If you desire a long lasting and meaningful relationship - Develop your EQ
Do you feel awkward when you feel feelings of affection - unable to express your desire for fear of rejection - scared of her reaction to you expressing your love? Does it feel safer to suppress it? You find yourself waiting for a better moment, perhaps a less anxious moment to say how you feel?
AND THAT MOMENT NEVER COMES..? THE ANXIETY NEVER GOES AWAY..?
Relationships and dating are tricky, when you’re stuck with the idea that it is not safe to say how you really feel - so you begin to squash any feelings from your heart.
I was going to title this article “MEN, if you want success in relationships then you need to mature emotionally” ... but I’ve come to understand this is not fair to say as most men have never been exposed to the idea of developing EQ.
EQ OR EMOTIONAL QUOTIENT IS DEFINED AS YOUR ABILITY TO IDENTIFY AND MANAGE YOUR EMOTIONS. OR WHAT I REFER TO AS ‘EMOTIONAL MATURITY.’
Indeed, if you desire a long-lasting & meaningful relationship you must develop your EQ!
Developing a high EQ helped me to go from a complete lack of understanding of women and disastrous at dating, to today being in a deep and meaningful relationship, where I am free to express myself, fully, and able to understand my partner and her needs or to discuss matters productively when problems arise - with calm and peace of mind.
IT’S FUCKING REFRESHING!
Developing EQ was fundamental to my relationship success story. I used to struggle to communicate my desires, express my intention and I would reduce to a drooling idiot around women - overcome by overwhelming feelings of embarrassment about myself, my affection, my sexual desires and afraid of expressing them for the fear of rejection.
Equally, I failed to understand women - I had no clue what was going on with women or why. Everything seemed to happen at random and I felt powerless in the face of all the randomness.
I would run to friends who I deemed to be successful with dating, with every dating challenge I faced…
Why did she get upset when I said ‘x’..?
What does it mean when she says ‘y’..?
How do I tell her I want ‘z’..?
If I followed my friend’s advice and it worked … I wouldn’t know why!!
If I followed my friend’s advice and it failed … I wouldn’t know why!!
My early dating experiences literally felt like I throwing shit at a wall and seeing what sticks.
CLUELESS + HOPELESS = FRUSTRATING!
It was the pain of my failed encounters and relationships that prompted me to look deeper at myself. To explore why I felt so stuck and stiff.
It may sound dumb, but some of earlier shifts I encountered were due to some pretty obvious issues I had created in my younger years … such as accepting a religious belief that ‘sex and dating’ are wrong!
As much as I was excited to date and explore sex - in the back of my mind, like an anchor to the past, my child psyche was clinging to the belief that what I was doing was inherently unacceptable!
It took me some time and experience to unravel this one as it was so heavily ingrained in me due to my religious upbringing: I had usurped my own desires with that of my parents and their culture!
This created an uncomfortable sensation in me whenever I was in a dating situation. Like an unconscious mantra resounding in my mind saying “this is wrong - this is wrong” resulting in my stifled expression.
But like tugging on a thread that unravels the whole cloth… these realisations and recognition of my youthful conditioning allowed me to unravel my struggles with dating.
I was able to join the dots and come to understand that my fear of rejection came from long held beliefs and, why I avoid expressing myself intimately was for the fear of being admonished for my sinful thoughts.
DEVELOPING GOOD EQ LED TO TWO KEY CHANGES IN MY DATING LIFE.
KEY 1
I began to reverse the damage of youthful beliefs by letting go of such ideas that no longer served me and began feeling free in my self-expression.
KEY 2
The deeper I explored my thoughts and feelings and their origins … I began to develop empathy for myself and others. And I discovered that underneath our outward appearance, all humans operate on an engine of emotions. Therefore, the better I understood myself - the better I was able to understand and connect with everyone - including women!
The problem with developing good EQ is that it doesn’t happen naturally like ageing or by lucky happenstance. EQ requires nurturing within us and if this nurturing is missed in youth it requires conscious effort in adulthood.
META-SHAME
One thing that stops us from exploring our emotions, is the shame we feel about how we feel (google: ‘Meta-shame’). This prevents us from acknowledging and expressing how we really feel and discovering that everyone experiences these feelings at some point in their life.
Shame acts like the wall of a dam, holding back the immense power of our emotions and preventing them from flooding our lives.
BUT if you take an honest look at your dam built of shame and ask yourself.
1.What is it that I do not want others to know that I am feeling?
2.And what happened in my life that started to feel this way?
You will begin to unravel your own emotional mystery and begin to develop your EQ.
When you allow yourself to explore your emotions and their source… you will begin to shed the shame and by doing so create inner peace around your own feelings - no matter what they are.
And with inner peace, you will find yourself expressing your formative experiences with greater ease and without the pain of shame or judgment.
Finally, you will recognise you are not alone… we all suffer shame/pain and discontent and we all pretend that we don’t.
So, begin to be the one to change your life and that of others around you - by acknowledging how you feel and why, and letting others know the real you by expressing your truth.
When you do this you will give others in your life the permission to be their real self around you - FYI that’s very attractive!