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Being integrated means being able to accept all aspects of one’s self. An integrated man is able to embrace everything that makes him unique: his power, his assertiveness, his courage, and his passion as well as his imperfections, his mistakes, and his dark side.
If I can’t figure out what people want me to be, I’m afraid I will be all alone. The funny thing is, I feel alone most of the time anyway.”
Just about everything a Nice Guy does is consciously or unconsciously calculated to gain someone’s approval or to avoid disapproval.
and worth to these things and use them to convince themselves and others that they are valuable. Without these attachments, Nice Guys don’t know what else about themselves would make anyone like or love them.
Nice Guys interpret a woman’s approval as the ultimate validation of their worth. Signs of a woman’s approval can take the form of her desire to have sex, flirtatious behavior, a smile, a touch, or attentiveness. At the other end of the spectrum, if a woman is depressed, in a bad mood, or angry, Nice Guys interpret these things to mean that she is not accepting or approving of them.
This is because we tend to eventually despise whatever we make into our god. When our god fails to respond in the ways we expect, we humans tend to respond in one of two ways. We either blindly intensify our acts of worship or lash out in righteous anger.
This is why it is not unusual to hear a Nice Guy proclaim his undying love to a woman in one breath and then ragefully call her a “f . . . c. . . ” only moments later.
Nice Guys have a difficult time comprehending that in general, people are not drawn to perfection in others. People are drawn to shared interests, shared problems, and an individual’s life energy.
It is actually a person’s rough edges and human imperfections that give others something to connect with.
Beneath this facade of needlessness and wantlessness, all Nice Guys are actually extremely needy. Consequently, when they go about trying to get their needs met, Nice Guys are frequently indirect, unclear, manipulative, and controlling.
Helpless, whiny, wimpy, and needy are not attractive on a man. Confidence and self-assurance are attractive. Most folks are attracted to men who have a sense of self. Putting the self first doesn’t drive people away, it attracts them. Putting the self first is essential for getting what one wants in love and life.
This kind of power not only successfully deals with problems, challenges and adversity, it actually welcomes them, meets them head on, and is thankful for them. Personal power isn’t the absence of fear. Even the most powerful people have fear. Personal power is the result of feeling fear, but not giving in to the fear.
Surrender doesn’t mean giving up. It means letting go of what one can’t change and changing what one can.
This frustration is due to the reality that, in general, women view men who try to please them as weak and hold these men in contempt. Most women do not want a man who tries to please them—they want a man who knows how to please himself. Women consistently share with me that they don’t want a passive, pleasing wimp. They want a man—someone with his balls still intact.
The bright lights of success threaten to illuminate their self-perceived cracks and flaws.
