Helping Men to Be Confident

Anxious Man

Telling The Truth About Anxiety

I had another reminder last night about the value of telling the truth for healing anxiety. This year has been a pretty rough one for me, with all sorts of anxiety exacerbated by chronic fatigue bubbling up in different situations. I’ve had a few conversations with my sister about it, who invited me to a talk at The Resilience Centre on overcoming anxious thinking which she wanted to attend because several of her friends suffer from anxiety. It turns out to be a common problem.

Anxious Man

Anxious Man (photo courtesy PhotoXpress)

Part of the talk used the analogy of a sailing ship with demons in the hold. When we sail towards the land representing our goals, sometimes the demons jump up on deck and start going crazy forcing us back out to sea. We often end up avoiding going after our goals to settle the demons back down; but we end up bored, restless and feeling unfulfilled. The key to reaching our goals when we’re feeling anxious is to take it one step at a time and learn to deal with the demons that come up without being overwhelmed. Each time we successfully sail closer to the land, the demons get a little quieter.… Continue reading…

By Graham Stoney, ago

How To Have Sex

A close friend of mine was telling me recently of her dissatisfaction and frustration in her experience having sex with men. “I want to feel the sacredness of sex.”, she said, “Guys seem so focused on ejaculation that a lot of the time I just don’t enjoy sex at all.”

I suspect many women are in the same boat. As the conversation progressed, I got the sense that it wasn’t just sacredness that was missing from my friend’s sexual encounters. There was a more basic problem: many guys just don’t seem to know what they’re doing. “Often they’re trying to put their penis in my vagina when I’m not even aroused yet. I’m not wet, and it just tears and really hurts.” Ouch. “They don’t even seem to know how to turn a woman on. You could say it’s just the guys that I’m choosing, but these are conscious guys and one of them had even studied tantra; and they still don’t seem to know what to do.”

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By Graham Stoney, ago

Use Humor That Makes Her Laugh With You, Not At You

Back when I was studying at University, there was a guy in my group of computer nerd friends named Toby, who was constantly cracking really bad jokes. We were relatively lucky to have two girls in our group, and Toby was always trying to hit on the girl he liked with his goofy sense of humor. But it never worked. Not only did his jokes make people groan rather than laugh, they tended to make him look like a clown rather than a comedian. Needless to say, Toby didn’t end up getting the girl.

Women always say they love guys with a sense of humor, but there’s more to it than just saying things that you think are funny. Your sense of humor also conveys a lot about who you are, and how you see the world. At one end of the spectrum, your humor can convey that you’re a cool, interesting guy with great insights on the human condition. At the other, you can end up looking like a clown. One will make women attracted to you, while the other will make them run a mile. It’s the difference between having her laugh with you, and having her laugh at you.… Continue reading…

By Graham Stoney, ago

How To Handle A Panic Attack

I have to admit to leading something of a double life: on the one hand I write about confidence, but I also suffer from panic attacks and anxiety. Having a panic attack is one of the most unpleasant experiences I’ve ever had, and even just mild anxiety can make life pretty painful. It’s not something I’d wish on my worst enemy. Well, maybe just on the really bad ones.

So here’s how to handle a panic or anxiety attack:

Recognize The Symptoms

Most people I know who suffer from anxiety or panic attacks didn’t recognize what was happening to them when they first had a panic attack. They were just going about their daily lives when suddenly: BAM! Their heart started racing, they were overwhelmed with fear, their bodies started shaking, they couldn’t concentrate, they became exhausted and just had to stop everything they were doing. Some thought they were dying, or were having a heart attack.

I was overseas traveling alone in France when I had my first full-blown panic attack, and the word “frightening” just doesn’t cut it. It was fucking terrifying, and I found myself throwing up out of sheer terror. Fortunately I had a sympathetic friend back home I could call, and recognized what was really going on.… Continue reading…

By Graham Stoney, ago

How to Deal With Setbacks

Time for some truth-telling: things haven’t been entirely rosy here at Confident Man Headquarters in the last few months. Life has ups and downs, and I’m certainly not immune to the emotional roller-coaster effect they can cause. They say bad luck comes in threes and I don’t know if it’s just bad luck, bad karma or whatever, but I do know it hasn’t felt all that great lately.

So what’s been going on?

Well, firstly I started a new treatment program for Chronic Fatigue and although I’m cautiously optimistic of my health improving, one of the initial side-effects was being hit with a truckload of anxiety which left me feeling despondent, depressed and hopeless.

Around the same time I entered a Theatrical Improvisation (a.k.a. Improv) contest with some new friends of mine; only to withdraw before the contest had even begun because I was feeling overwhelmed with anxiety and stress. Something I loved doing suddenly stopped being fun.

I also quit Toastmasters because I now know enough about public speaking and it doesn’t make sense to pursue it any further until my health improves. This meant my social world was shrinking, right at the time I was feeling isolated, ill and anxious already.… Continue reading…

By Graham Stoney, ago

How to Get Over the Girl Who Ripped Your Heart Out

Ever had a girl break your heart so badly you thought you’d never recover? Couldn’t get her off your mind? Desperate to get her back? Then you might find John’s story helpful; and besides, I need to debrief to get this guy out of my system.

I met John in a youth hostel while on a winter road trip up the east coast of Australia in search of warmer weather. He seemed like a decent guy who was always cracking jokes, and before long the two of us were entertaining some of the other backpackers with our stories of adventure and comic irony.

John seemed intrigued when I mentioned that I was a recovering perfectionist, and asked me several times to elaborate about that. I told him the story of how I had a fulfilling engineering career up until the point where I decided I didn’t enjoy it any more and decided to change direction. He could relate: John had studied law, and hated every minute of it. Then he’d joined the military, and he’d hated that too. He hated prosecuting people who hadn’t done anything wrong, and in general his conscience bothered him a lot. He was from California, which he hated because it was being over-run with Mexicans.… Continue reading…

By Graham Stoney, ago

What To Do If You “Never Get Angry”

I know a lot of nice guys who say that they generally just don’t ever feel angry. I can relate to them, because I used to be exactly the same: I repressed my anger to the point where I didn’t even feel it any more. Yet certain situations would really bug me: when someone said or did something that should rightly have made me angry, I’d end up ruminating on it for hours, going over and over a conversation in my head replaying all the things I would have liked to have said until it drove me crazy. If only I had allowed myself to be angry! In fact, I was angry; but I just didn’t express it at the time and so I paid the price for it in self-recrimination later.

When we tell ourselves that we never get angry, we are just lying to ourselves. We’re playing the nice guy game to avoid conflict. And the problem with this is that we don’t end up standing up for ourselves. Feeling angry is normal: it’s an emotion that motivates us to stand up for what is important to us. If we repress our anger, we just end up angry with ourselves and that’s a recipe for misery and depression.… Continue reading…

By Graham Stoney, ago

How to Cut Emotional Ties with Controlling Parents

I recently got a question about how to cut emotional ties with a controlling parent in response to my article on How to Recover from a Controlling Mother. I know a lot of guys struggle with the conflict that happens when we begin to break free from our parents during adolescence, and this can keep us emasculated for years while we continue to seek a controlling parent’s approval. It helps to know that the conflict that arises when we individuate is a perfectly normal process; albeit one that controlling parents often over-react to.

Mike writes:

I’m a 20 year old man.  I was adopted, my sister wasn’t.  Yes, I’ve grown up with a controlling mother.  I have always been musically inclined and have had a passion for music.  After high school, I wanted to take a year or two off to pursue this and generally dick around with my friends while I was young, and maybe figure out what I wanted to do with my life.  I had left high school with scholarships and an 88 average.  3 years later, I’m a third year University student in History (I had to take something in University, forced into choosing a major, she’s paying for it) I’m struggling to maintain a 75 in my University courses, I’ve been experimenting with drugs, and I have no clue with what I want to do. … Continue reading…

By Graham Stoney, ago

How to Meet More Women

Do you ever wish that meeting beautiful women was as simple as walking up to them and saying: “Hi, what’s your name?” Well according to dating coach Jack D. Serrano, it is.

In the interview below you’ll learn that the key to meeting women is to take action and approach them. Stop trying to persuade women to like you and simply start looking for the women who already like you and have a natural chemistry with you. Most men fall into the trap of trying to persuade women to like them, and a lot of dating advice is based around this concept that leads to fear, frustration and a lack of confidence.

The antidote to approach anxiety is to simply ask yourself the question “Does she like me or not?” rather than trying to persuade her to like you. Forget about trying to “build attraction”, showing value or trying to make women like you. There are a lot of girls out there who will already like you; all you have to do is go out and find them. Conventional pick-up advice turns you into a persuader who messes up the natural chemistry that is already there between you and the women who like you for who you are.… Continue reading…

By Graham Stoney, ago

TantricBlossoming’s Being Man Retreat

I turned up to the Tantric Blossoming Being Man retreat with a sense of excitement about experiencing more of this “Tantra” thing that I’d heard about in my [intlink id=”1293″ type=”post”]interview with Tantric Practitioner David Anderson[/intlink]. It was clear to me that Tantra had to be experienced rather than merely talked or read about, and I felt ready to dive in. From what I knew about David and his co-leader Martina Hughes, I figured there would be some great experiences in store.

At the same time, I also felt tremendously relieved just to be able to take some time out from my not-so-normal life. The panic attacks that I had experienced only a couple of weeks before were still very fresh in my memory; they had seriously undermined my confidence and the lingering fear of their possible return weighed heavily on my mind. Being overwhelmed by fear and anxiety seemed the antithesis of where I was trying to head in my life, and I wasn’t happy about it. Confident Man, my ass; the previous few weeks had felt more like panicky, fearful little boy to me.

By comparison with the panic attacks, my usual thoughts on meeting a new group of people faded into insignificance: “Would I fit in?”,… Continue reading…

By Graham Stoney, ago