When we've dated Gumball Guys in the past, often it's daunting and scary to get back into dating because we've been burned before. We're a bit jaded and skeptical that all guys are jerks.

Well, hindsight is always 20/20, but we can try some things during the dating stage to test the waters and see if he's really ready for love and commitment. 

Junk "dating advice" will give you a lot of short-term strategies for getting a Gumball Guy. Well, ya got him..and now you wish you never met him. This episode is about LONG-TERM..how to actually find the right guy for you, who will be someone you can lean on in tough times, a teammate to take on life together.

Tune in to this episode to find out what type of inner work you should be doing to see if you are ready for love, as well as what you should be looking out for in a guy to see if he has the capacity to love as well.

Resources Mentioned

How to Do the Work by Nicole LePera

Work with Melissa

Book a call with Melissa: ...

How do you know if you are "ready for love"? The depiction of love and romance in Hollywood movies certainly sets the wrong expectations for us around what healthy love, dating and relationships look like. After many years of dating and relationships, learning from the mistakes, and finally meeting the love of my life at age 43, I share how I knew I was ready for love.

Below are some key questions to ask yourself:

• What's the intention behind you dating right now? Is it out of boredom or loneliness? Or pressure from friends and family?
• Are you happy and fulfilled in your life right now?
• Are you who you truly want to be? Are you embodying the best version of yourself?
• What exactly are you looking for in a partner? What do you want and need?

Resources Mentioned

How to Do the Work by Nicole LePera

Work with Melissa

Book a call with Melissa: https://melissa-leger.mykajabi.com/workwithme

Join the VIP Private Facebook Group: ...

Wondering if it's time to start working with a dating and relationship coach?

It can be scary investing in coaching. You might be embarrassed that your situation is such a mess, or worry that I'll judge you, or feel weak for asking for help. Trust me, I hold no judgement because all I care about is meeting you where you're at and helping you figure out where to go from here. I love the mess, this is what I was born to do! And asking for help is the strongest thing you can do.

I talked with some of the alumni of my Back to You Academy to see what thoughts were going through their mind when they decided to start coaching with me, and what advice they'd give to another woman considering coaching, but is still unsure.

In this episode, you'll hear:

• What the Back to You Academy Alumni had to say about why they decided to hire a coach, and what they liked about my coaching style specifically
• The difference between coaching and therapy (both complement each other well!)
• How I...

In this episode, I felt called to discuss this urgency around needing to "fix" yourself so you can find the right guy and enter into a healthy relationship. I want to tell you to slow down, because trying to go fast and force it will only make the process longer. 

In this episode, I discuss:

• Why you need to slow down on the urgency to "fix all your issues" and find the guy
• How you don't have to be totally perfect and without insecurities to enter a relationship
• How I handle my personal insecurities when they come up
• Stop idolizing all the couples who appear so perfect and happy on Instagram
• Qualities I've found in the love of my life that make him a great partner, and what makes our relationship great
• Get yourself ready to be able to receive love, but don't rush it. Take your time.

Follow and Work with Melissa

• The Back to You Academy is officially closed, but you can still work with Melissa one-on-one! Click here to view services or reach out via email: ...

Many of you have been coming into my DMs or writing in the private Facebook group asking about what are the red flags to know if he's really looking for love or just a hook up?

And I'm going to share these red flags with you in this podcast, but I'm also gonna give you some tough love, because while knowing red flags is great, we need to stop focusing so much on them.

What should you really be focusing on? 

YOURSELF!

If you don't know who you are and what you want, it doesn't even matter if you know the red flags. 

And while red flags don't really ever change and can generally be applied as a rule of thumb, your values and the things you're specifically looking for in a partner are highly personal. That means that no one...not I, not another relationship expert...can tell you what to look for. 

Join me in this episode as I get real with you about red flags to look for, and how to start thinking about dating differently so you can filter out the bad guys and...

After hearing this content about Gumball Love and attention addiction for a while, many of you come to me in the DMs worried that YOU are actually a Gumball Girl.

Most of the time, you are not. Sometimes we are the ones giving and receiving gumballs, and it feels good to get that dopamine hit. This isn't always a bad thing, if your relationship with this guy is not SOLELY based on these dopamine hits.

It becomes a problem when the guy is not seeking anything more than a quick "high", and there is no deeper level of intimacy and friendship holding the relationship together, when that's really what you want and are waiting for.

If you're worried you are a Gumball Girl, wondering why you keep ending up with Gumball Guys, or wondering why you're always caught up playing games in dating, this episode will help you decode what you are getting out of being with these guys and playing the games.

Once you can understand why you're behaving the way you are, you can...

We've all been there...you're texting back and forth with a guy, and the responses are pretty quick in the beginning, everything is exciting, you're getting the butterflies....and gradually, the responses get slower and slower to be returned (or, it's very sudden that he's taking so long to reply).

You start to freak out, thinking he's not interested in you, he's texting another girl, or whatever else our creative minds think up! Your natural response may be to scold him and educate him on how he should be responding, but I want you to consider a different approach.

In this episode, I walk you through the reasons why he may not be texting back right away, why you shouldn't freak out and start imagining worse case scenarios, why you should just wait it out, and what it looks like when you're texting a healthy guy.

Other episodes mentioned

5 signs to tell early on he's not the right one

Follow and Work with Melissa

• The Back to You Academy is officially closed, but you can still work...

When you're in a new relationship or just starting to go on a few dates with a guy, do you ever feel like you're being evaluated against some checklist on a clipboard?

He says things like, "When you do that it reminds me of my ex, who cheated on me..." or "I have trust issues so I can't handle it when you...". Then you find yourself doing backflips and performing trying to prove that you won't hurt him like the last girl. Things will be different this time, I'm not like the other girls!!

But he's still skeptical. And the more energy you spend trying to prove yourself, the more you lose part of your identity, the more your self confidence weakens, and the more you fall under his control.

And the more dopamine hits he gets so he can feel soothed, comforted by the fact that you probably won't leave him like the last girl.

Welcome to the last episode in this "flavors of attention" series! We've covered each Gumball flavor/color that correlates to a type of attention addiction that...

Welcome back to this series, where we're talking about all the flavors of attention that the wrong guys want. They make us think that they're falling for us, but they're getting high off of attention and they're not actually building true and lasting connection.

I share this with you so you can understand how to filter unhealthy men and people out. So you don't waste your time on the people that are just taking from you, the people that are not really investing and focused on your life.

I've assigned each type of attention as a "flavor of attention" with all the different gumball flavors, and so far we've already covered red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple...and this episode is about pink! 

I encourage you to listen to the episodes about the other ones first, the links are at the bottom!

When a guy wants the Pink Gumball type of attention, he's the one who always makes every conversation about him. You could say anything, and he'll always turn it back to...

"Work is so crazy right now, but we should meet up soon." -text from a guy, probably sitting on his couch, who wants the Purple Gumball

If you're new to Gumball Love, welcome! Gumball Love is a concept created to help women see the red flags of fake love, and be able to identify real, unconditional love.

Each flavor "Gumball" represents a type of attention that a person is seeking from you. They will give you a "quarter" so you give them a gumball, and then they get "high" off the attention, like a sugar rush. They may therefore act like they care for you and love you, but it's really just to get the kind of attention they want from you.

I've been doing a podcast series going into depth and detail about each flavor gumball, or each type of attention, so you can really start to see the nuances and get really good at spotting the guys who aren't seeking a real intimate connection. The links to previous episodes in the series are at the bottom, I suggest you start from the...