Have The Relationship You Want

Hi, I’ve closed an older post for relationship questions because it’s hard for you to read with so many on the screen.  So here’s a new one!

Please know…if I don’t answer you right away…it likely slipped by me (if so, try again, please…), or I’m trying to put it together into an eletter or a post and forgot to let you know…

If you’re new to our community, your comment will go to “moderation” and won’t show up until I see it (which could take up to a day…sometimes two if I’m swamped) – and I so want to welcome you as I approve your comment.

I’m so grateful for the amazing insight, emotion, poetry and magic you are all sharing here, and wish I could reply to each and every comment and question — I  read everything you say, and will try to keep up with replying to this post as best I can…and if it’s important for you to get a personal reply from me…please keep letting me know.

Love, Rori

Hi – the older post for answering your questions is getting so huge it’s hard to get to them all…so here’s a fresh place for you to start asking new ones and helping each other.

So that everything we do here is helpful to you to having the relationship you want – when you share and help each other in the brilliant way you’re doing, keep doing it the way you are -  with feminine feeling messages and sharing and insights – instead of masculine “ideas,” “tips” and “advice.”  (I’ll take care of that “boy” voice.)

Try it like this…“If I were in this situation, this is how I imagine I would feel, and if I could step back, it would feel good if I tried this….” Or…

“I was in that situation, and I know how that felt, it felt…and this is what I tried that didn’t work, and this is what I tried that did work, and here’s what I learned…”

Please forgive me in advance for not being able to answer each of them – I’ll focus on the most general and the most specific, and jump off into posts as much as I can…

Love, Rori

Here’s my answer for Baby Blue Eyes – First – the question:

“Hi Rori, I have a question for you about the ‘Girlfriend Trap.’ I love the concept, but if a man officially asks a lady to be his ‘girlfriend,’ how does one decline – without putting him ‘off’?”

And here’s my answer:

Blue Eyes – If he asks you to be his “Girlfriend” – that’s your opoportunity to talk about what that means to him, and what it means to you.

If you’re very young, in college, and marriage is somewhere far off for you – being a “Girlfriend” is totally the way to go.  It’s great practice, you learn a lot, you get and give all kinds of love.

But if what you want NOW is a real, serious, lifelong relationship and marriage, then you have to ask.

You say: “Wow – that feels fantastic, and before I can accept, can we talk a bit about what that means?”

He’ll say something like – “What do you mean?”

You say: “Well, for me to give up my options and be exclusive with anyone “… (remember – you’re Circular Dating up to the moment he asks you for exclusivity, right?) …”I would only feel comfortable with that if I can feel secure that you’re thinking about me seriously…If you’re interested in marriage down the line, and I can feel comfortable that you know that’s what I’m thinking…”

Please – rewrite this speech in your OWN Feeling Messages, and use it as a way to get CLOSER to your man.  Intimacy means TALKING.

Perhaps, to him – a “Girlfriend” is for now – or he’s looking at YEARS while he figures out what he wants with you “down the line.”

And what you want is a man who wants you FOREVER – and “Girlfriend” is a very short-term step before “Fiance.”

Let me know what you think and FEEL about this…

Love, Rori

This is from Maria’s comment:

“My boyfriend and I for almost 2 years now are often more off than on. (On and Off) Of course I’ve done all the things should not do. However he told me he needed some space away from me. Has stopped calling me. I know we love each other, but how do I get him back. I want a committed relationship with him, he’s obviously not ready said he wants his freedom…”

Here’s my answer: Maria, First – thank you for joining this community and asking a great question…He’s asked for space. That means, to me, that you no longer are stuck in the “girlfriend trap” – and that you’re free to date.

That means you don’t need to tell him anything (in fact – I don’t want you contacting him for ANY REASON now, not after he’s expressly “asked you for space”)

And by “Date” – I mean, lunch, coffee, dinner, a movie, a concert, even making out. I do NOT suggest you have sex (not even more than kissing) with anyone until this “relationship” feels resolved. (We’ll keep talking…)

You are not dating to find a new man (although that might happen as a bonus!). You’re dating to get a stronger sense of yourself, to feel stronger inside, to get a fix on your own boundaries, and to have FUN.

You CANNOT help a relationship recover by being sad and miserable.

You can only help a relationship recover by recovering your own high spirits and sense of fun, your own devotion to YOU and to having a good life, good times, and good feelings.

This is not only the BEST way to attract a terrific man who can make you happy, it’s the best way to heal everyone and everything around you.

You feel good about YOU, you share that fun and good feeling with everyone just because it radiates out of you, and everyone feels better and feels COMPELLED to be around you.

Love, Rori

This is fantastic! I’m truly starting to get a fuller idea of who you are and what your situation is – and yet I’m going to answer just off of each comment, as if I don’t know you, to give a better answer…

FIRST – it’s important that you know we are all DIFFERENT. Our personalities are totally different, our values are different, our deep-down themes are different.

I love the “Enneagram,” which categorizes personalities in a terrific way, and the Myers-Briggs personality tests that counselors use to help people find the professions and jobs that most suit them and most interest them. What they all show is that you can really see if a person’s “themes” – the way they act those out in the world, is to retreat from life because of fear, to behave dangerously because of fear, to want to joyfully try everything, to be focused on serving others, etc. – all kinds of ways to categorize behavior, based on what’s most IMPORTANT to a person.

And…there are a lot of inner reasons why one thing (let’s say loyalty, or security, or making peace, or anger) would be more important to one woman than to another. Why those inner driving forces would “run” one woman and not another.

So – my Tools are to help you follow the Rori Raye Mantra no matter WHAT your particular, unique inner driving forces are.

In the posts on Power & Self-Esteem, we’ve been working on line 2 of the Mantra – “Follow Your Feelings” – and you’re all getting SO good at it!

Now I see we need to get a clearer picture of how to Trust Your Boundaries and Choose Your Words – so that you don’t feel like your feelings are out-of-control and you find yourself acting on every impulse.

So – let’s start with Alias Girl’s comment - in this comment you talk about being too picky, and wonder..”…I mean I seem to have become a man magnet but how do I raise the quality of these men? what about ME is attracting low quality men? am I low quality and just unaware of it and these men are reflecting that back to me? what tool can I use to attract my dream man?”

Here’s what’s happening. You’re allowing all kinds of men to get into your space – which is WONDERFUL. This is totally the first step you need to take.

Here’s what’s missing, and where we’ll go next:

1. What you don’t FEEL yet – is that you have a CHOICE – and you DO!

2. The men you are attracting are not necessarily “low-quality” men. As you learn to SPEAK to them “I really felt icky when you said…” “I feel very sensitive. “Kindness and compassion and generosity are very important qualities for me in a man, and I don’t feel comfortable with being judged or hearing that kind of stuff…”

Do you see how you’re still thinking about “What do I DO?” – and we still need to focus on “What do I FEEL?” – and then practice saying that out loud to a man.

That’s what all these men are showing up for – for you to PRACTICE on. It’s much easier to learn when you practice on men you’re NOT hugely attracted to, so that when the really great guys come along it’s almost automatic for you.

I mean – we’re moving fast – but to really get this all down you have to practice. And that’s why these men are showing up – to SHAKE YOU UP!!! In a GOOD way!

3. You are attracting (and attracted to) men who are not the quality you want for lifelong commitment not because YOU are low-quality. It’s because you BELIEVE (somewhere deep inside) that you are low-quality, and that this kind of man is all you deserve.

That’s what we’re working on. To get you so loving yourself, so appreciating yourself that you whip around those old, deep, hard to get to beliefs about yourself.

So – Alias Girl – This is your focus – to get how this works. I want you to love and appreciate yourself – and then I want you to love and appreciate the fact that WHATEVER man has shown up for you to practice with, and I want you to FIND OUT, just by intuiting, and being, and receiving, what the MESSAGE is that he’s bringing. Find out what’s interesting about him. Find out why he showed up in your life, just by following your feelings.

Sometimes the message is: “I don’t have to do this again…”

Next post for Marplot about “Depressed” men.

We’re talking about attracting and then rejecting “low-quality” men – or just men YOU don’t feel are good quality. And we’re talking about what to do with those men for PRACTICE (and perhaps even TRANSFORMING them) instead of passing on them and shutting them out the moment their bad qualities show up.

This answer is for Marplot, whose “crush” is depressed, and I know this is very, very common (especially with the economic turmoil right now – it particularly affects men, whose entire self-respect is often based on their ability to “provide) – so let me know if it helps you, too.

When you are depressed, you are NOT FEELING. Depression means you are close to NUMB. Sadness may come through, but the emotion that is most important to understanding and dealing with depression is ANGER.

When we feel ANGRY, and cannot bear the anger – either because of it’s force, or who we feel “inappropriately” angry at (like family and friends) – we stuff it down. For those of us who are trained by lifelong habit to go to depression when they feel angry (and this is usually because your family, school, culture, religion told you that anger is unacceptable and inappropriate) – the anger can build up over a lifetime into rage, and STILL not come to the surface.

Your depressed man is angry. He feels shame and guilt at feeling so angry. And that makes him even more angry. When you HELP a person who feels so angry and ashamed, you make them ANGRIER. You make them MORE depressed.

The way to deal with a depressed person is to be so in touch with your own feelings, so turning, morphing, riffing your sensations and feelings into loving ones toward yourself, so that you can feel MORE and MORE of your emotions instead of less and less, that you create an atmosphere of SAFETY around you for EVERYONE.

This is basically what it is to be a “guru.” To be so UNJUDGING of yourself that you are automatically not judging of anyone else. And, amazingly, you don’t have to be brilliant at this.

Just being aware of how you work inside, and knowing how to morph and turn and riff bad feelings into GOOD feelings without stuffing down the bad feelings, even just a TINY bit of this will shift your “vibe” so momentously that everyone around you will shift, too.

WARNING: When you create safety for a depressed man, which means being in touch with and able to express in Feeling Statements your OWN rage – he will begin to thaw.

And guess what the first feeling he’ll let loose will be? You guessed it – ANGER.

That means, if you’re with a depressed man, and you create safety for him by feeling comfortable with your own anger – you’re going to hear some anger coming from him.

He may all of a sudden explode. He may cut loose – instead of with a nasty ‘barb,” as angry depressed men often do (they often get ‘bitchy” along with “moody”) – with real life ANGER.

You may feel scared. You may feel defensive.

That’s why it is ABSOLUTELY CRUCIAL for you to do the steps to get to Feeling Statements no matter what, to get to Power Speeches – to FEEL OKAY – no matter what’s going on (short of physical violence – get away from that instantly).

You’re going to need to be able to Trust Your Boundaries in the face of a man letting go of years and years of anger that has NOTHING to do with YOU.

So – for now, until you get really fluent in Strong Surrender – where you can drop all your defenses and just Stand There in your inner strength, feeling your feelings and expressing them, and leaving the room when it feels too bad..I suggest you stay away from a depressed man.

We all think that what we’ll get if we open up a man who’s depressed is sadness. We think he’ll cry. And we feel like we can handle that. It makes us feel needed and good, up to a point. And yes, we do get that. Tears are part of the hurt and pain and sadness he feels. But it’s the ANGER that’s making him DEPRESSED instead of just “sad.”

So – if you’re already involved with a depressed man, take a look at my Toxic Man program – that will teach you how to handle a man’s anger in a way that facilitates his healing, and makes intimacy between you possible – while honoring YOURSELF.

Love, Rori

I so want to answer every single question I get from you, so want to hear every single step you take and every story you so graciously write me about -

I thought it might make it easier and faster for me to give you the most help I can by simply working my answers to your questions into my posts…

…so – after you comment and work through my new Tools in other posts, go ahead and post your stories and your questions here as comments, and I’ll jump off of them into more new posts – (I’ll let you know with a link where to find the new posts).

I love hearing from you, so let’s see how this works!

Love, Rori