Have The Relationship You Want

Here’s a question from Maria that I want to jump off of (I edited it a bit) …

“l have a question, too and it may sound as stupid as it is simple. When a man treats you bad is it HIM or ME? Meaning – was he born with (or been given) a natural ability to treat others bad or am l just a very low standard girl? Maria”

Here’s my answer:

Maria – men treat women badly for lots of reasons.  They’re angry and don’t know how to deal with it…they’re afraid…but it DOESN’T MATTER.

If you ALLOW a man to treat you badly (assuming you’re not in a traumatic, helpless situation) – and this means ANY way that doesn’t feel GOOD and nourishing to you…then you must take responsibility for it.

There are lots of old sayings about this… most of them are about blame and shame and fault – and I’d like to stay away from all that.

We’re all here learning.  We’re all feeling our way through our lives, doing the best we can, experiencing being triggered all the time and feeling the pressure of our old habits and traumas and fears.  There’s just no point in assigning “blame.”

It’s all about responsibility, and owning your experiences, owning your feelings, and being watchful that you are in good-feeling places as much as you can.  Trying to “analyze” a man so you can “understand” him often leads to making excuses for him and does you no good…

There’s a song lyric:

“Oh, oh, oh, you treat me badly…and I love you madly…you really have a hold on me…”

When I think back on my love life – how this was me so much of my life – that I had no idea that a man I liked would truly want me – that the world was divided into men who wanted me that I didn’t want and men I wanted who didn’t want me (or only wanted me for now) – I see how this PAIN of love has been drilled into us.

We were all raised on Torch songs.  We were all raised on hopeless romance.

We were all raised to not RECOGNIZE bad treatment. To make excuses for it.  To find underlying, psychological reasons for it.  To blame OURSELVES for it – as though we provoked it (like so much you can read about what people think about Rhianna and Chris Brown – that she somehow is responsible for what happened to her by “provoking” him).

As a crisis counselor helping rape survivors – it was just heartbreaking to see (and experience) the self-blame and self-torture women who’d been abused and been at the receiving end of violence took on themselves (ourselves).

We think things are our FAULT.  And they’re not.  There is no “fault.”  Sometimes you’re at the wrong place at the wrong time – and sometimes the lesson (because you have to see EVERYTHING as a lesson in order to transform awful-feeling experiences into better-feeling one next time) – is to take better care of ourselves.

The most major reason why we try to assign “fault” and “blame” is our need for CONTROL and MASTERY.  When we’re in a situation that feels bad but we feel paralyzed and trapped and unable to move – the only way we can “compute” this in our brains is to say “It’s all my fault.”  At least, then, we have some kind of answer.

But it’s NOT the answer.

This is subtle, I know – talking about owning and responsibility as DIFFERENT from fault and blame – but i want you to really GET the difference here, because it’s actually HUGE.

So – if a man is treating you badly – In a “minor’ way by not being present when he’s with you, or not calling, or not following up, or forgetting things, or paying too much attention to other women in the room, so many other ways men distance themselves, or test us, or simply display their decision to not care about us properly…or in a “major” way with insults, neglect, verbal abuse, physical abuse and cheating…then instead of looking for “fault” or “blame” – just ask yourself:

“Why am I here?”

Just make this your simple process:

1. Experience – actually, truly, totally experience how YOU feel about YOURSELF when you’re with a man.

2.  If it doesn’t feel good – notice it.  Write about it.  Speak it out loud to yourself – until you can put it together in words to speak it directly to him: “This doesn’t feel good.”

3. Practice speaking this truth all the time – whenever things don’t feel good.  This is NOT about whether or not he takes out the garbage or calls you often enough to suit you. This is not about his behavior.  Not about what he does or doesn’t do.  This is NOT about making a man WRONG.  This is not about making YOURSELF “wrong.”

This is simply about learning to quickly and honestly answer for yourself the question – “Why am I here?”

When you can answer that for yourself no matter what’s going on – then you’ll get this whole, huge area we call “Boundaries.”

Sometimes we are “here” because it’s what we’re used to.  Sometimes it’s what we “think” is right.  sometimes it’s what we were taught.  Sometimes we feel “compelled” to be here because of a strong chemical pull to a man, or because we’re afraid to be alone.

It doesn’t matter what the answer is as much as how deeply we’re wiling to be honest with ourselves and tell the TRUTH.

I know many women, and have worked with many clients who KNOW they are trapping themselves in a bad-feeling situation, and yet simply will not move away from that situation.  But, even though they’re not moving away from the bad-feeling situation and putting themselves into places where they have a better chance of experiencing good feelings – they are taking the baby-steps of answering the question – “Why am I here?” and really, really – as painful as it is – hearing the answer.

In the end – it’s our choice, what we DO with the information we HAVE.  And the only information we have is about OURSELVES.

So – if you are “here” – and it doesn’t feel good – that’s where we start.

Love, Rori

I’m still jumping off Lisa’s comment that she can barely look a man in the eye, much less even consider “dating” one.  To get her, and you – started – here’s some  new baby-steps…and I’ll keep working this into the idea of a “Road Trip” to love.

Try this for now:

Baby Step 1- Make Friends.

This is a “beginners” way to ease into “Dating” – and it IS actually Circular Dating – since Circular Dating is all about interacting with a man – wherever you are – without trying to “label” it something, even not bothering to label it “flirting” or “eye contact.”

This is where you use all my Tools around CURIOSITY.

Get curious about people out there.  Notice when you’re stuck in your own head, your own thoughts, your own fears – and see if you can get interested in what might be happening with other people.  And as you get curious about “people” – you can gradually allow yourself to get more curious and interact with “men.”

Baby Step 2 – Open Your Eyes

I’ve actually never talked about this before – (think I’ll turn it into an eletter Tool).

See if you can notice when your eyes are looking inside your head.  See if you can catch yourself looking down at the floor, or into your shopping cart, or at signs and newspapers and small things.

Although these small, wonderful objects will ground you…and I want you to use them…for this Tool, I want to see if you can catch yourself “narrowing down your vision.”

See if you can catch yourself making your eyes, your PERSPECTIVE, your attention – small.

Now – just Open Your Eyes!  Just lift your head up and look straight around the room.  Scan everything in the market, or the bookstore, or the dry cleaners, or wherever you are – everything you can see at your natural eye level, standing in the Rori Raye Dance Position. Take it all in.

This may feel scary for a minute – it’s sort of looking out at the entire vista when you’re at the top of a roller coaster, instead of looking “straight ahead” – but breathe, use my Tools to sink into yourself and soften up and open your heart, and see if you can just BE wherever you are, looking around.

Be sure to ground yourself into the floor so you don’t fall over…

Baby Step 3 – Smile

See if you can, while you’re feeling a bit woozy just standing there taking in what’s around you – as far to the ends of the room or the park, or wherever you are that you can see – Smile.

Smile to the space. Don’t worry about who’s in front of you, and if you feel silly – try to enjoy that feeling of silliness.

Now – even if all this only lasts a second or two – you’ve started moving forward!  This is how it’s done.  It will shift your perspective, your attitude and your “vibe” just enough to let you know that you have so many more possibilities out there and inside you than you’re believing in right now – and it will get you started believing in them.

AND – remember to LOVE YOURSELF while you’re doing all this!

Here’s to Open Eyes…

Love, Rori

Are you disgusted with men?

Are you faced with the thought of dating men who are “sub-par” – and it feels icky?

I’ve experienced this a lot in my life, so I know what you’re feeling when you write me that you had a date with a man, and he only talked about himself, and wasn’t curious about you, and seemed awkward, and you just weren’t attracted to him AT ALL – and your question is – “What do I do now?  Do I continue to date him, or…what?”

If you’re Circular Dating – I hope you gave him a chance, got curious yourself, looked at him as a messenger and listened and looked for his message – and still, I need to tell you when “enough is enough.”

Here’s the IMPORTANT deal here.  I don’t want you to just “go along” with a man who’s behavior doesn’t FEEL GOOD.

I don’t want you to ONLY Listen at Level 2 and then IGNORE your own inner FEELINGS.  NEVER!!!!

I want you to PRACTICE Listening at Level 2 WHILE you are continually, constantly, never-endingly in touch with your heart and your body, and the general way you’re feeling.

And I want you to PRACTICE Speaking the Truth of your heart, your body, your feelings.

The whole point of Circular Dating is for you to PRACTICE on a man – even if he talks so much you can’t “get a word in edgewise” and aren’t attracted to him.   A man always shows up with a Message – and often, that Message, and the Free Therapy of it – is for you to finally learn how to SPEAK about this – about what’s really going on.

Here’s a scenario and something you might try: Let’s say he’s talking a blue streak and isn’t making eye contact with you, and barely seems interested in you as a person at all. Let’s say that after listening for 15 minutes and feeling completely irrelevant to him and unheard – you SAY -

“I’m feeling weird here.”

Pause (give him a chance to care and ask you what that’s about…).

“I’m feeling unheard.”

Pause.

“I don’t feel important here, the listening feels like it’s all going one way here, and though I’m enjoying your stories and hearing about you, I’m starting to feel like a listening post and not a person.  What do you think?”

Pause.

I want you to write down your own words around a situation like this.  Write your own variations for each situation in which you feel “stuck” with a man you don’t “like.”

And remember – This is what he’s doing there with you!  This is WHY he showed up! To give you a particular Message, and a particular Lesson.

Almost always – the Message and the Lesson is centered around THIS: To  teach you, and to give you an opportunity to practice Telling the Truth – quickly, and kindly, and in Feeling Messages.

Go back over all the conversations you can think of where you sat in silence or “tolerated” something you wish you hadn’t – and redo them on paper this way.

See how that feels, and let me know.  This is a great topic, and we’ll do more with it.

Love, Rori

Lisa is suffering after a breakup with her man of 10 years, and she’s feeling the way we’d all feel in this situation.  I want to jump off of her comment (sorry – I lost the link, but here’s the whole comment) and help her (and you, too) with some direction. (This will be the beginning of a bunch of “Road Trip” posts)…

“Dear Rori, My partner of 10 years left me 5 months ago. I won’t even consider dating. I am shy and feel like my life is a mess. I don’t know what I want out of life. I want a family and want to be the best mother I can be, but that chance may have left me with my ex. But he wasn’t sure if he wanted children (I think he does, but is just not ready).

I am doing my best to get on with life, but I have zero confidence. I can’t even look some people in the eye for more than a second. While I was with my ex I wasn’t like that. I was shy, yes, but not to this point.

I’m looking into that and other areas of my life.

But really, what I want the most is for him to come back. I do love him. It’s not about just having ’someone’. I thought he was the one. Lisa”

And here’s my answer:

Lisa, Welcome, and I hear your pain – and I want to give you a push our of your stuck place.

The answer for you IS dating.  I’m sorry, but it is.

You are in the midst of a major choice – to stay in this place of “no confidence” and “misery” – or to slowly, step-by-step move and grow your way out of it into the sunlight and the fabulous life you deserve.

For most of us – it works this way – because we can’t have things the way we want INSTANTANEOUSLY – sort of Instant Gratification – we’re afraid to embark on the journey.  We’re like kids in the car on a road trip going “Are we there yet?” every 5 minutes.

You have to learn to love the road.  That’s what my Tools will do for you, that’s what Circular Dating will do for you.

You have to begin.  We’re all here to support you every step of the way – and just reading here, you’ll find exactly what these steps are, what they look like, and how much better things can get in the process.

The steps and the outcomes and the results, no matter how wonderful or weird don’t often look the way we thought they would…but they’re a crucial part of the road trip…go for it, no matter how you’re feeling…

Here’s a link to one of my favorite articles for you about this…The Highway of Love…it will inspire you…

Love, Rori