood or what it was from your past that was getting in your way? Because what I've seen in the work that I do is that people, everybody has patterns, but we're blind to our own patterns. So how did you start to see your own patterns?
Mina Yang: 2:40
Well, I started to read a lot of books. I started to do a lot of research. I got some relationship coaching of my own. And then the hypnotherapy training really helped me because there we connect the dots between our past events and the beliefs that we take away from them. And it was clear as day at that point that my relationship with my father had everything to do with the kinds of men that I chose. And that really had to change. So, you know, a lot of the experiences since my divorce really helped me see that there were other options, that there were better ways to go with relationships. And so the relationship I'm in now is the best I've ever had. And it's a partnership like I've never had in the past.
Karen Covy: 3:27
That's awesome. But I'm so curious to how hypnotherapy helped you connect the dots. Because, all right, like when I think hypnotherapy, you think of the person on the stage saying bark like a dog or whatever. You don't really think of it as being a real thing that could heal people. Let's put it that way. So, tell me how hypnotherapy, A, how it works, and B, how did it help you connect the dots?
Mina Yang: 3:56
Yeah, so there is a lot of misconception out there about hypnotherapy because of popular culture. And really, hypnotherapy looks nothing like what you see in movies or on the stage. It really is just a way of inducing people to be in a very relaxed state. And then we're able to bypass the conscious mind to a certain extent and get into their subconscious. So we ask, you know, our clients to come up with stories that are related to their current struggle. And oftentimes they're able to immediately come up with stories. And we ask them to really think about it from the vantage point of, okay, then you were a child and you felt powerless. And yeah, you had to deal with your father leaving or your mother having an addiction or whatever it was. And then we're able to connect that back to who they are today and show them that as adults, they have agency, they have power, that whatever habits, behaviors, beliefs they took on in the past are no longer useful to them as adults. And once that realization clicks, oftentimes they're able to move past them. Um, other times we give them audios to listen to so they can rewire their subconscious mind. They can form new neuropathways. And that helps them to really take on completely new beliefs, which changes their behavior.
Karen Covy: 5:20
Okay, so these um recordings or whatever, like what do you give them? Is it like a guided meditation? Is it something that they wear headphones when they sleep and it talks to their subconscious mind that way? How does it all work?
Mina Yang: 5:34
So, it is a lot like guided meditation. So just as with guided meditation, you're prompting them to have certain thoughts in the front of their mind. And so, they can do this when they're awake or even when they're asleep because their subconscious is always listening. But what's important is the repetition, because the more times we repeat something, it's like practicing a musical instrument, for example. The more times you practice something deliberately, the easier it becomes and more of a default it becomes. And so this is the case with guided meditation, with hypnotherapy audios. Um, they keep believing that yes, I am lovable, I am worthy of receiving love, I should have the best love. You listen to that over and over, and you know, start to see yourself in that light, perhaps for the first time ever. And so it can really be quite transformative very quickly.
Karen Covy: 6:34
So what you're saying sounds a lot to me like affirmations. And I know people have mixed feelings about whether affirmations are good or bad, whether they work, whether they don't work. Um, but how is these guided meditations, how the hypnotherapy, how is that different from just saying affirmations to yourself? Or is it?
Mina Yang: 6:58
There are some overlaps for sure. I think the power of hypnotherapy is in recognizing your very specific challenges and being able to point to really concrete instances of how you took on these beliefs. So, and then the recordings are very much customized to what your desired state is, what your struggles have been. And so it's really directly addressing your issues as opposed to something that's more sort of generalized. I think that's the power of it. Um, and it's allowing you, it's not just me guiding them, but it's also allowing the client to connect the dots between different things in their in their lives. So if they see that they keep having this pattern of chasing emotionally unavailable men, and they connect that back to perhaps a parent not being so present for them in their childhood, it just becomes kind of a light switch that gets turned on. Like, oh, that's why I keep doing this thing. And then the next time they go there, they're able to catch themselves and think, no, I don't need that anymore. I'm now an adult and I don't have the power, I do have the power, I don't have to go there anymore.
Karen Covy: 8:14
Is it that they don't that they immediately see when they're choosing the same guy in different skin? Like there's is that the what happens to them, or is it that they see that same guy and they're just not even attracted anymore?
Mina Yang: 8:31
Yes, that really does happen. And they're able to paint a picture of what it is they do want. They want someone who's going to be there for them, they want someone who is available to them, they want real love. And that was perhaps not really an available picture for them in the past. And so we paint that picture, they listen to the recording over and over, describing this picture that they describe themselves at the beginning of the session. And so it becomes something very customized that they can, they can, you know, really wrap their minds around.
Karen Covy: 9:07
So why do though, I mean, I know something happened in the past, but like things have happened in everybody's past, right? Why is it that something from the past keeps causing someone to choose the wrong person over and over and over? Is it always a big trauma, or what is it that can cause people to repeat the same patterns over and over?
Mina Yang: 9:30
So it's unresolved trauma, right? Uh trauma is uh a psychic wound, basically. And so if that wound's never had a chance to heal, it's going to continue to bother them. So trauma is tricky because two people can have the exact same experience, and one will experience that as trauma and the other won't. And so a lot of it is the story we tell about what happened, about that event. And that's where the power of hypnotherapy comes in, because with hypnotherapy or through hypnotherapy, you can rewrite the meaning of that story, you can reinterpret it in a different light. And so instead of thinking that terrible thing happened to me because I am unlovable and no one will love me again. Instead, you can think, oh, I see what happened there is a reflection of my parents' best efforts to parent me, but they fell short because they also had parents who didn't know what they were doing. And so it's not, it wasn't my fault. I tried to protect myself by thinking that no one loved me because it really is horrifying to think that your parents are not available to protect you, that you know, they are somehow inadequate. So children take on the belief it's their fault. And so once you're able to rewrite that story and see it that way, it it changes everything.
Karen Covy: 10:54
You know what I love about that is that you're not trying to convince yourself of something that's not true. You're not lying to yourself, saying, oh, that didn't happen, that didn't happen. It's no, it happened, but how can I look at it differently? And that's big.
Mina Yang: 11:14
Exactly. And that's why this is different from affirmations, because I think with affirmations, people don't always believe what they're repeating to themselves. You don't always, you know, just by saying I'm lovable, it might not really sink in. But if you say I'm lovable in the context of this realization about how your past has affected you and how you don't have to have those beliefs anymore, then it becomes something that your mind can actually absorb.
Karen Covy: 11:40
Yeah, I love that. I think that that makes so much sense. So, let's put this in the context of a divorce. Let's say someone has just gone through a divorce and they're wondering Okay, what happened? What did I do wrong? What am I supposed to learn from this? All the things. Where do they start to figure that out so that they can get to the place you're at with a great relationship?
Mina Yang: 12:09
I think that divorce makes a lot of people feel like they are failures, that they've been rejected on some level, even if they chose to go ahead with a divorce. So a lot of it is rewriting that story, right? That divorce is not necessarily a failure, that you know, they're just different chapters in life. And sometimes the last chapter has to close before we can open a new and perhaps better chapter. So that's one part of it. Another is going a little deeper. And instead of blaming anyone, take your responsibility, you know, including blaming yourself. You don't have to go into the whole self-critical rumination about how you suck and how you did everything wrong. No, rather it's about now, why was I draw driven to choose this man? Or why did I let the relationship get to this phase where it was unsalvageable? And when you do that kind of exploration, you might realize that there are actually deeper wounds that you need to address. And sometimes there are things you can resolve on your own through study and meditation and other methods. Sometimes you need help because there are things you can't necessarily see, especially if you're, you know, really deep into these patterns, and you need someone from the outside to say, hey, like maybe these are the things that are going on, and you might want to consider taking on these other thoughts instead.
Karen Covy: 13:42
How can you, when somebody's in that headspace, because the hardest thing I think is being open to being wrong, if that makes sense, being open to seeing, saying to yourself there's a different way to look at this, and maybe it is me. How can you help somebody get to that point where they even admit that maybe it's me? Because people go through a divorce, it's like, it's all his fault, it's all their fault. Like, it's not me, it's them. And how can you help them turn the mirror around and say, no, in a very loving way? You had a part in this too. Mm-hmm.
Mina Yang: 14:23
Yes, I think it all begins with compassion, compassion for yourself and compassion for your, you know, your ex too. Um, you know, we're all struggling with traumas from the past. Uh and you know, none of us are finding life or relationships easy. Um, there are a few lucky people who marry the right person at a young age and they seem to, you know, kind of slide through it all. But for the most part, a lot of us have a lot of growing up to do. So first start with compassion. And when we go into hypnotherapy and we go back to those scenes, oftentimes, you know, maybe our parents are the ones to blame. But again, even there, it really helps to be compassionate and understand that they were trying their best and they had, you know, a lot of things that they hadn't really taken care of.
Karen Covy: 15:12
Yeah, like nobody is perfect, right? But I think that to your point about compassion, um blame and compassion live on opposite sides of the spectrum. And I think that as long as somebody is trying to blame anybody, themselves, their parents, their ex, their whatever, um, you're still going to be caught in that loop. Yes. Right?
Mina Yang: 15:37
Yes, because when you're blaming, you're basically casting yourself as a victim. And when you're a victim, you're powerless. And instead, when you show yourself compassion, you're giving yourself agency. You can do something about your life. You can actually make a change that will result in better outcomes.
Karen Covy: 15:58
Yeah. Speaking of patterns, I know you work with a lot of successful women. Um, are there patterns in what gets women, like what successful women do, what they look for in a man or the mistakes they make in a relationship, things that people can kind of think about and say, hmm, I wonder if I'm doing that. Are there certain things a lot of people do?
Mina Yang: 16:22
Yes. So sometimes high achievers look to achievement, look to striving, because perhaps when they were younger, they didn't get the attention they needed. Perhaps they needed to feel loved by getting attention from their teachers, getting praise from people at school. And so high achieving is a wonderful thing, of course, but it can be the symptom of other issues as well. And so if you do have those issues from your early family patterns, um, you know, with unresolved familial tensions, then they really do need to be addressed because they'll show up in relationships. So you might be super successful at work, but in relationships you feel insecure because you haven't experienced that kind of, you know, um give and take in a family environment. So that's something that definitely needs to be addressed. Also, a lot of high-functioning people perhaps overfunction. So they might feel that in a relationship, if they keep giving, if they keep people pleasing, if they keep putting in the effort, then things will eventually work out. And it rarely happens that way. You really need two people to show up as equal partners and be in a team together. But because high-achieving people are often under this belief that they can just keep giving more and more, they get stuck in these relationships that really don't make them happy.
Karen Covy: 17:54
That makes so much sense. I've seen that in so many of my clients, unfortunately, is that they keep um covering for their spouse and picking up the slack and doing all the things. Um, and then what I've seen, I don't know if you could speak to this, is ultimately they build resentment. You know, you start to resent your spouse or your boyfriend, your significant other, your whatever you've got going on, um, because you're like, well, I'm doing everything and you're doing nothing. But you're doing everything voluntarily.
Mina Yang: 18:32
Yes. And sometimes, you know, the partner is ready to do more and to be an equal partner. Other times they perhaps chose someone who would never have planned to show up. And so, you know, it really has to do with both the selection of the partner and then the kind of dynamic that you set up with them.
Karen Covy: 18:55
Okay, so let me ask you the hard question. All right, so let's say you didn't choose well, right? But you're now married to this person and you don't want to give up and you want to make it work. And that, like, is there any hope for the relationship if you've not chosen the perfect person, or is it best to just throw in the towel and start over?
Mina Yang: 19:19
I think it really depends on the situation. So, you know, if you've done the work together, if you've gone to couples therapy and you've practiced communication techniques and you've done all the things and nothing is budging, then it's probably the case that you should start all over. And that's not really, again, I want to emphasize that is not a failure. It's just a sign that perhaps you've outgrown the relationship. Maybe you showed up in the beginning as someone who was okay with being a dormat and being a people pleaser, and you've finally grown into a version of yourself where that's not tolerable anymore. And that's great. That's a sign of your growth. So, that means you've grown past what this relationship can hold. And I think that's great. It's not a failure. It's a sign of growth.
Karen Covy: 20:09
I love that. I think that's so important because so many people they get stuck in the relationship and they don't they don't want to give it up. They want to hang on. They want to make it work so it's just, I can do this. Let's try harder. Let's keep going. Even though they've outgrown it. But looking at this as you've outgrown a relationship rather than you failed makes a huge difference in how you feel about it, I would think.
Mina Yang: 20:40
Absolutely. And I also have found that with some women, you know, I've talked to women who have not have never known anything other than that. So they desperately want to keep the relationship going because that's how they think relationships are. Maybe that's that was the dynamic of their parents. And they just can't even picture a healthy relationship of two loving people who are always there for each other. And that absolutely exists. And so I hope if anyone takes away anything from this, it's that that is a relationship that is possible for you and that you should absolutely have. And, you know, do whatever you can to have that, because it is a huge difference from one to the other.
Karen Covy: 21:25
That you know what? This was just gold, what you just said, because I've talked to so many people who honestly don't believe it's possible. And in today's world, I gotta say, we don't see so many examples of that. Um, so if somebody, let's say they say, I don't want to just take Mina's word for it or Karen's word for it, I want to see it. Where can they go to find examples? Do you know of any?
Mina Yang: 21:52
That is a great question. Because here's the problem a lot of what we see in rom-coms, what we might read in, you know, romance novels, they tend to emphasize the struggle and the tension and the drama, the yearning. Because good love stories are actually kind of boring. You know, like my current partner, we met and we got to know each other and we liked each other and then we grew to love each other. It's kind of boring. We don't have a lot of, we really actually never fight. If someone were to make a movie about us, it would just put people to sleep. So, I can't say there's like an obvious place to go to find those stories, but they exist. And the problem is when you've only known if relationships filled with strife, like perhaps your parents always fought, then what you're going to see out in the world are, you know, conflict-laden relationships because our brain looks out for things that are familiar to us. And so, if you're not used to relationships that are happy, then you're just going to ignore them. But I know, I know a lot of people who are in very happy relationships for decades sometimes. And so I know they're out there. It's just, you know, their stuff is not the stuff of TV shows.
Karen Covy: 23:12
Yeah, you know what, you're right. I mean, that's why all the courtroom dramas always have the big conflicts and the fights, and the person on the witness stand who, you know, is lying and they break down and all the things that never really happen in court. Or they happen, they're like five minutes out of five years’ worth of courtroom drama, which isn't very dramatic. A lot of it is just boring. Um but you're right, it makes terrible television.
Mina Yang: 23:40
Yeah. And so people need to kind of um switch off what they've taken from Disney movies and from, you know, all the rom-coms and understand that real love looks really different from that.
Karen Covy: 23:54
Yeah, that's true. And I can I can just say from my own experience, I mean, here we are sitting here, two accomplished, high-achieving professional women, and I have an amazing marriage. I'm so thankful to my husband. You're in an amazing relationship. So if nothing else, we can be a testament to the fact that it's possible. Yes, and after divorce. So yeah, it happens. So what if what would you say to the person who's thinking, okay, I see these two. It may maybe it happened for them. It could never happen for me. What would you say to that person to help spur them on and empower them to start this journey for themselves?
Mina Yang: 24:38
Well, that's the thing, right? If you believe it's never going to happen for you, it becomes its own self-fulfilling prophecy. So first you have to abandon that belief. You have to believe that it is possible for you. That if it's possible for someone else, it's possible for you. Yeah.
Karen Covy: 24:55
So let's say they say, all right, okay, maybe it's possible. Then what would be, what can someone start to do to open themselves up to see their own patterns, to not just see them, but change them so that they can get the love that they really want in their life. Where's a good place for them to start? Do they work with someone like you? Do they go to the self-help section of Amazon or Barnes and Noble? What do they do?
Mina Yang: 25:24
Well, actually, as you mentioned in my intro, I wrote a book just about this. And so I walk women through every step, beginning with self-awareness practices, because you really do need to understand who you are and why you made the decisions in the past to really get clarity on how to move forward. And then from there, I'll walk them through every step of, you know, how do you get on a dating app when you're, you know, 55 and divorced? How do you message someone you've never met before? How do you make sure that you actually meet in person instead of texting endlessly? How do you make sure they're not a scammer? You know, all of the things that go into dating today, it looks quite different than what dating looks like uh back in the 1990s. So I walk them through every step of it. And then if you need more help than that, yes, work with a coach, a coach like me, because you know, I have seen the gamut of what people struggle with. And so it's pretty clear to me what direction I need to nudge people to in order to, you know, really heal and really be able to find love that's you know really authentic and lasting.
Karen Covy: 26:41
You mentioned something that piqued my interest, and I just want to know. I mean, I'm not on dating apps at all, um, but I've heard a lot of people who have been on them and some women who have gotten scammed in a big way. How can you, because if you're coming out of especially a long-term marriage, but any marriage, any relationship, you haven't been on dating apps in a while or ever, and you're looking at these guys and you're swiping whatever way you're swiping, and how do you know who's the scammer and who's for real?
Mina Yang: 27:14
Yeah, so if it's too good to be true, it's not true, you know. Um, so scammers present themselves in these wonderful packages. They're usually, you know, very good looking. They're usually, you know, pictures of models stolen from the internet. Um, they present themselves as wealthy, as romantic, all the things that women desire. So be wary of anyone who just feels too good to be true. And then secondly, we have to adjust our expectations. I feel like a lot of women have been trained because of movies and you know, their fantasies of what they deserve in a partner. And oftentimes the emphasis is on more superficial qualities, like they have to be so tall, they have to make this much money, they have to look like this actor. And those things actually don't guarantee a good partnership. You know, like it doesn't matter if your partner is six feet tall. Like it matters if they're kind, if they're emotionally intelligent. And so I think that if you change your checklist to reflect the qualities that will actually bring you a better life, you are much more likely to meet an authentic person who will meet you halfway as opposed to a scammer who's looking for a quick win.
Karen Covy: 28:34
What should women be, what should their radar be up about for scammers? Like what I don't understand. What does a scammer get out of this? What are they trying to get?
Mina Yang: 28:48
Oh, I'm stuck overseas. Can you send some money so I can come and see you? Or, you know, um, they might become close to someone that might nurture the relationship over time and then say, hey, you know, I just heard about this great investment opportunity. Would you like to, you know, come into it with me? Um, so there are there are various methods. So, really, if anyone mentions money at all, it's time to end the relationship. I would also say that most scammers are not going to meet you in person. So that's something you should try to do earlier rather than later. And so you should say from the right off the bat, I'm only interested in meeting people quickly. So this is, you know, the app is just a platform in which to first initiate contact. And if there's any interest at all, we meet in person or we meet on a video call. So we know that there's a real person behind the profile.
Karen Covy: 29:44
Okay, you just answered my next question, which is okay, we're gonna go from the scammer to the axe murderer. How do you know when and how do you, as a woman, especially, how do you keep yourself safe when you are meeting someone in person?
Mina Yang: 29:58
Absolutely. Well, you can do, you know, um, identity checks. There are sites that allow you to do those things. Um, but also you should just meet in a safe place. Your first meeting should be something really casual, you know, coffee in a place with a lot of people. You should not reveal too much about yourself, you know. Perhaps don't give them your real phone number, get a Google number for the for the dating apps. Um, so there are ways to protect your identity and to make sure that, you know, you just you just use common sense, right? Like you don't want to go hiking in the woods with them, with a stranger. And that would be a bad idea. Yeah. And you don't want to drink too much on your first date. Um, you just want to make sure you are being smart about it and keep that first date short and casual and public. And then from there you decide what's your next date going to look like.
Karen Covy: 30:51
So I think that if you've met someone in person, the likelihood that they're a scammer is like it goes down dramatically. Yes.
Mina Yang: 31:01
Right? Because a lot of these scammers are, you know, from overseas. That just that's crazy to me. Yeah, I yeah. And they're getting better at it because now ChatGPT is helping them. And you know, it used to be, I remember being on the apps where it was pretty clear someone was not American because of their English, but that that's been solved by AI.
Karen Covy: 31:24
Oh, that's wonderful. I never even thought of that.
Mina Yang: 31:28
Yeah, yeah. But still they're telltale signs, you know. And again, if you do ask them to meet you, they will make all kinds of excuses. If they say, hey, can we get on a WhatsApp instead of talking on the platform? That's a sure sign they are a scammer. Really? Yeah, yeah, because on WhatsApp they're untraceable. So, and also a lot of you know, people from outside of the US will use WhatsApp because it's their phone numbers are yeah, their international numbers.
Karen Covy: 32:00
So interesting, and it's so sad and scary that we have to have this conversation. I mean, does anybody these does anybody meet the old-fashioned way? Like you just happen to be at a bookstore and you see somebody? Like, does that happen?
Mina Yang: 32:18
It does happen, but it's more rare than ever because of a few things. One is COVID. People just don't go out as much anymore. There are just not as many public congregations. And then secondly, the you know, Me Too movement really made it hard for men to be bold and just ask women out because there is this sort of you know, fear, anxiety that they might be crossing a boundary. So, as helpful as the Me Too movement was for women, it's also made dating a little bit more difficult. And then third is the dating apps themselves, because you know, it's much easier for men to be rejected on an app. It's just like some random person out there, not a real human. If they ask you out in person and you reject them, that that really stings. And so men are much less likely to actually ask you out. So apps are not the only venue. I think they're the most convenient because you can vet a great number of people. And I have met a lot of really high-quality men on there. You do have to put some work into it, but they are there. But if that's something that's just really outside of your comfort zone and you just can never imagine doing that, then you should still put yourself out there in ways that increase the odds of meeting new people. So perhaps you join a class or you, you know, take up golf or whatever it is that gets you out into the world and around men.
Karen Covy: 33:49
Yeah, I would think that taking a class means, you know, something like wood shop, not baking.
Mina Yang: 33:56
Yes, yes, exactly. Don't do yoga. I mean, you should absolutely do yoga. It's so good for you, but not with expectation you're going to meet your next meet a guy in the yoga room.
Karen Covy: 34:06
Yeah. Yeah. All right. So let's go the next step. So say you've gotten past the ups, you've met somebody, you're starting to date. What are the red flags that you should look for in a relationship early on that say, you know what, this isn't the guy for me, or I'm repeating a pattern, or this is just a bad idea?
Mina Yang: 34:29
There are a few things that are really important. One is not to fall too deep too fast because too many women make the mistake of thinking this guy is it. And then they just don't notice all of the things he's not doing or he is doing that indicate he's not the right person for you. We let our heart dictate what the relationship is. So go slow and really observe who is this person and is he checking off your list in the really important things like kindness, emotional maturity, empathy, growth mindset, commitment oriented. So these are all the things that really, really matter. Is he really interested in you? Like that's number one, actually. And a lot of women don't even consider that to be a factor. You know, they'll say somebody's my soulmate, but he just never, you know, felt the same way about me. He's not your soulmate if he doesn't feel the same way about you. That disqualifies him immediately. That's crazy. But I think so many women are used to just getting crumbs that they accept that and they convince themselves that it's you know, that they're not worthy of more.
Karen Covy: 35:46
What you just said, I think is the crux of it. They convince themselves. Which again goes back to healing your old wounds before, which brings up an interesting question. People ask all the time, okay, I'm divorced now, or I'm not even divorced now, but you know, the divorce has been in process for six months, eight months, fill in the blank length of time. Should I start dating now? What do you think? How much time should a woman take for herself or should she between relationships before she dives in again?
Mina Yang: 36:24
I started dating the weekend I moved out because I had spent years just, you know, forcing myself to be there because, you know, I had kids with my ex-spouse, and I felt like it was important to give it every ounce of what I had to make it work. So by the time I left the Marital Home, I was so ready. Um, and you know, I hadn't done all my healing, I hadn't really figured everything out, but I think being out there, I learned more about myself. And so for me, it worked to do it that way. Now, everyone is different. Some people do need some time to just be on their own. But I think the important thing is not to avoid, not to put off forever, because you're not getting younger. The men you're interested in aren't getting any younger. And, you know, there is something to be said for just being out there and being in contact with other humans, because oftentimes the person you're with puts a mirror up to yourself. So there's a lot you can do on your own to you know better heal and to better understand yourself. But the person you're with can also show you things about yourself you didn't realize. So I think that's an important part of this.
Karen Covy: 37:43
So let me ask you, and it tell me if this is too personal, but from the time you divorced till the time you met the man who you're in a great relationship with, how much time was that?
Mina Yang: 37:56
So it was about four years. And I did have a few other relationships in the intervening years. And I learned something from each one of them. And then finally, he's the one who just kind of it all came together.
Karen Covy: 38:08
But you know, I love that because I think what people mean when they say don't date right away, or do date right away, whatever the advice is, right? Everybody's got an opinion. But the point of it is that you have to take some time to do your own work and you don't want to just go headlong into another relationship that you're head over heels in love, and you just repeat the same mistake.
Mina Yang: 38:35
Exactly, exactly. So hopefully the divorce, you know, the sort of the emotional turbulence that comes with the end of marriage makes you really reckon with what you need to reckon with. Because again, it's not, it's not just other people. You need to really, you know, it's not that men are bad, you know, that they're all like just rotten to the core. That’s a very unhelpful stance that some women take. Instead, we all have some responsibility in how we show up to relationships and in the choices we make. So let's start there. And, you know, then you have a real chance at finding a much more fulfilling relationship.
Karen Covy: 39:19
Yeah, it would seem to me if you have the belief, and I know plenty of women who have it, that men are rotten to the core, they're bad, they're whatever, then I don't know how you ever find a good relationship with a man if that's your core belief. Because fundamentally, no matter who he is or what he does, he's rotten to the core. So, like you're kind of you've put yourself in a in a bit of a bind, I think.
Mina Yang: 39:44
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Because when you have that belief, you'll only see the bad aspects of a man, you know? And we all have good and bad, right? And so if you come into a relationship thinking that somebody is bad, they'll prove that to be true over and over again.
Karen Covy: 40:00
Yeah. But I love this. I and I love the hope, right? That that you give people and the way you empower women to say no, you really can't find the relationship that you are looking for, the one that we all deep down believe that is there. But I think the unbelief, I don't know, tell me what you think, the disbelief that it's possible is a protection mechanism.
Mina Yang: 40:30
Oh yeah. It is so much that because again, it goes back to your childhood, but if you if you experience that love wasn't always there for you when you needed it, you're going to carry that into your adulthood and you're going to find partners who keep proving that to you, that when you need them, they're not there. And you have to be okay with that. And it's not okay. And you don't need to keep believing that anymore. You can shed that. And you can you can be, you know, embraced by someone when you really need that.
Karen Covy: 41:05
I love that. And Mina, you've shared so many amazing tips for people, but if you had to leave women with one last parting word of wisdom or parting words of wisdom, what would you say to somebody who has been through a divorce and is really looking for that lasting love?
Mina Yang: 41:24
Well, start with the knowledge that it's never too late, that whatever we've experienced in life can be part of the foundation of a much better life, of a much better love. And that it's so worth having that. Yes, we can do life alone. And that's the beautiful thing about living today, that women can make enough money, they can, you know, live in a beautiful house, they can have all the things. But it really is so much better when you share that with a partner. So I just really urge women to not give up and to know that it's possible for them, whatever their age, whatever their circumstance. And um, you know, believe in love.
Karen Covy: 42:06
I love that. That is that is the perfect way to end this conversation, I think. Mina, if somebody is interested in finding you and working with you and knowing more about you, where's the best place that they can go to find you?
Mina Yang: 42:21
I would direct them to my website, which is www.minayang.com. You can also find me on LinkedIn. I'm very active there. So, if you want to follow me my post, please connect with me there. And you can just find it through my name. And I'm sure Karen will put it in the show notes.
Karen Covy: 42:39
Oh, yeah. Everything is going to be linked up in the show notes, including a link to get your book, um, which should be amazing. So, Mina, thank you so much. I really appreciate your being here.
Mina Yang: 42:52
I loved it. Thank you.
Karen Covy: 42:53
You're welcome. And for those of you out there watching or listening, if you enjoyed today's show, if you'd like to hear more shows just like this, do me a big favor. Give this episode a thumbs up, like the podcast, subscribe to the podcast, subscribe to the YouTube channel, and I look forward with to seeing you all again next time.
