Men can become so obsessed with what it takes to attract a woman, that they often overlook the importance of knowing how to grow alongside one.
What’s the value of attracting the perfect woman if your relationship to her is bound to fall apart?
While you can learn techniques to help you appear more attractive to the opposite sex, techniques alone have no shelf life. They only last as long as you’re willing to keep up the act. And while this may work for one night stands, it predictably fails to create a lasting connection.
A woman who is skillfully loved will become more attracted to you over time, not less. Her trust in you will strengthen over the years, rather than diminish. And her desire to open sexually to you will become more provocative the longer you’re together.
It’s so commonly believed that sexual attraction between lovers naturally wanes over time that few ever consider that the opposite is possible.
You can create a relationship where your sexual connection deepens over the years, rather than decays.
This is accomplished by consciously stoking the flames of sexual desire that drew you together in the first place. Your relationship to the woman you claim will then continue to serve and nourish you both, so long as you choose.
Whether you are single or in a relationship, stop obsessing on what it takes to attract a woman and start focusing on what it takes to grow sexually and spiritually alongside one. Rather than chasing sex like a starving animal spooking its prey, purposefully rest into your depth until your sexual essence becomes like gravity, drawing your lover closer.
The biggest mistakes men make in relationships have little to do with their skills inside of the bedroom, and everything to do with their relationship to desire itself.
A man will struggle to attract and sustain a deeply meaningful sexual relationship if...
He restrains his desire
He thinks his desire will be satisfied once he has what he wants
He spoils what he has by wishing for what he doesn’t
The way out of each of these pitfalls follows...
1. Embrace Desire
“Those who restrain desire do so because theirs is weak enough to be restrained.” ―William Blake
Your ability to achieve is dependent upon the strength of your desire.
A man who lacks desire accomplishes nothing. And therefore, he cannot be trusted.
A man who exploits desire adulterates everything. And therefore, he cannot be trusted.
A man who embraces desire and wields it with integrity is not only trusted, but boldly attractive.
Right relationship to desire is crucial.
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Desire is the impetus behind your every action—actions that either draw your desires closer or push them further away.
If your desire is weak, your actions will be weak. As a result, you will become less attractive. Not only to women, but to everything else you want. If your desire is strong, your actions will be strong. And as a result, you will become easier to spot in a crowd. In other words, it won’t be so hard for what you want to find you.
Women are drawn towards men who are: physically strong, mentally strong, emotionally strong, and willfully strong. Because strength is an expression of confidence in one’s desires.
You don’t have to be strong in all of these areas. But if you want your sexual essence to become like gravity, then you must become strong in at least one of them.
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Men commonly find themselves in one of two places:
You understand the value of desire, yet struggle to generate it. You feel depleted, directionless, and worthless. Afflictive words repeat like a mantra in your mind, “I’m not enough. I’m a failure. My life has no purpose.” You struggle to get out of bed. You feel only agitated by the success of others. And you feel plagued by a lack of motivation that prevents you from accomplishing anything at all.
You’re overrun by your desires. You feel anxious, overstimulated, and unable to sit still. You find yourself chasing desire like an addict chasing highs—more money, more women, more food, more drugs, more sex. And no matter what you consume, your hunger persists. Once you’ve had your fill of one thing, you immediately begin consuming the next. For you, satiety means nothing more than gorging yourself until your body cramps from a kind of fullness that is so unpleasant, all you can do in response is pass out. It’s the only rest you get from your incessant cravings for more. Regardless of what you accomplish, it never feels enough.
Desire can be your greatest ally or your worst enemy.
If you fail to generate desire, you will always feel impotent.
If you fail to tame your desire, you will always be at its mercy.
Desire is a dragon—not to be restrained, but to be mastered.
2. Master the Dragon
“Ultimately, it is the desire, not the desired, that we love.” ―Friedrich Nietzsche
When it comes to desire, there is no greater teacher than sex. A man’s sexual appetite is a microcosm of his relationship to desire as a whole.
Whether you’re sexually active or not, until you’re willing to look squarely into the eyes of your sexual self, you’re blind to the forces that influence your every decision. This is not because every decision you make is driven by sex, but because it is the desire, not the desired, that you love. And until you realize what this means, you will be a slave to all that you cannot have.
No other area of life fuses desire and love as intensely as sexual relationships do.
For this reason, your sexual relationships can become one of your greatest teachers. But only if you know how to engage them. Otherwise, they’re liable to become your greatest source of suffering.
Sex brings out the best and worst in men. If you fail to see the significance in Nietzsche’s words, then you can be certain that for you, sex will only continue to bring out your worst.
Rather than being compassionate, you will be manipulative.
Rather than being loving, you will be selfish.
Rather than being trustworthy, you will be suspect.
Your lovers will see through your lies, even when they’re pretending not to.
Your lovers will be unable to trust you because you will not be able to trust yourself.
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When your attention is hijacked by an object of desire, you enter into a state of delusion—craving what you do not have and perpetually dissatisfied with what is here and now.
You’re no longer present.
Your mind moves with the object of your desire.
You’re pulled off balance and lose your center, each time you reach for it.
In this state, your attention is not free, but obsessed. You become impossible to trust. You mistake desire for something that is obtainable, and reinforce the notion that you are always separate from what you want.
You’re dissatisfied with what you have and long for something else.
You’re dissatisfied with where you are and long to be somewhere else.
You’re dissatisfied with who you are and long to be someone else.
You’re dissatisfied with who you’re with and long to be with someone else.
You trick yourself into thinking that if you obtain the object of your desire, then this chronic sense of “not enough” will be relieved once and for all.
But it never is.
Though the objects of desire change everlastingly, desire itself is the eternal constant.
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Only a fool blindly chases the objects of his desire, desperately holding on to the fantasy that one day he will be eternally satisfied. And only a fool is unable to see that every attempt he makes to rid himself of desire is just another form of desire itself. He desires to be free from desire, and therefore is no freer.
If you cannot live harmoniously with desire, then you cannot live harmoniously at all. Your eternal longing for more, better, different, becomes your prison. Such a man can never be free.
A good man understands that desire cannot be relieved nor eradicated. Knowing this, he stops trying to fill the hole in his heart, and embraces the feeling instead. He realizes that it’s his eternal yearning that wakes him up in the morning—that mobilizes his limbs into action, that motivates him to take charge and make change, and drives him towards his life’s deepest purpose. He learns to love the hole inside of his heart instead of needing to fill it.
When he looks at the object of his desire, he loves not the object, but desire itself.
When he looks into the eyes of his lover, he loves not the object of his love, but love itself.
Knowing this, a good man is free wherever he goes—whether inside or outside of a relationship.
Because he is not bound by desire, he is free.
Because he is free, he is able to love unconditionally.
Because he loves unconditionally, the gravity of his presence draws all of life towards him.
3. Love What Is
“Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.” ―Epicurus
Men want what they do not have. This is the source of their suffering.
Regardless of what they accomplish or acquire—success in business, a beautiful wife, healthy children, praise from their peers—they can’t seem to shake the feeling that it’s never enough. Blind to their dilemma, they keep pressing forward, holding out for the day when it will finally be enough. But that day never comes.
To make matters worse, they’re convinced that their manhood is defined by their ability to do what they have not done, obtain what they do not have, and become who they do not believe themselves to be.
As men, somewhere deep within ourselves, there looms a haunting sense that if we were to be completely satisfied with our lives—what we have, where we are, who we are, and who we are with—then we would somehow be admitting defeat. We would be admitting that we were failures as men.
As a result, men struggle to accept what is. They struggle to accept themselves.
And without acceptance, they’re fated to suffer eternally. They can never be free.
But to ignore the desire in their hearts would be to abandon all that makes them men.
This is one of man’s greatest dilemmas.
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Everything you desire is rooted in an eternal fight for freedom.
You desire...
food because it promises freedom from hunger
money because of the freedom of options it affords
free time to enjoy your life free from obligations
travel to explore all walks of life without bounds
sex to enjoy sensual pleasure without limits on quantity or quality
Even your purpose is deeply rooted in your eternal fight for freedom.
Purpose is the obstacle that stands between you and absolute freedom. Because once you know what you must do, accomplish or become before you die, you will feel certain that once you complete your mission, you will finally be free from the obligation of life itself.
While this eternal fight for freedom may serve you in certain areas of your life, it has a way of backfiring when it comes to growing alongside the woman you love.
In one moment, you desire to be with her. In the next, you desire to be free from her.
Your desire toggles back and forth—moving towards her in one moment, and pulling away in the next. Your heart is torn between two freedoms. You ache for freedom from loneliness, yet yearn for freedom from ties.
When you desire her, you’re present, attentive, considerate, even romantic.
When you don’t, you’re distant, cold, focused elsewhere, even cruel.
This is how your unconscious relationship to desire is prone to destroy the sexual relationships in your life.
It’s for such reasons that the greatest wise men have always said: desire is something that must be transcended if man is to live a balanced life. The same is true if you should choose to grow sexually and spiritually alongside the woman you love.
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The secret to mastering desire is to love what is.
Love her as she is. Love yourself as you are. Love what is, exactly as it is.
Stoke the flames of your desire, but free yourself from attachment to the objects themselves.
Transform your desire into passion by channelling it into that which you already have. And use it to forge a lasting connection with the person you love, that supports you in becoming the man you must before you die.
To love what is, is to surrender.
And man would rather die than surrender.
It’s for this very reason that surrender is the highest virtue of man.