Loving Him Without Losing You (31 page)

• Men need women to teach them how to communicate in a way that nurtures and encourages intimacy and trust in relationships. They need us to encourage them to let their walls down and connect with the more vul- nerable, loving feelings that lie dormant within. And they need us to teach them what we know about empathy, compassion, and the benefits of consensus.
  

  To encourage the men in your life to become more of these things, prac- tice the following:
  

  1. Remember that men tend to need more distance in their relationships than women and that men have a tendency to feel smothered or engulfed with too much intimacy. Don’t expect your male partner or partners to act like your women friends who desire and need intimacy as much as you do.
     

  2. Learn to recognize the
     general
     symptoms that men exhibit when they are feeling engulfed—such as acting distant, tense, tight, angry, and making comments such as “Lighten up” or “Get off my back.”
     

  3. Learn to recognize the
     specific
     symptoms that your partner exhibits when he is feeling engulfed.
     

  4. Notice how men’s engulfment feelings and actions provoke your fear of abandonment. Instead of blaming him for your reaction, take responsibil- ity for it. Instead of taking it personally, recognize it as a normal male reac- tion and find ways to comfort yourself or attain intimacy outside the relationship.
     

  Be careful that you don’t fall into the trap of trying to change men or teach them. This is what codependency is all about. The best we can do is show men, by example, how to be more vulnerable, trusting, and empathetic. If you are in love with a man who has trouble dealing with strong emo-
  

  tions, try the following:
  

Don’t overwhelm your partner by pouring out your emotions all at once or by trying to talk to him when you are very upset. Calm down first, take your time, and be clear about what you want to say instead of rambling on and on with no direction.

Don’t expect him to respond immediately. Men need time to access their emotions. Therefore, give him time to digest what you’ve said. Often when a man is silent he’s not ignoring you but processing the information you gave him and trying to get in touch with his feelings. If you push him for a response right away, he’ll likely shut down altogether.

As a way to help him get out of his head and into his feelings, try touching him gently as you speak—hold his hand or rest your hand on his arm, leg, or shoulder. Men are very identified with their bodies, and this can help shift the conversation from an intellectual discussion or battle to a more emotional, even loving exchange.

Blending and Balancing

The truth is, we all need a balance between so-called masculine and feminine qualities, both within our individual personalities and in our culture. Carl Jung believed that to be fully realized human beings, to be whole, both men and women need to integrate the male and the female within.

Good relationships are about
blending
and
balancing
. Women must learn to blend their qualities with those of men, not try to make them into women, and men should not try to make women into men. A balance needs to be cre- ated between male and female traits, since both men and women can benefit from what the other has to offer.

We all have issues that we bring into our relationships for healing. Many men have a fear of entrapment or betrayal, being caught in a smothering relationship or humiliated by rejection and deceit. Women fear isolation—we fear that by standing out or being set apart by success, we will be left alone. Honor yourself and your fear of separation. Allow your partner to honor himself and his fear of abandonment. Allow yourself to have the space to be yourself, and allow your partner to do the same. Only by doing this can you

find the loving space to blend your lives. Only then will it be safe to come together.

In a truly healthy, loving relationship both partners are able to connect on an intimate level without completely giving over their individuality to the rela- tionship or to their partner.

In an equal, loving relationship each partner learns from the other. Through the love and security a lasting relationship can bring, women can learn to be less dependent and more secure, and men can learn to be more trusting and vulnerable.

While it is often difficult to create a balance between loving a man and loving yourself, by continuing to follow the suggestions and strategies outlined in this book, you can be one of the exceptional women who are able to do it.

W
HERE
D
O
Y
OU
G
O FROM
H
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?

Appendixes I, II, and III

I

n my opinion, it is wrong for a self-help book to promise a cure for all that ails you. First, no book can do this, and second, it gives you the impression that the book itself holds all the answers and that you don’t have to do any work yourself. This is not the impression I want to give. As I said earlier, some of you, especially those on the extreme end of the continuum, will need additional help in the form of long-term psychotherapy. In addition, for all of you reading this book, no matter where you lie on the continuum, you will need to devote yourself to the work that is necessary to facilitate the changes you desire. This work can be made a lot easier with the support of

other women, either in a support group or an Empowerment Circle.

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A P P E N D I X I

Embracing Your Femininity

E
SPECIAL LY FOR
T
HOSE ON THE

M
ILD
E
ND OF THE
C
ONTINUUM

Much of what women want in their relationships with men is a deep emo- tional sharing and a sense of connectedness. Instead of waiting for a man to come along who can offer this kind of sharing or trying to force the man you are involved with into becoming what he is not, try looking to your female friendships for this deep sharing.

Unfortunately, many women continue to have superficial relationships with their female friends, partly because their focus is on the men in their life and partly because of competition and envy. If you can begin to work past your tendency to view every other woman as a potential rival, you will begin to see that deeper friendships with women can offer the support and caring that few other relationships can offer, including relationships with the oppo- site sex. Begin to honor and respect your female friends and recognize what they bring to your life instead of taking them for granted or using them as sub- stitute connections only when there is no man around.

In addition, although this book has done much to counter the cultural con- ditioning that caused you to have the tendency to lose yourself in relation- ships, you will need to continue countering the cultural messages that bombard you daily. The most effective way to do this is to actively embrace feminine qualities and values.

While regular self-help groups offer valuable assistance and support, in the past few years women have begun to meet together in a new way—in circles.

What is a circle? How is it different from a support group? Circles are similar to support groups in that they offer much-needed support to those who

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are struggling with various issues. But the circle offers a unique format that provides even more.

A circle is not just a gathering of people who sit in a circle on the floor or a meeting where the chairs are arranged in a circle. As Christina Baldwin wrote in her groundbreaking book
Calling the Circle: The First and Future Culture,
it is a way of thinking and doing things that is radically different from the way we normally think and act, and at the same time it is a return to our original form of community, a return to an ancient process of communion.

In circles, advice-giving is discouraged, as is cross talk. Instead, circle members pass a talking piece or talking stick around the circle. When some- one is holding the talking piece, this signals to others that it is their turn to speak and that everyone’s focus needs to be on the speaker. When it is some- one else’s turn to talk, others are encouraged to focus all their attention on what this person is saying, as opposed to thinking about how they wish to respond. And everyone is encouraged to open their hearts and minds and to listen nonjudgmentally and lovingly to what the speaker has to say.

If we women want to be positive role models for the importance of connection, we need to continue practicing the ethic of care ourselves. And if you want to find a man who has the qualities of compassion, empathy, and vulnerability, you need to continue developing these qualities in yourself. Meeting with other women in circle can help you connect further with your capacity for compassion and empathy as well as help you develop your intu- ition and inner wisdom.

Meeting in circle can also help satisfy our hunger for spirituality and for the sacred. It can help us to reconnect with what is genuine and true about ourselves, others, and the world in general. It can help fill us up with mean- ing, depth, and purpose and assist us in defining values that are meaningful, that we can believe in and live by.

Once we have learned the lessons of the circle we can then pass the information along to others. Our men need us to show them a different way of communicating and connecting with one another and a different way of conducting business. Our children need us to act as role models, showing them a new way of relating to one another. This will, in turn, create a whole new generation of people who are truly open to seeing one another, hearing one another, and connecting with one another on a more empathetic level.

How to Structure a Circle

Sitting in a circle provides part of the structure needed to contain the energy generated in the circle. This is part of the reason why it is very important that

your group literally form a circle with your bodies. You can choose to sit on the floor or in chairs, but make sure you form a complete circle.

When we rearrange our seating it causes us to rearrange our expectations as well. By each person sitting on what Christina Baldwin calls the “rim” or the edge of the circle, we are also symbolically removing ourselves and our self-interests from the middle of the group. As she explains it, this moving of our bodies from rows to circles and our self-interests from the center to the edge enable us to reclaim our innate knowledge of circle.

Most people find it useful to mark the physical center of their circle with a cloth placed on the floor or a low table, on which they place objects that remind them that they are gathered in a sacred place for a sacred purpose. Often objects are placed on the altar that are sacred to group members or that signify something meaningful to them. The center also can be formed by each member placing something on the altar that is personally meaningful to that person.

You can form a circle of women just by inviting at least four like-minded women together and by observing the following requirements of circle:

• Intention
  

• Heart-consciousness
  

• Gratitude
  

• Equality
  

• Sacredness
  

• Commitment
  

  How to Start Your Own Empowerment Circle
  

  There are many types of circles—sacred circles and council circles, to name only two. Some of you reading this book may wish to create an Empowerment Circle as an alternative to a regular support group. I created Empowerment Circles as an offshoot of my years of working with victims of childhood abuse and my dedication to helping those women who tend to continually give their power to others, and to the literally thousands of women who have been suffering alone with their problem of losing themselves in relationships. I wanted these women to discover, through circle, that they are not alone and to feel the empowerment that can come from connecting with and being sup- ported by other women.
  

  Empowerment Circles help women in many other ways as well:
  

By being able to talk openly about their issues, women will begin to feel they are really being heard, seen, and respected, perhaps for the first time in their lives.

By learning to ask for the kind of feedback and support they want, women will become not only more assertive, but also clearer about what their real needs are.

By receiving feedback from other women about what they have said in the past and what they have said they wanted, they will begin to know them- selves better and take more responsibility for their words and actions.

By learning to give feedback without judgment they will learn to remain more objective (thus more separate), learn to respect the right and need of others to be separate, and begin to judge themselves less harshly.

The core belief of Empowerment Circles is:

Our deepest fear is not our fear of being inadequate, but the fear of our power. It is much easier to let others control our lives than to take charge our- selves. It is much easier to pretend to be meek than to take responsibility for our power. It is much easier to allow others to abuse us than it is to own our own tendency to abuse ourselves.

Empowerment Circles keep women honest—about their power, feelings, and intentions. If a woman states an intention or makes a proclamation about what is really important to her in front of a circle of women she deeply respects, it is far more difficult to take actions outside the circle that go against her stated intention or beliefs.

Empowerment Circle Guidelines