Have The Relationship You Want

This guest post (and, for me – great, simple dating and relationship advice) is from a comment here by Jason Miller. He’s referring to comments on the Why He Disappeared post - specifically Gidget’s (comment #79) – where she says “And it is because i treat men just like i treat women” – Lucy’s (#87) – and Erika’s:

“Gidget makes a good point about over-analyzing men. When I have coached men around dating issues in the past, much of their problem has to do with “being in their heads” too much. They are thinking too much and not feeling their masculinity. They disassociate from their bodies to prevent them from feeling and being in the moment. Women do this too at the expense of cutting themselves off from their femininity, intuition, and natural power. Anything a woman can do to ground herself and connect with her own body will make her more attractive and empowered to make good decisions for herself.

Now, this is only half of the equation. The modern man and woman must re-learn courtship strategies that have been core to our species since we walked upright on two legs. The industrial revolution, equal rights movement of the 60′s, and outrageous advances in technology have interfered dramatically with our ability to connect and commit in meaningful ways. Our culture changes at internet speeds now. We have blown everything up and now we’re totally lost and confused. We have to recreate everything in a whole new way.

Here’s the basic courtship strategy for the woman who wants to attract a man who primarily operates in his masculine energy. Put yourself out there and flirt. Present your feminine side first in all social situations. Be girly. Men will approach. Your job is to screen them to see how grounded they are in their masculinity and ability to commit, among other traits. Test their leading abilities and if they fail, discard them. You are never obligated to proceed farther with any man you don’t want to. And you can test them forever if you want to. Keep your boundaries and values INTACT. These are the things you should not compromise. But don’t be uncompromising toward the man in front of you. He’s a human being too. Appreciate him for who he is even if he’s not the one for you.

Note from Rori: Jason is a friend of Erika Awakening‘s (that’s how he found us here) – and this next part is about her. I’m leaving it in because he’s using her as an example – and the part about “mixing up energies” won’t make sense unless I do.  You can find Erika’s comments on the same post, along with Gidget and Lucy and so many other fabulous comments…

Erika teaches empathy and she’s right about how effective it is. We’ve forgotten it as a culture. One thing you should know about Erika. She is the ONLY woman I know who is fully engaged in this strategy. She is congruently feminine in her relationships with men. All other women I know are mixing up their masculine and feminine energy in some way and creating unsatisfactory results.

Some of you have mentioned these behaviors already: interviewing men on dates, initiating contact with them to keep things moving, leading when you should be seeing if the man steps up to lead, etc. You’re thinking too much and you’re trying to control the outcome using your head, your logical mind, your ego, YOUR MASCULINE SIDE!! Let the man do that and see what happens. Stay connected to yourself and rely on your intuition more. It’s in there.”

I’m not even going to comment on this – I think it’s great, specific advice.

Love, Rori

Just a little lift for you here -  I’m responding to Shannon’s heartfelt comments:

Happy doesn’t necessarily look…smooth.

We will never not be triggered.

So what?

We may always bounce around – up to down, angry to guilty, powerful to fearful….and, again – so what?

If we can learn to look for the peace and happiness in each moment as it comes – deal with the hard and challenging stuff by taking action for ourselves and sometimes doing nothing at all – then we don’t have to know the “why” of anything.

Yeah, sometimes we feel like we’re picking ourselves up off the floor.

Yeah, sometimes it all feels too good to be true and we’re just waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Our work here, and anyone’s words here that resonate with any one of us just because “they do,”  is all about taking all the “import” out of this…sort of knocking out the foundations of what our unhappiness is built on, and leaving a cleaner slate for happiness to naturally just BE.

What if our natural state is happiness, and all we have to do is not invest ourselves in unhappiness – no matter what shows up?

I know for myself that I’ll be on that train marked Peace and Love for the rest of my life…inch by inch, cloud and sky and rain and heat and chill and stop by stop – no matter the bumps in the road.

See you in the dining car.

Love, Rori

Hi all – just wanted to add something general to the “relationship advice” conversation that extends it out into the relationship we here in this community have with one another.   And it’s this: I know that so many more of you would like to comment but aren’t sure about it -  and it can feel a bit scary to come out in public and speak your mind…and I SO want to encourage that. 

Feel absolutely free to MAKE UP a NAME!!

You can even do it more than once (you’ll land in moderation the first time with a new name, but I’ll find you and get you out…) Make up a childhood name…make up a name that’s a squeeky or “unpleasant” or “the stranger” part of you – or allow yourself to imagine yourself as the “siren” you truly are! – and make up a name for you that makes you FEEL that way. 

And just take on this persona (it really is a part of you that you want to get to know and to practice expressing) – and try it out. 

You can write out in word-processing what you want to say, and work on it if you want, like a Power and Feeling Speech you’d work on with a man…even (and especially) if you have something pointed to say that you don’t think will be “well-received” or isn’t in the perfect “Feeling Message” style

Even if it’s “judgmental” – not of anyone else here, specifically please – but of some belief you have about men or life – or you want to complain – just state it as the words coming from that part of yourself!

If what you have to say is in anger at someone else – or even at me! – for what I say or what I allow to be said rather than control or moderate – then let’s find a way to get that out. (If you want to communicate to me personally about something that’s bothering you on the blog, and I haven’t already found it in your comments - please address it to my assistant Melanie@CoachRori.com - she’ll forward it to me and I’ll get to you as fast as I can. You can also go through Melanie if you’d like to get on my list for teleclasses or anything else you’d like to know about my private practice (still keeping it small so I can write 99.9% of my time, but also keeping it active so I have real-life things to talk about and Tools to share that work for real women in real life).

So – let’s see if this experiment works for you if you need a push to get into the conversation – and for those of you who find it easier to communicate like this publiclyand already have the hang of doing it in Feeling Messages  – please bear with and be helpful as “newbies” give the hard stuff a try…

Remember – we are all about Circular Dating all the time -  which is about continually triggering yourself on purpose in order to grow and shift and get braver and have more boundaries and self-confidence.

So if anyone here seems more confident, or “louder” than you are – and is making you not sure about commenting and joining the conversation – this uncomfortable thing is actually – to me, anyway – a GIFT to you! 

Really! In a very anonymous way, you can learn to take in the feeling of anger and upset and disturbance by whoever is triggering that, and then speak the truth here. And we won’t know who you are!

A bonus here – is we get to see that the person and the thought and belief that’s triggering us is usually someone, some thought, some belief that’s STRUGGLING inside us!

A person who is not modest and comes on strong and disturbs us is triggering the part of ourselves that doesn’t feel worthy.  That doesn’t feel like WE deserve success. When actually – it’s kind of helpful to watch other people struggle so publicly and loudly with their desire for success, and the actions they take toward it – which actions, by the way – are not EASY for most of us. 

We’re all a mix of extroverted parts and introverted parts, parts that think we own the world and parts that think we deserve the dregs of the world. The question is – do we all want to be “somewhere in the middle”?  A ”nice balance” of extrovert and introvert, success and no success, love – but only “so much” love? Or is it okay to to be BIG!!!

How about we each find our OWN balance – the one that feels good to US – and let’s make it okay to travel up and down all over the map until we settle where we feel best? Experiment. Explore. Engage. Experience. Express. Expand. The 6E’s.

And here – this is the experimental ground. No one has to be perfect, or fully formed – or even PLEASANT here. The thing is to see what happens, what feels good – and TRY STUFF.  If you make friends in the process – you’ll know that the friend you’ve made has seen you as you are, and loves you as you are. And if you find yourself in a negative, complaining, judging space, you’ll get a chance to look inside and see if that’s all there is to you (I guarantee you, it’s not!).

If you’re getting the comments by email – one at a time – I know that’s going to be hard with such volume…let me know if any of you have ideas how to make it smoother, so the comments you don’t want to read or don’t resonate with can go by you without too much energy – sort of like life and men!

The truth is, taking actions toward success is so programmed into each of us as a NEGATIVE thing - we each need to experiment with a bit of what we might consider “rudeness” and “loudness” just to find out who we really are and what we really can accomplish.

If nothing else – this blog is a place for us to try out our wings.  I get to do it in my posts – you get to in your comments.

There are all kinds of places our wings can take us. And yet, being sucessful in ALL ways is something we’ve been all taught we can’t have.  Business success, fame, love – can we have it all?  Will (as I was taught from childhood) the other shoe “drop”?

Most of us are hiding our lights “under a bushel” – and it’s my job and my mission to help you let your light shine as brightly, and as far into the darkness of the world as it can (and who can even imagine how far that is?).

Okay – what if you get slammed by someone?  You won’t – if you state it this way…”I’m here anonymously – I’m trying out some riffing from a part of myself I’m not used to expressing and learning to love that part of me and process through my negative thoughts about someone or something else…”  and then close with – “I totally forgive myself for even thinking that I’m separate from myself or from love.”

If you need help, Daria’s comments might help you – she Riffs fearlessly…read some of her comments and see how far she’s willing to go!

Or look at Mercedes’ comments and see if you could dare to be so forthright! (Remember – you’re making up a name!)

It’s cathartic!  It’s self-empowering!

It’s all a magic act – believing we can soar and then jumping into the air.  Whatever I can do to give you a boost to try for a thrill – even in this tiny way of just writing out yor feelings, even if they’re not “nice…”

If it turns into a nasty mess – I’ll jump in and try to buoy it all up…but wouldn’t it be great if we could create here some of the “chaos” you find out in the world, and then learn to work through it in a powerful – FUN and HAPPY way?

Here’s to shaking it up!

Love, Rori

Here’s a comment from Amy that speaks for all of us at one time or another:

“Rori, does it really work? I tried all the feel good factor for yourself stuff and yet I am still suffering from missing my ex who has not contacted me for one month since the break up. Accepting is really hard.”

Here’s my answer:

Amy – welcome, and here’s the deal:

We suffer.

And…so what?

Who said you had to “accept” – WHAT?

You’re broken up.  He’s gone.  That’s what IS.

Grieving and sadness and pain are feelings we feel.

The depth of those unhappy feelings has a lot to do with subconscious impulses and triggers that More…