I think it is important to be aware of yourself and really look at how much you discount the feelings of the man in your life. How often do we railroad right over our man’s needs and experiences by making our own more important?  When our feelings get hurt, it is like a certain type of tunnel vision washes over us. This narrow focus only allows us to see what we are feeling and what we need from a man to make our uncomfortable feelings go away. We don’t have the emotional capacity to be compassionate toward his feelings. I think this is very disheartening for a man in a relationship. In fact it is a big determinant in whether he decides to commit to a particular woman. A man does not say it, but he is aware of whether a woman creates a balance in the relationship. Does she offer up space for his feelings and respect his needs or does she make things always and only about herself. This is such an important key in The Art of Loving a Man. A woman who has control over her emotions and fears can allow space for her man and accept his reality which in turn sends him the message of respect (his deep unconscious need). He will feel a deep emotional attraction to this woman for this reason. Yet, if a woman is not in touch with her own feelings and fears and is so full of anxiety and discomfort that she only uses the relationship to temper her wounds he will feel a deep lack of respect and withdraw. Like I say all the time, men are very intuitive and they know very quickly which woman you are.  So the answer always remains the same – do the hard and difficult work of healing your own heart and leave him out of it. He is not your problem. The problem is the unhealed broken energies that get kicked up and surface when he pushes your buttons. He did not create those energies, he was just sent to you to stir them up so you can take on the responsibility to see them and heal them. A person that is doing their own healing work can always make room and space for another persons feelings and experiences and a true Goddess knows how to do this in a soft, sweet and loving way. 

Matthew Boggs author of “Cracking the Man Code” writes about the biochemistry of men and women in love. The main idea is that women’s feel good chemical suppresses men’s feel good chemical in the brain. 

One of my favorite relationship coaches is Kristina Merchant. Check out some of her work below. It is a excerpt from her blog. She also has a new e-book entitled Prism Effect –

By Christian Carter www.catchhimandkeephim.comYou know how it is…A man will seem really excited to be with you, he’ll ask you out, maybe even bring you flowers, call all the time, and then…

I like this blog post (see below) by James Bauer. It speaks to the balance of energies within a Goddess. She is consistent and stable, yet unpredictable and wild. She carries both within her and allows both their time and space. I believe a relationship thrives in an environment with this dynamic. A man needs to know that he can depend on a woman to be emotionally stable so she is a safe harbor for him, yet he is wired for love excitement and thrills.  Therefore, a woman’s passion and wild unpredictable fire  is what keeps him wanting more. Just remember emotional stability is what allows for a woman to be playful and unpredictable. The light hearted energies of a Goddess are a result of the hard work she has done in healing her own wounded heart. It must be authentic.  Making peace with your inner emotional world comes first. Then a real relationship can begin and you can use your enchanting energies to create a romantic loving relationship with a real man.  

I just read Rori Raye’s new e-book “Surrender to Love” and it is very good. She gets right to the point when she says “In fact, nothing but the way you relate to him emotionally counts.” This is at the core of being a true Goddess. What I mean by that is that a true Goddess knows her power is in her ability to feel her feelings and provide a beautiful emotional environment for the relationship. This way her man is captivated and constantly seeking refuge and comfort with her. He loves the feeling of warmth and acceptance and he finds himself needing and wanting to be in this space more and more. It is magical for him to be with a woman that knows how to create this.  If your relationship is falling apart the first question you want to ask yourself is “what type of emotional environment am I creating?” Is it a loving, calm, sweet space or is it a battleground full of arrows and swords? This will determine weather he withdraws from you or moves mountains to be closer to you.

Kristina Marchant’s article expresses the essence of “The Way of the Goddess” better then any relationship coach I have encountered. Lately, I have heard too many stories about women who seem to have a great thing flowing with a new man and then suddenly he loses interest and the wheels come undone for these women. If you are one of those women remember the answer is not in what he is doing or thinking. The answer is in how you are being and reacting. Focus on you and an interested man can always turn around and move towards you again. Enjoy article below 🙂 

How do you communicate with a man?  – Short and Sweet. You calmly make your I feel….. statements, with no blame or criticism, and then you stop. You don’t go on and on about how horrible he is and how awful you feel. You don’t throw a pity party and bring up 100’s of examples of his bad behavior or your proof why he is so awful now. You say I feel….. I don’t want to feel this way and then you give him some kind of guide as to what would make you feel better or how he can fix it. Remember men are action oriented and solution focused. They don’t understand the complex world of a woman’s emotions. They don’t  know grey, they know black and white. They understand that if something is wrong then logically they should fix it. They get overwhelmed by strong negative emotion and it literally makes them shut down. This does not mean you cannot cry and have feelings, but it does mean that you do not attack. It also means you help explain to him how to make you happy again (aka the solution) or you state your feelings and then let it go. It is his job as a man to figure out how to make things better. If he can’t make it better, it is your job as a woman to accept that.  Here is another thing about men – When they hear that you are unhappy they take it as a personal attack no matter what. Their goal and sense of pride is in making you happy. So when you are constantly coming to them with your unhappiness (which I believe is 90% your own self-made unhappiness) they feel like failures over and over again. This then makes them pull away from you because all they know is that it does not feel good to be around you. Then when they pull away it triggers you and makes you feel abandoned or like he does not care and you get even more upset. Then he gets overwhelmed by all the negative emotion and pulls away even more. You shut down your heart because you are hurt and he shuts down his heart because he has no idea what is going on or how to fix it.  This is how most relationships fall apart. So in order to not let this happen you have to gain control of your emotional world so you can calmly voice your feelings. This also requires that you learn how to feel your feelings (This part is huge!).You also have to begin to take 100% responsibility for how you feel so you don’t blame and attack him and then you extend compassion and grace to your man. Remember if he feels emotional safety (no blame, attack) and kindness from you (which is difficult to do when you are triggered),  he will move mountains to help fix the problems. In the end all he wants is to be your hero. It’s a Goddess’s job to pave the way for him to accomplish that. 

PHOTO: ILONA OLKONEN               The more I think about The Art of Loving a Man the more I realize how much healing a woman must do within her own heart in order to practice all the wonderful things I talk about here on this blog. If you read my blog you know that I have some particular things that are required of you in order to be that soft, sweet, yet powerful Goddess that you were born to be. One of the most important practices is the art of emotional management. If you are not in touch with your feelings and know how to deal with the pain in your heart when it comes up then you will not be able to truly love a man. This is because the love you have for him is created and nurtured inside you and then extended into the relationship. The love you feel is not something from outside yourself. It is not something he gives you and then you give back. It begins with you. The peace and love you bring to your relationship is the love in your own heart. If your heart is wounded and closed then you will bring that broken energy to your man and no matter what he does, good or bad, you will find a way to sabotage it and then you will blame him and think you are the victim.

Keeping the pathway clear between you and your man is essential to intimacy and a healthy love life. The key is learning to communicate. Good communication leads to a man feeling closer to you. Bad communication leads to a man pulling away. 

Letting go of control is probably about the most difficult thing a woman faces in her relationship with a man. Letting a man lead and respecting his relationship timeline and emotional tempo (the time it takes for him to become more intimate and vulnerable) can drive any woman into wild hysterics. Men want to feel that they are the ones moving the relationship forward and making decisions based on what they want and women can make the big mistake of not giving a man the space for him to lean in towards them. If a woman begins to push a man and control, he will only resist more. Even if he wants what she wants, if she pushes he will resist. I know it does not sound fair, but once you accept it is this way you can move beyond it. If you embody the characteristics of a Goddess you can gentle and lovingly  guide him toward a beautiful relationship. It requires tremendous emotional and mental courage and strength to do this. You must learn to lovingly accept certain situations as they exist for now, you must be patient and compassionate. Above all else you must have mercy on him when it feels like your needs are not being met. You cannot make him into the enemy. It will only create distance between you. You must allow him to be when he hits the limits of how much he can give or love. You must see the goodness in him and keep your heart open so he can learn to grow and become more. When the fire begins to burn in you and  you want to blame him, you must know that the relationship is doing exactly what it is meant to do – it is causing you to learn how to love deeper and let go of control.