I still remember how I cried myself to sleep that one night, baffled by how difficult it felt to understand romantic relationships. As a successful health coach some may find it hard to believe, but if I am completely honest, I still have this little girl inside of me that dreams of her own fairy tale wedding with the man of her dreams. I believe most women do and this isn’t something to be ashamed of.
I still remember wanting to scream that night, “Why is it that I can figure out every single thing in my career but my love life is a mess? What is wrong with me?”
A man I had recently met and thought was the one for me had suddenly disappeared. One day everything seemed perfect and the next day he just vanished on me. How does one explain something like this and why does it especially happen to successful, intelligent, sensitive women?
As a woman who grew up only focusing on her school grades and then working for her career, nobody taught me how to navigate romantic love.
But the stubborn little girl in me was not willing to give up on her hopes and dreams and I am glad she did not give up. My journey to discovering myself by working with a leading international love coach Sami Wunder, finding my power as a woman in romantic love, letting down the walls around my heart and dating in my high value feminine energy has been a game changer in my life. And I realize I am not the only successful woman with such challenges.
In my work as a health coach, I come across many strong, independent women from all walks of life who are just like my former self. Nine out of ten are struggling in the area of romance and relationships. While they may be wildly successful in their work life, more often than not they are willing to settle in their love lives, for the fear of being lonely and tolerate all kinds of treatment from men. Some on the other hand are scared to let love in, for the fear of rejection or the fear of not being ‘good enough’. They don’t believe that they can find true love or the right man for them, when the problem really is that they themselves can’t truly seem to love themselves.
To address the numerous questions that keep coming up constantly, I reached out to the woman who mentored me and helped me get in touch with my power as a woman.
Sami Wunder, a leading international dating and relationship coach for women talks about why women have a hard time navigating romantic relationships. You can find Sami´s private Facebook group Wunder Divas here to learn more about her work.
You are a leading dating and relationship coach for high achieving women. That is a rather unique career choice. How did you come to the decision that this is what you wanted to do professionally?
Thank you for calling it a unique choice. My parents thought it was a crazy choice at first. I am grateful that they trusted me, even when they had no clue what this could possibly look like. Today, as a CEO of a 7 figure love coaching company with clients in over 30 countries of the world, my parents are mightily proud and acquaintances are curious and surprised.
I became a love coach for strong and successful women partly because of my own personal struggles in the department of romantic love and partly because I knew my heart wasn’t in Economics.
An MPP graduate from Germany´s best school in Public Policy, the Hertie School of Governance and a BA Honours gold medalist in Economics, my love life looked the complete opposite of the professional success I had on the outside. I couldn’t figure out why in spite of being a reasonably good looking, hardworking, intelligent woman, my romantic relationships would fizzle out so quickly.
It wasn’t until a man that I thought was my “the one” broke my heart that I dived knee deep into studying romantic relationships. The messages I learnt, without exaggeration, changed my life. I met and got engaged to my amazing husband within 9 months after that painful heartbreak.
When my girlfriends started turning to me for advice, I realised that I wasn’t the only smart and successful woman struggling in love. That there were thousands, probably millions of smart, sensitive, educated women who weren’t able to figure out why they couldn’t crack the code to their love life.
Coupled with my dissatisfaction at the consultant job I was doing in the international development sector, I decided it was time to move on, and choose a radically new career path. There’s been no looking back. In 3 years, we have served over 2500 premium clients, high level CEOs, executives, entrepreneurs and have a phenomenal track record of 126 engagements for our clients and several hundreds who found their dream relationship by working with us.
How do you feel about relationships and their impact on health? Have you experienced this connection in your personal life and the lives of your clients?
Our personal relationships have a huge and direct impact on our health, at all levels, mentally, physically and emotionally. I’ve seen the best of women feeling completely emotionally and physically run down due to conflict at home with their men or if the man they love isn’t treating them the way they know in their hearts, they deserve to be treated.
Your romantic relationship is meant to nurture you. If as a woman you have to be strong in the business and corporate world and handle conflict, then at least you deserve to come home and receive love and nourishment from your man. If you’re fighting at both ends, it can be extremely exhausting and nobody deserves that.
Then again, many of my high level single clients lead extremely busy lives and what we found is that they avoid returning home and facing their loneliness, so staying busy and over working is a way for them to escape that reality. This again takes a toll on their health, sooner or later. So love life and health is definitely connected.
Luckily enough, the practical skills I teach my clients, including my work around feminine energy embodiment in our romantic relationships, can help both sets of clients achieve balance and joy in their dating and committed relationships.
Personally, I am in a happy marriage. My husband is a wonderful man who has nothing but love and support to offer. I feel so lucky to have him by my side, not just as my husband but as a friend and partner in life. I wouldn’t be where I am today even in my career if it wasn’t for his endless support. Having love in your life has such a huge positive impact on your overall happiness and satisfaction in life. You don’t want to neglect this area.
Why do you think that there is so much confusion about how to navigate relationships in the first place? People seem to be very lost when it comes to personal lives at times, even though their professional lives are flourishing.
To put it simply, we haven’t been prepared to create healthy romantic relationships at any level, by any one.
We’ve been taught algebra and geometry and calculus and Latin, but not once did any school or university prepare us for navigating romantic relationships. It has been my desire to get curriculum on healthy romantic relationships introduced in schools.
Plus, most of us have had our parents set imperfect examples at love, which further exacerbates the challenges. Most of us lack healthy role models at what healthy, happy, passionate love looks like that does not wound or hurt.
Today when my clients come to me, they start to understand how romantic relationships are different from social relationships and work on entirely different principles. It’s like a different, full-fledged eco-system by itself, with its own rules and principles. They start to see what behaviours kill their man’s attraction or enhance it and suddenly all that confusion you’ve been facing disappears. You have a roadmap, a guide and things start to get crystal clear in your head. And while not all romantic relationships or individuals are the same, what my company works with is in educating our women clients on the basics of romantic instincts in love (masculine / feminine energy balance in relationships) and what healthy behaviours and communication looks like. It is life changing information for someone who is smart and willing to educate themselves and apply what is taught.
Relationships have changed a lot from what they were in the fifties and sixties. Today divorce rates are increasingly going-up and a lot of people who are in married relationships are choosing to stay either because of their children, financial constraints or societal pressure. A lot of successful independent women are also choosing to stay single. At the same time, young adults are secretly harbouring loneliness, anxiety and depression. As someone who works with high-achieving women, what is your take on this?
I agree to this sad reality. Perhaps, it is also the reason why women like me exist, playing the role I am playing.
Like I said before, if you’ve never been taught driving, you won’t be able to drive. If you’ve never been taught how to navigate healthy romantic love, it will take you a lot of trial and error, heartbreak and figuring out before you can crack the code to it. This is why I got help for my own life and support others in doing the same. Trying to figure out your love life and why it’s not working when you’ve had no healthy role models or any education in this department is like driving your car without a GPS and without headlights, on a cold winter night.
It is at best guess work and at worst, can cost you a lot. This is why so many men and women choose to stay single, give up on their marriages and opt for divorce. It can be tough to figure this stuff out by ourselves. Because of the knowledge gap, some women stay in wrong relationships for far too long and some others give up on good relationships too quickly as navigating intimacy can be challenging if you have never learnt the skills of doing so.
Secondly, women are stronger and more successful at the workplace than ever before which brings forward a whole new range of challenges to modern romantic relationships. Traditional male-female roles are being challenged. Should a man pay on a date or should a woman pay? Should a woman ask a man out or does that remain the man´s prerogative?
Modern women often find themselves doing a lot of work to “win a man of their choice.” The feminist school of thought makes it okay for a woman to walk up to a man, ask him out, pay for his drink. This is all masculine energy and while it is great for a woman to use this energy at work, love is a different ball game. A lot of my highly successful clients who come to me are exhausted from doing all the work. They have found that sticking to feminine energy in interaction with men makes them feel much more powerful, cherished and adored vs. being the giver, the doer, the chaser in their love lives. This isn’t sexist as both genders have both masculine and feminine energies. This is about knowing which energy to bring to which context.
A lot of my clients talk about relationship issues consuming every other aspect of their lives. Quite a few of them seem confused about navigating the ever-evolving needs of romantic relationships. What according to you is the key to maintaining a healthy and happy relationship with one’s partner through different phases of life?
The key to having healthy, romantic relationships is understanding how attraction works. For attraction in romantic relationships, you need sexual polarity. If you want a masculine energy man who gives, provides, leads, you have to be willing to surrender more to your feminine energy in the romantic context. You can still be totally kick-ass at work but in love, you get to be adored and spoilt and you can have that by learning how to relax into your “being” and feminine more vs. leading with your masculine. If you have a masculine man and you’re in your masculine as well, you will constantly clash or if both partners are in feminine, nothing will get done.
The foundation of a happy, romantic love lies in the secret of two people deciding what energy they will bring to the relationship and then sticking with that. As a CEO of a 7 figure company and as a mother and wife, knowing this has been life changing for me and my clients.
Most people have the need to feel safe and be heard in relationships but often that is not the case. That’s when they start shutting down to their companion. Is there a way of communicating better so that men and women can have their needs heard?
I always say that love brings up anything unlike itself to heal. This means that in the presence of a man or woman we love, our worst aspects and demons come out, looking to heal. It is critical that both partners take responsibility for how they show up in the relationship for their “stuff.”
Regular communication of your needs is imperative. However, it must be done without blame or making your partner wrong. Especially with men, they shut down if you make them wrong. It’s like they cannot hear you anymore. I teach my clients how to speak their truth with the energy of love.
Plus, what you choose to express in a committed relationship or when you’re dating a man are entirely different field altogether. For instance, it would be perfectly okay to tell you husband that you’re feeling needy and would love some hugs but you don’t want to get needy around a man you’ve seen just for a month and start having expectations from him to fulfil the gap or lack of validation you may be feeling inside of yourself. The latter will further kill attraction.
This is why I teach attraction skills. They are often counter-intuitive but they can create great results in your love life when you start to understand how it works.
People are leading extremely busy lives these days which leaves them with no time to nurture relationships. What would you say to those who crave real relationships but seem to be too caught up in life?
When you’re on your death bed, you will not look at your bank account and say, “I wish I had gotten one more client, made one more million, or spent more time on Facebook or started my second business.”
If you’re single, what you’ll say is that I wish I had a family by my side that loves me, children that will live after me and carry my name forward.
If you’re in a relationship you’d probably wish you had spent more time collecting moments with those you love.
Plan time for your love life on your phone is what I tell my clients. For women in relationships, block time with your partner for magical dates.
For my single clients, don’t let it get too late before you pay attention to this important aspect of your life. It is so critical. I see so many strong and successful women focus so much on their work because they can find quick validation and results there whereas it feels challenging to go deeper within and work with our hearts. Get good support and face what you need to face now so that you can create the love your heart desires, now.
As a health coach my work is to connect my clients with joy in their life. Often, this works better than dietary changes. As children we were very much in tune with that innate joy which a lot of people have seemingly lost touch with. Do you think this ‘lack of joy’ is reflected in our relationships? How? What is it that you advise your clients when it comes to finding their ‘joy’?
Stop and ask yourself often this one question – “Does this make me happy? Does this fulfil me? ” If not, look deeper. Why are you doing what you’re doing?
If you absolutely must do what you’re doing and it doesn’t bring you joy, make sure to incorporate in your day 1 hour of doing something just for yourself that turns you on.
If people have suffered a lot of trauma in their relationships, often they continue to suffer in silence. Opening up to anyone is often a scary thought and not dealing with their problems seems to be a safer option. Do you think there is still hope to turn things around? How important is the role of an expert in the process or the need for seeking support?
There is always hope. I tell my clients that we are not victims of our past, we are constantly writing our own destiny. Just like when you have a sickness you go to the doctor, going to an expert at romantic relationships is pretty much the same thing. I believe most women feel a sense of shame at not being able to figure out this aspect of their lives. This is something I am working against. I want women to know that I was struggling too and it’s okay to struggle in your marriage or dating life. You don’t have to be perfect at what you never learnt but you can choose to step forward and learn now.
About Sami Wunder: Leading relationship expert Sami Wunder specialises in working with successful, independent women around the world and helps them attract a healthy romantic relationship with a man who is a match for them! Sami became a love coach for high achieving women, based on her own life experiences, where she found herself a high-achiever in her professional life but struggled inexplicably in her love life.
An MPP graduate from Germany´s renowned school for public policy, the Hertie School of Governance and a gold medalist in Economics from India´s top college in commerce and economics, Sami´s love life looked the complete opposite of her professional success. While working in the international development sector as a consultant, it was a heart-breaking experience with a man she loved that finally inspired Sami to dive into studying dating and romantic relationships. Within nine months of her personal transformation, Sami was engaged to the man she would marry. Today,
she´s in the 6th year of her happy marriage and they have a son.
It was in 2016 that Sami decided to leave her successful career in international development and instead set up a coaching business, teaching other successful women like herself how to use the skills she had learned to attract the right romantic relationship, without compromising on their careers or intelligence.Her work has seen tremendous success in a short amount of time.
She is the CEO of a highly successful company that now reaches over 54K + strong, successful women across 30 countries around the globe and over 100 of Sami´s clients have found soulmate love through her work and several others found the love back in their relationships and marriages.