A few words of advice to a Psycho Bitch from Holland

Buenos Aires, Provincia de Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Let me start by saying I feel a bit angry. I am spending too much time working and Buenos Aires is not receiving the attention I would like to give her. Yesterday I found out that this previous month has had only 28 days. It is March already and I am flying to NYC on Wednesday.

To put something together with The Good Men Project turns out to be a lot less easy than hoped or expected. It sounded so logical: they cater to a large community of men (and women) who are interested in growth and development, my voice is appreciated by the editors and we share the same goal: to contribute to the development of people. So if we put something together especially for their audience people might like to come. Easy as apple pie and would make everybody feel good, right?

Well, it is not going as planned and I don’t know if we made mistakes and what the mistakes were but not one person showed interest (apart from the women who want to date me). It is not always easy to get a message across in an age where we are bombarded with messages and content. It could be a technical thing, it could be a timing thing or maybe what I have to offer is just not interesting enough or not packaged seductive enough. I don’t know.

Then there is good news. I have been offered accommodation in both NYC and Hong Kong. Although it seems that I will not lead the rock star life I lead in HK last year at least I still have a very fair chance to make it into an economic success. If I don’t lose money in NYC (on the rental of the venue) then I still might create some space to breathe freely for a while. I just sent out an email to a handful of people with extensive networks in NYC and they might decide to help me. In a way, everything is still possible and miracles should not be excluded. Of course not.

Boy, do I wish I would never have to think about money or income again.

Oh well..

Let’s go to the next topic. I promised a dear reader to respond to her question. She told me that after a phase of soul searching and abstinence she now feels ready to start dating again. But just making this decision starts the transformation back into a ‘psycho bitch from hell’ again. She feels she needs to look like a model, be a porn star in the bed room, a Martha Steward in the kitchen plus smart, funny, intelligent etc. etc. She feels unable to live up to these expectations and realizes that she is convinced that this is what men are looking for. Men just use her to pass some time until something better comes along, in her experience. Feeling how her patterns creep back she decides to not let herself distracted by men anymore and focus her attention back on herself.

The impression that she gets from guys is the we want bi-sexual girls who understand that guys are not monogamous, love to serve and come from Latin-American or eastern European countries because western women have a big mouth on a mediocre body.

When I write this down I get the same feeling as I had yesterday: words can really affect our confidence and self-image. When people don’t love me for who I am but judge me and criticize me I suffer. And almost all of us suffer from being caught up in the ego-state. Our ego is not much more than a inferiority complex that inflates to hide that inferiority or bends when we don’t manage to inflate. Making others feel inferior is a way to not feel our own inferiority. Insecure guys will spend a lot of time making the whole world, including all the women inferior to them. I used to be one of them and I think subconsciously I still project inferiority on others (ie make people feel bad). It must be. Why? As I am still judgmental of myself I am also judgmental of others. For example, I make myself believe I should live up to a high standard of physical fitness and I make myself believe that others should do the same.

But it is just fear.

The remedy against fear is love.

The more I love myself with all my flaws and weaknesses, the more I am able to love the other. Judgment, arrogance and bravado are just ways to mask insecurity and inferiority. There are masking mechanisms in many shapes and sizes and they are at work in everybody all the time. So instead of waiting for the mechanisms to go away or to wait for somebody who is free from flaws it I feel it is better to see them in myself and understand them. Then I can see it is not personal. It makes things so much softer when I don’t take the patterns of others as an invention just to hurt me. People are not busy hurting others; they are busy protecting themselves. We only need protection because we feel wounded.

I like the idea of not taking the self (ourselves) so fucking seriously. So we make mistakes, so what? In the case of my reader, she told me she has a hard time with boundaries. Well, that sucks but it is not the end of the world. When you see yourself slipping away you can make a correction. You don’t have to be ‘the girl without boundaries’ for the rest of your life and you also don’t have to wait with living until you have a black belt in boundaries. My strategy is always to open it up. Just say ’hey, I am not good at boundaries so I could use some help and possibly I will make some less-than-fluent turns to adjust my course now and then’. And I ask for permission: ‘is that ok with you?’. Of course this nakedness feels vulnerable but it is just like being in the sauna: the first 10 minutes it feels awkward to be naked and then it feels like a relief. There are so many benefits. It allows you to be where you are at instead of trying to be something that you are not. It takes away the inner conflict that – when it builds up – leads to ‘craziness’. Your honesty will attract another type of guys.

I feel we should make it a sport to overcome our obstacles instead of hiding them. It is the hiding of flaws that causes inauthentic or forced behavior. I feel that this is the biggest turn-off. On the other hand: authenticity is sexy.

We can use the insight I had yesterday: feel what makes you come alive. Who is the woman you want to be? What is she like? If it feels thrilling to be a good cook, give yourself permission to practice. If it feel exciting to be a great lover, give yourself permission to explore that too. See it as a path and don’t blame yourself for not being at any other place than were you are at.

In my experience the path will be full of obstacles, disappointments and heartbreak but it will also offer an amazing and adventurous journey into life.

I hope my perspective helps clarify a bit. And if my words are not helpful perhaps you should consult “50 Shades Of Grey”. Looking at the state of it, it’s the most read devoured book in the hostel. (Ok, I just wanted to use the picture so I added this redundant sentence).

PS: The information about the upcoming workshops in NYC will stay in the front page for a while. You can help me a lot of you share the information with your friends from NYC. Please click here (workshop for guys) and here (workshop for women).