Have The Relationship You Want

This is a jump off from Susan’s comment about placating her depressed man and wanting to undo all that->

Here’s what’s going on:

We placate a depressed man because we’re afraid.  It’s a coping mechanism we’ve learned and used our whole lives to keep our trauma reactions at bay.

We’re afraid for a lot of reasons.

Depression isn’t a feeling. It’s a COVER for feelings.

If you’re prone to depression, it’s like a heavy lid over the soup of your feelings, making you numb, listless, sad-seeming.  The “soup” keeps steaming out, and it’s usually icky feelings that come up – grief, pain…actually comforting feelings we’re used to.

if you’re prone to anxiety (my lid looks like this) – then you feel jumpy and fearful when the soup of your feelings is in tumult and strong feelings are trying to come up to the surface.

When you’re with a man who’s depressed or anxious, and you consciously step back and simply focus on your own life, on being happy, on doing for yourself, on loving yourself – it feels weird and awful – because…

1. You’re afraid if you don’t do the placating, usual behaviors you do around him – his lid will pop and all his icky, horrible, scary feelings will come flying out at you – AND this is true!  They will!  And…

2. You’re afraid that his feelings flying out at you will be completely terrifying for you, and so your own lid on your own soup pot gets shaky with anxiety (fear) and your own feelings start to bubble up. And…

3. As you actually DO the things you don’t normally do – stepping back, smiling, not asking questions, not sitting down with him, not “doing” for him – you are actually REMOVING the lid – the cover from your soup pot – and FEELINGS underneath the anxiety actually come to the surface.

You start feeling things you don’t LIKE to feel.  You feel fear, and helplessness, and old pain, and old anger, and new anger…everything you’ve been safely stuffing down by placating him.

This is all new, and all scary, and just downright weird.

It doesn’t feel “nice.”  It’s not what you were taught to do.

And here’s how doing this ANYWAY – little by little (and don’t expect yourself to rip that lid off your soup in one try – please be gentle with yourself – you have to feel your way through this) will slowly begin to change your life in fundamental and hugely powerful ways:

Just KNOWING to expect all this upheaval will help you.  Just expect that when you step back you will feel weird. And then do it anyway.

Smile, even though he’s moping.  Leave the house, even though he looks lonely.

And when you start to feel stronger, and learn how to use feeling messages and can go several “rounds” with a man in deep, connected conversation while staying in “Dance Position,” being in Strong Surrender and feeling strong inside…then…

Talk with him.

Sit down, do a “negotiation” like in my ebook – where you share your feelings about being in his presence when he’s depressed – your urge to help – your willingness to research cures for depression and let him know what you’ve found – what he’d like you to do about helping him – and that it feels bad to be around him when he’s down.

Now here’s the really powerful part:

The bottom line of depression is anger.  A depressed person is sitting on tons of rage.  And we sense this on a deep level – and so it’s actually frightening to be around a depressed person.

People usually would so much rather be around a depressed person than an angry person – for so many obvious and subconscious reasons – and so we almost automatically feed the depression rather than being able to facilitate the anger.

When a depressed man starts to get angry – that’s good.  It’s our job to let that happen, and move away from it if we need to – but not try to “reason” with it or “talk it down.”

Now – you can see that this feels like a minefield to most of us.  I mean, who would knowingly be willing to unearth and be present for rage in someone else?  We’d get triggered!

And yet – as you’ll find out – when that anger surfaces, all of a sudden the tension goes away.  The juice in the relationship comes back.  He comes back to life.

This doesn’t happen overnight – and your process of hearing and experiencing all that anger coming out instead of sitting safely beneath the surface is monumental and crucial for you – because YOU are sitting on rage, too!

That’s the thing.  When he’s stuffing it – you feel it more.  Then you stuff it, and he feels it more.

When you both slowly stop stuffing and start expressing (for him it will look more like a scary vent – for you – well – you know how to “Fall To Your Knees” – to “Sink Into Feelings” and use “Feeling Messages” so it will look and feel like a glorious, charismatic reclaiming of yourself and a vast feeling of personal power and self-esteem) – everything will change for the better.

And – if he’s not capable of change – you’ll know, and you’ll also know what to do.

In the meantime – expect messiness. Expect “ugliness” – and embrace it as BEAUTIFUL.  Expect “bouncing” in your feelings, and just ride with it.  Hang onto your feeling messages, stay with yourself and on your beautiful Horse, and just keep going toward the life you want.  It starts inside you – with the courage to experiment, retrack if you need to, and just keep going.

Let me know if this tidbit of understanding makes you feel braver.

Love, Rori

Here’s a great letter from Tinque:

“Dear Rori,

I was just reading your latest post about “seeing”, and it make me think about imagining aspects of the life desired, how they do manifest if they are believed.

They seem to take a long while to do so, but they do. They really do.

I was thinking about when I was with J (my ex) and how unhappy I was, knowing this was not the guy for me, yet over time having been beaten down over and over, not allowed to leave or not having the strength to do so, I resigned myself to the situation, yet the entire time I imagined love, a love for me, a man for me, a sweet, affectionate, caring man.

Not two weeks out of the house, not even divorced yet, K comes. It’s not been easy but not because of him or the relationship. It was me and all my stuff that was forced to come out which as you know was something I deeply desired.

K had to trigger me as deeply as he has done in order to do that, yet despite the pain which you know all about, we still had a great relationship which continues to become greater still, as I let go and release which allows for expansion, mine and his, and ours.

So the next piece of this is this…

I have fantasized about a ring since the beginning. I actually dreamed of one in specifics maybe a year or two ago.

Recently I told K about it, for I had asked him awhile ago if I could have a pretty ring anyway, marriage or not, and he had said yes. He asked about my dream, so I told him.

He said he liked my dream, that we should do it, but it would have to be a really nice ring. I didn’t really believe he would go through with it, yet I did.

Before Christmas he told me that he was wanting to get a ring but it wouldn’t be ready for Christmas, whenever the next holiday or celebration that occurs, whenever it’s ready. Well now it’s happening.

We have an appointment with a jeweler next weekend to look at some stones. I’ll leave the final choosing and setting design to him, so at least some will be a surprise. It’s being called my “hussy slut ho ring,” but who knows, maybe he will propose.

Since that’s not been a strong part of my dreams and fantasies, maybe it won’t. Whichever. You’re the first one I’m telling that I’m getting a ring. My dream was of a diamond center with two heart shaped rubies on either side, so this is what it will be. I may have mentioned this dream to you before now that I think about it. I’m so excited!

Love and hugs,
Tinque”

And this letter came soon after:

“Rori, We went to chose stones for the ring on Saturday. A little to my surprise, he opted for bigger. The diamond is gorgeous, color and clarity exquisite, 1 1/2 carat, with two beautiful heart shaped rubies, .60 carat each, again nice color and clarity, on either side. The jeweler will design a band and setting, subtle engraving on the sides of the setting and band but what exactly I don’t know, so there will be some element of surprise. I can’t wait. It’s for birthday – anniversary in  April.

PPS -  Had another breakthrough with my stuff, stuff triggered by always the same as you know. I just went straight to him asking for his help, telling him I’ve been feeling in fear lately, and I don’t want to feel that way. I’m tired of it, especially since it’s unnecessary. We had a talk about fear and about porn. We looked at it together which we haven’t done in a long time. It was all really good.
Love, Tinque”

Okay – this is really great. I’ve always said it’s about the ring – it’s just too bred into us, into the fabric of the society for us to ignore. It happens in our dreams.

And Tinque’s story is about her decision to be okay with this relationship even without marriage, and by making sure the relationship is somewhere she WANTS TO BE – no matter what the officialness of it. Tinque is unusual. She wasn’t sure about marriage because there were so many things to work out about her own feelings.

And now that she’s so much clearer, she was able to speak about the ring in a way that not only could he HEAR – but that inspired him to do something for her that would make her HAPPY.

Go Tinque.

Love, Rori

Mims made a comment, and I wanted to print her question and jump off of it:

“Hi Rori,
First I want to thank you for helping us women learn how to be successful in our relationships. Well Rori, I recently started dating this guy who is 6 years younger than I (he’s 24 and I’m 30). At first I was making every excuse in the book to push him away. I would tell him that living almost a hour away from each other, would eventually be a problem. I would also give him the excuse about the age factor. I even told him that I was thinking of re-enlisting in the military. The re-enlisting part made him very upset.

Now we both obviously like each other and when we hang out we have great times together. Now the pushing away part that I was doing has lessen. The problem is that for some reason, since the beginning of us dating, I tend to pay for dinner when we go out. He on occasions has also paid for dinner and movies.

The reason I even started this madness was because in past relationships, men would say that I could at least contribute in things and subconsciously it stayed in my head and here I am today. Now I know a woman should let a man pay for things but I don’t have a clue how to just stop and let him take on that role. I don’t want to eventually be taken advantage of that either because I’m no Rockefeller. It just feels so awkward……Please HELP!!!!

Lots of Love, Mims”

And here’s my answer:

This is a great question because it’s about UNDOING a pattern you’ve already established with a man – that of paying for things.

It can be anything we want to undo – any kind of Overfunctioning or leaning forward. It can be having sex too soon, or going with him to meet his family too soon, or becoming exclusive with him way too soon…so many things.

And here’s the short answer…Leanback and TALK.

Mims can start by simply getting up and going to the bathroom when dinner’s over so he’ll take care of the check. This isn’t a game – it’s removing yourself from your old pattern, breathing, and doing some tools in the bathroom around doing different behavior.

Changing things isn’t about HIM as much as it is about YOU.

Mims can not invite him anywhere, and stand behind him at the movies when he pays for tickets.

You can hang back when he goes to the Starbuck’s counter.

You can learn to stand still, Leanback, and feel how uncomfortable and vulnerable you feel when you’re not in charge of the money. You can FEEL how weird and strange and bad and good it feels to give up control and equality and let someone else take care of you for a moment.

You can stop him when he puts your hand on his penis if you want to backtrack on sex.

You can give him my “no boyfriend” speech from my Targeting Mr. Right program.

You can get your sense of humor back about everything – because almost nothing is final, and almost everything in a relationship can be used to go deeper and further – if you let it happen.

You can experience what it feels like to be a girl again.

Whatever that feels like to you from moment to moment.

And then, when it comes up, which it very well might, you TALK – for Mim – it might be “I was feeling uncomfortable and very masculine paying for things. It’s something I’ve been doing for so long with men, and it’s just always felt bad, and I wanted to start fresh and feel more like a girl. How would you like to handle money while we’re dating?”

For you, it might be (if you’re just not able to feel “blase” about having had sex with him and simply taking a “lover”) – “It felt so good to have full-out sex with you, and now I can feel my hormones kicking in and I don’t want to put pressure on this relationship, so I’d like to back off a bit and take more time to get to know you. What do you think?”

The point here is to not stew over things by yourself – but to get EVERYTHING out in the open and talked about – on your end in feeling messages.

The details we have to get to here is in the way you intitiate these conversations.

We women are trained to talk about the relationship to where it just pushes a man away.  We’re always talking about how we feel about things in a way that damages the relationship.

The thing to remember here is this: If you have an agenda, if you want something to change, if you have a complaint – we do not want to be ASKING him to make that change.

We simply want to learn to say, in Feeling Messages, what we want and don’t want, how we feel and don’t feel as a matter of SHARING.  As a matter of connecting. As a matter of being all about US, and not at all about him or his behavior.

It’s as though we’re sharing what we want and don’t want, feel and don’t feel for our LIVES, for OURSELVES, so that he can hear who we are and then decide – on his own – how he wants to FIT into our lives.  How he wants to fit INTO our heart.

This is not about working to get what we want.  It’s about expressing ourselves.

And as we learn to do it with no agenda other than to express ourselves – everything gets better.

This kind of openness and honesty – accompanied by the control over YOURSELF, the flat out “diva-ness” of it you’ll feel when you do it – will be absolutely intriguing and mesmerizing to a man.

See if the thought that you CAN undo, you CAN backtrack, YOU can go in a new direction – ANYTIME YOU WANT makes you feel more peaceful.

Let me know,

Love, Rori

Has a man ever disappointed you?

Made you feel like “less” and “not enough” and like you’re not as important as whatever it is he’s doing?

I remember that feeling being a standard part of every relationship.

I remember struggling with myself and enduring such second-class treatment I’m embarrassed to talk about it – yet still talking myself into excusing him, or making the reality of things into my fantasy of what I wished it would be.

It was like I ignored my own feelings and intuition, and just kept going – ruled by my feelings for a man.

If this is happening to you – if finding a relationship or getting the relationship you’re in to the next level of commitment is ruling your thoughts and emotions, if you feel sad more than you feel happy – it doesn’t have to be that way.

So – here’s a Tool to help: BE UNPREDICTABLE:

We’re so used to thinking of “unpredictability” as dangerous.

As filled with drama, and uncontrolled emotions, and moodiness.

And…well, the truth is – it can be about that.

But – it only happens like that when we’re not paying attention to ourselves, to what’s really going on with us – and we instead react knee-jerk fashion with our old patterns and triggers.

In other words – the drama only happens when we’re not in touch with how we’re feeling in the moment, and so we react out of habit.

And usually, we’re not in touch because we’re using all our energy to stuff down the feelings we’re truly having and trying to make everything be peaceful and pleasant on the outside.

Well, trying to control what happens is worse than useless – it destroys our attractiveness.

It makes us small and tight, and makes us feel needy and desperate.

So – how can we make being unpredictable a great-feeling thing?

1. Make a list of situations you seem to encounter over and over - (and leave at least 5 lines of space between each entry).

Things like:

“He acts this way and then I feel…” Or,

“He says this and then I do this…” Or,

“I want this, and there’s just no man around…” Or

“I want this, and he’s just not doing it…”

Write down situations where you feel frustrated, upset, and can’t seem to get your point across in a way a man can hear, or feel like you’re just not getting the attention you deserve.

2. Go back over your list, and beneath each situation, write down what you “usually” do in that situation.

Write down what you’re thinking, what you’re feeling in your heart and your body, and what you say and do when that situation happens

3.  Now look over your list and see if there’s a pattern.

See if you do the same thing in more than one situation.

See if you can find a pattern of anger, or of you detaching emotionally from him, or of you laughing about it, or stuffing your feelings down.

See if you can find a similarity in sensations – perhaps you feel “tense” or “numb” or “scared” in most of the situations.

4.  Now go back over the list, and in your entry on what you “usually” do and say in that situation – circle the FEELINGS you had at that moment.

See if different situations brought up different emotions, see if you can find a lot of different emotions, and then make a new entry:

Write down three feelings for each situation.

5. Now, beneath the line where you rewrite down the feelings, and using those feelings for reference and to guide you, write down a NEW way to have acted, something new to have said in each situation.

Use the feelings to write down Feeling Messages (you can learn how do to Feeling Messages in all of my programs – if you don’t have the ebook yet – start there, it will walk you through exactly what to do).

Now..

6. Take a look at your list, and at each entry’s NEW words and actions.

Are some of them uncomfortable?  Do they seem hard to do?

Do they seem scary?   Like you would upset the situation or cause conflict or ruin the evening?

Take a close look at them, and make sure the actions are either Leaning Back, or Walking Away, or speaking the Truth in Feeling Messages…

…for example: “I feel really uncomfortable and angry right now, and I don’t like feeling this way…”

Or “I’m feeling really lonely right now…” and then having a plan to go somewhere or do something else rather than tolerate neglect – and doing it.

Now..

7.  Go back over the list again, and this time look at each new entry, and TRY IT.

Just stand in the middle of a room (make sure you’re alone), picture your man, or any man, in front of you, imagine yourself in the situation you’ve written down, and practice your new words and action.

How does it feel?

Does it feel different?

If it feels a bit scary – you’ve got it right.

After you practice more, on your own,or with smaller steps with men you meet out in the world, you’ll feel less scared, and you’ll feel more willing to try these new – UNPREDICTABLE things with a man.

And once you try – you’ll get such amazing results – you’ll automatically want to keep doing it over and over and over again.

And the more you do it, the more great results you get!

When you get in touch with, and then express your feelings, when you allow yourself to be vulnerable in front of a man, it’s unbelievably attractive.

A woman’s feelings, when she’s really feeling them and owning them and expressing them in a way a man can hear – is the most endearing thing a man can experience.

He just turns into putty and wants to make you happy.

So try getting this unpredictability thing into your mind and especially your body – that doing things the way we’ve always done them is what’s keeping us stuck in the old, unfulfilling results.

Really work this Tool, and share your lists right here…

Love, Rori