How would you recognize your soulmate, or the mate to your soul? What is so different about a relationship with your soulmate or what I call your perfect counterpart, as opposed to a relationship with anybody else?

The difference is in how you reached that person. The difference is in the path. A wise friend said “The perfect counterpart is someone that you can only experience harmonious union with while you are in harmonious union with yourself.” In other, less harmonious and less healthy connections, the relationship crumbles when one person aligns with his or her true self, finds his or her true path, while the other person struggles to adjust and align himself to that.

Those connections don’t last long, but they are still valuable teachers. Those connections teach us balance. As long as we struggle to balance ourselves with the relationship or with the other person, we throw ourselves out of balance. Through years of trial and error with various relationships, we always lose our balance when we try to align ourselves with someone outside ourselves. For many people, this lesson lasts a lifetime. They repeatedly try to align themselves with other people rather than align with their true self. In the process they lose themselves, they lose their identity, they lose their pride, they lose their stability. Those relationships seem like a losing game, and many people eventually throw in the towel, give up on looking for the One completely, and then through some much needed solitude, unintentionally find a connection to themselves.

What happens when we connect with that self? We fall in love with who we are, what we have, our circumstances, our life. After all this is all our creation. In this space, the lucky few begin to appreciate their losses, their failures, all their bruises and scars. The process of connecting to the self is long, most people can’t be bothered with it. But for the few who manage to connect, this is a life altering experience.

It is a time for self-discovery, learning, inner growth, editing, discarding beliefs that no longer serve us. The process cleanses us and lightens our load. There is a dark side to the process, it is much more uncomfortable, yet still an enlightening experience. Make no mistake, this is a long journey, one that most people will give up on. However, it is all worthwhile. In that process, we achieve harmonious union with ourselves. We became unshakably loyal to our inner being, our inner truth, to our selves. Other people cease to be as important to us as we are to ourselves. We understand that others cannot create our happiness, and as we gain balance within ourselves, create our own energy, feed our own soul, we reach a state of self reverence. It is the ideal place to be for a being who has mastered herself.

In this state of self-reverence, we all become more attractive to others. In fact, we become magnets for both balanced and imbalanced people. Balanced people, who are like us, acknowledge us, enjoy our company, but stay balanced on their own. Unfortunately, we become extremely attractive to the imbalanced ones too. Why wouldn’t we, we are the epitome of stability, strength, wisdom, truth and alignment.

At this point it is extremely important to become discerning about friendships and romantic relationships. People see in us what they lack within themselves, and often become attracted to what we can provide. Unfortunately, most of them have not achieved balance or alignment, and often seek to lean on us, or extract from us what they lack within themselves. Having given a few of these relationships a chance, I learned the hard way that there is absolutely nothing that I can do for a person who has not achieved their own balance, or done their own inner work. As well meaning as I am, I fail every time.  Those relationships drain me, destabilize me, take away from the quality of my own life. I don’t blame anything on them, my willingness to give energy shows that I too can still lose balance. I need to strengthen my own alignment.

However, I do notice that as time goes by, I am more able to remain aligned despite who is near me. I now determine the health of a relationship by checking in with myself and measuring my balance, asking myself whether I am leaning on someone or is someone leaning on me, how centered am I as the relationship progresses?

I do find that now, after a decade of doing work on myself, I appreciate people who too have done that work. I value their experiences, I can learn from what they have become. I am better able to discern potential relationships by paying attention to the person’s inner world (if they have one), and am more apt to see what they need from me, and what they hope to achieve through the relationship.

But my most valued tool for assessing how balanced the other person is, is remaining in continued alignment with myself. When I can maintain that for short periods of time, I can easily filter out those men who struggle to find their equilibrium and their own power in my presence. What happens most often is that with my awareness locked into myself, they struggle to find my weakness, a need, a crack in my foundation, a way to gain a foothold as they climb up to my tower. They often fall flat on their faces. I don’t help them stand up. Others play feeble mind games, or employ trickery like NLP to control my attention. It doesn’t work, but it helps me identify them.

When I can maintain my alignment for extended periods of time, I am in harmonious union with myself. Some who have achieved this state claim that it is lonely at the top. I think there are fewer people up here who can maintain their alignment for so long. However, here we instantly recognize each other, we resonate with each other, we are among equals. There is nothing to prove to anyone, because we all ARE. There is no asking anything of anyone, because we all HAVE. There is no seeking, because we have all found ourselves. There is no leaning on other people, we are all balanced. Can you imagine how harmonious relationships are among people who aren’t seeking to gain anything from anyone, when no one is feeding off anyone, when all people have completed themselves? There may be fewer people here, but they are all enjoyable.

Relationships should be enjoyable, they should be in independent harmony, they should reflect our highest values. As long as they are not that, relationships are just our teachers. How many excellent teachers have I had? I am grateful for the life lessons, I hope they all found what they were looking for, I wish them nothing but the best that life can offer. But, I am in that place where I can hold on to my own alignment and maintain my own balance, and those who haven’t achieved that are not my equals. I wish them a pleasant journey.

S

Have you ever thought, hey, maybe it’s me? Maybe, there’s nothing wrong with him, him, nor him. Is it possible that something might be wrong with me? After all, aren’t these negative dating patterns happening to me? Not other people. Very few people can be so self-reflective to ask themselves that difficult question, could this pattern of self-sabotage, chasing the wrong men, allowing crossed boundaries, participating in toxic behavior indicate that I am toxic too? I said that once to a Goddess in training, and she got so angry at me, she turned beet red and screamed how can you say that to me? Well, if you keep finding yourself in toxic situations over and over again, if you keep repeating situationships with toxic men, it is quite likely that the pattern is your own and that you are toxic too.

It takes two to tango. No one can push you into a relationship you don’t want to be in, no one can make you text him at 2am all your frustrations, no one can play a mind game with you unless you willingly play too, you can’t stay in toxic relationships for months then expect to not be toxic too. So, is it possible that you have had many negative dating experiences, accumulated a lot of toxic beliefs and low expectations, and rather than work on yourself to shed those bad habits, you keep projecting them into men, expecting certain kind of treatment, and choosing men who fit a past pattern? They look and act familiar, they match your own level of toxicity, they are willing to meet you in your mutual mind game, and every time the relationship goes wrong, you feel validated that your belief system is true and that your predictions about the connection are quite accurate. It makes no sense to keep repeating the same pattern and blame the pattern on the other person, when the pattern is happening to you. It is YOUR pattern. It’s your own dating script. It is your relationship blueprint. Whom shall we work on?

Yet, a lot of men and women keep chasing the prize, marriage, relationship, a soul-mate, a binding agreement, not realizing that they are not healthy enough to even be in such a situation. What could you possibly bring to that new relationship? Your old self? That same old blueprint you tried and failed with a dozen times?

I have worked with some professional women who themselves are therapists, and they too are incapable of looking within, admitting their own broken love circuits, and who insist that bad relationships are happening to them because men are bad And then, I have met with some who are eager to do work on themselves, they immerse themselves in every latest spiritual and psychology book, they love their new therapist, and then they drop everything the very moment a man asks them out. ‘It’s working! My therapy worked, there’s a healthy man in my life!’ They drop everything and disappear, and a few weeks or months later, they have sunk to an all time low. Why? They never found out what is wrong with themselves.

If you don’t have the answers to the following questions, you really shouldn’t be dating anyone.

1) Can you describe your own toxicity? Many women answer this question with an answer that shifts the blame on the man. “Well, I keep selecting toxic men, so that is my problem”. Nope. What part of YOU is toxic? What are your own toxic habits? What beliefs and toxic thoughts do you keep playing in your head like a broken record? What past patterns do you keep chasing, and repeating again and again? Can you write a chapter on what makes you toxic? Women who have not done any work will have nothing to say about their own toxicity. They are sure that they are victims of flawed men.

2) Am I able to identify red-flags, questionable behavior, personality traits of toxic people, can I monitor my boundaries and successfully act when there is a security breach? Most women can spot the red flags in hindsight. They see questionable behavior up front, make an excuse for it, brush it under the carpet, and then wonder why they are blindsided by that same behavior later in the relationship.

3) Am I capable of exiting a toxic relationship quickly, without willfully being dragged into more drama? Again, most women don’t exit, most will stay in the situation as if it has more power over them than they do. But if you don’t know how to leave, why are you chasing relationships? All the pain in a situation stems from not being able to leave what is hurting you. If you are still not capable of leaving unhealthy people and situations behind, if you are hurt by having to act in your own best interest, then you are not healthy enough to date.

4) Do I have any addictions? Am I codependent? What unrealistic expectations do I have of men that they refuse to deliver? Should I change my expectations, or continue chasing men who refuse to give me what I want? A lot of women are addicted to rejection, addicted to relationships, addicted to mind games, addicted to their own toxic patterns. Many women ARE exactly what they accuse the men of being. The only way they can relate to a human is to control and manipulate, trade feelings for actions or behavior, then they wonder why he wants to escape control.

I will write a longer list of signs that you are not healthy enough to be in a relationship, and please add your own below. But, the healthy thing to do is to begin with yourself. Take a long time-out from men and relationships, and give yourself the time and space to figure yourself out. You are not going to lose out on some opportunity, there’s no shortage of men in the world. As long as women are here, the men are not going anywhere. That’s my guarantee. But if you keep playing with men on some low relationship level, it is because you haven’t graduated from that low level. You are on the same level as they are.

I highly recommend going on a man diet- no men, no relationships, no flirtationships, no dating for 1-2 years until you feel balanced and clear. What can you do right now, today, to reflect upon yourself?

Pretend that you are writing an autobiography about your unhealthy relationship habits. Write a few chapters about your own dating history, what repeated patterns have you identified in your own relationships, where did you learn these patterns, what have you not resolved that makes these patterns repeat. Pinpoint your own toxicity and what toxic habits do you bring into the relationship from day one. If you feel like blaming a man for a bad treatment, look within yourself to answer why you allow that treatment? Why do I keep interacting with abusive men after I have identified the abuse? Why do I open the door and let them in? What am I seeking from that experience? Why do I refuse to leave? Why do I refuse to say No? Don’t criticize yourself or beat yourself up. The purpose of this is to objectively identify your own toxic patterns and habits so that you can face them, understand them, and resolve them.

Bad relationships don’t keep happening to you, they ARE you. You are not ready for a new man, until you have stopped a repeating pattern from the past. And please don’t jump into relationships if you have trouble leaving them. Would you dive into a pool, if you don’t know how to swim? The relationship won’t take care of itself, a man won’t take care of it for you. You have to be able to take good care of yourself, and leaving a bad situation behind swiftly and easily is a sign of a healthy and self-respecting woman. Can you leave easily? Or do you complain when you have to save your life?

S

Is it smart to let men take the lead in relationships? Think about it, how is that smart? How is it smart to let him be in charge of the outcome? Is it smart to allow him to think that commitment is totally his decision? Is it smart to be in suspense while he is exploring other options and thinking about whom to keep seeing, whom to eliminate, who is too much trouble to deal with? Is it smart to let him dictate the terms of the connection, then go with his flow, when you are truly after a totally different kind of connection?

I don’t think so. I do believe that you can give him the perceived lead, when that illusion allows you to observe what is he truly after, who is he on the inside, what is his agenda, how much effort he is making, where is he when he is not with you, is he emotionally healthy? Placing him in the perceived lead is your own strategy,  that allows you to see his motive. Just watch and learn. Pay attention, ask a few questions, but use his perceived lead to gather pertinent information so that you can make the right decision for yourself.

Ultimately, it is 100% up to you whether he gets to go forward or gets eliminated. However, most women don’t understand that the entire connection is entirely up to her. He may be knocking on your door, but if you are not paying attention to figure out what he wants, you are wasting your time letting him in.

Who is truly in the lead? You are. The woman says Yes or No. The woman allows behaviors, allows treatment, loosens and tightens boundaries, and ultimately decides if and when there will be sex. Do you realize that all those things are totally up to you, and that he has nothing unless you grant him the permission to work towards you.

In their false belief that the man decides exactly what he wants, and that they simply go along with it until he has chosen them, many women disempower themselves, place themselves at his mercy, wait around for him to grace them with his attention, sex or disappearing act. Take control ladies. It is not up to him at all, it is totally up to you what you say yes to. It is not up to him to take you out on three dates then expect sex, if and when you have sex is totally up to you. It is not up to him to state he wants no commitment right now, and for you to accept that, then use sex as a last ditch effort to keep him. It is up to you to say no to that before you feed him what he wants for free. It is not up to him to decide that he can have four women at the same time, it is up to you to decide if you will be one of them. It is not up to him to decide I like you, let’s see where this goes, and for you to stay in suspense indefinitely, it is up to you to refuse to be in suspense. If you have no clear vision of where this is going, trust me it is going nowhere.

If men are truly after one thing, then why give it to him unless he has proven his devotion to you, only you, and no one else but you? Can a man prove that in three dates? How long does it take to build your trust, your confidence, your admiration?

If you and I met for the first time, we had a lot of chemistry, went out for drinks, and I asked you on the first outing to lend me a $1000, would you give it to me? No way, you’d want me to earn your trust and good friendship first. Can I earn it after three dinners? No, you still wouldn’t give me the money. You might wait until we become good friends, you’d vet my credibility, trustworthiness, my history, my ability to repay, you’d ask around, but you would be suspicious why does this woman want a $1000 from me? Either you would do your homework, or you’d be turned off that a new acquaintance with no history of proven friendship is asking for money, and you would walk away. Something is fishy here.

Yet, most women think it is just fine to get emotionally invested when he decides that it is time to get emotional. You’re a grownup, you know men bank on your emotions to get what they want, so why be flattered and excited when he is using emotions? You’re letting him lead you to what he wants, when it is totally up to you to determine what you want. The next step is never his decision. Unfortunately, by waiting around for him to make a decision and declare his next step, most women hand him their power.

So, how to remain always in the lead? By not giving him what he wants the day you meet him. I am not talking about playing games with men, or teasing them.  You are not bait. I am talking about deciding in the first 30 seconds of meeting someone, how much attention they are truly worth. It is up to you to decide how much of your smile he gets, how many pleasantries you are willing to exchange, and up to you to determine when is enough for you, then walk away. Practice that. Practice setting time limits on strangers. Practice walking away from men you don’t want anything from.

If he is not sleepable, datable, or of any interest to you, why are you still giving him attention? You are handing him on a silver platter what he is used to, free, unearned, unqualified attention. And you are exposing yourself to negotiating your attention with people you have not deemed worthy of your time. Your time is valuable, but you are sharing it with anyone who keeps talking.

You arrive on your first date, and right away you see something off putting. Do you suffer through the whole date? A nice girl would do that, but how long would a man tolerate a woman’s off putting behavior before he disappears? You don’t owe anyone your time. By giving free time to anyone to has reserved you for an hour, you are compromising your standards. Politely excuse yourself, be honest, no need to be an asshole, but walk away because you don’t need to be there if you already know he is an ass.

It is a few days later, and his level of communication or texting is confusing. It may be gross, lewd, detached, whatever you don’t want, stop giving attention to it. If you want a man who is texting you actively and making concrete plans, those are the texts you should be answering in a timely manner, and if you don’t like his texts, if they don’t indicate a sincere human with genuine interest in you, why play the texting game? It’s not for you. Again, you decide if his texts will continue or get blocked.

Several dates later, he wants to get physical. Okay, but do you want it? Stop and process this question. Do you actually want to get physical, or are you doing to it because it is the third date and that indicates some sort of a milestone. Are you going for it because you think that sex will seal some sort of an unspoken deal? Or are you going for it because you truly want his body? Be honest with yourself.

At this point, you may not be physically attracted to him at all. Tradition says to give him a chance anyway. He might become attractive later. Kiss that frog and it might turn into a prince. Tradition states that a good girl would give an unattractive man a chance to prove himself. It’s not your job to kiss frogs. If you are not attracted to him, it is solely up to you to act in your own best interest. Don’t go beyond this point.

At this point you may have no indication of his future intentions. At this point you may not have the relationship you desire. At this point he may not have convinced you that he is only seeing you. At this point, if you hand him sex on a silver platter in hopes that some day it will lead to a relationship, you have traded your power away. Why have sex with a men you are unsure of? They don’t become princes later. I have a friend with benefits for that purpose, so that I don’t have to give anyone anything that I don’t want to give. Seriously, consider getting one too.

Many women have been lead to believe that only time will tell if he is the one. No girl, only you will tell if he is the one. They have been lead to believe that they need to give men chances. They have been lead to believe not to trust their own gut, but to allow plenty of time and space to turn a frog into a prince. No amount of time or space has turned a frog into a prince. That has never happened. Quit wasting your own time. You know a frog when you see one, why doubt your own eyes?

What could you do instead of sex? You could continue to observe. You could watch his behavior and learn who he is as a person. You could ask questions and wait until all your questions have been answered before you decide you have enough clarity about his motives, his emotional availability, his commitment. This is the time you study whether he is being emotionally available at all, whether he is faking it, whether he even has the capacity to tap into that part of him. Why would you wait for him to disappear to determine he was never emotionally available at all? It’s a bit too late at that point.

Don’t have sex with men who have not given you 100% clarity, then proven it with actions not words, that they are taking actionable steps toward the relationship you want. Do not hand him a blueprint or your checklist, because with that any narcissist will follow your instructions on how to get to you. An honest man, with honest intentions to have an honest relationship doesn’t need an instruction manual on how to connect to you on a human level.

Would you go into business with a partner you don’t know? Would you determine what that potential partner has to bring to the table, or would you give him 50% of your business just for the asking? He asked, so I’ll just give him my business, and hope for the best? You wouldn’t do that. You’d do a ton of due diligence, hire a lawyer to pore over every part of that contract, you’d investigate your partner’s work history, credit worthiness, strengths and weaknesses, you’d interview his past employers and partners, and if things appeared shady, you wouldn’t go forward with the deal.

Unfortunately, to a lot of women, men appear shady up front, but they hand him their power as soon as possible, then accuse of him being shady after he disappears. Your homework was to determine whether 2+2 equals 4 up front, to determine if his stories are true, if he truly is who he claims to be, if he actually is that man of your dreams. Be honest, you knew that he wasn’t long ago, you just let him lead you to this point.

So, I ask again: How smart is it to put a man in the lead of a relationship? Where do you think he will drive this relationship? Go ahead, hand him the keys to the relationship, then guess where he will drive it. Do you think he will steer it where he wants it to go, or where you want it to go? Think long at hard, how ridiculous is it to let him drive in whatever direction he wants to go?

As ridiculous as this sounds, this is how a lot of women end up married to tricksters. Or they end up being dragged for years in relationships going nowhere for no reason than to go for the ride. Be honest, how many times have you been taken for a ride?

How smart is it to put a man in the lead of a relationship? It’s not smart at all. It’s a poor choice, utterly stupid, and you know you are going to regret this later. Would you tell your daughter to passively wait and see what he does, where he wants the connection to go, wait until he decides, and in the mean time smile, be nice, give his some sex to see if he likes it? You’d never allow your daughter to be in that position!

How did women get this idea? This ridiculous notion that a man should be in the lead of relationships has been around for hundreds of years. It sounds like something out of a 1950‘s dating manual. Oh wait, dating and relationship gurus still swear by this tactic! What exactly is he in the lead of? I’m waiting in suspense to find out.

Ladies, you own cars, you have your own keys, start driving wherever you want that car to go. Sure, it takes two willing and equally committed participants to make a relationship, and you can’t drag him tied to the back of your car. But if he is showing you no signs of meeting your needs, if he isn’t attractive enough, if he isn’t going in the direction you are going, why are you waiting for him to decide anything? The last thing he should be receiving from you is sex. He doesn’t even warrant a phone call.

If you are not used to being in charge of relationships, practice. In between relationships, when I am not seeing anyone worth my time, I enjoy saying No with great pleasure. No, is the most powerful word in the universe, so get used to using it to limit people’s unearned access to you. ‘No, I can’t listen to you any more,’ ‘No, I wouldn’t enjoy that drink with you’, ‘No, I have no intention of sleeping with you at all’, ‘No, you misjudged my interest’, ‘No, I really can’t give you a chance’, ‘No, I’d rather dine alone’, ‘No, you can’t increase your offer, my time is not for sale’.

When a man is in charge of the relationship, most women are in a passive wait and see state of mind, which usually amounts to a lot of confusion. Why wouldn’t you be confused if only he knows what’s going on in this relationship? Why wouldn’t you be going crazy, you just handed him your sanity and are waiting to see what he will do with it? Why wouldn’t you be paralyzed and in suspense if you are willingly playing his waiting game?

The only way to put a stop to it is to take the wheel. Who decides where your car is going?

If he isn’t going in your direction, why let him get into your car? That passenger in your car is just wasting your gas and toll money while he decides where he wants to go. Pull over and tell him to get out. Now.

How many men have been a complete waste of your time? Ask yourself this question: In that same time period, have you been a waste of their time? Probably not because you have been giving them a free ride all along. If you gave them a ride, if you waited around to see what they want, if you stroked their ego, if you made him feel like a man, you wasted a ton of premium gas on nothing. Stop giving men free rides. That begins with stopping the free attention, stopping the wait and see game, stopping being nice to every man you don’t know. Most of all, stop following dating rules. They are a road map to nowhere. They are a trap for women who don’t know what they want or how to get there. They are a trap for passive women who like to hand over the keys to whoever wants a ride.

Please be advised that I AM NOT urging you to lead unwilling men into a relationship and start driving. Instead, I am telling you to put the brakes on anything that is confusing, misleading, time wasting, a mind game, disrespectful, unattractive, going nowhere. I wrote many times about what happens when we ignore people’s wants, and assume our way into relationships. The consequences of that are toxic. But, you are 100% in charge if a man can move forward with you. You have to put the brakes on anything that is not moving in your direction.

So, what to do instead? To truly take the power in every relationship, you must begin from day 1, that first moment you give anyone your attention. Do not give attention to anyone you don’t find attractive enough, or anyone who isn’t sleepable, dateable or whatever You need him to be. Don’t agree to the first date unless you truly have an interest in him. Are you going on this date because he asked you out, because you have nothing better to do, or you want to try that latest restaurant? None of those reasons are reason enough to give someone your time. What is?  Ask yourself if you would have asked him out? Is he interesting enough for you to want to pursue? If not, you actually don’t have interest, you are dating out of boredom. Don’t be there.

Like Seinfeld said, 99.99% of people in the world are unsleepable. Why would you hand them your time? You disempower yourself the minute you say yes to someone or something you don’t truly want.

On the first date, make sure you are actually enjoying him. Is his company enjoyable or is it a drag? Is he attractive or off putting? This isn’t about whether the restaurant is nice, whether the food is good, it is all about is he attractive enough to you now? Is he showing you something you want, or is he looking like someone you don’t want? Your judgment should be on him, not on the food or the price tag of the meal. Remember, you don’t owe him more time than it takes to figure out if you want him. You don’t owe him a second date, you don’t owe him more chances. If he is absolutely offensive, you don’t have to stay there and wait it out. People say it is unladylike to be impolite, I say take back your power and leave if he is an asshole. Do not let an asshole own your time by paying for your dinner. Pay your share and leave. Old fashioned traditions empower and embolden men, they leave women at their mercy. They call polite women classy. Is enduring unwanted attention your version of class?

In any given moment you have to act in your own best interest and if giving him your time and energy feels unpleasant, you don’t need to drain yourself. Contrary to dating manuals, it isn’t rude to leave an unpleasant date, it is rude for a rude man to expect you to tolerate his rudeness.

Assuming you are still interested, take as many dates as you need to ascertain who he is, what he wants, how committed he is, how likely is he to remain in a relationship, how emotionally available and healthy he is, and feel free to exit any time. It is easier to exit when you are not emotionally invested, so if sex is your weakness don’t have any.

You have to accept the fact that any man will exit the relationship if he isn’t getting what he wants, and it is your prerogative to exit a connection if you are not getting what you want. It is much better that he exits before you have had sex, than after. You are weeding men out, not asking them to stay in the running. If he exits, let him. It is a sign that he has not shown you any qualities that warrant sex, intimacy, or emotion. Save your energy for someone who can give you that.

How long it takes you to ascertain his worthiness is solely up to you. If you are still not convinced after 3, 7 or 10 months, stop him from wasting your time. You don’t owe it to him to keep trying. You lost nothing, you didn’t give him sex or emotions. You remained detached, in observation mode until he shows you qualities you like, want and need.

How many times have you discovered unacceptable qualities in men long after you are emotionally attached to him? Could you have found those qualities before you gave him anything? That is the goal.

If you want a man to prove that he is relationship material, then let him audition as your boyfriend. Most women are the ones auditioning because they are used to giving up everything, placing all their cards on the table, then hope he doesn’t walk away with her cards. That’s what you get for following dating manuals and tradition.

You should be auditioning a few men at a time. That is easy to do when you are not sleeping with any of them. You are not wasting your energy on anyone when they are the ones doing the work to convince you they are worth your time, attention, presence and consideration. Remain detached, observe, do your homework, make judgments. Yes, use your best judgment to judge who is in your best interest. There is nothing wrong with that.

Never waste attention or time on men you have no intention of dating. A lot of insecure men ask for friendship because they know they won’t have to do the hard work, and as a friend they don’t have to pass tough harsh scrutiny. They hope to catch a few breadcrumbs in your weakest moments, maybe you’ll accidentally find yourself in his arms. Don’t let men use your friendship to access your energy. Some men are happy with crumbs.

Also, waste no time on men who have no intention of giving you anything serious. Don’t let them suck you in with the wait and see game, the “I don’t know what I want” game, the “you need to complete with other women” game, the “I have too many options” game. If he is showing you his options, why are you still looking at him? It’s a game. Don’t play it. It is totally up to you whether you decide to stay in suspense. Block it right away, so the game doesn’t drain you.

So, for the last time, is it smart to let men take the lead in relationships? Take the lead woman. You already have what he wants. You don’t have to give it to him until you are fully satisfied.

S

Don’t let a man negotiate how you feel about him. He showed you he is an asshole, you think he is an asshole, but he doesn’t like that you think he is an asshole. Guess what, he still is an asshole. The worst thing a woman can do is question her own judgment. And that usually happens when we don’t trust ourselves, or don’t feel confident enough to stand up for our own opinion. Often women are made to feel guilty for being judgmental. I see nothing to feel guilty about. Good judgment is a sign of a sound mind. Often women are shamed for their opinion, or for daring to make a man not feel like a man. Well, if his manhood depends on how others feel about him, he’s got no manhood at all.

Assholes often have like-minded friends, and those friends will often jump to his rescue when they see he needs help to preserve his reputation. Friends will stick up for the nice guy automatically, and gang up on whoever dared to make their friend feel less than. It’s no wonder that most women would back out of their own judgment than face a firing squad of other assholes. If you back off, and change your opinion of him to win the approval of assholes, you are stepping on a grenade. You just showed him that he can be an asshole, and that you will change your mind at the first sign of pressure.

A couple was fighting because he said something that was deeply offensive to her, and he was trying to negotiate her opinion of him. She called him an asshole, a chauvinist, and a pig. He laughed, and argued with her for a minute, then changed his tactic. “Okay, I take back what I said, my apologies”, and with a bit of sweet talking, she said “Okay, you’re not an asshole, even though that comment was absolutely offensive”. Wow girl, did you forget he offended you a minute ago?

Does taking back what he said change what he said? If he is allowed to take back what he said, does that mean that his opinion on the subject is now changed? If he takes back something offensive, does the woman owe it to him to not be offended?

When a man doesn’t like how you perceive him, do you let him bully you into perceiving him more favorably? Do you let him buy you something to show you that he is now a nice guy? Come on ladies, honor your own opinion.

A man will never take you seriously when he sees that your opinion of him can be bought. “Let me buy you lunch to make it up to you.” Does that work on you? Is your price tag higher than lunch? If your opinion of him can be bought with an expensive gift, even a Ferrari, how valuable is your opinion, or your company?

Too many women are quick to change their estimation of men as soon as he shows his displeasure at not being treated like a man. Who handed him his manhood on a silver platter? His mother?

A man is not a man unless you think so. And before you state that, make sure that he has earned his reputation by showing you his character, his opinions, his reputation, his willingness to stand by his word, his respect for your judgment and your opinion by accepting that your opinion of him is valid.

A man of character would expect you to have a negative opinion of him when he has done or said something wrong. He would expect you to stand up to him, state your case logically, then prove with actions that your judgment is non-negotiable. He will expect a woman of strong character to leave.

An asshole or a douche bag will start negotiating how you feel. A man of character will not. Your opinion is valid to him, he will not take back what he said if he can substantiate his opinion, and he will not expect you to take back what you said either. You could accept the fact that you are very different and that you don’t have to date each other, and that’s far more respectable than negotiating with assholes.

If men don’t take you seriously, check yourself. Do you let them tell you how you should feel? Do you let them bully you or buy your opinion with a nice gesture? Do you let their friends gang up on you because they expect you to treat him like a nice guy?

Your opinion is the only one that matters. Standing up for it shows that you have self-respect. Not negotiating her mind away is a mark of a Goddess.

Remember, a man is not a man unless you think so.

 

S

Your darkest place is where your treasure is buried. What do I mean by that? We all have a positive side and a negative side, our light and our darkness. That duality is a force of nature. Look at nature, there is death from which comes rebirth. There is destruction, always followed by rebuilding. The tides go up and down, the poles are positive and negative, what goes up must come down. Neither is better or worse, neither is good or evil. We all live in duality, and to be balanced we all have to accept all of our nature, our positive and negative side, our male and female energies, the lightness and the darkness of our being.

People who can come to terms with their duality are considered to be balanced. Those who cannot accept, or those who reject one aspect of themselves pretending they only have a feminine side, or only a positive side are out of balance. By rejecting their masculine energy, or pretending to be always enlightened, refusing to face the duality of their nature, they are killing an aspect of themselves, or coming out of balance. Balance and imbalance are two states of being we are all always in. When we feel balanced, we feel healthy, we feel flow, things are progressing, we are meshing with other balanced people. And when we are imbalanced, our behavior shows it. Even when we can’t admit it, other people know it, something about that person’s flow appears to be constipated :).

Most of us are taught to reject our opposite side. Women are taught to reject their masculine side to appear more attractive and favorable to men, and males are taught to reject their feminine side, so they don’t get labeled as gay, metrosexual, weak. When each sex has rejected their opposite side, both partners are imbalanced, each person is only a half of their wholeness, and they connect from a place where they now have to complete each other. That woman who cannot take charge of herself, cannot figure out how to pay her bills, will invest heavily into her femininity, become docile, passive, dependent on a man who has rejected his feminine side. He has suppressed his emotions in order to appear dominant, aggressive, a bread-winner, a successful male. They own each other. He owns her livelihood, while she owns his masculinity. They feed each other whatever the other needs, and that is called codependence or a traditional relationship. Each wants to fulfill a role, and they trade based on meeting each other’s needs, playing an appropriate part. As long as they play along perfectly without ever disappointing the other, the relationship appears to be working. They are in a contract: you always make me feel like a real man, and I will give you whatever it takes to make you feel like a real woman. They trade emotions, security, jewelry, assets, narcissistic supply, social standing, flattery etc. Their arrangement can only go on as long as they are pleasing each other.

But how long can one person be at constant service to the other? At a certain point one fails to deliver, one falls a bit short, age happens, one person is more drained than the other, and the whole house of cards falls apart.

People who are in balance do their best to accept both of their sides. It isn’t easy, facing one’s darkness is a very painful process, most people manage to ignore it for a big chunk of their lives. Why explore my darkness when life is treating me well? Why do that painful work, why face my negativity? For most people, they only come face to face with their darkness when they have lost everything, or when mid-life crisis slaps them in the face, or an illness or depression plunges them into that place. No one wants to look at their shadow, no one wants to deal with those aspects of themselves they have suppressed, erased, swept under the rug, until dealing with it is a matter of survival. In that moment you only have three choices: Deal with it by facing it, take drugs to make the bad feelings go away, or end it all, which is unfortunately how a lot of people deal with having to face themselves.

I don’t want to write about depression. I have been in it, faced it, but it is a loaded subject almost always critiqued by those who have never experienced it. Let’s leave the subject on the side and talk about facing our dark side. We all have it, it is that side of us we refuse to acknowledge, we hide from others, it is our negative reactions, our fears, our hate, or jealousy, our rage, our pain, all those blows to our ego, that wounded animal, that icky place no one wants to look at. That is our dark side, and it is responsible for at least half of our reality and the results we get in life. If you don’t deal with it, shit will continue to happen, and you will continue to not be responsible for it. How does that serve you?

There are countless ways to deal with those aspects of us. Choose the method that you believe in the most. If you like therapy, work with a qualified professional. If you are spiritual, you could meditate, talk to a spiritual advisor, or work on yourself. But you must explore your own depths, understand your own patterns, motives, self-destruction, find the source of your rage, who are you really angry at? I’ll give you a clue: the answer is always you. If you come out of your process concluding that other people have hurt you, and that you are the victim of unfortunate circumstances, I assure you, you have not faced yourself, you saw what you wanted to see. You have only found a person or a circumstance to blame. When life starts to go on, your pattern will repeat itself, you will still sabotage your own life, the cycle will go on and on until there is no one left to blame. 

What treasure lies in your darkness?  You buried it there decades ago. It is those aspects of yourself you couldn’t face, your ego would not allow you to admit, your guilt, your shame, your lies, your mask, and all those things have been stuffed carefully and locked in your mental abyss. Why would you want to open that ugly Pandora’s box?

I found that answer a few years ago, when I got triggered into a situation with a man, and I couldn’t understand my own automatic behavior. I was responding to his toxic trigger by self sabotage, rage, self-deprecation, approval seeking- all those things I warn women never to do, I was doing to myself. I was on auto-pilot acting out feelings I had buried thirty years ago. It took repeated patters with this man to make me realize that I had dug a deep hole decades ago, and buried that experience, those horrible feelings and those memories because I never wanted to look at them again. But, had I faced them, I could have learned how to effectively work with those feelings like an adult today. This man simply made me remember an issue I had refused to deal with in my youth, and our continuing pattern of toxic behavior was calling my attention it.

Thirty years ago I had a very painful experience. I wasn’t mature enough to deal with. It was horrible, agonizing, gross, icky, so I killed it. I pulled the trigger and I was never going to deal with that bad feeling again. What I didn’t realize is that I killed one aspect of myself. Now there was a dead body on the floor, a rotten corpse I didn’t want to acknowledge, so I dug a deep hole in the ground. The hole was deep enough that no one could ever see that version of me, especially not me. In my darkest hour I would still not be able to find it. I filled the hole with dirt, a heavy pile of rocks, and topped it off with a boulder, just to make sure that corpse will never move.

There I was a few years ago, wondering how this man managed to trigger me into seemingly out of character behavior, making me act out my darkest fears. I asked myself in meditation, what is this fear? What am I really afraid of? What part of me hurts? What am I acting out really? What am I trying to prove to this man? The clues lied in that dead version of me I buried years ago. Yes, I buried a version of me that was not okay, that was deeply flawed, that was weak, that was dependant on approval, that was ashamed of being who she is, that was embarrassed of her own feelings, that was not good enough, that was highly imbalanced. I didn’t like that me, so I killed her and hid her in a dark grave. The only way I could learn how to deal with this man and the situation I was in now, was to study my own corpse. I had to go back to that old version of me, understand all her weaknesses, motives, all that pain had to be dug up because I never bothered to deal with it nor understand it before.

It was a painful process, but there is a lot of power in our darkness. All our answers lie in graves we dug for ourselves a long time ago. We have to be willing to go there, to talk to those old versions of ourselves, face the bad feelings we couldn’t deal with before, because our power is becoming okay with that person we rejected. In analyzing that old version of me, I understood that at that age I did the best that I could under the circumstances. Those rotten feelings were natural for an animal that has been wounded. We all have more sympathy for a wounded animal than we have for ourselves. Give yourself some sympathy. I started to understand that past version of me, I started to like her, I saw strength in her.

She was young and inexperienced but she still had courage to do what was necessary to protect herself at the time. She did the best she could. Those icky feelings she buried were a mix of sharp stabbing pain, fear, guilt, shame, self-loathing. I faced all those bad feelings, and became okay with them. They were appropriate for the situation, just left undealt. Now was my time to work with them. I talked to myself the way I would talk to any woman in need: with sympathy, kindness, understanding, encouragement, wisdom, and then empowerment. I sat with her in that darkness for months, it was a hideous place to be, but I held her hand and I knew that she will be okay.

The longer I stayed in that painful, ugly place, the less threatening it seemed. There is nothing here that I haven’t seen before. Darkness is a comfortable place when you start to accept your own flawed company. I also became okay with those rotten feelings. As I worked through them, and gained an understanding, they seemed to dissipate. Over time, I saw the real me, that actual version of me that I refused to look at for years. She was looking more okay each day. In fact there was nothing ugly there at all. She just accepted bad feelings and carried them with her until she could no longer stand under her own weight.

My power came the day I realized that I in all versions of me are totally okay with me. I am actually awesome, intelligent, powerful, logical, balanced, super strong, assertive, dominant, kind, empathic, and I have the ability to see. This is something I hid for many years, but I see beyond what is not there, I read people like an open book, I can smell your cancer. I have been suppressing that most powerful aspect of me, because other people hated my ability to see them as they are, so I felt hideous for mirroring aspects of themselves they refused to look at. I am okay with my opinions of you, I am okay with speaking out, I am okay expressing myself, I am okay with you not liking me for it, I am okay being dominant and bigger than weak people, I won’t apologize for it. I am okay, I am okay, I am okay with all aspects of me. It was like lighting struck me, and light lit up my whole world. This is what I have been hiding? My strength? I will never feel ashamed for it again!

Don’t be fooled. As powerful as this experience was for me, there is always more work to be done. Your work on your darkness is never over. If you are balanced, you will always be in duality. Darkness is not a mess you have to clean up, it is your shadow, it doesn’t go away when you start scrubbing. Accept it, and learn how to work in that place. Your power is at the bottom of that abyss you are so afraid to look into. All your answers are right there for you to uncover. There are many flawed versions that you have buried. There are many graves in your abyss. If you operate from a place of ego, you have an entire graveyard to dig up because you haven’t found acceptance for even one version of yourself. Okay, accept that, roll up your sleeves and start digging.

Treasure is always buried in the darkest place. You want personal power? You have to face your own darkness, conquer your own fears, and slay your own dragons. What you’ll find in that darkest place is that fear doesn’t exist at all, it is just how you feel about your own shadow. And monsters don’t exist, what you have been afraid of is facing yourself. The most powerful lesson I learned in that place is what Machiavelli said: fear nothing. Fear is nothing, there is nothing to fear. Fear doesn’t exist at all.

S

No one can give you more closure, than to slam the door right in your face. If you can’t see closure when someone has disappeared out of your life and refuses to communicate, check yourself. You may have trouble facing reality.

Ghosting is when someone disappears from your life without an explanation. We have talked about this topic before. As offensive as ghosting is, we tend to look at ghosting only from our own point of view. We say, ‘I would never do that to someone. I am owed an explanation. I am owed more. It is cowardly to end a relationship without an explanation. I am owed closure. Our relationship was much more special than that’.

All those things may be true. But you are failing to see this from the other person’s perspective. You are looking at this relationship from the perspective of your own connection to the relationship, and failing to look at it from the depth of the connection that the other person felt.  Chances are high that if you are confused about their feelings, you have no idea how the other person was truly feeling about you or your relationship. You saw what you wanted to see, and failed to accurately measure the depth of the other person’s feelings. One person was much more attached than the other, one person needed it much more than the other, one person’s feelings were much stronger, one person’s energy was binding the other.

It is a given in any human relationship, one person loves more than the other, and one person needs more than the other. We don’t measure love in milligrams and demand an equal dose in each beaker.  So what was the level of the ghoster’s connection to you? Was he equally in need or in love as you? Did he honor the relationship as much as you? How deep were the ghoster’s feelings for you? Did you hear him say the words “I Love you” and assume his kind of love must be equal to yours, or did you witness behavior that demonstrates the ghoster’s level of commitment is the same as yours? What was the level of connection that this person felt towards you?  Chances are that you just didn’t know, and if you were diligently building this relationship without their full participation, you kind of knew they weren’t into it.

Ghosting is a bad word, it implies that the actions of this person were criminal. Sure, relationship experts label ghosting as a heinous crime, as criminal as cheating. But let’s pretend for a second that this person is just as human as you, and that he or she acted in a way that demonstrates his or her level of feelings for you. In fact, how we treat others reflects how we feel toward them. If a person truly felt love, would he or she have disappeared?

So what is the truth? When someone ghosts you, they actually don’t feel the connection you do. When someone disappears, it is not because they love you too much. When someone fucks someone else, it is not because they couldn’t handle your level of your mutual love. They do that for the opposite reason, you just keep telling your mind stories that refuse to acknowledge the truth.

Everybody rejects somebody. We all do. And in our digital world, ghosting is easier than ever. Don’t think that ghosting didn’t exist before smart phones and social media. Most of us can remember the days of keeping the phone off the hook until the caller gave up and stopped calling. Rather than label ghosters as evil people, let’s see them for humans they really are. Leaving someone demonstrates I don’t love you, I don’t need you, I don’t feel the way you do, I don’t want what you want, I am not as committed to you as you want me to be, you are not seeing that I don’t want this relationship the way you do. That disappearing act is final confirmation of I don’t want you at all! And if you haven’t heard it during your relationship, this final disappearing act confirms it. Now you have no choice but to face it.

Of course, many victims of ghosting still refuse to face that the other has disappeared. Instead, their monkey mind starts to spin stories, ‘he loves me so much he is just scared’, ‘he wants me so badly that he is afraid of his feelings for me’, ‘he suffers from so much emotional pain from his childhood and his horrible ex…”, No, he just doesn’t want you.

These mind stories force us to keep the door open, when the reality is that the door has been slammed in our face. And it is those mind stories that are responsible for us refusing to get closure, in essence, we are keeping the door open ourselves, and refusing to see that the ghoster has given us closure in one big undeniable way. He is gone. The relationship does not exist. Poof! That is the only provable fact, there is no relationship whatsoever.

What this act proves is that this person did not feel the level of connection with you. It may or may not prove that you refused to see it, hear it, acknowledge it. It is quite possible that the ghoster demonstrated low interest, or verbally said things “I am not ready”, “I am not sure”, “I don’t know what I want”, “Let’s keep it casual” and that your monkey mind found hope in these words. You treated this as a relationship, while the other person was struggling to be understood.

I have no way of knowing whether your mind spun this situation into a relationship, but I can say with 100% certainty, that the other person did not feel the way you do, or want this as badly as you did. And, if you can acknowledge that possibility, you can give closure to yourself. You don’t need the other person to blatantly tell you no. They have disappeared from your life, and that is the only sign you need.

What if the ghoster keeps coming back? Then you are in a situationship with a ghost, not a real partner. If you keep entertaining the ghost, continuing the conversation, and negotiating terms of this fictitious relationship with a person who has pulled the disappearing act,  that is 100% your choice. You are equally responsible for being in a situation with a person who keeps trying to disappear from you. This connection accurately reflects your level of self-respect. The fact that you keep striving to build a relationship with a phantom, instead of a person who is really here, shows that you are more committed to fantasy than to healthy and honest relationships. That is also 100% on you.

In my personal opinion, ghosting is a perfectly acceptable form of communication with people who are out of touch with reality. Sorry, I know that ghosters are supposed to be bad meanies with no feelings. True, they have no feelings, but they have no feelings for you. But, you refused to acknowledge their lack of feelings and kept investing in the fantasy anyway. What does that make you? If you can’t recognize or acknowledge when the other person doesn’t feel the same, you are equally responsible for imagining connections that aren’t there. You are seeing ghosts, and demanding that they behave as if they are real, and give you real relationships.

I have written about ghosting before. The last post I made, In Defense of Ghosting was my own experience in pulling the disappearing act, and my justification for doing so. I can only speak for myself, but I disappear when the other person refuses to acknowledge my lack of interest. The very last time I disappeared, was from a guy who has been pursuing me for 10 years, when for 10 years I never said I am interested in him. He then, invited me to meet him on vacation in Europe. This was proof that he really thought that we had a connection that I said I don’t want. Why would I fly to Europe to meet you, when I don’t want you? In his mind, this invitation was proof of his interest, and he assumed that his grandiose act was also mine. I blocked him, because the man is out of touch with reality. He clearly did not notice that I am in no relationship with him, no feeling, no emotional connection to him at all. For ten years he kept communicating with no replies, kept inviting with each invitation being declined, and his interest finally culminated with one grand invitation. To him, this invitation was proof of his love. Did he acknowledge that in 10 years, I never showed interest, I never accepted an invitation, I never said I wanted anything at all?

Humans assume that what they are feeling about a person is proof that the connection is real. They fail to see that it takes a mutual level of interest, mutual desire, mutual feelings to build a true connection. Often people project their own feelings into the other person and they assume that the other must feel the same. You know they have done so, when they continue to build on this connection, while the other keeps pulling away, keeps dating others, keeps being unavailable, etc.

Social media and dating experts claim that the ghoster is a coward. That may be true, but my assertion is that the victim is an even bigger coward. How? The victim refused to face the fact that she may be pushing for a connection too hard, to face that her object of interest doesn’t feel the same, that one-way desire does not equal a deep connection. In ignoring the fact that her object of desire does not feel as deeply for her, she demonstrated her own cowardice to face the truth.

I believe that all people are just mirrors to our own soul, and that if we keep seeing uncomfortable patters in our own reality, those patterns are a reflection of flaws we have to fix within ourselves. If you have been ghosted multiple times, and you keep finding yourself in relationships that were never real or with people who were not equally connected to you, then the only person you can fix is you. How can I see people for who they are more clearly, before I sleep with them? How can I gauge their interest more accurately before I start connecting emotionally? Perhaps I could avoid phantom relationships, by allowing people to tell me they don’t want anything, and being okay with it, then not pursuing a serious connection with the one who doesn’t want this connection to be serious.

Once again, a ghoster is simply a person who did not feel the same way as you. Rather than be angry at a phantom, you would do yourself a greater service by acknowledging that this person demonstrated with 100% accuracy how they truly feel. You can’t get more accurate with your feelings than to disappear from someone’s life. Don’t beg for closure from a ghost, this person just slapped you in the face, and you are refusing to see the closure in that pain.

S

Boo hoo, I’m sorry you have issues from your past, and I’m sorry you keep suffering because you are stuck on that old story, and sorry to tell you this: no magical hand is going to come down from the sky and hand you a cookie for all your suffering. Suffering is not a badge of honor, there’s no reward for carrying other people’s burdens, nor for suffering longer than all your friends. You’re not a better person because you suffered more, and you don’t get brownie points for being a victim. What do you get in the end? People who are sick of you story, relationships that don’t want to suffer with you, and guess what, more suffering you have earned by staying in that mentality.

The goal in life is not to endure hardships, it is to overcome those hard things. The goal in life is not to remain loyal to those who test your boundaries, and stay in relationships with people who want to break out. The goal in life is not to list all the ways you have grieved and been wronged, you score by learning from each situation, and growing yourself to be a wiser, better, more self-honoring person. That lesson in life is how to choose your honor first over every person and situation who has dared to dishonor you.

Accepting defeat does not mean that you have to remain in that state of defeat, it just means being okay with it long enough to suspend your ego, and learn to stop fighting for what you want, you have to become it. You can’t fight a man into loving you, so stop fighting for love. Be love. You will never be rich, successful, independent, nor respected, when you insist that other people alter their behavior for your benefit. That’s like asking for an emotional handout.

Being a Goddess is a tough job. It means choosing yourself first, honoring yourself first, enforcing your own boundaries, speaking your inner truth at all times, defending your truth even when it means losing everything. You have to be so committed to yourself, that no one can threaten your ego, no one can take away your inner peace, no one can knock you out of balance because your balance is dependent on your self-respect, not on other people’s actions.

Most women agree that they should choose themselves first when it comes to men. But then, they put aside their needs for their child, compromise their truth for the sake of pleasing an aging parent. They’ll say No to the beggar down the street, but say okay to that boundary-crossing friend just to keep the friend. Are you aware of how many times you dishonor yourself when you try to maintain peace? I am not saying that you should be combative about your boundaries, I am saying that you should stop feeling guilty for saying No. Every time you say yes, when you mean no, even in unimportant situation, you swallow a bit of your pride. You swallow a bit of bitterness, you swallow a bit of resentment, you swallow a bit of anger, you say okay because that’s what nice women do.

Each time you do that, you compromise a piece of yourself. A long time ago, you have learned to take it, and it’s no wonder that as an adult, many women have no clue how to get respect. This is sad.

Receiving respect should not be a bloody battle, but it often is when you have taught people that you are willing to swallow your pride. Whose fault is it when they expect you to swallow it again? It is sad when strong, competent, educated, successful women win people over by acquiescing to their demands. They earn a relationship with a man whose ego they now have to stroke, or earn a promotion by saying yes to everyone in the department- she is that employee who works until 2 am, because she has taken on the work of people she didn’t want to reprimand. Is that success? Is that a Goddess? She may have the $2000 handbag and the matching stilettos, but is that a woman who commands respect?

Self-respect begins with the word No. No mom, you cannot guilt me into visiting you on Sunday. No son, you cannot behave dishonorably and demand that I treat you like a man. No honey, I won’t stroke your ego and treat you like a god, when you behave like any mortal. No boss, I won’t work on weekends for no additional pay. No. No, No, No and No. Why? It is not in my best interest to do so.

Many of us have no problems at all, instead most of us suffer from a lack of self-respect. Many of us are looking for techniques about how to change other people, but are refusing to change ourselves. Some of us suffer, yet remain loyal to those who keep us suffering. Who are you really committed to? Those people who ask you to swallow guilt, shame, self-respect, or are you committed to you? Act like it. A Goddess is committed to herself, to her honor, to her dignity, to her boundaries, to her self-respect. A Goddess would not compromise one ounce of her dignity, her boundaries, her self-respect, to keep disrespectful people in her life. Not one ounce.

A Goddess commands respect from others solely because she demonstrates her commitment to her dignity and self-respect for the whole world to see. Those who cannot tolerate her strength and her loyalty to herself will hate her, and obviously disapprove. A Goddess is comfortable and stands confident in the face of their disapproval.

Become comfortable with other people’s disapproval of you. Yes, it is a practice that you must master. You cannot shrink when others demand you bow in front of them. Be comfortable with losing important people, no one should be more important to you than you. Be comfortable with saying No, without an apology or an explanation. No. I’m not interested. No, that is not true. No, you are in fact wrong. No, you do not have my permission to do that. No, it is not okay for you to keep pushing for yes, when I have clearly said No. No, I won’t call you on my day off. No, I will not pick up the phone every time you need something. No, you are not my top priority. No, dinner with you would be no pleasure for me. No, I will not buy more Girl Scout cookies from you, I do not want to feel obligated. No, I will not pay what we haven’t agreed to, No, you did not complete your work to my satisfaction and no, I will not help you complete it. No.

Do you have trouble saying No? Do you have issues that you haven’t put an end to from your past? Do you suffer at the hands of other people? Are you still entertaining bad habits from your past? Are you still relying on victimhood as your excuse in life? I can’t help you until you are willing to stand up for yourself and scream No.  I’ve got bad news for you. We all keep ourselves in old holding patterns, in toxic relationships, in deep shit, simply because we refuse to take responsibility for our own grown selves and say No.

One of the things I enjoy now with great pleasure is saying No.  In fact, I love the power of saying No so much, I relish hearing myself say it. My no, is never followed by an excuse, an explanation, nor sugar-coated words. Those words only soften my position, and transfer my power to the other person. I also won’t let the other person embellish my truth. I said No, now he is responsible for dealing with rejection, and handling my No like a healthy grownup. If he cannot, my answer remains No, but now his maturity or lack thereof will show. When someone tries to compromise my word by insisting “Oh she really didn’t mean to be so abrupt”, I confidently say “Yes, I clearly intended to say No”. No one gets to correct my feelings, no one gets to sugar-coat the meaning of my word on my behalf. My no, always means No, and I will fight or cause you some unpleasant feelings if you dare to challenge my No. I never say “I’m sorry I have to decline, I say No, I don’t want to”.

Your No does not have to sound positive. Your No does not have to sound like a maybe. Your No does not have to coddle their feelings. In fact, when it doesn’t, it sounds much more powerful and dignified than “I’m sorry, I can’t.” Say No and give yourself permission to enjoy their disapproval afterward.

When people know that they can get you to compromise, they will surely expect you to every time. When people know that you are willing to push aside your dignity so they can feel good, they will expect you to do it again. Demonstrating that you are willing to soften your opinion so they can feel right, broadcasts that you have no respect for your own opinion. Why would anyone respect you when your opinion is negotiable? If I can make you feel guilty for enforcing your boundaries, I hold all the power about how you feel.

Being a Goddess has nothing to do with how you look, whether men chase you, the cost of your wardrobe, nor whether you are able to manipulate people into liking you. You simply cannot fake it. Being a Goddess is 100% respect for the self. Create a Self that you can worship and kneel in front of. How? Imagine that your Self, that Goddess Self is separate from your body, imagine that it is high up in the sky, like God. What aspects of God do you respect? Why does everyone respect and bow down in front of God? Does God compromise when she is offended? Does God acquiesce to guilt, shaming, or demands? Is God afraid of losing people? Is God afraid of your disapproval? Is God afraid to disappoint you? Has God ever felt guilty for saying No? Nope, God stays up in the sky, and stays in full power no matter what is happening down here on earth. Has God ever stopped down to the level of man? Neither should you.

A man is not someone for whom you should compromise your honor. A relationship is not a prize you win by negotiating your dignity away. Success is not something you earn by doing everyone else’s job, and it is certainly not a willingness to do anything for money. If you can’t respect yourself, you have nothing other people can value. An inability to say No, is a sure sign of a doormat.

You have no problems in life. You just haven’t learned how to say No.

S

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

How much contact is too much contact? Every human is different. Each of us has different needs, and each of us has her own personal way of interacting with people. We all want more contact with people whose company we enjoy, and less contact with people we don’t actually need or want. Therefore, it makes no sense to follow dating rules, or to go by what dating experts think is right. It does make sense to pay attention to the man, and gauge his level of interest, and how much contact he seems to be comfortable with. That applies to women as well. There is nothing more off putting than a person who is contacting us more than we’d like to hear from them.

Also, timed or measured contact- texting or calling someone to purposely delay a response and appear to be unavailable is a game. You are playing a game with a man who I am sure you wouldn’t want to play games with you. You are appearing to be too busy, when in fact you are not, thus creating false appearances. Would you think he is fake if he did this to you, texted you and then pretended to be too busy to follow up? Games are unattractive. It takes two to tango. If you don’t want him to play texting games with you, then please don’t play texting games with men, even when they are suggested by a dating book like “The Rules”. If you can see through men who are inauthentic, rest assured that men can tell when you are pretending to be unavailable.

So what is an appropriate level of contact? There is no hard answer, it depends on how much the person wants to hear from you. Here’s an example. A few months ago, this guy who I had no intention of dating started texting me. The questions he was asking via text were too personal for someone I had no interest in. I openly told him that I was not interested in dating him, and he seemed amenable to contact as friends. But he still kept texting more than I needed to hear from him, and the questions indicated that his level of interest in me is much higher than just a friendship. So, again, I said “Hey, we are just friends, why so many personal questions?”. More questions later, and I saw that he is still trying to get to know me, when I have no interest in getting to know him on a personal level. I wasn’t initiating contact, wasn’t asking any questions of him at all, I would only reply rarely to indicate no interest. So, this is an example of too much contact. I happen to be blunt and very open about how I feel, so he should have taken my first “I am not interested in dating you” as a signal to back off and stop contact.

If you tend to overtext, ask yourself if you are texting because you are anxious, and need to know where this situation is going to calm your nerves? If you are, then back off. Allow people to show you how much contact they want. If men rarely text you or initiate contact, or if the texts are superficial, then that indicates low interest. When somebody shows you low interest, use that to calm your anxiety. Now is not the time to overthink when you can text him next, now is the time to talk yourself into accepting that low interest indicates you should be taking your attention elsewhere. How often do you text with your girlfriends? Do you have anxiety every time you need to text one of them? Do you time your responses to them? Chances are you don’t overthink it when your girlfriends don’t text you back right away.

When I start to feel a certain level of anxiety about texting back, or start to overthink my responses, I let that anxiety guide me. Anxiety indicates I am not comfortable, I am unsure of the situation, I doubt myself, him or the situationship. Anxiety means that right now this situation is not clear enough for me to engage. Let your anxiety be your red flag that YOU, (not he) is not operating in your highest interest and back off. Rather than use anxiety as your excuse to start thinking about him, what does he want, where is this going, etc., shift your focus elsewhere. If you are doubting whether he would want to hear from you, and how much, be certain that your doubt is accurate. Down girl. It is your own body telling you that you don’t have enough of a connection to start poking and prodding him. If you feel anxiety, it is because at some level you already sense he is not fully into you. If you had a genuine connection, and if you had two-way mutual interest, the channel of communication would be clear, and you wouldn’t feel so uncertain contacting him.

Ask yourself that most important question of all: is there mutual and equal interest? A lot of women confuse their own interest in him, with ‘he must like me too because he is nice to me’. Nice people don’t always have an interest in you personally, nor dating you. Is he interested in getting to know me? Is he interested in dating me? What exactly does he want? What are his intentions? Not sure? That’s because you don’t have enough information about him to move towards him. Your need to get answers before anything has happened between you is your indicator that you are jumping the gun. You are way ahead of him. Niceness does not indicate interest. ‘I am interested in dating you’ is an indication of interest.

If you are overthinking contact, chances are that your monkey mind is telling you that you don’t have enough of an established connection to start communicating. Your mind and your body are always talking to you, you just have to pay attention. Remember that children’s game: Hot and cold? The closer you move in the right direction, the crowd yells “warmer”? Well your anxiety is screaming “colder, colder, don’t go there girl!” That’s not the right move to make.

If the reason you need to start contacting him is to comfort yourself, ease your own tension, feed your hunger, quell your anxiety, that is not a healthy reason. That person of interest is not your medicine. Chances are that you are using him or her to soothe your own discomfort, and that you are establishing a toxic connection already. Any tension or anxiety about this situation is within you. Therefore, in this situation, you are the problem. Deal with yourself. The other person is not the cause of the tension and unease you feel, so resist the temptation to make them responsible for making you feel good about the situation. If you feel discomfort it is because you are anxiously trying to make something happen, while the other person is not there at all.

The appropriate level of contact depends on how much the other person wants to hear from you. You have no way of knowing that until they have shown you. If they are not showing you any clear signs, it is because they are nicely and subtly keeping you at arms length.

Remember, contact is always too much when the other person does not feel the same way about you. Contact is always irritating when one person is not picking up queues about lack of interest. Contact is always uncomfortable when a genuine connection has not been established. Contact is always a source of anxiety and tension when it is not right. Pay attention to your own self. Are you building tension, or are you building mutual interest? Do you feel that you might be intruding on that person’s time? If you doubt whether your texts are welcome, let that doubt be your guide. Back off and go elsewhere, unless that person tells you “Call me”.

S

Are you an emotional sponge? Do you absorb other people’s feelings and bad energies? You may call yourself an empath, a victim, a people pleaser, or see yourself as suffering from over-responsibility. It is that guilty feeling of being responsible for other people’s discomfort, dissatisfaction, criticism, judgment and anger. Someone expresses extreme rage and anger at you, but it is you who internalizes and feels the pain of their anguish inside you. Imagine that out of control driver who can’t stay in his own lane, can’t simmer down his own temper, slams on his accelerator, cuts you off, leans on his horn to express his rage at you, nearly causes an accident, screams an expletive at you, before he drives off, but you are the one feeling horrible as if you did something wrong. Why? He may have some reason to be angry within himself, but why are you feeling the ickiness of his rage?

That tightness in the pit of your stomach is making you sick, he is long gone, he doesn’t even know who you are, yet his toxicity is now sitting in the pit of your stomach, making you sick. We all have anger, we all have issues, we all have negativity that we still haven’t released, and we all sometimes, inadvertently share it with others. Some people know how to deflect rage, while others absorb it like a sponge. Learning how to not be affected by other people’s emotions is a skill I had to learn and keep practicing. But, absorbing and feeling responsible for other people’s anger, disappointment, guilt was debilitating. When you allow other people’s judgment to permeate into you, you carry it within you. We all carry residual guilt, shame, and anger inflicted by others.

So what can you do to learn how to deflect bad energy?

1) Practice enforcing your boundaries, verbally, physically, emotionally. “No sir, I am actually not a c*, you are actually feeling inadequate with yourself, and attempting to make me feel smaller than you.”  “I see you are angry, you are foaming at the mouth, but whoever pissed you off is not here. Take your temper elsewhere”. “Right now you are creating drama and attempting to get me to jump on your bandwagon. Let’s take a time out, and re-engage when you are acting more stable, and able to communicate clearly and constructively what is bothering you”. By defending yourself and refusing their blame or their anger, you are enforcing your boundaries. As soon as you do that, you will feel the power of honoring yourself.

2) Mirror the offender. Mirroring someone does not mean to act badly as they do. If he is an angry moron, that is no excuse to act just as badly. Being a mirror means allowing that person to see their reflection, their own rage and their anger for themselves . “I see, you are loosing control of your emotions”, “I see that there are years of rage that you haven’t dealt with”, “I see you are attempting to manipulate me”, “I see your own shame, and you are attempting to project it onto me”, “That fear is yours, I am not afraid at all”. Reflecting back whatever they are attempting to throw at you, allows them to see how they are seen by other people, which is probably not how they want to be perceived. If you provide real evidence for what you see (not just empty words), they are more likely to back off. Again, once you have deflected their rage back to them, you have successfully prevented it from absorbing into you.

3) Call them out preferably in front of others, before you have any chance to start processing their emotions for them. Stop them right away and say “No, you won’t succeed in bullying me. Your situation is your own, it is not for me to deal with”, “I see that you are creating drama to distract us from the fact that you are the problem.”, “I am not interested in getting sucked into your chaos, please leave me out of it”. Let them know that you know what they are doing, by calling them out, and back up your assertion with proof.

What is the cost to carrying other people’s feelings with you? I can write a book about that. But generally, it is low self-esteem, high stress, resentment and poor emotional and physical health. We all know what that is like. But most women don’t know how to fight back. We all feel guilty, even inadequate fighting with men. There is a heavy price to pay for talking back to angry men in the workplace, socially, politically and in intimate relationships. But our complacency and our fear of making them feel bad, has hurt us. It has hurt femininity and womanhood, it has hurt each of us emotionally, it has hurt us politically, and it has set our careers and independence back for hundreds of years. It hurts, and allowing people, especially men to inflict their own anger, rage, and judgment onto us, and actually accept it as normal has blinded and handicapped us.

There are generations of women out there who still feel that it is their responsibility to coddle and uphold manhood. There are generations of women who have accepted blame for being the weaker sex. What exactly makes us weak? There are generations of women who believe that femininity means complacency, passivity, dependence, incompetence, aloofness, acquiescence, undying support, agreement, subservience. In their defense, they spent years in fear of judgment, shame and guilt for having too strong of an opinion and for daring to disagree or contradict what manhood thinks femininity should be. That said, it is no wonder that today women are dropping out, saying No, walking away, questioning all aspects of romantic relationships and starting to act in their own best interest.

We have all been taught to act nice, smile kindly, support men in whatever fantasy they have of themselves, coddle them like a fragile golden egg, take responsibility for their well being, admit guilt, accept shame, accept judgment so they can feel like men. But, what is the cost to our health? What is the cost to our emotional well-being when we don’t speak up in that board room when our manager is boasting about an idea he borrowed from one of us. What is the cost of politely listening while some office asshole is pounding his chest like an ape, proclaiming himself to be the man, taking up space, but offering nothing to the bottom line? What is the cost of silently allowing toxicity to seep in?

The cost is your dignity. If you are wondering why people cross your boundaries so easily, it is because you have been cowering in the corner for years, when in fact you should have been defending your honor. If you are wondering why people spew hate and obscenities in you presence and simply expect you to say nothing, it is because you showed them that you can be counted on to sweep those offensive words under the rug. If you are wondering why toxic people assume their way into your life, it is because you are a sponge, willing to soak their feelings in.

The only way to reverse the situation is to start speaking up, defending your boundaries, fighting back, learning to speak logically and reasonably instead of emotionally, holding people accountable for bad behavior even if it costs you that relationship. You have to make yourself and your honor more important than anyone else’s existence. Your ability to exist in a healthy environment and with healthy relationships is your right, but you can only have that if you earn it. You earn that right, when you fight for your own dignity, for your own respect, and your own honor. No one else will honor you, until they see that your boundaries are strictly enforced.

Ten years ago I started to speak up, honestly, bluntly, without sugar coating anything. “No, I am not a bitch for saying no to you, you feel insecure when women tell you no”. “No, I actually don’t feel guilty making choices that are in my best interest, you are attempting to make me feel guilty so that I would act in your interest”, “No, you are not the most productive sales person on this team, Monika’s and Jane’s numbers are consistently higher”, “No, it is not okay for you to keep me company in my hotel room, you are my manager and if you have a problem with that, let’s talk to HR together”, “It is clear you don’t have a strong handle on your emotions, may I suggest anger management so that you can act more balanced during meetings?”, “No, I am not wearing this red dress for your benefit, actually I am wearing it for myself”.

The very first time I spoke my inner truth, and said something difficult bluntly without sugar-coating it, I felt like a boulder had been lifted off my chest. I felt free, lighter, healthy, and so powerful. What was surprising was that the more I started to talk back, challenge men, clearly demonstrate the errors in their thinking, the more they started to think before they talk, consider that I might easily prove them wrong, even expect me to put them in their place. Many men simply do not know how pompous they sound when they assume you will support their assertion of themselves. And many immediately become self-aware when you check them. Yes, assholes will always be assholes, and they will explode in rage when someone challenges them. Let them be angry, as long as you don’t accept their anger and apologize for it. Allowing men to save face, by making you responsible for their feelings is toxic to you.

You don’t need to support men, and it is not your responsibility to make them feel safe, coddled, and comfortable. That is only their responsibility. Allow their tempers to be your red flag and a sign to disengage, move away, you don’t want that in your life. But, resist the temptation to help them manage their feelings. If he is an adult who has made any effort to understand and develop himself, he will take responsibility for his own anger. He won’t attempt to unload it on you.  In fact, rescuing men from their own feelings IS that bad habit that gets you sucked into toxic relationships every time. Leave him alone. Watch and observe whether he knows of constructive ways to diffuse his own anger. Kicking a car, a dog or you is not constructive at all. Hitting a punching bag isn’t either. It means he cannot express himself verbally, so he will go punch something instead.

Does he need you to agree with him so that he can feel right about his own assertion? Does he fall apart and lash out when others disagree with him? You don’t have a man on your hands, you have an emotionally unstable brat whose manhood is dependent on others upholding it.

Resist the temptation to help men be men. If he is a man, he will be balanced, he will be in touch with his emotions, he will be able to handle negative feelings without blaming others, or resorting to violence. A real man will not throw a temper like a child, or start hitting his chest like a Neanderthal. A real man can walk upright, speak in coherent sentences, and does not carry a club or make a fist any time someone threatens him. A real man does not need your help to be a man.

You don’t have to walk on eggshells around a real man. You don’t need to keep your opinion to yourself, so that he can feel okay. You can call him out on his bullshit and he won’t start crying or yelling obscenities. He can handle his own mistakes, admit when he has failed, you don’t have to fear repercussions or revenge when you are dealing with a real man. In fact, just start talking back, enforcing your own boundaries, saying No bluntly, then watch to see how the men around you react.

Once I started calling men out on their own bullshit in the office, I realized how valuable this is in my dating life. In fact, long before I start taking a man seriously or dating him, I watch how he deals with accountability for his own words, how he reacts to criticism, can he handle a challenge to his ego? I want to see if he is pretending to be okay, or is he really okay- the difference being is if he is not okay, you will see it as passive aggression, brooding, revenge, back-stabbing later. Men rarely verbalize when their feelings are hurt, instead they punch a wall, throw a tantrum, or do something underhanded when no one is looking. Pay attention to how he diffuses anger.

In the mean time, you need to stop absorbing emotions of men who don’t know how to handle their own inadequacies. Practice enforcing your boundaries unapologetically, mirror their feelings back to them without stooping to their level, and call them out when you see bullshit. Sure, they will be uncomfortable, but there is no reason for you to accept and carry that anger on your back. His anger is his toxicity, not yours. Eventually you will be able to tell the real men apart from the Neanderthals, by observing how they deal with their own emotions.

S