Have The Relationship You Want

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Have you ever let your self-esteem get so low that you tolerate bad treatment from a man?

For me – it was words.  It was clever jabs, humorous remarks – all funny (other people laughed, so I did, too) words.  But those words were about my weight, my double chin, my this, my that – they all cut like knives and hurt like hell.

I got away from that man – but the whole time I was leaving, I was confused, because I WANTED him, too.

And so I thought he was telling the truth – and as the days went on, I believed him.  I thought I was “less than” – which would make HIM my only hope.  If he were gone – there’d never be anyone else to want what he didn’t want.

And as I stepped away from that and slowly began to build my own opinion of myself, I discovered that he was lying.  I discovered that I was much huger a woman – in the important “Energetic” way – than I’d ever imagined. 

And I discovered that what men were seeing in me was only what I was seeing in myself.  The better I felt about myself, the better the man who showed up.

And my husband was the icing on the cake of my own good feelings about myself.  It took me years within our marriage to understand how I was in the business of totally undermining myself – and making him RESPONSIBLE for it – so that I was doing the opposite of what I wanted to happen.

I was pushing him away instead of bringing him close.  Now I had a man who wanted to love ALL of me, and I’d been so conditioned to desire and work to get and TOLERATE  a man who DIDN’T want all of me, or simply couldn’t HANDLE loving all of me – I didn’t know how to BE.

All of my work is about creating inner strength and outer softness – feeling so STRONG and so on our own side on the deep inside that we can completely let go of all need to control what’s happening on the outside.

If you’ve ever experienced allowing a man to treat you as “less than” – here’s a blog post you’ll identify with. Laura is amazingly brave and insightful, and I think you’ll get a lot of help from the post and the comments, too:

Laura’s article at http://midlifebloggers.com/?p=372#comment-781

Let me know how you’re doing with this – I’ve been there, and I want to support you.

Love, Rori

 

If problem-solving is stressing you out – if it’s making you feel angry and triggering your need to control everything (we all have this going on…) then here’s the next step to helping yourself. 

You’re going to KEEP A LOG.

Often, in the flurry of the energy we spend trying to solve a problem so it’ll turn out the way we want it to – especially with our man, WE get left behind.

We often through ourselves “under the bus” just to get what we THINK we want.

In Post 1 of this series, you made a list of all your “problems.” 

Then, we FLIPPED the “problems” into what you WANT instead of what you’re spending energy worrying about.

Now we’re going to start shifting your process of dealing with these things in a way that will reduce your stress, make you feel more peaceful, and bring your man closer, instead of pushing him away with all your unsaid thoughts and feelings. 

We’re going to get you out of problem-solving mode and into a way of Being that’s about EXPERIENCING.

So -

1. Take your lists, read over both the “problem” list and the Flipped list, and get really, really familiar with them.  I want you to start keeping a log of what comes up most often for you.

Also,

2. Remember how we sensed and found the “Themes” in Daria and Reshi’s lists?

See if you can find your most common Themes.  See if it’s “I’m not good enough – I don’t deserve what I want” – or if it’s “I feel guilty and bad just because I WANT something, or I could hurt somebody if I got what I want” or – “It’s just not in the cards for me, that’s the way it goes.”  If you come up with something all your own – be sure to tell me about it…

3. Now – I want you to keep a written LOG, where you keep track of every time you notice the Themes from your lists, the “problems” on your list – and even the Flipped WANTS on your lists coming up and taking over your brain and body.

Do it methodically – this way:

A. See if you can catch yourself when you’re in your head with a Theme, or with a specific “problem” or a specific “Want” from any of your lists.  See if the words of the Theme and the problem and the Want are actually going through your mind.

B.  When you catch yourself – I want you to notice your BODY.  Really get in tune with it.

Notice what you’re eyes are doing, and your mouth.  Notice your shoulders – are they tense and up or relaxed and down (Spend some time tensing your shoulders and then relaxing them so you’ll be able to recognize your natural body states more easily and quickly).

Notice your pelvis, and all your feminine parts – your vagina (up high inside you and down low, where it’s lips meet the air), and the vulva, all around the bones in front – notice if you’re holding on to them, or if they’re relaxed and easy (again – tense them and then relax them so you can get familiar with how you naturally hold them).

C. Write down what you notice – the themes, your body state, and when and where it happened.  See if you can notice something that triggered all of it – something at work, something your man said, something you saw.

D. In the evening, take a look at your day’s LOG – see if you can find a pattern. 

For instance: Your man says something, or you see something in the newspaper, or something happens at home and you suddenly feel something or wish something or want something. 

See if there’s an order to things – 1. This happens, 2. I think this theme, 3. My body feels this way. 

Also – look at it in REVERSE.  1. My body feels this way, 2. I’m thinking this Theme, 3. This just happened.

You are now becoming the detective of YOU. 

You’re not hunting down the mystery or the psychology of WHY any of this happened, or HOW it all got started in your life – you’re just identifying the patterns.

Remember this while you’re Discovering and Identifying - the MOST IMPORTANT part is your BODY STATE.

As we go along, we’re going to work backwards – starting with your BODY – because we want to get you out of your HEAD and into your BODY.

The Body holds the key to all this. 

As we work together, I want to make sure you’re not ANALYZING, or THINKING about this – because that’s not where the healing is. 

It’s important to NOTICE things, to catch yourself – and the Healing is in your Body.

So, let me know what you discover, and we’ll keep on.

Love, Rori

 

 

Have you ever focused all your attention on one man, and still felt completely unsure about where things stand?

Even after a year or two?

Where you just don’t feel like he’s committed to you, or that you have a future together, but you talk yourself OUT of that feeling and just keep going on hope?

I used to be the queen of that – I’d hang in with a man – believing that just because I was still THERE, he loved me. Just because I was still THERE, he was “serious” about me.

I was the Queen of the “Imaginary Relationship.”

Here’s a letter from Helen, who’s struggling with the reality of her long relationship with a man she loves…

“Dear Rori, I am seeing this guy and he does not want to commit. We saw each other for 18 months, we separated for about 8 months then got back. We have been back together for about a year now. He lost his wife three years ago to cancer .

“Whenever I ask relationship questions – like ‘I wish you would introduce me to your friends because when I am in front of them I feel uncomfortable because I don’t know if they are into you or not, or who did you go out of town with and who are they to you,’ this is his answer to me…

… ’We are not in a relationship, when you ask me these questions you make me want to withdraw and what does it matter to you who these people are or if I introduce you to them? I am not anyone’s boyfriend or committed to anyone so don’t ask me relationship questions. When I find someone I will let you know, and you know how these questions aggravate me, and if you want us to get along don’t ask me these type of questions.’

“He also has pictures of different women in the house and he says they are just friends (he’s in the picture with them.) I don’t know how to answer this because I love him so much. We sleep together. I see him at least two to three times a week, I spend the nights at his house and his mother and children know about me. His daughters are practically like my children and I love them too.

“Lately he has been talking to me more – sharing what he’s doing, and I commend him for that and I use a lot of my feelings with him that I learned from your book. I also try to act like I trust him and try not to ask too many questions, but at least once every two or three weeks I ask something and all hell breaks loose and the above answer is what I always get.

“I ask these questions because I get emotional and hurt and afraid he’s taking someone out of town or seeing someone else, and yet I know there’s nothing I can do. He has 3 pictures of himself with three different women and in one of them he is holding the lady like they are in love and I have to see these pictures every time I’m there. And he just says they’re friends but there are no pictures of me.

“He seems to have many women friends. So I wonder how many of us is he sleeping with. I am not dating anyone else or haven’t since my divorce five years ago – he has been the only other man. I spend a lot of time with his kids- we’re like mother and daughters . Please help, yours sincerely, Helen.”

Here’s my answer:

Helen – I’m going to be very tough on you right now, so don’t read further if you don’t want to hear:

You are in an Imaginary Relationship. This means you think you’re in a Real Relationship, even though he said to you, clearly – “We are not in a relationship,” and has pictures of other women everywhere and none of you. You are in complete denial of your situation.

Please do this for me: Wrap your arms around yourself, give yourself a huge hug (I’m hugging you from here…) and then jump up and down to shake the cobwebs out of your head.

Say out loud, as though he’s in front of you: ” Now I hear you. We are just dating. I’m not committed, I should be dating other men. Now I see. I’m free, as are you.”

Then, right now, this minute, go to your closet, pick out some clothes for the week where you change all your colors to pinks and lavenders and baby blues, change everything to soft fabrics that make you feel soft and sexy, then change your hair a bit with some color streaks or a color rinse, and go out and flirt with men.

You cannot bring him close to you by WANTING him more. You can not excite him, attract him, or make him WANT YOU more by pressing him.

Even THINKING about him makes your “vibe” seem needy, clingy and desperate to him. This is simply not attractive to him – and it makes your self-esteem take a nose-dive.

Take your focus OFF of him, and do this:

1. Find something really, really important to you to focus on (work, volunteering, art projects, school…) and focus on it.

2. Schedule time to just hang out with yourself in your own home so you can learn to ENJOY your own company, tolerate your fear and loneliness when you’re with yourself, and raise your self-esteem and your Degree of Difficulty.

3. Schedule time to get out, go places, do things on your own or with friends that are really INTERESTING – things you enjoy, that you can learn from, and that are FUN for you – AND where there are men.

Smile at these other men. Practice my Rori Raye Dance Position in their presence. Make eye contact and keep it for 5 seconds (it feels much longer than it sounds).

Let them come up to you and start conversations. Let them ask for your phone number. Give it to them. Go to coffee with them. Go to lunch with them. Go walking in a park with them.

Learn to do feeling messages and feel comfortable in your own skin around men – men you find attractive and men you don’t find attractive. Just get out there and practice and learn.

This is your best bet in 2 ways:

1. It’s your best bet to get this man you love re-attracted to you, and to compel him to want to commit to you…

2. It’s your best bet to meet a man who might be even better than this man, love you more than he does, and want to claim you quickly.

Try this, please. The way you’re approaching this is damaging to you, and will not help you get the man you want.

Let me know here how this works for you…Love, Rori

If your mind, your heart, and your energy are filled to the brim with “problems” to solve, you are so not alone…

…not only am I working with my own instincts around problem-solving, I’ve received beautiful lists of “problems from lovely women like you (please send more – this is not only incredibly helpful for us all – it’s FUN – it’s like a game).

And it feels so good to get your list off your head and heart and energy and onto paper, where you can start to take ACTION around some of your “problems.”

First, let’s make this post about NOTICING what’s on your list and looking at it in different ways. Then we’ll move on to action steps, and basically turning the whole concept of “problem to solve” into a more fluid, easy, feminine way to go about experiencing, enjoying, and improving your life on a moment-by-moment basis.

Some “problems” seem to require only easy, quick fixes that we can do in five minutes or less (clean off the kitchen table, load the dishwasher, put on makeup, get up earlier so we’re less rushed, make a healthy snack instead of a picking up a ready-made poisonous one, and on and on…)

And some “problems” require huge, momentous, life-altering CHANGE (fixing anything about your man – his health, drinking, appearance, sexual abilities, kindness, generosity, romantic and affectionate nature, work, stress…. and fixing anything you believe you need to fix about yourself (we women can come up with long, long lists of those…).

There’s a very old prayer, the “Serenity Prayer” that goes: “God, Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”
So – basically – this is what we’re all about here – knowing the difference between what we can and can’t change.

And almost all of us here on Earth have it wrong.

We’re all going about trying desperately to change things we can’t – thinking about it, worrying about it, figuring things out about it. We work so hard trying to figure out every angle of how to make these things change, how to make these things happen, that we completely have no energy left over to change the things we CAN change.

And the weird and amazing thing is – if we put our energy into changing what we CAN change – even the teeny-weeny tiny things that seem useless and small at the time – often, the BIG things will change all by themselves.

We’ve seen that in action. If you stop eating processed sugar in your cereal every morning, it seems like a small thing. It’s a pain, because you have to alter your schedule, you have to buy a different brand, you have to change your habit, you get grumpy – and it seems like way too small a thing to make even a tiny dent in the 30 pounds you want to lose, or the fatigue you feel, or the mood swings you’re experiencing.

And yet, if you just stop eating sugar in your cereal every morning – you will lose weight, you will have more energy in the morning, and you’ll feel better.

Then, after a week of that positive experience, you try eating a piece of fruit instead of pudding for dessert, or try sparking water when you’re out with friends or on a date instead of wine, beer, or a “Cosmopolitan,” or give up anything with chemicals in it (including artificial sweeteners), and – wow – you have the same experience. It’s not overnight, but after a bit, you notice you’ve lost weight, you have more energy, and you feel better.

It’s the same with love.

We can get so focused on the big things of what’s wrong with our man, our relationship, our family, our work, the whole of our lives – and that can feel so overwhelming – that we ignore the small things we CAN change – now.

And on the other side of the coin – there are BIG things out there in the world, and in our relationships, in our finances, in our work, in our PLEASURE, that we CAN change – but we don’t believe in ourselves or our power enough to think we CAN.

So if success is all about telling the difference between what you can change and what you can’t change, let’s work on that.

Here are two wonderful lists from Daria and Reshi:

This is Daria’s

How I can make my mom be happy and not depressed
How I can make my God-sister get healthy and not die
How I can help my God-sister want to find a job or some kind of fulfilling life purpose
How I can help my God-brother find a job
How I can help my God-brother be a good man and father
How I can help my God-brother and sister get back together
How I can feel closer to my God-sister
Whether it’s ok for me to give money to people
How I can get a guy I dated to be a good person
How I can get a guy I dated and was friends with to heal himself, and better his life
Worrying my dad’s health will deteriorate because he stresses too much, works too much, and has done the Atkins diet for too long
Worrying my mom’s physical health will decline because she had a hysterectomy and isn’t totally self conscious
How I can make my butt get bigger and my stomach smaller
Feeling guilty about dating guys I don’t find sexually attractive
Worrying that I won’t find a guy to actually come pick me up instead of wanting me to drive
Worrying that if I start making lots of new friends I’ll be abandoning my old friends
Feeling like if I don’t pay attention, care for, and love them some of my friends can die from violence
Worrying that my dad and I will never see eye to eye
Feeling incompetent because I have information to help other people but don’t deliver it in a effective way
Feeling guilty that I’m tutoring for a higher income market instead of disadvantaged students
Feeling like by the time I get powerful enough to really help people it will be too late
Feeling sad because some people died
Feeling confused over whether the eye-for-an-eye or the turn-the-other-cheek philosophy is best
Feeling discouraged because I might not get to be an actress, performer, super successful investor, dancer, writer, and everything I’d like to be
Feeling worried that if I move to Brazil I’d be abandoning my friends
Feeling worried that people in my home country are becoming more superficial and sad
Feeling angry at how the world is run
Feeling powerless to help it be run the way I want
Worried that if it was run the way I wanted it would all turn bad because it’s too idealistic
Feeling scared because I’m 26 and I’m not seriously considering marriage
Feeling worried because I am getting wrinkles under my eyes
Feeling worried because I might have a health issue with my kidneys
Feeling worried that my toes won’t go back all the way to the way they were before I started wearing pointed shoes
Feeling annoyed that I don’t have the confidence to write/sing the way I do in my imagination
Feeling frustrated that I won’t get energy therapy to work
Feeling discouraged that I haven’t made lots of wonderful paintings like in my imagination
Feeling like I am never really going to feel like writing stories or a book
Feeling worried my stories and poems are not good
Feeling worried that I will start to crave sex again and feel lonely and lose my power
Feel annoyed that I don’t have orgasms easily like some people
Feeling worried that I will hurt certain guys’ feelings if I tell them how I feel
Feeling frustrated that people from my home country and people I admire over here don’t always share the same views
Feeling worried that I won’t find any guy to really understand me
Feeling guilty that if I start seriously dating a guy with a kid I am hurting his kid
Feeling SOO frustrated hearing my parents fight and knowing I have communication tools available to help but not the tools or confidence to get them to apply them

This is Reshi’s

Marriage problems between my husband and me in general
Being afraid he’ll never tell me he loves me again
Being afraid he’ll never want to share a bed again
Being afraid he’ll never want to have sex again
Being afraid I won’t make enough money
Worrying that his health will decline because he doesn’t exercise or take care of himself
Being afraid that if I express anything to him, he will get angry at me and love me less
Worrying that he’s not attracted to me and is more interested in other women
Worrying that he’s going to turn out to be a feminine man and I’ll have to leave him
Worrying that I’ll have to move out of the house or do something equally drastic in order for him to realize he loves me — and planning ahead for that moment
Worrying that I’ll get fat
Trying to figure out how I’m going to update my wardrobe with what little money I make
Trying to figure out how I’m going to tackle the financial problems we have
Wondering how I’ll ever be able to go back to school and prepare for a better career
Worrying about the constant aches and pains in my body
Worrying about whether I’ll ever find love again if I have to get divorced, or if I’m going to be considered “damaged goods”
Worrying about the fact that my hair is falling out
Wondering whether I should start dating other men, or whether it’s OK to start dating other men, or whether I even WANT to start dating other men
Wondering if I have a place to go if I have to get divorced

Now let’s do this:

1. Pull out your own list of “problems” (I will too.)

2. Take a look at these two lists here, and let’s get a general idea of the theme behind each.  If you look carefully, and then just sink out of your head and into your body, you’ll be able to “feel” the themes.

At first, they’ll both seem the same – there’s worrying, a sense of overwhelm, and so many difficult, huge “problems” that clearly need solutions. Big issues, like health, financial stability, meaningful work, love and sex.

But if you really get in touch with them, you’ll see that Daria’s list is screaming out at us that “I’m not enough. I’ll never be enough, no matter what I do. I am powerless. All I can do is be nice and good, and feel guilt and do more good works, because I am at the mercy of others.”

And Reshi’s is screaming “I’m very powerful – I can leave, I can hurt, I can be successful, but I’m too afraid to be who I am. Something bad will happen if I fully express myself and my power.”

And here’s the amazing, amazing thing….even though they’re feeling very differently, even though a therapist might work on different issues with them – the basic thing we’re working with here is the SAME…both Daria and Reshi’s mind, heart and energy are being sucked up by this list of “problems” – almost all of which are NOT controllable by Daria and Reshi. NOT things they can change as a whole, that they can swivel, and manipulate into being “okay” or “right.”

But it’s hard to see that, and accept that, because WITHIN these huge issues (and almost all of us have these same huge issues in our own lives and on our own lists), there are small, tiny things – itty-bitty ACTIONS we CAN take. And these itty-bitty actions can actually cause change to happen in the direction we want things to go.

HOWEVER – because we don’t EVER, EVER have control over the RESULTS of so many of the actions we take (we can do our total best audition for a choir and still not get in, we can clean the dishes in the sink this time, but we can’t guarantee the sink won’t get piled up ever again, we can love a man brilliantly and still not be able to make him love us back if he doesn’t “feel it” all by himself…), because we feel so powerless in so many ways…we’re afraid to even start.

We think – “Well, I could stop eating sugar in my cereal, I could look into new jobs and start volunteering in a field I might be interested in, I could flirt with other men before I think about whether or not I could date other men, I could do small “walk-aways” in my relationship before I worry about leaving him….and yet,” we think, ” That won’t help.”

We become overwhelmed by the huge “problem” and drained by the energy it takes to even think about solving it – that we opt out of doing the small steps that are easy and right in front of us.

And why?

Because change – even the change we WANT – is scary.

It’s scary because, at bottom, we are where we are because we’re comfortable where we are. And huge change – no matter how fantastic it sounds – is terrifying to our systems.

So – what we want to do here is find a baby-step way that our systems can tolerate and that we can ENJOY that will lead us to these major changes we say we want, so that we will no longer have to WORRY and THINK about them. So..

Do this:

1.Look at your list, and see if you can find a “theme” – like the ones we found in Daria and Reshi’s lists.

2. Now – write down the change, the result you want to happen for each item. This is the FLIP.

For example, in Daria’s list, turn all the entries about her God-sister into “I want my God-sister to be happy and healthy and safe.”

Turn “Feeling guilty about dating guys I don’t find sexually attractive” into I want to enjoy dating every an I go out with,” and “I want to date men I’m sexually attracted to.”

In Reshi’s list, you might turn “Being afraid that if I express anything to him, he will get angry at me and love me less” into I want to feel like expressing myself gets more love from him, even if he responds with anger.”

Go ahead and FLIP each of your “problems” into things you want.

Please comment with some of your “Flips” so we can move on to some more steps. Love, Rori