Of course, no life or relationship is perfectly filled with positive emotions. Every couple has challenges to overcome, to build and create greater intimacy. However, a healthy relationship will consistently reflect one or more of the above.

Now, ask yourself what activities or actions do you participate in on a daily basis that provide you a healthy portion of these positive emotions? For most men, it is very few. Often, our lives spin out of control on a daily basis and feel “not our own”. We often feel stuck, or imprisoned by our so-called lifestyle, spending most hours struggling to maintain the status quo. This takes the shape of hours focused on a day-job (rather than a career), or wasting time with unhelpful activities such as: hitting the bars, watching hours of TV, fantasizing with pornography, isolating with the internet etc. By refusing to take responsibility for our own happiness, our emotional spectrum is driven into mediocrity by playing the role of the victim.

The consistent presence of negative emotions in our lives is ONLY possible if we accept the role of victim. If you are continually lonely (for example), and choose to do nothing about it, you have accepted the role of the victim. Observe the irony in the lonely person isolating himself at home. The fact is, you can do something about ANYTHING unacceptable and/or mediocre in your life. In order to snap out of this unhealthy psychology, we must accept responsibility and activate in the direction of the desired change.

stress management guide

The victim blames everyone and everything outside of himself for his unfortunate lot, only justifying his own laziness and unwillingness to take responsibility for his own life. People fear responsibility because with it come: challenge, work, patience, success, failure etc. Oddly, many people choose to avoid responsibility and challenge to protect the ego, and remain huddled in the valleys of life. It is very easy to be drawn into the vortex of negativity, and it takes hard work to pull ourselves out. Do you think playing the victim is attractive? This is unfortunate, but a fact of human nature.

Here is a sampling of the negative emotions commonly found with contemporary men and women too:

• Meaninglessness
• Resentment
• Anger
• Jealousy
• Spite
• Hatred
• Isolation
• Righteousness
• Fear

These are just a few. Sound familiar? Fear is last on the list, but first in importance. Unchecked, it can govern entire lives. Connecting with your purpose is the first and most radical step to unclogging the power of fear in your daily life.

Now, understand the following principle, and you will cease not knowing why you are less than successful with women:

“My inner world creates my outer world”

Ever hear of Feng Shui? In the modern age, it has become an interior decorator’s catch phrase. However, in ancient times, it used to be a way of seeing into the inner world of a person. By simply observing a man’s environment, how he arranged it and how he lived within it, one could perfectly witness the condition of his inner life. Look around you now. Is your bed made? Is your desk overflowing with paper? Does your bedroom look like a tornado hit? Are the dishes clean?

Women have a very simple equation for the men that come into their lives. She assesses your world, so your: job, career, health, fitness, social life, home, finances, personal style, family and extracurricular activities. From this, she is able to tell how you will relate to her. How a man lives is how a man loves. So, if these areas of your life are a wreck, she will not waste her time with you. Why should she? You have demonstrated through your relationship with your life that you aren’t able to commit, and give yourself to anything.

If I told you an attractive woman were coming to your house in 10 minutes, would you be frantically cleaning every corner free of dust, or would you be relaxing on the sofa, calmly sipping a cup of tea? Your inner world creates your outer world. Therefore, a person can subconsciously see your inner life by observing your outer life. This is precisely why we work with guys on harnessing an empowering lifestyle and look. By working both internally and externally, we emphasize power and confidence in both worlds – helping them become permanent fixtures in your life.

If you believe that you deserve success, you will create success. If you believe you deserve beautiful women, you will find and attract beautiful women. If your emotional life is filled with anger, resentment, jealousy, guilt etc, your outer world will be lonely, isolated, hostile and meaningless.

Take a look at your body language. This is perhaps the clearest indicator of your inner emotional life. If your posture is collapsed, frightened and defensive, this is the impression you will create on others. If it is confident, upright and bold, this now becomes the impression you create on others. People intuitively look at ones body language to understand their internal emotional life. Look at yours now, even as you sit and read this post. What does it say about you? You can bet it is a direct mirror into your inner, emotional reality.

The first step in reversing this horrible pattern is to specify your purpose. How do we now maintain balance while also bringing positive, empowering emotions into our lives? Then, how can we share these with the world, enhancing attractiveness and inviting positive, healthy people into our social circle?

The secret is in taking charge of the emotional content of your life. You won’t be able to change the feelings you experience on a moment by moment basis, but you can take steps to both increase the flow of positive emotions, and as well to reduce the power of negative emotions. Being at prey to outside influences is also known as seeking external validation. What we are looking for is the ability to be validated internally. In this case, you become the pilot of your own happiness, becoming a source of positive emotions to others. Men who can supply positive emotions to women, who are validated and happy internally, are the ones who have successful dating lives and relationships. Men who unconsciously demand positive emotions from women rarely have dating success and healthy relationships.

There are three levels to reversing the trend of seeking external validation to being internally validated, seeking to give positive emotions to all people in your life.

Level I: I seek validation from the world, causing me to be at its mercy. When the girl likes me, I am happy. When she doesn’t, I feel like a failure. I continually find myself being the victim of my life. I lack power and motivation, as each day I compromise my spirit for the comfort and safety of staying small.

Level II: I typically feel happy in my life, and would label everything “satisfactory”. I have a positive attitude, and have a pretty vital social circle. People don’t tend to notice me, but I also don’t need them to notice me – I am happy either way. My childhood dreams certainly aren’t coming true, but I am an adult now and life is hard. Overall, I am doing pretty well, and feel generally happy most of the time.

Level III: Regardless of how I feel, I know I am aligned with my purpose and aim in life. I feel a sense of meaning in all that I do, and if that sense is not present – I take stock of the activity and delete it from my life. My relationships are positive, as I feel free to give love to the people in my world. They are magnetized to me as a result. All that I need is within me, and my purpose is to share my positive outlook and lifestyle with the people in my life.

Most men fall somewhere between Levels I & II. Where are you?

Would you agree that each of you has a definite, valuable, gift to give the world? Can we assume that the giving of this gift is connected with your purpose? Lastly, can we agree that the refusal (on any level) to give this gift in each and every moment is truly selfish? It might surprise you, but playing the victim in life is the ultimate act of selfishness. Each of us has an opportunity to give, and yet we refuse, and prefer to stay small and safe within ourselves. One might not play the victim all of the time, but most have this annoying little habit in some areas. This is the precise area then where you must work.

Is it all about you? Are you seeking to attain or gain something from the successful completion of this aim? If so, don’t change the aim. No. But do see if there is a different attitude to take with it which might make it of service to others.

For example, if my purpose was to “attain financial freedom”, there are numerous reasons why I chose this. Here are two, very different, examples:

I desire financial freedom so that I may finally do what I want, when I want to do it. I will no longer work for a boss, nor will I answer to anyone. I will be the master of my life.

OR

I desire financial freedom so that I may have the time to pursue the passions that exist within me. I will be able to spend more time with my family, friends and loved ones, as well as serve humanity with my time and wealth.

See the difference? This is the classic case of the “jerk” vs the “cool guy”. The jerk knows what he wants, and has a take-no-prisoners attitude towards that aim. This is temporarily attractive, but eventually people (women, for example) are turned away by his overwhelming selfishness, and disregard for the welfare of others. The cool guy also focuses on a specific goal, but tempers his own negative selfish side by making himself of service to others. His world stops being about him, and starts enlarging to involve the worlds of others.

Now, even if we outline our clear purpose, and begin focusing our daily activities on attaining this goal, we are still certainly prey to anger, jealousy, envy, resentment etc. What are we to do then?

The first and most important thing you must do, and some therapists out there are going to cry out “criminal!”, is to not express any negative emotions in the world. That’s right – the ability to not express any negative emotions is the hallmark of a Level III man, one who does not need validation from the world.

Second, if you do feel a negative emotion, you must learn to see it as information. For example, perhaps you and a date are at a party, and you notice her having a nice conversation with a man across the room. He is blatantly hitting on her. She seems mildly uncomfortable, but is being “nice” as that is the socially acceptable thing to do. What do you do?

Level I: Sulk angrily in the corner, throwing back the booze as quickly as possible. This guy doesn’t express anger because he is so bottled up that he wouldn’t have the faintest idea how to express an emotion. “Once again, life fooled me into thinking I had a chance”, he thinks. After this drink, he heads for the exit. “Fine, if she wants that jerk, she can have him.”

Level II: You certainly notice her having a fun time with the guy, but you really don’t care. You are also having fun with your friends. If you were hooked up to a heart monitor, you would see that your heart rate never increased even when you saw the guy clinking glasses with your date. “Aah, it’s nothing” you think. You passively hang back, chatting with the boys. Never once do you think there is anything you could “do” about it.

Level III: You notice her, and feel the pangs of jealousy and anger. However, you have been here before and decide not to play the victim this time. You slowly stroll up, put your arms around you date, smile at her and hold her gaze a bit longer than you normally would – giving her affection and presence. By now, the anger has subsided. You are into action. You then hold your hand out and introduce yourself to the guy, “I am Stephen” you say. He shakes your hand, introducing himself to you. You look back at your date, and take charge of the situation and environment. “I was just out on the patio, watching the sunset with James and Allison. Have you been out there yet? You must see it before the light is completely gone. Excuse us, it was nice meeting you.” You take her by the hand and smoothly lead her away from the situation.

Most guys are somewhere in between Level I & Level II. They dimly realize that there is something they can do about the mediocrity of their lives, but their solution tends to be in refusing or passively accepting their situation rather than taking action and making changes. Acceptance is important, but accepting your life does not also imply that you are a victim. The victim’s posture always leads to anger, hostility and resentment. These are three of the most seductive and powerful negative emotions in the range of human feeling.

With each negative emotion, you have a choice. Either accept it, take no action and force yourself to “live with it” or accept it, take massive action, and slowly dig yourself out of the current pattern of feelings into a new pattern.

Each man’s reality permits him a certain scope of feelings. By accepting the current reality, you also accept the emotional patterns that accompany that reality. In order to change the consistent emotions (internal) you feel, you must take action in creating a new reality (external) for yourself. If you want the emotions which accompany success with women, you will have to devote yourself to consistent and persistent effort in that direction.

Guys who lack success with women tend to lack success in life. It usually takes a lot of time to snap out of the current patterns you lead and change into new ones. Deliberate, diligent, strenuous effort on a daily basis is the only way to improve your level, and change to a healthier pattern of feeling.

To feel the power and freedom which comes from living your purpose will require you to work, and work very hard. You will find that as you devote yourself more to an attitude of service, challenging your own selfishness, you will slowly change the emotional states you consistently experience. Here is where you find yourself living in Level III, feeling the happiness that comes from the positive emotions you now experience full-time. Also, with any negative emotions, you intuitively understand how to accept them, and take responsibility for changing them.

You must fulfill yourself first. If you find your life somehow unsatisfying or unfulfilling, that last thing you need is a woman. In fact, a quality woman will smell your neediness a mile away and won’t have anything to do with you romantically – period. This is the precise reason why there are so many quality yet single guys in our culture. They are desperate for companionship. This desperation fills their life and interactions with negative emotions. Why would someone choose to be in your world under these conditions? If your goal is fulfillment, success and beauty, you must learn how to give that to yourself first. Following that, you will have no trouble finding it outside of you.

Men who feel complete, and do not seek approval from women do not have difficulty in their pursuit of companionship. Why? Because they are attractive already. The women pursue them. Sound nice to you? Would you like to stop chasing and be chased?