This week is all about dating, relationships, and supportive partners with Love Coach Shahrzad Shukra.

We’ve all been through heartache, the Eat Pray Love moment where you find yourself crying on the floor asking what did I do wrong? Why aren’t I enough? Why are all men jerks? But through the power of Law of Attraction and putting out the energy that she wanted to receive, Shahrzad went from Civil Engineer who constantly encountered heartbreak, to Love and Relationship Coach who has been happily married for the past seven years. 

What made you make such a drastic career change from Civil Engineer to Love Coach?

Like many coaches, it came from my own journey and watching many of my girlfriends go through the same thing. I realized that there is something inherently within us that we need to change and transform.

I learned a lot about living your purpose and I was so passionate about the topic, constantly talking about it with my friends and in Facebook Groups that the transition came naturally to me. 

I even told my husband that even if I wasn't going to get paid for it, I want to do it because I believe in it so much. It started to become very lucrative and I started to make more money than I was making it in my full-time civil engineering job and that’s when I knew it was time to make it my full-time job.

Do you think everyone has one true love or soulmate? Or do you think there are different people who teach you different things throughout your lifetime? 

The common notion is that there is only one person for you or there's only one soulmate for you and that idea can make people act out of a place of fear, especially if they feel like they found that person and things don't work out. They hang on so tightly to that one person they thought would be their soulmate that they lose themselves in the idea that their life will be loveless forever.

I don't believe in that for one second. I believe in every stage of our life that whoever we are with is the appropriate soulmate for the moment.

A soulmate doesn’t necessarily mean happily ever after. People come into your life to bring up what needs to be healed, what needs to be acknowledged and what needs to be learned so you can move onto your next soulmate and then your next soulmate until finally, you find the person you're meant to spend the rest of your life with. 

What are the signs of both a toxic and a healthy relationship?

We have three relationships:

• Your relationships with yourself 
• The relationship that your partner has with himself or herself
• The relationship that you share together

A healthy relationship is one that is constantly evolving and both parties are willing to work on themselves as they nurture the relationship. 

The definition of a healthy relationship is honoring your own needs as much as you honor the other person. One person shouldn' be sacrificing because the other person is more important, and vice versa. Both parties should be willing to take personal responsibility and resolve any issues or hurdles that come up, together. 

A toxic relationship is all about “me”. Thinking that what you want is the only thing that matters and the other person is always wrong, or always to blame for the things that are going wrong. 

There are varying levels of toxicity, which extends as far as verbal abuse, physical abuse, and emotional abuse. Or it could just be the fact that you are unwilling to take personal responsibility for your part in the issue. Relationships are 50/50, even when it doesn't feel like it. 

Being in a toxic relationship doesn’t mean you’re at fault, it just means that you didn’t know better and there is no shame in not knowing better. A good place to start is your relationship with yourself and making sure that it is not toxic in order for you to be able to manifest and be in a healthy relationship. 

Is your partner involved in your business and how do you balance your relationship with business?

My husband is not entirely involved in my business but we definitely talk about and he has a very entrepreneurial way of thinking. 

My fundamental teachings are based on feminine and masculine energy, and I believe relationships are like a dance -  if one person is leading the other person has to follow. If both people are leading it’s not going to be a very nice dance. For the relationship dance to be harmonious, both people can’t have the same energy.

In business, we all have to bring up the masculine energy, which is the doing, the planning, and having things organized. When business work is done, you can start to bring in the feminine energy, which is the softer, flowing energy as opposed to the masculine energy that runs around trying to figure everything out. 

If you and your partner work together, it is best to have an agreement that while you are in work mode, you are not husband and wife, but rather you are business partners. It’s almost like an agreement that there is no wishy-washy loving partner time while you’re doing business. Once work is done that’s when you can step into your loving partner role, making sure you don’t bring business talk into your date night. 

Having conversations where you make it clear that your words are coming from the business partner version of yourself rather than the wife or girlfriend version of yourself is important to ensure that there is no resentment further down the line. It’s really about finding your own flow that allows you to separate the roles of wife or girlfriend and business partner so that you can have both a great business partnership and a great relationship.

How do you recommend women talk to their partner who isn't fully supportive of their business?

It always comes down to communication and the way we communicate with our partners.

Let your partner know how you feel by starting sentences like: 

I know you don't mean to…

I know this is not your intention…

I know you want to make me happy but... 

I know that you really really want to be there for me... 

I know that you want to support me in making money... 

It would really mean a lot if we could work on finding a solution so we can both be happy

When you make comments such as this and that, it makes me feel so unsupported and I know that's not what you want

It's so important to be really open and clear about what is upsetting you or making you feel unsupported in your relationship.

In a situation where your partner is not supportive of you going for your dreams, which is very common, it’s really important that you make it clear to your partner that there is a chance that it might not succeed but you’re going to give it your all.

If you really believe in giving it your all, then, in the end, you’re not going to have any regrets. Let your partner know that this business means a lot to you and having his support would mean the world to you too.

A masculine loving man wants to protect you. So if you come in with shaky energy and apprehension about whether your business is going to succeed, and all your man wants to do is protect you, he will automatically want to make sure that doesn’t happen. He doesn’t want you to be miserable and he doesn’t want to see you fail. 

A good partner always wants to see you happy. 

What should you do if you feel like your partner isn’t thrilled by your success? 

Even as you continue to grow, expand, make more money, and make more impact, it sometimes seems as though he isn’t your #1 cheerleader waving pom-poms in the background. At times you just want clarification that he's supportive of you achieving your goals and achieving success. 

If you share your wins with your girlfriends, the natural reaction is the oh my god screams of excitement and encouragement, whereas men are innately more composed and come from the protective energy that just wants to ensure that you’re provided for and that you’re safe. 

It's really important you communicate that you would appreciate some words of encouragement or affirmation when you share something about your business. Even if you don’t necessarily need those words to know you’re doing well, you would just appreciate something that shows he cares about your accomplishments. 

It might take some time and you might have to ask a few times before those words come without asking.

How should we navigate the dating world when we’re still going through quarantine and social distancing?

A lot of people think that they have to put their dreams of having a good relationship on hold and this is simply not true.  You can still do FaceTime dating, which is not it's not exactly the same, but technology makes it possible for us to still see each other face to face and have a conversation. 

Online dating allows you to practice communicating and talking to several potential partners to see what comes up. Triggers can only be healed when we actually are triggered. Triggers, like not receiving a goodnight text or not getting a response quickly enough, are very common and it allows you do really consider whether this is his responsibility, or whether you have some things you need to heal within yourself. 

This time allows us to build deeper conversations and connections before getting into the physical part of our relationships. Often if a man or woman gets too attached too quickly or the physical intimacy starts early on it's easy to ignore all the red flags because all the endorphins and chemicals are running high. 

At the moment it’s much easier for you to actually get to know a person and begin having those deeper conversations about your values, your boundaries, your non-negotiables, your must-haves, and your dreams. It ultimately forces you to pace your relationship by setting the foundations before jumping ahead. 

Research has shown that it takes at least three months for you to intimately know a person. Everybody can buy flowers and everyone can pick a good restaurant, but when it comes to the real stuff like someone losing a job, having a bad day or losing someone they love, that’s when you actually get to see the other person and know how they can be there for you and how you can be there to support them.