Tag Archives: Emotions

Goals of Being

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Many years ago one of my goals for public speaking was to design and deliver my own three-day workshop on the Las Vegas Strip. I first achieved that goal in 2009. That was a goal of doing.

Another goal I had for public speaking was to develop such strong comfort with public speaking that I could feel fully present in front of an audience, so I could be spontaneous and in the moment and not feel anxiety or nervousness – just enjoyment, fun, playfulness, and connection. I achieved that goal somewhere along the way. I demonstrated it at the three-day 2015 Conscious Heart Workshop, delivered spontaneously with lots of fun, playfulness, and inspiration in the moment – and no nervousness or anxiety. There was no plan or content preparation for that workshop. I facilitated it from the flow of inspiration and audience suggestion moment by moment. That was a goal of being.

At another time I had a goal of writing a book and getting it published. That was achieved in 2008. More doing.

But I also had a goal of writing that book in a way that I could always feel really good about it, and I wouldn’t feel like I’d outgrown it a decade or two later. I wanted to have a timeless relationship with that book and its principles throughout my life. More being. I still feel such a connection to that book, now 12 years after it was published.

The culture that I find myself within gives a lot of weight to doing and not enough to being. Pursuing goals “at all costs” is lauded by many. But we pay a price for this focus – a loss of connection to being.

When you set goals for the New Year (or anytime really), give some attention to the beingness aspects, not just to your activities and results.

Beingness is surprisingly powerful. A lot of doingness takes care of itself if you invest in the right experience of beingness.

Results of Beingness

Here are some examples of goals that I’ve achieved that have enhanced my life greatly, which have more to do with being than doing.

  • I’m in a long-term relationship with a woman who makes me smile when I see her. We laugh together every day. Even after spending so much time together, especially this year, I still look forward to more time with her.
  • My vegan diet forever changed the way I relate to animals. I look upon them with a sense of fellowship and reverence, not as objects to be bought and consumed.
  • I have written millions of words of published content, but for me the more important goal was learning to write from inspiration. I never get writer’s block. That’s due to trust, not because of self-discipline. I don’t have to force anything. I’ve learned how to invite, tune into, and trust the flow. With the right beingness, the doingness is relatively easy. Most of the content I’ve written, including all of my blog articles and YouTube videos, are donated to the public domain, so anyone is free to republish, repurpose, or translate them.
  • I’m happy. I like my life. I look forward to each day. I often feel appreciative and grateful and lucky, not as some kind of deliberate practice but just as an automatic inner response. I’ve made it a priority to live my life in such a way that these feelings naturally arise. I say no to a lot of doing-based projects that would predictably reduce my happiness. I say yes to invitations and activities that will predictably increase my happiness. And I test that predictability now and then to see if my predictions are still accurate.
  • I get up at 5am each morning. This doesn’t require any force. I’m simply in love with the early morning hours. I seem to have a special relationship with that time of day. It’s that relationship that makes it easy to get out of bed – no force or discipline needed.
  • I feel that I have a healthy and positive relationship with money. I enjoy earning it and find it fairly easy to earn plenty of it when I want. I like spending it too. I like saving it. I invested a lot of thought and experimentation into improving my relationship with money – to drive out the fears and worries about it and to replace those fears and worries with play, trust, creativity, appreciation, inspiration, and other positive aspects of beingness. I used to struggle with money during my 20s, and that struggle didn’t occur during my 30s and 40s. This was solved not with more doing but with better being.
  • I have friends who inspire me to be a better person. I find that such people naturally flow into my life and stick around, not from working on my action-based social skills but from deepening my connection to the person I really want to be in each moment. When I express my beingness in the moment, people who are aligned with me seem naturally attracted to me. I also find it beautiful, remarkable, and empowering when someone else really expresses their beingness. It makes me feel in awe of that person. I tend to feel more awe from a person’s beingness rather than from their actions and accomplishments.

I tend to value my gains in beingness more than my gains in doingness. That’s because the right beingness makes the doing part easier and more fun.

Setting Goals of Being

I encourage you to actually set some goals of being. They may look like doing-based goals on the surface, but how you experience them is at least as important as the doing part. So the goal is really about the presence you bring to the experience.

Here are some examples:

  • Deliver a one-hour presentation with zero nervousness or anxiety.
  • Learn to enjoy doing your taxes that you file them at least a few weeks ahead of the due date. Find a way to fully enjoy the process with little or no resistance.
  • Earn $10K in one day, in a playful and inspired way. Form the intention, and then act on the flow of inspiration moment by moment. This seems like it’s about the doing, but it’s really about working through self-limiting beliefs and creating a more playful and inspired relationship with reality. You have to stop the self-censoring and self-doubt and learn to “yes, and” the ideas that flow through. This goals is nearly impossible if your relationship with inspiration is weak. It can be fun do it if that relationship is strong. You might even set such a goal and then find that you’re getting redirected towards an even better or bigger goal.
  • Prepare and eat a meal that’s super healthy, super delicious, and feels delightful to prepare it, eat it, and digest it. This requires that you really listen to how you’re connecting with the food during each step. And then you must be present to how your body is experiencing the food after you’ve eaten it.
  • Become a hugger. Become a person who gives and receives willing hugs, maybe even every day. Create a life rich in consensual touch. Oh, this was an amazing one to achieve, given my starting point. It took years to get there, but it was so worth it.
  • If you start a blog, YouTube channel, podcast, or something similar, define what kind of relationship you want to have with the many loops of creating and publishing new material that you’ll experience. What I’ve found helpful is that the process must be a growth experience for me; otherwise I’ll get bored and resist it. I also have to write for people I care about helping. This is more important than traffic or numbers. I need to love the process of creation. If I don’t love it, it means the beingness is wrong, and I need to approach it differently.
  • Make a really good, new friend. Good luck with turning this into a step-by-step action plan. With the right beingness though, this one is a lot easier. What makes you a good friend? Are you being that kind of person consistently?

So don’t just consider the what aspect of your goals. Pay great attention to the how and the why. Consider what kind of life you’re creating. Look at the inner experience of what it will be like to achieve your goals one way versus another way. There are so many ways to achieve results externally, but many approaches won’t feel very aligned or pleasant on the inside.

When you ignore the beingness aspect of a goal, you’ll likely sabotage the doingness part as well. It’s hard to take action when you’d rather procrastinate. If you’d rather play video games, how can you bring the beingness aspect that you enjoy while gaming into your other goals? What kind of player are you being in those game worlds? Are you being that player in other areas of life?

One sign that I have the beingness right is that I smile warmly when I think about my goals. It makes me happy to think about doing them. I look forward to working on them day by day. I’m not just motivated by the end result. I can savor the journey as well.

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NaNoWriMo Days 16-17

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The morning I hit a nice milestone for my novel-in-progress, getting it just beyond 30K words, so I’m still ahead of schedule for reaching 50K words by November 30th. The daily target of 1667 words continues to work well.

Yesterday I added 2050 words, which I think is the first time I’ve gone over 2K words in a day. I got into the flow of an emotionally juicy scene and didn’t want to stop till I got to the end of it. I got caught up in the characters’ feelings as I channeled their dialogue, and the words flowed as fast as I could type. This was the first time I cried while writing this story. If this novel were made into a movie, I could see people crying while watching that scene too. It could use a lot of editing, but the core of it feels potent and meaningful. It felt very satisfying to write a scene with a lot of raw and nuanced emotion in it. This came from having the characters communicate with more honesty and emotional risk-taking.

Interestingly there’s a Nano badge called “Weepy Writer” that you earn by shedding a tear or two over your novel, so I gave myself credit for earning that one.

When I get into the flow of a scene, I often feel some emotion as I write, although usually not as strong as during yesterday’s writing session. Even though I’m working with fictional characters, their interactions feel increasingly real and genuine to me, and this leads me to discover some emotional truths in their interactions. The situations that the characters face are emotionally similar to real situations that real people often face as well, and this makes me feel extra sympathy for people who experience similar challenges.

Sometimes as I’m writing a dialog between a couple of characters, it feels like I’m doing a deep personal journaling session. When I was writing a scene this morning, I got confused partway through, wondering if I had drifted away from writing dialogue and was actually doing something closer to personal introspection. I paused and read back a little of what I wrote and realized that the scene still made sense either way. That gave me an eery feeling that my writing was happening at the intersection of two different worlds.

I’m finding this writing adventure to be deeper and more growth-oriented than I expected. I figured it would be a growth experience in terms of the skills to learn, the practice, and the daily discipline – that seemed obvious to me before I started. I didn’t expect that writing fiction would lead me into deeper reframes about life, work, and human nature.

I’m glad I took the plunge and gave myself permission to explore this. I use the word “permission” because I previously had some limiting frames about fiction writing. I often looked upon it as being a less worthy pursuit than writing nonfiction, like fiction is just optional play writing but not particularly important or serious. That framing caused me to delay this goal for many years. I regarded the goal of writing a novel as a side excursion into fantasy, like getting lost in an immersive video game for a while.

After just a few weeks, my attitude has shifted a lot. I now see that there’s something precious and worthwhile to be discovered in the world of fiction. I’m feeling more inspired and enthralled by this project as I go along. I think there’s more gold here than I realized, like a different way of connecting with beauty.

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Sensitivity to Lying

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Some people have a high tolerance for lying and falsehood. They can hang out around others who frequently share false information, deliberately or from ignorance, and it doesn’t seem to bother them. Either they don’t notice the falsehoods, or they aren’t much affected when they do notice.

I’m not one of those people. I used to be though. When I was younger I could hang around people who spewed nonsense left and right and be okay with it. That’s basically how I grew up, being taught lots of false religious ideas about how the world worked, only later to realize it was a pack of lies.

But just growing up in that kind of bubble didn’t make me sensitive to lying. If anything I think it made me less sensitive. Somewhere along the way, I developed numbness to lying. I could be in the presence of lying and falsehood, and it didn’t affect me much at all emotionally.

Going vegan, experimenting with raw foods, and doing lots of health-related detox significantly raised the sensitivity levels over time. I’ve written before about the many internal changes that going vegan caused, especially with respect to the heart-brain connection. Many senses and impressions became more sensitive as I made efforts to clean up my body.

I think fasting helped a little too – I’ve done a 17-day and a 40-day water fast – but that was late in the game for me. Fasting probably would have had a bigger impact if I’d done it much earlier, like during my 20s instead of my 40s.

Sensitivity Advantages

There are some nice advantages to this heightened sensitivity. I never get writer’s block because I’m sensitive enough to always tune into an abundant flow of ideas. I’ve published something new to my blog every day this year, and it’s not even difficult. The ideas mostly share themselves, and I take dictation.

I’m also super happy in my relationship with Rachelle. I adore and appreciate her so much. Each day we spend together is just delightful. I can’t help but smile when I see her. It’s wonderful being extra sensitive to feelings of love and gratitude and getting to feel those at full volume. It makes it so much easier to enjoy a beautiful relationship, especially with another sensitive person. Because we’re so sensitive to our feelings and each other, we’re really good at caring for each other.

So I wouldn’t trade this sensitivity for the world. It has added so much beauty to my life. I don’t think it’s the sort of thing you appreciate till you experience it though.

These benefits make me watch my diet and health habits and not let myself stray too far. If I eat a lot of heavier foods for a while – which for me is too many grains and beans (and foods derived from them like tofu) and not enough fruits and veggies – I can feel the sensitivity declining. But at least I know how to get back on track.

Eating more raw foods always brings the sensitivity back up again. Yesterday I had two large green smoothies and some other raw foods. This included bananas, cherries, blueberries, clementines, spinach, kale, mixed greens, celery, and cucumber. I can feel the difference this morning. I feel happier than usual. Writing feels even easier than it normally does. The simpler and cleaner my diet is, even on a day to day basis, the less friction I experience mentally and emotionally.

Sensitivity to Lying

Here’s a potential downside though. I’ve become a lot more sensitive to lying, falsehood, and deceit than I was 30 years ago. Watching, listening to, or reading lies and false statements causes a palpable reaction in my body. I’m not in control of that reaction when it happens, except that I can prevent or disrupt it by sabotaging my body itself, like by eating lots of heavier foods.

Many people joked about drinking lots of alcohol during the election, which is an effective way to suppress emotions for those who are more sensitive. Of course if you overdo it, you may just be swapping some negative reactions for others.

I have a strong negative internal reaction every time I watch Donald Trump speak. The reason is simple. He lies constantly.

I don’t exactly know why my body reacts the way it does, but it does react. I feel emotionally disgusted. Sometimes I feel a bit nauseous. It’s like I just had a spell cast on me that’s about to make me vomit up some slugs.

My body reacts similarly in the presence of Trump supporters when they talk about him. Whether intentional or not, they always resort to sharing lies and falsehoods to justify their support. There’s just such a huge abandonment of truth in that space.

I like being around people who speak the truth, and Trump and his supporters just don’t. At least I’ve never encountered one who does. Trumpism and falsehood always seem to go hand in hand, along with insensitivity to lying.

Interestingly I didn’t have this reaction to seeing Trump speak before he got into politics. Erin and I would sometimes watch The Apprentice when we were together, and while Trump was often a bit of a jerk on that show, it just seemed like ego-based entertainment and posturing. It’s different when the lying is sociopathic and directly harmful.

Trusting Your Inner Senses

At first I did my best to tolerate these feelings. And then I questioned why I should keep doing that. Is that really a wise approach? The feelings weren’t going down. They grew stronger and louder as the consequences of such lying grew even stronger, like lots of people dying unnecessarily.

In addition to being sensitive to my own feelings and senses, I also feel sensitive to other people’s feelings, and those have been especially loud this year. I could feel a lot of stress in the air.

The majority of people that I connect with regularly are also disgusted by Trump and his rampant lying, especially friends who live outside the USA. There are a lot of other sensitive people out there too, and I think many of them are good at broadcasting their feelings without always realizing it.

I opted to start trusting my body more. Otherwise I’m too tempted to disrupt my health to tone down those inner signals, and I don’t like doing that. I trust that this sensitivity exists for a good reason, especially since it produces so many other benefits that I don’t want to sabotage.

When I say that Trump supporters make me nauseous, I’m being literal about that. I recognize that it may sound like an exaggeration to someone who isn’t familiar with this kind of sensitivity due to lack of personal experience. I think many vegans and raw foodists will likely have an easier time recognizing that I’m speaking the truth here if they’ve experienced similar changes in sensitivity from dietary improvements. This effect is described in detail in some books too, such as Raw Emotions by Angela Stokes.

If you know that eating heavier foods and drinking alcohol can dull your senses and emotions, is it such a stretch to consider that eating cleaner can swing you the opposite way? How would you feel after drinking six shots of liquor? Now imagine how you could feel if you could somehow remove six shots worth of disruption from your body, starting from what you think is sober and normal. So many other aspects of life become easier, but then you have to live in a world where a lot more people seem like they’re drunk – mentally foggy, confused about their lives and purpose, and emotionally numb. It’s always tempting to want to return to the fold, but you can’t unsee what you’ve seen.

When you’re very in tune with your emotions and your inner senses, it’s hard to act against them – sometimes a LOT harder. The question then becomes: How much are you willing to trust these signals?

Trusting the Sensitivity

I do feel it was the right choice to honor those feelings, which led me to do some extra social purging during the past few years. That felt better than the alternative of engaging with bullshit again and again.

Last week I joked that I had to pay extra to upgrade my Facebook block list to 2TB. While I can look back and appreciate some of those connections for what they were, I also honor my body’s signal when it’s time to move on.

I don’t regret it. It was the right choice for me.

What I didn’t realize was that I can’t fully honor these sensitive signals while also trying to numb myself to them in some areas. If I put loyalty to friends first, I always lose something of much greater value. I have to honor the truth first and let my social circle align with that. And plenty of people do. I’ve grown closer this year to some good friends who are very sensitive too, and there’s so much more depth and beauty in relationships with sensitive people than with relatively insensitive ones.

So this has never been about politics for me. Nor is it about character either. It’s actually about trust – trusting the sensitivity that can be challenging to hear but keeps bestowing surprising gifts.

Moving on is a big part of personal growth, and it’s often difficult. I notice that when I do this intelligently, it’s a move into greater trust – trust in myself, trust in reality, or trust in the universe.

This kind of trust is hard. It’s so easy to doubt yourself. It’s easy to doubt your inner signals. It’s easy to want to numb yourself. It’s hard to let yourself sense what you’re sensing, feel what you’re feeling, and let that guide you.

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How to Overcome Your Feelings of Neediness

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Why do you feel needy sometimes?

You feel needy because your own brain doesn’t believe you.

Your brain sees what you want. It also sees what you don’t want. And it genuinely expects that you’re going to keep getting what you don’t want. It doesn’t believe that you’re going to get what you want.

Your brain believes that your efforts to get what you want will ultimately provide inadequate. It believes that you’re going to fail.

So you feel needy when this happens. That’s actually a good signal, but you have to interpret – and act on it – correctly.

You can solve the problem of neediness today. You absolutely don’t have to wallow there.

Your brain is just being honest with you. That isn’t a problem per se. It’s just honest feedback, so take it as such. When you feel needy, accept that your brain is telling you that your current plans, behaviors, and actions aren’t going to work. They’re too weak or too misguided to succeed.

Despite this feedback coming from your own brain, don’t take it personally. This doesn’t mean that you’re weak. This doesn’t mean that you aren’t good enough as a human being. But it does mean that your current approach sucks and that you’re going to have to change it.

From Neediness to Abundance

In any area of life where you feel needy, ask yourself this key question:

What would it take to objectively create measurable and observable abundance in this particular area, so it would be really difficult to feel any further neediness?

Also ask:

What would it take to solve the neediness problem for life, permanently?

If you need sales in business, and customers are flooding you with purchases, it’s pretty hard to feel needy for more sales. So one priority in business is to get really good at generating sales consistently, so there’s no longer any neediness in that area.

If you need toilet paper and buy some at Costco, you’re likely to feel pretty secure about having more than enough for a while. When that sort of neediness is no longer present, you can focus on other parts of life.

Show your brain a true solution, and it will very likely stop generating feelings of neediness – if it also believes that you’re really going to implement that solution.

So to overcome neediness, you must show your brain the following:

  1. A practical solution that looks solid and workable, even if it may take a long time
  2. True evidence that you’re seriously committed to actually solving the neediness problem, even if your initial plan doesn’t work

If you could only pick one, the second item is more important than the first. While a plan can be good and convincing, what matters more for overcoming neediness is the personal commitment to create and experience abundance in that area of life. You have to convince your own brain that you’re absolutely going for the gold and that you’ll never give up.

If you convince your brain that you’re going to give up at some point, you can expect to feel pretty damned needy.

Recognize that replacing neediness with abundance is a long-term problem that deserves a thoughtful, long-term solution. Otherwise it will probably still be in your life decade after decade. Whatever neediness you’re dealing with in your 20s will still be haunting you in your 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, and beyond. Problems of neediness usually don’t just go away. You will drag them forward year after year. Your brain knows this, and it’s trying to warn you NOT to do this.

It’s wise to see just how nasty long-term neediness can be, so you’ll frame the stakes as worthy of a long-term commitment to create a real solution, even if it requires a five-year investment or longer.

Solve the Problem for Life

Just reaching the point of making a real decision regarding your level of commitment to REALLY solve the problem for life is transformational. That alone is usually enough to significantly reduce or eliminate the neediness.

Consider this: What really makes you feel needy is that you aren’t committed to doing WHATEVER IT TAKES to create abundance in that particular area.

Your brain knows when you aren’t committed. And it can predict long-term failure and lack when there’s no clear evidence that you’re actually going to do what’s necessary to solve the problem once and for all. So it’s going to generate some negative feelings to communicate that you don’t have a real solution yet.

Your brain is doing you a great service here. It’s trying to grab your attention, so you’ll prioritize solving this problem and prevent a lifetime of regret.

As soon as you truly make a firm and solid commitment to a new course of action that has a decent chance of long-term success, your brain can finally be satisfied that you’ll eventually get there. It can start predicting success, and so it will very likely start generating some positive emotions. You won’t feel neediness anymore. Instead you’ll feel confident, motivated, excited, curious, and other empowering emotions.

Stop disappointing your own brain with your egregious lack of commitment. Your brain isn’t fooled by your half-assed efforts. It can see plain as day that you’re going to fall short.

What About Intentions?

Are mere intentions enough? Ask your brain. It will tell you when it believes that you’re doing enough and when you’re just practicing wishful thinking and deluding yourself.

If your goal is basic enough that just holding some positive intentions will create abundance, you’ll feel great just holding those intentions. Maybe your brain has seen enough evidence that this approach works for you, and it can predict success when you apply it under certain conditions.

But if your brain isn’t convinced, you can hold those cutesy intentions all you want, and much of the time you’ll still feel anxious, worried, and needy because your brain doesn’t believe that the power of intention alone will be enough.

How will you convince the universe to give you what you want if you can’t even convince your own brain?

When your own brain demands more from you, give it more.

Remember that when you feel needy, your brain is saying: I don’t believe you.

Whatever It Takes

So what can you do today, right now, to overcome feelings of neediness and replace them with certainty and confidence?

Do WHATEVER IT TAKES to create the EVIDENCE that you are 100% committed to solving this particular problem for life. Convince your own brain that you’re serious.

One of the greatest transformations I see in my readers who change their lives for the better is when they finally decide to get SERIOUS about solving a problem that’s been plaguing them for a long time.

Some frame it as: no more playing small. It’s like graduating to a new level of maturity.

Instead of resisting the bigger effort required for success, you can accept the invitation.

Say to yourself something like this:

Okay, so my previous efforts have been wholly inadequate. If I keep doing what I’m doing, maybe I’ll get some incremental gains here and there. Maybe I’ll get lucky. But I’ll never get to experience anything close to the level of success I’d really like in this area of life. And if I don’t do something about this right now to change course, I’ll be dealing with this same crap year after year for the rest of my life. It’s just not going to get much better than it already is, and it may even get worse. The only way to succeed is to up my game. I can’t keep playing this the way I’ve been playing it – that is just never going to work.

You can even dialogue with your brain through journaling. Converse with it to see what it actually needs to see from you in order to stop generating feelings of neediness. Listen for the truth, not for the feel-good answer you’re hoping for.

Through practice and observation, you’ll learn what it takes to convince your brain that you’re going to succeed, and you’ll recognize when it doesn’t believe you.

I can tell by how I feel that I’ve convinced my brain that I’m going to write a novel in November (or at least the first 50K words of it). I feel certain and confident that I’ll actually do it. That’s because I’m all-in committed. Other people can see evidence of this too, like my blog posts about this commitment, my NaNoWriMo profile with the book project already created, social media updates about it, recent books I’ve been reading about writing, research I’ve done on story structure, etc. The external evidence may help to convince other people that I’m serious about this, but what really matters internally is that I’ve convinced my own brain that I’m all-in and that I will actually do this. I’ve done enough for my brain to signal loud and clear that it believes me.

Where in your life do you want certainty, confidence, and abundance? Start by convincing your brain that you’re 100% all-in committed to reaching a certain level of abundance and moving beyond scarcity. You can do this in any area of life: money, relationships, professional achievement, creative self-expression, lifestyle, and more.

What will it take for your brain to believe that you’re absolutely going to do enough to succeed?

If you don’t know, then ask your brain what it needs to see in order to be fully convinced. The answers may be simpler than you expect, like: join NaNoWriMo, join the local NaNoWriMo group, buy a half dozen audiobooks on writing and start listening to them, share the commitment publicly, invite others to join in, research story structure, create a novel project in Scrivener, start brainstorming story ideas, etc. Even before doing all of those items, my brain grew convinced when it saw sufficient evidence that I was going to do them and not stop – and that’s before I’ve written a single word of the actual novel.

Beyond Your Comfort Zone

You can’t fool your own brain. It sees right through you. If you feel needy, that’s your brain telling you LOUD and CLEAR that it doesn’t believe you and that it doubts your sincerity. It’s predicting that you’re going to fail because it’s not seeing enough evidence of any real and true commitment. So it’s calling your plans and intentions out as B.S. that won’t work.

That is a call to change – to immediately and powerfully alter course. That can be done in a day. It’s a decision – not a needy one but a strong one that proves to your brain that you’re making a commitment and that you absolutely won’t quit till the job is done.

Convince your brain that you’ll do whatever it takes to succeed. If you haven’t done that yet, then your “whatever it takes” is going to require that you stretch beyond your comfort zone. Don’t confuse “whatever it takes” with “whatever feels comfortable.”

Be willing to do what feels awkward, uncomfortable, and scary. That’s all part of doing whatever it takes.

If awkwardness is enough to stop you, you’ve lost. If discomfort is enough to stop you, you’ve lost. If fear is enough to stop you, you’ve lost.

Your path to abundance may very well take you through awkward, uncomfortable, and scary experiences. Be willing to experience all of that. Surrender to that possibility. Make it clear to your brain that you won’t use those as excuses to quit. Then create some real evidence by deliberately doing something awkward, uncomfortable, or scary. Prove that you’re serious.

Alternatively, you can continue to wallow in neediness – month after month, year after year, decade after decade – until you don’t even cling to false hope anymore, and your neediness is replaced by permanent regret.

Note finally that neediness is actually a positive sign. If you feel needy, it means that your brain still believes you can succeed, but only if you change your approach, raise your commitment, and finally get serious.

Neediness is an invitation; don’t leave it unanswered.

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Why You Should Make a Video in Your Bathrobe

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I love mental and emotional resistance training because it has done so much for me over the years. It’s a fabulous way to think about skill-building when you’re diving into new territory, especially when you feel anxious, uncomfortable, or off balance.

Consider learning how to record and publish videos online, for instance.

So much of this is about how you model the experience in your mind.

A video can be a performance. It can be a conversation. It can be a form of play. It can be a gift. You can frame the experience however you like, but you won’t really feel free to choose your framing until you crush the automatic frames foisted on you by society, like the performance framing.

A simple way to break the automatic frames and discover greater freedom is to notice what you’re resisting about an experience and deliberately do those very things with the intention of losing your fear and resistance.

So don’t fuss over trying to provide value when you begin. Focus instead on shedding your fear, anxiety, and discomfort with the medium. The value will come through more strongly as you do that.

Suppose you want to get comfortable with making online videos. For many people that can feel very awkward and uncomfortable when you first start out.

Even after years of practice, some people still feel awkward and uncomfortable – sometimes even more than when they started. Partly that’s because they didn’t deliberately chase down the resistance. They mostly tiptoed around it, so the resistance remains. Sometimes the resistance even grows as you gain experience.

Consider this type of goal:

Make and publish 50 videos.

That’s an okay goal to gain some experience, but it’s not the same as deliberate practice. You can make hundreds of videos and not practice in the direction of your true resistance. You can still end up trapped into being a bit of a perfectionist, not feeling truly free. You may find that the conditions have to be just right before you’re able to hit the record button. You may procrastinate a lot too.

Consider this way of framing an initial goal instead:

Explore and discover how to make videos anytime, anywhere, under any conditions, on a variety of topics, off the cuff with ease and lightness – without feeling any fear or anxiety.

So the goal isn’t just to gain experience with making videos. The goal is to crush fear, so you become free. Then you can fully express yourself through that medium.

Once you’ve framed your goal in terms of crushing fear and resistance, you can break it down into practical subgoals like these, which immediately suggest action steps you can take:

  • Make a video when you don’t feel like making a video.
  • Make videos in lots of different locations, including some locations that are far from ideal.
  • Make some videos where you feel ugly or unattractive, like when you haven’t showered and your hair doesn’t look right.
  • Make some videos with bad lighting.
  • Make some videos where the audio isn’t as good as it could be.
  • Make some videos while walking with a selfie stick.
  • Make some videos out in public around other people.
  • Make videos in one take, and publish them with no cuts or editing.
  • Make some videos with no pre-set topic or mental script, and speak entirely off the cuff.
  • Make a video in your bathrobe or pajamas.
  • Publish a video that you really wanted to redo because it didn’t turn out well.
  • Make some videos on controversial topics that will surely invite criticism.
  • Share something about yourself in a video that you’ve never shared before and that makes you cringe to share it.
  • Make videos when you’re hungry, tired, sleepy, etc.
  • Make videos when you feel nervous or anxious.
  • Make videos with other people.
  • Make a video when you catch yourself making a justifiable excuse not to make a video.
  • Make videos when you feel like an impostor and have zero value to give.

Whatever makes you feel self-conscious, do exactly that.

Whatever makes you feel like hiding, lean into expressing yourself.

Remember that this is just a training phase. You don’t have to live this way all the time. Just do it while you’re deliberately training through the resistance. You can even split that into multiple phases with breaks in between.

Look for the resistance in yourself, and then resolve to face it. Brainstorm a list like the one above of all the angles that make you cringe a bit. That becomes your to-do list.

It’s not just a matter of checking each item off your list once. Do them once if that’s all you need. Or do them repeatedly. But do them until you realize that it’s not a big deal to do more of them. You can feel that the resistance is either gone now, or at least it’s low enough not to stand in your way anymore.

Maybe you only need to record and publish one video in your PJs to realize that it’s not a big deal to do more videos like that. Or maybe you still feel so self-conscious after the first one that you realize that you have to do more videos like that, maybe the next one in your bathrobe and slippers, to feel comfortable being so casual on video.

You know you need to do more when you feel fear, anxiety, or worry, suggesting that the idea still appears stressful to you. You don’t need to do more when you feel bored over an idea because there is no meaningful stress anymore. What you once feared may eventually feel boring, as it should because the stress was created by a false framing anyway.

Making a video in your PJs isn’t actually stressful – it’s actually a pretty boring goal and a low bar to clear. So once you’ve cleared that bar, and it would seem boring to continue doing more in that direction, turn your attention back towards more fear-busting. Where is the resistance now?

Claw your way out of the pit of fear one step at a time. It’s a gradual process. Keep building on what you’ve done. Keep leaning into the fear wherever you find it.

This is a form of resistance training. When you train up by facing the resistance, you get stronger, and the resistance seems lighter.

Another benefit is that you build up a collection of reference experiences that you can lean on for the rest of your life. You’ll always know that you can make a video in your pajamas. You’ll always know that you can still record and publish when the conditions are far from ideal.

I know that I can make a video in my bathrobe. I can make a video when I haven’t shaved for many days, in my exercise clothes, with salty skin after a sweaty workout. I can make a video when I’m really not sure what to say or if I’m even being coherent enough. I deliberately courted those experiences a few years ago, so I could feel comfortable and be fully myself through that medium. Now it’s been years since I’ve gone more than a few weeks without being recorded on camera somewhere – CGC coaching calls, interviews, YouTube videos, etc. Most weeks I’m recorded on video at least once or twice. So it’s really useful to feel comfortable on camera without being perfectionist about it. Just show up and go.

When you do this in one medium, you can stretch it to others too. One of my best stretch goals was to do a three-day workshop with no plan, no prepared content, and no pre-chosen topic. Just do all three days off the cuff with the flow of inspiration and audience suggestion all the way through. And most importantly, do it with no fear or nervousness – just playfulness, fun, connection, curiosity, etc. It was a beautiful experience, both for myself and the attendees. It helped me reframe public speaking even more than I already had, allowing me to see it as a rich and playful form of co-creation.

What medium of expression would you love to really pwn? (Not a typo, look up pwn if you don’t know the word. It’s in modern dictionaries now.)

Gaining experience alone won’t necessarily get you there. It’s all too easy to keep dodging the scariest parts. Then you might become a control freak who can only express yourself under narrow conditions, and when something throws you off balance, you’re back to fear and anxiety again.

On the other side of your fear is freedom and expansion. You know this. Now you must summon the will to act on that knowing, or you’ll never gain access to those gifts. If you commit to such a process, you can gain access to a new medium of expression that you’ll cherish – and be able to leverage – for the rest of your life. And you can do this repeatedly with a variety of expressive forms. You can be a true multimodal creator then.

When I was younger, I was afraid of many forms of expression that involved speaking off the cuff around other people, other than a small group of close friends. So much opened up when I finally decided that this was no way to live the rest of my life, and I resolved to conquer these fears step by step. You may look far down the road and assume there’s no way that you can reach such distant goals. Don’t worry so much about the distant goals unless they really inspire you. Just focus on the immediate steps you can take right now, like sending me a link to your next YouTube video that you recorded in your bathrobe. 😉

You might figure that you’re doing people a disservice by recording and publishing some material that isn’t your best, but there’s value in that too. You’re encouraging other people not to hesitate so much and wallow in perfectionism. You teach people that it’s okay to just go. You can even weave that lesson into the video. My bathrobe video is about overcoming perfectionism, for instance.

You also never know where your self-expression experiments will lead. During his youth Stephen King submitted a short story to a magazine, and his story was firmly rejected. Years later after King became famous, the guy who’d received that story went up to King and asked him to please autograph the original copy, which the guy had kept all those years as part of a massive collection of Hollywood memorabilia. What may just be a small stepping stone today could have a totally different meaning a decade or two from now.

You’re not the true judge of the value you provide. Other people will receive value in ways you cannot predict. The crappiest video imaginable can still provide plenty of value to people in ways you wouldn’t expect. Let others decide if they’ll watch past the first few seconds. Don’t deprive them of the opportunity to soak up some of your light.

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Raising Your Baseline

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In practicing the slow, shallow breathing approach from The Oxygen Advantage that I shared about during the past two days, I’m grasping that the key to this approach is to define a new baseline for my breathing and then keep synching back to that new baseline whenever I catch myself drifting from it.

The initial temptation is to sync back to my old way of breathing, which can happen automatically when I lose awareness of my breath. Then I might catch myself and practice consciously reducing my breath so I’m not over-breathing.

An aspect of this change that’s easier to catch is when I moderately exert myself for a short burst, like walking up a flight of stairs. My breathing becomes a little heavier afterwards, so I make a conscious effort to bring it back down quickly, ideally within no more than 2-3 breaths.

So it’s like I have a breathing budget, and I’m doing my best not to squander it. My budget for air this week is much lower than it was last week. And next week I’ll try to nudge it even lower.

I realized that a similar strategy also works for adjusting our emotional baselines.

Suppose you often feel depressed, frustrated, angry, anxious, or some other emotion you’d prefer not to feel so much. Pretend that you’ve suddenly been allocated a lower budget for feeling negative emotions, and you have to be careful not to squander it too quickly.

Imagine if life dramatically cut your negative emotion budget by saying: Henceforth you’re only allowed to spend half as much time in negative emotion territory.

How would you obey this mandate?

You need two pieces to succeed here:

  1. Frequent check-ins with yourself to see how you’re doing
  2. A quick recovery strategy to shift from the old behavior to the new one

Whenever you catch yourself experiencing some negative emotion, you must leave that territory and return to a positive or neutral baseline as quickly as possible. Otherwise you’ll squander your negative emotion budget too quickly.

Do you already have such a strategy? Do you know how to quickly shift yourself back to neutral or positive emotional territory? Can you do this within a few breaths?

If you don’t have such a method, then finding one ought to be a key strategic piece for raising your baseline. Being aware of negative emotions isn’t enough – you’ve also got to change them.

To practice reducing my breathing immediately when it’s too rapid, I do the opposite of the unwanted behavior. I deliberately slow down. I can’t breathe slowly and quickly at the same time, so by doing what’s incompatible with rapid breathing, I stop the rapid breathing.

It’s much the same with negative emotion. What’s incompatible with negative emotion? Positive emotion. So if you do something – anything – that makes you feel good within seconds, the negative emotion has to drop off. It can’t hang around while you’re feeling good.

Then the long-term challenge is to habitualize this recovery pattern by always practicing it at every possible opportunity.

I’m doing my best to not let myself over-breathe. Whenever I notice that I’m doing that, I immediately take conscious control of my breathing and slow it down. If I don’t do this, my baseline won’t shift, and I won’t really get to test and experience the results on the other side.

Initially you may have to consciously take control a lot – like dozens of times per day – but if you stay as consistent as you can, you’ll raise your baseline, and the new behavior pattern will become your new default.

Where else could you apply this idea? You could use it for productivity habits, eating habits, early rising, and lots of other areas of life. The key is to develop a rapid strategy for shifting your behavior in a way that’s incompatible with your old baseline. Then apply that shifting behavior every time you catch yourself running the old pattern.

To really create an effective change, the old behavioral baseline must become unacceptable for you. In order to progress to a new baseline, you must eventually regard your old baseline as out of bounds and below standard, even if it still feels normal. This is a simple approach I’ve used repeatedly times for doing personal growth experiments and also for making long-term changes. To embrace the new, there must be some willingness to say: The old behavior is dead to me.

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Relax Into Being

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A few nights ago, I did a 30-minute yoga session before dinner. While lying in Savasana (corpse pose) at the end of it, I reveled in a delightful sense of beingness. This was a good reminder to set aside doingness and to fully relax into just being now and then.

When you relax into being, you experience existence without any need for doing. Breathing in stillness feels effortless and automatic. In this state you can enjoy the feeling of connectedness to life without having to think about it. You can set aside all stress and worry. Sometimes it feels marvelous to be like a puddle on the floor without a care in the world.

Time seems to pause while in the state of beingness. Even though the seconds still pass by, you needn’t attach any meaning to the passage of time.

When I spend time being and then re-engage with doing, the doing feels lighter and easier. I bring some of that puddleness back with me, which makes me feel more relaxed and attention. It’s easier to focus because my mind has been cleared, so it has plenty of capacity. I feel emotionally refreshed as well, so it’s easy to feel motivated.

How often do you just relax into being? Often enough to enjoy a nice balance with doing? Or has too much doing been wearing you down?

If you could use more beingness, try 20-30 minutes of yoga to relax your body, and then let yourself sink into Savasana for as long as you want. Enjoy the experience of being a puddle on the floor, and revel in how good that feels. When you’re ready to return to the world of doing, notice the lightness that comes with you.

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Declining Emotional Invitations

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This is a follow-up to the last two posts on emotional consent and how to invite emotional consent.

What if someone makes an emotional offer, either directly or indirectly, and you’d actually like to decline?

Suppose someone starts venting at you emotionally, and you know that if you continue to listen, it’s likely to be draining. Or suppose someone is pretty aware of the importance of emotional consent, and they ask you if you’re up for a heart-to-heart about something important to them. And suppose you don’t feel up to having that kind of conversation.

What’s a good way to decline the invitation, whether that invitation is directly expressed or indirectly implied?

Of course that depends on the situation, your relationship with the person, and how aware they are of the importance of emotional consent. But here are some empowering ways to frame this, so you can decide upon a healthy response.

Is It a Good Offer?

First consider whether the offer of an emotional conversation is a good one. Do you feel good about saying yes to it? Can you say an aligned yes?

Or do you feel it’s a bad, lopsided, or unfair offer? Do you sense some resistance within yourself? Are you thinking something like “Oh boy… here comes some drama,” or “Why do I have to be this person’s shoulder to cry on?” or “Oh no… not more whining today!” or even “How much time is this gonna chew up if we get into this now?”

How’s your energy when you receive the invite? Are you capable of playing the role the other person wants from you? Are you willing to have that kind of experience? Or would you rather avoid it?

Are you feeling generous, kind, and helpful? Or would it be better to decline the offer and focus on other needs and interests?

It’s wise to do a quick check-in with yourself before responding in a way that the other person would interpret as consent to proceed. Even if you do go some ways into such a conversation, you still have the ability to stop, although it’s easier when you catch what’s happening earlier.

If you want to support someone emotionally, that’s your choice. Just remember that it really is a choice. You’re not obligated to be anyone’s emotional punching bag or teddy bear unless you really want to play those roles.

I’d recommend doing a quick assessment (like in your journal) regarding what kinds of emotional offers you’d appreciate receiving. Even say your preferences aloud, like you’re telling life what you want.

I tend to accept emotional intimacy offers that seem:

  • genuine
  • win-win
  • freely made without attachment to outcomes (no neediness or desperation)
  • interesting, fun, growth-oriented or otherwise worthwhile
  • fair
  • honest

I tend to decline or ignore offers that seem:

  • presumptuous
  • obligatory
  • win-lose, lose-win, or lose-lose
  • uninteresting
  • unfair
  • creepy or threatening
  • likely to have a hidden agenda

I like emotional depth, so I’m usually okay having deep and emotional conversations with people. I like them to be purposeful though. Even if it’s pretty one-sided, I want to feel like I’m somehow helping the other person or making a difference. I’m often willing to listen and offer advice and help with growth-oriented people.

I am sensitive, however, to wasting my time and energy. I don’t like feeling vamped or drained. There’s a huge difference between entering an emotional space with someone who has a growth mindset and doing this with someone who has a victim mindset. When I discover I’m dealing with the latter, my shields go up.

Fortunately the victim mindset isn’t too common among my readers, at least not the ones who’ve been reading my work for years. It can be common among their friends, family members, and co-workers though, and good boundary management is essential here.

What are your standards or boundaries regarding emotional conversations? What kinds of offers would you like to receive more of here? Less of?

If you’re not getting many offers in the part of the spectrum you’d prefer, it’s likely because you’re wallowing in partial matches. When you start declining partial matches more consistently, more of the spectrum will open up to you. You don’t get what you want here per se. You get what you’re willing to tolerate.

Declining Misaligned Offers

How would you decline any other kind of offer that didn’t interest you? You have essentially the same options here.

To decline an emotional offer, you could directly decline it, ignore it, make a counter-offer, let it go into your spam folder, etc.

My advice here is to be honest and firm yet compassionate, and let the other person fully own their reaction.

How you respond may depend on how the other person asks. Some invites may be so inauthentic, fake, impersonal, or vampy that you may just delete or ignore them. Others you may politely decline. Others you may accept.

How I decline (if I do that directly) may depend on the invite. It could take one of these forms, for instance:

  • No, thanks
  • I’ll pass.
  • I don’t have the capacity for that kind of discussion right now. Hope you understand.
  • Normally I’d love to, but ___ is a priority for me right now… gotta pass.
  • My intuition says no on this, so I’ll have to pass. Hope you understand.
  • I’m not up for talking about ___ right now, but if you want to talk about ___ instead, I’m game!
  • We’ve talked about this at length before. Why do you want to discuss it again? What other project are you procrastinating on?
  • Goodness no… not a match!
  • Not a fair offer… no.
  • Various expletives

Sometimes you may have to decline more than once, especially if it’s an in-person invitation and the other person is trying to run the entitlement script. You might need to physically walk away as part of saying no.

Incidentally, some people invite an emotional discussion as a delay tactic. It’s surprisingly common actually. What are they avoiding by inviting an emotional discussion, especially one that could chew up a lot of time? Hint: It’s probably some kind of challenging, goal-oriented work.

Also note that it isn’t your personal responsibility to educate everyone who makes a bad offer on how to make a better one. But you may find that worth doing if someone genuinely asks you.

Sharing emotional intimacy can be wonderful, but as with any other part of life, there are aligned offers and misaligned ones. A good way to shift over to the aligned side is to get really good at saying no to misaligned invitations.

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How to Invite Emotional Consent

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In my previous post, I addressed the importance of emotional consent. In this post I’ll share how to ask for emotional consent when you want to have a heart-to-heart with someone.

It’s pretty straightforward in terms of the words. The intention behind it is what matters most.

You could start with a line like this:

  • I want to share my thoughts and feelings about ___.
  • Something’s really bothering me, and I’d like to discuss it with you.
  • I’m feeling stressed/worried/anxious/____.
  • I’m stuck on ____.
  • I’d love some help with ___.
  • I had a really difficult experience a while back.
  • There’s something I think you should know about me.

Then add something like this:

  • Is this a good time?
  • Can we have that kind of discussion?
  • Do you want to hear about it?
  • Is it okay if I tell you about it?
  • Are you in a good place to hear about this now?
  • When would be a good time to talk about this? (if it’s already a normal part of your relationship to have these discussions, so there’s at least some pre-consent for that)
  • I need to vent my feelings to someone… can you play that role for me?

And then if the other person consents willingly, you can have that kind of discussion.

It’s also important to let the person be free to withhold consent or to get clarification, so honor their choice if they follow up with something like this:

  • This isn’t a good time. How about ____?
  • I’m not up for that. Maybe you could discuss this with ____ instead?
  • How deep do you want to go?
  • Do you need a certain kind of response?
  • Are you wanting empathy and understanding, a solution to a problem, both, or something else?
  • Unfortunately I’m too tired/distracted to do that now, so I don’t think I can be a good listener at this time. I hope you understand. How about ____?
  • Do you sense this would be a 20-minute discussion or a 2-hour one?
  • If I’m not available, how would you handle this instead?
  • What’s your intention for such a conversation?

The words are just to give you some examples. It’s best to use your own words and match them to the situation and to how you feel.

What’s important here is that you invite the other person to enter freely into an emotional discussion or connection with you. Don’t demand it. Don’t assume that you’re entitled to it. Don’t try to make the other person wrong for declining. Give the person space to say yes or no without trying to box them in. Think abundance here, not scarcity, even if you’re feeling emotionally needy.

If you make emotional invitations with a hidden agenda or some attachment to how the other person responds, you’ll probably pick up some resistance when making such invites, especially in the person’s tone of voice or body language. People can often sense when you’re trying to manipulate them instead of honorably asking for their help.

Some people are really good at this. They respect that sharing emotional intimacy can be risky or draining, and they know it’s best if the other person can say yes genuinely and not feel baited or trapped.

Other people could definitely stand to improve in this area, especially by letting go of entitlement and attachment to outcomes.

Hearts connect best when they choose each other freely, not when one tries to manipulate or control the other.

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Emotional Consent

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Have you ever had the experience of someone venting their emotions onto you or roping you into an emotional conversation, and you never actually consented to sharing that kind of experience with them? How did that feel?

Did you ever feel used, abused, or drained by someone emotionally, especially someone who expected to be granted automatic access to your emotional resources? Did this encourage you to open your heart more to such people, or did you learn to keep your heart closed in such situations?

Just as you need physical consent for sharing physical intimacy with someone, consider that it’s also important to seek consent for engaging in emotional intimacy with someone. This includes something as basic as having an emotional conversation.

On the flip side, just as you may assert boundaries for physical intimacy, consider doing the same for emotional intimacy. Both are requests for your personal resources, and you have every right to deny someone access.

Just as no one is entitled to physical intimacy with you unless you consent to that, it’s wise to regard emotional intimacy in the same light.

Both forms of intimacy can be wonderful and rewarding. They can also be draining. And they are both risky in some situations. Being physically intimate with someone isn’t 100% safe. Nor is sharing emotional intimacy.

You get to make the choice of whom you let in and when. People aren’t entitled to automatic access to your personal resources.

This includes when someone is feeling physically or emotionally needy or entitled.

Emotional Boundary Management

Watch out for manipulative patterns here as well. For instance, if someone labels you emotionally dismissive, it’s similar to being labeled sexually frigid. In both cases there’s an assertion of entitlement to your personal resources (physical or emotional) when consent isn’t willingly offered.

Such labels may be used in an attempt to coerce you into changing your attitude or behavior for the benefit (self-interest) of the person using the labels. Either way it’s a form of nonconsensual emotional manipulation, an attempt to control you when you don’t willingly consent. Don’t fall for it.

Just as you’re free to grant or not grant someone access to your body, you’re also free to decline access to your heart – and your mind for that matter, like when someone feels they’re entitled to free tech advice from you just because you know more about computers.

No one can assert the right to emotional validation from you any more than they can assert a right to have sex with you, regardless of how needy they feel. Someone can only be granted access to physical or emotional intimacy with you by your consent, and if you withhold that consent, then no means no.

What if you’re the one seeking physical or emotional intimacy with someone else? You can invite and offer that type of connection, but don’t assume that you’re entitled to it. Give the other person a chance to decline. Don’t be emotionally creepy or rapey.

If someone declines to grant such consent, you aren’t entitled to coerce or manipulate them into doing what you want. If you find such a relationship unsatisfying, you do have the option to disengage from the relationship and get your physical and emotional needs met elsewhere – with someone else who is willing and able to consent… or on your own.

Pre-consent is a valid option too, like with a relationship partner. Just as you may have an understanding for physical consent (so you don’t necessarily need to ask for it explicitly each time), you may have a similar arrangement for emotional consent. But someone can still choose to decline. You can still say no to an emotional discussion if you’re not feeling up to it. And you don’t have to permit someone to emotionally vent at you, even in a relationship. You can be emotionally intimate without ever going there, just as you can be physically intimate without ever wanting to explore certain kinks.

Maybe you have friends where you both feel it’s okay to unload on each other emotionally at times. But even in such situations, I think it’s good to check in and make sure it really is consensual. Some people may assume that emotional venting is okay at any time, but is that a valid assumption? Isn’t it wise to check if it really is okay with the other person? What if they’re emotionally tired or just not in a good state to listen? Be very careful about assuming consent if you aren’t certain you have it.

One reason I share this is because I’ve received a lot of emails over the years from people who feel emotionally drained by their relationship partners, friends, family, and co-workers. You may not see just how much venting drains other people who are subjected to it. They may do their best to listen and be compassionate, but that doesn’t mean they actually like it, and many would prefer not to be other people’s emotional teddy bear.

It’s up to you when you do or don’t grant consent for various forms of intimacy. Open your heart when you feel it’s wise to do so. You can make these decisions out of self-interest, generosity, kindness, or based on any other values that resonate with you.

Your body. Your heart. Your mind. Your rules.

Opening Your Heart

What do you consider worthwhile opportunities to share emotional intimacy with someone? When do you feel inclined to open your heart willingly? Pay attention to when these kinds of connections feel good to you.

Also pay attention to when it doesn’t feel good to open your heart. When have you done this and wished afterwards that you hadn’t? Where have you experienced regrets on this path? Have you ever emotionally invested in someone and felt punished for your efforts?

One pattern I’ve noticed is that it doesn’t feel good to open my heart with someone who’s stuck in entitlement, neediness, or a victim mindset. That’s just a massive turnoff, so I don’t open my heart in that direction much. I’ve done too much of that in the past, and it’s super draining. It feels like having my energy vamped away – energy I’d rather invest elsewhere.

On the flip side, I usually love opening my heart with someone when the invitation aligns with curiosity, passion, growth, or shared interests. I like it when someone just wants to explore how we might connect, and they aren’t coming from a place of neediness and attachment. Those kinds of connections are refreshing, and I often find them energizing and inspiring. This is usually how I connect with someone when we have an in-person meetup together, like I’ve been doing for many years (currently on pause due to the pandemic).

Sometimes I also feel good about opening my heart to someone who wants to connect on the basis of sadness, grief, loss, frustration, regret, or even anger. I usually don’t find it draining to engage with these emotions if the person has a growth mindset. It’s also good when a person invites me to engage with them on this level in a way that leaves me feeling okay to decline. Then I feel like I can make a conscious choice.

Just as our physical resources are limited, our emotional resources are too, so it’s wise to manage them carefully, like investments.

As I’ve gotten better at making these consent-based decisions according to my personal boundaries and desires, I feel more emotionally strong and stable. I’ve become more receptive to emotional invitations from people and in directions that feel aligned to me.

Remember to practice good boundary management with your emotional space. You can save yourself a lot of grief by paying attention to your own feelings and honoring those. That’s perhaps the best guide I’ve found on this path. When you’re being emotionally manipulated, you can probably feel the misalignment between the person’s stated intentions and how you’re actually feeling in response.

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