Here we are with the second week of Emotional Fitness. Why am I doing two parts of what the hardest work for men is? For one, I will reference my shout out to Rodney Coleman: “Everybody wants to be a bodybuilder, but don’t nobody want to lift no heavy-ass weights!” You can’t work out once and think that’s it. If you didn’t keep weight training your musculature would fall back to it’s original slug like state. Similarly, if you let your emotions go it would be easy to fall back into disempowering thought patterns. Outside of the other multitude of reasons I can give you, let me quote one reason a woman who commented on last weeks blog on Emotional Fitness gave for men: “most of us females are a LOT more likely to initiate sex or respond to overtures for same when we feel taken care of emotionally.” For women the connection point to sex is typically emotions. For men the connection point to emotions tends to be sex. This is the friction point where sex in most straight relationships stagnates. Men typically want more sex out of their relationships. Women also enjoy sex, but usually want to feel more emotionally connected with their partner before engaging in sex. So, if self-improvement or better quality of life isn’t motivation enough for you, how about more and better sex to boot? 

This week I want to focus on ways not to let your emotions grow out of control and get the best of you. Our emotions impact our thoughts, and likewise our thoughts can influence what we feel. If our emotions are intense we will tend to think melodramatically, and make interpretations of events that may really not fully be true. Melodrama is great on film, but not so great for real life. The good news is that we can use our thoughts to shape our emotions. How we frame or interpret what happens in our lives has a huge impact on our emotional well being. One of the most important habits you can cultivate starting now is tostop criticizing yourself! We all have room for improvement but be intelligent about your growth (read Self-Acceptance Leads to Attraction). 

Interpretation

How you interpret a situation determines how you feel about not only the situation itself, but ultimately how you feel about yourself. Also, how you think about and interpret what happens to you in your life, especially when faced with difficult situations or failures, determines your ability to persevere through adversity and succeed.

One great aspect of being human is that we can proactively choose how we interpret what happens to us. Instead of criticizing yourself the next time you make a mistake,  change how you interpret that mistake and see it as a learning experience, an opportunity to grow. A lot of men ask what it is that separates those men who seem 'natural' with women from those men who cannot seem to get it right? It is the ability to assign empowering meanings that, in a large part, separates success from failure. What do you think the difference in how you act in a high pressure situation would be with these two different mind sets?

1. 1) This is scary, she said (insert rejective comment here) to me, I don’t think she likes me, what if she says ‘no’?

versus

2. 2) This is an opportunity to train my mind to build up a tolerance for dealing with social pressure; This is a challenge, a learning experience. If she turns me down it gives me a chance to work on separating my self-esteem from the social validation of  women.

Do you see what I’m getting at?

Please feel free to write me with any questions at:

danboltonlmhc@me.com

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