Helping Men to Be Confident

How to Communicate Sexually With a Woman

I’ve been watching David DeAngelo’s Sexual Communication program recently, and here’s a summary of what I’ve learned:

There as a deeper level of communication between humans that most men are unaware of. It’s the same level that animals communicate on instinctively. It reminds me of what Eckhardt Tolle talks about in The Power Of Now about being totally present, and the Meisner acting technique of intuitive interactions and emotional connections uninhibited by our normal tendency to overanalyse and overthink. David D is onto something.

His four steps of sexual communication are:

#1: Sparking the Attraction

Attraction is unconscious. Women are naturally attracted to the Leader. Develop your masculine traits. Not needing approval. Confidence and lack of insecurity. Dominance and power are the ultimate aphrodisiac. Being unapologetic for who you are and what you want. Make decisions quickly. Not accepting second class behavior or treatment from others. Live in your own reality. Strong eye contact. Be territorial without whining or insecurity.

Women test men unconsciously. Start recognizing these tests and learn to pass the tests without taking them seriously. Forget “be yourself”: your normal persona is an accommodating, manipulative wuss and isn’t actually your real self anyway. When a woman tests you with criticism, smile and respond playfully with “I’m glad you like it”.… Continue reading…

By Graham Stoney, ago

How to Soothe Anxiety by Identifying and Releasing Attachments

I was just listening to The New Man Podcast interview with Robert Glover talking about Nice Guy Syndrome, where Dr Glover points out that the underlying cause of the nice guy’s dysfunctional behaviour is anxiety. Anyone familiar with Buddhist philosophy will be aware that attachment causes suffering, but Robert points out that attachment also causes anxiety.

We can’t avoid anxiety altogether, so we need to learn how to soothe it within ourselves. The solution is to identify what particular attachment is causing anxiety when we feel it, and consciously let the attachment go each time in occurs. Whenever we feel anxious ask the question:

What am I attached to right now?

Then take a deep breath, and think “I’m letting go of being attached to X”.

For me, examples are:

  • I’m attached to being well, when I’m feeling ill.
  • I’m attached to her liking me, when I’m talking to a pretty woman.
  • I’m attached to being successful, when I’m working on my business.
  • I’m attached to getting good comments, when I’m writing a new blog post.
  • I’m attached to this being a best-seller, when I’m working on writing a book.
  • I’m attached to getting it right/perfect first time, when I’m trying something new.
… Continue reading…
By Graham Stoney, ago

How to Meet Women

If you’re lacking in confidence, meeting women can seems like a major challenge. You can’t date women you can’t meet, and this affects everything from your social life to your sex life. Approaching women in bars and clubs can be a hit and miss affair, and office romances can be problematic. But finding female company is easy once you know the secret to meeting women:

Get involved in activities that women also enjoy, over a period of time that gives them the chance to get to know you.

You want to meet real ones, right?
Image courtesy Pixabay

The best activities involve learning any new skill that women value which boosts your confidence, while meeting women in the process. This slips you in under the radar and makes you much more approachable than when you’re obviously just “out to meet chicks”. Here are the best ways to go about this:

Take Dance Lessons

This is by far the most effective way of meeting women. All women love men who can dance, but many men are afraid of looking foolish and won’t put up with the initial discomfort while they learn. Women respect men who are prepared to be vulnerable, and you become a hot commodity once you’ve mastered it.… Continue reading…

By Graham Stoney, ago

How to Stop Worrying

I like that Frank Tallis has written a relatively small book on How to Stop Worrying. Although I’m much better than I used to be, I still worry too much sometimes myself, and it’s nice to think that there could be a simple solution to a seemingly complex problem. And it turns out there is.

Worry fills the gap between when we realise that we have a problem, and when we have a solution in place to address it. It’s our brain’s way of making sure we pay attention to our problems; the psychological analogy to physical pain. If we don’t do anything about the problem, the worry gets worse until we’re forced to take action. Worry, like pain, is our friend. But it’s also a kind of mental suffering we’d rather escape given the chance.

The solution to worry is quite simple: take effective action to solve the problem. So the bulk of this book is actually about problem-solving techniques. Taking action to address the problem immediately starts to put our mind at ease, and if the action is effective in solving the problem, the worry ceases altogether.

Problem-solving is a skill that develops and improves each time we use it.… Continue reading…

By Graham Stoney, ago

Healing The Shame That Binds You

When a fellow recovering-computer-engineer friend of mine SMS’d me saying: “I’ve worked out what the problem is… it’s shame.”, I knew immediately what he referring to. The perpetual self-consciousness and lack of confidence that kept plaguing me, the low self-esteem, the anxiety and awkwardness around other people, the fear of embarrassment, the worry about what other people thought when I asserted myself, the vague feeling of inadequacy and the sense that I somehow wasn’t good enough all came down to one underlying emotion: Shame.

I knew instantly that my friend was right, yet it took me over a year to get around to John Bradshaw’s best-selling book on the topic. That’s the insidious thing about shame: we avoid it like the plague, even though it’s at the root of many of our emotional, psychological and behavioural problems. We hear an increasing amount these days about stress and depression, but very few people are talking directly about the underlying problem of shame that man men face in their. As Bradshaw points out in his book, we’re even ashamed of our shame.

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By Graham Stoney, ago

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

Many of you may have heard of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD. Whilst there is no standard definition of PTSD, it is generally agreed that PTSD is an anxiety disorder that occurs when a person sees their life flash before their eyes. For example they are involved in, or witness, a near death incident, or a series of events resulting in them having the perception that life as they know it, is about to end.

Emotional overload in these circumstances causes the primitive region of the brain called the limbic region, responsible for brains involvement in emotions, to recalibrate in order to cope. PTSD occurs when the brain doesn’t go back to normal operation of its own accord.

So why talk about PTSD here?

Well it gives a great extreme example of emotions at play within us. You may not suffer from it, but you may demonstrate some of the same characteristics. This is very normal, and has occurred for the same reasons as someone with ‘the bug’ (I use the term bug, because it highlights that you can get over the disorder to live a normal life) – self defence.

There are many elements involved with a person suffering from PTSD, but one of the major ones is their emotions.… Continue reading…

By James Greenshields, ago

How to Attract a Superior Woman

If you want to attract a superior woman, you need to become a superior man. As much as we’d like to think that us guys choose our partners, the reality is that women do the choosing. A superior woman has many, many options to choose from, so if we want her to choose us we need to stand out from all the regular guys she meets who want her attention every single day.

David Deida’s book The Way of the Superior Man is a great textbook on becoming the superior man that women are naturally attracted to. Whether you’re in a relationship now or not, it’s an amazingly insightful book with heaps of wisdom about what works in being a man, and on what it is about the superior man that naturally attracts women.

One of the key principles Deida teaches is about masculine and feminine energy. We all have a mixture of both energies, and the polarity between them is what sparks attraction between the sexes. Masculine energy is all about direction, purpose and mission in life. If you have no mission in life, you’re lacking masculine energy. Feminine energy is all about loving and being loved. If you don’t have the love that you want in your life, feminine energy is what you want to start attracting.… Continue reading…

By Graham Stoney, ago

Mature Masculine Power and The Count of Monte Cristo

Dr Paul pointed out on David DeAngelo’s Deep Inner Game program that the story of The Count of Monte Cristo is a metaphor for the journey that men take in growing from a boy into a mature man. So I recently watched the 2002 movie version starring Jim Caviezel and Guy Pearce, to see what nuggets of masculine wisdom I could extract from it.

At the beginning of the story, Edmond Dantes is a boy living in a man’s body. He lacks intuition and street-smarts, and has a naïve overly-trusting view of other people. He has never questioned his belief in God, has weak personal boundaries, and allows other people to manipulate him and take advantage of his naïvety. He has an excess of conscience and looks at the world the way a young boy does. In short, he’s guileless and clueless. While he is deeply in love with his fiancé Mercedes, the relationship has never really been tested by any kind of hardship.

When Dantes is prematurely made Captian of his ship by his employer, his childhood friend Fernando Mondego becomes extremely jealous. He is also jealous of Dante’s relatioship with Mercedes, who repeatedly knocks back his routine attempts to seduce her.… Continue reading…

By Graham Stoney, ago

How to Defeat Depression for Men

I’ve been there myself, and I know how debilitating depression can be. It sucks the life out of you. There’s a zoned-out feeling in your head, a blank look on your face, and an all-pervading sense of hopeless like you’ve never felt before. The light has gone out of your eyes. It’s a different feeling to sadness, which tends to pass when you’ve cried it out. Depression hangs around like a dense fog, clouding your judgement and colouring everything a nasty shade of grey.

You Don’t Have To Be Trapped By Depression

Psychiatrists will tell you that depression is due to a chemical imbalance in the brain. They’re right, but this doesn’t say much; your brain is a complex biochemical system and pretty much any problem in there comes down to a “chemical imbalance” of some sort. The questions to ask are: what caused it, and what to do about it.

There’s no instant fix for depression, and everyone gets down sometimes. It’s part of being human. But small steps in the right direction add up. The following tips have worked for me, and will gradually get yourself feeling more hopeful and optimistic as the fog of depression clears and you get back to enjoying life again:

Exercise!

… Continue reading…
By Graham Stoney, ago

Confidence, Cats In The Cradle and My Relationship with My Father

Harry Chapin’s famous song Cats In The Cradle hits me emotionally every time I hear it. Whether it’s his original, Cat Steven’s even more well-known version, or more recent covers like the one by Ugly Kid Joe, it never fails to strike an emotional chord with me. I’ve spent the last 3 weeks learning to play it on my guitar, and when I play it myself it’s even stronger.

Knowing what I know now, I’d say that my father lacks confidence and that’s why he is so reluctant to share his feelings, and hard for other people to connect to. He was my natural role model and for a long time I emulated this too. As a result, I lacked confidence and we both had very little emotional connection.

The song connects me with the pain I still feel in my relationship with my emotionally distant father. Ironically, my father and I have a lot of time for each other and get together on a regular basis; we have even more time together now that he’s retired and I’m working for myself. But there’s a distance between us that I find painful.

My Dad was always there for me physically as I kid, and I don’t ever recall brushing him off because I just wanted to borrow the car keys once he’d taught me how to drive.… Continue reading…

By Graham Stoney, ago