When there is an ongoing disruption of connection, we often reach out in desperation before retreating into despair.
~ Deb Dana
Fifteen years ago my unhappy twenty something self discovered the pick up artist, seduction and men’s dating community. Frustrated, confused and dissatisfied with love and life, I found hope in the promise of a solution to my loneliness and general sense of disconnection. Fifteen years of avoidable pain, drama and heartbreaks (mine included) later, I feel I have come to an understanding of both the true nature of my problem, and the misguided solutions that men, who share this problem, offer other men.
This blog post is written for my younger self most of all, but addresses all men who have embarked on the mission of fixing their loneliness and “solving women.” That being said, I will be writing about a core aspect of human nature, so my hope is anyone who reads this will find something of use in these words.
Fair warning : even though this is meant as merely an introduction to a (possibly) new paradigm, this is easily a two hour read.
(Updated 7/2023)
It’s Like Playing Guitar
Let’s start with an analogy. When a person wants to learn to play an instrument – let’s use guitar in our story – two possible scenarios unfold. The first one is the most common, to the point of being a cliché. Our person is a big fan of a certain famous musician, and wants to be like them, play like them, sound like them. A guitar is bought, research is done, a lot of practicing happens, all for the goal of sounding like the famous hero. Playing a musical instrument is usually a very physical affair, but the actual physical conditioning the famous hero had to go through to become so good – years of diligent and consistent practice – somehow never enters the equation.
Great musicians all have one thing in common : they make it look easy. This is because they have learned, either consciously or through unnecessary trial and error, that the key to mastering their instrument is relaxation. It is only when the body is well versed in the movements required to play the instrument, and can do so with the least amount of muscle activation necessary, that musical self-expression can become a free flowing, mystical experience. And look effortless.
What happens in our budding guitarist is actually the opposite. Their untrained fingers aren’t able to do what their hero’s fingers can, because they were never taught the fundamental concept of playing the instrument from a place of relaxation. Instead, they force their body to copy the movements they see their hero perform, and use excessive muscle strength to compensate for their lack of relaxed agility. This now becomes their actual practice : use excessive force and muscular tension to play. This is what they educate their body to do, and after a few years, this becomes their art : fighting through their self-hindrance to come to musical self-expression. This not only leads to inconsistent, mediocre results and frustration, but might even end in injury or chronic illness. No shit. I’ve seen it happen.
The second scenario is much less common. Our person is a big fan of a certain famous musician, and wants to be like them, play like them, sound like them. A guitar is bought, research is done, and a teacher is found who makes it clear that, to sound as good as the famous hero, you need to first and foremost understand and apply the fundamental concept of relaxation. When this basic premise is accepted – which requires a certain level of emotional maturity and humility – a different path unfolds. Our budding guitarist now diligently and patiently practices, all the while focusing on relaxation as the main goal. Not the fancy guitar solo. Relaxation.
This now becomes their actual practice : use the least amount of force and muscular contraction possible to play. This is what they educate their body to do, and after a few years, this becomes their art : natural and effortless self expression. Because their body now has the capacity for relaxed playing that made their famous hero be so good, they can now be as good, but in their own way, using their own musical voice. Both paths can lead to the same place, but the first one rarely arrives there, because it lacks the conscious approach to learning this fundamental concept, and is instead focused on external results : the fancy guitar solo.
What does sometimes happen though, is that a person who is on the first path realizes after a few years (or decades) that the second path has always been the one to follow. But by that time, their body has been well educated in the ways of tension, and learning relaxation will now include unlearning habitual tension. It’s not ideal, and often very frustrating, but at least it’s the right path.
Almost all so-called dating advice for men follows the first path. The primary focus is outside results. The fancy guitar solo from the analogy becomes the illusive goal of “being successful with women”, which can mean many things. A smile, a phone number, a date, a threesome or a different girl for every day of the week. And how to get to this success also follows the guitar analogy – copy the men who seem to have the skills we don’t, but desperately want.
Do what they do, say what they say, move like they move, talk like they talk, even think like they think. Which brings us to the analogy again. This is what many men educate their body to do, and after a few years, this becomes their art : fighting through their unconscious and pre-existing self-hindrance to come to self-expression. This not only leads to inconsistent, mediocre results and frustration, but might even end in injury or chronic illness. Well, maybe not injury.
In this community of unsatisfied and desperate men there is a glorification of the theatrics of seduction, accompanied by the illusion that this will produce “results.” I have spent fifteen years of my life chasing this illusion. During that time it has always disappointed me, as well as the women who had the misfortune of coming into my misguided crosshairs. There were outside results, both acceptable and awful, but these never solved the inner dissatisfaction. It took fifteen years for me to finally find a teaching (or be ready for one) that provided a tool to lift the rug, and to look at the things that had been swept under there – for most of my life.
The Blind Leading The Blind
Here’s the dirty little unconscious secret of the whole men’s dating and seduction community : most men who carry the dubious title of being good with women, and who try to teach other men to be the same, fall in one of the following two categories. The first kind of man has come to embody the fundamental qualities required for connection (which I will explain in a minute) to some degree, through trial and error, but is not consciously aware of how they operate within himself. Because his development has always been outwardly focused, and very slow because of the trial and error strategy, he never came to the conscious realization that the eventual ease of connection he started to experience, came from a deep embodiment of these fundamental qualities.
The second kind of man never came to truly embody these fundamental qualities at all, but instead learned to skillfully portray a man who does. He has a masterful understanding of what the behavior of a man, who has access to these fundamental qualities, looks like. Both of these man only teach behavior – and the accompanying misguided mental strategizing – because that is all they know. The first kind of man may indeed have access to these fundamental qualities, and may even try to teach his limited and distorted understanding of them, but I have yet to find someone who goes straight to the core of the matter, and who simultaneously goes against any form of theatrics.
A first little side note on self development : many of the teachers in this community who have been at it since its inception, have been slowly and spontaneously evolving towards spiritual bypassing and Instagram style self development in their work. This can be seen as a positive evolution, as it denotes a moving away from the surface level manipulations and theatrics as a (very inadequate) solution to the connection problems so many men face and endure. Unfortunately, this is most often more a cosmetic change in vocabulary, than it is a deepening awareness of the underlying mechanics of human connection.
The basic premise of this post is that we, as men, are looking for answers without being aware that our main questions are wrong. The internet is riddled with people who sell tips and tricks, definitive answers to these wrong questions – five step solutions to the wrong problem. My goal here is not to give you comprehensive answers or solutions, but to shift your attention to a different set of questions and give you a new lens through which to look at the world. These new questions and this new lens brought me new understandings, which actually made a difference in my level of satisfaction with life. I hope they will do the same for you.
My light bulb moment came when I realized that my body and my nervous system had been unconsciously educated to actively resist social connection – for almost all of my life. After six months of inner exploration (which pales in comparison to the fifteen years of blindly flailing around while following the blind) and the subsequent discovery of a new intellectual framework, I identified four fundamentals qualities that we as humans, and especially as men, require for natural connection to occur – but often lack. I label these four fundamental qualities, in descending order of importance, Safety, Inner Clarity, Embodiment and Connectability.
Safety
I use the word safety in the context of the nervous system. It is both the skill and the experience of connecting to, and then developing your own inner sense of neurological safety. This is a fundamental skill to master in the context of social connection, because it deals directly with the neurobiological system that makes social connection possible – or impossible – to begin with. To understand what the context of nervous system health is, a quick and dirty lesson in human neurophysiology is necessary.
To greatly oversimplify things, our nervous system is comprised of several branches. The two main branches are the central nervous system, which is made up of our brain and spinal cord, and the peripheral nervous system, which are all the other nerves in our body. The peripheral nervous system divides again in two branches, the somatic nervous system, which governs muscle control and touch, and the autonomic nervous system, which in the classic sense is seen as responsible for organ function and metabolism. We will only focus on the latter.
The autonomous nervous system branches out again, into the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system. The parasympathetic nervous system then branches out into two more sub-systems, the dorsal and ventral vagus nerve. It is the understanding of these three systems that will be the guiding principle in everything that follows.
Of these three, the dorsal vagus nerve is the oldest in evolutionary terms. This primitive system developed about 500 million years ago, in primitive sea creatures, and is responsible for immobilization and metabolic conservation, and governs mainly the internal organs. The middle child is the sympathetic nervous system, also known as the lizard brain, which developed around 300 million years ago. It is responsible for acute mobilization of the body and mainly governs the limbs.
The youngest of the bunch is the ventral vagus nerve, which only exists in mammals, and which developed 80 million years ago. It is responsible for social capacity, and is most developed in primates, with us humans being the pinnacle of nervous system evolution. It mainly governs facial expression, the vocal apparatus and the energetic systems for social connection – what is often referred to as the proverbial heart. (To get a better sense of how old these nervous system branches actually are, watch this video.)
To focus on the practical implications, these nervous system branches provide us with three distinct mechanisms to ensure our body’s survival : the fight or flight and the collapse responses occur when the autonomous nervous system perceives threat, and guarantee our short-term survival. The third mechanism is the so-called safe and social system, which is the state of calm alertness that allows our newer and more advanced social capabilities to take the lead, and ensure our long-term survival through complex social bonding and cooperation.
It is important here to understand that these three mechanisms are linked, and when working together as nature intended, autonomously shift from one state to another, in perfect alignment with outside circumstances. When there is a physical threat, there is instant mobilization of the body, so it is ready to fight or flee, without losing time on less urgent matters. When death is imminent, the body goes into the so-called collapse state. All vital systems slow down and natural analgesics are released in the body, to make the act of being eaten by a predator just a little less messy and painful – or to just play dead, with the goal of being ignored and not eaten at all. When there is no immediate physical threat, the autonomic nervous system will inhibit its acute survival response and allow the body to engage freely in complex social interaction, as well as allot its resources to higher brain functioning.
These systems operate inside a hierarchy. In evolutionary terms, the newer systems are built on the older ones, and the older ones outrank the newer ones. When in danger, survival – fight or flight – will take precedence over social skill. When a threat is perceived as overwhelming by the nervous system, it will autonomously go into collapse, and immobilization and shutdown will take precedence over mobilization. This is absolutely fine in nature, but since us humans have been living increasingly unnatural lives for so long, our autonomous nervous system has been culturally conditioned for dysregulation : it has learned to feel threatened all the time, and stay stuck in one of its survival modes.
This is the reason why I stress the importance of safety : when our autonomous nervous system gets trapped in the more primitive survival modes, it will greatly inhibit the higher and more human social capabilities. Everything I write in this post will be orbiting this central idea. The unconscious and chronic dysfunction of this system has been one of the defining factors in human evolution, and it is time to acknowledge, understand and consciously integrate this older system into a larger and more evolved experience of being human.
A side note on “Dude WTF does any of this have to do with getting better with women?!?” : The compulsive outward reaching desire to become more skilled at connecting with people you’re attracted to, is in itself nothing but a symptom and expression of this chronic survival state. When the sense of unsafety is the predominant, but unconscious, background of your experience of life, it not only causes the root problem of your lack of connectability, it also informs the mental strategizing that occurs in order to solve this apparent problem.
In reality, the only reason a man wants to “get better with women” is that, on an unconscious level, the body craves its home base of safety and healing, and the natural and deep connection to another person it can provide. The distortion of this desire in effect reduces women from being our fellow human beings, to being a thing that can provide us a false safety fix. This distorted desire dissolves when you learn to provide your own inner sense of safety, which will also bring your natural social connection system back online.
To make these ideas more tangible : to consciously integrate these older, more primitive systems you are required to take full personal responsibility and ownership of how your nervous system operates. What that looks like will become more clear when I describe the second and third fundamental qualities. For now I want to stress the importance of understanding the unavoidable nature of the alternating states of safety and survival, and the importance of understanding how they operate in your own being. Your life will only be as fulfilling as the questions you ask yourself, and I strongly believe these are the most fundamental questions to want an answer to : when and why do I feel safe or unsafe, and how can I feel safe when there is no need to feel unsafe?
Honestly contemplating these questions is a serious undertaking, because the unconscious state of unsafety is very much the norm in modern human society. So much so that we rarely will want to think of our habitual troubled states as originating from a biological sense of unsafety, and instead fall into the trap of looking for external causes. We are so used to interacting with the world through the skills we developed to compensate for this chronic yet unconscious sense of unsafety, that we call them our personalities, and defend them vigorously – even against actual healing.
Arguably this is even more so for men, as the culturally accepted definition of being a “Real Man” is rooted in the capacity to never allow signs of unsafety in our self-expression. This also implies that being born with a penis makes it OK to be shamed for feeling and expressing unsafety. Big boys don’t cry. But more on that later.
As I mentioned, it took me months of intense and consistent embodiment work to make first contact with this aspect of my experience of life. To get my first peeks under the rug. Intellectual understanding and acceptance of these ideas might require some effort, but growing deep awareness of how this dysregulation operates in your body is the task of a lifetime. Which brings me to the second fundamental skill.
Inner Clarity
Interoception is my new favorite word. It’s a relatively new concept in the world of neuroscience, and apparently it still lacks a commonly agreed upon definition. In general terms, it is considered to be the system by which we can have conscious awareness of our internal states. That by which we get to know what happens on the inside. In my own language, I define it as the system that provides us with awareness of the invisible world. This goes from the most basic stuff – I’m hungry, I need to pee – through our coarse and more subtle emotions and sensations, all the way to actually feeling the flow of intelligent life force energy, how it animates our body and connects us with all of life around us.
Conscious interoception is a new name for an old skill – inner exploration is as old as humanity itself. What makes interoception new is the fact that it is the child of modern neuroscience, and is not looked at through the lens of spirituality, religion or even mind-based psychology, but through the lens of the nervous system, human biology, physiology, and evolution.
Looking through this lens not only takes the appeal of magical thinking out of the skill of inner exploration, it also makes it very tangible and practical. It does away with the need for heady meditation, concept-based spiritual rituals, the need for faith in unseen forces, or the intervention of supernatural healers. It also does away with most forms of talk therapy, or any practice based on altering your mental narration. And it does not require medication, whether natural or man made.
All it takes is earnest education on the topic of nervous system health, and deep and consistent exploration and mapping of your inner landscape : intellectual and somatic understanding. This will eventually solve a problem that, at its core, is nothing but a long-standing and unresolved human misunderstanding.
The educational aspect of this skill begins with the learning and intellectual understanding of the Polyvagal Theory, developed by Dr. Stephen Porges in the 1990s. Polyvagal Theory and its implications with regard to nervous system regulation served as the scaffolding for this post. I will not go down that very deep rabbit hole. If you are unfamiliar with this theory, you can watch a short video interview with the man himself here. A good place to start a deep dive is this video featuring Deb Dana. As for the exploration of your inner landscape, my three part post titled Embodiwhatnow? is where I drone on at length about the necessity, practicalities and benefits of a consistent, free-form embodiment practice.
In the context of this post, embodiment serves two purposes, one inward, one outward. Its outward purpose will be discussed in the third fundamental quality. Its inward purpose is to bring clarity to the internal misunderstanding, through somatic self-honesty. Somatic self-honesty is a fancy way of saying you have access to your inner world of sensation, and that you do not shrink back from what you may find there. You need to look under the rug, there is no way around it.
But the somatic clarity you gain about your inner workings, through this exploration, is exactly what will allow you to take responsibility and ownership of your inner sense of safety. If you approach your embodiment practice with the goal of understanding how the safety and survival mechanism operates in you, and how your more primitive nervous systems can run and ruin your life, sooner or later you will experience a sense of empowerment that no amount of behavior mimicking, intellectual understanding, or even profound spiritual practice can bring you.
A side note on neuroception : One aspect of interoception that is very relevant to this topic is called neuroception. This is the system that the autonomous nervous system uses to assess threat or safety. Neuroception functions outside of conscious awareness, but we can become familiar with how it affects both our body and our thinking.
Even though understanding the workings of the autonomous nervous system looks like a very dry, theoretical and intellectual affair, we can learn to become somatically and intellectually aware of its operation. And we can not only become skillfully aware of what it communicates to us, we can also learn to have a conscious conversation with it.
The outward counterpart of interoception is called exteroception, which are the systems that provide us with awareness of the outside world. Among these are the classical five senses. (#LittleMaffia) The perception of our environment, the inner stories this perception produces, and our consequent behavior, is greatly influenced by the state of our autonomous nervous system. When our physiology is in its natural state of safety – the calm alertness mentioned earlier – we are present in the here and now, and acutely but serenely aware of our surroundings. This is the actual meaning of what is often referred to as Presence. This is not the elusive state of spiritual awareness it has been made out to be, but the simple experience of our autonomous nervous system being in its natural state of safety.
However, when we are trapped in chronic survival mode, our perception of our external environment is very much influenced by our internal state of unsafety. We see threat everywhere – even when there isn’t any – and then react accordingly. This dissonance between our behavior and our surroundings has a strange side effect on other people : by compulsively looking at the world through danger colored glasses, our behavior appears disconnected from the shared reality to other people, and we inevitably become perceived as a threat ourselves. This will then create further proof that our feelings of unsafety were warranted all along – but more on that later.
Finding inner safety, through inner clarity, takes us out of this vicious cycle. Practices that teach us to experience our external world, untainted by these glasses, are definitely useful and necessary. But the more we become aware of – and befriend – what lives under our rug, the less it can influence and cloud our perception of the world we live in. And as we find more inner safety, we will become increasingly aware of the outer safety that has always been obscured from us. This is the moment in the guitar analogy where your individual and natural style of self-expression (and connecting) will unfold spontaneously. Which brings me to the third fundamental quality.
Embodiment
The three basic survival strategies of the autonomous nervous system – fight or flight, collapse and safety – express themselves as five distinct posturings within the social context. Some of these posturings can be observed in captive mammals, and especially in primates, and are often erroneously referred to as character traits. Looking at how these manifest in yourself will provide a powerful framework to understand all the ways in which your autonomous nervous system is dysregulated.
I use the word dysregulated because the first four posturings are specific symptoms of trapped, unfinished or unexpressed survival responses. When the body was somehow prevented to move through its natural in-the-moment response to threat, this response will get trapped in the body and continually inform our thinking and behavior. I label these five posturings, in order of consciousness, Collapsed, Rigid, Protective, Compliant and Safe, and will illustrate here how they generally show up in men.
The Collapsed man is the defeated man. He has no access to his internal sense of power. He lives his life trapped in perpetual victim-hood, turned inward and wallowing in despair, sadness and grief. His body is flaccid, his demeanor is lifeless, his appearance pale and sickly. The collapsed man is the man who prefers to retreat to the background, the quiet onlooker, unable and unwilling to participate in the flow of life – disconnected and numb to the world. On the extreme end of the spectrum, he meets both his inside and outside world with fear and disgust. Such a man registers to other people’s nervous system as being repulsive.
The Rigid man is the impotent man. He is chronically resistant to change, whether good or bad, and cannot escape his own resistance. He is unable to freely express himself because his inner truth is imprisoned by his habitual tension. He goes through life stuck in a hard shell, unable to let himself out, or let others in. This shell also makes it impossible for him act upon his body’s desires and decisions, which makes him appear weak, undecisive, passive, aloof and emotionless. His human nature is hidden from the world. Such a man registers to other people’s nervous system as being confusing.
The Protective man is the territorial man : stubborn in physical or intellectual ways. He takes on the stance of intimidation, physically or intellectually, and sees competition as a law of the universe. Survival of the fittest. He is the man of action, even though his actions are mostly reactions to his unconscious sense of threat. He compensates for his inner sense of unsafety with physical or intellectual self-protection. He is the culturally idealized Alpha warrior man. He will chase and hunt for what he wants, but also flee anything that resembles true human connection. On the far end of the spectrum he is dangerous, aggressive and volatile. Such a man registers to other people’s nervous system as being dominant.
The Compliant man is the man of conformity. His default survival strategy is to befriend or adapt to any perceived threat, whether that threat is physical, emotional or intellectual. This is the people pleaser, the team player, the inconspicuous and ubiquitous nice guy. The dreaded Beta male. He tries to keep the peace, often at the expense of his own inner truth. Such a man registers to other people’s nervous system as being submissive.
A weird side note on polarity : A very popular topic that deals with the dynamics between the opposites of masculine and feminine energy. Many of the traits exhibited by the Protective and Compliant man are culturally considered to be masculine and feminine qualities, respectively. This is why polarity also comes into play between the opposites of the so-called Alpha and Beta male, with often strange hierarchies and power plays as a result. Once you get a feel for how these survival mechanism operate in yourself, you will see this dynamic play out everywhere men come together.
Lastly, the truly Safe man is a rare breed of man to encounter in the wild. This man is open – free from reactive resistance to life. He is the mythical man of “confidence.” Everything about him is embracing and inviting. More common, however, is the man of false safety, who became skilled at portraying the Safe posture through external means or mimicry, and is actually a Rigid or Protective man in disguise. Either way, this man usually arrived at true or postured safety through severe hardship and/or massive life experience. Such a man registers to other people’s nervous system as being attractive or charming.
A quick side note on the blind leading the blind : As mentioned in the introduction, most men who profess to be dating coaches take their unconscious somatic understanding for granted. They have, slowly and unwittingly, acquired this bodily understanding, and remain oblivious to how it informs and shapes their social interactions. To use a food metaphor : many of these so-called coaches will be selling you pictures of food, all the while being convinced (and convincing) that these will bring you real nourishment.
The first four posturings in this list, and any variation, elaboration or combination thereof, are the often culturally embraced, but always unconscious expression of the chronically activated survival state. This is of course a very generalized description, and in reality no man is ever displaying just one of these posturings. This is a grey area, and most men cycle through these four posturings throughout their life and throughout their days. But one posturing will usually be predominant, depending on current and past circumstances, unless an extreme life event – or conscious intervention – takes place.
The posturings I described are all unconscious and unquestioned, because their root cause is kept under the rug : the chronic state of survival and unsafety. But therein lies the solution : when you can bring awareness to your predominant posturing, they become a possible entryway into your somatic truth and self-honesty. Where interoception brings you into contact with what the body is truly experiencing, a free-form embodiment practice, geared toward conscious nervous system exploration, will slowly bring your inner experience and your physical expression of these experiences, current or trapped, into alignment.
This is conscious posturing, where with love and patience, we teach our body to feel safe in expressing its own inner truth. All of its inner truth – including the somatic states of powerlessness, helplessness, worthlessness, cowardice, rage, loneliness and self-hatred, but also of joy, attraction, silliness and wonderment – without the interference of the mental narration, which has learned to self-shame to keep us safe. This is the only way for the body to come to a consciously chosen, natural state of safety in an unnatural world. And it is this natural state of safety that creates the space for natural social connection to take place. Which brings me to the fourth fundamental skill. But first…
A side note on boundaries : Boundaries are your body’s intrinsic likes and dislikes. This has little to do with intellectual preferences. From the perspective of nervous system regulation, expressing your boundaries in a social context requires the safety system to be online. But when natural self-expression itself registers as unsafe to your nervous system – because, for example, you were consistently reprimanded for it – setting boundaries will be a self-produced threat you will naturally try to avoid. Trying to force the setting of boundaries, as prophesied by much of the spiritual and self-help world, will be a sin against your actual nervous system truth, and will only exacerbate the underlying dysregulation.
In contrast, when your safety system is being brought online through conscious practice, your body will begin to naturally express its likes and dislikes, because there will no longer be a reason not to. This journey of discovering your true likes and dislikes, as they express themselves spontaneously, can prove to be quite scary at times – but also exquisitely liberating.
Connectability
When we live in a chronic state of unsafety, due to the hierarchical nature of the autonomous nervous system, our natural social connection system will be inhibited. But this does not remove our biological and emotional need for social interaction and connection. Our being learns to compensate for the rift between this reduced connectability and our natural craving for connection, through unconscious posturing and mental narration. To understand why this is the case, we need to understand that a human being’s social abilities need specific circumstances and nurturing to develop in a healthy way. These abilities do not come online by themselves post-natally, and are designed by nature to require outside guidance.
In the ideal, natural situation, a newborn human infant’s innate social connection system will come online and develop through healthy and consistent connection and interaction with its primary caregiver, and later its extended social family. However, if we do not have reliable access to these early and deeply defining interactions in a healthy way, or these interactions are dysfunctional or harmful to us somehow, we learn from a very young age that social interaction is unpredictable, untrustworthy, and hence, unsafe.
A harsh side note on social dysfunction : when you are convinced that you “suck with women”, this is most likely a sign of a deeper dysfunction of your social connection system. In this case your friendships and family ties are affected by this dysfunction as well, and you actually “suck at connecting” in general. This can be both a defeating and liberating realization, depending on your capacity to embrace this personal truth.
As a child, when social engagement registers as unsafe to our autonomous nervous system, our natural inclination is to engage in mimicking behavior and mental strategizing, which serve as the tools that help us safely navigate our personal social minefield. Unless integrated consciously, people will live out their lives using these preverbal social compensation tools, which they developed as infants. I used the words ‘natural inclination,’ because these compensatory systems have evolved to keep us socially and physically safe in the absence of healthy social nurturing, no matter the cost. They are not the cause of the dysfunction, and our ignorance of the workings of these systems is what keeps the dysfunction running our lives.
The chronic state of unsafety exists only in the context of social interaction. As stated, it is often caused by dysfunctional social interaction, usually early in our nervous system development, and the only arena it can truly heal in, is the arena of social interaction. We all share this autonomous nervous system, which is responsible for our survival in case of physical threat or imminent demise. But, this system is also responsible for spawning connection, curiosity and creativity when it is in safety mode. As such, it contains the natural mechanism that creates, sustains and deepens our connection to other human beings, a connection which can extend to all forms of life.
A side note on the so-called social skills : This natural system for social engagement is not working properly when your physiology is trapped in a chronic state of unsafety. Being trapped in chronic survival mode is a defining characteristic of modern day humanity. What is then commonly reffered to as social skill, is only the culturally agreed upon compensatory skill set that allows humans to function in the social context of society, without having access to this natural connection system.
Just like soldiers who are well-trained in combat, can rely on deeply ingrained habitual behavior to take over when their system is overwhelmed, so do many people rely on habitual social behavior to get through their day – and lives. This is a universally accepted paradigm that makes our modern, unnatural civilization function and not collapse in on itself. If you’ve ever worked in retail, you have experienced this firsthand.
What I call the quality of connectability is the conscious practice of putting the natural system for social engagement back on its rightful throne.Through inner clarity and embodiment we learn to bring alignment between our inner experiences and outer expressions. From this place of inner clarity, somatic self-honesty and wholeness, we learn to, slowly and lovingly, give our autonomous nervous system the space to come back to its natural working order. Which means that, unless there is an actual threat, it is in a state of safety. And from that consistent place of safety, inner awareness and truthful self-expression through the body, we can explore what spontaneously – and without effort – unfolds in the arena of social connection and interaction.
But beware, this can be new and uncharted territory for your entire being, and might even bring its own sense of threat. The gradual absence of your unconscious protective shield of posturing, and the often times raw emotion it exposes, will most likely feel like existential nakedness at first. But as you become more and more familiar with these four foundational qualities, the natural and spontaneous connective wisdom of the body will slowly come online and take over. In other words : don’t be afraid to make a fool of yourself.
The Human Social Animal
The reason I rooted these four fundamental qualities in human biology and physiology, is because human beings are animals. We share most of our DNA and physical properties with most multicellular organisms on earth, and we share most of our nervous system makeup with fish and reptiles. We share our social capabilities with all mammals, and anatomy aside, we only differ very slightly from the nervous system refinement seen in primates. We are smart monkeys, and not taking this simple fact into account when trying to understand your problems in the arena of social connection, is setting yourself up for consistent failure and frustration.
When considering social animals, we need to understand the existence and workings of the collective nervous system. This is an energetic form of communication that works directly with and through the nervous system, and in many ways operates below the threshold of conscious awareness. This can be observed in herd mechanics, which for example allows a flock of birds to fly away from danger almost simultaneously. When one bird’s autonomous nervous system registers clear and present danger, and since its nervous system is in communication with that of all the birds near to it, the flight response is passed on through the collective nervous system, which is a communication system that works through interoception instead of exteroception. The other birds, internally and instantly, sense the danger the first bird senses, and their autonomous nervous systems all act in tandem to produce a mass flight response.
Let’s go back to the nervous system theory to understand what the implications of this mechanism are for us humans. We traditionally understand communication in the form of exteroception – what we see and hear, to oversimplify. Spoken and written word, body and sign language, facial expression : these are all forms of exteroceptive communication. This is also the type of communication the newer branches of the nervous system uses – the social branch of the autonomous nervous system and the higher brain functions. If mammals would rely on this system for survival – “hey man, I just saw a tiger, I’m outta here, just letting you know” – they would be extinct in a few generations. This is obviously not the case : when it comes to physical survival, the collective nervous system works on the more primitive branches of the autonomous nervous system, because it is so much faster and more efficient in mobilizing the body for a survival response.
When the body goes into survival mode, the nervous system hierarchy comes into play. Depending on which type of survival response, the younger systems will be deprived of their energetic resources, in favor of the older systems that ensure the body’s survival. This has two major implications for human social engagement. First of all, when your autonomous nervous system is trapped in survival mode, your access to higher brain functions and social systems will be chronically inhibited. Your ability to think, speak and understand words, and even see and hear the other person – your means for exteroceptive communication – will be impaired. Secondly, your inner state of unsafety will be involuntarily communicated to the other person through the collective nervous system. Involuntarily, because the autonomous nervous system is an autonomous system. It has its own agenda, and unless consciously integrated, will disregard your mental narrations.
A side note on online dating : Using a screen and text bypasses the need for your natural social system to be online. It allows you to create a superficial illusion of connection with another human being, without experiencing the undesired survival response a face-to-face engagement might produce. Online dating creates a false sense of safety around the initial stage of social engagement because of its inherent disconnection. This of course sets both parties up for misunderstanding and disappointment – which can take years to become apparent.
Consider this all too common scenario. Boy sees girl. Boy likes girl. Boys goes to talk to girl. Girl is like “ew.” This ew reaction is the result of a strong sense of dissonance in our girl between the exteroceptive and interoceptive communication. Our boy may be saying and doing all the right things – which he learned from his dating coach – but his body is in a deeply unconscious state of survival. Our girl picks up on both communications and is very likely overwhelmed by the internal discord this evokes in her own nervous system.
Her unconscious reaction to this will be one of repulsion and confusion. Or as she put it : “ew.” The perception of this dissonance between exteroceptive and interoceptive communication is what is technically know as “being creepy.” This is of course an oversimplification – when you add sexual arousal to the equation, and when both parties are in fact in a deeply unconscious state of unsafety, you have a perfect recipe for misunderstanding, confusion, frustration and ultimately, self-blame. On the other end of the spectrum, when this dissonance registers as familiar in both parties, it can lead to a very “passionate” romance, with all the trimmings of drama, violence, toxicity and compensatory sex.
The solution to this mess is a life-long commitment to developing the four fundamental qualities this post is about. Just as the unconscious nature of the chronic survival state, and the internal conflict it produces, evokes dissonance in other people (and animals) through the instantaneous somatic proximity relay system, so does internal clarity, and a regulated nervous system, evoke an instantaneous sense of safety in other people (and animals.)
However, even in the most ideal circumstances, the immutable law of awkwardness still applies. Making connection with a stranger will always be dancing with the unknown. But like in all mammals, in its natural form this dance is one of playful co-creation of mutual safety. Just go watch The Dodo channel on YouTube to see what that looks like.
A big side note on the so-called “approach anxiety” : Unless you are raised by highly conscious parents, or spent a considerable amout of time learning how to co-regulate your nervous system, any new social interaction will register as a threat. When this new social interaction is with a person you feel attraction or connection to, the threat response will be even stronger. This is part of being human, and has been since the dawn of man. And even though this phenomenon is inevitable, when you learn how your nervous system operates, and learn to self-regulate, you will also learn to navigate these situations with compassion and grace.
The problem of approach anxiety is the direct result of adopting the concept of the cold approach, which is so glamourized inside the seduction community. It creates an unnecessary mental layer of pretense on top of the threat response, which sets the stage for denying the actual state of your nervour system, amplifies the threat response, and ultimately leads to self shaming.
Trembling, muscular tension, sweating, dry mouth, blank mind or the sense of dread many men experience in this situation are symptoms similar to those of a panic attack. Trying to suppress or ignore these natural symptoms is deeply harmful to your nervous system balance. In the seduction community, these symptoms are often dismissed and minimized as “you’re just nervous,” and much of the information on the topic is geared towards pushing through, in effect encouraging further imbalance and conflict to an already dysregulated nervous system.
The solution to this shitshow is surprisingly simple : stop “approaching” and instead nurture your inner sense of safety. This will eventually allow your natural systems for social connection to spontaneously do their job, in the right moment. But beware : if you have deeply invested in the illusion of the approach, it will take a lot of time and effort to unlearn this deeply unhealthy strategy.
Somatic Belief And Self-shaming
An important truth : your personal belief systems, your life paradigms, do not originate from your thinking mind. You are most likely very familiar with the futility of trying to change the way you look at the world through adopting a different set of mental rules – you can recite affirmations ad nauseam, but you’ll usually end up where you started, often with nothing but frustration to show for your efforts.
This is because the rule book for your life is written in the body, and more precisely, in the autonomic nervous system. As long as you are unaware of the somatic aspect of your belief systems, and only have the mental narration they produce to work with, you will remain stuck in a groove and feel unable to get out. Probably the most detrimental somatic belief system in humans is dysfunctional self-shaming.
Shame is not an emotion. Shame is a verb. It is a social tool that was used by your parents, family, teachers, friends, and even strangers, to shape your behavior as a child. It is a natural part of being a social animal. The end goal of the shaming mechanism is to teach children to self-shame. This is how both natural and dysfunctional shaming is transmitted from one generation to the next. In its natural form, this gives children the ability to self-regulate and adapt to the demands of their social family.
But as I wrote in my previous post, when the natural bonding mechanism is exploited by our caregivers, we come to experience social connection as conditional, unreliable and unsafe. Then we are taught to bargain with our caregivers for connection, because we have accepted the felt sense that we are not worthy of social connection just the way we are, as truth.
We come pre-wired with the capacity for somatic self-shaming, and whether this capacity develops in a healthy or dysfunctional way is defined in the preverbal stages of our development. Because this mechanism gets defined so early in our lives, its functioning will eventually rule the higher brain functions, which come online later in our development.
One of the more obvious and well-known ways the dysfunctional form of self-shaming expresses itself, later in life, is in the mental narrative of I am bad, I am wrong, I can’t do anything right, I am not good enough, I am unlovable – and the list goes on. This mental narrative is a symptom of, but also an entry point into, a dysfunctional and purely somatic belief system, which is only an expression of our nervous system’s collapse state. This so-called negative self talk, and its behavioral counterpart we know as self-sabotage, is a big thing in the men’s dating community.
On the surface it seems correct to assume that negative self talk can be a person’s biggest enemy in their quest for connection, but taking a closer look – through the nervous system lens – reveals a very different picture. Since this negative mental narrative is only the expression of an unconscious and preverbal habit, trying to change, ignore or go against this narrative will always be futile, and will only provide more intellectual proof for the underlying state of collapse and disconnect. Self-sabotage, then, is the behavioral expression of this survival state : it uses your body and thinking mind to conform your outer reality to its preverbal truth.
An important side note on the illusion of agency : one of the effects of dysfunctional self-shaming is that we take our negative mental narration to be about ourselves – something we all know as self-blaming. When looking at your seemingly unwanted behavior through the nervous system lens, you will see that this behavior is not actually caused by you, or is even your direct responsibility. It is only an expression of nervous system dysregulation. This realization makes not taking your own behavior personally a real possibility. Then, instead of forcing yourself to do what you think is “right,” you start to spontaneously redirect that energy of agency towards nervous system regulation. This is where your true responsibility and empowerment lies.
The seemingly endless smorgasbord of external proof that confirms you are bad, flawed and unlovable is only the result of your distorted perception of reality. This distortion is caused by – you guessed it – your autonomous nervous system that’s trapped in survival mode. This seemingly inescapable feedback loop has nothing to do with your worth as a human being, nor has it anything to do with how you think other human beings (or animals) see you or feel about you. The solution here is to see this negative mental narration as a clear sign that your autonomous nervous system is chronically on the fritz – and nothing more.
Instead of trying to manipulate this self-narration, your task is to deeply feel the sensations that underlie the “I am bad” narrative, which will decouple the nervous system state of collapse from the intellectual proof for this state. Once you learn to decouple these mental stories from the trapped feelings of unsafety, by feeling them through, over time the growing sense of clarity and empowerment this decoupling produces will lead you out of feeling stuck in a groove. It takes a lot of patience, and a lot of kindness towards yourself, but it is absolutely possible.
A side note on the dreaded “fear of rejection” : This is not actual fear, but a form of anxiety produced by the mental self-protection against external proof for our self-shaming. We don’t want other people to confirm we have good reason to feel badly about ourselves, so our higher brain functions come up with reasons – excuses – to avoid taking that risk. Another way to look at it is that in a state of collapse and disconnect, it is safer for the body to stay in the comfort of its known pain of social isolation, and the thinking mind will do its job and figure out ways to secure this comfort. As with the so-called approach anxiety, it is better to see these experiences as symptoms of an underlying nervous system dysregulation, and honor them as such. They are clear signs your human systems needs healing and balancing, and “pushing through” them will always be a powerful act of violence against yourself.
A specific form of self-shaming that needs special attention is the proverbial beating yourself up : negative self-narration in the wake of an action not taken or an outcome not achieved. Whenever a somatic impulse is blocked or hidden behind compensatory behaviors – either by suppression, or by the overpowering immobilization of a chronic freeze or collapse state – the energy this impulse generated will get trapped in the body. The stronger the impulse, the more energy will be generated, and when this energy gets trapped, the longer it will take for it to dissipate.
In case of a strong but blocked attraction impulse, for example, the trapped energy can take hours, days or even weeks to dissipate from the body. One way this energy finds an outlet is through the self-shaming mechanism. It takes on the shape of the mental narrative of self-blame, which slowly converts this powerful mobilizing energy into thought, and through this conversion releases energetic pressure from the body. This, of course, puts a lot of unnecessary strain on the body and nervous system.
Beating yourself up is not only a symptom of dysfunctional self-shaming, but also of the general habit of repressing or numbing out your somatic impulses. One powerful way to get out of this trap is by starting to honor your most simple somatic impulses : go to the toilet at the first hint of needing to go, drink when you feel thirsty, take a little break when your body asks for it, and so on. Almost by magic this practice will slowly allow your body to freely express stronger and stronger impulses – spontaneously, effortlessly and in the present moment. Slowly, because it can take months, and in extreme cases of self-repression, even years to unlearn and reverse these habits.
A quick side note on impulses : By nature, most of our behavior is initiated by somatic impulses – they originate from deep within the body. Their function is to initiate physical mobilization. In a chronic state of survival these impulses are actively or passively kept out of our awareness, since most of them register as unsafe – attraction being a prime example in the context of this post. Through interoception, we learn to become aware of, and then embrace these impulses as being safe. And through embodiment, we learn to embrace the physical, in-the-moment expressions of these impulses as safe.This might take years, but the freedom it it produces will make your life worth living.
As a final thought on the subject, there are two sides to the coin of how dysfunctional self-shaming expresses itself. We already looked at the mental narrative of I am bad, and the various ways it presents itself. The other side of the coin is something you are probably very familiar with as well : proving yourself. This is using behavior or intellect as a way to disprove your continual negative mental narrative. Even though from the outside this looks like a person is trying to prove to the world that they can, they are actually trying to disprove – to themselves and to everyone around them – the unconscious somatic belief that they can’t. This can be clearly observed in boys, no matter their age.
Boys Will Be Boys
Masculinity is historically defined by compensation behavior. As young boys, many of us learn to disobey and disavow our natural self-expression when these expressions are met with disapproval. Don’t cry. Don’t be bad. Don’t be such a girl. Behave! This disapproval creates a deep rooted sense of distrust in our internal somatic guidance system. And since boys will be boys – and will always remain boys – it also creates a perpetual sense of internal unsafety. This internal distrust and unsafety is culturally transmitted, from one generation to the next, just like self-shaming, and is one of the main causes of the dysregulation of the safety/survival system that most men unknowingly suffer from.
I use the words ‘culturally transmitted’ because with this disapproval also comes a preferred set of behaviors to adopt, which will ensure social acceptance – most importantly among other “men.” These preferred behaviors (usually a form of the Rigid or Protective man mentioned earlier) not only keep a boy from being free in his self-expression, they also end up pushing the underlying state of survival out of his awareness. Even though the adoption of these behaviors is initially fueled by the avoidance of the feeling of unsafety, or in other words, the securing of social bonds at all costs, over time this root cause feeling disappears from his consciousness.
By nature, the safety and survival states can’t co-exist. So when a boy starts to wear the coat of pretense that is called “being a man,” this, in effect, means that he indirectly starts resisting his own natural system for social connection. Which is exactly what these preferred behaviors try to compensate for. Most men are stuck on this insane internal merry-go-round for their entire life, and often put their sons and grandsons on it as well.
A side note on learning the popular “seducer” behavior : these specific kinds of learned behaviors only serve the purpose of social bypassing. They are well-crafted compensation tactics, and, if your system is in a chronic state of survival, they will only reinforce the validity of your sense of unsafety. As such, they are deeply detrimental to your nervous system health. If this is the case for you, know that bringing regulation to your nervous system will have to include unlearning many of these social bypassing skills on a somatic level. Even though they are sold as helpful, they can actually severely hinder true self-expression and natural connection. Natural connection requires the safety system to be online, and it is only in that space that true and wholesome attraction and connection is free to flourish. No seduction skills required.
To recapitulate : as boys, we are inevitably encouraged to refrain from free emotional expression. We are shown plenty of proof, from a very early age on, that free emotional expression is not safe, and comes at a price. This creates a highly unnatural relationship between our internal felt guidance system, our mental narration and our perception of the external world. It also creates and sustains the illusion that we need to control our behavior so it conforms to our mental narration, which, in turn, is highly influenced by the lessons and scoldings of our caregivers. But since mental narration is an expression of our higher and newer systems, and since these systems serve the older and autonomous survival and safety system, this creates a very peculiar feedback loop when this older system is trapped in survival mode.
Difficult but crucial sentence ahead. When your mental narration is colored by your unconscious sense of unsafety, trying to bend your physical behavior to comply with this mental narration will in effect make you react to things that aren’t actually there in the moment. This is chasing ghosts and fighting wind mills : your nervous system is eagerly on the lookout for threats, your thinking mind creates a story to make sense of these autonomously generated sensations it doesn’t understand, or isn’t even aware of, and you force your body to obey these unfounded mental narratives.
On top of that, you might even have been told to go against these naturally occuring narratives, as I mentioned in my side notes on approach anxiety, fear of rejection and seduction posturing. This adds another layer to the feedback loop, which only strengthens the influence our trapped sense of unsafety has over our lives. At the risk of being repetitive, the solution is always the same. To escape this loop, you need to start taking responsibility for the state of your nervous system.
An important side note on immature desires : Most, if not all, so called men’s dating or seduction coaches, both men and women, cater to dysfunction, both in men and women. The main teachings and techniques you’ll encounter in the wild are designed to fulfill a man’s immature and/or dysfunctional cravings, by adapting and catering to the prevalent female immature and/or dysfunctional personality. Instead of pursuing the unnatural desire to get better with women, it is wiser to learn how to become a better and more mature man. This will naturally bring the better and more mature woman in your life. The kind of woman with whom you can co-create a healthy and fulfilling relationship, that will nourish the both of you, and all the people in your social family.
Boys will be boys. But as boys grow up, their natural playfulness will soon be replaced and covered up by socially accepted behavior and somatic beliefs which keep them in line, literally and figuratively. These behaviors and beliefs have been so ubiquitous for such a long time that most culturally sanctioned definitions of manhood are actually misconceptions. These misconceptions are the product of an age-old ignorance we need to grow out of, as individuals and as a species. (This obviously applies to womanhood as well.)
Girl Glamour
One specific, culturally accepted misconception is that the human male’s attraction system is primarily visual. This is the mid-twentieth century cliché of the cartoon wolf, howling uncontrollably at the sight of some exaggerated female shape. This is only a symptom – and symbol – of the widespread and deeply ingrained nervous system dysregulation in men.
The human mechanism for attraction is closely interwoven with the autonomous nervous system. I already mentioned that when this system is in a chronic state of survival, it can greatly affect and distort our exteroceptive systems, and skew our perception of the outside world. This skewing expresses itself in a specific way in our visual system. When an animal is in a natural state of mobilized survival, its field of view will narrow, so it can focus on both threat and escape, and filter out anything else that doesn’t serve this purpose. This same principle applies for the predatory animal, whose body is mobilized to go for the kill – the so-called tunnel vision.
When a man is in an unconscious chronic survival state, these more primitive mechanisms in the autonomous nervous system dominate his attraction system as well. At the same time, the survival state inhibits the newer branch of the autonomous nervous system that is responsible for our higher social functions. This has several implications in real life. One is that, when in the chronic survival state, as a heterosexual man, you rarely see a woman in her entirety as a human being – especially when you find yourself attracted to her.
Looking at her when your system is in survival mode, she will only be seen through a very reduced and distorted field of view. You will compulsively focus on specific parts of her being that could provide a solution to your unconscious internal problem of unsafety – and blur out all the rest. As I mentioned earlier, she will be reduced from human being to the thing that will provide you your safety fix.
Because of this mechanism, a man will unconsciously glamorize certain superficial aspects of femininity, most of all the female body. This distortion in perception is what keeps the porn industry alive. It also implies that, from this place, we give women a very unnatural and unfulfillable roll to play. No woman can be the solution to our problem of unsafety, even though some will be very willing to apply for the job. This is another recipe for disaster, and, without a deep understanding of the underlying survival mechanics, a disaster that will keep repeating itself over and over.
The survival driven urge to look for external solutions will keep us looking for the next girl, and the next girl, and the next. In actuality, it is never about the addiction to any particular woman, or about chasing a vague notion of femininity, but about the urge to escape from our internal and unconscious state of unsafety. When we turn around to face and experience the raw sense states that we have been avoiding to feel, and decouple them from our habitual mental context – our glamorized girl fantasies – the endless hunt for more girls (real or imagined) will eventually subside.
A side note on FOMO : The fear of missing out is the anxiety produced by entertaining the illusion of agency – that somehow your behavior is responsible for the quality of your social life. The FOMO concept is a child of its time, since there have never been more apparent invitations and opportunities for connection being thrown our way. But when you become the curator of your own inner sense of safety, you will start to experience a deep sense of trust : the trust that life will bring you what you need, when you are ready for it, no effort required.
Wholesome and natural attraction is a very different animal, pun intended. When we integrate the more primitive branches of our nervous system, and come to a conscious state of inner safety, our more evolved social systems come into play. Then attraction becomes a full-bodied affair, where the initial somatic attraction impulse – the gut feeling we have about the other person, as well as the accompanying sexual arousal – slowly and spontaneously unfolds and expresses itself through all parts of the body, most of all those governed by the youngest branches of our nervous system : our eyes, face, voice and heart. And our full mental capacity.
It is only in this state that we can perceive, receive and embody true human beauty. There is nothing more attractive than a human being who is deeply and consciously safe. The sparkle in their eyes, the warm smile, the full belly laugh. Genuine curiosity and inviting playfulness. These are all just natural expressions of the human social system in a state of safety. We can only be truly aware of these expressions in another person, when we ourselves are in a state of safety. And it is only from this place that we can receive the nourishment of the feminine spirit – other people’s, but also our own.
The glamour spell you unconsciously cast on womanhood will slowly dissipate as your inner sense of safety solidifies, and you will find yourself being attracted to very different (and more human) qualities than before. The transition phase between these two states can be deeply confusing, but a much better landscape awaits you at the other end of this tunnel.
A side note on the so-called “natural” : in the men’s dating and seduction community, there is often mention of the kind of man who seems to have a natural ease in connecting to women. This apparent ease is nothing more than what the natural functioning of the social system looks like for the outside observer. True inner safety implies an alignment between exteroceptive and interoceptive communication, which evokes a deep sense of safety in the other person. It also implies that social engagement comes from a place of natural playfulness and effortlessness. This is a very attainable quality, but also one that is absolutely impossible to fake.That being said, becoming good at portraying false safety can get you laid, but it will never truly satisfy your unconscious hunger for safety.
False Safety And Confidence
Many men learn behavioral and intellectual compensation skills, in puberty and adulthood, that provide a false sense of safety. These skills are adopted unconsciously, and are often encouraged by the cultural milieu we grow up in. We learn ways to protect and distinguish ourselves socially. We learn to dress for success, whatever that looks like in our part of the world. We shape and groom our bodies to make our lives appear more desirable. We learn ways to make money, so we can buy ourselves some safety – get the right car, the right house, the right gadgets. This might even get us the right kind of woman, who will often be happy to oblige, because she also will be living her life in pursuit of false safety.
A side note on nice guy behavior : This is a specific type of compensation skill that uses compliance and false empathy to create a false sense of safety. The underlying unconscious somatic belief is that “if I keep my caregiver happy, my precious but seemingly fragile social bond will be secured.” Going against nice guy behavior is just adding another unnecessary layer of compensatory behavior. Instead, directly developing an inner state of safety will unchain you from this desire to please others to your own detriment. Learning to feel safe will teach you to please yourself first.
These compensatory behaviors require habitual and mostly unconscious effort to keep us from experiencing unsafety. They are kept in place to actively reject our underlying physiological survival state. And sooner or later they inevitably fail. More accurately, the body fails to keep up with the demands these compensatory devices place on our biology. Depression, burnout, and a host of chronic physical or mental illnesses are, in many cases, caused by continually – and unconsciously – pushing our system beyond its natural capacity, all for the sake of maintaining a false sense of safety.
The colloquial name used for this debilitating process is probably very familiar to you : confidence. The true meaning of this word has eluded me for all of my life. Evidently a highly coveted quality, especially in men, I finally understood its true nature when looking at it through the nervous system lens. The Dutch word for confidence actually gives a more accurate description of what confidence is trying so desperately to emulate : self-trust. Where confidence is always reliant on external causes – purpose, title, employment, financial security, worldly possessions, success or relationship – self-trust is self-generated, and merely a symptom of a consciously created inner sense of safety. Self-trust does not require the constant effort required to safeguard your sense of confidence.
As I wrote in my previous post, effort is the enemy of connection. The definition of effort in this context is : all the ways in which your system compensates for its unconscious background state of survival. When in survival mode, effortless, deep connection is impossible. When true safety is present, effort will be absent because it has no reason to exist. And then connection goes…
From Impossible To Inevitable
When your autonomous nervous system is trapped in chronic survival mode, and without deep intellectual and somatic understanding of the four fundamental qualities, most social interaction will prove to be unpredictable, frustrating or unenjoyable. Trying to change the quality of your social interactions through changes in behavior, or through mental strategizing, will inevitably make matters worse across the board, even if they temporarily might appear to improve. Conversely, when these fundamental qualities become an integral part of your being, social interaction will become more and more effortless, and connection will become unavoidable.
When your autonomous nervous system is consistently and consciously abiding in its natural state of safety, a hunger for social interaction – real face-to-face engagement with another human being – will spontaneously emerge. This will be the natural outcome of adopting an active stance of effortlessness, which in this context means to understand and sever the dysfunctional somatic roots of your need for continuous external striving. This is the practice of – slowly – releasing the reins on your behavior, which will simultaneously evoke a deep trust in your body’s intelligence. Most advice that steers you towards changing behavior or mental understanding, through effort or force, will then clearly be seen as redundant, unnecessary, counterproductive, often unhealthy and in many cases just plain silly.
A side note on impatience : Patience is the art of sensing and following life’s natural rhythms. This is very much a lost art in our modern world and its obsession with all things instantaneous. As a result of this obsession, most of the dating and seduction community is focused on fast “results with women.” Because of the nervous system dysregulation that is at the root of this desire, most fast results end in equally fast failure, or even explosive disaster. A deep connection to another person requires a deep mutual sense of safety, and just as it can take years to develop this sense of safety in yourself, it will require a considerable amount of time to co-create this space with another human being. It will obviously also require you have taken full responsibility for your own sense of safety first.
Another result of this focus on fast results is the glorification of the illusion of the Great Seduction. Sweep her off her feet and make her yours, preferably within the hour. Since the process of developing inner safety is by definition a very slow one, it is much wiser and healthier to learn to enjoy the small victories. When your connecting systems begin to come online, you will find yourself learning to smile again – your natural, spontaneous and child-like smile. This seemingly insignificant and unspectacular thing is actually deeply profound, and will open many doors in your life you didn’t even know were there. As the proverb goes : slow and steady wins the race.
To reduce all of this to a very simple yet powerful idea : all I am talking about here is knowing, somatically and intellectually, what the difference is between being human and acting like a human being. All of us act like a human being to a certain degree – some more than others – because we share a common, ancestral predicament : everyone’s autonomous nervous system is dysregulated and trapped in survival mode to some degree.
You have most likely never been formally educated about this specific aspect of your human physiology. This lack of education is no surprise, since these ideas are still gaining traction in the fringes of the global scientific community. It will be a while before they become mainstream knowledge – let alone taught at school. But this will be a big and inevitable step in the conscious evolution of humanity. My hope is that my words will give you a better understanding of the importance of taking this step as an individual.
Just Be Yourself
The best and worst dating advice is still to just be yourself. The best, because it’s true. And the worst, because it’s meaningless without a proper framework to differentiate between what is truly you and what is just a superimposed compensation mechanism, and useless without the skills and tools to navigate yourself back home. But if you do learn this framework of intellectual understanding, and you do master the somatic skill set that can bring you back home – in the body – it will become clear to you that truly being yourself solves everything, not just your problems with connecting.
Being yourself as a conscious practice obviously goes way beyond the confines of the context of dating and connection, and branches out to your relationship with all of life as a human being on this planet. But for many of us, the desperate need for, and painful lack of connection will be our entry point and motivator to look under the rug, and to learn what it takes to come back home to yourself. As individuals and as a species, we need to evolve from surviving to thriving, and relationship and social connection is the core engine for this conscious evolution.
The original quote at the beginning of this post – “Attraction is not a choice” – is by David DeAngelo, which is the stage name of a man called Eben Pagan, the person who introduced me to the world of men’s dating, pick up artists and seduction, through his courses, way back in 2008. It is highly symbolic that this man, and many like him, chose to use a fake name to teach human connection to other men. But attraction is definitely not a choice. If you live from a place of unconscious unsafety and posturing, you will attract and be attracted to partners that are living in a similar place of unsafety and posturing. You don’t have to have a penis to live a life of fear and pretense.
But the opposite is also true : living from a conscious place of safety will attract a partner that chooses to live in that place as well. And there we do have a choice. I firmly believe that the road to inner safety and nervous system regulation, is also the road to truly being and expressing yourself. Taking this road is not simply a solution to your problems, or even a skill to master. It is a way of life that requires an lifelong commitment. And it is also the road to maturity, the road of conscious evolution, which will allow you to stop playing the unconscious and harmful game humanity has been playing up until now.
A last side note on deserving happiness : You have a birthright to feel safe in your own body. But even though this is a birthright we all share, allowing yourself to feel safe is not an easy task. To entertain the possibility of feeling safe, feeling enough, may seem difficult or even inaccessible at first. But it is not impossible. And the inevitable reward for going on this journey is the deep sense that you belong in and to the world.
I will end with my usual words of warning. At this point in human evolution, truly being yourself is still an act of rebellion, and goes against the deeply normalized pretense that is so rampant in the modern world. It is the hardest thing you will ever do in your life, but also the most necessary.
I hope to see you on the other side.