The Hilary Silver Podcast - The Painful Truth About Why You’re Still Single

Episode Date: November 21, 2025

Still single and calling your love life “fine”? Please. Hilary isn’t buying it, and neither should you. In this episode, Hilary is getting real about the quiet ache that hides behind independence and success. She’s talking about the kind of loneliness that becomes familiar enough to live with, even when it quietly hurts. Maybe you’ve told yourself the timing isn’t right to start dating or to find romance, or that you’re focused on other things. But what if you’ve just gotten comfortable being uncomfortable? This episode pulls back the curtain on what it really means to “tolerate” being single. Hilary explains how identity, how you see yourself, shapes every part of your love life. Have you started to see yourself as the woman who doesn’t get love? Have you made peace with that story without realizing it? She shares why doing more won’t fix what’s underneath and how shifting your self-concept is the key to creating the love you want. The question is: how long are you willing to keep calling “fine” good enough? Episode Highlights: The hidden cost of saying you’re “fine” How comfort zones quietly become cages Why your identity, not your effort, decides what changes The subtle ways women block themselves from love How to start becoming the version of you who gets everything she wants Episode Breakdown: 00:00 The Holiday Dilemma of Singleness 02:50 How Tolerating Singleness Keeps You Stuck 06:03 Identity, Self-Perception, and Feeling “Unlovable” 08:57 Breaking the Cycle of Limiting Beliefs 11:47 Becoming the Woman Who Attracts Extraordinary Love ✨ I’m Hilary Silver, LCSW, former psychotherapist turned master coach and founder of Ready for Love. I help high-achieving women show up in love as confidently as they do in their careers. 💡 Through this podcast, I share my WOMAN-centered, SELF-centered approach—time-tested methods that blend psychology, brain science, relationship skills, and no-BS dating advice. 🎙️ Since 2017, we’ve helped over 10,000 women with a 98% success rate, making Ready for Love the #1 program in the world for women who’ve tried everything else. ✨ Ready to stop repeating the same patterns and finally create the love you deserve?  🎯 Watch my free masterclass to learn the proven 4-step Ready for Love Method: https://readyforloveinc.com/masterclass 💬 Apply for a free Love Breakthrough Call with my team: https://readyforloveinc.com/apply Links Cozy Earth: Luxurious Bedding Up to 40% Off + 100-Night Sleep Trial Use Promo Code: READYFORLOVE AquaTru: Ultra-Pure Water You Can Actually Trust 20% Off Your Countertop Purifier Use Promo Code: READY at AquaTru.com

Here we are again, another holiday season, Thanksgiving dinners where someone asks if you're seeing anyone, office parties where everyone brings their spouse, New Year's Eve, where you're the one without someone to kiss at midnight. I know some of you listening, promised yourself that 2025 was going to be your year, the year that you finally found love, the year everything clicked into place. But here we are, almost at the end of another year, and maybe nothing's changed. So today we're talking about something that might be hard to hear, but you need to hear it. How long are you going to tolerate being single? Because the truth is you've gotten comfortable with it.

You've normalized it. You've made peace with the heartburn. And as long as you tolerate it, nothing changes. So if you're tired of being alone, tired of watching everyone else find love while you're still waiting, tired of making excuses for why it hasn't happened yet, or tired even just thinking about it. Singleness is taking up mental space in your life. Then this episode is your wake-up call. Hi, it's Hillary. Welcome to the Ready for Love podcast. Maybe you're thinking, well, I've been busy with work, or I just haven't met the right person yet. The timing hasn't been

right. On the surface, your life looks amazing. You've got the career, the friends, the vacations, the full life. People look at you and think you have it all. But, there's something missing, a hole, an ache. I call it living with heartburn. When you have Harper, no one knows that you have it because you're not doubled over in pain. You can still function and still show up. You can smile at the holiday party. But there's this constant burning in your chest. It's a low-grade discomfort that never goes away and it does distract you. It keeps you from being fully present, enjoying your fullest life. Because the truth is, being single, when you don't want to be, is painful. And it's not just during the holidays. It's every vacation

that you take alone, every wedding where you're the solo guest, every plus one event where you show up minus one. It's waking up alone. It's making every decision alone about the insurance, the house, the car. It's having no one to share your wins with or your struggles with. It's having no one to go home to at the end of the day, who's eagerly awaiting to hear how your big event went, to share your big celebrations and wins with somebody who's invested in what happens to you, and not having somebody share your struggles with to debrief about how to handle certain things. It's not having a thought partner in this life. And it's scrolling through social media and seeing everyone else's relationship highlight real,

while you're still waiting for your story to begin. what happens is the years keep passing by. 40 became 45, 45 became 50, and maybe even 55 or 60, and you could still be in the very same place because you've gotten used to it. It's become your normal, your identity even. I'm the single friend. I'm independent. I don't need anyone. I'm always working on myself. Maybe your friends have stopped asking you about your love life, and maybe you've stopped bringing it up. You've just gotten comfortable with the discomfort. You've identified with the struggle. But here's the thing. This isn't your fault. You're not broken. You're not unlovable. You're not too picky or too much or too old or too much

of anything. You've been trying. You've been putting yourself out there. You've been working on yourself. You're doing your best with what you know. But here's what I need you to hear my loves. You're tolerating being single. You've made peace with it and you've settled into it. You've accepted it as your reality. And as long as you tolerate it, nothing changes. We get used to what we're used to and we call it fine. Even when fine isn't actually fine, even when fine is painful. We accept what's familiar. We accept what we know. Our comfort zone becomes very comfortable even when it's uncomfortable. I call it the confinement zone. Because at least it's predictable. At least we know what to expect. But dealing with this issue is like finally having that surgery to alleviate back pain

that you got used to living with for so long. And then you wonder why you waited so long to have the surgery because that's how life changing the relief is. So here's the truth that no one else is going to tell you, you are the reason that you are single. Not because there's something wrong with you and not because you just haven't met the right person yet either. But because you're not disrupting your status quo. You're tolerating the whole in your life and the whole in your soul. You're tolerating the truth that you've never been truly loved for all of who you are. You're tolerating that. You're tolerating that you've never been made a priority by somebody. You're tolerating that you've never had someone fully get your back, someone you can rely on,

your ride or die, someone who loves you even when you're being an asshole. And someone who's not going anywhere just because you had a bad fight. you're tolerating living without that. And I get it because it's easier to tolerate than face the fear of going after it and possibly failing again. Admitting that this is something that you want and it not happening. It's easier to stay in your comfort zone, even if that zone is lonely, than to risk being rejected, disappointed, or hurt again. It's easier to keep yourself busy with work and friends and hobbies and tell yourself that you're fine. But you're not. fine, are you? It's easier to put all your focus on the things that you're good at in your

life, put your attention and your focus on what makes you feel significant and where you have mastery. Who wants to go do something that you don't feel like you're good at? Because let's face it, when you haven't dated in a long time or you've not been in an intimate relationship in a very long time or ever, it's not only scary to do so, but you probably just don't even know how to do it. So why would you put yourself in that situation? If you were fine, you wouldn't be listening to this right now. Now, before you start spiraling into self-blame or even get mad at me, hear me out. The fact that you are the problem here is the best news that I can give you. Because you know my favorite thing to say is if you're the problem, then that also means

you're the solution. You have the power to change this right now, today. It does not have to be this way. This is a choice. You are your own biggest obstacle right now. You don't have to spend another holiday season alone. Another year watching everyone else find love while you're still waiting for your turn. But it starts with you deciding to stop tolerating. Enough is enough. Stop normalizing it. Stop being fine with it when you're not fine. Stop identifying as the single one or the an independent woman who doesn't need anyone. Stop being comfortable with the dull ache in your chest, the distraction, the intrusive churning thoughts when you wake up in the middle of the night to pee and can't fall back to sleep. What's wrong with me? Am I not lovable? What am I

doing wrong? Maybe I should just give up. When will be, when will it be my turn? All of those thoughts that keep you from falling back to sleep at night. Let me explain what I mean by this. All of this points to identity. You have now identified as the single woman, the woman who doesn't get love, the woman who gets everything but love. You identify as a woman who's always working on herself. You identify as a self-help junkie. You identify as a lifetime therapy goer. You identify as the fifth wheel. You identify as, this is my lot in life. This is just the way it is for me. This is identity. And the only way this is going to change for you is if you start doing identity work to change the way that you think about yourself, what you believe is possible for you, what you can

expect for yourself, to start seeing yourself differently as a woman who knows how to have a relationship, who believes it's possible for her, who can have that in her life if she wants it. It's a big deal to change your identity in this way. I'm going to give you a concrete example of identity and what this actually sounds like for somebody. Back when I had a therapy practice, I did psyche vows for people who were about to have bariatric surgery. And people would get the okay. They would have the surgery. They would lose 100 pounds or more. And they would have a dramatic weight loss, a dramatic physical transformation. Sometimes I didn't even recognize them. But when they would come back to see me, you know what they would say? Things like, I still feel like the fat girl in the

room, Hillary. That is identity. It's not what you look like. It's not what you've accomplished. It's not your resume. It's not your bank account. It's not how you've put your life together on the outside. It's not your FICO score or your social security number. Identity is how you think of yourself and how you feel about yourself. It's your self-concept. And here's the thing about identity. It has an upper limit built into it. You can only go so high in life before you bump up against your own ceiling, the ceiling you created based on what you believe is possible for you. If you want to go beyond that ceiling and achieve your next level of success or have some kind of goal or something new for yourself, you have to go first. You have to expand your capacity for more. You have to

become the version of yourself who is capable of living outside of that comfort zone, of living an expanded life. Here's a personal example. For four years, I tried to leave my therapy practice behind and go fully online. And I had some wins along the way, like being on the Steve Harvey show as a relationship expert. I sold some programs, got featured in the media, but nothing was really sustainable enough for me to close the practice. So I hired coaches. I joined programs. I I tried every strategy. I did all the work. I did all the things I was supposed to be doing.

I was hustling and grinding and working my ass off because I wanted it so badly. But nothing was working. And you know why? Because the problem wasn't out there. It wasn't the strategy or the market. It wasn't the timing. It wasn't the coach or what they were teaching me. The problem was in here.

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a Q-U-A-T-R-U-A-T-R-U-D-com with promo code ready. Deep down, I discovered that I believed everyone else can have this big success but not me. I don't have what it takes. That kind of success isn't for me. And that belief went all the way back to things that I experienced when I was growing up. So who I was being was the problem. I was doing everything right on the outside, but I was doing it all with the belief that it wasn't really possible for me. It's like playing soccer and dribbling the ball all the way down the field trying to score, only to then play defense against myself and kick the ball away at the very last second.

I was blocking myself. you are blocking yourself from the thing that you want the instant i recognized that lingering limiting belief i knew how to fix it because that's what i do and i obliterated it in the very next month i closed my practice for good and enrolled 14 women into my program and we've grown month after month year after year to an eight figure company that's been able to help thousands of women but none of that could have happened until I became the version of me who knew it could happen, who believed I was capable of it, and I stopped seeing myself as somebody struggling to make it happen. I stopped seeing myself as a therapist in private practice, and I started seeing myself as an CEO of an online

company coaching women. I had to be that version. I had to expand my identity first. I had to see it, visualize it, expect it, and raise my energetic frequency. That would allow me to attract and manifest what it is that I wanted. And this is what's happening with you and your love life. It's not about doing more. You've already done so much. It's about who you are being. Who you are being is what's keeping you stuck. And you can go on all the dates and you can work on yourself and you can try all the strategies and do time with your therapist week after week. But if deep down, you don't believe you're the woman who gets to have love, if you don't see yourself as someone who is loved and cherished and adored, nothing you do will work because you will sabotage it. You will

pick the wrong guy. You'll push the right one away. You'll stay in your comfort zone where it's safe to be single and not step out of your turtle shell. You'll stay in your little cocoon. You'll stay in your little cocoon. You have to do the identity work on yourself first before you'll be able to let love in. You have to become the woman who knows, not hopes, not wishes, but knows that love is available to her, that she's worthy of it and that she can have it. And that is an inside job. Here's what I know after 25 years of doing this work, after helping thousands of women just like you. The women who find love, they are not lucky. They are not in the right place at the right time.

They're not better than you, prettier, smarter, more successful, anything more than you. They're the ones who stopped tolerating. They made themselves and their love life a priority. Not someday, not when the kitchen remodel is done or when work slows down. They made themselves a priority now in the moment. And they were willing to do the inner work to shift their identity. They started seeing themselves as the woman who can have this, does live this life. And that's exactly what we do at Ready for Love. We help high achieving

women like you stop tolerating a life with everything but love. We help you shift your identity from I'm still single, I'm the single one who doesn't get to have love to I'm the woman who attracts and keeps extraordinary love. We help you heal the wounds that have you tolerating less than you deserve. And we help you build an unshakable relationship with yourself so you can finally let someone in and we help you do it without changing who you are without playing games and without pretending to be someone that you're not the right man doesn't want you to be smaller or quieter or less he wants you all of you exactly as you are but you do first have to believe that you are worthy of it and capable of it and to stop tolerating anything

less. So let me ask you, how many more holiday seasons are you going to tolerate being single? How many more years are you going to let pass by while you wait for your life to start? How long are you going to live with this burning in your chest? Because time doesn't stop and nothing changes until you change it. The new year is coming. Another year, another chance. But this time, please make it different. If you're ready, really ready, To make yourself and your love life the priority, watch my free masterclass. I'm sharing the exact four-step method that I've been using with thousands of women since 2017 to help them attract the love they've been dreaming of.

Go to ready for love, inc.com forward slash masterclass. Or if you're ready to talk about working together, apply for a free breakthrough call with my team. We will talk about where you are, where you want to be, and how we can help you get there. Go to readyforloafink.com forward slash apply. But don't wait. Whatever you do, don't wait. Do you not tolerate another year of this you deserve more? And it's waiting for you.

Thanks for being here. I'll see you next time.