Have The Relationship You Want

I was always taught that “bitch” was about the worst thing a woman could be. It meant mean, nasty, aggressive, thoughtless, self-involved. But MORE than that, it meant “uppity” – sort of like as a “woman” you weren’t supposed to do and be certain things.

I grew up as Feminism was beginning and blooming, and now, we take all that for granted.

While we were learning, as a group across the world, to become more assertive, to work at the same jobs men worked at, to do things that women had never really done before except for inspiring individual examples (like Amelia Earhart and Eleanor Roosevelt).

But at the same time, we had no MODEL of how a WOMAN could do these things.

So we copied MEN. We copied their style of dress, their attitude, the way they handle authority, we accentuated the masculine parts of ourselves – our brains, our logical, action-oriented, decision-making parts – and played down our feminine parts – intuition, feelings, just Being….

And we discovered, too, that if we used our Feminine energies to do previously masculine-only kinds of things, we could easily be perceived of as “weak.”

It’s like the whole world conspired to turn us women into men. Only – the moment we tried to DO that – we got labeled with “bitch.” We were caught in an impossible situation.

So do this:

Look into your own heart and mind and touch what YOU think and feel when you hear or say the word “bitch.” Does it feel bad or ugly? Does it make you mad? Does it trigger all kinds of other feelings and get you remembering moments that didn’t feel good?

Try this first, and in the next post we’ll go further…Love, Rori

And, of course, we women have all been taught the exact OPPOSITE!

I was taught that if you dream big, if you laugh loud, if you want success in all areas of your life – and you’re a WOMAN – you’ll scare a man away.

And that playing “small” and “girly” would make him want you.

It would make him feel like a big man if we made sure we didn’t “show him up” with our confidence and power.

But men LOVE confidence. They love powerfulness in women. They’re excited and turned on by a woman who’s not afraid to be herself.

So – that’s the key – a woman who’s not afraid to be herself.

And, of course – that’s the thing we’re MOST afraid of – that he’ll see who we really are.

So – we’ve talked about what it’s like to feel and play “small.” Now, what does it feel and look like to be “weak”?

Let’s clarify an important point here – the way we FEEL and the way we ACT are completely different and separate things. We can either feel one way and act another, or we can act according to how we feel. Very often, we feel hurt, and so we act angry. Or we feel scared, so we act strong and take charge. Or we feel love, and so we pretend we don’t. The very smartest, best, and most fabulous thing we can do for ourselves is to find a way not to just ACT – because often that’s just a pattern we always tend to act out when we’re feeling strong feelings – but to EXPRESS how we feel.

That could look like: “I’m feeling really bad right now about the way my work is going, and so everything between us makes me feel angry” instead of what we usually do – take it out on him.

In the last post, I talked about how easy it is to get extra sensitive when your picture of things gets “small,” and how that can make you feel like you have to balance two extremes – either being “weak” or a “bitch.”

And we’ve seen out there in the world how easy it is to get “labeled” as a “doormat” or a “bitch,” (ever happened to you?) and we’ve even seen that turned around with the idea that men LIKE “bitches.” It can get confusing and tricky.

I’ll write more about that (men don’t like “bitches,” they like women who are REAL) in later posts, but for now let’s see how you can find a way to WEAVE these two extremes into your life so that you can embrace BOTH your “weakness” and your “bitchiness” and still find a sense of peace, calm, strength and emotional softness somewhere in the middle.

This is a HUGE issue, and I really want you to write and comment so I can expand on it, develop new Tools about it and help you as much as I can with it.

Let’s say you want something from your man – like more attention or affection or time, but he’s being distant and pre-occupied. Let’s say you’re feeling irritated and angry, and frightened that something’s going wrong in the relationship. If you’re in this situation now, or if you’ve ever been here, are you feeling that if you don’t speak up and ask for what you want you’re “weak,” and if you DO speak up and ask for what you want you’ll end up a “bitch”?

So – first – do this: Make quick, everlasting and final PEACE with yourself – that WHATEVER you do or say, you will be okay with yourself, forgive yourself, and learn from the experience. This sets you up to SUCCEED, and will help you with the fear.
Now:

1. Close your eyes
2. Breathe
3. Open your eyes and go get a piece of paper and a pen or pencil
4. Put a line down the paper from top to bottom
5. On the left side of the line, write down what you want to say to him. Take as many pieces of paper as you need, but stick to the left side of the paper.
6. Now – take a look at what you’ve written. CATCH yourself JUDGING yourself about every line, and CATCH whatever feeling each line brings up in you – anger, frustration, fear, a smile (some of it might be really funny and make you laugh!)
7. Last step is to rewrite EVERYTHING on the left (some of it will seem weak and doormat-like to you, and some of it will seem dramatic and bitchy to you) in FEELING MESSAGES (you can learn exactly how to do this in my ebook, and then see demonstrations of how to talk in Feeling Messages with a man in all my products – for now simply use the words “I feel,” or “I’m feeling” in every single sentence and completely cross out and do not use the word YOU).

Just doing this small writing exercise instead of trying to talk to your man from either of the doormat/bitch extremes will make a HUGE difference for you, so if you’re in this kind of situation, and you want something or you’re angry about something – do this right now and let me know how it felt for you.

A male friend of mine just told me how his wife is always talking about how difficult it is for us women to find a balance between “I’m afraid of looking weak” and “I’m afraid of looking ‘bitchy,’” and I just SO identified.

And the thing is – this problem strikes us no matter WHERE we actually ARE on our own scale of “success” in life and in love.

If we have a great boyfriend, but we want MORE – to be married – we feel afraid of being a weak “doormat” and just going along with whatever he wants, or of being a demanding “bitch” who “calls him out” on his fear of commitment and tells him how we want the relationship to go.

How to solve this? First I’ll share what works for me:

When I find myself getting all worked up over details, “what happened,” “who said what,” and reliving things over and over again, I notice I tend to go to extremes. It’s as though I get really sensitive when I get really SMALL. And…most things that have happened in the past, things that we have to think about in the future, things we have to deal with right NOW…are often really SMALL. Getting them right or wrong might help or damage my self-confidence, depending on how much importance I put on the “thing” – but in the scheme of a whole relationship, most things really are SMALL.

Even the big presentation at work, where you’re sweating and nervous, isn’t usually a “make-it or break it” situation – but THINKING it is can MAKE it HUGE. The “big” date with a man we really like will NOT “make or break” the relationship – but the PRESSURE we put on ourselves about it actually CAN affect how we feel and how we act, and so it CAN affect how the relationship goes.

I’ll write much more about this doormat/bitch problem, but for now, do this about the SMALL stuff (no matter how big it feels to you):

The next time your man calls, or comes over to relax, or takes you out:

1. Pretend he’s the nerdy guy you barely remember from high school who was totally clueless, totally almost invisible to you, and totally not worth your time to think about. When you get that feeling into your body…

2. Get your sense of humor back – think about something you or he did that was really silly, instead of imagining him as your knight in shining armor and the man of your dreams, think of him as a furry animal that straggled into your life who needs YOU to survive…

3. Tell yourself that the situation is SMALL and then…

4. Get a BIGGER picture – imagine yourself in a BRILLIANT relationship, strolling through life as easy as can be, as happy as can be, maybe while you’re saving a piece of the world at the same time? One-handed?

Next, more about being “soft” without being “weak,” and “strong” without being a “bitch…”