From Toxic Relationships to Love Mastery
Show Notes
Summary
Irena helps people overcome toxic relationship patterns from their childhood so they can master love in adult relationships.
In this episode, you’ll learn about:
What it’s like growing up in an emotionally abusive environment.
Why it’s important to recognize red flags in relationships and discover what changes you need to make for a healthy relationship.
Re-parenting, healing the inner child, and identifying and challenging self-limiting beliefs and unhealthy attachment styles.
The challenges of online dating and their experience with consensual non-monogamy.
Irena was born and raised in Ukraine. After moving to USA in 2001 in search of better life and getting married at 23, her envisioned happily ever after crumbled very quickly. Growing up in an environment where all her emotions had to be suppressed, feeling unloved and abandoned, she only learned how to be ready for a fight, how to blame others and how to look for external validation desperately trying to feel worthy.
After trying out various types of relationships, monogamy & polyamory, after having my two children, and living in different countries,she realized that she was the common denominator in all her unsuccessful attempts at relationships. She had to make changes. And she did. It was a long and painful process, but it was worth it. Now, being back in USA, she is dedicated to help others to acquire crucial skills for forming and sustaining healthy relationships.
Resources from this episode
Noteworthy quotes from this episode:
“Because when we get triggered, this only points us in the area where work is needed. So when kids trigger me, that means something is healing within me, it's not the kids, it's me and it has made my parenting. It's still challenging. Don't get me wrong, but it has made it much easier.”
“I think the biggest issue they deal with is they're probably still using some kind of coping mechanisms they acquired long ago and they're just not realizing that their belief system is no longer serving them. And instead of reevaluating this system and their mechanisms and their default modes, they just keep applying them and applying, but it's no longer working.“
Connect with Irena
Website: www.LovedandFulfilled.com
Love Mastery Program: https://lovedandfulfilled.com/program/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lovemasterycoaching
Connect with Paige Bond
Paige Bond hosts the Stubborn Love podcast, is a Licensed Marriage Therapist, and is a Polyamory Relationship Coach. Her mission is to help people-pleasing millennials navigate non-monogamy so they can tame their jealousy and love with ease. Her own journey from feeling lonely, insecure, and jealous to feeling empowered and reassured is what fuels her passion to help other people-pleasers to conquer jealousy and embrace love.
Free Jealousy Workbook:
http://www.paigebond.com/calm-the-chaos-jealousy-workbook-download
Free People Pleasing Workbook:
https://www.paigebond.com/people-pleasing-workbook
Disclaimer: This podcast and communication through our email are not meant to serve as professional advice or therapy. If you are in need of mental health support, you are encouraged to connect with a licensed mental health professional to receive the support needed.
Mental Health Resources:National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255SAMHSA’s National Helpline: 1-800-662-HELP (4357)Crisis Text Line: Text HOME to 741741 for free, 24/7 crisis counseling.
Intro music by Coma-Media on pixabay.com
Transcript
Paige Bond, Open Relationship Coach
Welcome back to another episode of Stubborn Love. I love talking about love. And it seems like I keep running into dating coaches, love experts. And so today on the show, we have Irina and she's a dating coach who helps people shift from toxic relationship models learned in childhood. And we're gonna take a deep dive in to just really her whole model that she's created and, you know, talk about her program that she's built at the end.
So I'm super excited that you're here today. Ana before we jump into really everything that we're going to get into, can you just tell the listeners a little bit about your journey to how did you even become a dating coach? And why is this important to you?
Irena Polyakova, Dating Coach
Yes, absolutely. Hi. So, I am Irina and I originally come from Ukraine. I was actually born and raised in a former Soviet Union system which unfortunately provided me with an extremely emotionally abusive environment to grow up in. in addition, my two parents were simply unequipped to raise a kid being emotionally broken themselves. So when I was a teenager, I kind of decided that I need to look for love somewhere else and not in Ukraine.
And I was pretty determined to move from my home country. And in 2001, I ended up moving to the United States. I met somebody and I married him when I was 23. It was a very beautiful fairy tale that lasted for about three months after three months. Unfortunately, things started crumbling down and it's only nowadays when I'm in my mid forties, I know that the most, the most important reason, the biggest contribution to that breaking down of that happily ever after mystery was the
lack of relationship skills and the lack of communication skills. And as of now, it had taken me two marriages. I got divorced the first time after five years, second time after 12 years, it took me some time, but I have managed to rep parent myself, reprogram my mindset, moving away from the toxic one that you spoke of
and essentially coming into my power to empower other people to acquire the skills that we need to sustain the deep connection to, to have the long term happy relationship.
Paige Bond, Open Relationship Coach
Wow, what an introduction. And I have so many questions to jump off of now. Yeah. So it sounds like when you think about it, you really tried your best. I mean, a marriage that lasted five years and 12 years. I mean, that's quite a bit of time, quite a bit of investment or effort that I could imagine you trying to put in to make it work.
You know, you said that it was kind of a fairy tale for your first marriage and then you realized kind of three months in it started crumbling. What would be some of the first signs that someone would see in their own relationships that kind of helped them pick out and realize, oh, this isn't the fairy tale that I thought it was.
Irena Polyakova, Dating Coach
Well, just to correct something you said, I don't think I was trying very hard to make those relationship work. And it was not intentional. I simply did not know where to start. The experience of a relationship model I had in my childhood was very toxic and extremely unhealthy. So I simply, and the movies, the fairy tales that we watch in Disney, they don't teach us the real life.
I mean, it's a far cry from the reality, right. So I simply did not know and I had gone between either blaming my partner for messing up or just feeling like a total victim and, completely unable to communicate. So the first moment when I realized something drawn and I did not know how to fix it is when I felt angry when I felt bitter, when I felt unloved and abandoned in a relationship, I could not talk about it.
I was not able to tell my partner this is how I feel. And I stayed scared. And that for quite a long time, just follow it all inside crying my pillow at night instead of actually saying it to him. And if I did, it probably would have been very different. But I was, I was afraid I was never able to speak in my childhood about my emotions.
And thus I continued the same coping mechanism, the same survival mechanism into my adulthood and the inability to communicate what you feel inside be the first red flag that there needs to be either external guidance or very deep reflection and work within.
Paige Bond, Open Relationship Coach
I think that's a really great sign to notice because I mean, I've even experienced that myself in past relationships where, you know, things are going good for the honeymoon period. You know, everything is happy, everything seems like they're just the perfect person in the world and then somehow explosions happen, fights happen, you're arguing about the same thing over and over again.
And I also remember myself feeling, gosh, I can't tell my partner how I'm feeling. I'm afraid of how they will react. So I can relate to a lot of what you just said of. Oh, that's a really good sign to notice if you're wanting to keep things bottled in, that's telling you that something needs to change because that's not the healthier way to have a Yes. OK. You talked about how you were basically taking this mindset from childhood.
You know, you, you didn't really have quote healthy, emotional, basically model for yourself. How did you realize that there was an issue? And, and at what moment did you realize? OK, radical change is just that needs to happen for me right now, I'm over this kind of happening over and over again.
Irena Polyakova, Dating Coach
I have kids. Yeah, the realization was kind of lingering at the surface but I up until I had my two babies, I did not have like a significant catalyst event in my life to put me in a position to say, OK, substance gotta change. However, when I had, I had one kid and then two years exactly later, I had another one, I can tell the actual exact moment when that happened because I, I was so good to plan, I planned two babies to be born in June.
Got pregnant right on point. Had the baby, she was two, had another baby and he was a newborn. My daughter was two and as I'm standing holding my newborn, my daughter comes up to me, she's two and she says, mommy pick me up, she's asking to be picked up and I lose it. I get angry and I start screaming at her because I was so sleep deprived, so tired and I just yelled at her and I said, don't you understand that I can't pick you up because I have a newborn in my arms.
And as I saw her face and the tears are drawing down her cheeks. I was like, oh my God, my head is not. Well, I need help. So that was that lingering realization have finally exploded to the point where I was like, OK, I, I need help. It still took me some time after that to seek professional help and start therapy. But at least at that point, I knew that essentially it was the point of me up until this point going saying I'm never gonna be my mother.
I'm never gonna do what my mother did. I'm not gonna be her. And then it was like, oh shit, I am my mother. And, and that moment exactly was something that I realized like, ok, if I want my kids to be healthy, not experience what I experience I have to change.
Paige Bond, Open Relationship Coach
Oh What a big impact that can have. And that's actually reminding me of forgive me. I was on tiktok and I saw this video of like this little girl coming up to her mom and having like a big angry reaction. And then in that same moment realizing, oh, wait, I'm not trying to do the same thing that my parents did and I want to be a better parent for my child than my parent was for me.
And that's really, really hard to do. That's like you said, it took some time even after that to like start shifting and start making changes. What do you think some of the blocks are to making these changes, like to avoid being these unhealthy parents that we don't want to be to our Children.
Irena Polyakova, Dating Coach
I think there are a couple of things there. Just relating to my own personal experience. It's first of all, the biggest one is the fear and in my case, it's fear of unknown. I was raised in the way of being prepared for survival. So my parents because they were surviving, living through the Soviet system, all they knew was survival. They had to work super hard to make sure I had food.
They had to work super hard. So we have a home to live in a really, really tiny one with no boundaries whatsoever. But that was the life they knew. So when they were raising me, they prepared me for the fight and I grew up being ready for a fight. That's all I knew. That's my first impulse. My, my go to default mode was always to go for a fight and any change requires being comfortable with unknown, with unfamiliar.
And this is something that my parents have taught me to stay away from by either saying if you marry somebody, you better stay with that person. If you get a job, you better stay with the job because you have a job, just be happy, you have a job. So all of that together have made me into somebody who was extremely afraid to make any change. Because when we know something intellectually like, I know intellectual.
I need to change something that doesn't automatically, you know, translate into, oh, I'm gonna change it right now or tomorrow morning. Right. No, we don't do that. And then the very popular comfort zone that sucks you in so nicely. And doesn't matter how uncomfortable your comfort zone is, you do want to stay in there for a while because essentially our subconscious is there to keep us safe and we're safe while we're in a comfort zone and we're unsafe and we have to deal with the
unknown. So in my case, it was the fear and not so much the comfort zone because I was kind of going through a lot of uncomfortable things in my life. But the other thing was admitting that I was wrong because for me to, to admit to myself and others like to go actively seek help means that ok, there's something wrong with me. I've been raised into this strong Ukrainian woman who can do it all by herself.
And all of a sudden, I have to take that facade down and admit that I'm not well, that I need help. So admitting that made me feel like I'm inadequate that I'm not good enough. And I think that was essentially the reason why I waited and I did it right away and I waited still a couple of years before I actually started doing therapy.
Paige Bond, Open Relationship Coach
Yeah, I'm so glad you addressed that and how you addressed the stigma and how hard it is to change. Because a lot of the times these patterns that we learned are unconscious, we, we don't realize that our parents kind of molded us into these beings. So I can definitely imagine how getting these messages from your parents saying, hey, change is scary. Change is quote bad. So you better like stay in one place and if you move away from that, that can just create a lot of anxiety and who
wants that? So that makes sense. You've talked about how there's been some healing that you've, you know, gone through to really start shifting your mindset. I'm wondering before we dive into your own healing and how you did it, how has this healing affected your parenting and affected your relationship with your own parents?
Irena Polyakova, Dating Coach
Oh It's actually, it was just amazing transformations actually gave me goosebumps. So he ask me this question. I went from when it comes to my relationship with parents, I went from hating them and carrying so much bitterness towards them feeling that they did not love me. Because that's what I went into adulthood with. You know, I did not realize that they did love me.
They just did not know how to make. There's a difference between the loved and feeling like you are love. There is a big difference, they did not know how to do it. They did not have emotional or practical human resources to do that. The system did not allow that. So my transformation in this case was to building my relationship with my parents to the point where I was no longer triggered by my mom who really loves to criticize everything that I did before she stopped doing that.
As I shifted, as I've changed the way I was reacting to her. She has consequently learned to talk to me after a couple ultimatums actually. But after some really rocky path on that, I have no longer any bitterness, I only have compassion, love and kindness towards them. And I understand why what happened happened. So this is what comes, you know, between me, the relationship between me and my parents when it comes to my own parenting, I got blessed with two extremely hyper intense
in a healthy way kids. And I've told them because I was, I had to suppress my emotions. So I went the opposite way. I encourage them to express their emotions except that it's so hard to manage it, somebody's emotions. So it's an explosion of emotions all the time and I welcome them all. And I've had to heal in order to be able to be comfortable with their emotions.
Because when we get triggered, this only points us in the area where work is need it. So when kids trigger me, that means something is healing within me, it's not the kids, it's me and it has made my parenting. It's still challenging. Don't get me wrong, but it has made it into much easier. And I've learned to zoom out, like, I've learned to just get out of it.
It's like, ok, well, what's the worst case scenario? Then? They're gonna skip lunch, they're moody or whatever. They're not gonna die going to start and I want to zoom out and then come back when I'm actually able to come back to healthy parenting approach.
Paige Bond, Open Relationship Coach
There's so much there that I want to like just applaud you for because a lot of it sounds like what you now how you interact with your kids or with your parents is what I talk a lot about in my couple's work. I heard taking breaks when necessary. So you, you can approach the situation with a clear head. So you're not going in with that fight flight or freeze mode. I heard you talking about setting boundaries, you know how your behavior and how you were setting up, how you wanted your
relationship to be, especially with your mom. You talked about how she started changing and that sounds like a, a boundary that you kind of set up and when people realize, ok, now they've set up a boundary. So I guess I'm not allowed to push this way anymore. So I have to change too. So I love how it was just like a beautiful domino effect, how your healing has really impacted everybody around you. That's so amazing.
Irena Polyakova, Dating Coach
Thank you. Painful. But it is amazing result. What's, it's, it's never the less amazing results after the painful change, for sure.
Paige Bond, Open Relationship Coach
Yeah. And, and I'm glad, I bet you highlight that. It's not like a, a quick fix. It's not an easy journey. And so if you were to talk about maybe like a, a timeline, like can you give like, say for instance, clients you work with, what is the timeline that they might be able to expect? For?
Irena Polyakova, Dating Coach, Paige Bond, Open Relationship Coach
Quote, how long it takes to heal and start shifting into a new, more healthy mindset as you pointed out, it's absolutely not a quick fix.
Irena Polyakova, Dating Coach
It's, it's a, it's a, it requires tremendous effort and commitment and perseverance and work. For me personally, it had, it had taken about 78 years. But my situation, I, I come from an environment where I got no life skills. So I had to, in order to build some life skills, I had to start from zero in a sense, repenting myself and healing my inner child.
I think we all have this issue to a certain extent, but mine was extremely deep. So for me, it took years. It didn't have to remember when I told you I did not want to admit that something was wrong with me. So the major reason why it took that long is because I refused to seek support. I refused to really say it's like, well, for instance, like there are opportunities to meet people who are going through similar challenges, you know, have a support group.
I did it on my own. You know, I was like, I got it, I'm gonna take care of it and it just, it took longer for sure when it comes to when I work with people. Now. indeed, in a relationship, it essentially comes down to how willing they are to follow the actionable steps that I give them. Because if the person comes to me and they have a mindset that it's the external circumstances that have to change, there's nothing I can do.
I wish I had a magic pill. I could, I mean, I'd love to have a magic pill. I give you the pill tomorrow morning, you walk out of the door, you bump into somebody and it's love of your life and you look happily arrived, right? I would be out of work, but that would be cool. It would make the world a better place, but it doesn't happen that way if the person is willing to commit, if the person understands what they're gonna get at the end, the, the lifelong skills and the, the absence of
loneliness. I think it's worthwhile putting the effort in. But my program, for instance is it can be anywhere between three weeks and three months. It depends on the level of people, of what type of skills they're requiring. Some people may be already healed. Some people are just starting. It depends on which phase they are at. So, but it can take anywhere up till a few months if it's only about the dating and relationship. But it's a lifelong process.
Paige Bond, Open Relationship Coach
Yeah, because I know that I've started, you know, a healing journey and while all the information is great, it's all the practice that we have to do of like actually implementing the skills we learned, for instance, throughout your course or something. I think that's a really good estimate too, like just trying to see what your motivation is like, how motivated are you to heal and how willing are you to look into your own flaws?
Your own thinking that has been unhelpful and what are you willing to do to change it? You know, you mentioned something a little bit ago about re parenting and healing your inner child. I'm curious about what that process looks like or if that's part of your program and, and how you help people heal. I'd love to learn more.
Irena Polyakova, Dating Coach, Paige Bond, Open Relationship Coach
If you can tell the audience about what rep parenting yourself and doing inner child work is like repenting, you repenting yourself and healing inner child is inevitable step.
Irena Polyakova, Dating Coach
Any coaching. I think any, any person who reaches out for some kind of guidance, I think the biggest issue they deal with is they're probably still using some kind of coping mechanisms they acquired long ago and they're just not realizing that their belief system is no longer serving them. And instead of reevaluating this system and their mechanisms and their default modes, they just try keep applying them and applying, but it's no longer working.
And when it comes to dating and relationship, just like I talked about my own childhood and the, the lack of the relationship model that I had the inner child. So if I'm working, I mostly work with man. I do work with women as well when they ask me. But for whatever reason, men tend to be more receptive to my coaching. So maybe it's just a phase a boy in middle school when he's 12 or 13 and he came up to talk to a girl and she said she doesn't want to be friends.
And there was a feeling of shame, a sense of some kind of inadequacy involved because most likely his parents did not explain to him that it's ok, it's not personal, it's just lack of interest, but it's got nothing to do with you. So, the same boy when he's in his thirties and forties and he approaches a woman and she rejects him or says she's not interested.
He experiences exactly the same sense, his mind brings that sense back. So he stays away from that rejection, that discomfort of rejection, nobody likes rejection. But at the end of the day, I just wrote a blog post recently, rejection is only a redirection it just directs you in a different direction. You don't have to take it personally and essentially, it never has anything to do with you personally.
It has something to do with that person and their phase stage of their life. So this would be one of the first steps we would actually do as far as understanding where the modes that the person operates with at the moment coming from evaluating how the person got here. And then we take this and we break it down. Well, I also so address the different types of attachment style because this is something also very, very important and many, most people don't even know about it.
And if you have one of the unhealthy ones, then there is no matter, no matter, you can meet somebody extremely compatible, you can't build, build anything if you don't heal that part. And I provide my clients usually with readings with videos to watch. and we learn how to do gratitude journaling to make sure they learn how to focus on the positive things that they already have in their life.
We do the focus wheel, we discover, identify what the thinking patterns that keep repeating and I teach them that any thought that keeps replaying in your mind sooner or later will be manifested in your physical reality. The more you think it, the better chance you have to have it in your life. So when I have a man who keeps saying, oh, women only want attractive men with six pack and a six figure salary, right?
I'm a woman. I know that's not true. But this man has this type of belief and this belief comes from somewhere. So we have to discover what this belief comes and then break it down into small pieces and just rewrite the narrative that a person tells himself. It's, it's, it's all about self limiting beliefs. That's where it stands. Lots of writing, lots of writing for sure.
Paige Bond, Open Relationship Coach
Yeah, it sounds like a really beautiful exploratory in my head as you were saying about how to rewrite it sounds like. So for example, the man who thinks, ok, well, women only want six salary man with six pack abs that's almost in a way of him rejecting himself for not fulfilling. Yeah. Ok. Ok.
Irena Polyakova, Dating Coach
It's also he sabotages himself because he knows that it's easier to say, oh, well, it's just, that's what the reality is. So I don't have to do anything. There's nothing I can do. So you kind of just put responsibility on a woman instead of taking responsibility for actually doing the actions that would change that belief. Our actions always correlate with our beliefs.
Paige Bond, Open Relationship Coach
Yeah. And you know, come to think of it. It's also like in a matter of changing that mindset for me, I'm a sassy coach. I'm a sassy therapist. So I would be something like, ok, so all of the men out there who have a beer belly or a quote dad bod and make $80,000. They don't have women, they don't have women attracted to them. because a lot of them are paired up with people.
I would be very confrontational with that kind of mindset. So I, I love how you go about challenging that and trying to shift the limiting beliefs. You mentioned something about using a focus wheel to help them. I've never heard of a focus wheel. Can you tell me what that is? Yes.
Irena Polyakova, Dating Coach
Focus Wheel itself since I came across Esther Hicks. She talks quite a bit about manifestation and how our thoughts essentially are made into the reality sooner or later. You know, where, what we think, not just what we eat, but we also where what we think and her idea of focus will is it's essentially you, you just, you draw a circle and you write in the very center, you write to the believe that you have.
So if it's a negative belief, you write it, but then you write, you make sections going away from this belief with this small circle and every single one you fill with, if it's a negative belief, you contradict it with the positive belief. So if you have women are only attracted to good looking men with six pack, I made them right that you know everything that says, this is not true, there are plenty of women that are good looking, perceived, good looking, however they are married to
a very average looking man and they're happy and we go from there, but it's just making your mind go against the familiar neural path because our thoughts repeat because it's comfortable once again, coming back to our comfort zone and this is our thinking comfort zone. You know, we can change our thoughts, but it's so much easier to think what we're used to think.
Paige Bond, Open Relationship Coach
What a really cool tool I've never heard of that. And I'm definitely gonna look that up after our, you can look it up.
Irena Polyakova, Dating Coach
It's super simple, but it's extremely effective.
Paige Bond, Open Relationship Coach
So it sounds like the, the first part of the process is like starting this mindset shift. What are the next steps to continue this healing journey for yourself?
Irena Polyakova, Dating Coach
Once we kind of identify? Ok, what are the obstacles? Because this is essentially what we're doing at the beginning, we need to know what we're dealing with. Once we know, then from that point on we practice and we address, we get out of the comfort zone and we address the fence. So if I have somebody who is terrified of rejection and this is something that, that one, probably one of the most common things when I work with mans like, well, nobody wants to feel somebody's gonna see them
making fool of themselves, right? So it's uncomfortable feeling. So one of the examples I can say what I make them do is to seek out rejection, to shift completely from, oh, I can't approach her. I like her but I can't approach because she might reject it. Actively go to seek rejection because then your mindset is totally different. Like, oh, I'm gonna be, I'm, I wanna be rejected and you go and you get rejected at least three times per week or four times per week.
And with every time you understand, wait a second, I'm still alive and there's nobody who even knows what happened, right? So, and gradually changes the mindset around the thinking around that this is the end of life and the world will stop spinning. The world keeps on spinning and nothing major happened, right? And it gives them the confidence and eventually competence to actually start initiating conversations.
And then I also teach people to detach from the outcome. I think it's one of the biggest problem that I I have when, when I start working with somebody, there is like, this is actually typical for women. They're on the second date, they already marry a guy in their head, right? And it's like, no, it takes time. There is a lot of things that have to align before you even consider thinking about that.
And then what do we do? We project our desires onto this person that sits in front of us, hopefully on a date, pleasant date. And instead of getting to know who is actually in front of us. We fall in love or we connect to the projected image of this person, but that's not the real, the real person. And then we get mad at that person later because they did not meet our expectations.
So one of the things to conquer this issue, what I make people do is learn how to make a human connection, forget about women, a man. Any chance you get to make a human connection, whether it's talk to the postman, whether it's talking to the person at the register who is doing your groceries, whether it's talking at the bank, anybody, you have a chance get face to face, you say hi and you get comfortable.
You I say building your social muscles. So when the time comes around and you meet somebody who you're attracted to and there's chemistry, you will feel socially confident to actually approach it without getting too nervous and too anxious about it.
Paige Bond, Open Relationship Coach
Oh Freaking cool. I've I never heard of these ideas to one get rejected on purpose, but also like think about shifting and building that social muscle to make sure that we're not like going off into la la land and projecting our own desires and kind of like putting someone else on a pedestal. Like it sounds like these two tools are just really great ways to manage expectations and also normalize a lot of feelings that we try to avoid during the dating process.
Irena Polyakova, Dating Coach
Yes, there are a lot of tools that are needed to be relationship ready. And as a matter of fact, today, I made a post on my Facebook page and I had a question. It was like, why is it that we are required to pass the test and get licensed before driving? Because driving affects other people. Why are we not required to has the educational course and the test before getting into a relationship or have kids?
Right? Because that affects others and us. And yet this whole concept about relationships and love happening somehow naturally is for some reason normalized. But that's not true.
Paige Bond, Open Relationship Coach
You are preaching to the choir. I wish it was a requirement that everyone took like a relationship course like in their e honestly, even in elementary school, you know, you can put it developmentally towards their age, talk about boundaries, talk about safety.
I wish world were different and promoted that because you're right, like it does affect others. It affects us when we're not knowledgeable to those tools. So you are so right. OK. So going through your dating process, is there anything else in your framework?
Irena Polyakova, Dating Coach
Yes, there's actually much more but the rest of the things I would say they are more practical. So I teach people, I help them, for instance, utilize the dating online, which it's very interesting. There's like two groups, there is a camp that absolutely convinced it's all a hook up and then there is a camp that don't even touch it and people who worship the dating online, but those that worship online dating, they just keep swiping but they're not really doing anything actively.
Right. So, creating, for instance, a compelling profile and looking at the online dating opportunities as an essentially just a technological tool that puts you in front of people that otherwise you would have never had a chance to meet. I think it's awesome. I think it's amazing that you have this opportunity.
Like when I, I had a client recently, the first thing he said, I don't do dating apps. And I was like, OK, so I'm like, do you know that there's about 23 million users on Hinch and 75 million users on Tinder? Does it mean they're all there only for hookups? I'm like, that's a whole lot of hookups.
Paige Bond, Open Relationship Coach
We would be having a lot more babies if that were the case, right?
Irena Polyakova, Dating Coach
And I have friends already that I have met on online dating platform. I already had kids and have families. So it's this mindset of black and white that I have trouble with. So, and this is what I tried to change. It was like, ok, it's a ranch. It's always a range. There's no reason to get all worked up about it, but it's just like a rejection. It's like, well, if I blame it and I say it doesn't work.
I don't have to do anything about it. Right. So, and it's yeah, optimizing and utilizing online dating is another thing. And then the communication skill, the listening skills, how to make yourself stand out in the crowd and not just open your message to a girl with, hey, because that's just boring, how to be unique. How to compliment a woman.
Guys have no idea if you're pretty. I hear many times how pretty I am. I know how I look like. Tell me something, I don't know. Comment to me co compliment me on something that I worked for. Comment to me for the way I speak because English is not my first language. Comment on my third body in the sense that I work my butt off every morning at six in the morning to stay in shape, right?
That's compliment but saying, oh, you look pretty. I was born this way. That's not a compliment, right? So this this type of things when I teach them, it's something again nobody teaches us. And so we don't, we don't know, we don't know, the guys don't know.
Paige Bond, Open Relationship Coach
No, it sounds like you are such a necessity for this day and age, especially with how much online dating there is and you are so right. I often see people trying to find and get dates on online profiles, but they're not making connections with people. Just a Hey, or you look pretty. Doesn't show any interest in someone. It doesn't. Yeah. beautiful. Towards the end. I, I wanna talk a little bit more about your program but I want to shift things a little bit now to some other questions
that I kind of had on my mind here if you want to go into. So, you know, me, I specialize in, consensual monogamy. I help individuals, couples, poly schools either open their relationship or try to just navigate non monogamy in, in a way when they are struggling. What do you think about dating and being open and trying to navigate in that way? That is quite different from our social norm of monogamy.
Irena Polyakova, Dating Coach
Oh, that's a great topic that we may need to record about a podcast on this one. So just to give you a quick idea, my first marriage was monogamous. Well, there was intent, I'd been a monogamous. I, there was infidelity from both sides. I cheated on my husband just to find out he was cheating on me. We made peace with that later and it's fine. So what I did was the limited resources that I had emotional resources I refer to is I went from my first marriage thinking black and white.
I was like, ok, monogamy doesn't work. So I'm gonna go the opposite way. So when I met my second to be high and I told him, listen, I tried it didn't work for me. So this one is gonna have to be open marriage because I don't wanna feel trapped. I always said I want to keep my options open and I can comment on that later. So my second marriage was actually open marriage.
We explored polyamory throughout most of the years. Once the kids got a little bit older and it was one hell of a challenge to really delve into the jealousy and communication on how to navigate that. At the beginning. It was extremely hard. Now, when I look back at that, I can write a book just about that. We had rules with me and my second husband and we very quickly broke them.
We made new rules, we broke them again. We made rules like, oh, we cannot make dates at the second half of the day because it's perceived this way, only coffee dates. There was a lot of things of trying to figure out how to navigate it, but it actually made us to address things that were needed to be addressed. And we did go the nontraditional way for me personally.
The other contributing factor to going in a very nontraditional way, not societal, extremely accepted is I was very rebellious. So when I left my childhood and I got married for the first time I had this, remember the fight mode I told you about. So unfortunately, it was not a health say I'm just gonna try it. Out. It was more, more like, oh f world, I'm gonna do the opposite of what everybody thinks is right.
Like it was just almost like I was doing it on purpose. It did teach me a lot. And at the end of the 12 years when I left my husband, the whole marriage was the whole time it was open. But I realized that for me personally, it was simply a relationship band aid. If it was not for the open marriage, we would have broken up earlier due to the lack of depth in our own connection.
We both decided to continue with seeing other people from time to time to just keep getting external validation instead of actually realizing that us to no longer have the bond. So this was my personal case. Now, I can tell you that I, in the book that I'm writing, I have a chapter that's called from monogamy to polyamory in back. I actually feel that I want a traditional monogamous relationship after what I had gone through because I know why.
But I think that whatever two people decide mutually and if they are communicating and they're happy, it's great. Like I don't think there should be like one way, one wrong way. I don't even like the words right or wrong because it's extremely subjective, but it's hard to navigate, but it absolutely teaches you how to communicate and how to address jealousy, especially. That's, that's, that's a hard one.
Paige Bond, Open Relationship Coach
I can't wait to read your book. Please let me know when you're getting all of that together and it comes out. Thank you so much for normalizing what I think quite often a lot of people experience or maybe is a reason to seek out a non monogamous relationship. You know, I often get a lot of people in my office where they're seeing it as a relationship, band aid for the lack of security
in their relationship. And I also thank you for saying that if that is the, you know, if no monogamy is what two people agree on and it is working for them, then super awesome.
Irena Polyakova, Dating Coach
Like you and I have met people that had worked for them. I apologize for interrupting, but I have met people that have been in monogamous in non monogamy, open relationship for years. and, it, as a matter of fact, I dated somebody who was an open relationship when I was with my second husband and he dated somebody who was also in an open relationship and, it worked, it seemed to have worked for them.
So, I mean, I'm absolutely not the one to judge anybody on the relationship with all the mess ups and, all the things that I have done everything I've learned. But I think essentially the societal norm, I mean, we create a societal norm, collectively, right by individual desires and individual hopes. So why is it that we should have a right to say how the neighbors should live their life.
No, they should do whatever they want to do as long as it's mutual and it works for them. And, no, I applaud to people for whoever it works. I think it's a, it's just another way to have relationship. It's not a kit cutter thing. Relationship is a complex thing.
Paige Bond, Open Relationship Coach
Hm. Hm. And I really thank you for that view because something that I often run into with dating coaches is they see non monogamy as bad or evil or, just some sort of wrong and it's really stigmatized and I really appreciate you not having and taking on that perspective and taking on one of more of ok, as long as everybody's consenting and this is working out for everybody then who am I a judge?
Irena Polyakova, Dating Coach
Absolutely. It's, this is like, again, this is right and wrong. It's like, what's right for me might not be right for you. It's like, why, why you are not leaving that person's life? Why do you try to kind of inflict your own view on somebody? It's, I think a lot of it has to do with the religion and everything. But if you dig into the history of how the marriage actually got created, how the monogamy got created, a lot of it is just practicality behind it.
That's why I always say that if you can make it and it's emotionally resilient, strong bond. Go for it. Absolutely. And it's, it's not that everybody has to be in an album. This absolutely not.
Paige Bond, Open Relationship Coach
Yeah. And one thing like I'll add just to that is I keep re listening to the same book. It's a 15 hour book by Martha Kelby. that covers really pretty much everything you need to know about polyamory. And one thing that she talked about in the book is what a world it would be like. Like if we, if we were to expand our love rather than limit ourselves and be in this game of comparison and constant jealousy and fear of scarcity.
And so I just thought that was a really interesting way to think about it and, and quite a big benefit for choosing a non monogamous lifestyle and, and one of the reasons why people do go after it because they want to accept more love in or give more love to people. So I thought that was really beautiful.
Irena Polyakova, Dating Coach
Yeah, absolutely. It's just, I think in every individual should be aware of reasons why they're going after it just like I was speaking about myself and it's only now I can reflect back and understand why. But, you know, those reasons serve their purpose at that stage of my life. And I needed that. And it's this stage of being in Palera relationship actually was extremely helpful for me to grow when it comes to relationship, when it comes to acceptance when it comes to exploring
what the love actually is. And, it's, it's, I'm still not sure if, human beings are meant to be monogamous, at least sexually. But again, it's really up to, it's up to people to decide if they wanna open, their relationship or not. And I don't think in anybody's business to judge.
Paige Bond, Open Relationship Coach
Yeah. Great stuff. I've loved this whole conversation and I, I think you're right, you will have to come back for a part two episode because I would love to hear maybe more about kind of applying your, your dating skills and approach to dating for open relationships as other people seek dating and how to navigate that. So I think that would be really cool.
Irena Polyakova, Dating Coach
I have experience in both.
Paige Bond, Open Relationship Coach
Exactly. Yeah. So as we start to wind down here, can you just tell people where to find you or tell people what you're up to? Absolutely.
Irena Polyakova, Dating Coach
So just once again, I am a dating coach geographically. I'm in Virginia, not far from Washington DC. I do love meeting people face to face there. I do have clients that I work online. I have clients overseas in Europe, but II, I love body language. It's, it's extremely important. I love reading body language. I, I love paying attention. So that's my preference for face to face when I can get it.
And my mission is to reduce loneliness in the world, to put it in simple terms. And I often meet people when I ask them because I ask very weird question. I don't ask, hey, how are you? I go, how's your long life? And people go? Oh, it's fine. I'm like, oh, tell me all about it and they're like, there's none. I'm like, oh, so why hold on a second, right?
Like, it's, this is interesting American mentalities. Like, how are you? I'm fine. Are you really tell me? No, you're not fine. Many people are extremely, extremely lonely. So, I've got two kids, 12 and 14 years old, they're extremely stubborn. So I may not do a good job raising them. But it might be easier for me to change the world into a better place before I send them or release them into the world.
So it's gonna be easier for them to navigate that. But jokes aside, I believe dating is a stage that is a fundamental step in stone to relationships. So my last module of my dating program is called Relationship ready. The common relationship ready. And I believe that the person has to take the time to heal, to discover the obstacles, work out the obstacles and come essential to the place where they are fully equipped to be in the relationship and then look for a compatible partner,
not to have this rush to meet anybody, somebody and be in a relationship just to check the box because usually it doesn't really get you into a long term happy, love and connection, but be essentially happy and also happy by yourself, but be ready for a relationship. So this is this is the foundation, my website, I have a website and it's loved and fulfilled dot com. So if you go to the website, you will learn a little bit about me and you will see the program that I teach in dating
coaching. There are blog posts. I love writing blog posts. Anytime I'll get an idea. And most importantly, I love working with people and just changing their beliefs from attractive women are only looking for this and that to the time when they go on a date and they text me and they go, oh my God. That was just amazing.
Irena Polyakova, Dating Coach, Paige Bond, Open Relationship Coach
I've applied ever since you told me to apply and she asked if we can do this again, what a reward your program is called loved and fulfilled for the people who are taking it.
Paige Bond, Open Relationship Coach
But I think it also applies to you. Like it helps you also feel just like that feeling of love and fulfillment to see that happen too.
Irena Polyakova, Dating Coach
Oh, absolutely. II, I get giddy when I tell people like II, I like, I'm like a little school girl, just overly excited. I think I scared people sometimes by enthusiasm. But, but no, it's extremely rewarding. It's extremely fulfilling and it's extremely rewarding.
My program is actually called Love Mastery. The website is loved and fulfilled dot com. But the program is called Love Mastery because essentially I want everybody to be masters in their love life and just leave it to the fullest, please.
Paige Bond, Open Relationship Coach
Let's change the world. I love that. That's the goal Irina, thank you so much for being on the show today and giving just the listeners a chance to listen to your story, be a witness and, and see how that may relate to them and some amazing tips and tools that you share with your clients every single day. So I can't thank you enough for being here.
Irena Polyakova, Dating Coach
Thank you so much for the opportunity for me to share my wisdom and to be on your podcast. I really, really appreciate it.
Paige Bond, Open Relationship Coach
Yeah. All right listeners, I will make sure that we have all of the links in the show note section for you to go click and either read a blog post, sign up for Ana's program and maybe just reach out and say hi. So I'll have those in the show note and until next time, take care.
