This One Thing Makes You Immune To Criticism...

[Guest Nicole]

Sabrina here and I'm going to share some insights that will change all of your relationships for the better, especially your relationships with men. It comes down to one major realizations and that is: no one can ever make you feel a certain way. Allow me to elaborate.

Let's say you have two girls who are equally attractive, equally smart, equally successful and so on. The only difference is that one is supremely confident and the other is extremely insecure. Now let's say these girls date the same guy. And let's say the guy makes the exact same comment to each girl, maybe he says something about her not being the hottest girl he's ever dated or something stupid like that. In this scenario, the confident girl will laugh it off. She will instantly recognize that he's trying to get a rise out of her and she won't give him the satisfaction of a response. Instead, she'll brush it off and will start to reconsider whether she wants to be dating someone so pathetic.

The insecure girl, however, will crumble and start to doubt everything about herself.

She'll stalk his Facebook profile endlessly trying to search for ex-girlfriends to figure out what they have that she doesn't. She may start acting passive aggressive towards the guy in an attempt to get compliments, affection, and apologies out of him. She'll start putting an insane amount of effort into her appearance in an attempt to win him over and prove how hot she is. She will whine to her girlfriends about how “ugly" and "insecure" he made her feel.

Now how can the same comment affect two people so differently? He said the same thing, shouldn't it have had the same impact? No, because the impact of an insult is in direct proportion to your sense of self.

If you feel amazing about yourself, nothing anyone else says will change your mind. If you stand on shaky ground, you will get knocked down time and time again.

I, like the majority of women, suffer from the occasional body image issues (this is something I actively work on, as we all should, and I am nowhere near as vulnerable to this kind of thing as I was in my younger years).

Several years back, I was at a boyfriend's place eating a yummy cake I had baked. We were sitting on the couch watching a movie and when I leaned over to cut myself a second slice, he pinched a layer of my flesh and jokingly said, "You sure you want that second piece?" Suffice to say I was furious and had to summon all the restraint I had not to take the cake and slam it in his smug face. Instead, I stormed out of the apartment, waited a few minutes for him to come out and comfort me, and when he did, proceeded to lash out at him for making me feel fat. He apologized profusely, of course, but my anger took weeks to subside.

And during that time, I was constantly analyzing my body and complaining about it. I would also make a big show about how little I was eating in front of the guy in some twisted attempt to make him feel bad and get him to apologize again and tell me how thin and beautiful I am.

Looking back, the only reason his words had such an impact is because I was already insecure in that area. Rather than accepting that this was my own insecurity, I blamed him for making me feel that way. (FYI- I'm not condoning what he did because it was pretty immature, I'm just using this example to illustrate a larger point.)

If that same thing happened to me today, I probably would have laughed and called him a jerk and said, “Yes, in fact I am having a second slice. I may even have a third," and that would be that. No arguing, no crying, no guilting, no resenting, none of the usual relationship killers.

I like my body as it is, so why should I allow anyone to make me feel otherwise? The choice is up to me and I choose to formulate my own opinions of who I am and how I look, rather than relying on outsiders to determine these things for me.

Another person's approval has no ability to affect your mood unless you think what he/she says is valid. If someone makes a comment and you have a reaction, it's because you already felt that way about yourself.

When you can truly internalize this, you will realize that there is no use harboring anger and resentment towards someone for making you upset or insecure.

When you allow your insecurities to dominate, you will be on high alert for anything that validates these feelings. Being constantly on the lookout for disapproval will guarantee you find it everywhere. If you go into the world expecting to be rejected, then you will see rejection everywhere and in everything.

You'll interpret your boyfriend being distracted by something as him losing interest and not finding you attractive. You'll believe the grumpy man working at the bodega thinks you're a fat big because you bought a tub of ice cream. You'll think your boss is mad at you and thinks you're incompetent because he/she didn't smile at you that day. You get the point.

When you really think about it, it's kind of funny that people react so strongly to criticism. I mean think about it, why should it ever affect you?

If someone says something disapproving, then whatever! They might have a point, but who cares? No one is perfect, we all have faults and the best we can do is either accept them or work on improving them. And if what they say isn't true, then seriously, who cares? You know it isn't true!

The lesson here is to build a firm foundation for your sense of self to rest on. When you do this, no one will make you feel anything. We are all works in progress, each and every one of us. If you can accept that and be kind to yourself, your quality of life (not to mention, the quality of your relationships), will significantly improve.

 

Lots of love,

Sabrina Alexis

A  New Mode 

 

[James Thomas Rook Jr.]

SHE DRIVES FOR A RELATIONSHIP. HE'S LOST IN THE TRANSMISSION

-- by DAVE BARRY

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Contrary to what many women believe, it's fairly easy to develop along-term, stable, intimate, and mutually fulfilling relationship with a guy. Of course this guy has to be a Labrador retriever. With human guys, it's extremely difficult. This is because guys don't really grasp what women mean by the term relationship.

Let's say a guy named Roger is attracted to a woman named Elaine. He asks her out to a movie; she accepts; they have a pretty good time. A few nights later he asks her out to dinner, and again they enjoy themselves. They continue to see each other regularly, and after a while neither one of them is seeing anybody else.

And then, one evening when they're driving home, a thought occurs to Elaine, and, without really thinking, she says it aloud: "Do you realize that, as of tonight, we've been seeing each other for exactly six months?"

And then there is silence in the car. To Elaine, it seems like a very loud silence. She thinks to herself: Geez, I wonder if it bothers him that I said that. Maybe he's been feeling confined by our relationship; maybe he thinks I'm trying to push him into some kind of obligation that he doesn't want, or isn't sure of.

And Roger is thinking: Gosh. Six months.

And Elaine is thinking: But, hey, I'm not so sure I want this kind of relationship, either. Sometimes I wish I had a little more space, so I'd have time to think about whether I really want us to keep going the way we are, moving steadily toward... I mean, where are we going? Are we just going to keep seeing each other at this level of intimacy? Are we heading toward marriage? Toward children? Toward a lifetime together? Am I ready for that level of commitment? Do I really even know this person?

And Roger is thinking:... so that means it was... let's see...February when we started going out, which was right after I had the car at the dealer's, which means... lemme check the odometer... Whoa! I am way over due for an oil change here.

And Elaine is thinking: He's upset. I can see it on his face. Maybe I'm reading this completely wrong. Maybe he wants more from our relationship, more intimacy, more commitment; maybe he has sensed -- even before I sensed it -- that I was feeling some reservations. Yes, I bet that's it. That's why he's so reluctant to say anything about his own feelings. He's afraid of being rejected.

And Roger is thinking: And I'm gonna have them look at the transmission again. I don't care what those morons say, it's still not shifting right. And they better not try to blame it on the cold weather this time. What cold weather? It's 87 degrees out, and this thing is shifting like a garbage truck, and I paid those incompetent thieves $600.

COMMUNICATIONS GAP

And Elaine is thinking: He's angry. And I don't blame him. I'd be angry, too. God, I feel so guilty, putting him through this, but I can't help the way I feel. I'm just not sure.

And Roger is thinking: They'll probably say it's only a 90-day warranty. That's exactly what they're gonna say, the scumballs.

And Elaine is thinking: Maybe I'm just too idealistic, waiting for a knight to come riding up on his white horse, when I'm sitting right next to a perfectly good person, a person I enjoy being with, a person I truly do care about, a person who seems to truly care about me. A person who is in pain because of my school girl romantic fantasy.

And Roger is thinking: Warranty? They want a warranty? I'll give them a warranty. I'll take their warranty and stick it right up their...

"Roger," Elaine says aloud.

"What?" says Roger, startled.

"Please don't torture yourself like this," she says, her eyes beginning to brim with tears. "Maybe I should never have... Oh God, I feel so..." (She breaks down, sobbing.)

"What?" says Roger.

"I'm such a fool," Elaine sobs. "I mean, I know there's no knight. I really know that. It's silly. There's no knight, and there's no horse."

"There's no horse?" says Roger.

"You think I'm a fool, don't you?" Elaine says.

"No!" says Roger, glad to finally know the correct answer.

"It's just that... It's that I... I need some time," Elaine says.
(There is a 15-second pause while Roger, thinking as fast as he can,tries to come up with a safe response. Finally he comes up with one tha the thinks might work.)

"Yes," he says.

A BEFUDDLED BEAU
(Elaine, deeply moved, touches his hand.)

"Oh, Roger, do you really feel that way?" she says.

"What way?" says Roger.

"That way about time," says Elaine.

"Oh," says Roger. "Yes."
(Elaine turns to face him and gazes deeply into his eyes, causing him to become very nervous about what she might say next, especially if it involves a horse. At last she speaks.)

"Thank you, Roger," she says.

"Thank you," says Roger. Then he takes her home, and she lies on her bed, a conflicted, tortured soul, and weeps until dawn, whereas when Roger gets back to his place, he opens a bag of Doritos, turns on the TV, and immediately becomes deeply involved in a rerun of a tennis match between two Czechoslovakians he never heard of. A tiny voice in the far recesses of his mind tells him that something major was going on back there in the car, but he is pretty sure there is no way he would ever understand what, and so he figures it's better if he doesn't think about it.
(This is also Roger's policy regarding world hunger.)

IT'S ANALYSIS TIME

The next day Elaine will call her closest friend, or perhaps two of them, and they will talk about this situation for six straight hours. In painstaking detail, they will analyze everything she said and every thing he said, going over it time and time again, exploring every word, expression,and gesture for nuances of meaning, considering every possible ramification. They will continue to discuss this subject, off and on, for weeks, maybe months, never reaching any definite conclusions, but never getting bored with it, either.

Meanwhile, Roger, while playing racquetball one day with a mutual friend of his and Elaine's, will pause just before serving, frown, and say: "Norm, did Elaine ever own a horse?"

We're not talking about different wavelengths here. We're talking about different planets, in completely different solar systems. Elaine cannot communicate meaningfully with Roger about their relationship anymore than she can meaningfully play chess with a duck. Because the sum total of Roger's thinking on this particular topic is as follows:

Huh?

But the point I'm trying to make is that, if you're a woman, and you want to have a successful relationship with a guy, the No. 1 tip to remember is: 1. Never assume that the guy understands that you and he have a relationship. The guy will not realize this on his own. You have to plant the idea in his brain by constantly making subtle references to it in your everyday conversation, such as:
-- "Roger, would you mind passing me a Sweet 'n' Low, in as much as we have a relationship?"
-- "Wake up, Roger! There's a prowler in the den and we have a relationship! You and I do, I mean."
-- "Good News, Roger! The gynecologist says we're going to have our fourth child, which will serve as yet another indication that we have arelationship!"
-- "Roger, inasmuch as this plane is crashing and we probably have only about a minute to live, I want you to know that we've had a wonderful 53 years of marriage together, which clearly constitutes a relationship."

Never let up, women. Pound away relentlessly at this concept, and eventually it will start to penetrate the guy's brain. Some day he might even start thinking about it on his own. He'll be talking with some other guys about women, and, out of the blue, he'll say, "Elaine and I, we have, ummm... We have, ahhh... We... We have this thing." And he will sincerely mean it.

The next relationship-enhancement tip is: 2. Do not expect the guy to make a hasty commitment. By "hasty," I mean, "within your lifetime." Guys are extremely reluctant to make commitments. This is because they never feel ready.

"I'm sorry," guys are always telling women, "but I'm just not ready to make a commitment." Guys are in a permanent state of non-readiness. If guys were turkey breasts, you could put them in a 350-degree oven on July Fourth, and they still wouldn't be done in time for Thanksgiving.

 

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[James Thomas Rook Jr.]

Men do not have "body image" problems like women do, as women compare themselves to Corvettes, and men compare themselves to Army Tanks, or Tractors.