Have The Relationship You Want

I`m a workaholic. I have to admit it. I`m a doing-stuff junkie. I`m a do-it-yourselfer with a to-do list that would intimidate most CEO`s, and the will to barrel through it. I wake up excited to see my computer. Day after day.

So how does this fit with my idea of life balance? Left to my own devices, I`d start writing at 7am and quit only after falling asleep at my keyboard around 3am. I`d stagger through the day turning my imagination into words and deeds lived by a character in a book. I`m a lone wolf who wants more than anything to belong.

I`m a square peg in a round hole who`s fervently re-cutting the round hole into a square. It`s not bad. Actually, it`s sometimes pretty creative and satisfying. And sometimes it feels like I`m a head without a body. I forget to breathe. I forget to eat. So, how do I bring the life of my head into the life of my body, and the life of my soul into my thoughts?

I know I`m not alone.

Ahhhh. And this is my specialty. The What if dialogue, the Mantra, all my Tools to bring you from your head to your heart are all from me. And here I am, standing in the kitchen, held by my man like the picture I used to show in my workshops – the picture I call Surrender in which a gorgeous man wraps his hands and arms around a lovely, relaxed woman – and I`m looking out into my lush garden, and I`m thinking about…advertising. Whoa.

I realize this is pretty stupid, not to mention the opposite of everything I teach.  Here I`ve got a great man, we`re alone in my house, and I`m too busy thinking to feel.

Not, I think, because I`m afraid to feel, but because I just, damn it, want to think. I`m about to go with – Well, I`m just not in the mood, it`s okay, I`ll just be half here until my body kicks in – and then I toss out that idea. I breathe, I go into my imagination for romance, and then I suddenly realize I don`t have to.

I`m really here. I can feel the floor, I can feel my heart, I can feel the air, hear the dog bark, the cat purr, and still it`s a battle. My head battles my body. Think, feel, think, feel. The balloon of my energy gets batted back and forth – think, feel, imagine, feel, do, feel. Why am I at war with myself? And then I get it.

Doesn`t matter what`s going in my head. Not a word, not a thought, not a pulling, stiffening, rope-tying, limiting idea has any power at all over me. Feeling trumps thought. All the time, every time.

Okay, you say, humoring me, I believe it goes this way: Thoughts lead to feelings which lead to action, etc. This may be true. And yet, with me, trying to rearrange my thoughts is still thinking. So I`ll just cut to the chase. I`ll see if my feelings can squash my thoughts. Instead of romanticizing my way out, instead of imagining my way out (I`ll do my visioning, imagining, all my Rori Raye stuff when I practice, practice, practice alone), I`ll just feel my way out. I won`t even ask myself what I feel. I`ll just feel.

Now what? Okay, I turn my head to my man. I look in his eyes. I see blue like the sky. I look at the hairs poking a bit out of his chin. I look at his ear. All of a sudden I reach out and touch his cheek. Oooooh I feel. Stubbly I think. I remember smiling, the rest I forget.

I believe with my whole heart that What Is Right in Front of Me trumps what I think. I believe that when I`m cold, or hot, it comes before what`s on the menu. That anyone`s face is interesting enough to stop my judgment and inspire my curiosity.

That the feeling I wonder who you are? comes before the thought Are you what I want? And that the feeling I feel good, and warm, and safe, or confused and scared and uncomfortable comes before What is he thinking? and Do I look good enough?

So, I`m suggesting something new. Practice wonder. Practice curiosity.

When we`re actually out and about (as opposed to practicing the Tools at home alone) instead of imagining, instead of picturing putting ourselves in a safe or romantic place (just because we`ve managed to think ourselves into numbness way too much), sink down into What Is.

There`s a face in front of you. There`s a child in front of you, a dog, a cat, a butcher, a baker, a candlestick maker, an old woman, a beautiful car. There`s a sunset – not the memory of the sunset you shared with someone who broke your heart, but the one right now. It has colors, and shapes. It`s a new memory.

This may sound woo-woo, and it`s anything but. It`s about sometimes getting out of the la-la land of our brains (no matter how attractive and obsessive our thoughts can get) by getting down into reality. We`re all afraid that reality is ugly. Actually, most of the time, it`s what our brains think of reality that can be ugly.

We all know people who are great at turning lemons into lemonade. What if what we often assume to be lemons simply aren`t lemons at all? There is much in life that brings pain. There`s much in life that brings joy. Instead of believing I will walk into pain and try to think it into joy, I choose to believe I will walk into joy and it will just simply…be…joy.

Trust yourself. If you are happy, be happy. If you are sad, be sad. Sooner or later, the feeling will lead to a thought, which will lead to another feeling, which will lead to another thought, which will lead to a feeling which will lead to action. Be curious.

Love, Rori

Hi – just a very quick post to thank you all – to say how absolutely lovely the energy is on here. Can you feel it?

Everything’s soft and deep – and it’s so relaxing to read through the comments – it’s like every comment of yours is a gem – so helpful – peaceful, even.

I can feel the insights and the dedication to yourselves and each other and to getting what you want, and especially the support and love. Love to you all, Rori

This fabulous letter is from Pamela Tames, who has a great site http://SeasonedSex.com – and to me – it just speaks so powerfully about how we all go to our “Default” position when we don’t feel comfortable – and how getting aware of what that is for each of us, and using my Tools to experiment with different ways to go “Off Default” – no matter WHAT you think of the results when you first try exploring and experiencing something new – is the way to go here:

I Am My Heart from Pamela Tames:

I spend a lot of time blogging about sexiness. Deep down though I know the more important question is how to do relationships well. Which is why I’m such a Rori Raye devotee. Recently something she wrote in her email newsletter bridged the themes of sexiness and relationships and taught me an important lesson in being myself.

It started with my birthday dinner about a month ago. Half a dozen girlfriends got together at a restaurant including my best friend, Susan. Susan is a professional mom, which means she rarely gets out. This was the first time she was meeting my other friends.

For whatever reason, the group didn’t mesh. I kept thinking our energies would all come together and flow with conversation and laughter but at the last minute, the group kept unraveling. Susan and I left last, walking to our cars arm in arm.

“I’m sorry,”I said, “That didn’t go the way I thought it would. My friends are so different.”

“You didn’t seem yourself,” said Susan. She went on to explain how I seemed to be trying to hard to keep my friends in shock and awe with my sexual adventurer act.

“It’s like you’re afraid to let people see the real you, “Susan summed up. “The real you I know and love.”

I gave her a big hug and thought how lucky I was to have such a loving, honest friend. I’d always struggled with being authentic. I knew she had a point. For whatever reason, I hadn’t been comfortable all night. I had jumped my favorite facade–sexy vixen (albeit now middle-aged).

Flash forward to a Rori Raye’s email newsletter. I’m reading about how to attract men. Towards the end she writes about the heart. I suddenly got it.

It was like the word, “heart,” exploded to life and jumped out of my computer.

The heart is like a magnet with great powers of attraction. My habit of hiding behind masks (or who I thought I should be) was having the effect of blocking my heart’s power. It was as though my heart was hidden behind a lead veil. Nothing got in and nothing got out. As a result, most of my decisions were made in my head, out of fear and insecurity.

Of course, I’ve read all the stuff about the heart and how so many of us live in our heads, our mausoleums of useless ideas. Reading Rori that day, it all just clicked.  I saw how it’s just a choice, as easy as saying I’ll have the bacon and eggs today, not the pancakes. I’ll feel love, not fear.

Cut to the relationship. I’d been in on-again, off- again mode with my boyfriend of over a year. We’d have the same fight, yell the same things, wear each other down, and storm off in our separate directions. All this heart stuff had happened after our last break up, which lasted a month. And then somehow, we got back together.

This time the relationship felt lighter, easier, and freer. I wasn’t torturing him with made up rules in my head and lists of do’s and don’ts. I was just enjoying him, who he was. I was just feeling, not thinking.

I turned to him and massaged his neck as we sat side by side at a Sushi counter.

“You’re like a different person to me,”I said in a whisper. “You’ve transformed into a wonderful man.”

He smiled. “Thank you.”

“Do I seem different to you, too?” I asked curiously.

“Yes,”he said without hesitation. “I feel love. I feel accepted.”

“You didn’t feel that before?”I said.

“No,”he said looking me in the eyes. “I knew it but I didn’t feel it. Feeling it changes everything.”

“I am so glad,”I said beaming. “I feel so happy just being me.”

Thank you, Rori, for showing me the most important relationship is the one with my heart.

***First, Thank You, Pamela, for this gorgeous letter, and for opening up this discussion – I’m going to work a lot with this concept of our DEFAULT POSITION. The emotional and reactive place we go to whenever we feel triggered and uncomfortable.

I know that mine is to first feel sad and a sense of loss and fear and insecurity – then I jump to anger and vengeance and an “I-don’t-care-about-you” independence, then I work my way through to a general feeling of love and okayness for myself and everyone else who was there when I got triggered, or whose consistent behavior is finally triggering me. (My husband, of course, because he’s the one who’s always there…).

So – let’s talk about this.  What is YOUR Default Position? What do you GO TO, a part of your personality that feels “safe” to you – when you’re feeling Triggered and uncomfortable?  – and we’ll work together through all your comments and answers.

Love, Rori , and Thank You again, Pamela

Leaning Forward and Leaning Back are Tools that help you “get” – in your BODY – what the “energy flow” between you and a man feels like.

And most of us are ALWAYS Leaning Forward.  Because Leaning Forward is the same as “giving, serving, offering, doing…” all the Masculine Energy things we’re taught to do with and for a man that absolutely don’t work.

What works is to Lean Back and Appreciate a man when he “gives, serves offers” and “does” for US.

Here’s that basic question, from Mira:

“Dear Rori, What does “leaning forward”  look like when you are sitting in a chair at a social event -  What is the body posture? Mira

Here’s my answer:

Mira, Leaning forward looks like sitting on the edge of your chair or bar stool, and leaning toward the room, or toward a person you’re speaking with.

   I know it’s had to lean back in a loud place – you almost have to get your ear to someone’s mouth in order to hear what they’re saying, and you have to lean in and shout to be heard – but no matter what, you can find as many moments as possible to lean back in the chair, or turn your barstool so your back can lean against the bar, then cross your legs and let your arm drape over the arm of the chair, or on the bar, or just softly in your lap or on the seat of the chair.

And what does Leaning Back do for you?

Lots of things.

It gives “air” and space between you and everyone else.  It gives every man in the place a chance to be drawn into you.  The energy exchange shifts, you look and feel more confident, and your inner man magnet kicks in.

Try it and let me know how it feels…

Love, Rori

Here’s a question from Pam that opens up a whole new area for us:

“Hi Rori,  Thank you so much for the valuable tools and information. You have no idea how much hope you give me. I have a quick one line question and I will be very grateful if you will have time to answer this.

All the tools you teach (in Commitment Blueprint program and Modern Siren program) are they applicable in other areas of life?  For example: Interviews, Job search, finding a solution in friendships, or for (especially) anything that requires patience and waiting? Thanks, Pam”

***Here’s some quick ways you can use my Rori Raye Mantra and Tools in ALL areas of your life:

First – use them with every single man, all the time, even on (especially on) a job interview where you are in masculine, thinking mode a lot of the time.  A work situation requires that you develop the ability to “switch hats” from “girl” to “boy” on a dime – that’s why wearing a bracelet (like I do), and switching it from left wrist to right wrist comes in so handy to remind you if you’re in girl energy or boy energy – wherever you are.

The KEY Tools to use in an interview or work situation – pretty much ANY situation –  is the Listening at Level 2 Tool, and all the Being Present Tools – where you touch objects, focus on the face of the person you’re talking to – ground yourself, breathe, notice sensations and feelings in your body – everything you can do to stay connected with the other person.  If it’s an interview, you DO NOT want to get into your head figuring out your answers for the next questions – instead, prepare in advance (with my “Writing Speeches” Tool) what you would say to any question, and BE THERE while it’s happening.

When you write the speeches, work in your Feelings about things (The interviewer wants to know how personally committed you are to the job you’re there for - he or she wants to FEEL GOOD about hiring you – she needs to know that you are in emotional possession of yourself – and in order to create that sense of safety and trust around you – which you want to create for ANYONE who comes near you – you have to be as totally AUTHENTIC as possible. 

We can see how important this is in politics. A candidate who we perceive as “fake” doesn’t get anywhere with us.  “Openness” is a BIG thing – and we even talk about it in newspaper articles and blogs.  Openness is a hallmark of confidence, and what we want most of all in our leaders is confidence.  That’s what anyone in our family wants to see in us, what every man everywhere wants to feel from us, and what anyone who wants to hire you or use your services or products wants to feel from you.

If you’d like me to talk more about how this works with parents, brothers and sisters, and in work situations, let me know – I have many clients who started out practicing the Tools with their fathers, brothers, and co-workers, and have incredible success in those relationships – and an amazing reduction in their stress, too.

Love, Rori

If you’ve caught yourself feeling one way and then saying or acting another – sometimes the complete OPPOSITE from the way you actually feel – that’s the PRETENDING TRAP.

It’s when you really feel like a girl, but you act like a man. Either because you don’t want to appear weak, or because there’s just no MODEL for you out there on how to be STRONG and “girl” at the same time!

The TRUTH is – the very definition of “girl” is STRONG!

We women are totally amazing – we can endure pain, we can multi-task, we can take over anyone and anything – and yet we’ve been told that’s not true. We’ve been lied to. We’ve been told that Feminine qualities – like intuition, feeling, empathy, sensuality and emotional connectedness have no place in the “real” world.

But that’s all changing. Now we see business books out there called “How To Do Business Like A Girl,” and all kinds of books on leadership that take a totally Feminine approach!

To get the full scope of what Masculine and Feminine Energy is, you’ll want to look at my Have The Relationship You Want ebook – you can take a look at it – for now, think of it this way: Masculine Energy is about DOING and Feminine Energy is about BEING. Masculine Energy is about THINKING and Feminine Energy is about FEELING. You can pretty much categorize most things – what you do and say, how you react and what you think and feel – as either Masculine Energy or Feminine Energy just by noticing if it’s Doing or Being, Thinking or Feeling.

It’s not that we have to stop using our Masculine Energy – it’s that we have to learn to use our Feminine Energy, too – and we have to learn when and where and how to use both energies to get the best results in life and in love.

So, I’d like you to do this: As you walk through your everyday life, check in with yourself. Start noticing when you’re doing and thinking, and know you’re in your masculine energy. Then notice when you’re simply feeling a sensation (without thinking about it, naming it, or judging it) or just Being Present, and you’ll know you’re in your Feminine Energy. Let me know what your is like – is it balanced between the two – Masculine and Feminine? Or are you lopsided to the Masculine? Let me know.

Love,
Rori

Just the word “Bitch” is so provocative. It brings up so many feelings – which means that talking about it will help you so much – it moves us forward and upward so much more quickly when we work with powerful, emotional images and issues.

So, now that we’ve talked a bit about Masculine and Feminine Energies, let’s talk about what “Bitch” language looks and sounds like:

1. A combination of Masculine and Feminine energies that’s intriguing, disturbing and destructive (still, much more attractive to a man than “bland”).
2. It’s sort of “hands-on-hips, leaning forward, pointing finger, making him wrong.”
3. It says “YOU did this, and YOU did that, and YOU are like this, and YOU are causing this…
4. It walks away when things aren’t going the way it wants. Literally walks away. (Very intriguing to a man.)

As a contrast, here’s what pure Feminine Energy language looks and sounds like:

1. Only Feminine Energy, that’s completely attractive, magnetic , and passive
2. It’s leaned-back, warm, inviting, grounded, centered, no-nonsense, feeling, easy, taking responsibility for itself, just Being
3. It says “I feel, I’m feeling, I felt, It feels…and NEVER mentions HIM
4. It stands still when things aren’t going the way it wants, and if it starts feeling bad, it walks away. (Yep – walking away is FEMININE. “Hanging-in” when it feels bad is MASCULINE.)

The first step for ANY shifts in your results is to know what things look and feel like, and to become aware of what you’re feeling and the words you’re using. Everything after that is just step-by-step, and that’s what we’ll do through these next posts.

Love,
Rori

We’re talking about how “bitchy” is just being a girl with the wrong words. How “Bitch” is much closer to Feminine energy than stuffing down feelings and “never letting him see you at your worst.”

Yep – he’s rather see your “weakness” break through Authentically than tolerate your “bitchiness” – but he’s also rather have you be “bitchy” than for you to PRETEND. In other words, he’d rather be around feelings than artificial composure.

He’ll be willing to put up with “bitchiness” for awhile. It’ll be more interesting to him than a “pretending” woman – at first, but then it’ll wear him down and he’ll withdraw.

The only way to keep a man’s interest, devotion, love and commitment – forever – is to allow all your feelings (including the ones you think show “weakness”) to come out authentically. To be expressed in WORDS that do no harm, and yet let HIM feel YOU while you’re feeling your feelings. It doesn’t matter what he feels about your specific feelings. He’s just simply drawn in by your ABILITY to feel.

Sounds pretty scary, doesn’t it? Well, it is. If it wasn’t scary, we would’ve done it years ago, because it WORKS with men.

We just were never taught the WORDS to use that make all the difference between “bitch” language and “girl” language. Before I give you my take on this, I want you to do this:

Watch your own words, and how what you say and what you FEEL are connected. See if you can catch yourself smiling when you feel angry, or laughing when you feel like crying. See how you are when you feel irritated, but you don’t want to let anyone see it.

Let me know here with your comments what you discover about yourself, so we can move onto the next steps.

Love,
Rori

In trying to define what a “bitch” is – taking into account what OTHER people (men especially) think about that word, we get into the idea of Masculine and Feminine Energy, which is at the core of my methods.

Even though much of the world has changed, and women are getting ever-more successful everywhere, we ALL are still facing the same challenge of how and when to use our Feminine energies and sensibilities. It’s a really challenging thing – how can we be independent and successful and STRONG, and still have the sensuality, the softness, the LACK of action that pretty much defines Feminine energy. How can we really USE our Masculine energies without being considered “bitchy,” and how can we use our Feminine energies without thinking of ourselves as “weak”?

Well – what if “bitch” is just what happens when we stuff down our FEMININE energy? What if it has nothing to do with acting like a man at all? What if “bitch” is just our screaming Feminine using “bitchy” WORDS?

Why “bitches” seem to get more attention from men than “nice girls,” and even when a woman gets labeled a “bitch” she also seems to get a bit of RESPECT from a man, is because, at least, the REAL Feminine is COMING OUT.

It may not be pretty, it may not feel good to him, but he GETS that it’s REAL FEELING.

We’ve all learned to be so careful, we’ve almost made it impossible for a man to see who we really are. We’ve almost made it impossible to be “Imperfect,” and so it’s hard for a man to feel HE can be Imperfect AROUND us. It’s a pretty complex system, and we HAVE TO TEAR THAT SYSTEM DOWN!

Being “bitchy” is just not knowing the words to truly express your Feminine Energy in a way that a man can hear, and that feels SAFE, lovely, inviting and SEXY to him.

So, next post, let’s talk about WORDS…

I was always taught that “bitch” was about the worst thing a woman could be. It meant mean, nasty, aggressive, thoughtless, self-involved. But MORE than that, it meant “uppity” – sort of like as a “woman” you weren’t supposed to do and be certain things.

I grew up as Feminism was beginning and blooming, and now, we take all that for granted.

While we were learning, as a group across the world, to become more assertive, to work at the same jobs men worked at, to do things that women had never really done before except for inspiring individual examples (like Amelia Earhart and Eleanor Roosevelt).

But at the same time, we had no MODEL of how a WOMAN could do these things.

So we copied MEN. We copied their style of dress, their attitude, the way they handle authority, we accentuated the masculine parts of ourselves – our brains, our logical, action-oriented, decision-making parts – and played down our feminine parts – intuition, feelings, just Being….

And we discovered, too, that if we used our Feminine energies to do previously masculine-only kinds of things, we could easily be perceived of as “weak.”

It’s like the whole world conspired to turn us women into men. Only – the moment we tried to DO that – we got labeled with “bitch.” We were caught in an impossible situation.

So do this:

Look into your own heart and mind and touch what YOU think and feel when you hear or say the word “bitch.” Does it feel bad or ugly? Does it make you mad? Does it trigger all kinds of other feelings and get you remembering moments that didn’t feel good?

Try this first, and in the next post we’ll go further…Love, Rori