AN INVITATION FOR CHANGE

I invite you to take some time and think about what your emotional hang ups are in this area of your life,
where they probably come from, and how you could overcome them in an open and honest way.

As an example, I grew up in a broken family where all members isolated themselves and we seldom
communicated our emotions. As a result, I became highly sensitive to confrontation and any negative
emotions of others. I became the consummate Nice Guy and for years struggled to assert myself in my
relationships and around women. In fact, I objectified my sex life quite a bit and adopted some
narcissistic behaviors in order to push me through some of these insecurities.

My fear of commitment is undoubtedly rooted in my parents’ divorce, and my knee jerk reaction for
years was to run away any time a woman attempted to get close to me. I slowly eroded that fear by
opening myself up to intimate opportunities little by little over a long period of time. I was incapable of
becoming intimate with a woman unless I had an escape route (i.e., she had a boyfriend, or I was going
to move to another city soon, etc.).

Spending all of my adolescence living alone with my mother has made me particularly sensitive to
female affection, and like a smoker rationalizing reasons to smoke one last cigarette, I have often
rationalized myself into intimate and sexual situations with women who I perhaps should not have been
with or didn’t actually like as much as I thought I did.

This is my emotional map — at least part of it. These are the hang ups and issues that I’ve battled and
slowly beaten back with years of active effort. These are the realities that I express openly and seek out
the proper women who can handle them.