Sarah is a single woman from Brisbane, Australia. Much of her dating life, she says, has been spent pursuing unavailable men -- until relatively recently when she made a promise to herself to stop this futile behavior. Now, however, Sarah admits that she's fallen far on the other end of the spectrum, making herself emotionally unavailable.
"I feel like I've got my walls up so high that I'm not letting anybody in at all," Sarah explains during a discussion with relationship expert Iyanla Vanzant on an episode of "Oprah's Lifeclass."
Like Sarah, many single women are searching for a middle ground, where they can learn to trust in a healthy way and let the right people into their lives. Iyanla's advice? Don't blindly do the opposite of your past behavior; rather, begin with a clear plan of what you're looking for, what you deserve and how you want to approach your dating life.
"When you don't know what to do, what happens is you're just against what you were doing without a clear vision of what it is you desire to do," Iyanla says. Having a clear vision is essential, according to Iyanla, and she suggests that part of that clear vision should be to practice what she calls "the 90-day rule."
"The 90-day rule is: no sexual intimacy for 90 days," Iyanla says. "If you don't take that 90 days to learn about him and to have conversations with him… then you've signed the contract without reading the fine print."
Another part of creating that vision is being clear about what you're not willing to settle for. "A lot of women will say what they want... but... what you want is very different than what you settle for," Oprah says.
Adds Iyanla, "If you don't stay by your standards, you'll never know what is possible."
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