No, not by keeping it in the fridge, you want it hot not cold!

I was talking about my relationship to a female friend, talking about men in general and how they just don’t step up. She loved what I had to tell her, “I am in awe of the radiance of your relationship”, she said, but she still did not understand how to keep an exciting relationship at its initial level over time.

My answer was simple, “You need to start afresh every day. Treat every day as if it was the start of the relationship”. “But how do you do that?” she said.

That, of course, is where the simplicity ends. The eXperience starts before the relationship does and it starts with the man and his presence. Male eXperience is not intended to be a relationship or dating site but when talking about showing up as a man it becomes impossible to leave relationships out of the equation.

So here is a quick, 10 step, run-down, for men, on how to get it going and keep it fresh.

1. Treat your partner as a goddess.

Because she is, otherwise why would you love her? If you don’t know how to do this then just think of everything you do as a form of worship. Make all you rinteractions sacred, you’ll soon get the message from her responses.

2. Be fully present.

When you are with her let everything else go, she is the most important part of your world. Focus on her and show that you can take anything she does without flinching.

3. Don’t make assumptions.

If in doubt, ask. You will often be in doubt, because you won’t understand what is going on in her head. That’s OK as long as you don’t assume you know what’s going on and get it completely wrong. To her that shows you haven’t been listening.

4. Understand the power of polarity.

Relationships thrive on polarity. The polarity of a masculine man in his core and a feminine woman in her core is electrifying. Keep the polarity at the forefront of the relationship and do all you can to encourage it. Believe me you will enjoy it.

5. Look your best.

Act as you did when you were first going out. Look at how you dress, how you present yourself. She wants you to behave as you did in the beginning, she wants you to keep the excitement there. Don’t become a slob!

6. Take the lead.

Men often let their woman take the lead and decide what to do. That is so wrong. Always take the lead in making decisions but ensure that you give her the space to have her say. The best is if you make the decision to do what she wants without appearing to. That’s a winner.

7. Remember she needs constant attention.

This is the absolute number one in being with a woman. Much of what she does is, in fact, to remind you of this. You can never give too much attention. If in doubt just do it.

8. Don’t take it personally.

Never, ever take anything she does, or says, personally. It is usually about something going on in her head which has nothing to do with you. While she is the most important person in your world, she is in her world. Let her be and don’t get beaten down, it’s not about you.

9. Never just say goodnight.

I really shouldn’t have to say this! Let any difficulties go at the end of the day and hold her in your arms. Give her your love and tell her you love her. Do it again in a different way and repeat. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you where to go from here.

10. Start afresh each day.

Start again as if it was the first day of the relationship. Take the ideas in the previous stage and expand on them. Welcome her into your world and look forward to your day together. Give her your love and tell her you love her. Do it again in a different way and repeat. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you where to go from here.

Sometimes it can seem overwhelming to put all these into practice at once. If that is the case then just introduce them one or two at a time. Remember to start afresh each day no matter what happened yesterday. The past does not equal the future.

If in doubt just give her constant attention.

Technorati Tags: energy, essence, feminine, focus, masculine, Polarity, Presence, women

Cheta has written on Trust and Surrender in Female eXperience. The post is about an experiment we carried out recently where she wanted to fully experience the two feminine characteristics of Trusting and Surrendering. You should read her post to understand what she went through and where it took us.

Here I want to look at my perspective and talk about what it meant for me to fully experience trust and surrender from a woman.

I see trust as one of the most important feminine characteristics. It is, however, one that only appears when the man proves trustworthy. It starts with the man, as it always does. The man has to show what he is made of, how certain he is and how consistent he is. Only when the woman fully believes him and sees his truth will she start to trust him. Along this road she will, continually, test him to see if she can shake him, to see if she see behind his behaviour. I have written on testing before, and feel that this is the greatest expression of a woman’s love for a man.

When Cheta suggested her working with total trust and surrender during a trip we were making I was anxious to understand what she really meant. We had been having some issues with her accepting my lead and organisation and I felt unsure, occasionally, as to whether this was just about her and control or whether it was also about me. I avoided showing this uncertainty to her, that is not what a man does. I was keen to experiment with this, I wanted her to see how capable and willing I was to lead and support her.

It started out, from my perspective, as a disaster. She seemed to intervene more than usual and destroyed my attempts to guide her through the many challenges with ease and panache. Was this me or was she really just incapable of trusting me and treating me like a man. The next day I got angry and told her how it was destroying me as a man. It’s fine for a man to take the lead and just let what the woman does wash over him. He can show his strength and certainty no matter what she does, but the fact that she won’t trust him eats away at his insides. Eventually, something starts dying. For the relationship to work it is important that both parties are involved and that, as Cheta says, there is polarity. One side is not enough.

Cheta saw what was happening, both to her and me, and started to let go. Once this happened the flow was amazing. It wasn’t that I felt in control, it was that we complemented each other perfectly. We each had a role and we no longer had to think about it and work out what needed to be done. To cross a busy road was easy, I watched the traffic, took her hand and went. She took my hand and trusted. We felt like one being.

A man needs to feel like this to fully embrace his masculine essence. It’s not enough for him to take it, the woman also needs to give it to him. I see so many examples of couples where this has failed and the relationship has died.

There was a young couple at the station in Kuala Lumpur. She pushed forward with a bound volume of all their tickets and itineraries to seek help from the ticket collector. He hung back looking lost. No trust and not a sign of surrender, only control. I am sure she was good at it, but her man was dying in the process.

There was the elderly couple at O’Hare airport in Chicago. They were, wrongly, in the security line. When they approached the escalator an attendant stopped them and sent them to the check-in line. She lead the way, he almost looked triumphant that she had got it wrong. But where was he? He had long ago given up. It’s what many men do. They get tired of fighting their woman and give up. She, of course, fills the gap and assumes complete control.

Men think the only alternative is domination and abuse. Sometimes they go there, but usually they see that as wrong.

There is a better way and that is to be strong and certain and to help your woman, through your presence, certainty and consistency, to see what is happening. That is not to persuade or plead with her, just show her what works for you and help her to see that a balance is necessary. Show her what polarity means, be a man and help her to trust you.

Technorati Tags: authenticity, certainty, energy, feminine, masculine, Polarity, surrender, trust, women

Nelson Mandela took the world by storm when he became President of the new South Africa. His presence before his former captors was an example to men everywhere. His focus and dedication in the face of his incarceration seemed almost super-human. But was it? Was he something special, or was he an example of the power of a man in his core, a man who knew himself and his purpose?

Men, when they ‘get it’ can be amazingly powerful, but how do they get there and why should they?

David’s life changed dramatically when he recently started a relationship with Sarah, a girl he had known and worked with for over three years. They had both been looking for their soulmate without realising that he/she was there in font of their eyes all the time. they were great friends and loved each other’s company.

It had never occurred to either of them that there was, or could be, anything more. Yet each was seeking what was missing in their life. Then, one day, the spark happened and their lives were transformed. They are living together now, even though they are from different countries, and are expecting a baby in the next few weeks.

So what changed, what happened? Where did the magic come from? What sparked?

The details of the story are irrelevant, what matters is the forces at work behind the individuals concerned.

Shakti Gawain in her book, ‘Living in the Light’, said,

“It is the Energy of the Universe moving through us that transforms, not the particular things we do. … Whether you are … taking a walk or building a house, if you’re doing it with a sense of being right where you want to be and doing what you want to be doing, that fullness and joy in the experience will be felt by everyone around you. … You will see proof of it in watching the changes in people.”

The energy of the universe runs through and influences us all. It is this that is responsible for the monumental changes such as the one that David and Sarah went through.

But how did this energy work its magic and transform two people? How did it create this blend of masculinity and femininity that is now producing new life?

Cheta, my partner, and I have been talking about the moment the spark happens, the moment everything changes. What are the actual forces that are working in people? We are particularly interested in this because it happened in our lives, allowing us to create the wonderful relationship we have.

In our work with men and women we have found that archetypes and stories often hold the key to age old mysteries. The parallel stories of Sleeping Beauty and the Frog Prince look at the essence of a person being put to sleep or hidden from the world. This continues until the ‘mysterious stranger’ comes along and kisses the Beauty/Frog. Then a transformation happens and the pair fall in love and live happily ever after.

So the answer is a kiss? No, not quite! Neither sex are waiting for their future partner to come along and kiss them, thus revealing, at last, their inner core, even if they think that’s the situation. The kiss is a metaphor and they key is to isolate what the metaphor is.

This leads us back to Shakti Gawain’s ‘Energy of the Universe’. There is a moment when the energy is revealed in all its power. That moment is when the initial spark of polarity fires between two people. Suddenly everything is clear and exciting. It is the moment often described as ‘love at first sight’. Shakti Gawain describes it as the moment you have a sense of being right where you want to be and doing what you want to be doing. At that moment the fullness and joy in the experience will be felt by everyone around you.

This happens between two people. The energy of polarity is revealed and acts as a catalyst in two people. That catalyst starts the transformation that moves the man into his masculinity and the woman into her femininity. Most of us know that moment, many of us have felt the spark.

It is at this point that men need to move into top gear and start working on how they show up as a man. I have talked a lot in these pages on this subject and i will be talking about it a lot more. Men are prone to leave this bit out and wonder, later on, why the spark died why the magic didn’t continue.

That initial spark of polarity is just a catalyst, it is just there to set off the chain reaction, not to keep it going. It reveals the infinite potential of polarity as a force between two people, the power that can exist between them, the excitement that comes from the interaction of their cores. Men need to harness that power, need to feel that excitement, need to fully experience the polarity and bring it into their life as a permanent feature. They need to develop their own power, strength and presence and take the woman by storm.

Rumi the 13th century poet said,

“A man’s head may be filled with knowledge of meaningless worldly matters, he may be familiar with all the sciences, and yet not know his own soul. He knows the special properties of every substance, but he is as ignorant as an ass about the nature of his own essence. He declares, “I know what is permissable and what is not,” but he does not know if his own actions are permissable. He knows the precise value of every article he buys and sells; but in his folly he does not know his own value. He has learned to distinguish auspicious stars from inauspicious ones, but he does not examine his soul to see if he is in a fortunate or poor spiritual state. To know yourself, and to live your life in anticipation of the Day of Jusgement, is to master the highest science.”

He needs to discover what his essence is and let it, help it, grow.

Why is this important? Why not just enjoy the initial spark of polarity while it lasts and let the future be what it may be?

David is in the full throws of the amazing passion he has discovered, Sarah is overwhelmed by the impending birth. Life is changing before her eyes in ways that she didn’t anticipate a few months ago. This period can be hateful for a woman, that’s why the hormones let you forget it once the baby is born. She wants to escape from it and thinks it would be great to go travelling the world, once the baby is born. She has a year’s maternity leave, why not use it to go to new places? David starts asking round seeking ideas for where to go.

Of course for him this seems a great idea. But as a man it’s his role to see beyond the irrationality of his woman. It is for him to see what she doesn’t yet see. There will be a vulnerable baby in the first few months of life that needs to be cared for and nurtured. There will be a woman in the throws, potentially, of post-natal depression, a woman for whom life may not make sense any more, a woman trying to come to terms with new responsibilities. It’s for him to think of his family and gently shift the idea into something practical. He will have a family to think of, they need him to be rational and be a man. They rely on him to guide and look after them.

Men are leaders not because they are better than women but because they can have the ability to focus and see beyond the immediate surroundings. They can live beyond this moment into the future. Women can be overwhelmed by their own emotions and the family they look after and can miss the bigger picture.

Men are leaders because they can extrapolate this beyond their immediate family. Nelson Mandela had the focus and foresight to see beyond the immediate surroundings of the prison cell he was held in for 27 years to the needs of his country. He was able to subjugate his needs to those of his people. That is the essence of a man.

Technorati Tags: Archetypes, core essence, energy, essence, feminine, focus, masculine, Presence, women

I wonder, “What do you want in life?”

When we first met you were crazy about her. You couldn’t stop talking about her.

She was passionate and experienced and she blew your world apart. I knew then you couldn’t cope. You wanted so much to be with her, all the time, but you couldn’t make it work.

But that was early on. You had led a sheltered life where women were concerned, you were inexperienced. You needed her to show you the way. That was OK, she was willing to help, she saw the future.

But it never happened, it fell apart.

What went wrong? Where was your energy? Where were you as a man?

You hung around her, desperate for her love. You sat and waited, letting your life drift away. I talked to you and got you to see that you needed to detach from her, be yourself, be strong. You needed take risks, you needed to allow the relationship not to happen. You needed to show what you were and let her choose.

She needed to come to you, to your strength and courage. But you were too scared she wouldn’t, too scared you weren’t enough. You couldn’t see that as long as you thought that you wouldn’t be enough. You would never find her love.

She wanted you out of her life and didn’t believe it. She couldn’t bear the pain of you betraying yourself, of you not being what you could be. You kept calling and she cut you off. She pushed you away. Did you get the message? I don’t think so.

So what do you want. You want to feel love. You want to feel important. You want to find your strength and courage. You want her to come to you.

Too late she will never do that now. She is with another, she is with a man, a man who worships her, who gives her the strength she always sought. She is with a man who pushed her into her feminine, made her a woman.

What is next for you? What will you do? How will you face life?

Start by no longer seeing any of it as being someone else’s fault. Take responsibility and own who you are. Then just walk away, away from the the past, away from the pain. You know how to do it, you know what is involved. You just need to make that switch in your head, you need to make the decision.

Make your life your own. Find your focus and get on with your life. Understand who you are and understand that you need no-one else to make you whole. You don’t need the relationship to complete you. You need nothing more than you are.

Once you are there it will start to happen for you. But you need to make that shift in your heart first.

Technorati Tags: core essence, courage, energy, Power, risks

I have practiced Tantra in the past year and one of the aspects that has had a powerful effect on me has been the special relationship between men and women. It treats men and women as gods and goddesses to be revered and worshipped. This is a powerful starting point from which to understand yourself as a man.

If you can see yourself as worthy of worship by women then you have come a long way to re-awakening your true core as a man.

When you look deeper you find that there are powerful forces at work in Tantric meditation. This came home to me after I took part in a meditation based on Kali and her relationship with Shiva. This relationship, the Shiva-Shakti, goes to the core of male and female energy. It teaches a man to be strong and powerful and to remain detached from what is happening in the woman.

A man’s presence and power has an amazing effect on women only if he remains like a rock and confident in his own certainty and strength.

To understand this better I will explain more about Kali and then come back to draw out the lessons for men.

The Story of Kali

Kali is the Hindu goddess of eternal energy, of time and change. She is the consort of the god Shiva, on whose body she is often seen standing.

Kali conveys death, destruction, and the consuming aspects of reality. She is more than a vicious, slayer of demons who serves Shiva. She is also the supreme mistress of the universe. In union with Shiva she creates and destroys worlds. She is also described as young and beautiful, with a gentle smile, and makes gestures with her right hands to dispel fear. These more positive features turn her divine wrath into a goddess of salvation, who dispelling fear.

In Kali’s most famous story, the gods try to destroy the demon Raktabija. They have worsened the situation, for every drop of blood that is spilt from Raktabija the demon reproduces himself. The battlefield is filled with his duplicates. In need of help, they summons Kali to combat the demon.

She engages the demon in battle. Her eyes are red, her complexion dark, her features gaunt, her hair unbound, and her teeth sharp like fangs. As the eight-armed Goddess rides into battle on her lion, Raktabija experiences fear in his demonic heart. Kali orders the gods to attack him. She spreads her tongue to cover the battlefield preventing a single drop of Raktabija’s blood from falling on the ground. Thus, she prevents him from reproducing himself and the gods are able to slay the demon.

Intoxicated with Raktabija’s blood, Kali runs amuck across the universes, destroying everything and everyone in her sight. To restrain her, Shiva takes the form of a corpse and blocks her path. As the goddess trips on his lifeless body, she is jolted out of her frenzy . She wonders if she has killed her own husband. She places a foot on Shiva’s chest and brings him back to life. Shiva takes the form of a child and begins to cry, stirring maternal love in the heart of Kali who sheds her fierce form becoming a radiant mother, bestower of life.

Kali in Tantra

Goddesses play an important role in Tantra and are central to the nature of reality. They are revered by men who see all women as goddesses. It is this aspect that is most crucial in understanding the Tantric approach to Kali. The Tantric interpretation of Kali standing on top of her husband is:

Shiva (Divine Consciousness) is inactive, while Shakti (Divine Energy as Kali) is active. Shiva represents pure consciousness which is beyond all names, forms and activities. Kali represents the potential energy responsible for all names, forms and activities. She is his Shakti, or creative power, and is seen as the substance behind all consciousness. She can never exist apart from Shiva or act independently of him. Shakti, all the matter/energy of the universe, is not distinct from Shiva, but is rather his dynamic power.

With Shiva as male and Kali as female it is only by their union that creation may transpire.

Shiva’s involvement with Tantra and Kali’s dark nature have led to her becoming an important Tantric figure. To devotees, it was essential to face her Curse, the terror of death, as willingly as they accepted Blessings from her beautiful, nurturing, maternal aspect. For them, wisdom meant learning that no coin has only one side: as death cannot exist without life, so life cannot exist without death.

Kali’s role sometimes grew beyond that of chaos — which could be confronted — to that of one who could bring wisdom.

The Lessons for Men

There are two major lessons for men that come out of the story of Kali. The first concerns a man’s strength and the second informs the powerful relationship between men and women.

If you go back to the story of Kali for the first lesson, you will remember that after succeeding with her task Kali was drunk on the blood of the demon and ran amok in the Universe killing and causing chaos. Women have a tendency to chaos in their nature, they whirl and dance and get caught up in the excitement or fear of the moment. The gods did not know how to deal with this, as is the case frequently with men. Shiva sees what is happening and decides to take control by lying down and doing nothing! He lets Kali trample on him and trusts what the result will be. He does not get involved but shows Kali the power of his trust in her. At the last minute she sees it is her man, stops and calms down. His immovable strength enabled her to let go of the chaos and come back to her normality.

When a man stands like a rock in the midst of female chaos she can lock on to him and let it all go.

For the second lesson look at the Tantric interpretation of Kali standing on Shiva,

“Shiva without Shakti is Shava (without the female power of action the male power of consciousness is dead).”

Without the women, the man is powerless, without the man the woman cannot exist. It is the power of their combination that is responsible for the creation of the world. The essence of the dynamic and creative forces of creation comes from the inter-twining of the two forms of energy.

This takes us men way beyond the childishness of ‘the game’ played by ‘Alpha Males’. It takes us into the vortex of the creative energy that created the world. This energy has the potential to fly off into uncontrolled chaos but through its combination with the strength and power of men it grows and becomes even more powerful.

What is Kali’s Sword

I want to explore the power of this energy. I mean to do this through the thoughts and desires of women. It is important for men to see what they are and what they need to be through the eyes of women, only then can they truly understand their power and their weakness.

I am setting up a platform through ‘Kali’s Sword’ for women to speak about men and open their hearts to us on what is right and wrong with us.

I will be asking some powerful women who have powerful men to talk about what a man is for them and what is important to them in their man. This is not about relationships, it’s not about how they live with and treat each other.

It’s about how the power of a man influences the life of a women and what a man needs to be to be worthy of the power of a women.

I fully expect this to be an explosive series that will reveal the truth for men. If won’t be easy for us, or straightforward.

We will hear some uncomfortable truths, but they will be truths that will help us grow and develop.

So keep a look out for Kali’s Sword on Male eXperience. It will appear over the next few months and will take us all to an amazing place. let the women speak!

Technorati Tags: energy, Goddesses, Hindu mythology, Hinduism, Kali, Tantra

Gary Stamper in “Beyond Integral” has recently written on the importance of polarity in relationships. From my own experience I totally agree with him. Polarity is possibly the most vital element in a living relationship.

What is it about polarity that is so important. Thinking about it after reading Gary’s post I realised it is very basic:

1. Polarity creates energy and relationships are about energy. Energy gives them life and makes them exciting. I have learnt a great deal on this through Tantra where energy is everything.
2. Polarity usually ensures that both sides in the relationship are in their core. It is critical that each person is at ease with themself and is comfortable with how the other is. Polarity reveals so much about this.
3. Polarity ensures their is no confusion in the relationship. Each knows his/her contribution to it and each enjoys the contribution of the other.
4. Polarity creates great sex, on both sides. This is important for the longevity of the relationship.

It was fashionable when I was younger for men and women to seek equality in their relationships, I remember looking for this myself. It seemed fair to give the woman equal say in what happened and for the man to equally contribute. There is no reason why polarity cannot include elements of this. A re-awakened relationship will take the best of the past and integrate it into a new, exciting, energetic relationship.

Technorati Tags: energy, Female, Male, Men, Polarity, Relationships