The best gift a man ever gave me

It wasn’t a real thing…

This gift totally surprised me.

This made my respect for him soar to new heights.

It turns out it’s the easiest way to help my nervous system open up and relax.

You want me to take a break, open up and trust you?

That’s it:

AUTHORISATION

More precisely… Permission to be myself.

To feel whatever I felt, even if it wasn’t politically correct.

Not knowing exactly what I wanted.

Take my time.

To change your mind.

This is a permission:

“I’m here and I want to be with you, take your time.”

Or

“It’s okay to feel what you feel, I can be with you in your emotions.”

Or

“I understand that you don’t know what you want yet, let’s stay together in this space.”

Or

“We don’t need to stay here if you’re cold and hungry, I’ll take you home.”

Permission to BE ME.

What a relief.

Because I don’t know about you, but I’m often stuck in an imaginary life full of “shoulds.”

Rigorously follow perceived duties. Try to measure up to an idealized self.

And then I’m not in the present moment with a person. I’m stuck worrying and imagining how things might go, what I should do.

And I forget myself.

I forget the link at that point.

I become a person who pleases.

It’s exhausting. It’s disconnecting. It’s fundamentally unreliable.

It’s hard to build anything from that.

When do you allow yourself to be yourself? When was the last time someone allowed you to do that and how did it feel?

(And pssst: see guys, you don’t need a lot of money or status to really impress a woman)

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This article was previously published on MEDIUM.COM.

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