HAVE THE RELATIONSHIP YOU WANT A Step-By-Step Woman;s Guide To Transforming Your Love Life Overnight! Rori Raye
2 HAVE THE RELATIONSHIP YOU WANT Copyright 2005, 2007 by Coach Rori, LLC For information: Rori Raye http://www.HaveTheRelationshipYouWant.com Any reproduction, republication or other distribution of this work, including, without limitation, the duplication, copying, scanning, uploading and making available via the Internet or any other means, without the express permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law, and the knowing acquisition of an unauthorized reproduction of this work may subject acquirer to liability. Please purchase only authorized electronic or print editions of this work and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the authorBs rights is appreciated.
3 A Special Message to My Readers Hi, this is Rori, I;m so thrilled you;re about to read and work with the Tools in this book Q that you;re ready to be loved, cherished and adored the way you truly want and deserve Q and I know it will all happen for you more quickly than you imagine. The love life you dream of is within your reach, and I;m totally committed to helping you get there. The Tools you'll find in this book were created as a result of my experience with years and years of excruciating, painful, humiliating UrelationshipsV with men, dry spells where there were no men at all, the UawfulV years of my marriage where everything I said, did and thought actually did more damage and took my self-esteem on a downhill slide. Throughout the years I tried many things and finally discovered the right combination of words and behavior that turned it all around for me. First, I got married, and then, I turned my troubled marriage into a glorious, amazing thing that;s lasted for more than twenty years. Because every Tool I developed for myself saved my love life, I know this book will change yours -- whether you're in a relationship, married, dating, or sitting home alone and dreading dating. The Tools will help you if you're looking for Mr. Right, or think you may have encountered Mr. Right and need to know how to draw him in and make him stay forever. They will help you if you;re with your Mr. Right, but things are going wrong and what you need is an instant, total turnaround for the relationship you have. The Tools will help you if there;s a man in your life who wants to be your Mr. Right, but you're just not sure about him. And they
4 will help you save your relationship or marriage even if it's on the verge of breaking up. Because I'm married I often use my husband as an example. I also bring up the men I dated and suffered over to help illustrate and guide you through these Tools. So, wherever I refer to my husband, or to a man I was once with -- substitute whatever man you;re with or want in your life right now. This might be the man you're dating, the man you live with, or the man I;ll ask you to visualize. As you work through the book and start UdoingV the Tools, you will begin to use every man you encounter (including the man you may be with right now) to experiment and practice on. These are Tools that will allow you to easily draw a man in. They will teach you how to help a man to fall in love with you and stay in love with you in a way that makes you feel loved forever. They will help you get rid of the walls and the blocks we women have all been taught to put up between ourselves and a man. They will get you connected, almost instantly, with a man;s heart. They will repair the damage to your relationship, no matter how much your man is withdrawing or how bad things feel right now. And these Tools will rebuild your faith in love and your hopes for yourself, so that you;ll believe and see for yourself the Truth -- that there are so many great men out there who want you, and that you can create the relationship of your dreams with any one of them. These Tools are the basics of the Rori Raye system for getting the love, romance, and commitment you want, from the great man you want. Be sure to write to me, or visit my blog at http://blog.HaveTheRelationshipYouWant.com, and let me know how the Tools are working for you. I know they will quickly and dramatically make all the difference for you in your love life. Love, Rori
5 CONTENTS Introduction\\\\\\\\\..\\\\\\5 1\Ground Rules\\\\\\\\\\\\..\7 2 \The 5 Keys\\\\\\\\\\\\....\11 3 \There;s More To You Than You Know\...\.14 4\Figuring it Out\\\\\\\\\\\...\19 5\What Do I Want? \\\\\\\\\\.\26 6\Four Changes to Relationship Bliss\\\....\33 7\Through the Woods\\\\\\\\\\...39 Key #1 8\Choose Relationship\\\\\\\\\..\48 Key #2 9\Choose to be the Masculine or Feminine Energy Partner\\\\...\\\\60 Key #3 10\Support the Team\\\\\\\\\\\65 Key # 4 - Respect the Masculine
6 11\Say Goodbye to Old Negatives\\\\\\\\\70 12\Recapturing Affection\\\\\\\..\\\\\74 13\Stop What isn;t Working\\\\..\\\\\\\79 14\Listening at Levels 1 & 2\\\\\\\\\\..\84 Key #5 O Express the Feminine 15\What is Feminine Energy?\ \\\\\\\..\\90 16\What Do I Feel? \\\\\\\\...\\.\\..\96 17\Requesting and Negotiating\\\...\\\.\\\106 18\Being a Girl\\\\\\\\\\\\.\\\...112 19\Overfunctioning\\\\\\\\\\\\\\115 20\Vulnerability\\\\\\\\\\..\.\\\\126 21\WellBeing\\\\\\\\\\\\...\\\\133 22\The Rori Raye Mantra\\\\\\\\\\\\137 23\Translations l How to Choose Words\\\...\\139 24\Processing\\\\\\\\\\\\\..\\\143 25\Fearlessness\\\\\\\\\\\\...\\\148 About Rori Raye\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\152
7 INTRODUCTION What If: %every time you saw your partner you felt excited? %you knew exactly what you wanted and could get it : without even asking? %the relationship you;re already in could be the relationship of your dreams? %even though you;ve been in and out of so many relationships looking for =Mr. RightA your head is spinning and your heart hurts, you could start fresh, use what you;ve already learned, and attract exactly the relationship you want into your life? %it could really be different? ou can have what you want. You can be cherished and adored. You can be happy. And it can happen quickly. Many years ago, my now two decades long marriage was awful. I was bouncing emotionally in and out of it, I was anxious, miserable, furious. Our daughter was small, and I felt trapped. There was no sex, no sleep, no fun, no peace. Couples therapy didn;t help at all l it only made me feel angrier and more helpless. Desperate, I read, experimented, Y
8 made stuff up and concentrated on my side of the relationship. It was a total shock when my marriage turned completely around in two weeks. Now, my relationship with my husband is truly sensational l and it gets better every day. This workbook will introduce you to the principles and tools of the Have the Relationship You Want seminars, workshops, teleclasses, and personal coaching. In these pages you;ll find enough information, exercises and powerful questions to transform your relationship l all by yourself, without the cooperation of your partner, without even talking to him about it l practically overnight. I encourage you to dive into the exercises. I applaud you for taking the risk of changing things as they are in order to get what you want. When the new tools you;ll find in this book work for you for the first time, you;ll be amazed. They will continue to work, and take you as far into love as you;re willing to go.
9 CHAPTER 1 GROUND RULES =If I could reach up and hold a star for every time you;ve made me smile, the entire evening sky would be in the palm of my hand.A : Unknown irst, I want to set the ground rules. What we;re going to be about here is getting you the big ticket items l Affection, Great Sex, Fun, Respect, Romance, Excitement, Pleasure, Harmony, Emotional Safety and Support, a framework for negotiating what you wantl and a Soul-mate Connection with the man you have or the man you;re about to meet. This is not about finding better, cleverer ways to get him to do what you want him to do and to behave the way you want him to behave. It;s not about managing and controlling him better, so that he doesn;t feel like you;re managing and controlling him. It;s not about tricks l it;s about Letting Go to get what you want. It;s about giving up all forms of control and man-management in order to have your dream relationship. It;s about treating your man as though you trust and respect him even if you;re not there yet. F
10 Okay, I want to illustrate this physically. Hold out your hands and tighten your fists like you;re holding onto something. Imagine your man, or your date, is standing right in front of you l and what you;re holding onto with your clenched fists, is him. You have his shirt in your hands. Don;t let go. What do you imagine it;s like for him? What;s he thinking, what;s he doing? Is he squirming, trying to get away? If you;re married, he won;t leave. He doesn;t want to leave. He;ll just stand there, or sometimes he;ll bat or push you away. Does that sound familiar? And what does it feel like for you? How does it feel to be grabbing onto his shirt like that? Tension in your stomach? Okay, now look at your hands. It feels like you;re grabbing on, right, but look at where your knuckles are l the part of your hand that;s closest to him. You;re really pushing him away with your fists! So you;re both grabbing on and pushing away at the same time. How;s that feel? Are you afraid of what will happen if you let go? Don;t let go. All right, now let go. Release and relax your hands. Now turn your hands, effortlessly now, palms up and out. What does that feel like? Okay. Clench your fists again, hold on again. This is control. Open your hands, palms up. This is
11 surrender. Clench them again. This is control l wanting, trying to get, trying to keep, arranging, managing. Now open them and turn them up and outward. This is receiving, allowing, being open. How does it feel? This workbook is meant for you to carry around and write in l writing can often help us access feelings and information that thinking sometimes blocks. And a month from now, it will be great to revisit what you;ve written and add to it all the changes that have happened. So when you pick up this book, pick up a pen. Start now O write about how it feels to clench your fists and pull and push your man. Write what it feels like to want to control him and the relationship.
12 Now open your hands and let the palms face up and outward again. Write what it feels like to let go of the clenched fist and receive. Let both the positive and negative feelings about it come up and onto the paper. We clench our fists and try to control so much because we are afraid what will happen if we don;t. So whatever you think or feel, write it down. We;ll be looking back at this many times as we go along l for now, let;s just jump right in!
13 CHAPTER 2 THE 5 KEYS TO CREATING A GREAT RELATIONSHIP =Many of us spend our lives saying we would give anything for love, while we;re often really pushing it away.A : Merle Shain f youZre not used to it, love can be scary. If you;re used to always being in control, being in love can feel like being crazy. This workbook, and the workshops and seminars that coach you through using its principles, are designed to take you step by step from the easiest to the most challenging techniques and exercises so that you can go at your own pace. Each of the 5 Keys lays a foundation for the next. As you use the most challenging tools in Keys 4 & 5, you will find yourself revisiting the basics in Keys 1,2 and 3 for support and encouragement and to help renew your commitment to the program. I
14 CAN I FALL IN LOVE WITH HIM AGAIN? Absolutely. Falling in love again with the man you already have in your life can feel just as scary and exciting as it did at the beginning. Falling in love for the first time with the good man you;re about to meet can be thrilling. I offer you a roadmap to the land of intimacy l filled with excitement, vulnerability, sensuality, respect, and love. In this book you will learn: • How to completely redesign the entire concept and dynamics of your marriage, your relationship, or your first date. • How to communicate in a completely new way. • How to tap into the power of being a woman by tapping into the power of Feminine Energy.
15 The 5 Keys to a Great Relationship will take you on a step-by-step How-To process. They are: THE 5 KEYS: 1. Choose Relationship. 2. Choose to be either the thinking, action-oriented, decision-making, masculine energy, GIVING partner, or the feeling, expressing, sensual, feminine energy, RECEIVING partner in your relationship. 3. Support the Team. 4. Respect the Masculine. 5. Express the Feminine. Let;s start with a question: What do I want?
16 CHAPTER 3 THEREZS MORE TO YOU THAN YOU KNOW =The longest journey you will make in your life is from your head to your heart.A : Sioux legend SYNCHRONICITY anting something is essential to getting it. Once you want something fiercely enough, not only are you more able to figure out how to get it, it seems everyone else on the planet wants it for you too. One word to describe this is synchronicity. You put out strong, clear energy that you want something, and soon you;re bumping into people in the street who can help you get it. We;ve all had these experiences. Part of how synchronicity works is that it doesn;t know the difference between what you think you want, what you say you want, and what you really want. If you use most of your energy thinking about how miserable you are, and focusing on what you don;t like about what;s going on in W
17 your life, it;s like signaling the world to keep on sending more of the same your way. No wonder we feel stuck! The more we complain, the more we spin our wheels. We feel like we;ll never get out of the hole of our stale relationship, never ever find a great relationship, never get off the treadmill of too much to do and too little time, never be happy. We listen to the negative voices in our heads because we don;t trust ourselves. We;ve created routines and habits that we don;t know how to break. I;ve been there, we;ve all been there. But there are ways out. WHAT WE BELIEVE =Love is what we were born with. Fear is what we learned here.A : Marianne Williamson Our lives are created out of our beliefs about ourselves and the world. We can change our circumstances by changing our beliefs. One way to do this is by using techniques that can alter our minds, bodies and spirits from the inside out l such as: * Psychotherapy and psychoanalysis seek to bring up memories and emotions that are buried in our minds and hearts and bodies through talk. This would include some
18 kinds of hypnotherapy, and work you can do yourself l like writing out your feelings and thoughts in journals. * Bodywork therapy brings up buried memories and emotions by working directly with the body. This would include Rolfing, Reichian therapy, massage, Mind-Body Integration, yoga, Rebirthing, all kinds of deep breathing and guided meditation techniques. Every day it seems there are new Mind-Body forms of healing and new practitioners. Another way to change our beliefs about ourselves is to work from the outside in: Behavior modification therapy identifies habits and routines we;re stuck in and asks us to consciously change them. Hypnotherapy works this way too, and so do affirmations and New Year;s resolutions. You learn to replace negative thoughts and actions with positive ones the way you learn to stop biting your nails and grow longer, stronger ones. The thing is, when you bring up what;s buried on your inside, your outside will change. If you tap into pain and anger you;ve held in your subconscious your whole life, you;ll suddenly find yourself more relaxed and with a new point of view about everything. That;s because it;s often the feelings and beliefs we don;t know about l the ones buried in our subconscious l that run our lives.
19 RECLAIMING OURSELVES You can visualize this by looking at your entire self as a circle. Put another circle in the center that;s almost as big as the first. The outer layer is what;s conscious, or what you know about yourself. What;s in the deepest circle is the buried treasure l what you don;t know about. The big mystery of ourselves. It all belongs to you. It;s all your own energy, the stuff of your own life. When you connect with the emotions and thoughts in your mind and body that you don;t know about, and suddenly know about them, the outer circle gets bigger. It goes deeper. There;s more of you. I call this Alchemy l a sort of magical, elemental, chemical change. When you reclaim parts of yourself that were once unreachable, you become a new person l sort of how adding a new ingredient to a recipe makes it an entirely different What I know What I don;t know
20 dish, with a whole new name on the menu! You will begin running more of your life with the feelings and beliefs you do know about. Romance will become less of a mystery to you, and the parts that are still l and ought to be l mysterious will be easier to enjoy, appreciate, and sometimes just get through. You will start making better choices because you now actually do have choices. And then your actions will begin to change on their own. When those changes happen on the outside, more buried feelings about yourself will begin to come up. It;s a cycle of healing in which you are continually clearing out obsolete beliefs about yourself and the world by learning more about what makes you who you are.
21 CHAPTER 4 FIGURING IT OUT =You can close your eyes to the things you do not want to see, but you cannot close your heart to the things you do not want to feel.A : Anonymous Zve done talk therapy, psychoanalysis, hypnosis, Reichian and Rebirthing bodywork, written many books, plays and film scripts and even more journals, and participated in some therapy techniques that are so far out on the edge I;m embarrassed to talk about them. And everything worked. Everything opened up my heart or my mind a little bit more. I became addicted to the Uah haV moments of therapy. But nothing changed in my relationships. My first marriage to a man I adored had disintegrated, leaving my selfesteem somewhere below floor level. I was working my way through dead-end relationships l some passionate, some creepy, some where I was hanging in for no reason and knew it, and some where I was hanging in oblivious to the I
22 heartache ahead. Relationships that didn;t go anywhere, boring ones I didn;t want to go anywhere. Still choosing men who couldn;t go anywhere anyway. Romances lasted way longer than they should have because I put up with so much. I made completely wrong choices from beginning to end. I thought I was ready to make the leap into a great relationship, but I didn;t know how. GETTING READY FOR MY MR. RIGHT For me, information was the missing link. I was successfully working on myself, uncovering old feelings, changing my actions, but I was like a child in some ways. I needed information. I needed a How To. Getting the great relationship I wanted and then keeping it great was like learning a foreign language. I needed an instruction book! And a tutor with a track record. I found the instructions in magazine articles, in books, and from men themselves. I experimented. I took the information into the real world and used dating as a tutorial. I picked men;s brains, asked about all their old relationships and what they thought and did and felt. And then I met my husband. He fell into my lap. I couldn;t shake him off no matter how hard I tried. And I really tried. I thought he
23 wasn;t my type, I thought he was too nice. I didn;t get that intense thrill from being with him that I felt when I was with my Karate instructor or the fellow who was almost a Jesuit priest. I put him off for weeks, and then, finally, I looked at him sitting across from me in my living room and it was as if a mist lstraight from a romance novel l wafted across his face. It was absolutely crystal clear to me that he was Uthe one.V That I was going to marry him and be with him for the rest of my life. And I was not happy about it. I was still hooked into that whole UjunkieV mentality of chasing men who either didn;t want to or constitutionally couldn;t want me. I resisted him, but he won me over. His good-guyness became exciting, as I found myself actually being taken to dinner, asked out consistently, pursued, and looked at as though I was a goddess. He was actually adorable l much more handsome and appealing than the Karate instructor or the would-be Jesuit priest or any of the hundreds of men I;d sifted through my life l and I finally got it.
24 I wanted to get married and have children, and there he was l right in the nick of time, ready to marry and have kids with me l my perfect-for-me man. We;d met on my 38th birthday, he asked me to marry him on my 39th birthday, we were married four months later, and my daughter was born right after my 40th birthday. And then the nightmare started all over again. BACK TO START First, affection slowed down. Laughing and being silly stopped. Sex stopped. I was getting nervous and anxious and not sleeping well. He was moody. Angry. Withdrawing from me. We tried couples therapy, which only made me feel angrier and more hopeless. This went on for almost four years until, in desperation, I figured it out. I;d found instructions for attracting my man, but had no idea what to do with him when he was mine. I;d gone back to the only behavior I knew l what I saw in my own home between my mother and father, and what I;d done in all my other old, dead-end relationships, including my first marriage. I slowly began to see that what was wrong with my now miserable marriage was the same thing that had been wrong with all my relationships. It wasn;t that he was the
25 wrong man, or couldn;t be intimate, or any of the other things I;d thought and heard about UmenV. It was me. I had to find new instructions, a new mentor, a new tutor. But not one single woman I knew was any more happily married than I was. Again I read, I experimented. I went on a search for information. I tried everything I found, everything I already knew, and then, like a brick hitting me, a light went on in my head. SMALL CHANGES MAKE A BIG DIFFERENCE I noticed that I was saying and doing things that were completely destructive to my idea of what a great romance and marriage should be. I was making sure there was no real intimacy, trust and passion in the relationship, and I was angry with him about it! Then I realized how all the men I;d ever chosen had similar characteristics, and that the relationships had all disintegrated in the same way. It was changes on my outside l overhauling my language, actions, and attitudes l that caught my husband;s attention, softened our interactions and opened the door for me to make the even bigger changes on my inside.
26 It was my newfound willingness to feel my feelings and express them in a way my husband could really hear that turned my marriage around forever. I taught myself to trust myself by setting boundaries and standing by them. Then, slowly, I learned to surrender my need to control everything in my life. I stopped trying to control my husband. I learned to surrender to myself, to love, to intimacy and finally, to trust my husband. I began to believe him when he said he loved me. I began to believe he was just fine without my help and supervision. Sex came back. Affection came back big-time. Fun came back. All of a sudden we were a team, instead of two UleadersV fighting over who was in charge. I stopped trying to UdelegateV chores to him. He started smiling at me, talking with me. All this happened in less than one month. Now, more than fifteen years later, my marriage just gets better every day. Sometimes I stand around amazed at my good fortune. I know that my husband is the same good man he was before, and that our good marriage has created a
27 place for us both to grow into the best people we can be, fully supported, fully respected, fully cherished, fully loved. And now I look at my lovely husband, smiles on both our faces, our daughter dancing around our loveseat like a woodland fairy in some pastoral scene, and feel grateful to my toes. If I;d known then what I know now\runs through my head. So If I could help you know now what I learned over many years and heartaches, what would I tell you? LOVE DOES NOT TAKE HARD WORK. It;s a myth that you have to UworkV on a relationship. All you need is an instruction book, a mentor, and partner to work with. The relationship or first date itself is the tutorial. Every minute you are with your man l or the man you are about to meet l who you are and where you are will be reflected back to you. Watch, listen, learn, practice, and be willing to receive love. I hope my journey of trial-and error can save you time and pain. Read it, do the exercises, and watch in amazement as your own relationship turns wonderful.
28 CHAPTER 5 WHAT DO I WANT? =Having someone wonder where you are when you don;t come home at night is a very old human need.A : Margaret Mead any of us donZt even believe we deserve what brings us pleasure and so we don;t allow ourselves to want it. Many of us squelch down the desire so quickly that we don;t even give ourselves a chance to know if we want something or not. In this book, I;m going to ask you to focus on what it is you want for yourself, not what you want others to do. Focus on understanding where your desires are coming from, what they;re leading you to, how it would look if you had what you want, and getting clear on the first steps to take toward your wants. Sounds easy, but do you actually know what you want? M
29 YOUR IDEAL RELATIONSHIP Even if you believe that you do know what you want l it;s the specific, sensual details of your desire that starts the wheels in motion. Throughout this book, we;ll be using guided imagery and fantasy to help bring vague desires into 3-D wants you can actually see and feel. Let;s start by imagining the perfect relationship Your man doesn;t even have to be in this fantasy. Close your eyes and imagine what a perfect day in a perfect relationship looks like, sounds like, feels like. Imagine getting up in the morning. What;s the bed like? The sheets? What does your man (real or imaginary) smell like? Look like? What does he do as soon as he sees your eyes are open? Take it from there. Imagine every possible moment of the day. Now, here;s the very important trick to this exercise l while you are fantasizing a perfect day in your perfect relationship, it may trigger visions of very yucky moments in your not-so perfect relationship. You may be enticed down a road of rehashing miserable moments from the past and drawn into imagining them, and dreading them, in the future. You may find yourself getting angry, or sad. If and when this happens, Stop. Don;t think about it, just Stop.
30 This Stopping will be a very important tool for you throughout the program, and I want you to start practicing it now. Stop what you;re doing. Completely turn away from the unhappy thought and the conversation in your head about it. With as little energy as possible (and this is important l no wrenching, pulling, no belittling or getting angry at yourself or him) simply turn back to the happy fantasy. No matter how many times you have to do it, keep turning back to the happy fantasy until it plays out to the end of the day. Ignore everything that isn;t wonderful, perfect, blissful. For some of you, this was easy. For most, it was a struggle. As soon as your own husband or boyfriend l or a past lover who broke your heart l gets into the picture, whatever you;ve been doing, thinking and feeling about him will come up. Most of us have been coping so long, living in the land of UJust not happyV that to switch gears into the positive is the first challenge of this program. When you;re at the absolute end of the perfect day, falling asleep in his arms (or in your own arms l it;s important to imagine exactly what you want, not what you
31 think you;re supposed to want), open your eyes and start to write down what you remember. The plot is not important l what;s important are the tactile, sensual details: the colors, smells, emotional feelings, physical feelings, weather, environment, energy. Go back into your imagination and ask yourself : What does it look like, smell like, taste like, feel like in the bed, in the kitchen, the living room, out for the evening in your perfect relationship. Does he call you a special name? What does he do for you? What do you feel for him?
32 When youZve filled the page (and perhaps more pages O on your computer or in a journal,) look over what youZve written. Pick out 3 of your favorite observations. Circle them or rewrite them here: An example would be: He touches me on my cheek and looks into my eyes, and I just melt. Or He;s walking around in these silly boxer shorts and smiling, and I just think he;s adorable. Or He cleans off the dinner plates and then takes out the garbage, and I didn;t even ask him. Look at your 3 chosen moments of relationship bliss. See if you can find one thing from each that symbolically sums up that wonderful moment. For the first example, you might think of melt. For the second, you might think of boxer shorts, or your husband (real or imagined) smiling. For the third, you might think of him standing by a cleaned off table. Come up with what is meaningful to you. Circle or rewrite youZre your three short versions of blissful moments. This exercise has many sides to it.
33 First, youZre giving yourself a structure, or a bitesized vision that you can recall at will to bring you back, instantly, to the remembered wonderful moment. (This is sort of like the sense memory exercise for actors.) Second, during the exercise you were focusing exclusively on the blissful moments, and ignoring anything negative. This is a crucial skill to acquire. Third, in the process of focusing on the blissful moments, you stopped yourself whenever you went into the old habit of negativity. Learning to catch yourself in old habits is essential to transforming your relationship, and in the process, yourself. MAGIC WAND The tool of being able to return again and again to the positive, as gently as you can, works like a magic wand. You can wave it over any moment of relationship conflict. Instantly, you;ll see a way out of the cycles and patterns of anger and defensiveness that got you into trouble in the first place. You;ll be able to take a moment to breathe, and to use the 5 Keys. All you need is a moment. All you need is one breath. Practice stopping the negative and returning to the positive every moment of every day.
34 You can do this easily: First, stop the negative thought dead in its tracks; Second, look around at something that pleases you l either something real, like a pretty dress in a window or a pretty car next to you on the road l or something from your imagination. This is where your three short memories of real or imagined bliss come in handy. Pull them out every time you stop a negative thought. When you find yourself irritated at work, or driving, or waiting in line l whip out a positive memory. When you begin to beat yourself up (as we all do) about how many negative thoughts you find yourself stopping, return to a happy memory of yourself! Important: l you are not clench-fisted pulling and pushing at your thoughts. You are opening your hands to the happy, the positive, the lovely, and simply sinking back, very, very gently, into that happy, positive, lovely place whenever you remember to do it. This ability to be flexible and move effortlessly from control to surrender, from negative to positive, from clenched fist to open palm, will help you ease into the changes that will turn your love life from what it is now into what you want it to be. Practicing flexibility and noticing how flexible and observant you really are will help you see how easy it can be to make those changes.
35 CHAPTER 6 FOUR CHANGES TO RELATIONSHIP BLISS =Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.A : Jalal ad-din Rumi s we begin working together through the 5 Keys to a Great Relationship, you;ll begin to see a pattern. You;ll see that I;ll be asking you to make changes in order to get what you want. I;ll be asking you to step out of your comfort zone l one baby step at a time l to get all the Big Ticket items you yearn for and all the daily nuts and bolts items of making a home and a life together you want. I;ll be asking you to make changes in the words you use and the way you choose to express yourself. I;ll be asking you to respect and love yourself first and foremost. I;ll be asking you to look for the simple answer l in black and white A
36 l even though you believe what;s going on at any moment in your life is complex and in the gray area. I;ll be asking you to look at the big picture from a completely different perspective. And I;ll be asking you to take a chance, to risk the unknown, to brave fear and discomfort to get to where you may never have been l inside a truly intimate relationship. I;ve summed up these leaps of faith I;ll be methodically asking you to make in a UMantraV. It;s a poem you can use as a meditation, as a reminder, as a jolt when you;re confused or angry. It goes like this: Trust your Boundaries Follow Your Feelings Choose Your Words Be Surprised Trusting your boundaries means you believe in your ability to take care of yourself, to treat yourself well regardless of how you;re feeling about yourself, and to insist that you be treated well, no matter what your man or the conflicting voices in your head may be saying to you. Following your feelings means you focus on your feelings. It means that, rather than trying to think your way through a conflict or something that;s bothering you, you
37 look inside for feelings and sensations that are real in the moment. Choosing your words means you stifle the automatic responses you find most comforting. You respect the power of words by either saying only what you feel in your own body l without so much as referring to your man or his actions l or not speaking at all. Taking a breath before you speak, respond, react in the same old ways gives you a moment to find a new, better way to respond, or sometimes, to do nothing. Being surprised sums up the whole experience of giving up control. Instead of using your energy, intellect, and emotional resources to predict and determine the outcome of every moment of your relationship, you let it go. You allow yourself to be surprised! No matter how hard you;re wishing for change, when it comes, you;ll be surprised. Most of us don;t take well to surprises. We like everything spelled out in advance, we like to be prepared. No one can be prepared for the surprises of love. For the way your heart feels, the way your body tingles, the way making a decision to be with someone for all of your life feels, and the way it feels in the middle of that decision, when things aren;t going the way you;d dreamed.
38 If everything always turned out the way we expected, if every turn in the road led to where we thought it would, life would be pretty dismal. Not only would we know about the good stuff, we;d know about the bad stuff. If we knew everything in advance, there;d be no anticipation. Fear about the uncertainty of the future would be replaced with dread. Life would be a board game with no dice. Even if we could know the future, we couldn;t have it both ways l know what we want to know and not know what we don;t want to know. How could we decide whether we wanted to know something without first finding out what it is? So we;re pretty much stuck with not knowing anything, really. We have no way of knowing how anything will turn out, so we can;t even know if we should even want it at all! We have to make our best guess. We have to make choices. And yet, most of us (remember the clenched fist exercise in Chapter One?) do our best day in and day out to gain, maintain, regain, exert, demonstrate control over something in our life. We want to control the outcome of events and the behavior of other people. On a deep level, we know we can;t have that kind of control l it;s wishful thinking. But we still want to. And we
39 still try. And that effort makes us tense. And worse, it makes us closed to the possibilities of synchronicity. It makes us closed to the outstretched hearts of real live men. A much better plan is to give up control over what we can;t control, and take control over what we do control: Our choices! CHOICE AND CONTROL There is power in choice. By not believing we have a choice in any situation we find ourselves in, we;re able to be confused, feel dread, step in and out of commitments, get angry, disappointed, and create drama and conflict enough to distract us from the fact that we are afraid to choose. Choice is completely different from control. Much of this book will be about defining that difference, and showing you how your life and your relationship will flourish once you give up control and begin making choices. Control is pretty much trying to change something or someone else. Most of us live our lives believing that this change we want to make will make us happier.
40 We also believe that what we have in mind for the other person or situation is good for them, too, and that it;s truly what we want. Yet, from experience, we all know this is not the case. UBe careful what you wish forV is a saying we;ve all heard. And it;s true. Do you remember a time you were successful in changing someone;s behavior and it turned out badly? That;s because we often think small. We;re looking at one tree in a huge forest and trying to change the shape of a leaf. If what we want is love, adoration, cherishing, care, affection, great sex, (the whole forest) why are we using all our power to get our men to take out the garbage (a branch)? And we often do try with all our power, our might, our wits l any way we can l to get our way. To change that one leaf we find so difficult to live with.
41 CHAPTER 7 THROUGH THE WOODS =Into the woods, and who can tell what;s waiting on the journey? Into the woods and through the fear you have to take the journey% Into the woods, each time you go, there;s more to learn of what you know%A : Stephen Sondheim s it really the wayward leaf that;s so upsetting? Or the idea that we are in a relationship with another human being who is not actually under our direct control? That we are completely powerless to change anyone in our lives but ourselves? Is it the leaf that;s so offensive, or is it that it;s easier to complain about the leaf over there than to look inside ourselves for our real feelings? I remember all those dark nights lying in bed next to a man I thought I hated. It took a momentous, shockingly quick turnaround to love for me to see I was just afraid. I was afraid, to use the forest analogy, that inside I was just rotting bark. I
42 I was afraid I didn;t know how to stand up for myself, didn;t know how to feel, didn;t know how to speak. He seemed to me a tree I couldn;t depend on to keep me from harm, from danger, from getting lost. I didn;t trust myself enough to keep myself from harm, from danger, from getting lost. So there was no way I could trust him! But love and relationship is supposed to be about going into the forest. We;re supposed to expand ourselves l the sum of the two of us together is greater than just two. We;re supposed to take each other, accompany each other, support each other through the woods l not hold each other back. Why else but out of fear are we so willing to sacrifice the forest for a twig? For now, let;s treat this forest sacrifice as a habit. A series of habits constructed by us to distract us from the scariness and depth of the woods. Are we afraid we;ll get lost in it? Lost in love? Do we choose men who have no business being in a gorgeous forest with us so that we can stay firmly attached to one tree? Are those men and those restricted relationships all about safety? A way to fend off the demands of intimacy? Though we feel called to find our soulmate, what if ours is standing right in front of us? What if it;s we who are
43 afraid? We who are waving around our macho bravado, yelling UDo this, do thatV and trying to take charge? CHEMISTRY =A kiss is a lovely trick designed by nature to stop speech when words become superfluous.A : Ingrid Bergman How did we get where we are? Can you remember what it was like the moment you laid eyes on your husband or boyfriend, or last romantic partner? Were you instantly attracted? Was he? Was there no romantic attraction at all, but a warm, friendly feeling? Did you feel more than he did at first? Or was it the other way around? Or did you both make a beeline for each other? These questions are about chemistry, one of the many aspects of relationship over which you have little or no control. There is considerable research about romantic chemistry. The short version is that we are romantically and sexually and emotionally attracted to men and women who
44 are somewhat like our fathers and mothers, and enough not like our fathers and mothers. This involves looks, personality, pheromones (invisible particles of smell that figure crucially throughout the entire animal kingdom,) voice, and indefinable spiritual qualities. Pheromones match up to what your used to, to what gives you instinctive feelings of home and comfort, with just enough touch of the exotic and unknown. Though friendships may change to romance, and romance to love, and friendship, romance and love may die, chemistry is a mystery when you;re caught in it. If a man is UintoV you, he;s UintoV you. And if he isn;t, he isn;t. Just knowing this one truth is powerful. Our men are with us because they are UintoV us. Men will keep calling, jump over obstacles to find us and get to us if they want us. And men usually know what they want right away. What we choose to do about that is the only control we have over our romantic destinies. If we can learn to accept that power, instead of trying to make our men over into some image we have in our heads, everything in our relationships will change.
45 MEN ARE LOYAL There are many myths surrounding men. And I believe women have made them all up to avoid some basic truths: The truth is l Men are loyal, brave and strong. Men have a tremendous capacity to love, commit, nurture, cherish, understand, support, and be there for us. If they want to. And that;s it. Men, unlike us, tend to do what they want. They tend to do what they know gets them what they want. When they commit to us, what they want is love, respect, sex, intimacy and romance. And they believe in their hearts, groins and spirits that we are the women to give it to them. We do not have to do anything to make them feel this way. No matter how hard we try, we can not make them love us, care for us, and be there for us if they don;t want to. What we can succeed in doing l and most of us do this really well l is in making them not feel this way. We can make them not want to love us, care for us, and be there for us.
46 MEN WANT TO STAY Men don;t leave. They do the best they can to stay with the woman they;ve chosen, and only leave when they can;t get what they need. So what do men need? They need what women need: love, companionship, all the good stuff you dream of in a relationship. With one difference: Men respond to a woman on a simple and basic level. And then they do something about it. You may call this Ufollowing their dicks,V but I call it Ufollowing their guts.V They don;t stop to think whether you;d make a good mother for their children or a great companion when they get older, or whether you have enough power and prestige in the world or make a great living. They trust themselves. They trust their instincts. They believe in their abilities to know when you;re the Uone,V and once they;ve found you, it;s difficult to talk them out of it. Once they;ve committed to you, they;ll tolerate a whole hell of a lot to stay with you. Women, on the other hand, tend to make decisions about men. We check them out, are attracted to things about them other
47 than our response to them and how we feel about ourselves in their presence, and then talk ourselves into and out of relationships. And this is only healthy men and women. Men and women who are bent on hurting themselves and using a relationship to do a good job of it find each other. And still, women will talk themselves in and out of the relationship, at all stages, while men will stay until they can;t get what they want, which in this case is unhappiness. That kind of relationship is what;s called codependent, where both parties are glued to each other by a mutual need to punish themselves. A man who goes into a relationship looking for selfpunishment and then changes, and finally realizes he would rather be happy, will still often stay in the relationship, withdrawing rather than leaving, until the woman throws him out (and often into the arms of another woman) by rejecting him. A woman who goes into a relationship looking for self-punishment and then changes, and finally realizes she would rather be happy, will often leave, no matter how scary it is and how alone she might be after leaving.
48 FEAR OF INTIMACY l OURS =I felt it shelter to speak to you.A : Emily Dickinson Much has been made of men;s so-called UFear of IntimacyV issues. I, for one, don;t believe that UFear of IntimacyV has ever stopped a man from committing himself to a woman he really wants. The nature of a man is to Go for it l and he knows what UitV involves l the whole kit and caboodle of relationship. He;s ready and willing to give his whole heart to the woman he wants. Women, on the other hand, make relationship decisions based on many factors other than their deep connection to the man. They judge a man;s potential, and suitability, and use their heads a lot more than men do. When we women marry, we;ve thought it all out, envisioned the relationship far into the future, and commit ourselves on many levels, but UFear of IntimacyV keeps us from really committing with our hearts. I believe that women, more than men, fear losing autonomy and independence l that we guard our opinions, and in most cases, the full extent of our personalities and soul from being seen, and in many ways prevent the relationship from going deeper as time goes on.
49 Men, believing that women know the way, will follow our lead in the relationship. Then, we either lead them further into the heart of relationship, or keep it in the comfortable holding pattern of the head.