Make Every Man Want You: How to Be So Irresistible You'll Barely Keep From Dating Yourself! (12 page)

You look for ways to prove women have it harder.

You make or laugh at male-bashing jokes.

You hold resentments, judgments, or complaints against your father.

You spend more time complaining about men than actually dating them.

Another interesting aspect of the gender war that most women forget is that their thoughts and judgments about men impact the way men behave around them. If you believe your thoughts reside exclusively in the privacy of your mind, think again. Your thoughts are palpable and resonate with others. If you judge someone as incompetent, insensitive, or stupid, they feel it. This includes men.

Some people are more skillful at noticing and naming this type of energy, but everyone is affected by it. Whether you like it or not, you have an impact on how people, especially men, behave around you. Your ideas, thoughts, and beliefs about people influence how they treat you. Perception is an act of creation. Thinking all men are generally stupid, untrustworthy, insensitive, or chauvinistic will actually push them to behave in those ways toward you. It's as though you are nudging them in that direction and then get to say, "See! Look—I'm right. All men do suck."

In his groundbreaking book
The Hidden Messages in Water
, Dr. Masaru Emoto scientifically proves that thoughts and feelings affect physical reality. He tested different focused intentions on frozen water molecules. He discovered that the frozen water labeled with loving thoughts like "gratitude" and "thank you" and "I love you" had beautiful, symmetrical, complex snowflakelike molecular patterns with vibrant color tones. In contrast, water exposed to negative thoughts like "I hate you" and "you make me sick" had incomplete, distorted, asymmetrical molecular patterns with dull and muddy colors.

Irresistible Action Challenge

Quit doing battle with men by seeking out all the ways you may engage in it. Until you bring awareness to how it happens, it's impossible to stop. Use the following questions to support you:

1. Do you allow male bashing in your presence? Even if you don't participate, being around that type of commentary brings down your energy and affects your irresistibility. Start speaking up, or remove yourself from gender-biased complaint fests.
   
2. What thoughts or beliefs about "all men" do you hold as the truth? Write them down. Are they supportive or destructive to your irresistibility? Are you willing to see that these are just old thoughts that may not be yours? Can you let them go?
   
3. How willing are you to make a difference in the world by sharing your insight with friends and family when a gender-biased conversation comes up? Can you do it in a way that doesn't make anyone wrong but merely points out the futility of gender-biased beliefs?
   

When you consider that nearly 75 percent of the human body is composed of water, it's not hard to see that having thoughts like "All men suck" or "I hate men" may not exactly be supporting your irresistibility.

Copyright © 2008 by Marie Forleo. Click here for terms of use
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We are disturbed not by what happens to us,
but by our thoughts about what happens.

—
Epictetus, Greek philosopher

We live in a society that is conditioned to blame the state of our lives on what our parents did or didn't do to us growing up. Either your parents were around too much and controlled and smothered you or they weren't around enough and left you with "commitment issues."

One of my biggest breakthroughs, which completely transformed my irresistibility and my ability to have a successful
relationship, was really understanding that my parents didn't screw me up. Until my midtwenties, I believed I had a dysfunctional family and mildly abusive childhood. I was completely comfortable blaming my own inadequacies and failed relationships on my parents.

I would tell men I dated "poor me" stories about how bad my mother was and how she screwed me up. I dubbed her a neurotic "clean freak" and held resentments against her for constantly making me pick up after myself. While I didn't have as many stories about my dad, I nevertheless thought he worked too much and I silently begrudged him for failing to save me from my mother's mean ways.

Can you say, "What a total crock!"

My childhood was neither dysfunctional nor mildly abusive. The only dysfunction that occurred was in my bratty little mind. I told those "poor me" stories based on memories I put together as a difficult, hormone-crazed teenybopper who did not like to be told what to do. (Very much like lots of other teenyboppers on the planet.)

I had no awareness of how challenging it is to be a parent or the complexities and demands that come along with caring for and raising a family. Like many children, I was untidy and self-absorbed and I needed discipline. Looking back with my adult eyes, I'm 100 percent certain I did things that drove my parents nuts! There's no doubt I left the bathroom a sticky, hairspray-coated mess and my bedroom looking like it had been hit by a tornado. The memories of my childhood as dysfunctional are not at
all accurate. They were recorded in my mind by a much younger version of me—during a time I was upset and having a temper tantrum. I had a child's perspective, which, by its very nature, is limited and incomplete. I recorded my mom's very normal and responsible parenting as somehow dysfunctional or abusive. Until I brought awareness to it, I brought that story with me forward in time as though it were true—limiting my own irresistibility and capacity for a full, mature, and satisfying relationship with a man.

In reality, my mother is incredibly loving, wildly supportive, and a true angel in my life. Thank God she raised me as she did. Who knows what kind of trouble I would have gotten myself into otherwise? And regarding her "neurotic cleaning," she is a true domestic goddess; thankfully, I inherited her enthusiasm for having things around me neat and well taken care of.

And thanks to my father's entrepreneurial success (what I dubbed "working too much"), financially we had everything we could have ever wanted and more. And as far as quality time goes, we went on countless family vacations, took day trips on the weekends, and spent every holiday together. My father never missed attending a special event throughout my entire life. Also, to his credit, he passed along his ambitious spirit and powerful work ethic, which have fueled my career and the very creation of the book you have in your hands right now.

If you're holding on to a story that your parents screwed you up, you severely limit what's possible for you in terms
of love and relationship. You squash your irresistibility because you are not yet behaving as a full, adult woman. Instead of being an authentic, unique individual, you're stuck being not like your parents. Rather than living an expansive life based on discovering your truth, you're living life in reaction to your parents—proving how much they allegedly screwed you up by staying right below the edge of successful or choosing to date bad boys purely to piss them off.

All of this drama is eroding your well-being and preventing you from having the loving and satisfying relationships with men (and your parents) that you deserve.

Here's the other thing. Like it or not, our parents are our archetypal images of men and women. In other words, our mother is our primary image of a woman and our father is our primary image of a man. If we, as women, have the idea that our mothers raised us wrong, should have done it better, or were "mean" moms, we will unconsciously sabotage ourselves. Think about it. How can we fully grow into our own womanhood and irresistibility if our primary image of a woman is flawed? We'll have to prove we're flawed as well by continuing to fall short in life.

If we have the idea that our fathers raised us wrong, should have done it better, or were "bad" dads, we will continue to project that defective masculine image onto every man we meet. It makes no difference whether the man is a friend, a boss, an employee, or a lover. You will unconsciously assume that he is somehow out to hurt or damage
you or that, simply because of his gender, he cannot be trusted.

Again, despite popular belief, you do not need years of therapy to heal these issues. All you need are awareness and compassion. Investigate your inner landscape and see if you're carrying around old grievances. Notice what's there and don't judge yourself for what you discover. See what is without diving into a story about what is. True awareness is enough to facilitate resolution. Really. (Didn't I tell you this was going to be easy?)

Now what if you actually did have a dysfunctional childhood? What if you were abused? I am by no means suggesting that you made up or inaccurately recorded your abuse. Tragic and unfortunate things do happen. What I am suggesting is that you investigate how holding on to the story of your abuse impacts you now. Is it keeping you from dating? Are you dragging a story from the past into your present and allowing it to keep you from the experience of love and intimacy you deserve?

Oprah Winfrey is a survivor of childhood abuse. In case you haven't noticed, there's nothing that can stop that irresistible woman. And Oprah, as astonishing as she is, is just a woman like you and me. If she can do it, we can, too.

Oprah was willing to let go of her story about her past so that her true irresistibility could heal the world. There are millions of other not-so-famous women who have survived dysfunction and abuse as well and have discovered the freedom that comes with releasing the past. The way out is through forgiveness, of both yourself and anyone else you might still resent for some wrongdoing. Each moment, the universe provides us with a clean slate upon which we can start anew. Take it and use it. The past is over. It's done. The only way it can continue to haunt you is if you allow it to do so.