Have The Relationship You Want

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

Theme song for us for always by Alanis Morissette:

Read the lyrics first -

She starts:  “I promised myself …”

That I would be good
even if I did nothing
that I would be good
even if I got the thumbs down

That I would be good
if I got and stayed sick
That I would be good
even if I gained 10 pounds

That I would be fine
even if I went banckrupt
That I would be good
if I lost my hair and my youth

That I would be great
If I was no longer queen
That I would be grand
if I was not all knowing

That I would be loved
even when I numb myself
That I would be good
even when I am overwhelmed

That I would be loved
even when I was fuming
That I would be good
even if I was clingy

That I would be good
even if I lost sanity
That I would be good
whether with or without you

Here’s Alanis singing it:

If you sometimes feel like your man has all the Power in your relationship, and you feel almost desperate to get your strong sense of yourself back, I learned something very valuable (the hard way) this weekend that I know will help you, too.

If you’re at all like me, you value being “nice,” being “liked,” and being “well thought of.”

So, if you’re like me – being a “Drama Queen” is just out of the question.

Well, that’s all nice and good, wanting to be “mature” and “well spoken” and “thoughtful,” but for most of us, all that “carefulness” and “political correctness” gets us to the same place – pushing our men away!

How can that be?

How can we push a man away by being “nice” and “mature”?

Well, as I’ve known since the moment I turned my marriage around years ago, and as I teach my clients and write and create programs about for you, valuing “nice” and “mature” over AUTHENTIC can just kill a man’s love for you.

And it’s not because there’s something so wrong with “nice.”.

It’s because sometimes our “nice” is just not REAL.

Because we value being liked more than being Authentic, we can stuff down our feelings.

I still struggle with this – and as aware as I am about it, it still always surprises me when I choose the “high road” – choose to let something that’s bothering me go rather than speaking up about it.

These are the moments when my inner Drama Queen can actually HELP!

So – what does YOUR inner Drama Queen look like?

Is she so not welcome inside you that you’d do almost anything to not let her out?

Are you so afraid she’ll turn you into a raging Drama Queen out there in the world that you push her down and try to keep her covered up?

Well, the one thing I know is that if you don’t love your inner Drama Queen, and instead resist her as much as you can – that’s when you actually DO turn INTO a Drama Queen.

It’s as though the fight to keep her from taking over makes her squeak by you so you end up acting like a Drama Queen anyway.

Only – instead of YOU GUIDING her, so that her words come out THROUGH YOU, in Feeling Messages instead of attacks, and so her feelings inspire a man to HELP you instead of run from you – she comes out without your consent and without your control.

Your inner Drama Queen just jumps out and splatters all over everything. It’s those moments when we do or say something we wish we hadn’t.

And then you remember the moment when you first felt angry or upset and didn’t say anything about it when it happened – and you KNOW that if you’d just spoken out – authentically and truthfully in that moment, you wouldn’t have turned into a Drama Queen just now.

So – love your inner Drama Queen.

Loving her and embracing her will make it possible for you to avoid ACTING like a drama queen.

Let her speak to you.

Let her say what’s on her mind.

Let her into your heart, feel her feelings and use YOUR WORDS to say what’s going on inside you.

You can do this.

Your Drama Queen on the inside can make you calmer and easier on the outside.

Your Drama Queen on the inside can help you stand up for yourself and be stronger.

So – talk to her.

Ask her what her name is.

Ask her if she’ll help you be stronger, more direct, authentic, and VULNERABLE.

Try this Tool and see if you feel a little lighter, a little more in step with yourself – I know that I did.

In my Toxic Men program, I have a whole section on getting to know and embracing your inner “Stranger” – this will help you so much to stop attracting and being attracted to toxic and difficult men. You can take a look at it (and all my programs) on the “Rori’s Catalog” page here…For now, just listen to your inner Drama Queen instead of shutting her up, and see what she has to offer you – and let me know how she helps you.

Love, Rori

Here’s a letter I got from Jennifer…a very universal situation if you’ve ever been in the business of attracting and being attracted to unavailable, perhaps even Toxic men:

“Rori…I have been listening to you for about a year. My name is Jennifer….I am a 35 year old single woman who has had 3 long term toxic relationships in her whole life. (One was 7 years, one was 4 years and resulted in a broken engagement, which I broke off, and the last was a 1 year Long distance imaginary relationship).

Your programs helped me get out ofthat last one, the one year, passionate (albeit emotionally unavailable man scenario) relationship with a man that devastated me. We broke up in August 2008.

After that, in the span of 7 months, I lost my job, foreclosed on a house, and moved from Las Vegas, (I hated Vegas). I felt renewed, confident, scared, cried a lot, moved on, got stronger, and ordered “Targeting Mr. Right.”….which brings you up to speed…

I have been circular dating since early May of this year. I cannot tell you the difference that I felt at first….sexy, confident, attractive, alive….ready to take on the world! I was open and ready to experience whatever the universe brought me in the form of MEN!! I went out on about 7-8 wine/coffee dates, practiced all of your tools, listening with an open heart, open body language, trying not to judge, etc…

…I met one man I was REALLY crazy about…..he was the ONLY one who got past the first date….we have been out over 9 times, had great dinners, hikes, romantic kisses near the Golden Gate Bridge…awesome chemistry. He is 40, never married, very handsome, has had several long term relationships, even lived with 2 women in the past…..even admitted to commitment phobia in the past, but I refused to judge and decided to just have fun and enjoy him.

BUT to be safe and smart, I was communicating to him, that I JUST moved, that I was actively dating and seeking to meet lots of people, and that was were I was at, even though I really loved being with him,(which I communicated to him) all of which he supported and even applauded me for…at first…

…now it seems like he is backing away because I haven’t changed my stance, and I really haven’t…… I had been STILL going out on coffee dates, although I must admit, as we got closer and closer I stopped for about 3 weeks, even though I didn’t tell him I stopped, because I didn’t want to lose my sense of power for myself or to have him sense that I was trying to CAPTURE……….

Rori, you would be soooo proud of me, because this whole time, even though I have felt my feelings deepen, I have done everything possible to RELAX and RESIST the urge to THROW him into the CAGE, as you call it! And its the one thing that I instinctively feel that is making him back away from me….I have NEVER talked about wanting to be a girlfriend, or in wanting ANY of that, even AFTER we had sex for the first and only time, two weeks ago!!

( He knew I had only had sex with 3 other men my whole life) I think that he is used to all of the women in his life and THEIR CRAP and THEIR urges to CAPTURE, (he has said things like he felt like a sperm donor, or someone that was supposed to fit into their TIMELINES etc., so I KNOW he is used to women and their pressures) He has sent me messages that he really likes me, even holding my hand saying that he would love to be a father, etc.

So….. I deliberately DO NOT do any of those old behaviors, no matter what was happening and as we got closer, I feel like the stronger I got THEN he starts in the last 2 weeks or so backing away, esp since our sexual encounter which was very passionate and fabulous, by the way. Since then, he tells me things like…”HE Is not emotionally ready for a relationship, but he has deep feelings for me, that its not me, but his crap” and he want to take some time for himself….WHAT? I haven’t pressured one bit!

And despite him saying that, He still calls me or texts me everyday ( I NEVER initiate calls,which was one of your tools which I could always do easily).  So in the last two weeks his mood seems a little down, some of his texts went something like….”I wanted to take some time for myself..I am not ignoring you, just wanted you to know..how are you?” He hasn’t made any plans to see me in almost 2 weeks, all the while, phones and texts like this almost every day……

Last night he showed up at my apt here in the City, He lives 20 miles outside the city, and this is the first time I had seen him (since the last time we saw each other and had sex which was at his house, and he asked me to stay the night) So last night in my apt……….we kissed, talked a bit (his behavior was sooooo confusing..it seems like he is waiting for me to say that I don’t want to see other guys..I FEEL that…like, he won’t say anything until I do…all this looks like he can’t man up, so. …I looked into his eyes, and opened my heart and said….”What is going on? (I know…. mistake, but I said it with a feeling message right after which was…I’m here, I like you so much, and I’m confused and feeling a bit anxious about this..what do you think?”

He said he didn’t come over to talk, he just HAD to see me, kiss me, etc. So I dropped it, gave him a huge open heart smile and a deep hug, and said I was so glad to see him and that I missed him, he returned the sentiment, Then after 15 min he left. No plans for any future dates, nothing. I smiled and let him go, even though I was so hurt and angry at that moment………

I don’t have 3 men in my rotation yet…so I won’t let him go just yet….I am not “efforting” at all outwardly, but inside I feel myself becoming a bit obsessed with this…in your experience…what is going on? Is this how some men act when they know you are dating around? I refuse to abandon myself, Although its making me miserable and sad..every date I want the chemistry I feel with him and havent found it yet….is he just being a baby, like you said in T Mr. Right? Can he man up? And should I even give a damn??? Jennifer”

***Here’s my answer:

Jennifer, This was EXACTLY right – NO MISTAKE!!! -

You must ALWAYS SPEAK THE TRUTH…That’s what keeps fear from taking over….and that’s where attraction can grow.

Some men are simply not able to do real relationship.  You know you attract these men and are attracted to them because of your history with Toxic Men.

Circular Dating will smoke those guys out!

He’s not backing away because you’re a free spirit…he’s backing away either because the attraction is not deepening for him, or because you’re not as EASY as he’d hoped, or because he’s a Toxic man and somewhere inside he KNOWS he can’t do this, or he just doesn’t ever WANT to do this, he’s just fighting his attraction to you.  Or, he just wants sex.

He may have felt the pressure from you after sex, and he may feel it from inside himself…but it makes no difference…

Sex is meaningful to a woman, no matter how much of a rock star you aim to be…you can’t help but put out stronger vibes after sex – and if you don’t, you wouldn’t be authentic . That’s why sex should only happen when you know exactly what’s going on with you and you can speak it first.

Let him back off, and if he shows up again, try not having sex. Just tell him that you could feel the pressure, and you’d rather wait and just have fun with him. From what you say about his coming over…sounds more like a booty call to me, too…let’s see what the other women on the blog can offer you…

Love, Rori

I mess-up all the time. Sometimes it’s just not leaving enough time to do something, or faulty prioritizing, or forgetting something at the market. Sometimes I actually hurt someone’s feelings. Sometimes I’m oblivious to what’s going on, and sometimes I just put my foot in it.

So what’s the message when my foot’s in my mouth?

I think everything that shows up in our lives is either a mirror or a message, and there’s always a lesson, and there’s always a take-away.

Most of the time these days, I’ve noticed the message coming in loud and clear: Pay attention! Be aware! Look around! Be here now!

Unfortunately, once my foot is in my mouth, or I’m sprawled on the pavement, or my husband is staring at me as though I’ve just committed murder, it’s a little late to process the message. A little late to undo the error. Oh, for do-overs.

So what, exactly, is a mistake, and what is a fair price to pay for making one?

I’ve come to think of a mistake as thinking a little bit too hard about me.

Sometimes what’s a mistake to one person is a boon to another, and some mistakes turn out to be lucky intuition, like the artist of any medium who forges a new road from his soul by mistakenly taking the wrong turn.

I can think of every man in my life until my lovely husband as a mistake. I can think of every man in my life as some kind of lesson. As a stepping-stone, a passage. Or I can see that every man in my life was exactly right for me at any given moment, and all I needed to do was see his message.

The message might have been Alright. Thank you for attending. Now you can move on. Or it might have been, I’m not supposed to go any further, please proceed without me. Or This is a very nice place to be, so sorry you’re not ready yet. I must have come across many men I couldn’t have, not because they wouldn’t want me, but because they knew I didn’t want me.

How to tell the difference between the mistake, the mirror and the message?

The mirror shows you where you are, the mistake shows you where you’ve been, and the message invites you to go where you want to be. I listen to them all, but I look for messages. Sometimes I can’t see them or hear them or feel them, because I’m too absorbed in the mirror, or too despondent over the mistake.

The thing about messages is, in order to see them, you have to be still.

In order to hear them, you have to be quiet.

And in order to feel them, you have to be in your body.

Mistakes are a loss of attention. They throw us off the gameboard into the sand trap. They’re us trying to take charge of the brave and thoughtful horse we’re riding, the horse who really knows the way, and steering him off course into the woods because we thought we saw a turn back there we missed.

The fastest way out of a mistake is to fight. Going dead inside and numb and depressed gets us deeper into the quagmire. Fighting is recovering our self- esteem by topping accusing ourselves – How could I have done that? or denying responsibility – It wasn’t my fault! or taking on responsibility that isn’t ours – It was all my fault…or lying to others - I didn’t do that! or lying to ourselves – I don’t care!

Fighting is saying Oh….. and then going down into that Soup of yuck and dread and pain and misery, and guilt, and everything we feel, until we touch love.

Touching love feels like oh, I did that, and I feel love for that person, that thing, or myself, and I feel sad for the pain I caused them, or me, and I’m still a good person, and I still absolutely, completely, deeply and profoundly love and accept myself. Touching love is all of a sudden stopping the resistance of that knot in your belly, and just feeling what you feel.

It’s stopping smiling, blaming, counting, imagining, justifying, excusing, making up stuff, wishing, hoping, and everything else and just feeling the weight of not feeling good. For maybe a good solid moment. And then, getting back on the horse, and riding it out of the sand and onto the road. The moment you turn to the horse and say, I’ve made a mistake and I can still ride like the wind, time starts again, the weather starts again, and the message signs all around start blinking.

A Message is another chance to pay attention. Another chance to dance with what shows up. Another chance to enjoy the moment. Another chance to catch another Message. And the message always is: There will always be mistakes, and mirrors and messages, because our lives are always moving, and we will never learn everything there is to learn.

Sometimes the Mistake IS the Message.

Love, Rori

I love this guy. I get these every day from Tut.com. He’s Tom Dooley (of The Secret…yes…), but I think of these as from The Universe…

I can assure you, Rori, that the time will come when you, too, will ask, “In what fields did I sow seeds to deserve so very, very much?”

Then I’ll remind you that the whole sowing-seeds-cause-and-effect concept was just a myth, because you were born deserving.

Hosanna in the Highest,
The Universe

Yeah, should’ve told you a long time ago, Rori. My bad.

Tom’s whole thing is this:

Thoughts become things…choose the good ones.

And I love this. It’s not about turning your negative thoughts into positive ones via affirmations…it’s about CHOOSING the good ones out of all the thoughts you have going on at any given moment. And how do you choose the “good” ones…?

Not by some kind of mental “judgment” that “this is good and this is bad” …but how it FEELS when you think it.

How, if you were to follow that thought and DO the thing that thought is thinking about doing, or the place that thought is thinking about putting you in…how THAT would FEEL.

Same with all the feelings you have. Instead of trying to label a feeling as bad to have (grief, let’s say)…and trying to turn it into something else by distracting yourself or talking yourself out of the feeling…go INTO the feeling for a moment. Honor it. Let it know it’s welcome in your repertoire of feelings. Embrace it, sink down into the feeling Soup where it came from. And THEN…

Feel what ELSE you feel. There are so many floating around in that Soup at any given moment.

If you feel yourself in your head thinking thoughts – choose a different thought that shows up…that drifts by. See if some better-feeling thoughts lead you to some better feeling feelings. See what’s connected to what…what good feeling thing leads to another good feeling thing.

See if there’s something in the Soup that jumps out for your attention that feels a bit better than where you are now…and just GO with THAT one!

I know it sounds too easy…but truly…we make it all so HARD on ourselves.

We cling to our bad feelings as if they are BADGES. We all feel so instinctively guilty for simply feeling Good — we get into our heads trying to JUSTIFY feeling good. Trying to put down in writing how we DESERVE this good feeling.

So…this short note says it all.

You don’t have to DO anything to deserve to feel good. That’s the natural way of things. Feeling good. When bad things happen, and tragedy strikes, and day-to-day challenges seem impossible to get past…yes…the icky feelings get triggered, the fear, the guilt, the sense that we’ve brought all this down on ourselves (after all – if we believe we deserve to feel good only because we DID something to deserve it — then we must’ve done something bad in order to be feeling something bad, right? Well – not right. Wrong.

Think about innocent babies born into unloving, abusive homes. It’s such a horrible thing to contemplate, we struggle to find meaning in it. When it all gets painful to consider – the way people suffer all over the world…I go to trying to figure out a reason why, too. But now, I prefer to bless my personal good luck. I prefer to be in the troop that is working for peace as fully and powerfully as I’m able – to harness all my abilities in the service of good feelings for ALL.

Bottom line…the difficulty for so many of us is – Is it okay to feel good when others are suffering?

And my answer – that is the ONLY choice. The only way you and I can have any effect on the world, can help raise it out of misery, is to engage in creating peace. And everything we’ve ever heard on that one is true – it begins with us. It begins inside you.

Peace happens when the people who feel good and believe in feeling good and are not run by fear or pain and continue to promote feeling good (not by numbing pain) tip the scales in power over those who are driven by fear and greed. This happened in Liberia, where the women rose up, took possession of their country, and stopped war.

You cannot access your full power to affect change in yourself and the world until you claim your entitlement to feel good…no matter what. That’s where the power is. Even anger can feel good, too. Feeling feelings can feel good, just because you feel alive and feeling, and that feels good.

Everything is transformational. Things are always moving. Allow yourself to be moved. And just — and it seems so simple, but try it — make the intellectual decision that you HAVE many choices in any moment. Then choose the good-feeling choices.

Let me know how this works for you…Love, Rori

This is an article by Matthew Walter and Orna Banarie, who have a fantastic story of how they found each other (the wedding is just about to happen…). Matthew is a terrific hypnotherapist, and Orna does life and relationship coaching using hand analysis (I personally had a great reading by her) — and now, the two of them are teaching, in teleclasses and coaching, what they’ve learned from their own amazing experience finding love with each other when they least expected it…(see how relaxed they are with each other…)

Which one of these scenarios best describes your experience in relationships?

1. You always find yourself needing to please your partner. Constantly putting their needs ahead of yours, you find that at times you feel resentful wondering when all of your selfless action will be recognized and reciprocated. You wish your partner would be able to anticipate your needs as well as you anticipate theirs. Ultimately, all of this leads to you constantly twisting into a pretzel to receive love.

2. You feel like you’ve been duped in your relationship. You thought you knew who your partner was until you made that deeper commitment and everything changed. Suddenly your partner has different opinions than you and begins to express them. This person is no longer interested in doing the things that you did during your courtship. In fact it may seem like you’ve married or moved in with a completely different person.

3. You are extremely attracted to people who reject you. It seems that the more you are told that you are not right for that person, the more you want to prove them wrong. You may even begin a process of changing who you are in order to become more like what you think that person wants. When you meet someone who is attracted to you and likes you for who you are, you are not interested in that person. You may even feel that person is not worthy of being with you as it would be too easy to start a relationship with them. You prefer a challenge and like the chase, but lose interest when you get the prize.

These may seem like completely different scenarios, but they all point to a common problem – a lack of self-acceptance. In the first scenario the person lacks an ability to see their needs as valuable. When we seek approval outside of ourselves we find ourselves twisting into pretzels. We often think “What shape can I assume that will make me attractive to you?” This is a game of rejecting who we are and hoping that the new shape we assume will be loveable. When what we really need to do is to learn to accept all of our qualities, both good and bad, and by finding that acceptance then we can be authentic in relationship with others.

In the second scenario the partner in the relationship isn’t purposefully deceiving their partner. Instead, this is caused by someone thinking that it is not okay or safe to be themselves until they get that deeper commitment from you. They finally relax and allow their true self to be revealed to you. This is not usually a conscious choice to deceive you. It happens because that person does not believe that you would love them for who they really are. That person lacks a sense of self-acceptance.

In the last scenario the problem lies with a sense of worthlessness and an inability to receive. This person seeks that rejection because that is what they feel inside. Often times when they are in relationship with the person who does love them for who they are, they will sabotage the relationship to prove that they were not worthy of receiving love and acceptance. The desire to prove themselves worthy to the person who rejects them is really a desire to prove to themselves that they are worthy.

Why is self-acceptance so important in your relationships? Because how you see yourself, how you feel about yourself – self-judgment, self-criticism, etc – effects your ability to be authentic in relationship. The belief is that if you show your true self you will not be loved. The problem is if you don’t ever show your true self, then you can never be loved for who you really are.

Another problem that arises in relationship that comes from a lack of self-acceptance is that we begin to judge our partner’s behavior and become critical of them. If it is true that all judgment is self-judgment, then when we are so annoyed by our partner’s behavior we can ask ourselves “Is this a reflection of a fault within my character?”

Only by knowing what we truly need to be happy, what we truly need in order to nurture ourselves, can we feel comfortable asking our partners to love us in the way we truly can receive love. It is in the search for self-acceptance, that all parts of us are worthy of being loved, that we begin to learn to love ourselves. When we love ourselves it becomes easy to ask for what we want, it becomes easy to enforce our boundaries, and it becomes easy to receive the love we most desire. That love is what “true love” is all about.

Orna and Matthew are doing a continuing series of free teleclasses…and I’ll be interviewing them soon for my monthly Interviews With Relationship Experts CD series. You can read more about what they’re doing (you can find them on facebook, too) right here:
www.CreatingLoveOnPurpose.com

Love, Rori

Justin/Fernando just left a great comment in which he said how men find “Warrior” women sexy. How men actually love being “called” on their “bs” because then they know that what a woman wants is who they really are and not who they might like to pretend to be.

So what exactly is a Warrior woman?

Does it mean that you are always on the warpath? Are you always looking for something to pounce on and correct? Are you out to change the world by changing every little thing you see around you? Are you out to improve everything you see — including your man?

Or are you a warrior for yourself?

And what would that look like?

Let’s say you’re with a man and in this very moment you feel totally torn and totally conflicted. Two sides of you are trying to gain control of your mind and your actions. Something is happening that does not feel good. It could be him asking you to do something or go somewhere that you just don’t feel like doing are going. Or it could be something he does — roll his eyes or dismiss you in words, or comment about another woman’s attractiveness right in front of you. Ick…

Part of you wants to smash him in the face. Wants to grab him by his jacket or his shirt and shake him and toss him until he behaves. Another part of you is terrified that if you even question for a moment what he’s done or asked for… you will be labeled as needy, complaining, insecure, a drama queen, and he will move away from you and maybe even leave you.

This is what I call walking on eggshells.

And you’d be surprised how many of us are caught in this loop. We either blurt out everything we want changed and stick to our guns and air our opinions and requests for change and then feel terrible and frightened and angrier afterward… or we sit on stuff, telling ourselves that we are poised, we are confident, we are together, we don’t have to get all upset about this “thing,” we have a sense of humor, we can talk about this reasonably.

And sometimes that voice is right! Sometimes what you’re all bent out of shape about is hardly worth even a moment of your brainpower.

Sometimes you’re just looking in the wrong place, hearing the wrong thing, focusing on the wrong part of what’s going on around you.

So what’s the Warrior in you to do? What exactly do you champion? How do you champion yourself here, when you don’t know which “yourself” to listen to?

So let’s go through some steps:

If you’re feeling unsettled, disturbed (I love that word and I love the state “disturbed” describes), and conflicted, just

1. Stop whatever you’re doing.

>> Stop
>> take a breath
>> go into the Rori Raye Dance Position
>> put your hand on an object and…
>> stomp on the floor.

You are caught between your emotions. And your emotions are caught between wanting to fight, wanting to flee, and wanting to freeze. And some of it is not under your control right now. Some of it is a reaction that’s coming from old patterns that are deeply ingrained in every cell of your body.

So…

2. Start picking through your emotions.

First, you have to

>> Feel each one.

Start with the one that comes up first. If it’s an urge to hit and strike out and “fight” — go into that feeling. Really experience it — in your arms, in your hands. Experience if you feel your hands clenching into a fist, if you feel like reaching out to push and hurt, to DO something destructive. Really let yourself get into that. If you have to leave the room for a minute to do it — do it. EXPLORE each feeling as it passes through you..

If the next feeling feels like fear, or guilt, feel that. You can tell what it is you’re feeling most easily by going straight to your body for clues.

Look at your hands. Do they feel like going out to push something? That would be anger and an urge to fight. Or do they feel like pulling something towards you? Does it feel like they want to protect you? Protect your heart, protect your breasts, protect your breath?

Do your hands and arms feel like they want to block something? Does the rest of your body feel like it’s moving backwards — like it wants to go away, wants to run?

Notice if your shoulders are all crunched up near your ears. Does that feel more to you like fear, or anger, or love, or shame, or guilt?

Let your shoulders go, let your arms go and see if you can find the feeling now in your belly. See if it’s jumping or if it feels hard.

Start getting familiar with what your feelings feel like. You’ll start to notice a pattern — a physical pattern — that will help you clue into what it is you’re feeling. And as you experiment with feeling these different feelings that have different physical components, you’ll start to get more COMFORTABLE feeling these feelings.

3. Now – put on your Warrior clothes.

Make it up. Are you an angel with wings? A Greek Goddess in gown, or pants and boots with bows and arrows, or a superwoman superhero with space-age weapons? How do you wish to aim — very subtly and accurately, or do you wish to have the power to blow away whole universes with the press of a button on your gear?

4. Now… and here is the hardest part… what are you fighting for? Who are you fighting for? And on behalf of which emotion that you felt are you fighting for?

The easiest way to do this is to –

>> Pick a Value that is dear to your heart. Pick the first one that comes to your mind (if you don’t already have a Values List sit down and make one now)

Let’s just pick one for now — how about Peace? Or Authenticity? How about Honor? You could honor your “little girl self” — you could honor your Vulnerability — you could simply honor your own ability to feel.

***Important note: you are not to use the word “defend.” This is not about protection or defense. This is not about being a warrior who “goes to war.” A warrior who writes wrongs. A warrior who sets the record straight. These images are all MASCULINE images. These are fine for many things in your life when you’re going “Out the Window” and want to be an action Warrior for the world. (We’re all really good at this, and I’ll talk about it more in another post…)

A WOMAN as Warrior simply says NO. Being a FEMININE Warrior is all about being about No.

5. Get a big perspective on the situation you’re in at this very moment. (There are more Tools for “Zooming Out” and “Flying Up” in my Toxic Men and Modern Siren programs…)

This could look like: There are people standing around in this room. My man, or that man who just came up to talk to me just said or did something and now I’m feeling uneasy and disturbed, and I have many wonderful emotions around all this.

6. Now… you’re going to follow the procedure for any Rori Raye “speech.” It goes basically — I feel, I don’t want. If you want to actually negotiate something, it can go — I feel, I don’t want, what do you think.

7. So let’s put it all together.

>> Imagine yourself in your warrior clothes, armed with your NO, standing up for a value like Vulnerability, seeing everything that’s around you and being present with it all.

>> Put together your first sentence of “I feel” with the feeling you’re feeling right now (that you’ve already felt and gotten comfortable with feeling) and speak it simply.

>> Now put together your NO in the form of “I don’t want….”

This could look like: I feel icky, I don’t like this.

8. If he doesn’t snap-to and ask you what’s going on, take the time to start from step one again. All the same feelings are going to start flooding in on you. The first few times you try this is going to feel just like the first time — and then you get so used to it that it will get easy, I know it will. Be sure to keep your warrior clothes on.

Being a warrior for yourself is not about attacking. It’s not about doing damage. It’s not about blowing people and things in the universe away with your power.

It’s about owning your power. It’s about owning your warrior clothes and your warrior heart and your warrior weapons and knowing you can use them, and trusting yourself to use them wisely.

Being a warrior for yourself is holding the line. It’s standing your ground. Its boundaries with a big capital B. It just means you won’t be pushed backwards from that line. It just means you won’t be pushed over. It just means you won’t lay down on the ground at his feet and do what ever it takes to keep him.

It doesn’t even mean fighting or attacking the other voices in your own head that are confusing you and disturbing you. It’s owning all the other voices no matter how nasty they sound. It’s about being a warrior of yourself that’s in CHARGE of all of these voices. It’s knowing that all of these voices and everything about you is ONE. That you are all-of-a-piece. That you are one whole person. That you have facets just like a magnificent crystal and that the crystal of you is whole.

So being a warrior for yourself has nothing to do with what emotion you’re feeling! It is not an action arising out of any particular emotion.

You don’t need to go to war! Being a warrior for love or a warrior for peace will help you know, deep down, that everything you do and say in service to yourself, following these steps, will make you feel more complete, more interesting, more multifaceted, more whole.  Stronger. I know that you are one gorgeous warrior woman. Rock on.

I’d love to see some drawings of what you as Warrior looks like — what you’re wearing and what you’re packing (these don’t have to be aggressive weapons — we can have fun and get creative here) — and I’ll try to figure out a way that you can post your pictures. For now though, would you describe yourself as Warrior to us?

Love, Rori

So here I am, standing on a stage in a small theater, with 20 people and the teacher in light in front of me and the lovely man in the chair opposite me playing the man in the scene for me (even though I’m doing a monologue, he is joining me on the stage to give me someone to work off of).

I’m doing a monologue from the film Minnie and Moskowitz (playing Minnie), and my sole goal up here is to be fearless.

All I want is to allow whatever emotions come up to come up. And I want everyone in front of me to be able to see them. I wanted to be completely exposed.  For them to see all of me, especially the darkest parts of me that show up.

And as I focus on the actor in front of me (though I’m the only one talking), and I feel myself speaking these words in the middle of the “preparation” I did for the monologue (making choices about what she’s really trying to accomplish here, what she’s trying to tell him, what she’s sharing about herself, what she wants…), and the fear and hopefulness and weirdness I feel up here — all of a sudden without even trying, I feel myself over taken by emotion.

Now, you have to understand this is not normal for me. My first response to an upwelling of the motion is always to clamp down on it. That’s why I’ve created all the Tools in Modern Siren about allowing your feelings to come up — Tools like “Fall To Your Knees” — that help you practice getting “into” your emotions without ever pushing them out in the old ways that don’t work.

So I’m here practicing expressing myself in Minnie’s words, aiming for expressing what Minnie wants while still feeling what I’m feeling. And this acting thing is very, very personal. The teacher is stressing how personal all this is. How unless we make it very, very personal, it’s not going to be as powerful.

And all of a sudden I feel myself gasping for breath. I see myself about to completely fall apart.  The words I’m saying are triggering me. I focus on breathing, on staying still, on saying the words, feeling the words, and letting it happen all by itself.  I focus on NOT STOPPING the process. And believe it or not, the lights and the people in front of me and the theater make all this EASIER!

How can this be? you ask. How can having people around you actually make it easier for you to let your feelings out? It’s because an acting class is a safe place to do this.
(Of course you have to have a good teacher, and I’m lucky enough to have found a supurb one -  her name is Judith Weston and we’re in Culver City).

In an acting class, everyone is there to support you doing this. Everyone wants to learn to be fearless. Everyone wants to get into their feelings and express them. Everyone knows that this is the highest calling of an actor. Everyone is trying to get past their emotional obstacles. Everyone wants to loosen up. Everyone wants to be in touch with themselves, and everyone wants to share everything about themselves with everyone else in this room. And we are all equally challenged.

Some of us have more access to our emotions than others. With all the work that I’ve been doing with Somatic Trauma Resolution, EFT, and every Tool I have developed and discovered and shared with you, I have, when I am in a safe place, a huge desire and some ability to be fearless. And it’s all about practicing, because I put myself in situations to trigger this practice for being fearless.

So how can you take this experience from an acting class into your regular life and work with it? Well I know that after only two classes I am much much much more expressive with my husband. I am much, much, much more fearless. So, you could take an acting class. You could take an improvisation class. And if none of that is available you can practice in the bathroom. You can create your own safe space in your bedroom.

So try this:

Write yourself a speech. Write yourself a monologue. Write it about a woman who wants something. And write about what it feels like to want that thing. Now memorize that speech. Now find yourself a safe place where you’re all alone. Imagine that there are people standing in front of you and lights shining on you, and that everyone is rooting for you. And now let the speech out. Share the speech and while you share the words of the speech, see how you’re feeling.

See if you’re going numb. See if you’re weaving around the room and leaning from side to side and moving your arms around. See if you can make yourself be very, very still. See if you can breathe while you’re saying the speech. Now let’s try some other things — and Judith is going to help us through me.

Write down some reasons why you’re saying the speech (and of course imagine someone in particular that you’re saying the speech to). Write down what it is you really, truly want to say — even if the words themselves aren’t saying those things.

And try some extreme ideas: try begging and pleading. Try trying to punish the person you’re talking to. See how the words come out differently without you trying to do anything when your objective is to beg and plead for something as opposed to trying to punish someone for something.

What this exercise can do for you is to help you see that the way you use words is completely flexible. You can even say I hate you too man without trying to punish him, or attack him, or plead for him to do something. You can say I hate you while what you really are trying to tell him is that I love you.

As you experiment with this you will see that the old ways of saying things and doing things aren’t necessary anymore.

Try this in your bathroom or your bedroom, and let me know that works for you and I’ll keep giving you some new tools as we go along, courtesy of Judith. (Oh if you live in Los Angeles and are interested in taking Judith’s classes let me know.)

Love, Rori

Here’s a letter from J – and I had very strong feelings when I read it, because I know J’s history with this man. And also – most truthfully – because this is exactly the way I was, this is exactly the kind of question I would have asked of Rori Raye long ago, and I do NOT want you to have to go to this awful place.

“Hi Rori,

A guy who essentially disappeared from dating me…due to family issues, etc. had recently been contacting me, mostly via text. It’s brought up some feelings for me (i.e., hurt, anger, sadness, and frustration). It is good to hear from him, since i did care about him and we loved each other, however I feel he is truly clueless to the effect of his actions, since he contacts me in a very casual manner…as if he’s being friendly. I’ve texted back that if it’s his intention to contact me that I would prefer to speak with him.

He’s been texting, trying to figure out a time we could chat., which may be tonight, if I’m not busy doing other things.

My question: Even though I took your advice about this guy and acknowledged his lack of contact, etc by telling him I realize your feelings are not there anymore and this is over, but to let me know if there was something that pushed him away, for the next time. He didn’t respond to that….we planned to meet to discuss but that never panned out.

So here is my question: What if he calls to simply chat about how I am, etc…I feel this is a good opportunity to express my anger and frustration that he’s caused me. I don’t know how to bring it up, because I honestly think he will not bring anything up. Thank you. J.”

And here’s my answer:

J – This is where you ask yourself some hard questions – And the first question is “WHAT ARE YOU DOING!!!???? Why are you letting this guy come in and rake you over the coals again???!!!” (You can see I got excited, with all the heavy punctuation.)

I’m just going to say this straight out, because we’ve talked before and I know I can be tough with you — DUMP HIM.

Stop talking to him. You don’t need another friend, especially not a MALE friend, and that’s all he wants. Make that crystal clear — “Hi, it feels great to be in contact again, and yet I know that I still have feelings, so if what you’re looking for here is friendship, I just don’t wish to pursue friendships with men right now, so I wish you well and will not be staying in contact.”

If you were ready to ask him a question that would be helpful to you…you wouldn’t be feeling all this anger, hurt, etc. Do NOT give in and spew it on him. It will make you feel humiliated. Stay away from him if you feel all these things.

Now – let’s take this out into all our experience. This is about being so attached to any one man that you cut off the possibilities of other great men finding you. It’s like putting a fence around yourself that’s marked with the man-you’re- zeroed-in-on’s name. It’s like he’s peed on you, and marked you as his territory, and you’re showing his urine stain to the world.

I know that was a really harsh metaphor – but I want to really drive this home. Even just THINKING about a man is letting him “mark” you – and I don’t want you to do that!

I hear you making up all kinds of reasons for staying in contact with this man, like –

1. It seems harmless.
2. Perhaps you can get information from him about what happened (and I know I suggested this long ago – but that was long ago, when you were hurting anyway and it wouldn’t have hurt you more, or it might work if you were TRULY OVER HIM, but you’re clearly not.)

If you’re hurt over a man, you’re not over him. I don’t care how long ago it was. And talking to him again will only re-open the wound.

Let it heal. Forget him, or let him be your “muse,” or carry him with you on your horse into the rest of your life – but don’t let him have any control over you…

How you “use” him and the memory of him to HELP you and get you what you want is YOUR choice, and you should feel totally okay and happy and good about how you do that.

Letting him worm his way back into your waking life puts HIM in YOUR driver’s seat. And if you try hard to turn that around, you’ll just dig yourself in deeper.

Move AWAY from him – not back into his energy field.

Let me know how this works for you, and please share all your experiences with this kind of thing…

Love, Rori