Our relationships often determine the sweetness of our lives. Just like the great fruit a lemon can be when it compliments other ingredients even when it might not be great with others, so is our relationships filled with the greats, the inevitable negatives, and despised break up.

The lessons I share in this article will not be easy to accept. If you are after tips like “go see a movie with friends” to avoid the dark, deep secrets of working through emotional pain, go read the hundreds of crap articles about this topic over the Internet. The lessons in this article are hardcore. I will show you true mental and emotional strategies to get over your ex so you are ready for independent happiness.

The Uniqueness About Your Situation

Not every break up is the same. Some create intense emotions of sadness, depression, and anger, while others are complete relief. I categorize relationship break ups into three groups:

1. You initiate the break up. This type of break up is the easiest. It will give you fewest troubles. Often the decision will make you happier than being in the relationship.
2. They initiate the break up. This is the hardest type of break up to manage. It is the main focus of this article.
3. Mutual break up. The rarest type of break up where both individuals often care how the other person feels about the decision. The two of you talk the process through and conclude splitting up is the best option. Reasoning, openness, and future plans are common.

When your ex decides to end the relationship, it is like a loved one passing away. Psychologists actually concur that a relationship break up is like experiencing grief. If we contrast grieving with a break up, in both cases you lose someone you loved and you’re unwilling to psychologically let them go.

As with death, break ups are a part of relationships and life. Death is inevitable. Break ups are inevitable. You need to firstly acknowledge relationships end all the time. As simple as that statement appears, do not mistake simplicity for power. Your ego blows personal problems out of perspective causing you to think what is common in the world is unique for you.

We think an ending relationship will be the end of our wellbeing. If you talk to a friend about getting over his or her relationship break up, however, you will not have this ego problem. You will see from a healthy perspective that break ups happen. This strategy is similar to disassociation where you look at your difficulty from an observer perspective. It is the first technique you can use to get over your ex.

You would be unable to experience the wonderful feelings you had with your recent ex if you stayed with your “ex ex”. The same can be said for your future partner. You will be unable to experience the wonderful times and emotions with them if you do not get over your broken relationship. It is as simple as that.

Deciding to get over a break up is often not that clear-cut. Sometimes you undergo a painful recurrent uncertainty when splitting up as you wonder if the two of you are actually apart. This leads us onto the golden rule to get over your ex.

The Golden Rule of Moving On From Your Ex

Once you have truly realized that break ups happen and, more importantly – that they will happen to you – tell yourself the golden rule of getting over a break up. Affirm and reaffirm to yourself, and internalize the belief, that you want to get over your ex. Why is this golden rule important?

Let’s put it this way. How often have you seen someone want to get over a break up yet they are resistant to actually breaking up with the person? It happens too often. You see them caught in the emotional turmoil, a tug-of-war game they can only lose.

What is even worse than being resistant to getting over the person, yet wanting to not get over them, is not being aware of the mental tug-of-war game. The internal conflict leaves you frustrated. You may think you have some weird psychological problem. You will be uncertain about getting back together as you unwilling move on and fail to fully enjoy life. When you want both lifestyles, you achieve neither. Commit to a decision.

If you have a choice to fly to Paris or Sydney, and you hesitate because you want to visit both cities, you will never make a decision and miss out on both cities. There is a Russian proverb that says, “If you chase two rabbits, you will not catch either one.” By not being 100% clear with what you want (this goes for every other goal in life), you achieve little and remain frustrated. You become uncertain of yourself because you never critically think and investigate your feelings and thoughts to know your true desire.

You have to be certain of what you want. Do not destroy the golden rule. Ask yourself questions and be fully aware of what is making you resistant to emotionally releasing yourself from the person. You can ask yourself questions like, “What makes me still attracted to the person?” “Why can’t I get over him/her?” and “Am I just afraid of loneliness?”

Discover the cause of your emotional pain. I cannot emphasize that enough. People are unconscious of their emotional awareness in a break up and never know why they experience pain. Conduct an “investigation” making it your goal to discover as much about yourself as possible. Gather as much information about yourself from self-talk and other people to solve “the crime”.

(To additionally help you overcome this problem, I recommend you check out an article I have written titled “1. Principle of Influence: Commitment and Consistency” to discover a powerful influence that makes you stay in an unhappy relationship.)

You Can Decide What is Right

Maybe you are still uncertain of whether you should break up. There are simple actions you can take to see whether a break up is the better option.

Do not worry about going to university and studying a degree in psychology to understand when you’re in a bad relationship. There are clues you’re probably already aware of that hint your relationship is more like a lemon than lemonade. Ask yourself these practical questions:

• Are you and the other person feeling the same emotions as you were at the start of your relationship?
• Do the two of you share the same important values like religious beliefs?
• How often do you communicate with one another?
• When you do communicate, what things do you talk about?
• Do you enjoy being together?
• Do you perceive being single in a better light than being in a relationship?
• What causes the two of you to fight? Little things that show hostility or big problems like an affair?
• Do you have a fear of hurting the person? Why are you putting yourself through misery in not wanting to hurt the person?
• Are you in the relationship because of guilt or love?

Ask other people what they see and think about your relationship with the person. Take their opinions into account. Do not base your decision solely on what they think because the most important factor is how you feel.

Most women in bad relationships remain in them because they would rather be in a bad relationship than be alone. They feel comforted in awful relationships. They see married couples and envy their relationship. The thoughts about getting back together or just finding any guy then start racing through their mind.

Another common reason for remaining in a bad relationship is love. Are you using the excuse that your feeling of “love” is keeping you from breaking up? Love is an intoxicating emotion. It is blinding. Even if you think you still love the person, ask yourself the many questions above. The questions act as objective judges to the situation; contrasted to your subjective emotion of love that intoxicates your understanding of the situation.

Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) teaches that people often fail to distinguish between various emotions. For example, excitement can be misunderstood as fear. How do you know that you feel love? Does your answers to the above questions sound like love to you? What specific events let you know you are in love? What physical responses do you have that let you know there is no love? Asking yourself these questions will make it crystal clear whether you really do experience love.

Even if you are sure you love the other person (remembering to be thinking objectively about this with the questions asked), love alone is not a good indicator of a good relationship. Love is not a relationship; it is an emotion. Without other aspects like time, happiness, and communication, what you feel is love does not comprehend a healthy relationship. Do not become intoxicated by affection, attraction, or love.

Remember that relationships can be repaired, of course, so do not conclude that you should break up just because things are sour at the moment. If you still have a relationship with this person where you can communicate, talk things over with your partner in a safe environment. Even if you are certain the relationship is over, ask yourself the list of above questions to reinforce your thoughts to fight away “what ifs” and “maybes” you might have in getting back with your ex.

Emotional Baggage Holds You Back

Emotional baggage occurs when you carry emotions from one relationship to another, much like you would carry a backpack as you travel from one destination to another. You carry it around because you fail to let go or you fear reliving emotional pain. It is easy to carry emotional baggage from one relationship to the next.

People protect themselves all the time in new relationships by withholding their full emotional selves from the relationship. They say things like, “I don’t want to get hurt again”, “I’m still hurting”, or “I’m not over it.”

There is no denying you can be damaged when you place trust in someone, yet holding yourself back makes you miss out on the joyful rewards of an intimate relationship. You forgo the risk of being hurt again when you protect yourself, but you also miss out on full happiness with your partner.

You do not have to quickly “dive into” a relationship. Solid relationships build over time. You can “dip your toes” into the relationship and gradually, but surely, immerse yourself. Gradually drop your emotional baggage onto the ground. Doing so will ensure you experience full intimacy that otherwise was unachievable with emotional baggage.

Take the Lessons with You

I am a firm believer that every person can learn a lesson from almost every person and situation. A relationship break up is no exception. You can learn vital lessons and experience personal growth instead of personal decay from your difficulty.

Your main goal in relationships is finding your perfect partner. Someone you can share love and feel connected in unison. You cannot achieve this with emotional baggage and failing to learn from your mistakes. It makes perfect sense to learn from a break up. I know you want to progress forward and find your ultimate partner; instead of remaining stuck in an old relationship where you waste time, intense emotions, and energy.

It is too easy to find the negative to strengthen negative beliefs instead of looking for the positive in a break up. This mindset is damaging as it causes a chain reaction of negative building on negative until you are completely emotionally unavailable. The negative reinforcement prevents you from becoming smarter and stronger for future relationships.

To learn from your experience, I recommend you take responsibility for what occurred. In many break ups, each person blames the other. Rarely is one person mutually agreed to have caused the split. Take responsibility and do not play the blame-game.

I can almost guarantee you did something seriously wrong in the relationship, which contributed to the break up – you just may be unaware of your contribution due to a lack of knowledge. Maybe you do not know how attraction works, how to effectively listen to your partner, or how to assert yourself to address a problem that concerns you. Can you see the powerful role you may have played in the break up?

It is important to know that getting over a break up is more than moving on; it involves learning from your past for a better future by accepting responsibility for what occurred. Look at the situation as a experience to learn from in your journey towards finding your ultimate partner.

Express It

There are many things you can do to get over a relationship break up, but one of the most important things to do is to have a support group. For most girls this will come easy. For guys, it will be difficult because society makes us think we are not masculine if we talk about our emotions.

If you are female, you can communicate to your closest friends and talk to your parents or brothers and sisters – provided these people will listen to help you get through this difficult time. Let them know you are only after a listening ear to avoid having them turn into an amateur psychologist (a term I use in my communication secrets program to describe a person’s inclination to judge and project solutions). By letting them know you want them to only listen, they will be more willing to “absorb” the pain you feel. You want a support person or group not for relationship advice, but to help you express yourself and feel your emotions.

As for guys, you can use the same principles, but chances are you will not want to talk to your guy friends about the break up. Remember that if it’s not expressed, it’s repressed. You need to have a support group or at least a support person. You will find that accepting your emotions and expressing them will allow you to heal. (If you are a guy, and simply want to get your girlfriend back, there is a good guide here.)

How to Move on From Pain: An Exercise to Heal You Now

By this stage we have clearly defined what you do and do not want to remove the confusion often created by a broken relationship. You have also learned about love, how to release emotional baggage, the importance of learning from the past, and how to safely express your pain.

Naomi Eisenberger, a University of California neuroscientist, discovered that the feeling of rejection in a break up switches on the same part of the brain as physical pain. The anterior cingulate receives an intense boost in activity. This is why a break up can be very painful. A punch in the nose is as threatening, according to your brain, as rejection in a break up.

Physical pain can be cured by a doctor. However, does a doctor actually heal your wounds? No. The doctor helps your body get into a state of healing so it can heal itself.

The pain you experience from the past is irreversible. There is nothing you can do about it. You need to put your mind and body into a state that allows it to heal itself. One way to achieve this is time, but I am sure you do not want to waste ten years of your life in pain.

Another option is seeing a therapist. Should you choose a therapist? It is up to you. There is no shame in therapy. All therapy works for different people in different situations. Even no therapy is therapy because time itself is therapeutic.

Before you decide to spend thousands of dollars on someone who will listen to your problems, I want you to do this exercise. The exercise I am about to share with you is powerful because it does not change the content of your experience. Your experience has happened. You cannot change it. What the exercise does change is the process. The exercise changes the attributions you make to the past and future.

Think of a pleasant experience or imagine a pleasant experience you would like to have in the future. See the image. As you see the image, make it larger. Make the image bigger, brighter, and clearer. Take your time as you see the image increase in size. Step into the image as if you were living it from a first person view. As the image changes, notice how you feel.

After you have done that, move the image in the opposite direction. Take your time doing the exercise. Gradually make the pleasant image smaller, dimer, unclear, and distant from you. Step out of the image as you observe yourself in the situation. Again, as the image changes, notice how you feel.

Once you have done that little exercise, how did you feel when the image is bright and large in size? How did you feel when the image was small, dim, and far away from you? Most people experience intense emotions when they see a bright, large image in first person. On the contrary, they experience little emotion when they see a small, dim, distant image. You can probably see how this will help you move on from a break up or any painful memory.

If you make unpleasant images large, bright, and up close, while making pleasant images small, dim, and distant, you will be an expert at feeling miserable! On the other hand, if you make pleasant images large, bright, and up close, while making unpleasant images small, dim, and distant, you will be an expert at feeling happy! Apply this concept to your relationships. Your unpleasant images are the break up movies you continually play in your mind, while your pleasant images are pleasurable events. (If you’re trying to forget good memories with your ex, you can make the images dim.)

Shrink the unpleasant images. See the images move away from you. Next, intensify the pleasure you want. Constantly feel, think, see, and even touch and smell pleasurable images. See yourself touch your wonderful surroundings. Imagine yourself with a big smile. Feel the joy within yourself. Think how great it will be to have overcome your break up. You will be able to get over your relationship much faster by intensely imagining your desired five senses.

It is Time to Make You Your World

Unfortunately for many people, their relationships determine their level of happiness. They do not burst with joy and happiness when single. When they are in a sour relationship, they become sour. It is a dependency trap. This neediness eventually deteriorates the relationship and scares away their partner.

Many individuals desperately want a partner. They think the person will solve personal problems like boredom, unhappiness, and feeling unattractive. If a person goes into a relationship like this, he or she will destroy it.

If you do not have a great single life where you wonder how to fit a relationship in, I question whether you should be in a relationship. You need to become your own source of energy and be in control of your emotions instead of being dependent on others for things like comfort, happiness, and emotional security. This view is the opposite perspective to a time-consuming, miserable, codependent relationship.

I cannot emphasize enough how important it is to make a big change in your life right now. You could work harder to get a promotion, exercise, read self-help books, take a new course, socialize more often, or go out with friends. You need to create a single life where you are happily busy and question whether you want a relationship with someone. Such a great single life will attract a future partner for you.

I believe a break up can be one of the greatest things to happen to a person if they are aware of the potential held in the moment. Learn from the break up. If splitting up encourages you to undergo a lot of self-help, the change can excite you.

When life throws you a lemon with a bad relationship, do not try and divulge the lemon. Look at the lemon from a different perspective to see you can make lemonade. You may feel bitter right now, but follow the advice in this article and you will look at a break up from a more empowering perspective. Soon, you may even wonder why you were in a relationship because single life can be so great.

(If you are reading this article, single because of your recent break up, feeling a sense of depression, and still want to get back with your ex, pay attention to what I’m about to share with you before your ex finds someone else. For a full course to get back with the person you love, I highly recommend guys get this course while girls read and get this course.)

Other Articles That Might Help You

1. How and When to End a Long-Term Relationship
2. How to Manage Stress in Relationship Communication: Keep Calm with Scientific Stress Management
3. The Heart of Effective Communication: How to Love People
4. The Complete Nonviolent Communication (NVC) Process for Compassion, Understanding, and Peace
5. Finding the Art of Forgiveness: How to Forgive and Be Forgiven

Carl Rogers, a pioneering psychologist in the 1950s on human relations, said love, genuineness, and empathy are three essential pieces to constructive communication. Many studies since then support Rogers’ theory. When we fail to love people, it is hard to communicate in a way that supports ourselves and people. Love is the core of powerful communication. Think about it for a moment and I’m sure your experiences will confirm that love is the heart of effective communication.

It is unfortunate we are not taught how to love people. Instead of learning how to love, we learn to fight. Instead of learning how to love, we learn to defend ourselves. Instead of learning how to love, we learn to get our point across and debate. It is no wonder society is deprived of the core energy – love – that drives humanity.

This article will help you love people more. It is not about falling romantically in love with someone, though the advice can help you in that sense. You will learn how to love people to empower your communication. I will give you a logical eight lesson plan that you can easily follow. Loving others will bring an abundance of love among many great things into your life.

What is Love?

“One word frees us of all the weight and pain of life: That word is love.” – Sophocles, 496-406 B.C.

“What most people need to learn in life is how to love people and use things, instead of using people and loving things.” – Author Unknown.

“Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails.” – Bible, New King James Version, 1 Corinthians 13:4-8.

Love is a tough subject for anyone to address. Not many people agree with a common description of love. As Haddaway’s classic hit is titled, “What is Love?” Some say it is a willingness of sacrifice, some say it is blindness to flaws, while others say it is unexplainable. Some say it is an intense devotion or affection, but that can be neediness.

Just hearing about the subject of “love” makes me cringe. Love is twisted by society – not only by younger generations who are often picked on in this area – into a form that destroys its pure meaning. People think they are in “love” because they feel attraction or have been in a relationship for many years, but this does not comprehend pure love.

I’m not particularly fond of most material on love because the subject tends to be categorized into romance. “Do nice things like give gifts and the person will love you.” Romance does not describe love – not even an act of love because romance by itself can be superficial and manipulative. Love is beyond actions. Love is beyond reactions. You don’t wait for love to be created. Something deep works in pure love.

Psychologist Robert Sternberg attempted to explain love in his triangular theory of love. The theory is applicable for interpersonal relationships. It categorizes love using three scales: 1) intimacy, 2) passion, and 3) commitment. Variances in the three scales produces types of love. It is only when all three are present that a pure form of love, known as “consummate love”, can develop. Consummate love is the ultimate form of love an individual can desire.

A more applicable description of love to the style I am writing about in this article is explained by Susan Hendrick and Clyde Hendrick in their love attitude scale:

1. Eros love is based on physical appearance. It describes superficial love.
2. Ludus love is a game based on conquest. Pick-up artists (PUAs) often experience this type of love. PUAs love to conquer women. When one succeeds at getting a woman into the bedroom, he quickly loses interest in her.
3. Storge love is gradually built from similarities and friendship. The transition from friendship to love is often unclear.
4. Pragma love is more rational than other types of love as it is based on practicality. An extreme form of Pragma love is prostitution where financial gains rationalize attachment.
5. Mania love is very possessive and unstable. Strong feelings of insecurity, neediness, and jealously are experienced.
6. Agape love is selfless, unconditional, and often spiritual.

Agape love most accurately describes the type of love we wish to have towards family and friends. We want to unconditionally love those with whom we desire to effectively communicate; not just when these people do something nice for us or when we are in a good mood. Agape love does not change when the mood or circumstances change. Agape love remains when the person you feel agape love for does something mean to you. It is unconditional and withstanding – almost divine. It is our goal in this article to develop an agape form of love.

The Role of Self-love

The selflessness in agape love we wish to develop is one beyond sacrifice. It is beyond confining boundaries and a lack of concern in fulfilling one’s needs. Selflessness is about focus, attitude, and action towards others while retaining self-love. It is not about sacrifice and ignoring your needs.

Rarely are selfless actions self-less. Selfish actions misinterpreted as “self-less” fail to remove the self from the action. Unselfish actions that overlook the giver’s needs builds emotions like resentment that destroy the selflessness in the action. When the person ignores his or her own needs or desires, the person feels invaded and discounted. The person being self-less may be a people-pleaser quietly harboring dangerous amounts of resentment that will kill a relationship.

Unhealthy selfishness worsens by its supposed solution of selflessness. Selflessness in an area you lack resources can lead to unhealthy selfishness. Neediness comes from poor self-love. There is nobody more unloving than one void of self-love. Desperacy for love diminishes the love you give and receive.

Be selfish in the healthy sense before you are selfless. Ignore your parents and teachers that say selfishness is wrong. Greediness is different to healthy selfishness. In mathematics and life, you cannot give what you do not have. (Most people, however, wait to be loved by others.)

To give love you must firstly have love. You can only be truly selfless when you love yourself. It is in selfishness and the selflessness of agape love that we get our first lesson on how to love someone:

1. Love yourself to love others

If you are not into religion, the most reliable source for love is from yourself. You do not need to approve of everything about yourself, but you do need to accept yourself. You will always have flaws you dislike. Accept it. Only by loving yourself can you love others.

Give-Take Relationship of Love

As babies, we were entirely dependent on our parents or guardians. We would cry to be feed, cry to be warmed, and cry to be loved (some adults have hardly changed). We wanted to receive without giving. The only thing we gave was emotional warmth and love, yet that was out of our control, accidentally created from people’s perceptions towards us. Perhaps the only true thing we gave as a baby was regurgitated food.

As we began to age, we became more “independent”. We were able to feed ourselves, make ourselves warm, and put a shelter over our heads. Rarely does our growth extend beyond this independence or dependence. We are still that crying baby who wants everything without giving.

On the rare occasions we give, we do so in hope of receiving something of equal or greater value in exchange for our gift. Our giving comes from reciprocation. A part of this problem comes from our teachers and parents advising us to avoid people who take advantage of us. We get conditioned to not be conned by someone who fails to return a favor.

The principle of reciprocation is a double-edged sword that can empower you. It states that humans have an inherent desire to return favors. When something is seen as a favor, not an obligation or expectation, we react by reciprocating something to the person of equal or greater value. By giving we usually receive more than what we gave. Give love to others to receive things you cannot comprehend.

Unfortunately, when we do give and do not instantly receive, our giving stops. The expectations we create are the demise of our giving. Our expectations, which exceeds results, makes us dissatisfied. If you think you need to receive love from others in order to give love, you are living reactively. The more you get, the more you want. Neediness disables a person from loving people.

Stephen Covey in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People says most people interpret love as a feeling, a reaction from events. We are driven by Hollywood to think love is a product of a circumstance – a feeling out of our control. People who live reactively to their environment blame others and situations for a lack of love.

Covey says “proactive people make love a verb”. They create the life they want. The greatest lovers in the world are people who live by their value of giving love instead of reacting to the moment. It is through loving that love is created. This is our second principle:

2. Simply start loving to love

We live in an interdependent society reliant on people, as they are on us, so we need to give. When we love others, they in turn love us, but not necessarily in the same form as our love. It is much easier to love someone who first loved us. The purpose of loving yourself is to create love in your life so that you can love. An active creator of one’s personal universe does not wait for the right circumstances – the person does what he or she wants done.

Agape love is not dependent on firstly receiving love. Agape love does not have limiting conditions. It gives without receiving. Mildred Norman Ryder, also known as the “Peace Pilgrim”, nicely said, “Pure love is a willingness to give without a thought of receiving anything in return”. This gives us our third lesson of loving someone:

3. Give love without any expectation of receiving love

I know people fear giving love and receiving none in return. Rejection is scary, but protecting yourself blocks the flow of love into your life. The need to receive love in exchange for love is needy, approval-seeking, and destructive. Reduce your need for someone’s approval to empower yourself to love the person. Remember, agape love is unconditional. Loving someone without the expectation of being loved in return, takes you one step further towards radical personal responsibility and unconditional love.

Daniel Goleman in his revolutionizing book Social Intelligence, which looks at the science of human relationships, emphasizes the need to go beyond ourselves. When we overcome self-absorption, we can connect with people and love them. “When we focus on others, our world expands,” says Goleman. “Our own problems drift to the periphery of the mind and so seem smaller, and we increase our capacity for connection – or compassionate action.”

Scarcity and Abundance of Love

The worry of giving without receiving comes from scarcity. We fear being conned, taken advantaged of, and receiving unfair treatment. Scarcity assumes love is a limited resource. It means there is a finite amount of love in the world so you had better keep what you need to yourself. No wonder we keep what we can to ourselves because our survival becomes dependent on it.

Extend your self-love to others. Self-love is one step forwards to an empowered giving of love compared to the limitations of giving it from guilt, ego, and scarcity. “Love wasn’t put in your heart to stay,” said the singer Michael Smith. “Love isn’t love until you give it away.”

Though scarcity can work against us when loving others, it can also work for us. The principle of scarcity states that we value a resource more when it is rare. Knowing love is scarce in the sense it can be lost, will make you value it more. This gives the fourth lesson to love someone:

4. There is no better time to love than now

Those who have lost loved ones know the value of love. Some people are too late to express their love. They regret failing to communicate their love to someone no longer with them. Do not become someone who devalues what is in their life until it disappears. A love-filled person knows their love in a person’s life counts.

Transforming Pain Into Pleasure

Change your perception of scarcity into abundance to start transforming pain into pleasure. If you struggle to feel grateful to transform this aspect of your life into pleasure, something that always helps me is to think about the meaning of “appreciate”. To appreciate is to increase in value. Therefore, to be grateful for everything in your past and present, you increase your feelings of value towards your experiences and the world around you.

You need to overcome feelings of anger, blame, and resentment before you can feel grateful and love those who hurt you. When you experience these limiting feelings, you fight an uphill battle that discourages you from loving the person who “caused” you these feelings. Remove the pain to experience the gain. The elimination of emotional pain gives us our fifth lesson on how to love someone:

5. Remove blame and resentment to make love possible

Anger is not bad – it signals a problem. When you blame someone or feel they cause your anger, that is a sign you lack radical personal responsibility. It is a sign you are reactive rather than proactive. Men who complain that women are “bitches” and women who complain that men are “jerks”, are two examples of people who lack personal responsibility. Once you accept radical personal responsibility, you no longer blame others and possess feelings of anger towards people.

Will the acceptance of radical personal responsibility remove all anger? No. It is not about the removal of anger, but about removing the victim mindset that people cause your pain. You will feel anger towards someone sooner or later, but that is just a sign you lack personal responsibility. Every second you decide how to respond to the world. Use the part of you that has you behave beyond everyday annoyances to help you accept radical personal responsibility.

Resentment comes from blame, but it needs a mention by itself because of its destructive capabilities. Resentment is an unusually powerful emotion that builds in size when you fail to forgive someone or take radical responsibility. Learn the art of forgiveness to erase resentment. We think we hurt others with an attachment of resentment against them, but we only hurt ourselves.

Love is Not Liking

When I teach people to love others to improve their communication, they often complain they cannot love, forgive, or even like certain people in their life. They think there is something unique in their history that excludes them from being able to love. While this hints that the person is yet to forgive, they may mistake love for liking.

Love is not liking. You can dislike someone you love. Jewish philosopher Martin Buber saw that love is a choice while liking is more reactive. We don’t really choose what we like, but we can choose who and what to love. Love is not a series of feelings, but feelings often accompany love. Hollywood tricks us to believe that love is a reaction out of our control. You can make the choice to love people and want the best for them just like you make the choice to love yourself because that is best for your wellbeing. This gives our sixth lesson:

6. Want the best for people and constantly remind yourself that loving is not liking

See the Abundance of Love

Here is a useful exercise to help you love people you resent. It will make you grateful for everything in your past and present, and create an abundance of love in your life. This exercise will create our seventh lesson:

7. Be grateful for everything in your past and present

Think of the significant positive and negative main events in your past. Summarize them on a piece of paper in separate rows. If you have a painful memory of how your parents brought you up, you could summarize it as, “I dislike my upbringing by my parents”.

Once you have listed the significant events, write down what you are thankful for about the event besides its summary. Identifying a lesson in a problem is difficult – and you may need to think about it for sometime – but it does exist – it always exists. What do you appreciate about the “negative” or positive event? If you disliked how you were raised by your parents, you could be thankful for:

• The independence they created in you
• Your new knowledge on how not to raise children
• The desire they gave you to lovingly raise your children

People who value lessons and opportunities, instead of being absorbed in pain and problems, are sometimes accused of delusion. Negativity and pain is no more real than positiveness and pleasure. Hate is no more real than love. You decide to be grateful for everything in your past and present. You decide to be loving. You decide to communicate well.

Being grateful for everything in your past and present removes pain. It makes you aware of the abundance in your life that you previously ignored. Now we have our eighth and last lesson on how to love someone:

8. See abundance and you will be exposed to an abundance of love

Love is everywhere. It is in our past and present. It will reside in our future – more so if you follow the advice in this article. “Although humans inherit a biological bias that permits them to feel anger, jealousy, selfishness and envy, and to be rude, aggressive or violent,” says Harvard psychologist Jerome Kagan, “they inherit an even stronger biological bias for kindness, compassion, cooperation, love and nurture.”

It is your choice to see the abundance of love because it is real. It is also your choice to use your biological gift of compassion and love to bring an abundance of this precious energy into your life. “Only when we give joyfully, without hesitation or thought of gain,” said love expert Leo Buscaglia, “can we truly know what love means.”

Other Articles That Might Help You

1. Review of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey
2. 101 Conversation Starters People Love
3. The Complete Nonviolent Communication (NVC) Process for Compassion, Understanding, and Peace
4. Why People Remain Quiet, Shy, and Non-Assertive: The Benefits of Passive Behavior and Communication
5. Why Smart People Have Poor Communication Skills – and What to Do About It

I frequently get asked by people how they can overcome such thoughts where they try to read someone’s mind. They want to know how they can eliminate worry over people’s judgments and thoughts in a conversation because it creates social awkwardness.

I use to have the same problem. I worried over people’s judgments of me – in conversations and in general social situations. I stand at 6’9” (206cm) and attract attention wherever I go. Some people go about their day as I walk by, while others gawk in amazement. (I don’t know if they realize it, but I’m tall and not deaf.) Thoughts such as, “Why are they looking at me like that?” destroyed my ability to socially enjoy myself until I discovered a few secrets I will share with you in this article that transformed me into a confident, happy, powerful person.

Surviving the Brutality of People’s Thoughts

Why are you concerned what people think of you? Take time as you explore your concerns. Analyze your unexplored fears and anxieties. Read on once you have thought deeply about this question.

As you explore your worries and anxieties about people’s thoughts towards you, you will see the problem boils down to worrying if people accept or approve you. Your worries center on accurate mind-reading in hope of adjusting yourself to be accepted or approved by people.

Social acceptance is important for everyone. If our ancestors were rejected and ostracized from their tribe, it was like a death sentence because they had to confront other tribes and animals while hunting and gathering food by themselves. It was near impossible to survive alone.

It is okay to want acceptance. Your fears are a survival mechanism, but because interactions and group structures have changed after thousands of years, you have outdated ways of thinking and behaving. What thoughts and beliefs helped humans thousands of years ago, even you last year, are unlikely to serve you well now. When you worry what people think of you, does it help you survive? Does it improve your conversation skills?

If you think about thinking about people’s thoughts, you see the anxious process does more harm than good. It chokes your social skills as you struggle to release your real, powerful self into the conversation. When you try to determine people’s judgments towards you, your perception of their social judgments creates inhibition and blinds your natural, magnetic personality.

We worry what people think of us more than we know:

• You keep quiet in a meeting as you withhold your ideas in fear of saying the wrong thing and being rejected. From a survival perspective, the fear makes sense because you could be ostracized from the workplace and lose your job, money, and lifestyle. In reality, suggesting an idea will never cause such a drastic outcome (unless you say something absurd like, “Let’s steal from the poor”, but even then your coworkers will probably laugh-off your remarks).
• When you talk to your spouse, you know something needs to be said, but you keep quiet because you fear his or her reaction. From a survival perspective, this could ultimately result in a break up where your genes cease to pass onto the next generation. If you say what is on your mind, however, your relationship strengthens because you discuss what really matters. (Difficult Conversations is a great book for these tough conversations.)
• You avoid doing something silly or unusual in public because you fear other people will label you as “weird”. I know people who do not kiss their partner in public because they worry what the viewing public thinks. The same survival principles hold true again: the fear originates from being ostracized from society. Nonetheless, no one is going to reject you – yet alone remember you – because you did something you consider an embarrassment.

If you do something people consider daring, they may put you down, but they will admire your courage. More often than not, something that is “out there” may not even be “out there” because we fathom what constitutes safety. Giving your opinion in a conversation is not going to determine if you live or die even if it appears daring to you.

Although it is uncomfortable to take action on something you are inhibited over, the return is greater than the initial expense. When you decide to not mind-read people in your conversations, your discomfort increases the same time your power increases. This is as certain as water grows plants. Facing the uncomfortable makes you powerful.

The Innate Gift of Mind-Reading

Our ability to infer another person’s mental state is referred by psychologists as having a “theory of mind”. The survival mechanism of mind-reading helps you adapt to diverse people and is powerful if you know how to use it.

Researchers agree our theory of mind develops around two years of age. Toddlers can calculate people’s desires, intents, and thoughts. If a toddler sees a crying baby, she infers the distressed baby’s mental state. The toddler may tug her mother’s sleeve, pulling her to comfort the distressed baby. Up until then, you will not see empathetic children with mind-reading skills.

If you were like a baby absent of a theory of mind, you would continuously get in social and emotional trouble. A theory of mind helps you to do the closest thing to mind-reading as you dig into a person’s mind. You are able to see the intangible like: a young boy picked on at school feels hurt and alone; your partner comes home from work smiling, leading you to believe he or she had a good day at work; a depressed friend who recently broke up with her boyfriend leads you to think she needs space for recovery. Your inference into mental states helps adjust your behavior to better accommodate people.

What if, however, your friend who broke up with her boyfriend, wants to be comforted by you. Because you guessed she needed space, she would feel neglected, ignored, and more rejected. Inaccurate mind-reading causes relationship destruction.

Tell someone their destructive mental state or intent behind an action, such as, “You’re jealous because you think…”, and you will cause immediate trouble. This is what I refer to as “diagnosing” where we figure out people’s intents behind their actions, which gets us into arguments and detracts from our power with people. (I recommend you read the third chapter on diagnosing of my Communication Secrets of Powerful People for more information about this bad communication habit.)

Mind-reading also frustrates the beholder. We jeopardize our wellbeing from judgments because we have limited ability to infer someone’s mental state. A person laughing at a distance who makes eye contact with you may be giggling at a joke, not you. You think people judge you – a useful process when used correctly – but it too often sends you to mental imprisonment as you become anxious and constrain your real self from entering the conversation. Your theory of mind is too often an unreliable tool to calculate what people think.

You were given the ability to read someone’s mind so you could better adapt to the environment. Someone aggressively staring you down triggers thoughts of potential danger, allowing you to change to survive the threat. You can be over-reliant on this skill, however, by worrying about people’s thoughts when there is no concrete evidence (such as nonverbal communication) that signal you need to adjust your behavior. What is used to survive and better connect you with people, separates you. (You can improve this innate skill to become become better with people by discovering several tricks of psychology to read people’s minds based on the roots of empathy.)

Using the Power Given to You to Become Better With People

Let’s take a look at the paradoxical outcome seen in the following example of someone concerned about social acceptance and meeting a person’s expectations – and be sure to learn from this example. A guy is meeting his girlfriend’s parents for the first time. He worries about being “good enough” for his girlfriend’s parents and living up to their high expectations. He is concerned that if his girlfriend’s parents think he is not their daughter’s Mr. Right, he will be rejected and forced to break up with his girlfriend.

He has two extreme options to select:

1. He needs to gain their approval.
2. He does not need to gain their approval.

Let’s say the guy chooses the first option. In this situation the guy is determined to get the parents’ approval. He analyzes the situation, thinks, worries, and focuses on what the parents could think. He tries to mind-read the parents, which makes him anxious.

When the guy tries to calculate what the parents expect of him, he gets stressed and anxious. His continual analysis of the parents’ thoughts causes awkward behavior. He becomes fidgety, apologetic, and strangled from his natural self. He gets along great with friends, but when it comes to talking with strangers he feels awful.

In this first situation, the guy forward-thinks and screws his chances of gaining the parents’ approval because he is seen as needy and unconfident. The guy needs people to validate his identity, which ironically causes them to disapprove of him.

When you need approval, people sense your neediness and social anxiety then reject you. A weak self causes you to be rejected, which causes you to feel more unworthy – and the cycle continues as you develop an inferiority complex.

Individuals with a weak self-esteem who always worry what others think live in their reality by deriving one’s self-esteem from external sources. They never build true self-esteem that only comes from within. (In my Communication Secrets of Powerful People program, I discuss this weak reality we live in as we yearn for praise and other signals that validate our identity.) When you derive your powerful self from competence, capability, and self-responsibility – instead of external validation that moderates your behavior – you release your powerful self into the conversation (like the guy in the second situation you will soon see).

In the second situation, the guy does not require the parents’ approval. If he finds something funny, he laughs. If he wants something, he asks for it. If he likes something, he says so. These behaviors are different to the first situation where the guy is fidgety, apologetic, and strangled from his natural self.

You may think “he can’t just ignore the parents’ approval of him because he’ll screw up!” The same thought drives destructive mind-reading: you think mind-reading people’s judgments helps your ability to adapt, but more destruction than construction occurs. Your confidence and self-esteem gets knocked down from the destruction of so-called “adapting”.

It is okay to want people to like you without their approval, but not needing approval is different from reckless behavior and not caring what people think of you. Having no need for approval does not mean you run down the street screaming and waving your hands above your head. Do enough reckless behavior and you will be ostracized from society as you get put in prison (or a mental institution). You can moderate your behavior without needing people’s approval.

Beyond Not Caring What People Think: How to Become More Powerful in Conversations

An elimination of harmful mind-reading is only the first step to not care what people think about you. Because you infer people’s thoughts to get along with people, the second step is to replace the anxious behavior with something to help you with people. Behavioral adjustment to get people to like you is what mind-reading poorly achieves.

In our example, once the guy does not require his girlfriend’s parents to validate if he is good enough for his girlfriend, the battle is only half won. He still needs to adapt. He needs to do things like be polite, friendly, joke around, and other things to gain the parents’ acceptance.

Acceptance differs from approval. Seeking approval passes a test to grant yourself permission to be who you are. It is about being “good enough” to meet someone’s standards. On the other hand, acceptance for our purpose builds a positive response to something that is offered. When you seek acceptance, you have a strong sense of self that you present to people, and whether they accept it is up to them. Should people not accept you, it does not diminish your self-esteem because your powerful self comes from inner worth, not external validation. Approval and acceptance are valuable terms you need to reread, understand, and burn into memory.

If you are to be powerful with people, you must build acceptance by doing things people favor, such as starting interesting conversations, being friendly, and using other effective communication techniques. Grow yourself and adapt to situations, but do not feel people must validate your reality. Work towards acceptance, but do not worry for approval. Powerfully confident individuals do not require people’s approval at all. They are concerned about people in their life, but they do not limit or inhibit themselves. They seek acceptance without approval.

Once you know the difference between acceptance and approval, and how to build acceptance, release your spontaneous self that attracts people in conversations. Dr. Maxwell Maltz in The New Psycho-cybernetics writes about self-consciousness and releasing your powerful self into the conversation:

“The reason some people are self-conscious and awkward in social situations is simply that they are too consciously concerned, too anxious to do the right thing, and too fearful of saying or doing the wrong thing… If these people could let go, stop trying, not care, and give no thought to the matter of their behavior, they could act creatively, spontaneously, and ‘be themselves’… Your creative mechanism cannot function or work tomorrow – or even a minute from now. Only right now.”

The paradoxical effect of releasing yourself in the conversation discussed by Dr. Maltz is that people accept you when you stop trying and start being. We fear revealing our true self into conversation, but when we unleash it, people feel it and become attracted to our authenticity.

The guy in the second situation who does not require the parent’s approval, feels confident and people feel his confidence. The end result: the parents are more likely to accept him. When you rise above the need for people’s approval, your confidence soars, uncertainty ceases to exist, worrying vanishes, and fear of how others see you stops. You are happy with who you are and what you can do.

It surprises me that the purpose of worrying what people think of you is to get them to like and approve of you. Once you do not need approval from others, however, they actually approve of you! It is Zen-like that when you trash that line of thinking, you achieve its goal.

Emotional Freedom in the Present Moment

A great pianist never anticipates, when performing, every detail needed to play a great song. The pianist allows himself to be enthralled in the moment as his natural playing abilities shine through his music. His focus in the moment makes people accept and like his music.

In a conversation, do not anticipate people’s thoughts towards you, then your natural, powerful personality will be seen. You will behave freely as you do with friends. Act as if no one thinks about you because few probably are. Turn-off the imaginary spotlight you see on yourself and you will be amazed at your high self-confidence. Your new-found confidence will radiate into your conversations as you free yourself from inhibition and release your real self.

I want you to live in the present moment instead of anticipating the future. Be in the now as you surrender yourself to the moment. People’s reactions do not matter because all the matters is how you respond right now.

Your thoughts about people’s thoughts towards you is an outdated way of thinking that destroys your ability to make conversation. You block-out your naturally powerful personality when you feel inhibited by your attempts to read people’s mind. If you make the shift to act boldly, build internal sources of validation, gain acceptance (instead of approval), and live in the present moment by not anticipating people’s judgments, you will be unconcerned what people think of you as your powerful self releases into the conversation.

(Learn to become authentic, confident, and people-magnetic without worrying what people think of you with the Big Talk Training Course, which will help you confidently socialize. Learn more about this breakthrough course available for download here.)

Other Articles That Might Help You

1. 101 Conversation Starters People Love
2. How to Start and Keep a Conversation Going with a Guy
3. Why Smart People Have Poor Communication Skills – and What to Do About It
4. Review of Change Your Thinking, Change Your Life by Brian Tracy
5. Why People Remain Quiet, Shy, and Non-Assertive: The Benefits of Passive Behavior and Communication