The Viable Alternative

In the past, I would get involved with a woman, and everything would be going fine until one day I’d think that I did or said something wrong to get her disinterested in me, and I’d then start to think she was going to end it with me. I’d go from being witty, funny, fun, confident, laid back and interesting to needy, self conscious, stiff, stifled, moody and defensive. As a result, my fear would then become a self-fulfilling prophecy and whatever me and the woman had would fizzle out.

My belief that the woman was going to leave me was so real and palpable that I acted in kind and either would put up all my defenses for “the inevitable” or I’d go the other direction and try to prevent that from happening. Neither response was productive, and ultimately led to me sabotaging my romantic involvement with women over and over again.

Not liking this gripping, overwhelming feeling of fear that kept on occurring, I began to look for ways to stop it. Along the way, I discovered that really, my fear had nothing to do with the woman, but more had to do with my own childhood issues of abandonment. Not that I was ever abandoned, but from childhood, I was very clingy to my mother, afraid that she would leave. I don’t remember the actual incident that triggered this fear, but it translated into me as an adult sabotaging relationships.

Truth be told, I haven’t resolved the childhood wound yet, I’m still working on it, BUT now, I’m aware enough of myself in this aspect that the last woman I was involved with, I explained to her if I acted weird, standoffish, or distant, that it had nothing to do with her, but instead had to do with some childhood issues that I’m in the process of working on. I asked for her patience, understanding and support as I dealt with them. I furthermore assured her that I had no intention to burden her with them because they were MY responsibility to deal with them as a man, but that she did need to know so there was no misunderstanding.

The result? Problem solved. She thanked me for being so open and vulnerable and I was now able to give myself the room I needed to deal with my issues and greatly reduce the anxiety I felt.

Through the tool of self awareness, I was able to start to break the cycle of self sabotage I would perpetuate in my involvement with women.

I see people making the same mistakes over and over again, staying stagnant in various areas of their life year after year after year, and never improving as people all because they lack self awareness.

I know of this one guy, we’l call him Dale. Dale is a very nice, pleasant guy but struggles in the area of women. A mutual friend of ours would tell me how Dale would see some of his female friends commenting on his statuses and photos on Facebook and add them as friends after interacting with them a few times, or that Dale would meet some of his female friends when he’d invite Dale out and add them as friends on Facebook and then eventually start inboxing them inviting them out on dates. The girls, not wanting to be rude, would invariably complain to my friend about Dale consistently inboxing them to ask them out on dates, claiming they weren’t interested and they found it annoying. My friend would then have to go back to Dale to tell him to stop inboxing his friends to ask them out on dates, that they weren’t interested.

The thing is, this has been a repeated occurrence that has been happening over a number of years. From hearing of this repeatedly over the years, I’ve begun to express to my friend my utter amazement over the fact that this guy has not made a single ounce of improvement in this area of his life so as not to keep on getting the same dismal responses from these women after all these years. To me, as I often tell my friend, it’s a foregone conclusion that if you’re not getting the results you want in life in a particular area of your life and if you keep on bumping into the same wall, you need to find out what you’re doing wrong so you can make the appropriate changes in your life to get the results you want.

This guy however, is totally oblivious to the fact that he simply lacks the “game” required to attract the women he wants, and often blames the girl, saying that she’s just insecure. Nowhere does it enter his head that maybe it’s him who’s the cause behind the results he keeps on getting. If this guy had any type of self awareness, he’d be able to be honest to himself and admit that his game sucks and go about learning about the right way to attract the women he likes. Since he can’t do that he continues to get the same awful results.

Harriet Tubman, an ex slave, once said, “I freed a thousand slaves I could have freed a thousand more if only they knew they were slaves.” Many people don’t break out of their prisons of ignorance because they don’t know that they’re in one. They don’t know they’re in one because they have no self awareness. Self awareness gives you that critical eye that enables you to observe yourself objectively and honestly evaluate patterns that you engage in that are giving you the undesireable results you have in your life so you can make the necessary changes to get the results you do want. Self awareness shows you ways that you may be getting in your own way of success. It makes you aware of ways you need to grow so you can be constantly be improving.

I honestly implore you, if your life is a mess in a certain area, if you keep on getting the same undesirable results or outcomes in a particular area, if you keep hitting your head against the same wall, instead of blaming outside circumstances or people, swallow your pride and take a good look at yourself so you’re honestly able to consider what YOU might be doing wrong. It’ll make a world of difference.

When you see people who’ve been able to make remarkable transformations in their lives whether it be from overcoming drug addiction, to going from obese to fit, to going from repeat criminal to successful member of society, to going from dateless to success with dating, it took a certain amount of self-awareness to be able to break out of The Illusion and get from where they were to where they’re at.

This is The Viable Alternative.

Hope this helps,

Ike Love