Imagine this. One minute you’re happily (or miserably) single and then the next minute you’re swept off your feet by a person who promises to be everything you were looking for. It feels like a dream—at first. But then gradually, you start to realize that your significant other isn’t who you thought they were. When things start to get bad in your relationship you often try to a) fix it or b) plan your exit. But what if there was a way to keep yourself from getting into these types of situations in the first place?

One of the primary mistakes you engage in is making decisions from a place of lack. And this isn’t just true of relationships! You get yourself into horrible situations when you fail to recognize how your own emptiness negatively affects your decision-making. This makes you more susceptible to the wrong person, the crappy job offer, the shady business opportunity, and more. What exactly do I mean by lack?

Let me tell you a story

When I was a young girl, I would attend fasts at my church with my parents. For those of you who are not familiar with this concept, a fast (in religious circles) is a period of time where you willingly choose to avoid eating food in order to detach from the material/physical world and attach to the spiritual. At my church we would occasionally have a fast from 6am to noon, or (in extreme cases) from 6am to 6pm.

I’m not going to lie to you. The thought that we would be going without food for 6 to 12 hours felt like being told that I would be fasting for the rest of my (probably short) life.

I’m not exaggerating. Fasting was BRUTAL! In my young mind, not eating for several hours was like being told that I couldn’t breathe; and it didn’t help that as a kid you tend to eat every few of hours or so (at least I was!). So whenever we were having a fast at the church, I would not look forward to what I knew was coming—that horrible, gnawing, painful feeling in your stomach that lets you know that you are hungry and your stomach is just one step away from taking a bite out of your kidney.

But then, I started to notice that an interesting thing would always happen at the end of the fasts. When my church was on the small side, my mom would prepare a snack for everyone to eat after the service ended—tuna sandwiches.
Yes, you read that correctly: Tuna. Sandwiches.

Now, I don’t know about you, but when I think about my favorite meal (or the most delicious food ever created) tuna sandwiches aren’t anywhere near the top of my list!

But something strange would happen after fasting for what felt like forever. My first bite into that tuna sandwich was like tasting a 5-course meal prepared by a Michelin-starred chef!!! It was HEAVEN. It was a party in my mouth. It was so, SO, SO freaking good! Even though tuna sandwiches weren’t my favorite, the taste of the sandwich was amplified by my lack because I had been fasting for hours before.

If you forget everything you read today, don’t forget this. One of the main reasons you get (and stay) in bad relationships or situations is because period(s) of lack, neglect, or deprivation you’ve experienced in childhood or your past have primed you to perceive below average as great.

Did you catch that? The hungrier you are, the more likely you will be to accept “crumbs” or “trash” in your life. You figure that is better than nothing. And this is where your relationships go off the rails.

Read on for how to change this behavior.