080: 22 Questions in 44 Minutes
Jul 11, 2017
Man is naturally inquisitive. We have always been asking questions from the very moment we developed the concept of speech and communication. From that, we also developed the concept of being curious about everything and anything. As we grow into maturity and adulthood, these questions deepen and so the answers we seek might not exactly be the ones we wanted to hear. Explore some of these questions revolving around our relationships, such as what things are we hiding from our partners, or should we let go or keep fighting for a relationship? Learn the answers to 22 questions in 44 minutes.
080: 22 Questions in 44 Minutes
Excited to do this show, which I think is going to be very, very, very unique, which I’m looking forward to. I was in the car and heard a song, one of my favorites from the ‘80s called 88 Lines About 44 Women. I had this thought, “What would it be like to have it where I could do 22 questions in 44 minutes?” It’s been quite the experience of receiving people’s emails and questions. I made the following decisions around the format of the show. The first is I’m just going to go for 44 minutes regardless. I could do the 22 questions in there no problem because I’m a New Yorker and I speak fast, it should not be a problem. The second thing is I took the questions and put them into a Google Doc, and I’ve put them into order of receiving them. The order is just going to be random based on what happens and what I see. I also focused on not absorbing the questions while organizing it, because I wanted it to be flowing, improvisational, and magical as I went. Without further ado, let’s begin.
Question number one, “What is something you keep from your partner and why?”
This is something we’ve talked about a bit on the show and different aspects of it. The answer is I don’t keep anything from Morgan because when I withhold stuff from her, then that actually creates distance from me to her, because I know I’m withholding that part inside of me. It doesn’t mean that I’m constantly dumping my viewpoints and my thoughts on her. It’s not like a thought comes up, I bomb at it no matter what. There is a level of quality and paying attention, and noticing her to see what shape she’s in to receive it. It’s a combination of being completely honest about every aspect and some really intense things, and all the times waiting for it to come out.
For example, I’ve had this relationship with porn my entire life, and I never told anyone. I just had a conversation with her about it probably about two months ago. It was just one of those things where it just felt right at the right time to tell her about this part of myself. It was hard because I’ve been so trained from birth to hide things that I’d have shame about, or parts of myself that I’m not fully in alignment with. It just felt good to reveal that part. Now I haven’t done porn in a long time and so it sounds like it was an everyday thing for me, but still it had a relationship in the past and it just felt good in that moment to be honest and reveal it. The bottom line is there’s nothing I won’t talk to my partner about just because I want to be free, and it’s a selfish thing, but also do it with wisdom and awareness is important.
Question number two, “What is a productive response when I’m experiencing my authentic feeling state because my partner’s being distant, mean, withholding, insulting? Given the new age conventions feel that enlightening true love would accept any all behaviors with compassionate brace of the partners in their voting. What is the proper response?”
First off, this is a masculine question. This is a question from a masculine mind looking for a formula. That is a dangerous thing to do, because to base everything on masculine viewpoints means you’re going to create formulas where the formulas don’t exist. For me, I really think it’s important for us to have fluidity. There is no proper response except the response for giving, it’s the response in the moment that matters. It’s not like there’s some rule or dictate.
Underneath this question is something I thought was really more important, and that was this question of how do I deal with all my partner’s behaviors? My viewpoint on this is your partner’s behaviors are an opportunity for you to grow. Often we want to dictate to our partner how we want them to be so we feel more comfortable, which I think is a load of crap. I think it’s a load of crap that you’re trying to dictate your partner how they should act so you feel better. It’s not like that. You want the opportunity for your partner to be free. You want the opportunity for your partner to grow, and when you set limits of what’s your appropriate response, then you limit that.
You don’t want your partner limited, you want your partner big and expensive. Your response to her stimuli, whatever your response, is right. If your partner is being bitchy to you and you feel mad, feel mad. If your partner is being mean to you and you feel hurt, feel hurt. Don’t deny your own response to your own feelings. Let your feelings arise and come out, and then communicate that authentically to your partner saying, “When this happened this is the way I felt, and I don’t think if that’s your goal.”The opportunity for you to know yourself and to be honest is the most important thing.
Question number three, “I have been hiding my whole life, and I want to be open and honest because I know that increased closeness, but I still have urges to keep my things to myself, either because I don’t want to rock the boat or because I don’t want my partner to get sad. How can I get better at honesty and know the default answer is just be honest, and how do I go from there?”
This kind of leverage is the previous two questions on some level. Like everything else, being honest and communicative is a practice. It is a skill set like any other and you’re not born with it, and we’re certainly not taught in today’s society. Today’s society we’re actually taught to be dishonest, we’re taught to withhold things. Your question is a mimic of what’s going on in today’s society. It’s that you have an urge to reveal yourself and then you have a fear that when you do that, you’re going to get your ass kicked, which is appropriate because people don’t truly like honesty. We like honesty, but we don’t like honesty. We like honesty in our terms, but only if it’s a step and the moon isn’t the right house, and the bed is made, and the dishes are washed.
We have all these conditions of what honest are. The question to my friend is, how do we get better at honesty is you practice, and you take risks. You say to your partner, “There’s a part of myself that I withheld from you and I’m sorry. I apologize deeply for not being truly who I am and not believing in you enough that I’ve been so chauvinistic, so nihilistic, and so not believing in your power that you’re going to get sad when I reveal myself.” That’s a bunch of crap. We always have the opportunity to be honest, and when we minimize our self out of saving our partner’s ego, that’s where you go to the mediocre relationships. It takes believe every single day in your rightness as a human being to stay, connect, and expand.
Question number four, “How do we make decisions which broaden our horizons or maintain a broad horizon?”
That’s a very generic question, but it’s a really good one. How do we make decisions to broaden our horizons is to take chances, to take risks, and to do things that scare the shit out of you. To say to someone, “I think you’re cute.”To go to your boss and basically say, “This job isn’t working for me anymore, what else is there?” It’s being honest with your parents to say, “You think of me as a heterosexual person, but I actually have bisexual tendencies.” It’s willing to step outside your comfort zone that expands you. If you want to be great at weightlifting, guess what you have to do? You got to increase the weight and with certain timing. You have to pay attention not to rip any muscle, but you need to increase the challenge you have. You want to become a better runner? Don’t run the one mile every day for a year and expect to become a better runner. Your muscles will adapt. Your body will adapt.
It’s the same thing with your horizons. If you actually want to expand, pass back your narrow focus, take risks to look beyond the scope of your small town views, your emotional small town views, and grow, expand, and take risks. Maybe OneTaste for me was a big risk. I have it pretty much set up. I was wired, but I was dying inside, and so it was a big risk. Now, three years out my whole life is amazing, because I was willing to take that risk. Do something that scares you. What’s that silly quote? Do something every day that scares you once a day. I think it’s great. Do something that petrifies you. What else do you have to lose except your own boredom?
Do something that scares you. Do something that petrifies you. What else do you have to lose except your own boredom? Click To TweetNumber five, “On the surface, it always seems like letting go of someone is strong and correct thing to do, and holding on is weak and clingy. I know that some of the strongest moments where those where I held on and fought for something, discovering strengths I didn’t know I had in the process. I know some of the moments where I just let go and didn’t look back, I actually end up missing on a great deal of self-discovery and relations goodness. How do you reconcile it and where do you draw the line?”
This is something that I think about a lot. You will not know if you did the right thing until you’re dying, until you’re on your deathbed. You’re on your deathbed and you think, “This was the right decision and the wrong decision.” Then again, when you were sitting on your deathbed and thinking about your past, it’s actually fiction. It’s actually not true. It’s your story that you’ve built around your life. Basically, when you’re sitting there and thinking about if you did it right or wrong, you’re in this world of complete and utter mental masturbation. Everything you’re doing is just based on your interpretation of the experience. Now, we’re in those theory of, “What do I do now? I don’t know what to do.”
I will recommend this book I’ve talked about a few times called The Dip by Seth Godin. It’s on the exact question. There’s things like organic chemistry is where they call out people not meant for medical school. It’s that point where you don’t stay or stay too long, or should I stay or should I go, and the answer is you really won’t know ever because there’s nothing to market against. Here’s my advice to this question. Learn from your mistakes. Have faith in the future. Be willing to say, “The last time I stayed in this relationship and I had this feeling, I stayed too long. Now I’m going to speak up, be honest, or do something.” Go against the grain of your own habits and see what’s gets created. From that experience, I think you can learn, but the true answers you’ll know until you die, and then when you die, who cares anyway?
Question number six, “How should we go about unwanted thoughts during intimacy? Specifically people that had been in our lives in the past, but are no longer present, nor will they ever be in the future. Needless to say, there is zero desire or want them to be in our lives. There’s hate and resentment there, but they pop up in our minds in that moment when we’re with our current partner.”
The first thing is, your mind is crafty. It is like a little mischievous little imp on your shoulder, whispering in your ideas, popping visions in your head, at the midst inopportune times. For me when this happened, I’m always looking at, “What is this person trying to tell me? What is the story trying to say? What is it that I want to learn from this experience?”From that experience, I want to see what wants to get created. We have a lot of stuff that we repress, we push down, and we don’t look at.
Often when these things pop up in the mind, there’s some lesson that wants to be learned. If you’re making out with your partner, and an ex-lover who was an asshole pops up in your mind, what was the lesson you wanted to learn? Maybe that person didn’t treat you really well, or maybe they treated you really well in the bedroom and your current partner doesn’t. Maybe there’s something you want to pull from that. Maybe there’s something in the way you feel when you’re with that person that you want to bring into your current existence.
You’re with an ex-boyfriend, there’s some bad girl that comes out and your current partner who doesn’t incite that sensation. That bad girl is kind of sexy, kind of rude, kind of nasty, and not appropriate but kind of inappropriate and kind of sexy, and this inappropriateness and there’s some part of us that shun that part of ourselves. Maybe you just want to feel like that person with your current partner. The person and the memory is irrelevant. It doesn’t really matter. It’s not him you want to be with, it’s you want to be with you, how you were in that moment, or there’s some lesson.
Question number seven, “How do you show up to relationship without needs, wants or expectations? Is that possible? What are healthy needs, wants and expectations?”
If you show up to a relationship without needs, wants, or expectations, don’t show up for a relationship, because how boring is that? What are you, some blank slate, some amoeba without any emotions? You want to show up with wants, needs and desires. You don’t want to be this nothing. Have ever made out with someone and they don’t even move or make a sound? It’s the most awful feeling, because they’re not showing any feeling. You want someone emoting. You want someone to have the full range of expression. The second question is what are healthy needs, wants and expectations?
Those are the ones that expand who you are. We’re in relationship to struggle. We’re in relationship to expand. We’re in relationship to find different parts of ourselves. We’re in relationship to know who we are. Show up with a boatload of wants, needs and expectations, and then speak about them. The difference to me is holding on to them. When an expectation isn’t going to be met, either leave the relationship, or let go of the expectation, or modify the expectation. You do have the ability to change every single moment of every single day. It’s who you are and that’s your mastery.
Question number eight, “I find that some men repress their emotions to the point that cannot get turned on in a committed relationship because they rely on lust over love, love for sexual stimulation. I’m wondering if there’s any techniques, other than the ones I’ve healed my own sexuality, to help men Or what a woman might be able to do to encourage change or improvement.”
This is basically saying you’re in a relationship, and after a while it starts getting intimate, and the sexual drive goes down. This is part of nature. We all hear stories about this. In the first month it’s hot and heavy, in the second month it’s a little less hot and heavy, the third month is still hot and heavy, and then all of a sudden you get to fourth month, and basically the sex drive goes down. This is a natural thing as you acclimate to the person as some of the excitement goes down. This is a natural thing, you do have the ability to spark it up.
The way you spark it up is through with your honesty, with your willingness to be real and true, and most people aren’t willing to do that. What I recommend is if you’re in a situation where the intimacy is rising and the man is not connecting to a sexuality anymore, have some honest conversations about it. Start to bring it up. In my relationship this has happened. We’ve been together two and a half years, and there’s been months where things have lowered, and that’s because life happens. Life has hit us and affected us. The most awesome thing about my relationship and the thing I wish for all of you is the ability for Morgan and I to speak the truth to each other. That’s it. That’s the only key that we truly need to improve our relationship.
Once you start speaking the truth to someone, then you can change it, and then you can take steps. Maybe there’s a few toys you want to try? Maybe there’s some special clubs you want to? Maybe there’s some lingerie? Maybe there’s some porn you want to watch? I don’t know. It’s up to you. The point is if things start to go down, and no pun intended, then you want to start to pay special attention and start to speak the truth so things can change. The worst thing you can do is sit in your silence, in mediocrity, and from there not have what you want and then blame the other person for them being themselves. Take the steps to habit.
Number nine, “How do you navigate connection and touch around invisible boundaries? Do you just know? Do you ask and potentially affect the organic intimacy, or do you just go for it potentially fuck it up and deal with the consequences?”
That’s a simple but a loaded question. First let’s shout-out for the word ‘consent’. Let’s focus on consent. Consent is the overt agreement. You get thrown in jail these days. You can get kicked out of school these days if you don’t practice on consent So really do pay attention. I’m a huge proponent of consent, depending on the situation. Everything is situation based. You’re at a party and you want to touch someone. You’re at a club, you want to touch someone. I just saw this YouTube video where this woman choke hold a guy because he grabbed her ass in a club, and he looks ripped.
The point is that if you don’t have consent, you can actually cause a lot of problems. No, I don’t think you should potentially fuck it up and deal with consequences, because that’s not nice. Now there is a level of consent where you can go slow. There’s that long lingering lean in for the kiss, and you can give them a chance to go, “Stop.” Just grab your mouth or push you away, or be like, “No, that’s not really what I want.”
Feeling love from someone else is great, but the truest sense is when it comes from your inner core. Click To TweetYou can do consent deliberately and slowly. You can actually ask the question. I’ve asked women, “I really like to kiss you now, how do you feel about that?” If you do it with a mischievous grin, you can get away with it. Actually, it can be really sexy. With Morgan, we were just talking about this morning. I just grabbed her and so I could’ve gone totally fucked up. She didn’t knee me in the balls and toss me over her shoulder because she’s a karate expert. The point is that you can actually go slow and get consent, either verbally or physically without messing up. My point is take a risk, be willing to go in and try it, but also go slow enough that the person has the opportunity to say, “No, thank you.” Remember, if they’re rejecting you, they’re not rejecting you, they’re just rejecting the offer, and it might be a kiss somewhere down the line.
Question number ten, “How do you know we are loved? What comes up is I won’t change because everything will fall apart. I have nobody. I am not loved. This is a non-truth, but how do we know we are loved? For me, this is part of the catalyst for the ingredient for change.”
Here’s the truth. You don’t know. You don’t know about anyone else. Anyone else, they could be full of shit, they could be lying, they could have their degree of love. You don’t know. There’s absolutely no way to be absolutely assured that someone loves you. If someone says they love you on July 6th, by July 7th they could have fallen out of love with you. It could have nothing to do with you, it could be their own expansion, their own journey, maybe they figured out they like their own same sex, maybe they decided to be celibate, maybe they found God, whatever.
What happens today could change tomorrow. Now you don’t know about external love. It is betting your life on a tech stock. Some days you’re in the money, sometimes Facebook is doing well, other times it’s down, and that’s the way it goes, but you do know 100% of the time if you love yourself. This is the most important thing I think you can find out, is do you love yourself truly down to the core? Do you love every single part of yourself? Every weird little nuance, every Peccadillo, every little fetish, little sexy, little thing that you think is a little weird, but you still like, you can love every aspect of yourself. You can love your mistakes. You can love your imperfections.
I blew several hundred thousand dollars on this business LA Mother, and now in lawsuits and dealing with this shit, and I’m still finding myself to love myself through that ordeal. I’m loving myself through every aspect of my life because that’s the only thing I can be assured of. Don’t trust anyone else to love you, but do everything you can to love yourself first and foremost, and then have faith. Have belief that the love will come through and you will find yourself, and I think that’s the only way to truly know love. Now do one little more thing, the only way to feel love is to love.
When your love comes up from your guts, from your genitals, from your heart, from your soul, from your chakra, whatever Kundalini thing you want to talk about. When you feel that love come in out of you and you pour it on someone else, that is the truest way to feel love. A pet, a child, a purpose, a belief, your partner, your parents, a sibling, if you want to feel love, love someone else without reservation, and I guarantee you it’ll be the most exciting part of your life. Feeling love from someone else is great, but the truest sense is when it comes from your inner core.
“What phrase can we tell ourselves to soothe our jealousy when it comes up?”
Here’s the best phrase. “I’m jealous. I’m jealous. I am so jealous, I’m turned on, but I’m really jealous, and I’m really jealous.” Just say, “I’m jealous,” until you stop feeling jealous. That might be a week to ten days, but just sit in your corner and in the pile of your own feces, sweat, urine, and food. Just sit in and then at some point you’ll be like, “I’m jealous. I’m jealous. I’m jealous. I’m jealous.” Then get up, clean yourself off, and go about your day. The point is that jealous is right. Your feelings of jealous is right, and it means you care about the other person, you care about yourself, you’re having these feelings.
The second after you stopped repeating, “I’m jealous,” and denying them, just say, “I’m jealous and I’m okay. I’m jealous and I love myself. I’m jealous and I’m glad to feel alive. I’m jealous and I’m so glad that I care about someone so much that I feel jealous. I’m jealous and I’m going to do something else besides feeling jealous, and I’m going to go about my day.”My teacher once said, “How do we deal with jealousy?” He says, “You’re screwed. Go mow the lawn.” It’s true. Just get your attention off of that, feel the feelings, and go on to the next thing. But beyond that, just say, “I’m jealous,” and sit in the corner.”
“How do you break up with someone?”
The answer to the vague answer to the big question is be honest and communicate, and be grateful. This is the thing that we don’t often do is that we decide we want to in this relationship or more of this relationship. We have a very black and white society when it comes to romantic relationships. Either you’re in it committed for life or you’re not. There’s a sort of a yes or no. What’s happening in today’s world is that there’s so many different forms of relationship that were possible. There’s so much evolution that if you have the willingness to speak the truth, it can come out.
If you have that sense, that little voice in the back of your head that says, “I think I’m done being in a committed or romantic relationship with them,” then you want to start speaking to yourself first and foremost to be sure. You want to analyze that. You want to be willing to look inside and see what’s going on. You want a journal about it. You want to talk to your coach, your therapists, your twelve-step program, your men’s group, your women’s group, you want to get some reflection around it.
Why do you want to break up with that person? What is it that you want? Maybe there’s something in the relationship that can be tweaked to habit. It’s an evolution, and so you just have to be willing to say, “This is what I want,” to yourself, first and foremost. If you do your internal researcher dialogue and you still want to break up with that person, tell them as soon as possible. The worst thing you can do is delay it, to hold off because they can feel it. Be honest, be true, and then just speak plainly about it.
Then also say, “Thank you so much for the impact you’ve had in my life. Thank you so much for being with me on my journey. Thank you so much for what you’ve taught me.” You should be grateful. Even the worst relationships will teach you some of the most important aspects of your life, what you don’t want. Be grateful for them. If you can’t be honest, if they’re not willing to hear it, then write them a letter, send it or don’t send it. Do something, but release it from your soul, and that to me is the best way to have a good break up.
“How can you tell the difference between turn on and hurt feelings?”
The answer is with exquisite attention. We’re in the world, we’re effecting other people, we’re impacting other people, were in relationship with our partner, and something happens where we’re doing something and they got affected. Then they’re mad or disconnected, and you’re like, “I feel the turn on, but I feel the hurt feelings.”What you do is you take your attention off of yourself. You take your attention off the result, and put it on the other person. Then you get really curious. Then you give them the opportunity to give you feedback of that experience for you.
You could say something like, “I felt like when I did that, your feelings got hurt. Is that true?”What’s going on for you? Whatever it is, be curious. Give them the opportunity to be honest with you. Put your ego aside, put your desire for a result to side, and let them inform you, so the next time that situation arises, you can do it better. Life is a series of connections, reconnections, and adjustments. We want to be adjusted. We all want love to get better. If you don’t invite your partner to give you the honest answer, then they’ll never know.
If my lover partner feels hurt by something I do, when is that my fault or my responsibility to change? I should stay true to my choices and leave it to him to accept that or leave, and how to make the communication clear at the beginning of relationships, so I’ll just know what to expect than to enter or leave it.
The basis of this question is trying to protect yourself from doing something wrong. I just want to inform you, if you’re in a relationship, you’re going to fuck up, you’re going to make a mistake. It’s just going to happen. Your partner’s feelings are going to get hurt. They’re going to get mad at you. They’re going to get very, very angry at you because you’re a bad, bad person. Just know that in relationship, if you’re actually in a relationship, if you’re actually intimate, you’re going to do things that are going to infuriate your partner. You’re also going to do things that are going to really turn on your partner. It’s going to be the spectrum.
If you live your life trying to figure out what to do and how to do it, that means you’re withholding a part of yourself. My belief system is live life to the fullest. Take the feedback from your partner, and also know that you’re willing to change. Be so overt in your desire to be malleable and to learn, that when you do miscue, then you have the relationship and the communication conduit that you can speak the truth. Your question is, if my partner feels hurt by something I do, when is my fault or my responsibility to change? No, it’s not your fault or responsibility to change. It’s your opportunity to change, if that’s something you want.
When I first Morgan, I told her, “I’m not a monogamous person. I’m not going to do it. If you want something else, seek elsewhere.” I was a dick around it actually, but I was very overt. She went grumble, “We’ll see what happens.” Then we have four months of me being non-monogamous, which some of you know, I like to play. Then she got more and more hurt, and more and more distant every time I did it. Then we had an honest conversation about it, and she said, “Basically, this is what I want. I want to be monogamous with guest stars. I want to be with you when these experiences happen.” I was like, “I can totally do that. That totally works for me.”
I shifted from day one to month four, at the end of the month four because I wanted to. It was my opportunity to change and expand. I didn’t acquiesce. I didn’t compromise. I found a new pathway. Know you’re going to do things to piss your partner off, live life, it’s as much responsibility as you want to take. When I hurt Morgan’s feelings, I take 100% responsibility. It doesn’t mean that she’s not responsible for her feelings, I’m just knowing that I’m responsible for the stimuli that created that response. My willingness to take responsibility, communicate, and take feedback makes me a better partner, a better friend, and ultimately a better person because that’s what I want to be in the world.
Fifteen, “How do you help with lingering regrets?”
What I hear from that question is you have an experience you’ve had in your past, maybe a month ago, maybe a year ago, maybe ten years ago, and there’s some part of you that doesn’t feel satiated and solid with it. There’s some part of you that’s worried or some part of that plays over that lingering regret. When in my head thinking about something I did in the past and I’m still thinking about it, to me, I’m still learning something from that experience. I’m still pulling from my soul something that wants to be divided, cut, and noticed. I think if you have a lingering regret, there’s some lesson that’s not complete.
Maybe it’s some apology that you haven’t made to another person. Maybe it’s some amends you should’ve made that you didn’t make. Maybe there’s something inside of you that wants to be healed. I’m not quite sure, but when I have a lingering regret, what it means to me is that there’s a part of me that wants to expand and grow. If you’re willing to look at that regret and actually play with it, maybe there’s a lesson there that you need in your current time, because I think these lingering regret show up because maybe there’s some lesson to make you happier in the moment. Maybe there’s something in there. Don’t push away your lingering regrets. Don’t shun them or shame them, accept them. Be happy for them. Be grateful for them and from them improve your life.
“What is Rob’s take on the difference between fantasy and desire?”
Fantasies are creative part of ourselves, and is a little voice inside of us that wants to be seen and heard. Click To TweetFantasy to me basically describes something you want, but maybe you’re not really sure you want, maybe you don’t think you can have. Women have a lot of rape fantasies, they have a lot of violence fantasies, but don’t actually want that in real time. Pretty much every man has a three some fantasy, they actually want that, never mind. The point is we have these fantasies and desires that are inside of us. Fantasies and desires are the same thing. I think they’re synonyms. There’s parts of ourselves that we don’t accept. Maybe the difference between a fantasy and a desire is, a desire could be something that you actually want to implement in real time, you actually want to have in your life, and the fantasy is the extrapolation, the expansion of it.
Maybe it’s the part that you don’t quite want to have or maybe you’re not sure about. A desire is almost to the point to that edge that where I could see having this, and fantasy is past that edge, we’re you’re not sure if you want it. I’ve lived a lot of my fantasies and I can tell you sometimes the fantasy is a lot more fun than the actual thing. Now, there have been a lot of fantasies that are that’s not true, but our fantasies are creative part of ourselves, and again is a little voice inside of us that wants to be seen and heard. Pay attention to your fantasies, and then find the balance of what you actually want to implement in your life, in what you just want to keep in your imagination.
Seventeen, “What is Rob’s take on the relationship between our desires and our insecurities?”
Let’s talk about insecurities. Insecurities basically means there’s some part of ourselves that we don’t feel secure about. There’s some part of ourselves that we have question or doubt about. Insecurities are that part of ourselves that wants to come out and be free, but we just don’t know if it’s socially acceptable. For me, what the insecurities are, are parts of myself that are un-potentiated. Parts of ourselves that need attention. Parts of ourselves that want to expand and grow. I love my insecurities because to me it’s a continuing thing, nonstop about where I need to put attention to expand. I’m 47 years old, I’ve got this gut. It’s not as big as it used to be, diet and exercise has really strengthened them and happy about that. I’ve got this gut, and I’ve had this gut my entire life since I was a kid in different shapes and forms, and I have an insecurity about it.
Guess what that insecurity does? It motivates me to eat well. It motivates me to listen to Morgan about all these crazy supplements she has me on. It motivates me to get my ass to yoga class and sweat my ass off. My insecurities are my drivers. Again, maybe you could look at insecurities and desires as also synonyms. Maybe you want to say a potentiated insecurity is a desire, and you can use your insecurity to expand your life.
To me, desire is the motivating force of life. I have a desire to give back to the world, so I get my ass on this camera once a week and record. I have a desire to get in shape, so I end up in a hot yoga class with very attractive people for an hour and sweat my ass off. I have a desire to be the best partner I can be, and so I’m willing to expand my relationship with Morgan every single day. I have a desire to be a good co-parent, so I drive them to camp to have these different experiences so I can expand. Our insecurities are our drivers, and desire is way to have our life in such away we want it.
Eighteen, “Explain to me why men think all they have to do is say, “Hi,” to get a woman’s attention on various social media platforms. Why do men just say hi, or why do men give one line answers and expect to get attention?”
The answer is men are lazy. Social media, the internet, and smartphones has made us even lazier. We are lazy. We are lazy hunters. We used to be very good hunters and now we’re lazy. We are shot gunning how to get the attention of women, and frankly, guys, it’s not working. What it comes down to is we say hi because one, we don’t take the time to really check out the profile, pull some things, and give a customized approach. We’re not that interested in you, but we’re kind of thinking if we do the numbers, if I say it to a hundred woman, maybe one woman will say hi back.
We don’t feel like we’re original. We have insecurities about our willingness and our ability to communicate. There’s all these different reasons, but basically we say hi because we’re lazy, and it’s not working, so cut that shit out. I apologize to all the women out there where men are saying hi, or we’re sending pictures of genitalia, it’s just dumb. Take some time, read the profile, say one customized thing, or say, “I like this picture because of this.” They write their profiles for a reason, stop saying hi.
Nineteen, “What makes you disappear, as in you men? For example, I tend to disappear when I don’t know how to say no, because of fear of hurting the other person’s feelings. Basically, this ghosting.”
We disappear, we ghost because we’re lazy. We’re lazy because we don’t want to bear the blunt of the feelings of the person where we’re saying we’re disconnecting from. We’re not willing to sit in the discomfort of uncomfortable feelings. The world of the cell phone, the world of social media has made it very easy for men and women, but men to exit situations, pickup Tinder, and just start over. There’s so much quantity of possibility, where in the past there wasn’t. There’s so much quantity that we’re not willing to sit in uncomfortable feelings.
We ghost because we’re like, “We’ll never see that person anyway, I don’t care. I don’t owe them anything even though we’d been talking for a month, or went on two dates and we slept together. I don’t owe them anything because they’re just going to go out and find some other guy too, and so I’m just going to ghost.” I think it’s crap. I think it’s closing cycles, be willing to sit in the uncomfortable feeling of telling the truth is paramount importance.
Number twenty, “How do you practice self-love, and how do you recommend others to find ways to love themselves?”
I find self-love which akin to self-esteem, by doing things that have me love myself. It’s very simple. When you do things that are loving to yourself, then you feel better about yourself. When you do things that are contrary to your integrity, contrary to your goals, you start to dislike yourself. Do everything that has you feel good about yourself. Go find out what that is. Maybe it’s mountain climbing and you climb the mountain, you’re like, “This sucks,” but love yourself that you actually climbed the mountain. Maybe it’s painting. Maybe it’s different sexual situations. Maybe it’s telling the truth to someone. Maybe it’s switching job.
The thing is in order to love yourself, you have to be honest with yourself, and this is something surprisingly people will not do. They will cloud themselves or think, “This is okay for now.” They’ll make deals with themselves. They’ll eat the chocolate bar when they know that soy lecithin is horrible for them. They’ll do the things that hurt themselves, so just stop doing it. This is a practice like anything else. It takes integrity. If you want to expand your goals, expand your life, share it, find a partner who’s going to hold you accountable, and then live your life the way you want.
Question number 21, “What should a woman do if a man tells her that he loves her, and it’s too soon?”
What exactly is too soon? One week or one month? Again, formula. If a man says he loves you, he means it, because God knows men are often shy enough to say they love you. If he says that he loves you, just say thank you. You don’t have to say you love him back if you don’t authentically love him, just say thank you, and be grateful that he’s willing to share this really tender moment of his vulnerability. Be willing to say, I appreciate you telling me the truth, and there’s no right time.
There’s no appropriate time. You either feel it or you don’t, say it or don’t, just feel it. I pretty much knew in the first week that I love Morgan. It was really true. She called me ‘dear’ in the second day of texting, and I was like, “I love that.” The point is that we feel love for whatever reason, whatever, again, the moon’s in the right house, or the planet’s in the right house, wherever the fuck that is. The point is that if someone said they love you, just say thank you.
Question number 22, “Why do friendship and sex have to be mutually exclusive? I only want sex with friends, but some of my girlfriends really think it’s not possible. A true man is no friend, only lover.”
Why do friendship and sex have to be mutually exclusive? They don’t. You can find partners out there, especially in today’s world and have sex with that you’re not friends. You can have sex with your friends. You can have anything you want. The whole spectrum is possible, but again, just being honest with yourself and being honest with your communications and being forthright, this is what I want. This is what I’m up for. This is what’s available, and from that you can ruin a friendship by not being honest.
You can ruin a friendship by bringing sex in, and then they’re thinking this is a romantic relationship when you don’t. Be forthright. Let them know in the beginning. Give them the choice to say, “This is what I want, relationship or I don’t,” and then give them the choice to have their response. Be honest, people. Don’t play with people’s feelings. If you know you want something, just say it, and then let them choose. There’s enough abundance in the world that everyone can have exactly what they want.
Thank you so much everyone for sending me your questions. We’ll definitely do that, maybe once a quarter, 22 Questions in 44 Minutes, so grateful. If you’d like to see more shows, please visit TuffLove.Live. Please like us on iTunes, write us a review, give us some ratings. Tell your friends, tell your enemies. Thanks so much for being on the show, as always take care and we’ll see you soon.
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