Do you live in someone else’s head? What is he thinking? I know how he feels, he is so confused, how can I help him with that? Often women are overly concerned about how men feel, that they are likely to ignore how they feel, even neglect their own needs to help someone else feel better. This gets even harder when they are trying to be in, or to secure a relationships. Their “monkey mind” is overly concerned with a man’s head space, causing not just confusion in thinking but also in emotions. We all know what it is like to have out of control thoughts, and feelings and confusing reactions to other people’s inner world, then carry that confusion in our own body. Why do we do that?

What is wrong with being sensitive and supportive of other people’s feelings? It is nice to be kind and caring, but what is wrong with caring for other people’s unchecked feelings is that it comes at a price of neglecting our own feelings. Many of us were taught from childhood by our parents, society and religion, to pay attention at a young age. Pay attention to your elders, pay attention to the most important person in the household, your father. Defer to your brother, let him win. Girls don’t fight, stop crying, stop whining, say you are sorry even when you’re not, don’t talk back, apologize, apologize, apologize.

It is no wonder that most grown women are used to apologizing for feelings other people don’t want to deal with. I’m sorry I heart your feelings, I am sorry if you are offended, I am sorry I misspoke, I am sorry you don’t like your food, I am sorry I acted too bossy even though I am your boss, I’m sorry you’re not feeling well.

The biggest problem with being overly concerned with other people’s feelings and being responsible for their unchecked emotions is that it forces our mind to focus on them and their needs instead of ourselves, our own inner world, and the effect those suppressed feelings and neglected needs have on our own body.

An example. Many years ago, when I first moved in with my now ex husband, I struggled to adjust to co-habitation. I was living with a narcissist whose every need had to be met by me adjusting my own wants and needs so that he could feel good about himself and the relationship. I was too young to recognize this was wrong, I grew up watching my mom put the man first, so I had no clue that I should stand up for myself and ask that my needs be met too.

He wanted to buy an exotic cat. I didn’t like cats at all, in fact, I had a mild phobia, and just didn’t want the work of having a pet. Regardless of how I felt, somehow he convinced me to put a $700 with a breeder. A cat I was uncomfortable with was now coming into our house. We drove two ours to pick up the cat, and as soon as I walked into the breeder’s house, I had my first asthma attack. I started suffocating, choking, my eyes swelled up, I couldn’t breathe.  A few days later I was diagnosed with asthma. It came out of nowhere, I had no allergies to cats before that day, and had never had any disease in my life. Yet now I was on steroids, and dealing with the harsh side-effects for years. Though we didn’t buy that cat, a few years later, he convinced me to adopt two cats. How did I ignore the fact that I have asthma and allergies, and how did I allow for this to happen? Simple, I wasn’t paying attention to myself. I easily ignored my health, my feelings, my emotional needs and my fear of animals, because I was paying way too much attention to his emotional needs. The toll that asthma and steroids took on my body drained me. And being in a relationship with someone we are constantly paying attention to is draining. It took years after that marriage to recover the self.

Incidentally, I have been practicing Ayurveda and meditation most of my life. The way Ayurveda describes the emotional cause of asthma, is that it’s suffocation represents the loss of self. How was I losing myself? I was ignoring it, by being focused on his mind, his emotional health, his needs, and placing the relationship and the marriage above my own needs.

It is nice to be sensitive to other people’s needs. Empathy is a positive quality to have until empathy for others costs you empathy for yourself. The vast majority of women I know are overly concerned with men. From the first moments of a relationship, she transfers her attention to him, and becomes overly concerned with who is he, how is he feeling, what is he thinking, where is he taking this relationship? What the vast majority of women in our private forum fail to recognize is that what she thinks of him is far more important than what he is thinking. What she wants from the relationship is far more important than what he wants. From that first meeting, she unwittingly transfers her power to him. This accounts for 99.9% of the frustration women face in relationships. Their concern for his mind and his feelings disempowers them from Day 1.

This is why women have such a hard time getting their own needs met, especially when the relationship is new. She can’t possibly secure stability, security, trust, nor can she watch how she feels about his character or behavior with her mind is focused into him. Most women are not in their own head space. They are usually in the head space of others: their families, their men, their children, their coworkers- let’s focus on making all relationships nice and pleasant, let’s put out all the fires in the world, before we focus on ourselves.

This lack of focus on the self, shows a lack of respect for the self. Many of us have been taught that too much focus on the self is selfish. Why, yes it is! But we are supporting other people’s selfishness at our own expense. This post is mainly about women being overly focused on men and relationships. This focus is a huge drain to her mind and body, but also a huge drain to womanhood in general. How can women respect womanhood, when their prime concern is how men feel? Most women are more concerned about how a man would fit into her life, than how an exercise routine, a vacation, a career advancement, a stock portfolio would fit into her life.

Another problem with being focused on how men feel before they have earned a relationship with us, our time, and attention, is that it causes us to ignore red flags more easily. It’s no secret that narcissists, psycho and sociopaths know how to use emotions to manipulate people. And often, it is the nicest women, the most supportive and caring ones, that end up taking care of feelings of some very unhealthy men. Those women are the most likely to ignore the self, and the least likely to honor how they feel, or notice when they are drained or suffering.

So, what can a woman do? Practice selfishness. Selfishness isn’t shameful, it is honoring thyself. Another thing that I highly recommend is to reconnect with the self by learning how to be in your own company. Not just for a few minutes a day, but for extended periods of time. Walk with yourself, meditate by yourself, enjoy activities all by yourself, care for yourself, travel by yourself, learn to rely on yourself, and by all means date yourself and treat yourself lavishly.

It is amazing to me how many women refuse to be by themselves. They feel lonely in their own company. Feeling lonely in your own company is a clear sign that you don’t like who you are. If you can’t enjoy your self all by yourself, then how could men enjoy your company? They can only enjoy your support, your attention, your ego strokes, your effort, and all that you do to make them feel good about themselves. But, they will not enjoy you, the real you. You don’t even know the real you, so how could they? If you don’t honor yourself first, no one else will either. If you don’t put yourself first, no one will.

I can spot a selfless woman in the first few days of her meeting a man. She is already in his head instead of her own. Guess what? Anyone can spot her, especially a narcissist or an unhealthy man. She is perfect! She is so concerned with what he is thinking and how he feels, and what is going to happen next, that he knows he has no work to do to secure this situationship. All he has to do is nothing. Absolutely nothing. She is already counting the minutes until she receives the next text, even though he has given her no indication that he is honorable, healthy, balanced or a decent human.

Any mental focus on anything that is outside the body or one’s mind is a transfer of energy, or a transfer of power. Giving thought to how others feel means not giving thought to how we feel. Of course we should care about how our friends, family and healthy relationships feel. But, being too concerned with men in general is not healthy at all, and being in their head space from day one is an immediate disempowerment.

Tuning out of his feelings and getting out of his head-space, is a very important tool for understanding who you are dealing with. When you are emotionally detached, you can rationally observe his behavior and watch how he deals with crises and his own negative feelings. Is he throwing a temper tantrum, is he throwing shit around, is he making other people responsible for his feelings, is he bending the truth, is he gaslighting, is he manipulating you into changing your behavior to meet his needs, is he rational, is he an adult or an emotionally stunted child? You’ll never know unless you observe what happens when you are tuned out of him, and tuned into you.

So, when is the right time to consider how he feels? After he has shown you that he has genuine feelings for you.  When is the right time to help him with his feelings? When he has demonstrated that he is a grown man, perfectly capable of being responsible for dealing with his own feelings in a healthy way. But I want to know him, so when is the time to get into his head and understand him better? When he has proven that he is in a committed, healthy, exclusive relationship with you that is actually going somewhere. Remember, the purpose of a relationship is to get to know a person better. Don’t try to get inside him before you are in an actual, high-functioning, relationship.

In fact, you should always practice being in connection with yourself, and being in touch with your own emotions first. From day one, when you catch your mind wandering to how he is feeling, shift your focus back, and ask yourself why am I more concerned with him than myself? The answer is that you are probably too eager, too unfulfilled, too bored, and in that moment, you are not standing in your own self, you are outside peering into his.

S