There’s your first barrier that stops you from figuring out what men want in women when dating and in relationships. As long as you try to figure out men through your womanly experiences and understandings, you’ll forever remain confused.

Men differ from women. Before you give me a Nobel Prize for that remarkable statement, understand that women tend to operate from their limiting beliefs in dating and relationships. They apply their reality of chemistry and connection to a man’s reality, forgetting a male’s emotional psychology is completely different to their own.

If you cook, clean, and shop for a man in hope he likes you, you’ll be ineffective at triggering attraction and other important responses men want to feel around women. You wouldn’t feel attracted to a guy who only sat around watching football drinking beer so don’t become the female equivalent.

To figure out what men want in women, put aside your preconceived notions about dating and relationships then listen. Men will also benefit from reading this article because it helps you, if you’re a guy, better understand your desires so you can build better relationships and attract quality women.

Men Want Only Sex

Too many women believe the only thing a man wants in a woman is sex. Men want so much more. Remember what I said earlier about judging from your experiences and perspective?

A man may only desire sex from you because you focus on physical qualities. When your attractiveness depends on dressing sexy for him and sexual comments, you’re seen as a friend with benefits. You invoke a caveman response from him. This satisfies some women some of the time, but you might want more.

Many men (or should I say boys?) have yet to evolve on an emotional level. They seek only physical attraction because their emotions are blocked. They don’t know how to connect at an emotional level. Imagine putting on a pair of green glasses. It doesn’t matter what colors exist, everything is seen green. A person’s lack of emotional development blinds him from that level of awareness.

As confusing as it is to women who project their own qualities onto men, physical involvement is unequal to a relationship. A man can be physically involved with a woman and want nothing more. I believe this is what forms the belief that men only want sex. The problem with this belief is it overlooks other areas of attraction men want in women. Physical attraction is simply one part of an intimate relationship.

Nearly all men ultimately want a fulfilling relationship with one woman. A guy may not want this now or in the near future, but ultimately that is what he desires. If he says otherwise, he is usually emotionally immature or yet to meet a great woman.

The Secret is Attraction

Every man wants to feel significant, important, desired, and sexy. There’s a broad array of characteristics great men want in women that lead to one experience. The secret feeling a man wants to have around you is one of attraction.

You may think of attraction as “chemistry”. It’s the energetic charge between two people that evokes an animalistic urge. When you become what men want in women, men feel attracted to you.

Attraction can be temporary, but when you understand its principles and continually refine them (by re-reading this article and purchasing books on the subject), you make attraction long-term that leads to commitment and a satisfying relationship!

You probably know a few women who seem to effortlessly pull men towards them. They easily attract men through their looks or personality. These women understand attraction, even though they probably didn’t learn it from a source like this article.

Three Types of Attraction

Men can be attracted to you in three primary areas. We crave for all three in a partner.

As I mentioned earlier, there is physical attraction. Men are turned on more than women by visuals. It’s important to dress well, get your hair beautiful, be slightly tanned, show off your figure, and exercise.

Are you not that beautiful? You can still improve it by learning from other women. You may also have an advantage over attractive women!

Beautiful women tend to identify with their looks and become insecure. Feeling insecure about your looks is a bigger turn off than looks itself. Attractive women, in general, go through life easier than less attractive women so they have yet to develop the two other areas of attraction that lead to satisfying relationships

Guys tend to want women who are attractive, but lack personality, for the short-term. You cannot have a relationship with a body part. Looks is only one piece of the attraction puzzle.

The second type of attraction is intellectual. Intellectual attraction comes from more rational, logical means controllable through words and actions. Think of the bimbo blonde who has a peanut for her brain – that’s the opposite to an intellectually attractive woman. It’s a pain to live with someone unintelligent. An attractive man wants a woman who holds a conversation with almost anyone, talks about his interests, regularly reads books, and teaches him valuable lessons.

The third type of attraction is emotional. If a guy suddenly becomes disinterested in you, a lack of emotional attraction is the problem. A real relationship fails to develop in the absence of emotional attraction. Ways to attract men emotionally involve high status behavior, teasing, playfulness, mystery, and unpredictability.

Deficiency in an area of attraction decreases a man’s interest in you. Intensify all three forms of attraction to hypnotize any man.

Since you can go elsewhere for advice to improve your physical looks, what I’ll teach you in this article on what men want in women builds your intellectual and emotional attraction to start a great relationship and keep it that way. You are discovering the secrets men wish you knew that society will not tell you.

Alicia didn’t think her boyfriend was someone with a controlling personality – two years later she is still confused about her boyfriend’s behavior. She tells her friends that Randy controls what she does and how she feels, but they say it’s typical for men to behave that way. She has gone to a counselor, but everyone says to work on her relationship more. Alicia sometimes also thinks if she loves Randy more, he will change, which is a complete myth.

Few people know the signs of a controlling personality. You could even be unaware you’re a controlling person. By the time such behaviors are evident, years of misery pass in the relationship and sometimes verbal and physical abuse surfaces. The sooner you can identify the signs of controlling men and women and how to deal with these people or yourself with the advice I’ll give you in this article, the better you’ll protect yourself from a dangerous man or woman who can potentially create an abusive relationship.

How a Controlling Personality Develops

How we perceive and judge information is the secret to understand controlling behavior. Psychologist Carl Jung discovered that people have four psychological functions:

1. Sensing (“It smells nice”, “I need to touch it first”, “Let me see it”)
2. Intuiting (“I have a feeling something bad will happen”, “I bet today is going to go wonderfully”, “I sense there’s something special about you”)
3. Thinking (“Lets look at the problem logically”, “It doesn’t match the set criteria”, “That happened before”)
4. Feeling (“I feel pain”, “I love the energy in this room”, “It feels right”)

The sensate and intuit functions gather and perceive information. The thought and feeling functions evaluate and judge the information. You can see the four psychological functions and their relationships represented in the below diagram.

You might know these functions through the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). All four functions serve an important part of the healthy human personality. The MBTI states that we have predominate functions and rely on other functions to a lesser degree. You rely on the sensate function by trusting your five senses (“I love the taste of this new recipe”), but at the same time you still receive messages from your intuition (“Customers are going to enjoy this new recipe”).

While the healthy person is connected to these four functions, the controlling person is unaware of one or more functions and unaware of one’s dictating behavior. Patricia Evans, author of Controlling People, says a controlling personality begins when one of the four functions are blocked, which leads to poor self-understanding and a blindness to one’s behavior. Once the person loses a connection with oneself that forms his or her reality, control is pursued in the exterior world.

Men typically control others when their feeling function is blocked. Males have been told: “don’t feel pain”, “real men don’t cry”, “you’re too sensitive”, “men must stay strong”, and “if you get emotional, you lose”. A young boy cuts his knee and cries, for example, to which the father responds, “That doesn’t hurt so stop crying.” Gradually the boy disconnects from himself and ignores his feeling function. The boy’s inner reality is negated by others who tell him his feelings are wrong.

Disconnection is natural, yet ongoing disconnection is dangerous. It is necessary for soldiers to block their feeling function to get through the blood and brutality of war, but if the temporary blockage becomes permanent, the person loses awareness of the feeling function. The soldier “forgets” how to feel pain and joy and struggles to empathize with someone in distress. Trauma, culture, and parents are the primary reasons people disconnect.

The four functions are necessary for survival. Without attention to bad-tasting food, a vibe that warns you of a dangerous location, obscure rationale, and another’s feelings, one’s safety is jeopardized. A soldier deeply connected to pain in battle will struggle to persist in survival.

When a person permanently disconnects, however, an identity problem arises. The person’s psyche has been violated. Once a person cannot believe his or her own senses, intuition, thoughts, or feelings, what consistency can be established to form the person’s identity? Identity and control must be established in the only other possible way: by controlling others.

Evan’s terms this a “backwards connection”. If people are not self-aware of inner experiences, they form their identity from the outside-in instead of the inside-out. While healthy people construct their identity from experiences via the four functions, soon-to-be controllers construct themselves by a desired self-image or what others think one should be like. Intergenerational behavior leads them to treat their partners or children the same way they were treated. Controllers begin to define another person’s reality.

Ignorance of Authenticity

Healthy, authentic persons realize authenticity in others. Controllers on the other hand, hate authenticity. Their experiences are unknown so they circumvent others from their experiences.

The controller molds his or her partner or child into the desired person and connects to that fake person. A controlling husband can say he loves his wife, but he really loves the perfect wife constructed in his mind. Victims are so blinded by this pretend love, thinking the person who defines and controls him or her is truly in love.

Controlling and abusive relationships are common in marriages because one spouse does not fit “Prince Charming” or “Princess”. It is impossible anyway for these personas to be realized.

In our example, Randy creates a backwards connection by connecting to the fake Alicia. She has senses, intuition, thoughts, and feelings Randy ignores because her experiences fail to match up to the idealized princess. This leaves Alicia feeling confused, invalidated, and ignored.

The ideal image knows what the controller wants, feels, and thinks. Controllers assume “one mind” with their victims. If the controlled person fails to behave congruently with the ideal image by mind-reading the controller, the person is often ignored, abused, argued against, or told what to be, say, and feel in an attempt to negate authenticity and be molded into the unattainable image.

Victims like a woman who try to be the perfect wife based on the abuse received from her controlling husband cannot consistently be the idealized image. Moments of genuineness always show – they are who the person really is after all.

Controllers do not see their behavior for what it is, however. Most are completely dumbfounded as to why they control others. If you are a controller, you will not know why you behave hurtfully towards one or two victims of your controlling behavior while most people see you as a beautiful, nice, caring person. Pleas for help can easily go ignored for the behavior is deceptive.

Blame blinds controllers. Rapists, murderers, and others convicted of assault say it was the victim’s fault because the victims showed authenticity that stirred the perpetrator to eliminate. Controllers never take responsibility for their behavior and instead accuse their victims who “deserved it”. Battered wives are blamed, beaten-down, and belittled by abusive husbands who believe their spouses are responsible for their rage. Criminals can sit in their prison cell and still blindly conclude their victims are the reason one is imprisoned.

Signs of a Controlling Relationship

The best sign to identify a controlling man or woman is to see if the person assumes one mind. I would assume one mind with you if I became angry over you not knowing what I wanted.

One-mindedness is a warning sign of a controlling person because the ideal image knows what the controlling person wants, thinks, and feels. The moment this perfect understanding is brought back to reality with a question, rage can form. If Alicia asks Randy, “When will you be back?” “Why do you treat me like this?” and “Why can’t I satisfy you?”, he could show controlling behavior like avoiding, arguing, or abusing her.

A second major warning sign of a controlling person is they define you. I would define you by telling you what you think and feel.

A controlling person defines victims based on the ideal image. Authenticity is neglected – what a victim really feels and thinks is replaced by the controlling person’s definition. The definitions form a fantasy, trying to pull the victim back into the perfect persona. You can see this in the following situations in which Alicia is defined by Randy:

• Alicia says, “I want to order chicken teriyaki.” Randy replies, “Don’t get it because you won’t like chicken teriyaki.”
• Alicia says, “I’m trying.” Randy replies, “You’re not trying!”
• Alicia says, “Please don’t treat me that way.” Randy replies, “You always try to blame me for what happens to you! It’s your own bloody fault you get treated that way!”
• Alicia says, “I’m feeling sad.” Randy replies, “Stop trying to manipulate me.”
• Alicia says, “I want to work again.” Randy replies, “You don’t know what you want.”

Randy defines Alicia. He destroys her authenticity by molding her into his idealized image.

Most of the responses defining Alicia are paradoxical. Controllers create the exact opposite of what they try to achieve:

1. They try to get close by barking orders, but their controlling behavior creates distance
2. They try to show power by belittling others, but their controlling behavior shows inferiority
3. They try to show wisdom and intelligence by disproving a victim’s point of view, but their controlling behavior shows incomprehension and shallowness
4. They think their perception is clear, but it is unclear

Intimacy is a paradoxical outcome avoided. The controller attempts to fulfill a need of closeness with the victim, yet true closeness is never achieved when the connection is with an inauthentic person. You cannot be intimate with a controller. Intimacy requires two persons to understand their feelings and connect with each for who they really are, which controllers cannot do because they lack four operational functions.

If you control someone, seeing theses signs is usually enough to make you see firsthand the false reality you are living in and what you need to bring yourself back into an authentic world. Some recovering controllers see the severity of their behavior and cannot kill it so they respect their victims by ending a relationship to seek healing.

How to Deal with a Controlling Person

Now you can recognize and understand a controlling person – maybe you even identified some characteristics in yourself – I’ll share with you the secrets to manage a person who tries to control you.

The first step to deal with a controlling person is to believe no one knows exactly how you feel and think. Victims of abuse can have their self-esteem pummeled heavily into the ground that they believe abusers more than themselves. Someone cannot define you – not even a psychologist. It is vital you acknowledge and believe your self-understanding over what a boyfriend or girlfriend, husband or wife, father or mother, manager or employee tells you.

The second step to deal with a controller uses the one-mindedness warning sign, which is to identify when the person trespasses your “psychic boundary”. Similar to the first step, detect trespasses by seeing what someone does when they attempt to define you. While the first step is an acknowledgment and belief before any controlling behavior surfaces, this second step reinforces the first step the moment someone controls you.

The third step is to speak up. You cannot shatter the idealized image placed on you until you speak up to face the problem. Though you are a victim of someone’s hurtful behavior, you are responsible for your response.

The fourth step uses the “What?” technique taught by Evans who says victims fall into the false reality controllers create by arguing with them. Most people respond to controllers by trying to contradict the nonsense such as: “I do love chicken teriyaki!” “Far out, I try so hard!” “I am sad… You don’t know how I feel!” Here is a sample dialog between Randy and Alicia who sticks to her habits by arguing with Randy, which is ineffective:

“I want to work again,” says Alicia.
“You don’t know what you want,” replies Randy.
“I do want to work again. I have a desire to pursue my photography career.”
“You don’t really like photography! Keep doing what you’re doing now.”
“No! I’ve been looking at some photography magazines and I really want to do it!”
“Where are those magazines? GIVE THEM TO ME SO I CAN TEAR THE DAMN THINGS UP YOU F***** B****!”

Instead of arguing with a person who defines you, Evans recommends you do not even validate what they are saying through argument and instead ask, “What?” or variations of it repeatedly. Other responses Alicia and you can use that do not validate a controller’s remarks are, “Cut it out”, “Quit that”, and “What are you doing?” Here is a sample dialog between Randy and Alicia who uses variations recommended by Evans:

“I want to work again,” says Alicia.
“You don’t know what you want,” replies Randy.
“What?”
“You don’t know what you want.”
“What?”
(For the first time Randy realizes something is going on.) “Cut it out. You heard me. You don’t want to work again.”
“Nonsense.”

A word of warning using this fourth step: do not use it on a dangerous person. It is too threatening to use on someone who can potentially go into rage. Protect yourself, protect your children. Be careful when you deal with a controller because they fight to keep their reality alive – a cut to their reality is perceived as death.

No controlling person is going to change their behavior through one conversation, but the above dialog between Alicia and Randy, for example, is the start of healing. Controllers need to see for themselves the backward connections they have created with others.

Leaving a Controlling Relationship

If you decide to leave a controller, their fake reality weakens. They may not change, but many do realize what their behavior did to themselves and the lives of their victims.

There are shelters that help sufferers of abuse should you leave a controlling spouse. Other options you can consider is to stay with family and friends and contact the police. Do something about the problem for the safety and happiness of yourself and your children.

Children in controlling relationships need help otherwise they are at risk of dictating others later in life. The moment a child’s fundamental needs remain unfilled, the child escapes to a fake world where those needs are met.

Psychotherapists say a common object in which a child obtains these needs is from a toy like a teddy bear. The bear is spoken to as an idealized person, always listening, always knowing, always understanding the child. The teddy is defined by the child and is one mind with the child. Later in the life the toy is projected onto others who get controlled by the person.

The intergenerational transmission of control cycles again unless it is stopped. Now is the time to deal with a controlling person and take control of what is controlling you.

If you suspect someone is in a controlling relationship, possibly the greatest gift you can give them right now is an understanding and freedom from controllers by telling the person about this article. You can click the “ShareThis” link below to email the article, post it on Facebook, or share it in the many other possible ways.

(To discover more on one-mindedness, checkout chapter three of my Communication Secrets of Powerful People program, which reveals this communication barrier many people use. You can learn more about the program that can help you better communicate in your relationships here. If you want to become whole again and connect with suppressed parts of yourself so you can easily connect with people, my other program Big Talk: Effortlessly Talk to Win Friends with the Real You is a breakthrough solution you can discover here.)

We make many dumb relationship mistakes, which I have noticed after years of study and observing communication and human behavior, that all cannot be listed here. I use the term “dumb” not to put people down, but only because a lot of people repeat the same blunders. Put an end to these 15 relationship mistakes, in no particular order:

1. Withhold Feelings

Men are more guilty than women in withholding feelings from their partner. If something ticks men off, they may hide their irritation instead of revealing what it is that annoyed them. Women are indirectly guilty of this relationship mistake. While women are more emotional than men, they withhold feelings in the sense that they blame or criticize others to indirectly express their emotions. “I hate you for…!” is not an example of expressing your feelings. An expression of emotion is, “I feel sad about…” “I’m feeling happy you…” “I am angry!”

2. Reject Emotions

We may withhold feelings from someone because we reject our emotions. It is uncomfortable for most people to feel guilt, shame, anger, sadness, and even love so they reject these emotions by thinking positively or generally suppressing them. You feel whatever you do for a reason – accept it. Your relationships deteriorate if you suppress anger, for example, because you will resent and behave bitterly with people.

3. Blame

The failure to healthily express emotion can show itself through blame, a common relationship mistake. Look at an argumentative couple to see each person blaming the other for relationship problems. Neither acknowledges imperfection, preferring to be right. Each person thinks people ought to change instead of taking the responsibility for self-change. Victimization is a relationship mistake unhealthy for either person.

4. Gossip

People gossip about their relationships mainly for self-pity. They seek validation that the other person is to blame for relationship problems. If you have a relationship problem, talk with the person you share the problem with and stop complaining about it to your friends or coworkers. The other person is not the cause of your suffering; you are because of your ignorance to the problem through gossip. If a gossiper just turns the mirror on himself, he would realize the rumors hurt his relationships. A gossiper is no better than the originator of the problem. Neither roles create resolution – both compound it.

5. Interpret Behaviors Negatively

A gossiper is one example of a person that blames others and interprets their behaviors in a negative light. Each little behavior signals a conspiracy against the cynic. If you think your husband is having an affair, anything he does will be filtered through that perspective.

Give people a margin-for-error because you don’t know every detail. Each of us hold a piece of truth discoverable through communication. The best way to resolve your worries is to ask the person by showing interest in their life.

6. Show A Lack of Interest

Do you know what happened to your partner today? When was the last time you watched a friend play their weekly sport? When did you last ask what someone did at work? Get curious about people’s lives by asking a lot of questions and displaying attentive body language. Communication often lacks in relationships because neither person takes the initiative to learn about the other person. Interest in people’s lives makes them feel important, builds the relationship, and teaches you a lot of great stuff in the process. Think of something a person important to you enjoys then go do it with them. You may even want to take up a new hobby together like dancing or yoga.

7. Exert Excessive Control

We hate being controlled and told what to do. The worst managers micro-manage, dictating employee behavior. Many angry employees echo similar remarks.

The greatest leaders give team members freedom. The same is true in families and interpersonal relationships. If you order your teenage daughter to not smoke, research shows she is more likely to smoke. One study that looked at how values transmit through families found that children with authoritative parents have different values to them. When the parents are supportive rather than restrictive, the children agree and accept similar values.

8. Try to Change People

Whenever we try to change people, whether it be through manipulation, criticism, orders, threats, or rewards, they take on strange behavior. Do a test in a safe environment. Intentionally tell someone what they are doing is wrong and the person could not change, become suddenly quiet, resent you, gossip about you, or purposefully do what you said not to do. We always try to change people, but rarely succeed.

9. Remain Unchanged

We expect people to change while we remain unchanged. Rigid perspectives on money, family, work, emotion, and the relationship creates severe friction that can destroy a relationship. “If my coworker stopped…then I’d be able to…” “If my son stopped…then I could…” “My partner should…then I’d feel…” I’ll give you an if-statement to remember: if you don’t change, you have no right to expect people to change.

10. Keep One’s Point of View

What is your honest estimate of the percentage you think you are right in an argument? 80? 90? 100%? I estimate most people say 95%. That means a fighting couple’s righteousness totals 190%, a formula for conflict. It is logically and mathematically irrational to conclude one can be right 95% of the time. We are not divine beings knowing of truth.

Each of us possess the truth that we must be flexible enough to explore. The cure to any couple’s problem is held by each person because their point of view is 50% of the relationship.

11. Deny Flaws to Show Perfection

Because we don’t change and like to keep our original point of view, we deny flaws and show perfection. When a mistake arises, we freeze about being found out. A simple sit-down discussion where the two of you each admit three flaws about yourselves helps keep destructive perfection at bay while encouraging growth. You do not fear imperfection when mistakes are encouraged to surface.

12. Absence of Admiration

Relationships are easy to take for granted. We devalue what we have while desiring what is out of our reach. Put some effort into the relationship. You can show people you value the relationship with them through admiration. Give a compliment. Send a gift. Thank someone for a task they did. Phone one person now and thank them for something specific.

13. Be Judgmental

We love to judge people. As described in my Communication Secrets of Powerful People book, there are four judgments: criticism, labeling, diagnosing, and praising. We criticize (“You are no good at helping me”), label (“You are a jerk”), diagnose (“Stop being rude because you don’t get what you want”), and praise (“You are the sweetest person for doing that”). Each judgment has its own problems too deep to described in this article.

14. Send Solutions

It is counterintuitive that solutions kill relationships. After all, don’t solutions cure problems? More often than not in relationships, solutions create problems. We feel inferior being controlled and the problem-solver often overlooks the real issue. Solutions are usually manifestations of other dumb relationship mistakes like blame, gossip, trying to change people, and sticking to one’s point of view.

15. Avoid Concerns

The most frequent dumb mistake people make in a relationship is avoiding their partner’s concerns. Look at any bad relationship and each person will tell you their needs are not being met. They are not being listened to, understood, cared for, loved, whatever. Good communication is the key to overcoming these problems and meeting each other’s needs.

There you have 15 mistakes people frequently make in their relationships. Follow this advice then hopefully the next time you ask someone what one mistake you do in the relationship, no walls break because walls are nonexistent.

(If you are reading this and want to eliminate the communication mistakes that hurt your relationships, and to learn more about judgments, sending solutions, and avoiding concerns, read my Communication Secrets of Powerful People book to discover the 12 barriers of communication. Nearly all of the dumb relationship mistakes can be avoided when you understand the 12 barriers.)

For men, this means you’ll be able to cultivate what the article discusses into your life so you can attract and maintain happy friendships and intimate relationships with women. If you are already in a relationship, this is what your woman wish you already knew. Anytime you can get a woman or anyone feeling what you want to them to feel, whether it be over the phone, in a business deal, or placing an order at a restaurant, you will get more out of the situation – not necessarily at the expense of the other person.

For women, it could mean many things. You will gain a clearer understanding of what drives you as a woman in your relationships, why past relationships have failed, and even how to select a real, authentic man that is Mr Right.

The Triad of Dilemmas

I’ve read dozens of books, subscribed to attraction newsletters, talked to attraction experts, talked to women about what they want in a man, tested techniques, and have observed many scenarios comparing and contrasting variables men display in their interaction with women to create a set of complete, holistic characteristics women want in men, which I will share with you in this article. In my search, I came across my first dilemma: experts gave contradictory advice – more so in the diverse stages of a relationship.

At the start of a relationship, dating experts attempt to describe what women want. There are pick-up artists and attraction experts that tell men to neg (a gentle, teasing insult), take advantage of a woman’s insecurities, and advance the relationship as fast as possible. Such people praise themselves as pioneers in defining what women want, but in reality nearly all of them cannot keep a long-term relationship. They excuse themselves as having the power to be selective, instead of dating and keeping any woman that comes their way, though their denial is a facade for deficiencies in their personality.

At the later stages of relationships are marriage experts, psychologists, romanticists, and communication trainers that teach men to listen to women. According to such experts, women want to be heard, understood, and made to feel special. These teachers do not tell you the skills and personality characteristics that create animalistic urges in women because the principles are counter-intuitive to “good relationship communication”. Pick-up artists and other advisers that teach men how to succeed in dating, bash marriage trainers and the like over their teachings because the dating coaches feel long-term relationship advisers transform men into sensitive, new age, wuss-bag, girly men – and I agree to an extent.

Most men that learn communication skills from me fall the trap of applying interpersonal relationship advice at the start of a relationship. It is not so much what they do as it is how they do it. The men become needy, have low self-esteem, and fail to communicate strength. Women don’t want to feel understood, listened to, worried about, and comforted at the early stages of a relationship – such “nice boy” characteristics send them running. Women want to feel indescribable urges that arise from bad boy qualities.

Culture and society creates the second dilemma: society infuses disempowering beliefs and limiting norms into men. I don’t blame guys for their limiting beliefs about what women want – but I do blame them for holding onto them when the truth is revealed. We are lead to believe women only want tall, handsome, wealthy men. Such advice drives men to feel insecure about themselves, which validates their initial belief. They may get rejected on an approach, dumped by a girlfriend, or divorced from a long-term relationship, and reason through their perceptual filters that their shortness, ugly looks, or poor wealth did it to them.

If most experts and society don’t know what women want, surely women know? What better way to get the answer, then from the source itself, right? No. Most women don’t even know what they want – and therein lies the third and last dilemma.

Women preach to guys the characteristics they feel attracted to. They reason, “I’m a woman so I know what I and other women want.” This causes confusion.

Malcolm Gladwell in Blink says attraction is one topic of many when our rapid judgments and feelings are unconsciously processed. When our conscious, analytical mind enters the fray, errors occur. Gladwell says we label what we think attracts us to what really attracts us. Few people are aware of what lurks beneath the conscious mind. We succumb to personal qualities that leave us feeling out of control and bewildered.

If these three sources of information create dilemmas in defining what women want in men, what is the source of truth? What I’m going to teach will probably shock you, but put your preconceived notions about this entire topic aside so you can learn. “Empty your cup” as Bruce Lee would say.

Women are Mixed Up

Women say one thing and mean another thing. A woman says she wants you to spend more time with her, but according to David Deida, author of The Way of The Superior Man, if you give her that in certain circumstances, your compliance disappoints her. If a woman sees she can upset you by calling you ugly, she will weed you out of being a potential mate – not because of your looks, but because your weak self-esteem let her easily destroy you. The surface is not a description of the depths.

When women say what they want, it isn’t really what they want – it’s an attempt to rationalize something abstract to them. Attraction is a confusing subject to intellectually understand and experience. Often guys and women cannot explain why they are attracted to someone because attraction isn’t a logical decision (“I keep dating the wrong type of person”). Attraction isn’t decided and it certainly isn’t a choice.

Women are strange – though you probably already knew that. Women say they want nice guys, so men be nice, but a woman does not make the logical decision to be with a guy because he is nice to her with compliments, presents, and gifts. Both genders make emotional decisions on their relationships. If a man compliments a lady, gives her gifts, buys her flowers, and earns her affection, the techniques may work for a while, but he is just being used. Such behaviors are fake, manipulative, needy, and undesirable.

Another confusing characteristic men adapt that women say they want is humor, one of the most universally attractive qualities women want in men. Being funny, however, is not the whole story. A good sense of humor isn’t what they entirely want. Women aren’t crawling over comedians. What they want is a guy who is cocky, has a sense of humor, can tease, and doesn’t constantly degrade himself. Unstoppable confidence combined with humor attracts nearly every woman – even the psychotic type so be careful. (Here’s a good guide on humor to attract women.)

See if you can find a link between the following short scenarios: Your partner leaves the room in anger after another argument; A friend lashes out at you despite you having done nothing wrong; Your children’s constant disobedience makes you extremely frustrated and causes you to yell and do things you regret.

Why do the above scenarios, or similar situations, constantly play out in your life? There are thousands of situations like the ones listed above that all have a common thread. We know there is a better way to handle the situation, but we cannot figure it out. Our emotions often get the better of us as we poorly handle the situation. We know something is wrong and that we can fix it, but how? The answers to these questions and the secret human need I will show you how to fulfill is through a method of communication called “nonviolent communication”, also known as NVC.

An Overview of Nonviolent Communication: Your Key to Compassionate Communication for Shared Understanding

The process I am about to discuss in this article is one created by the Center for Nonviolent Communication. The organization is a nonprofit organization founded by Marshall Rosenberg, author of Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life. Rosenberg and a couple hundred other NVC trainers, conduct workshops throughout the world where they teach people their nonviolent communication model. The NVC process has changed millions of people who learned the techniques directly from trainers or Rosenberg’s book, and people who have been fortunate enough to have those trained in the NVC process use the model on them.

If you are after a process that changes a person’s behavior, NVC is not the best one to use. NVC builds a deep intimate relationship and connection with effective communication by satisfying people’s needs. It achieves a level of connection most people never experience. It can be used to change a person’s behavior, but the primary purpose of the process is to help people face what matters with compassion to connect at a very intimate level.

Once you have sufficiently gone through certain steps in the process, then you can use your negotiation skills to persuade the person. If you try to persuade the person upfront before you use NVC, you will often find the person resists you and ignores what you have to say.

When a person disagrees with you, refuses to comply with a request, or is angry at you, a poor communicator tries to firstly express oneself. The person seeks to be understood before seeking to understand. An NVC user, on the contrary, seeks to understand the person, which in turn leads to their own need of being understood. Once you understand others, they will want to understand you.

The commonality amongst the situations I mentioned earlier, and hundreds of situations you experience throughout the week, is people’s desperation to be understood. Your angry partner wants to be understood. Your friend wants to be understood and will have almost zero frustration once you understand. Your children want to be understood, which will naturally compel them to talk with you about intimate issues. Nonviolent communication helps you understand people and have them understand you.

The need to be understood is possibly the greatest unmet human need. Fulfill this need and you will trigger new experiences, intimate sharing, and connect with people at the heart. Thanks to Dan Kennedy, a great marketer that I intently learn from, I came across a quote by Cavett Robert, founder of the National Speakers Association, who said, “Most people are walking around, umbilical cord in hand, looking for a new place to plug it in.” If you can be that “socket” by understanding the person and empathically receiving their needs, you automatically share an electrifying connection with the person. Something about the person will change before your eyes. They will know something deep is going on without knowing what you are doing.

Unfortunately, the majority of people never arrive at this stage of electrifying intimacy. Answer this question truthfully: How many people truly understand you on a frequent basis? Think about the question for some time because it is important to understand understanding.

I ask this not to make you blame others for their failure to understand you, but to show you the scarcity of people who seek to understand. If you are like most people, you will not have one person that frequently and truly understands you in conversations. Few people care about understanding others, which causes themselves to be misunderstood. People who complain that “no one understands me” are constantly misunderstood because they live on a one-way street seeking to receive before they consider giving.

Violence is widespread because one person or group desperately wants to be understood while another party they are in conflict with also wants to be understood. The failure to see each other’s needs means neither gets one’s needs fulfilled. The result is an outbreak of emotional or physical destruction. So much pain in the world is caused by misunderstandings.

The anger and frustration present in everyday situations appears to be irrelevant to deeper issues, yet it is our inability to effectively face conflict that contributes to a global scale of war and hatred. Our everyday wallowing in resentment, frustration, and misunderstandings has as much – but probably greater – impact on peace and love than kind actions. If you cannot resolve your minor nuances in relationships that are suppose to be intimate and love-filled, you cannot expect nations who have hated each other for centuries to resolve major conflicts. To understand another person is a secret of world peace. “Peace cannot be achieved through violence,” said Ralph Waldo Emerson, “it can only be attained through understanding.”

The nonviolent communication process is a simple once you know the process; though it’s not always a fun slide to ride on because emotional pollution clogs your use of it. With practice, you will become better at NVC and be more successful in your communication and relationships. Over time, provided you continually practice the techniques and polish your skills, you will become excellent at the process.

The Four Step Process

The process has four steps: observing, feeling, needing, and requesting. There are really eight steps, however, because you firstly apply the four steps to the other person, then you apply them to yourself. Remember what I said before about seeking to understand before being understood? The first four stages make you understand people so you can be understood when you apply the four steps on yourself. This is the most critical part of the concept to grasp.

Unless the person is a compassionate communicator, go through the four steps first on the other person otherwise he or she will not listen to you. Use the visualization of a vacuum empathically “sucking up” the person’s communication. Until the person feels “cleaned”, you will be unable to clean yourself. Once you have sucked up the person, and hence understood them, you are then ready to use NVC on yourself.

Most people identify a few problems in firstly focusing on the other person. If you have not identified one of these now, you will as you continue to read about the process. The biggest concern I had with NVC is that you forgo your own needs, concerns, and emotions like anger. NVC prevents destructive expressions of anger and frustration via harmful attitudes and behaviors (think of the sarcastic teenager or the employee who does poor quality work). The process encourages you to express intense emotions – especially anger – in a healthy way that fulfills the underlying need.

At first glance, I understand the model may overwhelm you, but keep at it and reread the pages in this article to refine your ability to understand people and be understood. The NVC process as described in this full article will give you a good idea of what to expect in my Communication Secrets of Powerful People Program should you want to invest in it. It could be one of the greatest investments you make. Once you know how to understand people and help them understand you, you can mold your relationships however you want. It is time to kick into the first stage: observing.

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 before your ex finds someone else. If you’re a girl wanting to get her boyfriend back, click here. If you’re a guy who wants to get back his girlfriend, I recommend you get this guide.)

As I drove, the open car park gave me an invitation to have a little fun with my car. If landscapes could talk, this one was whispering into my ear that I should spin the wheels. “Besides, it’s late at night. No one is around and you’re feeling great. It’s an open car park with no danger. Do it!” Like a vulnerable teenager succumbing to peer pressure, I accepted the invitation.

The car became an extension of my body as it began to mimic my ecstatic mood. I put my foot down hard on the accelerator as I spun the wheel left around the first corner. As the rear tires lost their stability and the car went side-ways, I entered the next turn and spun the wheel right. The sound of screeching tires was water fertilizing my increasing smile. Smoke filled the rims of my tires and a shot of adrenaline filled my body.

Following the two consecutive drifts, I straightened the car and approached a set of traffic lights on the main road that would take me home. Had this been during the daytime, about seven cars would be in front of me before the upcoming traffic lights.

My friend who had left before me had passed through the traffic lights three seconds ago so the lights were still green. Keeping in the mood, I put my foot down on the accelerator to catch the green light. I would safely make it. I turned around the corner with a soft screech of the tires. 20 meters in front of me on the side of the road were two police officers beside their vehicle. Lucky me.

The police pulled me over. Opposite to what you might be thinking, I was not concerned. I was still in my elevated state. I smiled. I wound down my window and an angry officer came charging at me, yelling, “What the hell are you thinking? What the hell is going through your mind?” I paused momentarily, unaffected by his aggressive state. I said smilingly, “I’m just happy, I guess.” Not a smart response. Not a smart response at all.

It hit me I was out of it. I knew I should have said something else. I gulped. My mind rushed to think of some communication techniques I could use as a life boat to save me from drowning in the conversation. The moment was intense and all that came to mind were some techniques on getting out of a speeding-ticket. I thought to myself that I will give the techniques a shot. I had annoyed the officer enough. Surely it couldn’t get worse.

As I was thinking how to approach this difficult situation, I was still happy. My happy mood seemed to pour fuel on his already raging fire. “Bloody hell mate! I could just give you a ticket right now!” My smile began to lower. I no longer made eye contact with the officer. The officer’s raging mood began to infect me. He was making me feel angry. It was as if my body was overcome by an emotional virus from the officer who was the virus’ host.

I thought of the techniques to get out of a speeding-ticket and realized I was already beginning to use them. It was too late to make the officer feel safe as he approached the car, but I needed to no longer act oblivious to my mistake. I needed to show respect as officers are in a clear position of authority and often experience disrespect throughout their day that only makes them more determined to convict guilty citizens. “You’re right,” I replied. “I was stupid and careless.”

The officer was still enraged and continued to threaten me with a ticket. I knew he could easily write me a ticket, but he was not writing one possibly because officers hate the paperwork created from citizens breaking the law. I kept myself aligned with the officer’s reality by remaining in a “Yes I’m wrong, stupid, and shouldn’t have done that” mood. I continued to play psychological judo, and match my mood with his own, until two minutes later he said to drive away. And oh, no ticket!

I drove off – though feeling pleased I had beaten a reckless driving ticket – in an irritated state. The officer had destroyed my happy mood. It took two minutes of talking with the officer to completely transform my happy state into a joyless, gloomy mood, which I remained in for another two hours until I went to bed.

Emotional Contagion: When Two Minds Infect One Another

“People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” – Maya Angelou, poet and actress

“Any emotion, if it is sincere, is involuntary.” – Mark Twain, highly quoted writer

“You can close your eyes to the things you do not want to see, but you cannot close your heart to the things you do not want to feel.” – Anonymous

“I am involved in all of mankind.” – John Donne, 16th century poet

My story I described is probably a perfect depiction of your reality with emotions. Everyday you interact with people in different moods. Sometimes you are happier than people; other times they are happier than you. Whatever the case, emotions transfer between people. This is a fascinating peculiarity with emotions. Have you ever noticed how we feel in our interactions is not only dependent on our internal state?

• How did you feel when someone really annoyed began talking to you? You became more annoyed.
• How did you feel when someone unhappy began talking to you? You began to be unhappy.
• How did you feel when a depressed person shared their misery with you? You felt depressed and miserable.
• How did you feel when a charismatic person talked to you? You felt his energy and you began to feel happier.

Psychologists call this phenomena “emotional contagion”. It is a psychological and physiological process – a transference of emotion that can occur from mimicking body language. Elaine Hatfield, a professor at the University of Hawaii, in a study with John Carlson and Christopher Hsee, had college students watch a videotape of a man describe two very emotional experiences: his life’s happiest and saddest events. While the college students watched the tape, they were taped so the researchers could record the students’ emotional responses. The students were also asked what feelings they experienced for each story at the end of the video.

The researchers found that students showed and expressed the recorded person’s emotions. The student’s felt happy when they watched the man describe his happiest event. The students felt sad when they watched the man describe his saddest event.

Hatfield and her two colleagues, John Cacioppo and Richard Rapson, in their co-authored book Emotional Contagion, say the psychophysiological phenomena occurs from automatically matching facial expressions, vocalics, postures, and movements. Hatfield says, “People tend to experience emotions consistent with the facial, vocal, and postural expressions they adopt.”

When you empathetically listen to a friend, true empathy puts you in their shoes to experience the discussed events. The friend describes an argument with an ex-partner, the yelling, the misunderstandings. You can vividly see what your friend talks about. The experience lets you feel the pain your friend feels. Well-known psychologist Albert Bandura says the shared experience results in a shared feeling. That is the price of listening: not only can you catch a cold, but you can catch an emotional cold.

At the end of the round, he had failed to qualify for the national tournament by two shots. In the clubhouse where we had a drink, we talked about what he did well and what he could have done better. “I was surprised by the quality of your chip shots and game around the greens,” I remarked. “Everything went within 2 meters of the pin.” Not to concerned about the disappointed day, Nathan replied, “Yeah, you’re right. My wedge game was strong today. Just…” to which I interrupted and said, “The eleventh 2-iron.” He echoed my words, “Spot on, the eleventh 2-iron.”

I let him continue to talk as his words almost perfectly described the words in my mind. Something happened between our minds. It was like a magic trick taking place. A mystical cable connected our minds, leading to strange psychological phenomena.

It seemed we almost had psychic powers. He was not just reading my mind, I was also reading his. There was a shared connection, a relaying of thoughts exchanged between minds. The distance between two brains was removed as two minds overcame physical boundaries to connect with one another.

There was no two persons trying to talk to one another – frustrated in their misunderstandings. There was no interpretation, judgments, or confusion about what each other meant. We were so attuned to one another that we did not even have to say a word and we would have understood what was in the other person’s mind.

What happened here? Was it just a fluke, a lucky break? Were psychic powers at work? How does psychology explain this? How can you use this information to read someone’s mind and improve your communication skills?

We Were Born to Connect: The Roots of Empathy Gave Us Innate Psychological and Physiological Connections

In 328 BC, Aristotle said humans are social animals. Nowadays, more and more evidence is showing that humans are born to connect with one another. Much fascinating research on psychology, sociology, neuroscience, and child development is revealing how we connect in our relationships.

From birth, a baby prefers his or her mother’s voice, sight, and smell than that of a stranger’s. The mother is more connected to the baby than an outsider. As the baby grows, other attachments form. Should a babysitter come over to look after the toddler as the mother leaves the house, the toddler experiences separation anxiety and clings to the mother’s leg. (The anxiety is important for survival and avoiding dangerous situations.) The child can be joyous 10 seconds prior to seeing the babysitter, but the sight of the stranger creates fear in the child and leads to large amounts of distress.

As the mother leaves the house, she feels her child’s anxiety. The child may say no words or cry no tears, yet the mother mind-reads her child’s emotional state. She is able to feel exactly what the child is feeling. There is a mind-to-mind and mind-to-body connection taking place.

Interpersonal communication is not just about direct channels – the channels like verbal and nonverbal communication obvious to people. Though we are often aware of people’s words and body language, reading someone’s mind goes to the next level. When you know another person well enough, you pick-up on indirect channels that give you hunches about the other person. Nothing needs to be said or expressed nonverbally; it is your intuition – almost a sixth sense – that tells you what is on the person’s mind.

We do not just connect through words, we connect at a biological level. Our bodies can adjust to match someone else’s body. When you deeply connect to someone during a conversation, your posture, movements, and heart rate match the other person. This power gives you the ability to control another’s mood. (It isn’t fake rapport you see in most people’s attempts to use NLP.) A mother can relieve her distressed baby with her soothing voice. Our psychology and physiology can affect someone else’s psychology and physiology. You literally change people’s bodies with your thoughts.

Social and emotional intelligence expert Daniel Goleman is a leader in the mind-to-mind and mind-to-body connections we share with each other. In a New York Times article, Goleman discusses the powerful connection we share with people. He refers to one study that measured a female’s anxiety. Researchers had a group of females hold someone’s hand prior to receiving an electric shock. When a female held hands with a stranger, she remained distressed. When a woman held her husband’s hand, however, brain scans confirmed little activity in the emotional parts of her brain. She kept calm. The husband’s hand was a biological source of emotional rescue. Our psychological and physiological states affect ourselves and other people at astonishing levels.

You Have Superpowers

“Think twice before you speak, because your words and influence will plant the seed of either success or failure in the mind of another.” – Napoleon Hill (1883-1970), author of the classic Think and Grow Rich!

“The greatest reward is to know that one can speak and emit articulate sounds and utter words that describe things, events and emotions.” – Camilo Jose Cela, Spanish writer and recipent of the 1989 Nobel Prize in Literature

“The great gift of human beings is that we have the power of empathy.” – Meryl Streep (1949-present), American actress

Because we were born to connect with one another, each of us has innate abilities to connect with others. Believe it or not, everyday we read each other’s minds. Whether a friend asks for your opinion on their clothes, a boss wants your input on a coworker’s performance, or a child asks for a gift, you receive what feels like sixth sense signals that tell you how to respond. When a friend asks for your opinion on their clothes, you can almost determine what they are thinking. You have memories, empathy, and gut-feelings about the person’s thoughts that tell you how to respond.

You already have “superpowers”, an ability to determine another’s state. If you did not have such abilities, you would fail miserably in your relationships; you would fail to intimately connect with your partner; you would struggle to persuade others as your negotiation skills would be insufficient to determine what the other person really wants; you would be unable to sense when someone manipulates you. Without this “superpower” to read someone’s mind, you would struggle to cooperate and connect with people.

Unfortunately, the less time you spend with someone and the more distanced you are with them, you become less able to read a person’s mind. As I am sure you know, we do not have perfect abilities to cue into another person’s thoughts. If it were that perfect, there would be little reason to communicate. We would know exactly what everyone is thinking.

It seems that a couple intimately connected to one another should know what their partner is thinking because time in a close relationship helps build the individual’s mind-to-mind connection. Married people might be laughing at reading that. Too many married couples can recall endless occasions when their partner had no clue what they thought – yet alone, what they were thinking when they tried to explain themselves.

William Ickes, a psychologist at the University of Texas at Arlington, is the leading expert in empathic accuracy. Ickes says misunderstandings in marriages occurs from a lack of insight into their partner’s way of thinking. While you may be motivated to understand your partner early on in a relationship, says Ickes, during the first few years of marriage most people’s empathy for their partner decreases because they become overly confident in understanding their partner.

It may seem contradictory, but assumptions destroy your ability to read someone’s mind. Reading someone’s mind is not about guessing or contriving information to arrive at a conclusion; it is about being immersed in the present as you allow yourself to be absorbed by the person’s reality. You come to act as the person acts, feel as the person feels, and think as the person thinks. Assuming information destroys your human powers to read someone’s mind, build understanding, and establish empathy.

Become a Better Superhero: Mind-Reading Tricks – Empathy Techniques

“The man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them, inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors.” – Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), third President of the United States

“In nature we never see anything isolated, but everything in connection with something else which is before it, beside it, under it and over it.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832), famed German writer

“Every reader, if he has a strong mind, reads himself into the book, and amalgamates his thoughts with those of the author.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

You can smile and the whole world smiles with you. That is the magic of “emotional contagion”, a term created by psychologists to describe the infectious nature of emotions. If you frown as you walk around at work, you will infect coworkers with your sour mood. This connection we have with one another is there for a reason: it connects us! Emotional contagion plays a very important role in connecting people together.

We would be separate from each other without emotional contagion; we would have little concern for how people feel; we would be unable to read another’s mind. Intelligently taking on a person’s reality by allowing yourself to become infected with their emotions, lets you infer their thoughts. Some psychologists allows emotions to transfer from their client to themselves, which gives them the ability to peer into their client’s inner world. A psychologist can then discover a thought or feeling their client is not yet aware of.

Goleman in Social Intelligence discusses the amazing mind-to-mind connection, a connection that transcends physical boundaries. He says the intimacy of our communication controls the degree we can connect with others. When a couple are highly engaged with one another, Goleman says, “Such mental intimacy bespeaks an emotional closeness; the more satisfied and communicative a couple, the more accurate their mutual mind-reading.”

The intimacy of our communication that creates a psychic connection has a neurological justification explains Goleman. It is not some unexplained magical power, but neurological adjustment. As we communicate with someone and experience what other people experience, our neurons form pathways. These neural pathways unconsciously direct messages to form our sixth sense that gives us gut-feelings about what people are thinking. “Our trains of association run on set tracks, circuits of learning and memory,” says Goleman. “Once any of these trains has been primed, even by a simple mention, that track stirs in the unconscious, beyond the reach of our active attention.”

Intimate communication that shapes the brain can only be achieved by intimately sharing another person’s reality. Quietening your inner dialog makes you more able to detect another’s emotions. Without inner silence, empathy becomes a difficult task because there is no two-way communication.

Think back to a time when you were angry with someone you were talking to. Your anger was illogical as it caused you to do things you later regretted. You did not care what the other person felt, you were just concerned with releasing your anger and telling him or her how you felt. (The 10th chapter on emotions and logic in my communication secrets program can solve this problem for you.)

Better emotional management helps your mind-reading skills to improve your relationships. Four researchers in a study titled Physiologic Correlates of Perceived Therapist Empathy and Social-Emotional Process During Psychotherapy found that therapists and patients who felt the same had a more positive relationship. Similar feelings between people helps their relationship.

The researchers from the study say that talking uses a different part of the brain than emotional responses. Being a blabber-mouth kills your ability to emotionally connect with people and read their mind. Listening plays a huge role in connecting minds. By talking too much, we block our biological ability to feel what another person feels – and fail to build a connection akin to mind-reading.

As you quieten your inner dialog to tune into a person’s emotions, be aware that their thoughts and desires will not be the same as your thoughts and desires. Psychologists call this a “theory of mind, which describes the ability to determine another’s mental state and at the same time acknowledge the differences to our own.

Body language and other nonverbal cues helps us achieve seemingly psychic powers. Annie Murphy Paul, in a Psychology Today article titled “Mind Reading”, says that body language cues such as facial expressions are a good way to tap into people’s thoughts. “We tend to focus on others’ eyes, and that helps us,” says Paul. “The many surrounding muscles make eyes a richer source of clues than other parts of the face: downcast in sadness, wide open in fright, dreamily unfocused, staring hard with jealousy, or glancing around with bored impatience.”

While the eyes play an important role in determining someone’s thoughts, as does other nonverbal signals like voice, “it’s the content of speech that contributes most to our success at mind reading” says Paul. Meaning is not always directly expressed through words, but words give us insight into people’s way of thinking. It is next to impossible to mind-read someone speaking another language.

Another trick you can use – which is one of the biggest tricks – to read a person’s mind is to keep learning about communication, personal development, and human psychology. As you learn more about yourself, you learn more about other people. You come to understand what people feel, how we act, and what we think in certain situations. It is crazy how good I am now at digging into someone’s mind and knowing what is going through their mind in a conversation. I know how people react to many statements, the feelings one has during certain moments, and how to shift all this around to make it work for me.

Responsibility Comes with Power – Be Weary of the Dangers of Empathy

There needs to be a word of warning about your mind-reading superpowers. Before you go out and use the magic tricks of mind-reading, a series of techniques that use our innate ability to connect with one another, use your powers wisely. Empathy expert Ickes, with his academic partner Jeffry Simpson, advise people against the surprising dangers of empathy. “Empathic accuracy and understanding can be bad for relationships,” writes Ickes and Simpson in their study Managing Empathic Accuracy in Close Relationships. “While accurate understanding should be good for relationships as a general rule, too much understanding in certain contexts may have deleterious consequences.”

Diagnosing is one such example of a poor application of mind-reading skills, which is discussed in my communication secrets program. We diagnose others when we express people’s intentions. We try to act above others. You can try to mind-read your partner by diagnosing them (“You’re just jealous”, “Why do you always try to argue with me?”, or “Liar, I know what you really mean”) and hurt the relationship as a result of your diagnosis.

As you learn more about communication, you may be tempted to use the communication barrier of diagnosing because you will understand the human mind. Just as a partner in a marriage gets into relationship-trouble by assuming they understand their partner, the same happens when you are overly confident about understanding how our minds work.

The sad thing about diagnosing is its accuracy is irrelevant. Merely assuming or revealing someone’s intentions makes them defensive. Your superpowers and all the tricks you have been given to read someone’s mind that are suppose to connect people together, can separate you from people.

Use your mind powers wisely young Jedi. Know when to get into someone’s head and when to stay out. It is not the power to read another person’s mind that will give you great power with people, for that is a skill we all have; rather, having the skill to keep on understanding people is what will give you power. Understanding is, after all, the purpose of peering into someone’s mind.

(To discover cool mind-tricks used by popular magicians to “wow!” their audiences, click here.)

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.”

“Getting rid of a delusion makes us wiser than getting hold of a truth.” – Karl Ludwig Borne (1786-1837)

“Myth is an attempt to narrate a whole human experience, of which the purpose is too deep, going too deep in the blood and soul, for mental explanation or description.” – David Herbert Lawrence (1885-1930), English writer who often criticized modern living’s negative influence on humans

“Few people have the imagination for reality.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832), famous German writer

Lies, deception, misunderstandings, illusions, distortions, and deceit is easier to accept than the truth. We are creatures of denial. Ignorance has a cushioning effect to soften the harshness of reality.

While you may ignore the truth because it is uncomfortable to face, other times you accept myths over truth because you don’t know the difference. A relationship expert, counselor, psychologist, or even a communication trainer may have mislead you to believe a communication myth is truth. Whatever the case maybe, this article is sure to shake up your communication beliefs and shock you into reality, allowing you to communicate more effectively.

Originally I was struggling to complete 10 myths for this article, but after brainstorming, researching, observing people communicate, coaching people on their communication skills, asking tens of thousands of subscribers on communication myths, and picking out myths from my buried notes, 15 myths fitted surprisingly snug. I believe all these myths need to be revealed, cleared, and truth be told so we are better empowered to improve our personalities and relationships.

The greatest myths of communication are arranged in order depending on their frequency and strength in people’s minds. From lies, illusions, flawed teachings, and misunderstandings, it is time to debunk the top 15 all-time myths of communication:

#15 Myth: Logic makes communication effective

Logic destroys relationships. The next time you see two people in an argument, watch them focus on the logical level. Each person will give facts the other does not care about. The content and logical focus of a conversation has been the demise of many relationships.

When bland words and facts are focused upon, causing emotions to be overlooked, the relationship suffers. Intelligence, reasoning, and rationality are fine. Problems can arise when logic gets center of attention in a conversion – especially during conflict. The emotional content of conflict needs to be handled first before facts can surface.

Stop focusing on the content of conversations. Look beyond the words to see emotion. Start caring about people’s emotions beneath their content of a conversation because relationships are fueled by emotion.

Even in business communications you need to focus on emotion. We want others to understand how we feel instead of pointing out the facts or telling us how to feel. When you understand humans are creatures of emotion, and that we are predictably irrational, you enable yourself to have great charisma and persuasive power. (I recommend you read chapter 10 of my communication secrets program for full details on how to overcome this logical dilemma to communicate at an emotional level so you powerfully connect with people.)

#14 Myth: Effective communication is about the blunt truth

I know this myth will be interpreted by readers in a different way than how I intend it to be. A person who always tells the blunt truth is disliked by those who always get told the truth. Truth-tellers use the excuse of, “I tell it how it is” and “If people can’t deal with reality, it’s their problem.” They may even see their need to tell the truth as a virtue.

The truth we tell others often manifests itself into criticism that gets thrown back into our faces with defensiveness or arguments. Truth is hurtful when delivered in the absence of empathy. Productive communication is inhibited when people are too busy defending themselves from personal attacks.

I am not advocating you lie or give people enormous amounts of praise when they sucked at something or to live a deceptive life. Lies are unnecessary when you deliver the facts with compassion. You need compassion in a tell-it-like-it-is attitude.

Truth is not a virtue without compassion. “Our tendency is to choose up sides, valuing certain emotional skills while neglecting and even disparaging others,” write Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz in The Power of Full Engagement. “Take a moment to consider how broad a range of emotional muscles you have in your own life. In all likelihood you will discover that you have considerable more strength on one side of the spectrum than on the other. Notice, too, the judgment that you bring to the relative merits of opposing qualities.”

Loehr and Schwartz go on to write that “no emotional capacity better serves depth and richness more than the willingness to value feelings that seem contradictory and not to choose up sides between them.” Have you been limiting your array of emotional skills by valuing the blunt truth over compassion?

#13 Myth: Communication solves everything

As someone who teaches communication skills, this myth is something I would like to believe! Unfortunately, communication does not solve all conflict and relationship problems. Sometimes the greatest charismatically persuasive communication cannot solve relationship issues.

Marina Benjamen, Ph.D. of Psych Central sees a frequent scenario in couples counseling. Couples have no “serious problem”. Both partners can vouch for no drinking, abuse, or infidelity. The problem? They do not communicate. A lack of communication can happen for many reasons, but by itself it rarely leads to relationship resolutions. “Good communication exposes conflict that when effectively dealt with,” says Benjamen, “can promote a more open and intimate connection.”

I have come to notice a transition point in people who adopt this myth of communication solving everything. The general public are vaguely advised that “communication is important in relationships”. Few people like yourself who go one step further by learning conflict management, emotional mastery, and self awareness, for example, come to realize how communication is greatly beneficial. The more we learn and develop ourselves, the more emphasis we place on communication. Eventually, we come to believe that any argument, relationship break up, or person who does not like us comes from poor communication.

Think of a worldly issue, like abortion or the death penalty, that you have a strong stance on. Do you think someone with opposing views who communicates well would change your mind? If you really believe in your stance on the issue, then communication is not going to change your mind. You and I have religious, political, and personal values that prevent communication solving everything.

Communication is the relationship, a shared connection between two points. Communication forms the bridge in a relationship so it makes sense to assume the problems coming and going must exist on the bridge. If either side has a serious enough foundational problem, however, the strongest bridge is not going to last.

People ask, “What things can I say and do to make people like me?” This is the wrong type of thinking! Most effective communication is doomed before you even open your mouth. Becoming charismatic and persuasive starts from within you. Changing people’s behavior starts from within you. And having intimate, sharing, and loving relationships starts within you. Change your life by changing your thinking. Good relationships happen with self development; not only through good communication.

I steer my focus away from telling people to say rehashed lines in certain situations because no magical line can effectively work when you are incongruent with your words. You can say one brilliant communication line, but how you feel and think is a greater influence on the outcome. My Communication Secrets of Powerful People Program is not about rehashed lines. It gets you deeply understanding yourself and other people so you can begin communicating more intimately, powerfully, persuasively, and charismatically.

#12 Myth: Learning communication makes you a better communicator

We are at a global health crisis. Doctors have repeatedly said that the large percentage of health problems in Western countries comes from choices controllable by those who suffer such health ailments. We are in control of drinking, eating, smoking, stressing, and exercising. The global health crisis is not occurring because we have failed to learn the implications of the evil five of health – we all know what happens when ignoring these – but the problem comes from our inability to change. (This is further proof that logic is weak.)

Learning about a health problem does not automatically make you healthier. We all know how to lose weight: you consume less energy than you put out. But the majority of us have health problems within our control, which we logically understand, yet continue to ignore.

Learning communication only makes you a better communicator when the lessons lead to behavioral change. Even failing at a new skill makes you a better communicator because you went out and did something. Stop trying to intellectualize everything and just give it a go. You will become a better communicator when you do it. (I recommend you read Alan Deutschman’s Change or Die for more information about this topic.)

#11 Myth: Communication is one-way

Radios, televisions, and many electrical devices in the home communicate one-way messages. It seems our relationships are often the same. At times it appears we communicate in a monologue. There is still two-way communication – just poor two-way communication – because we cannot not communicate.

Communication in human relationships is two-way. Even one-way communication like public speaking is two-way. We have eyes and ears that absorb people’s communication as listening or a lack of listening communicates a message. You can listen and not say a word to communicate. Whether you choose to do something with this gathered information to improve your relationships, increase your charisma, or boost your persuasion is up to you. It is up to you if you choose to empathize, laugh at, pay attention to, or ignore another person’s communication, yet two-way communication will always exist. Several other myths, as you will soon discover, nicely tie into this myth.