“Be More & Achieve More!”

…like waves? Well, you are now familiar from the post below how men have an intimacy cycle, one that most men don’t seem to understand, let alone women they are attached to. But that’s the trick here: to pick-up key ideas and tools that help create a greater self-awareness and insights into fulfilling your inherent potential that you have been born with. We don’t all have the necessary skills to lead a perfect life and to grapple each issue that life challenges us with ease and grace, but if we hone our skills - communication, confidence, thinking, relationships, networking, and others, then I ‘m sure you’ll agree that we move closer to fulfilling that potential rather leaving it dormant.

So, as the man begins to understand his own cycle and reassures the women when he pulls away that he will be back, it helps more so with the women’s wave mood: she feels high when acknowledged, loved and appreciated - her self-esteem rises when she’s feeling good about herself. But when she’s not, the peak turns downwards and the wave crashes down. This crash is temporary however and automatically her wave will begin to rise.

A woman’s ability to give and receive love in her relationships is usually a reflection of how she is feeling about herself. When not feeling as good about herself, she is unable to be as accepting and appreciative of her partner. At her down times, she tends to be feel frustrated and more emotionally reactive. At the time when her wave is at the bottom, she is vulnerable and in need of more love. When the man understands this, he can give her what she needs and not make unreasonable demands. Rather, she might want some quality time, a little breathing space and typically the need to talk about her problems, to be heard and understood. This tendency of the woman coming down is like her going into her ‘well’ where she is sinking into her unconscious self to do some ‘mental & emotional house-cleaning’. But if she is supported and cared for whilst at the bottom, she will soon rise back again to share her love in her relationships.

A common mistake men make is to think that once she is high she can remain there forever. Not so lucky guys! Listen, just as you need to retreat and pull back to have intimacy, women rise and fall in their ability to love themselves and others. It just like the 4 seasons, you don’t get hot summer all the year round! Life, like the seasons, moves in rhythms and merge seamlessly into one another. So when a women is having an emotional winter, love and support her so that she can move into spring and to the shiny summer sooner where she can radiate her full love to you. Both men and women have such love rhythms and its important to reflect them back to each other, as they do not necessarily coincide in a timely fashion.

So how can a man help his wife to rise back? Firstly, by not attempting to ‘fix’ her. See, its one thing a women having to go into her well to tidy her emotional clutter whilst being supported, but its another if she’s told that she needs to be ‘fixed’! When this happens you know what to expect: a row and a bust-up. I know how we men like to look for solutions to fix problems, but as has been mentioned repeatedly, the woman needs to be heard. Her talking about her issues, however mundane they may appear to you, are her way of healing and you can expect her to become more upset if you do truly listen to her. Let her express, vent and clear-up because she’ll feel lighter for it as this will help her to release the baggage and rise up.

To support a woman when she is in her well is a special talent and benefit that will help the relationship move through the years and seasons without you even noticing it as such. Just remember, the likelihood of issues being repeated whilst she’s in her ‘well’ are high. They may be deep issues, old issues, repeated issues, or whatever the flavour of the day happens to be. Whatever it is, the man will do good to help validate her feelings whenever she’s gone down to her ‘well’. He may never resolve the issue, or ‘fix’ it, but the essence of the support is in his giving time, space and appreciation to her feelings. He, nor her, ought to ever think that he is at fault for her going into her ‘well’. Nor is he a failure for not resolving the issues regardless of how many times they may reoccur. Again, its about providing the safety for her to express and for him to validate her feelings.

So men who support their women intelligently and patiently reap the most reward for the woman is comforted by the idea of having a man who understands her well enough for her to trust and relate to.

I hope this insight helps add to the conveniences of our natural relationships so that the true beauty of the otherness in the significant other is sought, harnessed and matured.

For Success and Contentment,

Asad

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Hi there,

The Magic of Relationships seminar is coming up on the 18th December. To get us started, allow me to share with you some ideas that will help foster better understandings towards one another.

Men are Like Rubber Bands:

Which means they like to pull away, they like to stretch out to create distance, but then they have to return - often springing back. Its the male intimacy cycle that involves getting close, pulling away, and then getting close again. Women don’t tend to realise this rhythm and feel distressed when the deep romance surrounding a relationship abruptly ends and when the man wishes to focus on something else. It’s a common misinterpretation because women tend to pull away for different reasons: when she doesn’t trust him to understand her feelings, when she has been hurt and fears being hurt again, or when he has done something wrong and disappointed her.

Of course a man can pull away for the same reasons, but he will also pull away even if the lady has done nothing wrong. It could purely be a male thing - the need to have space - even though he loves and trusts her. But like the stretched rubber band, he’ll come back. This need for space is like the man going into his cave: its a place of solitude, independence and autonomy. He’ll soon feel the need to spring back and automatically pick up the intimacy at whatever levels required, even just before he pulled away, without the having to go through a period of getting reacquainted again.

If properly understood, this male intimacy cycle enriches a relationship, but can cause havoc when misread and misjudged, or even mis-timed. Usually, the man can give and take less readily than the woman, so the women thinks that her man is not reciprocating her love. Women naturally give and take more readily and can easily express their sentiments. But when they don’t see this happening with the man, they misjudge him and think that there’s something wrong with him. Anxiety builds up when she tries to ‘fix’ him - that’s not what he needs…rather he wants to simply pull away to have his own breathing space: whether its in the shed, out with friends, strolling, watching a movie or reading. She continues to get frustrated when he wants to ignore her and she develops ideas that he doesn’t love her, or worse still, think that he has got someone else! A confused state of affairs soon arises.

Women should understand the need for a man to pull away. Its good for him and her (and any children). He’ll spring back with power and enthusiasm. Men however need to remember that it may be easy for them to get to intense levels of intimacy as he was before pulling back, but the woman may need to time to catch-up and re-familiarise - particularly if she’s been through a state of confusion or panic (she doesn’t know what she did to switch you off)!

It is very confusing for a woman when a man pulls away because something she says or does often triggers his departure - usually when she begins to talk about feelings. The talk of feelings creates intimacy and the man can be defensive and not open-up, hence begin to pull away. It’s not that he doesn’t care about her feelings as at another point in the intimacy cycle those same feelings will draw him closer. So its not just what she says but rather when.

When a man gets too close and doesn’t pull away, common symptoms are increased passiveness, moodiness, irritability and defensiveness. And the women builds a huge amount of dependency on the man that can lead to a high degree of unwarranted trust, such that if he does pull away, she feels totally dejected for ‘doing something wrong’ or misappropriating the trust. She may begin to resent him and hold bitter feelings towards him unjustifiably. When women don’t understand the male intimacy cycle, they can unknowingly obstruct it in two ways: they are (1) chasing him when he pulls away; (2) punishing him for pulling away.

Men must be sensitive to the needs of women (I’ll come on to that later) but also understand the requirement of pulling away. If timed, done well and worked with, a high degree of satisfaction can be engendered in the relationship such that the natural rhythms of both the man and woman are held to a better standard. There’s no need for guilt or blame on either side. The man needs to go to the cave every now and again, grow and become wiser….he’ll return to with a freshness that the women has longed for and will be better prepared to hear her share her feelings. The patient woman who understands this will love and trust her man, share with him as needed, and allow him to open-up in his own time without demanding it to be so.

This single insight into the male cycle that has been represented as mimicking a rubber band can replace so much confusion and unnecessary pain with that of care and understanding.

Soon we’ll take a look at how women act as waves….

For Success and Contentment,

Asad Khan

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