Have The Relationship You Want

Okay – more “tough love” – but I’m surrounding this with the most love and care, and total identification with what Terry is feeling and going through – because I’ve been there…and so have you, in one way or another.

So – no judgment…and the tough love is for me, too, and for all of us…to keep us always aware and valuing feeling good and happy….as well as Terry.  Here’s her follow up comment to my recent post about her:

“Rori, Does being married make him a toxic man? Or just unavailable?

Although I was clearly the masculine energy partner, he was doing some of the pursuing, bringing small gifts, calling me, etc. but said that he couldn’t really pursue me until he found a way to leave his abusive wife and protect his kids from her, that he didn’t want the kids to think he’d betrayed them. Around mid-August, my insecurities started acting up. I got very clingy – that’s what he hates most about his wife, other than the domestic violence.

I worked on it. We were ok until after his baby was born end of Sept. He said it didn’t change the way he felt, but he wanted to “behave himself better.” He pulled back a little, but I freaked out and pressured him to spend time with me, etc. and it never seemed to be enough. Oct. 20th I got overly emotional, started to cry, asked him to tell me one too many times that he loved me. He responded, “How many times do I have to tell you?” Since then, we’ve only had one date, three weeks ago. He has not initiated contact, other than one phone call. We are supposed to meet later today, but he’s hedging.

I can’t get past the fact that I believe he’s my soulmate, we went from him making plans to leave her and marry me to me completely killing it to this weird “non-relationship.”

How do I handle the guilt and anger, and how can I even use feeling messages to communicate with him if he won’t even give me face time?
“Terry”

Here’s my response – but I’m going to do this differently – I’m going to pose a lot of QUESTIONS.  This is such a huge issue, I want to break it apart – and there are so many elements floating around in it…I want to let the questions percolate, and I want to PROVOKE both your emotional and mental responses – to TRIGGER us ALL so that we can confront this for what it is, and bring up more powerful feelings – anger, rage…stuff like that…so get ready to be triggered and to FEEL….

Basically, this is based on the same answer as before – “What are you DOING?” – but I want to take it farther.  I’ll talk directly to Terry, but really, this applies to ALL of us if we’re not living our total dream at every moment – because this terrible and extreme situation Terry is in can illuminate the small ways we treat ourselves badly. (this is going to be long…so I’m going to break it up into several posts…

Facts:
*He is married.  And he likely lies to his wife about you.  And he likely lies to you about his wife.  Being married is unavailable – lying is toxic.
*He is a man who tolerates abuse.
*He is a man who feels it’s somehow “okay” to carry on two relationships at the same time.
*He is a man who feels it’s somehow “okay” to toy with your emotions just because he himself is “confused” and “torn.”
*He is a man consumed by guilt, fear and anger because of all of these things.

Each one of these things makes him TOXIC.

And I want to make this clear – if you are THERE (as I talked about in the last post) in an abusive relationship – then you are just as “toxic” as he is.

It has to be that way – there’s no other way to see it.  If you stay and tolerate abuse, you are “toxic.”  You are “co-dependent.”  My Toxic Men program goes into all this in detail – the Why of it, the What of it, and the How to get yourself OUT of it.

For now, let’s take a break here, I and consider these questions:

Are you “toxic” when you treat yourself badly? When you allow yourself to be treated badly? And what does that mean – toxic – when you’re talking about yourself?

Where do regular girl feelings like insecurities and anxieties and fears end, and toxic stuff start?  Does it matter?  If I say that Toxic is about behavior – what you do, how the  masculine part of you “acts” – then how can you help yourself feel peaceful about the feelings the feminine part of you experiences?

How much anger and rage can you feel without acting angry and rageful (I made that up….)?

How can you release this anger and rageful energy without being a drama queen or hurting someone? Or hurting yourself? And so what if that happens anyway?

How could you release all this energy in communicating to man in any way that would heal you and perhaps the relationship? Let’s go outside the box for this one – I want to explore all the ways “mistakes” in communicating can help you (this deserves a whole new post…)

When is a man no good?

When is a relationship no good, and even if the man is good? How can you tell?

I’ll answer all these myself as we go along, but I’d love to hear your thoughts and feelings – and then we’ll move onto the next post.

Love, Rori

Heartache and Heartbreak happen to us all.  We love, we feel, we give, we open, and then a door closes, and it feels like our life just disappears.  Puff of smoke.  Gone like a magician’s trick. Pain, hurt, fear…it can live with us for days, and then we recover, or it can dog us our whole lives and make our world smaller.

We don’t have to “move on” from any man.  “Moving On” sounds to me like you’re stepping over his dead body and moving onto the next man.  Instead – just imagine moving Forward (not Leaning Forward when you’re with a man, but moving forward in your life…using your masculine energy to help you, yes…).

Here’s a letter from Sandra…who’s totally stuck…and I know we can all help her:

“Rori, Its really hard to have normal reactions with my baby’s daddy–I used to be so stuck on him, his looks, the dream of us being together as a family.

We would go along great, he would chase me, we would do family things with our little boy then his friends would have a party and he would disappear for days, weekends, never call, forget to his arrangements with our son, act cold and angry with me when I would cry and try to talk to him.

One day, I got sick of it all and went to his house in a taxi and he wasn’t home. I wandered around and when I went back I saw his lights were on and loud music was coming out of his back deck. When I knocked, his friend came to the door and told me to get lost. I persisted, stupidly and Jay came to the door and spit on me and pushed me back really hard and shut the door on my face. I never forgot the look on his face–that was the end of our long two year engagement. Now, from that ugly lesson, I never pursue a guy. When I feel pressured or jealous, I quit.

Why? I never want to go through that humiliation and pain and I have even dumped nice guys for no reason, just because I was scared to get hurt and things were not going along as smooth as I would like. My friends tell every guy that I am a heart breaker and cold and closed up or that I am a Feminist and I hate men.

Some days I wonder if I will ever get over this terrible heartbreak and I keep taking out my hurt on innocent guys and on myself because the hurt is so much for me. Sandra”

Here’s my answer:

Briefly…Sandra, here’s the thing. You don’t have to be afraid.

YOU are in CONTROL.

YOU did this to YOU – he didn’t. He was a louse, but he didn’t come to your house, grab your hair and drag you anywhere.

YOU went to HIM. YOU CHOSE him.

This means - instead of beating yourself up over the past ( look at what Rihanna let happen to her!) -  resolve to treat YOURSELF better NOW.

You can do this!

This is NOT about heartbreak. He was a disaster all along. It was your judgment, your self-esteem that was the problem then…and it doesn’t have to be that way now…

Here’s a great story from Carla:

“Dear Rori,    I wanted to let you know that one year ago I found your website online and purchased ALL of your CD’s. I was commuting 3 hours per day at that time, so I listened to them continually each day. They (you) completely transformed my life… I had at that time been in an 11 year relationship with a very toxic man and could not seem to get free of it.

When I first started with your program, my goal was to transform that relationship. Instead, what happened was as I practiced the feeling messages and the circular dating tools, he left for another women. It was the BEST thing that could have ever happened to me… 3 days after the breakup, a wonderful man walked into my life.

A completely emotionally available, loving, and mature man. We actually met at our Church’s coffee shop. A great place to meet a man.    We have now been dating for 6 months and he gave me a promise ring this weekend to let me “know that he is serious about a future with me”. He has passed the test of friends, family, and even therapist who all say that he is a good man… I am thrilled!

I absolutely don’t believe that I would be in such a fulfilling relationship if I had not found your CD’s. I have shared with anyone who wants to know how I “got such a good man.” Thank you so much for the good work you do for women. You genuinely transform lives!   Carla”

I thank Carla for giving me credit, but she did it herself! And YOU can, too.

The trick to not letting “hurt” from the past get to you NOW – is to realize that YOU are in control of so much more than you give yourself credit for.

Remember – YOU were THERE!  You did things, and said things, and tolerated things.  You were THERE.  That means…

You DON’T HAVE TO BE THERE!

This means you can CHOOSE to be there or not when you don’t feel good about what’s going on.

You can choose to stay quiet and accept poor treatment and no love, or you can choose to Speak your Truth.  You can choose to practice being brave – not by arguing, but by doing what feels GOOD.  Not what feels like “revenge” – or “getting it off your chest” – but by telling the Truth.  Sharing what you feel – no matter how angry it is – in a way that OWNS your feelings, rather than making HIM responsible for them.

In order to be hurt – you have to be there.

And sometimes, yes, it’s an accident – but you know it’s an accident and you get out of there as fast as you can.

If you can trust yourself just enough to believe you’ll know when it feels good to be there, and when it doesn’t…and practice letting that trust help you open your heart to whatever man is standing before you – trusting that YOU will know when to stay and be there, and when to get your energy out of there – you will get the love, romance and relationship you want.

You’ll know when you’re just protecting your heart for no reason – in defense for something that hasn’t even happened yet – and when you’re walkingaway – even for just a moment – because you FEEL bad.

It takes practice.  It takes a bit of skills, and you can get those skills by practicing the Tools.

Please let me know about your specific and unique stories… and about moments when you’re able to feel like you have a choice and can see and experience things differently than you once did.  Let me know how you’re practicing now…and we’ll talk more here about how to short circuit those automatic reactions like Sandra is enduring.

Love, Rori

I liked this article – my friend Matthew Walters (you’ll hear him on my February interview with his wife Orna) is a part of Downloads For Change – so I get their newsletters – and even though this is about our “brains” and very “mental” – I thought it gave a very good illustration of how we WORK mentally – so we can adjust some of this…I couldn’t figure out how to reprint the very famous, classic graphic, so I’m just going to give you the link here, and then talk a bit about it:

http://www.downloadsforchange.com/_blog/Hypnosis_mp3_Downloads_Change_Your_Life!/post/The_Gratitude_You_Forgot_to_Have/

Needs.  Getting our needs met.  This, to me, is what relationship is all about, what we yearn for, what we feel depressed about, what we feel hopeless about or exhilarated about.  Our needs are met.  Or they’re not.  And – looking at the chart – it’s not just ANY needs that we need to be met – it’s the ones that heighten our awareness and experience of everything else that’s good.  There’s just nothing like love, romance, affection, attention, sex…

It’s not good enough to have a roof over our head.  Oh…we’re grateful for it, we’re happy we’re not out in the cold – and, there are so many who are, and so many of us who’re AFRAID we MIGHT be out in the cold except for Grace – but it just doesn’t “float our boat” to be happy about having a roof over our head.

We take the “everyday” for granted when we’re missing the big ticket items like love, romance, affection, partnership.  And on a holiday where we’re supposed to be “thankful” – it’s really, really hard to be “thankful” when we feel like there’s a big hole (perhaps many big holes) in our lives.

So – what to do?

It’s really easy to focus on “gratitude.”  Easy in a good, fun, easy way – and too easy in the “it’s easy to SAY way.”

For me…I go about this a few different ways, and I try to go about it every day in some way.

1. “The Three Blessings” that my friend Ryan Eliason taught me.  Every night (or when I want to, or think of it…) I write down in a journal three things I’m grateful for – that I feel are blessings in my life.  Once I sit down to write these things…it’s sort of amazing how many things – sometimes really SMALL things – come up for me.  Try it.

2. Look in the mirror.  Who do you see?  You see the one person in this entire world you possess.  The one person in this entire world you can totally trust, totally count on to be on your side.  The one person you can put makeup on, dress up, order around, pet, moon over, sing to…a million little things…without checking with anyone else first.  You are your treasure.

There’s no real way to argue with this!  No matter how crappy things might be at this moment, or how you’re starting to feel like things might actually be changing for you for the better (they are, if you’re doing the Tools)…you still have YOU.

Go reach out your hand and pet your image in the mirror.

Now run your hand down your other arm – slowly and sweetly, and watch yourself in the mirror.  There’s no limit to how long and how lovingly you can do this…so you can never get bored or run out of parts of you to pet.

3. Say Thank You to the you in the mirror.  In fact – say “I love you.  Thank you.”  If you want to really try something, say “I love you.  I forgive you.  Thank you.”  If you want to try the whole thing…say “I love you.  I’m sorry.  I forgive you.  Thank you.”

That about covers any emotion you could be having – from beating yourself up over something, to getting all excited about yourself (good for you!!!)

Okay, yes, you can be thankful for the roof over your head, and that some of the needs on the Maslow scale are being met, and you can be thankful that you’re on track to get all the most fabulous of your needs met by the most fabulous man…but only if it feels good.  Only if it’s true.

If you’re actually angry as anything about something…go ahead and be thankful for that!  I mean – a good bit of fire in your belly, no matter where it came from or where it’s aimed is pretty grand, isn’t it?

If you’re actually feeling tearful and sorry for yourself – be thankful for that – because then you get to back and do numbers 1 through 3 here!

4. Imagine a fabulous man (and the only thing he has to have or do in order to be fabulous is to love YOU) – standing there around you – all the time – and HE’S saying Thank You.  To YOU.

I say Thank You to you.  You just are….so wonderful.  I’m so glad to have you in my life.

Love, Rori

I wanted to write this as sort of a companion piece to my “Love and Memory” post – it’s a small exercise to use along with other of my Tools that work differently – so if it seems contradictory to other Tools, it’s not….it’s just a different angle.  I’m all about seeing what works for YOU – and different things will work at different times.

The idea is to experiment – so let me know how this affects you…and be sure to Riff and Channel no matter what:

So many of us are held prisoner by memories stored deep in our subconscious minds. My wonderful friend Virginia Feingold Clark is an extraordinary hypnotherapist who’s been featured on Forbes.com, and who I deeply trust with my own subconscious.

Virginia told me that because the subconscious has no awareness of time, when we are reliving an experience in our mind, it’s as if it’s happening to us right now — body chemistry reactions and all.

She taught me one way (there are many) to get free from the tyranny of a painful memory: We simply replay it in our mind and change the outcome!

This is a technique that is especially powerful with hypnosis, but you can also do it on your own. The key is to relax deeply so you can access your deeper mind.

Here’s how Virginia says it would work, for example,  with the memory of a heartbreak:

1.  Sit or lie down with your eyes closed for about 20 minutes, then take yourself back to the memory and replay it — make it a vivid movie in your mind.

2. Go through it from the very beginning and change the action, the dialogue, the feelings – see and experience yourself handling the situation in a way that makes you feel good now.

What will happen is that by taking back the control you felt you lost, you’ll no longer identify yourself with being a victim.

You’ll feel freer – with much more confidence and a new ability to make decisions from a place of greater personal power.

I love this Tool – it gives going back and thinking about these old things an actual purpose (just make sure to not revisit it over and over, use my other Tools to walk yourself through the Tunnel, to Channel, and to stop the Train of Obsession if you feel like you’re on it)…and I love Virginia.

I get her to work with all my clients to take the edge off of anxiety, and make better so many other things, and you can see her on my Commitment Blueprint Program talking about her experience with her own marriage, and how “It’s Never Too Late To Marry.” You can find Virginia at www.yourinnerguide.com.