Question & Answer with Carlos
QUESTION:
Hey Carlos,
Your stuff is very interesting. I’ve got a question for you. I’m 50 years of age, a bit of gray, but not much, in pretty good physical shape and wondering what to do. I lost the love of my life about a year ago. Sixteen years younger, pretty, what I thought was the perfect girl. We were married for 10 years.
Can you help me and is there any hope? For me it seems like the only way to get over this is to find someone to replace her. Is that possible at this stage in my life?
Appreciate your feed back.
Sincerely,
Mark
______________________
CARLOS XUMA ANSWERS ABOUT REAL SEXUAL ATTRACTION:
It’s funny when you say “interesting.” I thought the same thing when I started observing these patterns and understanding how the attraction game worked with women. It was kind of my way of not having my reality shattered too hard. I sat back and kept this at a distance.
But on to your question…
Can I help you?
YES. Of course.
Absolutely, positively, no doubt about it.
Except if…
Wait.
I’ll get back to that question in a minute.
Interestingly, the cure for what ails you is in the way you perceive your situation. If you are stuck on the belief that this woman is (was?) the “love of your life,” you will basically be cementing yourself into a mindset that doesn’t give you alternatives to change your situation.
Think about it this way: What if I believed – in my heart – that I was incapable of speaking Italian. I just COULD NOT EVER speak that language. My parents or my family told me my tongue just couldn’t make those rolling consonants.
Would I ever try?
Would I ever be able to travel to Italy without anxiety or hesitation, or would I be locked in fear of not being able to communicate?
I would avoid people that spoke Italian for fear of the situation that would put me in.
Now, this sounds a bit abstract and maybe a bit extreme, but that’s what happens when you lock yourself into the belief that this woman was the “love of your life.” What you’re doing is pinning a very self-limiting belief on yourself that says there is only this woman for you.
You’ll be forever hung up on her. You’ll go through photo books of you and her and constantly remind yourself of what you lost.
Your whole life, in fact, becomes:
“Mark’s Story About How He Lost The Love Of His Life.”
Maybe you can make a movie out of it.
Get someone really tragic to play the lead.
I’m pushing this point and being a sarcastic jerk because this is brutally TRUE. If you don’t free yourself of this limiting belief, NO ONE will be able to help you.
You need to get UN-haunted, as I like to say.
Here’s something important that we tend to lose sight of: You had 10 years with a good woman. Take some Joy from that. Some guys get ZERO years with a good woman. We get so focused on what we lost, we can’t even see what we had.
Nothing in life is permanent, which is why it’s so important for guys – especially married guys – to learn what I teach about the Alpha Man. When you find yourself out there and looking to date after divorce or a breakup (and over 50% of the guys out there that are married today WILL), you’ll need these skills.
As for whether or not you can find someone to replace her, well – YES, you can.
But you can’t if you don’t believe it.
You see, right now I sense that you’re on the fence as to whether or not you can find another woman. You probably know logically and rationally that it’s possible, but your beliefs and emotions are fighting you.
Well it’s time to FIGHT BACK.
What you’re thinking now – fairly soon after your breakup – is what most guys go through when they split from a woman they’ve been with for a long time. You see, guys tend to become more emotionally dependent on their woman than a woman will with their man.
And, as a result, it’s much more difficult for guys to get back out there and start dating again.
But remember this: I have instructed people in their 70s in Martial Arts. It’s not an age thing at all.
The people that can learn something new are the ones who choose to let go of their limiting beliefs for just a few seconds. Just long enough for something good to get in.
There are COUNTLESS stories of people hooking up and finding someone in their 40s, 50s, 60s, and beyond. And most of them were out of long-term relationships that started before tie-die and the summer of love. (Uhm, yes, that’s 1967.)
I sense that you might be waiting for a decision from outside to finally put your heart behind this effort. If I told you YES, would that give you enough permission to believe in yourself?
I think you’ve got all the permission you need right now. You just need to make the decision.
That’s something I can’t do for you.
But I can help you be more confident IN that decision.
Here are 3 Things you can do right now to increase your confidence in yourself and get yourself back in the dating scene:
Dating Rehab STEP 1: Start bypassing your memories of you and this “love of your life.”
Sure it was great, sure you should appreciate it, but clinging to the past joys of life is just one of the many ways we like to self-punish ourselves or wallow in sadness.
What I mean by “bypassing” is this: When you see something or hear something or get tempted to sink into a funk that you lost this woman, you hit the “track forward” button on your internal CD player.
Just like when there’s a song that comes on that you don’t particularly like or reminds you of something painful.
What do you do? You skip forward and move on to the next thing. Whatever it might be.
You bypass this next opportunity to get caught up in your old repeating negative thoughts, and you skip forward to the next chance to do something new.
Get over it.
Those three words capture the essence of our emotional dysfunction – and SOLUTION, about 90% of the time.
Dating Rehab STEP 2: Find some guys to hang with.
It doesn’t matter if they’re from work or just some old college buddies.
And (before I hear any excuses about “I don’t have anyone to hang out with”) if you need to, you can always get some guys to meet up with through your local craigslist, or some other local web site. Or just go do some activity that gets you out of the house with some other guys.
Contrary to popular belief, the first step in dating women is to go hang out with guys so you don’t get that “lone wolf” odor on you everywhere you go.
Women know this type of guy intimately. He’s the one that comes into the bar with crazy-eyes, checking out the action, before he starts sauntering over to the bar. He doesn’t have a good vibe to him because he’s too busy looking eager and ready to pounce on his target.
Don’t be this guy.
Get into “social mode” before you try jumping back into “dating mode.” You need to feel good about yourself and your social circle before anything else.
Dating Rehab STEP 3: Figure out the easiest way for you to meet women you can think of.
And then you start with that method.
If you’re a bar guy, go out and get yourself feeling comfortable again in bars.
If you’re an online dating guy, go setup a profile.
If you’re a speed-dater, get yourself registered for an upcoming event.
If you’re a social party kind of guy, start calling friends and getting yourself on their lists.
But whatever you do, don’t get into that trap of thinking that there’s NOTHING you can do. There’s always something.
Let me say that again…
THERE’S ALWAYS something you can be doing to meet women.
Remember Ed Harris’ commandment from the movie “Apollo 13”:
“Failure is NOT an option.”
My friend, it’s time to pack up the old pictures, put away the things your ex got you on your 5th wedding anniversary, and just jump in the saddle again.
Dating Rehab BONUS STEP 4: Get your head on straight.
In order to really make progress on this path, you should also be learning how to be confident and successful with women.
I used to go out there and try to learn this stuff on my own, and I get more and more frustrated every minute because it was all trial-and-error.
The concepts that I’ve just discussed are part of what I consider to be a big part of the “Inner Game” of dating success.
Most guys spend almost NO time working on their Inner Game and confidence … instead, they spend time learning “pick up lines” and other useless fluff.
If you don’t have your “Inner Game” together, none of the “techniques and tricks” will work for you. Women can see right through them.
Once you get the right mind-set, the world suddenly seems like a different place to you.
Go to www.alphaconfidence.com and I’ll show you how to master this inner game once and for all…
– Carlos Xuma
http://www.alphaconfidence.com
