Don’t try too hard. We live in a culture that values hard work, effort, trying, endurance, commitment, resolve, achievement, struggle, and beating the odds. I love America and everything that it stands for. I also love that Americans are self-reliant, and respect good work and a solid work ethic. However, I am going to make a case against trying too hard.

This is something that I learned from meditating for 12+ years. Effort is the killer of realization. You have heard the saying “What you resist, persists”. Whatever you fight against in your life, tends to turn into a bigger problem. Whatever you let go of, tends to diminish or disappear, or comes back in a more harmonious form.

Effort is the expending of energy. When we hit an obstacle in our life, conventional wisdom says to try and try again. Work harder, try harder, make more effort to obliterate this boulder that is right in front of our face. But there is a smarter, easier way to deal with life’s obstacles. Don’t try so hard and simply walk around the obstacle.

Imagine you are trying to get on the road, but your hand brake is still engaged. You step on the accelerator, but the car won’t go. The harder you push the accelerator, the faster your wheels spin, but with that obstacle, the hand-brake still on, you are not going anywhere. It is your effort that is making you try harder against the hand-brake. It is the effort that is burning the rubber off your tires, and it is the effort that is wasting gas in your fuel tank because the harder you try to drive with your handbrake on, the more energy you waste. Instead of trying harder, you should try smarter. Relax and think a little, there’s a good reason why this car, or relationship, or this work project won’t move forward. Your great effort and persistence are probably killing it.

Have you ever been in a relationship with a persistent little bugger who was determined to make the relationship lead to something bigger, but the harder they tried the more you got turned off? Have you ever wanted a job so badly, that you did everything possible, stood on your head, demonstrated your willingness to do anything, and they still gave the job to someone else? In meditation, effort kills the meditation itself. The harder you try to meditate, and achieve a mental state you think you should be in, the more impossible that state is to reach. I always tell people never try to meditate, only relax and get comfy in your own mind.

Working hard is actually not working smart. Have you noticed that there are people out there killing themselves, sacrificing peace for their work, trying so hard but they never earn enough? And then there are people whose work is easy, they make money in their pajamas, and they enjoy their free time as if money grows on trees? They are not working hard, they are working smart. They work when they are in the zone, and take frequent breaks to get inspired. When they hit an obstacle, the last thing they do is try harder.

You want to be VP, but your boss scoffs at the idea, he won’t even give you a chance. You are in a tough relationship, and your partner of 7 years won’t even consider marriage. Of what use is trying to argue someone into wanting you? Has anyone ever won that argument? Have you ever been able to argue your way into someone’s heart? Back off, your effort is killing the situation.

Effort is useful when you are trying to push an inspired idea forward, but only if you have fuel in your tank, and a clear road ahead. A gentle effort or a light tap on the accelerator is enough to move a car forward. But pushing, trying, forcing, is never a good idea in any situation.

Effort kills creativity. To make a beautiful painting one needs inspiration, love, and an idea to express on canvas. All artists know what happens when they try too hard to express themselves- the idea won’t flow out of them. Effort destroys the painting. Pushing yourself to brush paint on a canvas with nothing but effort, makes it look like a paint by the numbers job. But allowing for inspiration to come and then allowing it to flow through, results in a masterpiece. Allowing is the opposite of effort. It is a sure knowing that the right inspiration will come at the right time. It is the confidence that the problem will get solved. It is the knowing that you are worth so much more than this person who is telling you ‘No’ sees in you.

So, don’t try so hard to make everything work. Ease off that accelerator, stop trying to drive with that hand-brake engaged. It is there for a very good reason. It is telling you, this trip is not for you. How do you know to move in a particular direction? The most loving relationships feel effort-LESS. When you are in a state of flow, inspiration and creativity feel effort-LESS. When you have a job you feel passionate about, work is effort-LESS. When things flow to you effortlessly, they are a definite YES!!! Roadblocks, obstacles, rejection and the word NO, exist to give you clarity: This is road is not for you.

S

Breakups suck. Even when we logically know that the relationship isn’t working and that the person isn’t in our best interest, it can still be difficult to move on. We are all taught to make the best out of every situation, to give people ample chances to be who we need them to be, adjust our own wants and needs for the sake of being in a relationship. I don’t agree with traditional relationship advice because I see it doesn’t serve people, especially not women. When we logically know that he isn’t who we want, and when we emotionally feel like this is inadequate, it is our responsibility to take the steps to free ourselves, and do better next time.

Letting go is hard, but I consider it a spiritual practice. In fact, I have written about it many times because I have discovered its power to heal, to get me unstuck from stagnant situations, and move in a better direction. I won’t describe the process here, but will say that it is crucial to us doing better, and better, and better for ourselves. The less we attach ourselves emotionally to people, the more forgiving we can be, and the more we are willing to allow for a peaceful parting of ways. That is easier said than done, I know, but if we make it a permanent spiritual practice, it does get easier.

Inside The Goddess Principles private forum, there are a lot of women who are finding it hard to move on. These are highly evolved and experienced women who are well qualified to counsel others, but like all humans have a door that wasn’t firmly shut behind them. The typical scenario was a breakup that occurred two years ago, but for the sake of friendship they keep the person in their life. Friendship is important, but being friends with a well-meaning ex is still and always will be an old energy and an old relationship pattern. So this quest to prove we can still be friends, turns into a heavy friendship that hurts just as much as when they were sleeping together. This friendship also becomes a crutch because neither person has to fully face the breakup, as there is still hope in having loyal companionship. Two years later, a woman asks why am I still not in a new relationship? Why am I still oddly stuck on my ex? I know I don’t want him, I see that he is not good for me, but for some reason I am still stuck on him, and only him. Many move on and date, but continue to experience the same relationship over and over again with a different person.

Think of each relationship as a program, and at a certain point in our lives our program becomes corrupt. At some point we start reprogramming our wants, needs and expectations to meet the needs of the other person, because we falsely believe that this relationship is more important than what we truly want and need. We keep editing our program until it starts to behave more like what the other person wants, or whatever it takes to maintain a relationship with a person who is actually not who we want. Logically speaking, no relationship can run on a bad program, and inevitably the program crashes.

If you are like most people, you wake up, get dressed, put on your makeup, revise your Facebook status and actively start seeking a new relationship. And then a new guy comes into your life, and he is just awesome, and he too has a few glitches we think we must adjust to. This one is worth keeping, and maybe investing in a bit more than the other guy, so we tweak our programming even more to make ourselves more compatible with the other guy. The more we edit our program, the more our course veers closer to his path, and we are now totally off-course from our own path. Once again, bad programming results in a crash, and somehow this is all his fault. But who edited the program?

Over the years we keep getting into new relationships with old programming disguised in fresh packaging and we wonder why none of our relationships are working. We blame bad relationships on people’s unwillingness to give us what we want, their selfishness, their self-centeredness, and a thousand other psychological disorders. No one sees that they are running a corrupt program.

But why do we keep the old program running in the background of all our relationships. We are afraid to let go of what we know. Somehow those past traumatic crashes, and painful endings are comforting. It is easier to stick with what we already know. And also, many of us are looking for a human to take us exactly as we are, with all our flaws, all our boo-boos and make it all better. But, if the other person is healthy, they know it’s is not their job to heal you and make you better. So, an old program can only function for a very limited time with another person whose program is just as corrupt.

A part of the reason we keep running corrupt programs is because we have not firmly closed the back door to old viruses. We hit delete, but it is still in the recycle bin. We cleaned  the hardware, but it lies stored on an external drive. Sooner or later that old virus will find its way back into your program. It never left, you never fully deleted it, it was always spying on you in the background, in other words, you left the door wide open.

Why is your ex back? Because you left the door unlocked? Why is he still spying on you? Because you gave him your password. Why are you still thinking about him? No, it is not because you were cosmically connected, it is because you never blocked the dude in the first place. This person still has access to you on some level, even if it is through a tiny keyhole, as long as an entry point is not secure, the pesky virus will find you.

There is nothing more disheartening than to listen to a woman, and some of my male friends complain about an ex whom they just can’t shake. And inevitably this is a person they had a lot of compassion for, didn’t want to cut off, and hey, a few months later they have magically fixed whatever made their code corrupt and they are knocking on your door with an offer to install an upgrade. The only reason you are torn between breaking their heart and breaking your own is because you are running the same program in the background, and there is a back door still open for the pesky virus to crawl into.

The crash is even harder when the other person refuses to give us closure. It would be so much easier if he clearly stated I will never see you again, I am marrying someone else, instead of being silent, walking away, but still keeping channels of communication wide open. Will he text me again? Will he like my Facebook post? If he does, you’ll feel hopeful enough to continue being stuck until you receive the next sign, and the next one, and the next one. This is how people linger in hopeless and toxic dramas.

It is not the other person’s responsibility to give you closure. In fact, he cannot because there will never be adequate explanations and clear enough words to soothe you into letting go. And as long as you wait, you are leaving room for more pain, and stagnation. What you can do is take the matter into your own hands, and take responsibility for your own closure.

Yes, you can give yourself closure, in fact that is the only permanent and effective way to guarantee peace of mind. You do have the ability to seal all entry points into your life: social media, e-mail, phone numbers, and change all passwords. A lot of people find this the most painful aspect of the breakup, and see it as the ultimate loss. Well after the relationship is over, they are clinging to the possibility by simply keeping the lines of communication open, just in case, some day he needs a transplant and they are the only viable donor. It would be cruel to seal the door shut, wouldn’t it?

Here is something a few people know. You don’t have to believe me, but some of us can see and feel energy. It flows within us, between all people, and the flow is stronger between people who once had an emotional connection. You can break up with a person, but the reason you are stuck on them is that energetic connection still flows. You can make the physical move away from them, even move to another country, but the connection remains. Why? Sure, you may be still partly obsessed, hopeful, and stubborn about letting go. But the reason you are is because on some level you can still feel the person’s energy. Even if you are not one of those people who can feel energy of others, you are still susceptible to it. You cannot see, hear or smell a radio wave, but when it hits the receiver in your car, you start to sing a long.

Thoughts are just energy. And obsessive thoughts are very strong, stubborn energy. How do you cut them off, when your monkey mind just won’t let go?

After my last breakup, I had to do some serious work on myself. This person’s energy remained even though we promised never to see each other again, even though we live in two different countries, even though we both started dating other people. Logically speaking I was 100% sure I did not want this man, but the thoughts and hurt feelings and the anger remained. I did unfriend him on Facebook, and thought that was enough, but it wasn’t. I could literally still read this person, and was very aware of his whereabouts, feelings, his pain. How??

The energy flow between us remained. We were still thinking about each other, checking on each other via social media, talking to mutual friends. Two years later, and I was asking myself why the hell are all new relationships following this same old program that he brought into my life? I am dating the same person in a different body, over and over again. But the energy between us still flowed because I did not cut it off. And that old virus was still running in the background of my corrupt program.

You don’t have to believe in or feel energy, but I am sure you know what it is like to be stuck on someone while you are trying to move on. Well, there is one guaranteed way to get closure.  Close the damn door.

When I say close the door, I mean seal every single entry point. If you are still friends, trust me that virus has replicated a thousand times over, you have a lot more work to do now. But, if you truly want something better for yourself, you have to say good bye to whoever is keeping you stuck, and sometimes it is an old ex who is still your friend. If you think that unfriending someone on Facebook will send them a message about how little you care, you are right. Because unfriending someone still allows both of you to see each other’s profile, so the connection remains, so will your thoughts, your feelings and your obsession over this person you can still check in on from time to time. If they can get the message that you are displeased, then the channel of communication is still open. Block that mofo so you have no way of laying eyes on him again.

But blocking someone is more beneficial to you and your own peace of mind than to him. This is because once you press the block button, you have brought about a finality with your own hand. This is your own decision, and once done, it is firmly implanted in your mind that there is no going back. The bridge has been burned. The decision is yours, the power is yours, and the closure is now yours. You own it, and owning it feels really good.

This is one of the most difficult things to convince people to do, to bring about a finality to an old relationship or an old block, or an old virus that is still eating us alive. So many women think that this last step will be the most painful, when in fact this is the most liberating step of all.

An interesting thing that happens is that many of them feel a sense of overwhelming peace and freedom once it is done. Knowing that I gave myself closure instead of waiting for someone to give it to me is extremely empowering. If you feel energy, you will also feel the added bonus of not being pulled by those obsessive thoughts any longer. Your mind is free and clear and you are open to new situations, and truly ready to take on something better. You now have what you wanted all along, a fresh start.

I consider letting go a spiritual practice. As you all know, I meditate on a regular basis and the habit has given me insight to a lot of personal blocks that I have struggled for years to overcome. Letting go has become so liberating to me that I now do it on a regular basis. I let go of all those old energies, especially people who keep bringing back old patterns, unhealthy obsessions, repeating situations into my life. I no longer feel guilty asking people to leave, distancing myself, even clicking the delete button when necessary. Technology has given us a quicker and more convenient way to make friends, but also a more efficient way to let them go as well. Do not feel guilty. In a lifetime, we will meet exponentially more people than previous generations ever could, and we need more effective ways to keep our paths clean and our minds clear. If you have to remove a stubborn energy or a giant boulder from your path, the less you stress about it the faster you’ll move on.

But letting go is not enough, you also have to close the door and seal it shut. The only way you will move on is when you no longer have the ability to look back, when there is no way to restore a burned bridge, and when it is you who has made the final decision and honored it. You alone have the power to give yourself closure, and you alone are responsible for making sure all entry points are secure. If you believe that the power of closure lies within the other person, you will suffer in pain until they give it to you, which may be never. But if you know that the power is yours, and yours alone, the sooner you close and seal all doors shut, the sooner you feel ready to move on.

S

Only you can give yourself closure, not the other person. When you are struggling to calm your troubled mind and wondering if things could have turned out differently, it is probably because there are a thousand different what if scenarios running through your mind.  What if I worded my feelings differently? What if I gave him another chance? What if

I am a big fan of self-responsibility because it is a major aspect of being a Goddess. I alone am responsible for the healthy and unhealthy situations I am in, and if I am not satisfied with a certain aspect of my life, I alone am responsible for changing the outcome. I do not control people, that is a major violation of being a Goddess and a sign of deep insecurity. But I am in full control of my body, reactions, responses, composure, and charting my own course, filtering people in and out of my life, deciding who to associate with and how much of myself to give.

If I am failing in a particular aspect of my life, I have a lot of work to do on myself (never on the other person). It is the New Year and I have been thinking about how I want to show up in 2019. In December I cleaned out a lot of the old habits, people, negative thoughts, attachments to things that were not getting me anywhere. Yes, I let people go. I never do this in a mean-spirited way, always with kindness, gratitude for their time and whatever they taught me, wishing them the best.

Two days before Christmas I decided to let go of an important connection. It was amazing, but we were diverging, the connection was never fully satisfying, and we both reached that point where we were testing each other on how much the other was willing to give or not give, frustrating to both of us. I could see that control was an important aspect of how he deals with people, and I have no desire to be controlled. I leave all situations as soon as I sense that control is the culprit.

Knowing that this is will never be enough, I let go- my most powerful practice of self-growth. Christmas was a bit of a downer, but it was okay- by now I have let go so many times, that I have come to expect an immediate improvement. Today is 10 days later, and a new person has entered my life, so I know that the faster and easier we let go, the faster we allow and welcome something new. For 2019, I assigned myself the responsibility to take a leap forward in being more open to new opportunities, more social (I have been a hermit through 2018), less judgemental, more accepting and more focused (focus has always been a challenge of mine).

To do this, I have to move past a lot of old people, habits and situations which comfort me in their stability but have no power to change me for the better. All these things are happening because I resolved to change myself first- not ask other people to improve for my benefit. The hard choices and changes in behavior have to come through me. The work is mine, the discomfort is mine, the willingness is mine, if any pain, that is also mine. Don’t look for people to ease your pain or share your pain with- that is cruel to other people. Instead, work on yourself and your own emotions.

In December I changed myself by taking an uncomfortable action. In January I already see positive results. A new person who has healthier qualities has already showed up. What aspect of yourself will you change first?

S

How authentic are you? How true are you to yourself?  How often do you cheat on yourself?  We cheat ourselves every single time we adjust our words and our behavior to meet someone else’s expectations. It seems like a white lie, it is totally acceptable to avoid hurting someone’s feelings by softening our words.

But, the world is full of adults, especially women who are altering their opinions, softening their words, adjusting their positions on very important subjects to fit a role and meet others’ expectations.  On the rare occasions we actually say exactly what we think, a person is deeply offended even though our words are absolutely true. The discomfort is felt within us, they may be offended, but we are the ones who feel bad. But the bad feeling isn’t because we offended the other, the bad feeling is that we hurt ourselves not being comfortable with speaking our truth. Should I be true to you, or should I be true to myself?

Do I exist to meet your expectations? Is it my responsibility to make sure you don’t get offended? I didn’t come to this planet to meet other people’s expectations. I am not a fairy, it is not my job to make your wishes come true. Who are you to demand I be who you need me to be? What right do you have to ask that of me?  ‘But, I am your father, I am your mother, I am your husband, I am your child, I am your boss, I am your boyfriend, and if you want to be on good terms with me, you should be making me happy’. If you want to get along with others, you must continuously meet their expectations, without complaining and do it with a smile. You must never offend or you are a bully, disagreeable, a bad girl, a bitch, a witch, a scary woman.

Ask any woman how she is doing. The standard reply is: my husband is working too much, my kids are at soccer practice, my dad just had heart surgery. No, how are you? Difficult question, she now really has to consider, how am I? Very often, there is no authentic answer because most women have no idea who they are nor how they are feeling in the moment, and on the rare occasion that they do, the answer is totally unacceptable. Whatever answer she gives, it is quickly corrected by the other who knows better how she feels that she does.  I told my mother I feel run down and tired lately and she corrected me and said it is because I don’t come home and spend enough time with her. Really? Is that really why I am tired? No, the truth is I am exhausted because I spent a week with her in ER, multiple doctor’s appointments, did all her grocery shopping, took her to a specialist, picked up multiple prescriptions at the pharmacy, and drove 200 miles in a matter of days to be good to her. Being true to myself, I actually told her the truth, 100% the truth. Can you guess her response?  The response was an explosion of emotions, most of them toxic guilt peppered with insults, and a conclusion that none of her children love her and how unlucky she is to have a daughter like me. So what is easier?  I can see why the white lie “I’m fine mom” is easier to swallow than the truth.

But, what happens when we swallow the truth? We are the ones who swallow the toxin, not the other person. My response triggered my mom into an emotional outburst, but those were her feelings, her emotions, her guilt, her stunted growth, her limitations. So how did I honestly feel when I spoke my truth? I’ll begin by telling you how I felt before I spoke it.

Mom fell down on Christmas Eve and hurt her arm. I am not a doctor but I tried to feel for a broken bone. She was clearly in pain, but could move her shoulder, elbow and hand. Something was pinching, the elbow was sore, but the entire arm could move. Clearly it was not broken. She is 75 and obviously at that age bones break easily, so I suggested I take her to her primary physician in the morning and gave her an ice pack. She started crying that if dad was alive she would be taken to the emergency room, but since no one cares for her, she may as well deal with the pain quietly. At 11 pm we checked into ER, she was examined at 3am, and we went home at 6 am on Christmas morning. Apparently, my service to her was not good enough, I did not comfort her, instead I fell asleep by her bed while she suffered in pain, and drove home in silence on purpose to make her feel bad. She refused a home aide which I was willing to arrange to make it easier for her to shower and dress. Instead I did that for a week. My services included shopping, cooking, dressing, serving, meds, and cleaning the house, while her arm was NOT broken and still useable. But when I told her I am tired, apparently that was highly inappropriate and ungrateful of me. The reason I said what I said is because I have been practicing saying my truth for years, and truly felt it was honest. What is wrong with admitting you are tired?

For the entire week I was silent, doing what was expected. I was resentful when I received texts from my sister who was admonishing me for doing nothing for mom. I was angry when friends and neighbors called because mom told everyone she has no help at all. I was silent, but every cell in my body was seething with quiet rage. For an entire week I couldn’t sleep. I was either delivering her meds, or waking up in the middle of the night angry. My stomach hurt, my heart hurt, my throat was tight, I was explosive, while doing exactly what she expected. Why did she cancel the home care service? It is included in her health insurance plan. Physically and emotionally I felt like I was dead inside, swallowing my truth to make her feel okay, keep my sister calm, play the good daughter to friends and neighbors who have been hearing for years that I am the cold one.  But I am the one who visits her more than anyone, more than any sibling, friend and neighbor combined. Why am I not good?

I felt like shit because I was not being true to myself. I thought that in the last ten years I had learned how to protect my boundaries, say no without an apology, be quite alright disappointing people and not regretting it at all. Over the years my honesty started to feel empowering, and once I learned to own my truth 100% without ever backing down no matter what it costs me (friendships, jobs, approvals) I felt like a Goddess. People noticed me, admired me, commended me, wanted to be like me. Sure some were offended because I was not coddling their feelings, but emotionally healthy, strong, balanced people knew what I was doing and respected me for it.

I knew what I had to do. I had to tell my mom the truth. I corrected her, and I said “No mom, I am not tired because I don’t see you enough, I am exhausted because I spent a week being your daughter, your house keeper, your nurse, and you haven’t said thank you”. Silence. Disbelief, And then an attack. But never mind the blood bath. Getting all these toxic, bottled up emotions off my chest felt like such a relief. A week’s worth of anger, resentment, tension and tears gushed out of me. I didn’t exaggerate a word, I spoke accurately, truthfully and without a personal attack. Yes, she exploded in anger, but she could not argue with a word I said because it was 100% true.

Bottling up emotions hurts- we all know that. But what does adjusting our everyday opinions so we can fit other people’s reality do to us? What is the price of congeniality, of getting along?  If we want to fit in, we have to meet other people’s expectations or suffer the consequences.

Who are you? Do you even know? How often do you get in touch with your true feelings, not the appropriate feelings you learned to express on Facebook, but your own feelings? Do you have a quiet rage brewing inside you? When was the last time you allowed that rage to spill out and cleanse your mind and body of that toxicity? Has it been so long that you have forgotten what that tight knot in the pit of your stomach is? That tightness in your chest that has become a permanent part of your existence has been getting tighter and tighter for years. I bet you have forgotten what caused it in the first place.

We are sick. We spend lifetimes editing our true selves. It starts in pre-school when we are taught to sit still, not say anything that could hurt the other kid’s feelings, to not say anything that might embarrass our parents.  Women have it harder, because you want to be a good girl, not just to your parents but also to society, your lovers and especially to all those men who cannot have you. Yes, you have to please them too, because their bloated egos are not supposed to get hurt, they are the most dangerous and vengeful of all.

Just who the hell am I supposed to be? Being a good daughter means meeting your parent’s expectations of good grades, clean reputation, polite opinions, appropriate degrees, marriage eligibility and willingness to provide them with grandchildren, taking care of them into their old age and never complaining. Being a good employee means striving to be the best but never better than the weakest male, being ambitions but never so much as to be perceived as non-feminine, wanting to succeed all the while keeping the males feeling like men, never outpacing them, only being as successful as they can handle you being. Being a good wife is mindless oblivion, juggling a house, a child, a job, your own health and of course the man. Oh, I forgot, we still have to function in society and be soft, polite, inoffensive, feminine but not too feminine because then we are just asking for it, intelligent but not too intelligent for our own good, we are supposed to stand up for our own rights but never be called a feminist, that’s just going too far. What gives?  How much can one human possibly be? How far can I contort myself into the ridiculous expectations everyone has of me? The minute I say No, I get shock, disbelief, automatically I have disappointed someone who shouldn’t have been disappointed. Being a “good” woman means living with multiple personality disorder, trying to keep track who am I supposed to be to every person.  The minute she upsets somebody or refuses to meet their expectations she is cited with judgement and proof that she is not a good whatever. You know how tired I am of being good?

But in my quest to take better care of myself, honor myself and maintain healthy boundaries I started speaking my truth ten years ago. At the office, working in an all male environment, I quickly learned that the blunt unvarnished truth gained me more respect. Men hate to hear the word no, especially anything that could pinch their bloated ego. But I worked with a hundred bloated egos, and saw that when I am nice they take advantage of my niceness. If I am polite they mistake that for my weakness. If I am respectful, they take advantage of that too. So, I started stating the blunt truth. Guess who couldn’t handle that.

As long as my blunt truth was accurate, logical, backed up with evidence, they could whine but they could not do anything about it. I got called into HR several times, but I always spoke with provable facts. It was always the guys leaving HR with their tails between their legs.

In dating, speaking the truth is even more important, especially for women. We all know what it is like to be nice to a guy, only to have him misinterpret our niceness for whatever his wild imagination can conjure up. When I mean No, I back that up with at least a dozen displays of I am not interested.  For example, I never let anyone I don’t have an interest in to buy me a drink. Allowing someone to buy you a drink implies, ‘I might be interested, I’ll listen to what you have to say for 15 minutes’. I know as soon as I lay eyes on him that I will never be interested in him, so there is no reason for me to imply Maybe.  Guys can be morons, and a lot of women are afraid to say the truth, it is easier to sometimes listen politely than have him get lose his cool.  But the cost of tolerating a douche-bag for an hour, and allowing your presence to boost his ego is even more painful. Why should a guy who has no chance with you at all believe that he does? Is it better that he is offended or that I endure the conversation? Which option honors me more? I always choose Me.

My dad once said: “You have disappointed me”. I replied “You don’t say. I didn’t live the way you thought was appropriate?” He said “You didn’t. You could have re-married, you could have given me grandchildren”.  “Then I wouldn’t have lived my life the way I wanted to live it, I would have lived for you”. He said “You owed me that”.

Our parents are the main reason we are afraid to speak our truth, and the main reason we learn to bottle up our truth over the course of a lifetime. From a young age we are taught to please them, obey them, take their advice, adjust our behavior according to what suits them. Eventually we become good girls and good boys, we become appropriate. We then get into relationships and walk on egg-shells fearing that we will make the other person unhappy. Fairy tales tell us that happily ever after means making your partner always happy. How could we possibly do that without sacrificing our own happiness, and our own mental health?

You will find that when we speak our own truth, no matter how displeasing it is to the other person, we are living honestly, and are being the best version of ourselves. That is the only way we can be 100% authentically in touch with who we truly are. And there is no better relationship than when we have found a human who is 100% in agreement with our inner truth. My best relationships have been with men who could handle my truth. The admired me for it, respected me for it, and knew that I will always honor my own feelings over theirs. I won’t mince words, when a guy is an asshole I show him the evidence. Believe it or not, a real man can actually handle the truth without falling apart.

I don’t abuse men with tantrums and emotional outbursts, but I do say No, that’s not good enough, I’m not buying that, you are acting like a man-child, I’m not your mother, get over yourself. The person who cannot handle the truth is not your friend, it is an emotional manipulator who will always demand you adjust your opinion to make them feel better. Is that a valuable person to add to your life? Nope.

So I was leaving mom’s house after a long week of her sucking every ounce of energy out of me. I was never physically affectionate with my parents, at a certain age it felt artificial to me. As I was leaving she said ‘So, you don’t want to give your mom a kiss?’ I recoiled. Every muscle in me tightened, I walked over, not breathing and gave her a peck on the cheek. She said ‘You hate me.’

I walked away and said “I don’t care enough to hate you, but I don’t like you at all”.

And walked out. It felt good to be honest, and every single one of those words was my truth. I never told my mom how I truly felt, I am glad I finally got that off my chest. I am sure she did not feel good hearing it, but she never wanted to hear anything that contradicted her self-perception.

We can’t teach people how they should feel, our feelings are our own and theirs belong to them. We also can’t be responsible for their feelings without sacrificing our own stability. At this age it does not matter that I have a disapproving mother. I stopped trying to be who she imagined me to be decades ago. I don’t owe it to her to live in her warped reality, I have a reality of my own. I can only be true to myself, and welcome people who are comfortable with my truth into my life.

As always, no apologies, no regrets.

S

Do you have a neverending story with someone? An impossible, unattainable man, that overly complicated situation that never turned into a relationship. This story has actually been preventing you from starting to live your life. You cannot start to live unless you write a new story, unfortunately, you are still stuck in the old one. A lot of women mistake that impossibly unattainable man as The One. Fairy tales have told us that that one man is the only one worth waiting for, and that excruciating wait will eventually come with a great reward- everlasting love. Some of us believe that suffering is noble, and the wait is exactly what makes us worthy. Others are simply addicted to rejection, and mistake emotional manipulation for a relationship. He is slippery, impossible, ungraspable, but the fact that he is that consuming, makes you believe he is real.

The impossible man is exactly that- impossible. And that long history with a phantom is just that, a relationship with no one. There is no reward for that. Impossible people don’t one day decide to become good just for you, and they won’t reward you for waiting. The longer you are emotionally available to them (even if they are not aware that you are stuck on them), the longer you are unavailable to real love, the kind that actually exists.
Ten years ago I was in a similar situation. I didn’t know then that I was addicted to a guy like a junkie is addicted to crack. There was nothing special about him, he wasn’t even my type, nor would anyone consider him a catch, nor datable. So what was I addicted to? I was addicted to the impossibility, the hot/cold, one day he loves me, most days he hates me, one day he invites me for a drink, then I don’t hear from him for a month, one day he is pouring his heart out, the next day he is heartless. This man could not be pinned down. He would pour his emotions out one day and I would think what a beautiful, pained soul he is, I must be there for him. Then he would disappear, ignore my calls, lie. One day he exists, most days he does not. This is not a man, this is a phantom. No one can be in a relationship with a phantom.

But the whole story of us is neverending. It is impossible to break up with a phantom because a man who does not exist will not give you closure. And a relationship which does not exist cannot be severed. Try breaking up with an impossible man. The more you tell him to go away the more he will haunt you. Please know this is not the man’s fault, so you will never logically be able to reason with him, nor will you ever be able to get closure from him. The only way out of this rabbit hole is to go cold turkey, and crawl out on your hands and bloody knees.
We all have neverending stories in our lives: the one that got away, an unfinished chapter in our book, the one that has been keeping us stuck for years. Yes, these men are lessons, but the lesson is not what you think. The lesson isn’t in the entanglement with the phantom, the lesson is YOU learning your emotional triggers and weaknesses, understanding that it is YOU who got yourself into this by being interested in an impossible man, staying around, attempting to solve his riddle, and being mesmerized by a ghost who is nowhere to be found. Accepting that it is YOU allows you the power to let go. You got attached, he didn’t strap you to him nor ask you to go on his magic carpet ride. You believed that he was magic.
Lack of closure is that thing that keeps our chapter unfinished, and we remain in the old story waiting and waiting and waiting. To get out of this you will need a lot of help. I didn’t have any, so all I could do is go cold turkey- this phantom was never going to let me go. As cold as he was, he would always reappear just as I began to heal and close my chapter. It has been 9 years, and each year I receive a communication from him, I blocked his number, his FB, his email, and each year he finds a new way to contact me. I have been over him for years, really I don’t feel a pang for him at all. But his desperation to remain in control of my emotions will never end. Phantoms are people whose only goal is your energy, and they will try to keep you stuck on them forever. You might think you need them, but they need you, your attention, your energy more.
I have a lot of lovers whom I don’t want or miss or need for anything. They are forgotten exes, or are they?? I recently realized that a part of me is still stuck on an ex from a long long time ago. That chapter was closed. We broke up with full closure. We moved on, had better relationships. But I just realized that while I don’t miss the man, nor his body, nor his brain, nor the relationship, I still feel the anxieties similar men cause me. He was the one who taught me to mistrust, to be suspicious, to see the hidden desperations in all men, so now I simply project all those old feelings into new men. The man is gone, but the bad habit has stayed.
So what can you do? Stop blaming the man. If you are in an addiction (a relationship with a phantom), you will need a lot of help. Hire a professional. You may have to try different types of help to see what works best for you. A lot of my friends are in therapy with a licensed psychologist. Some are more spiritual, so they are doing energy work. Do whatever it takes. All the women who are still addicted are still open to the men. Though the man has cut them off, they are still mentally focused onto them, some are even keeping channels of communication open just in case. The way you know that you have officially begun the healing process is the day you have the courage to block him.
All my exes are blocked in every way possible. There is no possible way to find me through any social media channel. Yes they still manage to find a new email address- that only tells me that they are more starving for my energy than I am.
Blocking someone we are addicted to hurts a lot. It is like cutting off a limb. We think if I make this final move, there is no going back forever. But you are an addict, do you really need the toxic serum dripping into your vein? You only know you are on your way to serious recovery when you have cut off all flow. If you can’t do this, let your friends, therapists, counselors help you.
Take a look at your life. What is your neverending story? Yes, the one spinning in your head. The man might be long gone, but the music continues to play. That is your block- the very thing keeping you from moving towards something much better. You might think that you have moved on simply because you are in a new relationship. But you haven’t because as long as that same old music keeps playing in your head, you are reliving the neverending story, over and over again. He is just a new face.

S

Feelings are emotion. They are energy in motion. What you feel on the inside represents what is happening on the outside. If you feel uncomfortable with something, if it just doesn’t feel good, it is probably because on some level you already know there is something in this person or situation that isn’t right for you. Sometimes people send us a subtle signal without using words. Other times they give off a vibe that can’t quite be put into words, but the vibe feels wrong because in the past, a person just like that gave off that same vibe. That is our intuition warning us to pay attention.

I ignored my feelings and emotions for decades. I was taught they just aren’t accurate, that a feeling cannot be trusted, to use my brain, use my logic, look for physical evidence. I am probably one of the most logical people I know, I test very high on reasoning skills, so ignoring my intuition seemed easy and quite right for me. That was until I started to notice energy more, and understand how energy “talks”.

Getting in tune with energy came unexpectedly after I started to meditate on a regular basis. Without going into details, meditation taught me how to tune out of my immediate reality, cancel out the noise, and see what was previously unseen, feel what I thought was impossible, perceive with senses I never knew I had. The energy of others became more obvious, then readable, visible, knowable. When it was so obvious that energy “talks”, I noticed how people give off a perceptible vibe and how I can read this vibe to gather important information I had previously ignored.

It turned out that certain signals men gave off were my triggers to be instantly attracted to them but when I paid attention to the signal, I realized that the signal was exactly that characteristic that always caused me so much relationship pain. The relationships kept repeating in my life like patterns, and I wondered how come all men are the same, why am I repeating past hurts, will they ever end? I never realized that I was subconsciously attracted to men who give off signals of untrustworthiness, grandiosity, self-importance, machismo, disrespect, and selfishness- all those qualities we equate with narcissism.

We all meet people and process their signals. We ignore a lot of alarming signals that we should be paying attention to simply because we are not in tune with our feelings and emotions. Many of us come from cultures where we have been taught to suppress emotions entirely. But each signal is like a spark of recognition- I know you, I met a douche like you before, here’s another compulsive liar, etc. You just have to pay attention. No, you don’t have to be into energy, spirituality, nor meditate for years to understand your emotions. You just have to accept that your mind or your higher self will send you a signal when it recognizes a situation or a person who subtly gives off a vibe of something you experienced emotionally before.

Why was I so attracted to narcissists like a magnet? The first narcissist I knew, my dad imprinted me with the energies of instability, irrationality, unbalanced emotions, angry outbursts, unpredictability, emotional manipulation and rollercoasters, then each time I met a man who gave off one of these signals, I was attracted to him like a moth to a flame. I am sure that men are attracted to women who match the energy their mother imprinted them with.  Each time there was an emotional response from me to something he said inadvertently, the response felt like a butterfly in my stomach. Except behind the butterfly, there was a slight tightening in my heart, a twinge of pain I once felt before. Recognition.

When you ignore your emotions, you are ignoring that pinch that feels wrong, so you are ignoring a very important clue about this person. But what happens when you tune into that pain? If you are good at reading energy, it is like being able to see through a person in an instant. Imagine being able to see with your x-ray vision what the person is emitting from the inside. You can also read yourself, that pang of negative emotion and tune into that energy field as well. I do this better in a deep meditative state or even asleep. I read others and I read my responses as I relate to them.

I grew up with the knack to instantly see through people, see their motives before anyone else, feel the anger they feel, feel their pain, even understand the source of their pain was something they were actually not in touch with at all. I could see how a person uses his/her condition to extract compassion or caring from other people. I could see when someone’s physical pain was actually pointing to a life problem that seemingly had nothing to do with it. And I always ignored what I saw, I suppressed it so that I could get along, not expose them, give them a chance. I paid a heavy price for ignoring my own feelings and the alarm bells sent to me as warnings by my own brain.

We are all born with intuition and senses we have been ignoring since childhood. Textbooks say they do not exist, so we ignore them. But we can train ourselves to become better tuned into our own warning signals.

About ten years ago I met a guy at a party. At first, I wasn’t attracted to him at all. We later shook hands and in that instant, in his handshake I knew something wasn’t right. Yes, that handshake felt bad to me, but I didn’t know why. Later he texted me, and as we exchanged a few texts I remember wondering what exactly didn’t feel right. He was very handsome, clearly well educated, articulate, polished, well-mannered, respectful. From the outside it was easy to see his parents raised him right. But that handshake made me feel uneasy. I kept thinking about that handshake for days until I got in touch with exactly how it made me feel: manipulated. How? He didn’t actually do anything manipulative. What was it about that handshake that made me feel like he might be a controller?

I ignored this feeling. Eventually he started calling, we hit it off right away, he was a 100%-er in my book, and pretty soon we were in a relationship. Fast forward a year, we are planning to move in together in NYC. I love him, my parents think he is god, my friends are sure he is prince charming, and by every reasonable and logical measure, he ads up to a decent, stable, solid human being, marriage material. Except the thought of this move gives me a mild panic attack. No, it isn’t the logistics of moving, nor looking for a job in a new city. The idea of sharing space and responsibilities with him didn’t feel right. For some odd reason this apartment felt like an airtight bottle and as soon as I entered the door behind me would be permanently shut. I would wake up in the middle of the night in a panic, and he would tell me to see a doctor about those panic attacks. I paid no attention at all to the nightmare, nor the repeating feeling of suffocation, entrapment, no way out.

I tried backing out of the move, and that’s when things got really unpleasant. He never tried to get in touch with my feelings, nor understand my hesitance, instead he showed me a side of him I hadn’t seen before. Passive aggression, silent treatment, unexplained disappearances, suggestive posts on social media, not talking to me for days, an emotional roller coaster. Logically, I knew I was being emotionally manipulated, but intuitively I was being triggered by something new every day. He started creating little dramas, tests to see if I would get up and rush to see him, little emergencies, followed by long periods of ignoring me. This went on for months, and I was stuck in a daily stop and go- we are in a relationship, we are not in a relationship. We are moving in, we are not moving in. I love you, I hate you, I love you, I can’t live without you, I never want to see you again. Sounds familiar? Needless to say the relationship ended in disaster, and luckily we never saw each other again.

Years later I thought back to that handshake and realized that the uncomfortable, red flag feeling I got from the handshake, the sense that I was being manipulated, actually matched the feeling of the relationship itself. The entire relationship was about manipulation, and me freeing myself from it. But that’s not all.

ALL my relationships up to a certain point in my life were about me escaping from control and manipulation. The men were different, the situations were different, but they followed the same pattern. I was willfully ignorant of signals that all of these men were emitting because I didn’t believe in feelings and emotions as being important indicators.

What’s more, I realized that if a man did not emit any of those signals, I was not interested in him at all. No trigger, no attraction. How many healthy human beings did I ignore simply because they did not trigger me?  I couldn’t explain it, they were just not that attractive. Some of my craziest relationships were with monsters who triggered me the most. And some of the best men were the ones I perceived as useless, unattractive, and unmanly because they had no power to trigger me, so I kept walking.

This is laughable now. I look back at all the buttons emotional manipulators pushed, and I fell for them every time. I believed in those relationships because they felt familiar to me- like dad. Even though I always knew my dad was not healthy relationship material at all, his imprint was there the whole time. And I had to work on myself to erase that imprint.

So, how did I finally become a better perceiver of energy? I wrote about meditation many times, so I won’t repeat it here. You really don’t have to meditate, you just have to honor your feelings and accept that emotions are powerful indicators of what is standing right in front of us. For some intuitive people this comes naturally, but for others, who have been suppressing feelings all their life, we actually have to reconnect and relearn.  Pay attention to the physical sensations of each feeling in your body throughout the day and night. Don’t avoid that uncomfortable sensation, get in touch with it. Energy moves throughout the body, and in any given minute you might feel tension in your throat, belly, heart etc. You are being triggerd by what you see on TV, opinions of your friends, even advertisements.

But, energy also moves throughout your body as feelings and those energies get lodged in specific places in your body, to show you what aspect of you isn’t feeling right. If you learn how to mentally tune into each feeling of energy, you might notice with some practice that each energy field communicates with you and clearly describes the feeling that it emits.

I am also a better reader of other people now. If I can’t read a person, I know not to try to get to know him, instead, the fact that he is unreadable tells me that he is blocking his energy, or not wanting to be read. He is wearing a mask he doesn’t want me to look behind. I won’t, I keep walking. People who wear masks are not dating material anymore.

Today I trust my feelings more than I trust facts. We live in an age where we all can make up facts. We invent our entire personas just for Facebook. Sometimes I study people for days, months, sometimes it takes me a whole year. I am good at seeing through people whose outside does not match their inside, or people whose words do not match their energy. They are the easiest to spot, and I don’t engage them at all. I know I will piss them off because once I see his/her ugly insides, I will treat them as such, and neither of us will like the outcome of that interaction.

I am not a perfect reader. I still ignore some subtle cues, but when something isn’t right, I observe in a more detached way. I don’t jump into a relationship to engage this person, I pay attention from a distance.

I hear a lot of dating stories from both men and women. At that first meeting, a lot of subtle information is exchanged. When a relationship goes sour, I always ask what was it in that first meeting that alerted you to what this person would be like? Usually, it is that subtle cue we ignored that proves to be the indicator of exactly what this person ended up being.

If you find yourself constantly triggered by the same cues, you can deprogram yourself. The key to doing this is mapping out your triggers. List each trigger, like a white lie, then pay attention to how someone’s white lie feels to you in this moment. Find that energy in your body then get in touch with it. It will feel uncomfortable at first. Your mind might reject it and you may not be able to focus into it because it is uncomfortable. Ruminate on it anyway until you understand what this feeling means to you. When in your past, did you feel that feeling? You may recall a few similar situations or people whose white lies hurt you. Go back as far as you can remember to your childhood, and remember the very first time you felt this way. For me it was a white lie dad told each week, that he will be back right away, and then he wouldn’t be back for a whole week. Dad worked in another country, and he commuted by plane, not coming home for dinner until Friday. I knew it was a lie, I believed it anyway, it hurt just a little, but I loved dad very much.

Now, every time someone handsome tells a little white lie, there is a tiny reminder of my love for my dad, accompanied by a tiny twinge of discomfort. When I observe myself getting turned on by this, I know my brain is signaling recognition. No it is not love, no it is not healthy attraction, it is just my automatic response to a little white lie from someone undeniably handsome. Down girl.

Like I always say, knowledge is power, and self-knowledge is the most important superpower you can have. Know your triggers, your weakness, your attraction points, and know how bad it feels when you ignore them. Pain is the most powerful teacher, so why not learn from pain?

When you were a kid you put your tiny hand on the hot stove. It burned, you cried, but you never did that again. You got your finger stuck in the kitchen door, you screamed in agony, and you never stuck your finger where it doesn’t belong again. Each pain was an important life lesson. Where would you be as an adult if you kept forgetting not to rest your hand on the hot stove anymore? It sounds stupid, but here we are grown adults who fall for the hot stove every time and we call that love. When it burns every single day, we call that a relationship. And when the body gets used to the pain and is covered in deep scars, we call those scars proof of commitment.

Some people chase pain for a lifetime. Wouldn’t it do you good to get in touch with your feelings?

S

Should I settle for the nice guy? Nah. He can wait. This is every woman’s dilemma, and that nice guy who’s a sure thing can wait anyway. Do I choose the guy who has strong interest in me, but I am not so attracted to, or do I go for the one I feel passionate about, but he is a bit risky because he has other options?

The nice guy may be a sure thing. You know he has no better place to go, and that’s a turn off. Some good guys are just needy and they give, give, give to twist your arm into giving them a chance. That’s not always attractive.

The risky guy can potentially hurt you. You may not have the passion or the stamina to go through the motions of this emotional roller-coaster. Yes, dating is supposed to be a thrill, we are supposed to enjoy the process, and sometimes the ride is as big of a turn on as the potential relationship. While we are all too smart to chase men, we have all been there, and know how tempting it is to want what you shouldn’t have. He is like a piece of cake, and you are circling that thing knowing you shouldn’t eat that. But good life is about pleasure, don’t you want to be tempted by something?

I am that girl who has never given the nice guy a chance. Why not? Because nothing happens until I am turned on. He could be a genius, a hero, a savior of the disenfranchised, an angel, or a tycoon, but unless I am feeling hot and bothered, it ain’t gonna happen. I have said no to good guys, millionaires, older guys, bald guys, short guys, fat guys, intellectuals, socialists, capitalists, douche-bags, macho men, “real men” and every single man I deemed as unsleepable. I have been heavily criticized, accused of being superficial, mean, “not a real woman” for refusing to consider men who I find unattractive. I won’t apologize for that. Dating isn’t charity, and it’s not about granting wishes to people who think they deserve you. Women don’t owe chances to men who don’t turn them on, so why this belief that every guy deserves a chance?

I am not a glutton for punishment. I choose men who can turn me on because I believe in my right to pleasere.  I encourage exploration, enjoyment and think all women should absolutely expect to be turned on. I think that many of us are confused between what we personally feel and need, and what society tells us is the proper thing to do. Hurry up, settle down, pick the nice guy, because he is secure and he’ll never leave you.  The same women wake up ten years later to realize they were never turned on, he doesn’t give orgasms, he doesn’t even think she need them.

I think all women have to enjoy love, sex and dating, and unless they have reached that point of pure ecstasy and fulfillment in dating, they are not emotionally nor spiritually ready for marriage. A woman who has avoided pain, risk, bad boys, sexual escapades, and heartache, is so sheltered that she is not in touch with her inner self, has not risen to Goddess status, and is not in full possession of herself, her emotions, her strength nor her power. She may be quite ready to settle down, but is approaching marriage from a place of fear, defeat, and lack of fulfillment. She is operating on an ego level, looking for men who can fill gaping holes of her personal needs, and not connecting on a deeper level at all. But then neither are the men whom she is a match to. They too are with a woman who is merely a filler for what is lacking in their manhood.

I wrote a blog post last week about The Higher Purpose of Relationships.  I believe that every relationship is a teacher, and that there is a spiritual purpose to the most difficult relationships. No, I in no way believe in tolerating toxic men, but our greatest lesson is in knowing how to overcome toxicity, learning how to make choices that are in our own highest interest, and walking away without looking back- the most powerful move any woman could make. How can a woman take possession of herself without mastering her own body?

And so, we all face that Nice Guy Dilemma. He is waiting, he is available, he brings flowers, you know he wants you, he’ll do anything to keep you, and every dating expert and your mother thinks you need to grow up, and give the sure thing a chance. They say you are crazy, and that science has proven that something is wrong with you if you consistently pursue challenges and pleasure, and keep walking away from all the easy men willing to commit.

But men have no respect for the easy girl who is a sure thing. In fact, they’ll often use her, and abuse her, take whatever she is willing to give until a real woman shows up. Then the sure thing is history. So why are we supposed to fall in love with men who are a sure thing? Why won’t we women take risks with our lovers? What are we afraid of? A broken heart? A few tears? Temporary agony? Most men scoff at the idea of taking the sure thing too seriously or committing to her. She isn’t worth it. So why are women being told that the committed guy is the only real man there is? Bullshit.

It is true, we are all turned on by different characteristics. But damn it, we should be getting turned on! If you aren’t glowing like a 10,000 watt generator, why is he still here? Why are we considering men who are just meh, okay, but committed?  Is the fact that he is committed to something more important than our commitment to our selves and our need of pleasure? Commitment is a trap. Women have been taught to chase commitment as if it is the ultimate sign of love, but to ignore their physical needs and pleasure because those things are somehow too superficial to pursue and enjoy. Life for committed women is not about enjoyment at all.

We live in an age when even real men can do very little for us.  I, and many other successful and secure women are perfectly okay with that. But, when there is very little a man can do to add value to our lives, why aren’t we asking for more enjoyment, more adventure, exceptional sex and pure ecstasy? This is what men are designed to do. This is something all men dream of doing very well. Why are we downplaying sex, adventure and personal enjoyment as if it isn’t really important, when in fact it is what exceptional living is all about? Many women have completely shut their sexuality down in order to snag a husband. They don’t even know that excellent sex is the most important aspect of our psychological and spiritual development, that without it we are not alive. Don’t tell me you are awake if you are not high on orgasms.

Personally, if a man can’t turn me on, there is nothing he can do for me. He can place a thousand gold bars in front of my feet, I will kick them over. I don’t need them. He can place a dozen impressive degrees on my desk. Sure, intelligence can be sexy, but educated men come in two packages: Hot and Not! Only one can make me smile.

Why are we so afraid to enjoy men? Sure, marriage minded people have other characteristics to evaluate. But exceptional sex, and being turned on should be at the top of all of our lists. They should never be just an afterthought.

Many years ago I met this really good guy who had a tiny dick. He was very nice, caring, giving, and he waited for me to come to my senses for two years. Handsome, smart, successful, offered me a McMansion if I would just take him seriously. I tried. I really tried. But I let him go. Did I miss the nice, needy, eagerness to please? Never. I wished him the best and hoped with all my heart that such a committed guy would find a more committed girl than me. He did. Was I jealous? Nope.

Choosing between the nice guy we all think we should accept, and the riskier guy who actually turns us on shouldn’t be so agonizing. One is like a luscious chocolate cake that we could savor, the other limp broccoli we push to the side of the plate. But there is a good explanation for why the nice guy doesn’t feel right. You are not turned on, and that is your sign that this isn’t going to satisfy you physically, emotionally, spiritually. He might fulfill your need for safety because he can’t leave you, but most of us have reached that level of personal development to expect much more out of life.

It is very rare for me to meet women who are very sexually satisfied. The few who are, have experienced a lot!  They found satisfaction by learning who they are, and that their personal needs are far more important that what society thinks, or what he thinks. Most women I know are torn between what they dream of and what they are told they should settle for. They are stuck between their inner wants and needs, and pursuing what society tells them is right. And by far, the vast majority of women approach relationships from a place of fear. For them risk is to be avoided at all costs. “Too much pleasure is unhealthy. Ignore your sexual appetites, but make sure you are able to satisfy his. Avoid the hot guy, but be hot for the guy who is interested. Avoid risky men, but risk everything for the guy who has an interest in you. Pleasure is not something you should crave, but when he craves pleasure, be an expert at satisfying him. Sexual escapades are demeaning for women, but when he has them congratulate him for being a man. And above all things, settle, settle, settle for the guy who is ready to commit”.  Sorry, but that’s not okay with me.

The nonsense most women are taught to believe about love, sex and dating is disturbing. A lot of women get into their forties and they still believe that orgasms are just a phantom of a Playboy Bunny’s imagination. “Oh, that’s not for me, I’m in a relationship with a “good guy”.  I’ll take the commitment over fantasy any day”. Wake up ladies, if you are not getting turned on, or being sexually satisfied you are wasting your life away.  You’ll be on anti-depressants halfway into your marriage, and it won’t be because you’re hormonal or depressed, it will be because you not having orgasms.

Sex is life’s ultimate pleasure, and unless you have mastered it and learned how to enjoy it and receive it, you have not awakened. Sex is a life force, as important as air, food and water, if you are not getting orgasms, you are dying inside.  You can settle down, and you can get an iron-clad commitment, but what are you living for? For your husband? For your kids? For the marriage?

I am not surprised to find out that most women I work with are faking orgasms. No they would never admit it openly. To fake an orgasm would be the ultimate fakery of womanhood and femininity, and they were taught that a real woman is supposed to be a screamer, theatrics and all. To admit they are faking would be to admit that this abrasive, unattractive, know-it-all they settled for is not doing it for them, there is no attraction at all, and then the relationship they are so deeply committed to would be a sham. He must feel he is a real man, and she must do whatever it takes to make him believe it.

If you are an enlightened man who believes in living fully, and you find yourself in a relationship, always ask yourself, what exactly is she committed to? Is she committed to commitment, or is she committed to her own life and pleasure? Is she having sex to please you, or does she know how to please herself? A Goddess is a woman who is totally self-aware, and she is committed to no one but herself. She will choose a man who trhills her physically, emotionally, spiritually, and that’s not necessarily the guy who who can buy her a rock.

But let’s not go there. Let’s look at what we all can do. If you want to have good sex, there are armies of soldiers out there willing to give it to you. You don’t have to choose just one. Choose ten if that is your pleasure.

Do they have to be good people, nice guys, committers? No, they just have to be good at one thing. You are not in a race to sign a contract in the shortest amount of time, you are free and you have all the time you want to explore. Out of ten, only one might do the trick. Enjoy it, but keep moving, there is greater pleasure to be had in Ibiza, the Riviera, or a beach in Bali. It’s true, not all men know how to give orgasms. Don’t despair, there’s an app for that. You have a passport, and great orgasms are worth flying to the moon for. If there’s hot stuff in Rio de Janiero who is willing and able to rock your world, then you should be holding a ticket to Rio in your hand.

But “I’m too old, I’m too fat, I’m tired, I really want a husband”.  He is too, that’s why he’s so eager to get married. Relax, you don’t have an expiration date, and you won’t become a spinster. A spinster is a married woman who has no orgasms. You won’t miss an opportunity. By now I have learned that no man is an opportunity, they just believe in their worth much more than you believe in your own. It doesn’t matter if you are fifty or sixty or if you don’t know what you are doing. There are seas of men out there who have never given a woman a real orgasm. Consider it a great service to humanity to educate them.

Women were born with the remarkable ability to have multiple orgasms. Does that mean that we should settle for just one, or a slight tingle? If a woman can have twelve orgasms in a night, and a man could have one, then how many men would it take to satisfy her? You get my drift. Don’t settle for one.

If you have recently divorced, get ready for an eye-opening experience. This is especially true if you have been under contract for decades. Yes, sex is much better outside of  marriage. Consider it an opportunity to make up for lost time, and live, truly live. Your goal in life should be pursuit of all things meaningful: sex, travel, liberation, affairs, happiness, ecstasy, men, lots and lots of men, but most importantly self-reliance, self-satisfaction, self-possession, self-confidence. The day you realize “I have mastered myself and I have mastered it all” is the day you wake up a Goddess.

S

I am always impressed by men who are interested in sitting down with women to have a two-way conversation about changing social constructs, gender roles, and female empowerment, to find a better way to relate to us. They are few, but these men are #RealMen. They can empathize with us. They may not always understand what we want, but are willing to listen. They are not perfect, but they are eager to step up and learn. They know that there is no war on men. Women are growing, stepping into their own power, taking charge of themselves, and these men are not threatened by it at all. They don’t react to our demands for equality, safety and respect with derogatory comments, private jokes, or bashing our experiences, they sit down, open their ears and listen. Some men actually are waking up.

Keep in mind that like women, men too have been conditioned by society, culture and religion, and they too have decades of social programming to unlearn. But, they are willing to engage in conversation to figure out what the humans of the opposite gender need in order to thrive. I see that we give these men very little credit. I see that they are the ones who are the most supportive of women’s empowerment, are the first to be ridiculed and bashed by males who are threatened by anyone who dares to feel equal. No wonder many sympathetic men are quiet. They see what we are going through, but every time they stand up for us, their masculinity is challenged and ridiculed by those who think that empowered women are the death of manhood. They understand that we have no interest in bringing manhood down, that men and women will always need each other, we are simply looking for a healthier partnership. Women don’t exist to serve manhood, or be subordinate to it. We are here to be human, equal, respected, and like all humans, we are here to enjoy life on our own terms, experience freedom, and create the best version of ourselves that we possibly can.

As a woman, I don’t want a man to permit me these things, I want to enjoy what is mine. I don’t want to depend on someone to dole out meager symbols of freedom, and equality when I can out-earn, outpace, and out-grow on my own merit. I am not looking to compete with men, I compete with myself. When I succeed, I don’t want to apologize for it.

Yes, there will be males whose roles are diminished when women take their power and when the open-minded men we deem as real benefit from partnerships with us. That is because their positions were based on our subordination. When we stand up and are their height, they can no longer feel superior. Their manhood was rooted in our passivity and submission all along. But there are #RealMen out there whose positions are not based on ego, but on their own healthy self-worth. They don’t mind us standing next to them and feeling equal. They are not threatened at all. They don’t want women to take a step back so they can be in the lead, they want an healthy, working, thriving partner.

Let’s thank the #RealMen out there. The ones who don’t need us to stay small. I know a few awesome men who have done their parts.  Some have marched for us, some have stood up for us, some encourage us, and many are speaking up despite the attacks on their own manhood. Today, let’s find the awesome men, and directly say thank you.

This is really important for women to do. This movement is not just about us.  Opponents of women’s equality are counting on our fear that once we step into our power, there will be no men willing to engage us, that if we take charge of ourselves we will obliterate institutions like marriage, kill femininity, hurt children, destroy family life. No, in fact once we are thriving in our own success and competence, we will be better partners, mothers, executives, and leaders.

We have to be willing to engage those men who are striving to understand us and work with us as equals. They possess the level-headedness, empathy and humanity to partner in this movement. These are the men who should be engaged in a two-way conversation. The others, who are threatened by us, cannot be counted on to act in our best interest, only their own.

As the owner of this blog, I receive e-mail from amazing men all the time. In fact, when I first started making these posts, my readers were mostly men. I was writing about subjects that very few women could agree with, and when they could agree, they spoke from a place of self-defeat, as if full empowerment and self-possession would never be possible. It was the men who kept encouraging me to find my voice, to keep writing, to stand my ground and not tone down my words. I had to be heard despite the fact that my views lost me many friends, and personal relationships.  I am glad I had their encouragement, and thanks to them I kept speaking anyway.

We all are surrounded by amazing men. Contrary to what the media says, we do have strong, confident, supportive partners. In what the media refers to the war on manhood, they have not backed down in their support of us. Instead of screaming at the toxic males who won’t listen, let us thank, and engage the real men who do. It is the men who are willing too listen, who make the best partners in business, marriage, parenthood, or life.

So, to all the men who supported this blog from it’s first post, Thank You. To all the men who encouraged me to talk about hard subjects that weren’t always easy to address, Thank You. To all my male friends who are not threatened by women in power, Thank You. To the ones who stood up for us with the #metoo movement and believe us, Thank You. To the ones who believe in our choices, voices, and power, Thank You. To the men who freely and unapologetically speak up in our support via social media, in the workplace, or via their own blogs Thank You. To the ones who are often accused of not being real men because you refuse to dominate, have more liberal views about gender, who are shedding your own social programming, please know that you are #RealMen and we will always appreciate you. Let’s talk.

S

Why are we in this relationship?  Have you ever met someone really nice who qualifies on all levels, yet you already know before he/she utters ‘I like you’, this one is friend material? This person is perfect, but not for me. Sometimes we meet the most wonderful, shiniest, most spotless specimen of humanity, and we set him aside ‘Nah, I don’t need that’. Friend zoned. Automatically.

I’ll start by saying that I don’t believe in giving people chances, not even those nice guys in your friend zone. They are in that zone for a very good reason. They are either unsleepable or we can’t learn anything from them. They may be good people, even beyond our wildest expectations, but we don’t need them.

My theory is that the reason we sometimes put people automatically in the friend zone is because we don’t need them on our path toward personal growth and evolution. I have been accused plenty of times of not giving the nice guy a chance, but being attracted to a moron instead. It’s true, I openly admit it. In my previous post I wrote about my history of dating monsters and the valuable lessons I learned from each. I wasn’t a glutton for punishment, I wasn’t sadistically craving mistreatment, I was on a path to becoming ME, and had to get in touch with every single aspect of me, especially those darkest shadows I’d never show to the world. Who was capable of showing me that deepest, darkest, most vulnerable me, that deeply flawed, self-hating, perpetually failing at life me? The nice guy? No. He could never have taught me that.

Experts claim that some women are conditioned to be attracted to abusers. I can give them that. What no one thought is that there are a lot of self-possessed, free, vulnerable women out there who crave life, self-discovery, experience, rawness, and are deeply committed to discovering themselves. Humans cringe at the thought of getting in touch with their dark side, it is to be avoided at all costs. But light cannot exist without darkness, and to know ourselves means owning both.

This may be a hard pill to swallow by the establishment, but not all women are looking to marry, have babies, settle down, and coddle men. Some of us think, feel, crave freedom, exploration, sex, novelty, not because these experiences will lead us to settling down, but because they won’t. Settling is death, and some of us came here to live.

What was I looking for in relationships for all these years? As humans grow we need different things from different people. It is small-minded to think that one person can satisfy all our needs. At various stages of life I needed different lessons. Each lesson was about myself, and I had to learn it all. In my younger years I had to discover different types of manhood. Some suited me, most didn’t. I had to accept, reject, overcome, defeat, abuse, adore all different kinds of men to find out what manhood really is. I learned that above all, a man must be human, humane and humble to be anything at all.

I learned my toughest lessons from the worst men. My father was one of the most insecure, narcissistic, egotistical, assholes I ever met in my life. Who would I be had I not learned how to make him cry by the time I turned fourteen. The day I realized how small this big-mouth really was, I learned that when it comes to men, I have nothing to fear. He was my first teacher.

Later, when I realized I was getting into repeated patterns with narcissists, I had to discover what is it about me that was available to them? That aspect of me had to change, so one lesson, after another, and then another. I was black and blue, crawling on my hands an knees begging for mercy. Could that nice guy with a halo over his head have taught me how to outmaneuver a narcissist every time? Nope, he had no chance.

It wasn’t enough to know how to spot and avoid narcs, I had to learn how to bring one to his knees, make him run for his life when he sees me. I succeeded during my stint on Wall Street, where I worked with the most bloated bunch of male egos. These Neanderthals were so puffed up on their own gas, grunting and thumping themselves on the chest every time they got a whiff of a female walking by. The younger ones were harmless, too busy putting in the hours to notice me panic every time one of the older starving males wanted to see if I would acknowledge his manhood. Sorry grandpa, I don’t think much of your manhood at all. I can’t tell you how many times I almost got fired because I refused to stroke his ego. I could have worked with so many tame guys, the respectful ones, the upstanding humans. But what would I have learned about myself?

The best lesson I learned is where is the seat of my power. Who am I, what are my most significant qualities?  I learned that my ability to put up a good fight was not a weakness that I should hide, it was something for me to use to my best advantage. I learned that my willingness to unmask a narcissist, is that which narcissists fear most. They know I will do it, they no longer come near me. I learned that a nice, educated, classy girl from a good family won’t get far in life if she bows down to manhood. By not being afraid to piss men off, say exactly what I think, and not back down, I learned how to command respect. I had no interest in being a nice guy’s wife, I had an interest in experiencing me.

I know so many wonderful men who any woman would be proud to date. I fix them up with quality women, but I only dated a few. A psychologist might conclude that something must be wrong with me to pass up so many opportunities for love, marriage and relationships. Every woman dreams of getting married, right? I dream of so much more.

Love is easy. I know how to love. While most humans have had only the kind of love they miserly allowed themselves to experience, I experienced it all in the raw.  Nice guys love gently. They back down to easily. They don’t put up much of a fight. They call their mom, and their mom tells them what a man they are. It’s true, most of them really are good. Some day I will need that.

I am sure that a lot of men experience the same. Why settle down when life keeps giving me more, and more, and more? Why settle down, when I can still climb higher? Why settle for the good girl, when the bad girl has so much more to teach me? There are no bad girls or bad guys, there are just teachers. We all need them.

While experts claim that a lot of women’s dating instincts point to deep, emotional flaws, I insist that our instincts are just right. Some of us are starving for life and starving to find ourselves. We won’t be satisfied with domesticity, motherhood or matrimony, we want to discover our passions, develop our inner selves, build empires, achieve balance, and we aren’t terrified of being lonely. We never are.

So, in relationships we don’t seek what is stable, what is safe, what is everlasting. People who crave life seek the opposite. We are not empty thrill-seekers looking for fulfillment outside ourselves, blame that on the people who need a spouse. We are whole, we are giving, we are too alive to succumb to tradition. We are looking to grow, experience, experiment, change ourselves over and over again, and keep reinventing ourselves until there is nothing more to learn.

When I am tired and exhausted from learning, I might settle down with a nice guy. I have been in a couple of relationships with angels, and sometimes I wish for a warm, loving, kind, affectionate, uncomplicated human. For now they are all in my friend zone. If they get taken by better women, I’ll love them anyway. But they are not for me now.

S