Instantly Change a Bad Moment into an Intimate Moment
Have you ever been somewhere with your man, with your friends around, too, and had your man make a comment — like he usually does — that’s both rude, hurtful, and infuriating all at the same time?
Where you feel absolutely stuck, completely rigid and paralyzed, and have no idea what to do to fix the moment?
Where what you wanted to actually is to haul off and punch him in the nose?
Well here’s a scenario:
You’re with your man at a restaurant, and your friends are with you. Your man asks a question like “Why is it always so crowded this time of day?”
And you — the way you usually do — lean in and explain it to him. You say “Because…” and before you can even finish your sentence, your man waves his hand to you, dismissing you completely, and says — his voice loud — “Never mind!” Add a dash of eye rolling to his dismissal of you.
And you feel frozen to the spot. You want to haul off and hit him, but that just feels too frightening, you feel your face turn red, and you want to scream at him.
But because you know that’s not a good idea (screaming at a man in a public place with your friends around is pretty much a horrible idea) you keep it to yourself.
You stuff it down. You say nothing. You let your insides turn into a boiling cauldron of emotion, and you just go rigid.
So let’s redo this:
He says, “Why is it always so crowded this time of day?”
And — the way you normally would — you feel yourself leaning towards them about to speak, and… you STOP YOURSELF.
You literally catch yourself about to break one of my “Four Rules.” You’re about to explain something to a man. You’re about to give your opinion. You’re about to be reasonable, logical intelligent, smart (and of course this makes sense because he did ask a question, right…?… you’re about to solve the problem for him. You’re about to turn into a MAN.
You catch yourself and almost actually put your hand over your mouth to keep from doing this. You are not about to let this old, crappy, defensive, bad pattern that you and your man have been dancing, this old game you and your man have been playing since the beginning of your relationship (or the beginning of the date) — to go on for another minute.
Instead, you Lean Back (standing or on the bar stool or the cushy dining booth), you smile at your man, you tilt your head to the left (that will help you get out of your masculine, thinking mode), and you say NOTHING. Or at least, almost nothing. You could say, “Wow, yeah…” …you could say, “Bummer…” you could grunt out “Ohhhh…”
And then… everything will change.
You’ll discover a new ability you never knew you had - you can CHOOSE your words and behavior and STILL be completely authentic with your feelings. Your man — even if he’s totally stuck in this defensive pattern with you — will be amazed at your response. He might even just smile back at you and reach over and take your hand. Imagine what your relationship would be like if every interaction went like this, no matter how it got started.
Now… let’s look at what would happen if you automatically made the same defensive move you usually make - leaning forward and explaining things to him:
He does his thing, you do your thing, he reacts the way he always does (which is to dismiss you rudely), only - this time - you can STILL do something different that will change everything.
You see - there’s ALWAYS an opportunity to turn things around. There’s always a chance to do something differently, in a way that breaks down the barriers between you, and in a way that communicates your self-esteem and boundaries, a way that turns defensiveness into connection.
And you can do this even when the emotions are off the charts. Even when you’re feeling like throttling your man you can still change your old patterns right there, on the spot.
So let’s say that he’s dismissed you rudely, and you’ve reached the point in the interaction where you usually either clam up or start screaming. You can see that the pattern is always the same — he says something that triggers you (and often he does it ON PURPOSE), then you respond the way you always do because you’ve been triggered, then he responds the way he always responds because he got triggered again by your response to being triggered… (quite a game, isn’t it?)
Only this time, in the (count them) fourth response, you do this:
You say “Ohhhh…” because your friends are right here with you, and you CANNOT tell him he’s wrong, put him down, or vent at him in public, especially not in front of his friends. This is a very, very damaging thing to do, so don’t do that.
Instead, pull out your journal and pen, or your Blackberry, or tap on your hands, and write it out and “Riff” it out. You have to write it down or go through it in your mind, or process it somehow so that you let some of the emotional energy out without actually venting it all over him or stuffing it down. And you have to prepare a speech to say to him later, to clear it all up and establish connection.
If your friends are not with you, and you’re not in public, you can go further right off the bat: You can say “Ohhhh… that feels awful.”
(If your friends ARE with you or you ARE in public, and you have to wait until later to clear this up, this would still be your opening line — only you’ll have to put it in context and set the scene so he knows what you’re referring to: Say — “Oh… when that happened in the car before, it felt awful. And I still feel awful about it.”
Now we’re into a whole new phase of the pattern. If he is amazed by the way you’re handling this he’s likely to go “Oh Babe… what happened… what are you talking about…what’s wrong?”
And, if you’ve been playing this defensive game for a long time with each other, he’s likely to try — on purpose — to trigger you AGAIN. He’s likely to roll his eyes, and say something like “There you go again… you’re such a drama queen…”
And here’s your chance again. You can go back to your old pattern and yell at him, or stuff it down or tell him what a jerk he is — or you can LeanBack, go into the Rori Raye Dance Position, open your heart, and AGREE WITH HIM!
You can treat his criticism of you as a complement! (I’ll write a whole post later about how Jade on one of my favorite seasons of America’s next top model did just this and won my heart completely.)
You can say “Yes! I can get really fiery sometimes…” (And remember you’re going to have to observe yourself and see if you’re coming off defensive again, because you don’t want to do that. You want to change this old pattern. You want to do this differently. You want to honestly, actually agree with him. You want to accept and love and appreciate your fiery drama queen qualities. (You’d like to be able to access those qualities whenever you want and not be run by them — but still you love, accept and appreciate those qualities, because they’re YOURS!)
And then, if he insists on continuing with the old defensive patterns he may say something like “Why do you suppose you’re like that…” and before you haul off and hit him, or want to, or freeze, you can use this moment to state your boundaries with Feeling Messages. This is Strong Surrender in its full power.
You can look him in the eye (that may take practice) and say, “That feels awful….” If he doesn’t jump in, change his tune and say, “Oh, babe, what’s wrong…” Then you can just say again “This feels awful, I don’t feel heard.” And at ANY TIME - you can say “This doesn’t feel good and I don’t want to feel this right now…” and turn and leave the room. Yep, you can WALK AWAY.
Just use the time and the interactions that show up to practice with - and before you know it, you’ll feel strong, and soft - all at the same time.
Now - remember - you are NOT doing this to be “nice” or “demure” or “girl-like” or “mature” or to DEFER to him. You’re ONLY doing this for YOU. You’re doing this, you’re practicing this, so that you can drop the armor around your heart. So you can stop always reacting to things in old ways. So you can stop living in a “defensive stance” and really, really, really be YOURSELF.
Love, Rori
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If you get my CD Interview Series - you heard the wonderful Rose Cole talking with me about how to pretty much change your life - especially your love life - by balancing the hormones in your body (and she told us exactly how to do that in a mesmerizing way) and I got more response from that interview than any other this year - so I wanted to let you know about her upcoming event in Los Angeles.
