Confessions from a Relationship Expert

Me: I will first begin by asking you to introduce yourself, tell me about your educational background, why did you specifically choose this domain and overall, what is the career path you took to be where you are right now?

Zuzana: Great. Well, thank you for having me first of all. I am so excited. Ok so, hello, my name is Zuzana Svepešová, I am originally from Slovakia, have been living in the UK for the last 10 years; so I have been living in an expat life and yeah, it has been a very interesting journey; when it comes to what I do now, I graduated uni in Slovakia with master’s degree in psychology and I have always been passionate about human mind, about why we do what we do, because I remember myself sitting with my friend’s parents and was always so fascinated listening to people, what they were saying, how they were saying things, so it interested me from a very young age. I loved travelling, so I wanted to explore the world a little bit, so while I was studying uni, I came to England for 3 summers and yeah, that’s how I somehow fell in love with it, in love with living abroad; as I was graduating, I was deciding whether to stay at home or explore the world more and as I was drawn going back abroad, I just left and have been here since; so, I had a little bit of a break from psychology , but it was always close to me; I started working here as an au pair, as a nanny, I looked after 3 little children, I met so many amazing people, but I was at the same time working for mental health charity as I wanted to stay in touch with my expertise and at the same time, I qualified as a NLP practitioner, I discovered this passion for language and how language affects the way we think and what we do; so it may seem so simple, but it’s so significant, and I became NLP practitioner and then, at the same time, as I mentioned that I loved traveling, I became cabin crew, because I was like, I want to fulfill all my passions; while I was doing that, I had this thought of going back to what I originally studied, but I was really grateful for the opportunities to explore other passions I had; when my company went bust in 2017 and around that time, I was already thinking how to go back to what I initially studied and I decided to qualify as a transformational coach, so qualified through International Coaching Federation and yeah, that’s how my journey started, that’s how I got to what I am doing now; as I was working as a transformational coach I helped people in various areas of life, to meet their goals, meet their outcome, whether it was relationships, business, health, it was different areas; however, as the years went by, I myself found that I was struggling in relationships quite a lot, because, as I was getting older, I felt that need to be in a serious relationship and it was just not happening for me; so then, I actually, after my last break-up, which was 3 years ago, I got to the point where I said to myself: “Enough is enough, I really have to explore what is going on here”, and that’s how things shifted for me 180 degrees, where I actually found out what patterns kept me stuck and I changed things completely and that actually inspired me to help other women around the world, to help them to go basically from “not feeling enough”, asking themselves “what’s wrong with me”, to the point where dating is easy, where they naturally feel themselves and where they can really attract people who resonate with them and that they have healthy and fulfilling relationships. Because I basically went from the place where I thought that “Well, relationships are probably not for me”, thinking it was impossible, to the place where I was like “They are totally for me”, and I now know what is keeping me stuck; so, as I loved traveling, I just combined all these things together, so I now work online, I serve and help women from around the world, so this is fantastic, I can go and work from anywhere in the world from my laptop, which is great and I run my own business and this is where I am at the moment and still growing… my mission is to grow, I am currently preparing a new group program, because at the moment I am working one-on-one with my clients, so yeah, exciting times.

Me: Thank you for sharing. That is indeed a very exciting journey, the one that you’ve had so far, and the one that is about to come, that’s really, only exciting things coming up your way; so I am very happy and excited myself about this journey.

Zuzana: Thank you. It is, yes, it is about what we are choosing, isn’t it? Sometimes it is one of the things which I have discovered along my journey, which was a major point where things started turning… was taking 100% responsibility for my part of what was going on in my life and that is sometimes, that can a bit hard pill to swallow, but once I started doing that, things really started to change.

Me: Alright. Now you touched upon the mission of yours: helping women everywhere in the world when it comes to relationships and making them have this opinion of themselves, from “ I am not enough” to dating is easy. In which ways do you make an impact into the dating life of women and how do you basically help transform their dating world; what would be the steps that you guide women along the way? Is it a matter of everyone’s story or is it more like a general overview that women need to grasp regarding dating and relationships?

Zuzana: Great question. Little bit of everything I would say. But basically, if I was going to summarize it in a short way, I basically help them to go from feeling that they are not worthy, that it’s not possible for them and they are not able to have relationships they want, to the place where they feel that they are enough and they are worthy of love and that it’s totally possible and they know how to do it and they are totally capable of doing it, right? And the way how I do it is that, how I help them to uncover the patterns and obstacles which are keeping them stuck; because, normally when clients come to me, there is some kind of pattern which seems to be repeating in their love life, whether they are attracting certain type of partner or whether they get certain type of outcome where the partners leave or they feel unfulfilled, right? The first and foremost, I help them… I want to know what women want, what is the outcome they would want. That in itself is often quite transformational, because we sometimes can get stuck about thinking what’s not working and we don’t even think about what we want and how we can achieve it, so we are stuck in mentality, where we are thinking of the negative things; so, uncovering what they actually want and then, we’re exploring what’s actually behind it; so what’s been happening so far, right? So there is some kind of pattern when it comes to thinking and when it comes to doing. One of the ways how I work with my clients is through their conscious mind and subconscious programming, which is, well, we focus on how our brain works …like it’s when all of this majority of these patterns come from our childhood; the way we show up in our relationships when we are adults, 9 out of 10 it comes from what we experience when we are little and basically, when we were young, we have learnt or we were programmed to believe or to see what it meant to be loved, what it meant to be accepted right? And depending on that, we then repeat these patterns in an adult relationship; so let’s say, if we were told that we should be showing emotions or we shouldn’t be showing emotions, we shouldn’t be angry, we shouldn’t be happy, we shouldn’t be jumping around as children…we learn to, at that point, to shut down, we learn that, being someone else or doing something else, thinking something else, is how the world goes and how I am going to be loved; unless this pattern, it’s just one of many, unless this pattern is uncovered, we take it to the adulthood and we just repeat it; what happens is we cover up, we think we need to be someone else, that being loved is conditioned in some kind of way, that we need to say something, we need to do something right? So then things like people pleasing or wanting to have control, we are scared to let go, and lots of different things… so what I basically help women is to become aware of those patterns and then create new more empowering patterns, which help them get to where they want to be in their love life; because, for every single woman, that means something completely different, so yes, that’s what I help them with.

Me: That’s really great; great points that you raised. You did mention, but I will ask you again, from the experience that you have so far and all the conversations you’ve had with your clients, what would you say is the most predominant pattern that women nowadays face when it comes to dating/relationships? Is it that they all feel unworthy and where is this feeling of unworthiness coming from?

Zuzana: There are actually… the most common one, I would say, two main ones I come across; what it always comes down to when I work with my clients... so the challenges they come to me with, is not feeling enough or worthy in some shape or form- physically, ”I am not smart enough”, “ I am not tall enough” etc., or, we are scared of rejection and being abundant; so basically these are two common patterns which normally lie behind the challenges we are facing in dating. For example, when we are scared to show who we are, there may be some kind of protection and we’re pretending to be someone else, we are changing our schedule to be fitting with the schedule of the other person, just so that we are liked right? What’s behind it is the fear of being rejected, like: “If I show up as I am, I am going to be rejected”; now going back to the childhood, that typically comes from situations which we were not aware of that this was happening, but could have been situations like, let’s say we have expressed ourselves as children, we said something and the parent told us “Oh, why did you say this? Don’t say that, no, it’s not important”; so we were shut down and we have learnt that it’s required to say something different so we’re starting thinking “Oh, what do I have to say, how do I need to be, so I have the approval of my parents?” At the beginning of our lives it was our parents, later on, if we copy the same patterns, it’s our partners, our date or people around us; these patterns don’t show only in our love life, it’s also in our work for example and relationships within ourselves with ourselves, I would say. And it’s the same with not being enough… we’re thinking “I have to be enough, I need to be someone else, I need to behave somehow, I need to be different, so that I can please the other person”; so these would be two main patterns which keep on appearing.

Zuzana: I should add here that these feelings normally come from something called, attachment style; attachment style is the level of safety and security we develop first three years of our life, we cannot do anything about it, it is about the level of safety we feel and when we are very young, we develop certain set of beliefs and thoughts, like what it means to be safe, loved and cared for; based on that, we go to adulthood. And there are, in a nutshell, three attachment styles: the anxious, the avoidant and secure; if we have the secure attachment style, that means that we are happy to express who we are, we had been supported when we were young, we feel safe, secure and comfortable, so we do not have to think, we don’t have to please anyone; the majority of the population grew up in this environment, but if you look around you, lots of people grew up in environment where there is some kind of “Don’t do this”, “Stop that”, so we’ve learnt that “Ok, so I need to be someone different”

Me: I think it is good that we’ve experienced these things in the past, because we’ve learnt our lesson; we’ve learnt to be confident when it comes to relationships or how we behave in the world, in friendships; we have learnt how not to be stuck anymore and how to evolve, how to grow.

Zuzana: Absolutely. It is normally, it’s knowing what it is keeping us stuck; cause we often go in circles… I didn’t know for years, like “ What was I doing?”; and I would share it with my clients that “I was doing the same thing”, like I always thought “ I am going to be fine with the next person, right…I feel it’s getting better; but then the next one, he will make me happy”… I was basically waiting for someone else to make me feel certain way; every time you wait for someone else or something else to generate certain feeling within us, that’s a broken strategy. We are always going to be waiting, right? So, how can I do it myself? And that comes with awareness, knowing what am I actually dealing with, and then I can deal with it actually.

Me: You nailed it perfectly. You are absolutely right. The patterns that you talked about in the previous question, can this pattern be avoided during the relationship, and would you be willing to share one tip as to how to do that? Of course, you said that there are two patterns, so it would be difficult to share only one tip for both of them cause they are different, but let’s say for the pattern of not feeling worthy enough, what would be one tip so as not to have this feeling anymore of unworthiness?

Zuzana: First of all, it would be becoming aware of it; because when we are not aware of it, like often, what we do is that we don’t realize that this is coming from the leaf that we are not worthy; we just think “Oh, I just have to do one more thing and I will be loved”. We don’t realize this seeking for validation because, when we don’t feel worthy, we seek for that validation elsewhere; we don’t create it ourselves; so, first and foremost, becoming aware of that belief that this is actually what’s dragging us, that it’s not someone else or something else, because what I sometimes see with women I speak to or clients who come to me, and I was there myself, where we think that someone or my date made me feel this way, or whilst, we have our contribution to the dating process… so, definitely becoming aware of the belief of what’s actually causing this and identifying what kind of thinking is going on in my mind; because, the way we feel, whatever is happening outside of you, whatever you’re having or not having in your love life, in your life in general, it’s always coming from your way of thinking, the way you’re seeing yourself, if we are really going deep here right? It’s about the self image. Because the way we see ourselves, which is often in our subconscious, is how we are going to show up in our every day life; so yeah, I would start with identifying what kind of thoughts, like really becoming aware of what kind of thinking it is; it’s like a chain reaction: whatever you’re thinking, creates an emotion right? Depending on how you feel, you are going to act certain way, and depending on how you behave, you are going to have certain outcomes. So the answer to this is this chain reaction and becoming aware of what’s happening for me, and maybe I would like to add here, not judging yourself when you uncover this pattern…because I can also see with my clients “Oh, so now it is all my fault” or “I’ve been doing it all wrong”; so, don’t judge yourself, celebrate, be grateful that you’ve had the chance now to uncover this, so from now on, you can create the new way and really explore what kind of chain reaction would work for you instead and go to “ What do I actually want?”, “What is important to me?” and then create a chain reaction of thinking “If I had all this ( healthy relationship, amazing partner whom I can be myself with), how would I think, how would I feel, what would I do?”…and you don’t have to wait for your partner to have these, choose one of these things, so I can think this way already, so choose the alternative pattern; what pattern would work for me instead? But really, it’s first becoming aware of it, like turning the light on first so you’re not wandering in the dark anymore.

Me: Definitely, yes. I like how you emphasized this. Now going more generally, what would you say are the key factors as to having a successful, long-lasting relationship? What would be the main ingredients?

Zuzana: Now, before I dive in and as a language and NLP enthusiast, what I would even ask my clients when they come to me or when I was interviewed for a podcast, the same question came up; I would ask you or anyone who is reading, what does successful relationship mean to you? I personally don’t tend to use the word “success” as everyone defines it in a different way; so, this would be the first thing, what does success mean to you? Because for some people, success means having a five-bedroom house, two cars, three dogs, two kids, going on holiday twice a year, high paying jobs and so on; for some people, it means having backpacks and traveling the world with their partner, no kids, just exploring the world… so, that part I would leave to the readers to determine for themselves; however, when it comes to long-lasting and fulfilling relationships, there are a few key factors which I generally present in relationships which are healthy… because you can be in a relationship with someone for a very long time, but it can be unhealthy and very unfulfilling; so, I would mention a few key factors which show up in every healthy long-lasting relationships; and those are, first and foremost, honest and open communication; being able to talk to your partner about good stuff, bad stuff; then sharing same or similar values. Now, this is a big one as well, values regarding children, regarding finances, regarding health and stuff like that… for example, when you meet someone, let’s say you want kinds and they don’t want kids… that is as if you are going South and they are going North right; you can’t possibly meet with that person. Respecting each other, supporting each other, respecting not just each other, but also yourself; like how you show up in relationships, comes first and foremost, from how we respect and value ourselves, going back to being enough, being worthy of fearing rejection…so respecting each other and yourself and boundaries of the other person; appreciation and acceptance, we all have our individual lives, so appreciating and accepting that “Ok, the other person has their own life and sometimes need time on their own”; trust, trusting each other, not just trust in the other person, but in yourself and then trust in positive outcome, like “This is going to work, this is working, we are going to make this work”; commitment, making sure the person you’re with and also yourself are open, willing and ready to be committed, like you are in this journey and are committed… we are always committed to something, we can be committed to hiding, growing or all sorts of things; what are you committed to and what is your partner/date committed to? And lastly, having compatible and emotional physical intimacy; here I would say it’s important to have both, when it comes to healthy long-lasting relationships, both of them are present, so not only physical intimacy, but emotional too; this is one of the keys signs where, sometimes women come to me and ask “How can I tell whether this person is actually interested long-term?”. One of the key factors how you can tell whether they are interested, is if he is really interested in you on an emotional level, if he or she is open to explore closeness, when it comes to emotional intimacy, cause that’s another level; that’s about being interested in who you really are, what you are about, what are not just your good days, but days as well; so having compatible physical and emotional intimacy. These would be my top 7 haha.

Me: Wow, that was very complex and well explained. Thank you for sharing. So we have the answer already that there’s no rule that all long-lasting relationships automatically mean that they are successful and yet, how, let’s say someone is in a toxic relationship and they don’t know this yet; what would be one way or multiple ways of getting out of that relationship? How can they get out as fast as they can from that toxic relationship?

Zuzana: Great question. It’s about recognizing what they are doing…like, whether being in that relationship is… are they in that relationship because of fear or are they in that relationship because of love? Love, not just towards the other person, but also towards themselves. Now, we date or we are in a relationship based on our level of self-esteem; so, matching your love for yourself 100%, what would you do in that particular situation? Imagine you feel enough, you feel complete and you feel worthy… what would you do in that particular relationship? So recognizing whether ”what am I doing” and "how am I feeling with this person?”; the way we feel is a very good indicator on where we are and then going back to that chain reaction we explored earlier, ok so what’s happening? I am feeling… and really acknowledging and I think, really being curious as opposed to judgemental. Like, this is not working for me… ok, get curious, what’s happening in your mind and then, what do you want instead? So always ask yourself “Ok, so what would I want instead?” And sometimes, because we have our part in these relationships, sometimes, when we adjust a little bit, how we communicate, how we show up… maybe we are not showing emotions right; because we are scared... so we have our part; so really exploring what’s happening; are we doing this from the place of fear or love? If I love myself, would I be scared to show who I really am? Probably not…so recognizing where we are coming from.

Me: Absolutely agreed. Very good answer. What would be one red flag that women should always pay attention to?

Zuzana: There are a few juicy ones, but, I would say that one, in the very early stages of relationships or dating, is the effort…basically, if his actions match his words right; because, the level of effort a person is investing in you, equals the interest or how this person feels about you. So we can be told that someone loves us or someone really cares for us, yet, we feel like we are not a priority, we feel that there’s huge inconsistency when it comes to their communication, time they invest in us, they are hiding us in front of their friends; nobody knows that we exist, they don’t find time for us; so there are many different factors which can show us that that person, despite them saying that they really care about us, like once or twice a week, there’s definitely inconsistency and once again, the way we feel is a huge indicator; ask yourself, “How do I actually feel with this person?”; not like your emotions are dependent, but how do I actually feel, being honest with yourself; but definitely when actions match the words; and normally, from my experience and what I can hear from my clients too, this question, like wondering whether the person is right for you or not, doesn’t even pop up in your mind; the person who is not really interested creates confusion for you; the person who is interested creates certainty… you know; that question very rarely passes your mind, like, “ Is he interested?” … you don’t have time to ask this because you know that person is interested right.

Me: Exactly, well said. When you know, you know. Next question...Is there such a thing as “it’s too early/late, something doesn’t add up” when talking about grand gestures or gifts?

Zuzana: So first of all, expectations. It’s a really valid question…not just from receiving, but also giving, like “What shall I do, shall I give this person a present, we’ve only just met”… unless we express clearly, like what we want from the other person, we often have expectations of others to do something, say something or be someone, but we don’t say it, we don’t express it; and then we can get disappointed when the expectation is not met, so that can be avoided by expressing what we want basically, what we need from that person. Too early… well, every person is different and every couple is different; there is something, it’s always about how giving and receiving presents, attention, compliments make you feel; there can be giving too early, which is known as love bombing, which comes way too early and that is form of manipulation and control; so what’s actually underneath that, is about the other person to make you feel that you are somehow dependent on them, like there’s always an imbalance in how much they are giving than how much you are giving; it normally comes too early and it comes to the point where it’s very uncomfortable for the person who is on the receiving side; now it really depends how much is coming from the other side; I would go back again to how it makes you feel ; now if it’s too much, too early and you feel uncomfortable, one of the best ways is just to communicate this to your date that it really makes you feel uncomfortable; one of the best ways to see whether that person is for you or not, is to really set your boundaries and express where you are at and watch what happens; not in a manipulative way, but like ”Ok, I am sorry but I don’t feel comfortable, maybe later” and if that person respects that, that is a sign of healthy relationship or healthy interaction; whereas if that is not respected, if that’s not heard or dismissed, that’s a sign of unhealthy interaction from that person’s side; at the same time, there is something called feminine or masculine energy when it comes to relationships, and it’s a very specific place in romantic relationships, where, there is this cycle of giving and receving…masculine energy, which is more typical for male but not necessarily, they love to give; and when we are feminine energy, we receive; so let’s say someone is giving you a compliment and you don’t take it… that person gave you something, but you blocked the cycle by not receiving it; if we want to go deeper here, it’s about exploring “Why am I not feeling comfortable receiving this compliment?” Here we go back to the feeling of “I don’t feel worthy, I don’t think I deserve it etc “… so, yeah, it’s about how it makes you feel, because sometimes it can be very subtle and it just feels right and even if you want to give a present or a compliment… what is your intention basically? What are you hoping to get or what is the outcome that you want here? In the it’s too late scenario… we were talking about the emotional intimacy; that comes hand in hand with becoming vulnerable and opening up to the other person, which is easier for some, and little bit more challenging for other people; it can very normal that some people don’t really share that much about themselves or they don’t show love as they would normally show it when they are just relaxed and feel comfortable, maybe takes time; what comes to mind here is love languages and the way how we all show love; because sometimes, that person may be showing you love, care and attention, but they are just sharing it in very different ways to what you are used to; so there are 5 love languages, and it is such a nice concept and knowing it can really help us understand and see that their love, care and attention is there; so to mention them, it’s basically words of affirmation, like expressing love, care and attention in words: “I love you, I care about you, be careful, I will take care of it”; then it’s physical touch, some people like to be touched, some people don’t right; then it’s acts of service, where we may not necessarily say how we feel, but we make things for others: you make lunch for someone, you fold your partner’s washing or you remind them to take their jacket when it’s rainy outside; then we have gifts, some people love to give or receive gifts, so that’s their love language, and last but not least, it’s quality time, for some people it may be more important, for some people less, to spend quality time with their partner; so, even though, sometimes, exploring what is your love language so you understand how to give and receive it so you can communicate it to your partner “You know what, I realize this is what works for me, would you mind…?, and recognizing, learning about your date, your partner’s love language so you can… let’s say your partner loves gifts, so you know…it doesn’t have to be something big, it’s about small details. So this can be there when it comes to” it’s too late”; maybe noticing it, whether that person has already been communicating, but I haven’t heard it and then second one is, becoming comfortable so that the partner can show up a little bit later and the third one, becoming curious again, so yeah.

Me: Great answers. Do you believe in the saying that love is blind, that love blinds you and do you think it is a good thing or a bad thing, and why?

Zuzana: To some extent, I think it is important to recognize what kind of blindness there is, where it comes from; there is a period of time in every relationship when we are falling in love with someone or when we are starting a relationship, there is this honeymoon period, where we do put the other person on the pedestal a little bit more, when we don’t see as many bad things, we tend to see more the good stuff about that person; so, the overall perception of the other person is a little bit, it’s better than what is not entirely objective… so, in that sense, love can be blinding; however, once that period fades off, then it’s about…because when the love is blind, you are not able to see the negative side of that person right, but it’s happening in every relationship when we start; the difference is between when the honeymoon period passes, once you start seeing those things which are not entirely amazing… before it was just a funny thing and suddenly you get a little bit annoyed; basically, what happens then, when you start seeing clearly, when you are not blind anymore, what happens from there? This is where, going back to what makes the relationship healthy, fulfilling and long-lasting, are you communicating in a respectful, healthy way, are you accepting, are you supportive? And that is something which normally goes on from the very beginning, but it shows a little bit more once that honeymoon phase fades off right… so, where do you go from there? And once again, are you doing it because of fear or love? So, are you staying, are you accepting, are you making excuses for those, you know, things which you don’t like, because you’re scared to be in love, you don’t think you are worthy, because you think you won’t find anyone better, or are you continuing and taking things as they are and appreciating your partner regardless, because you love yourself and you love your partner?

Me: Very nicely said, yes. Last question. I feel that you touched on it very nicely in the points that were previously discussed and I will not include this question anymore; I would rather ask you, why do you think that nowadays finding love is harder than ever, compared to how it was in the past? Why is it difficult to find long-lasting healthy love? Is it a generation thing, is it that expectations have changed along the way?

Zuzana: Well, this would be typically me asking you what it makes you feel that it’s hard; what makes finding the partner, meeting the partner hard for you? Because we are all very different and going back even to our parents…again, lasting successful relationships, not everyone who got married 20-30 years ago, are happy and you know… so I would go back to, what does meeting the partner you want, hard for you? What typically comes up is, one of those beliefs; there is some kind of belief behind it that I am either not worthy, I have to be someone else; obviously nowadays, you know, we have Instagram, we have Tik Tok and all these platforms where we may think we have to be someone else; like, we are presented with different ideals of what it means to be successful, but again, going back to ourselves, what does it mean for me? Just because, you know, someone else is doing it, do I have to do it? It’s going back to when we were little right; that’s where we sort of shut the part of ourselves down or we disconnected form who we truly are, so now, it’s about, if you go back to yourself and think about “Ok, what it’s important for me, who am I?” ; I truly believe that that’s when dating and love relationships become much much easier; and I hear this often from women, like “Oh, dating is hard”; but then I ask them “What makes it hard for you?”; it normally comes down to two beliefs we’ve already talked about “I don’t think I am enough” or “I fear I will get rejected” right; and once you really look into that, you show up very differently; once you go from “I am not enough” to “ I am enough, I am complete, I am worthy of love”, you will really show up differently and you will start attracting different types of people and this is everyone’s responsibility; so you can’t do anything for anyone else, it’s individual…every single individual looking at themselves and really, you know, choosing, who do I want to be? And back to that chain reaction again, however you think about yourself, about others, about men, about women, you will feel that way; one of the challenges I come across, is like, “Online dating is hard”, for example; how is this thought helping you date? What other thought would be more empowering for you to date? If we continue that thought, ok, how I am going to do things differently, what am I missing right? Really being curious about yourself and what works for you; so, going back to your question, times have changed, there are different ways, we’re having online dating; I personally love online dating; I think it is a fantastic way of meeting people, especially now as we are all busy; what I’ve learnt from my experience and I can see through my clients, is that, it’s not about it not working, it’s about , sometimes, we are not utilizing it properly; maybe our profile is not done properly or maybe it’s not your cup of tea, and that’s fine; but it’s about really being curious and open about “Ok, what works for me, what do I want?”, starting from yourself.

Me: It’s been such an honor and pleasure to talk to you and have you interviewed. Looking forward to talking to you soon in other such juicy topics!