The Ex-Factor

When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us."
Helen Keller

Get yr hat on gal!

A smart girl’s guide to deleting the ex from your mind.

I know you’ve all done it; those days when you’ve been unable to concentrate at work, repeated moments throughout your life when you ‘catch yourself’ thinking about him just a little too intensely. Then, once evening draws in, you switch the television off halfway through a film because you’ve lost the plot, you knock your glass to the floor because you just weren’t concentrating and finally, when your head hits the pillow, you lie alone for hours in a futile knot of unburned emotional energy, running scenarios, fantasies and memories through your mind of how life ‘should’ be, with ‘him’ to share your hopes, dreams and passions. Not how it really is, with him only there in your private thoughts.

Sound familiar?

I’ve found a great deal of issues that some of you girls have with regard to attraction and dating, stem from the repeated thoughts you hold in your unconscious mind that focus on either one of your ex-boyfriends, or an unattainable man that you are continually trying to catch the eye of, but he’s just not interested. To address this issue once and forever I have come up with two techniques that will rinse your mind clean and allow it to reset itself with not even the slightest hint of emotional baggage to bog it down in the future. In this article I’m going to reveal the first.

Revolutionary psychologist Edward DeBono continues to come up with ever entwining theories in his quest for understanding how the human brain works. The most famous of which is his 6 thinking hats model that is primarily designed for more constructive thinking in the company boardroom. It allows each model of human thinking to be represented and then discussed, in order, to reach a balanced and fair conclusion to all of the mismatched parties. But useful in a business sense as it is, I see it as more of a tool to use in the field of dating and attraction.

He suggests that in a business environment the information should be distilled into six distinct psychological areas, each represented by a ‘hat’ you might wear whilst discussing a certain aspect:

Facts (White hat) - considering purely what information is available, what are the facts?

Emotions (Red hat) - instinctive gut reaction or statements of emotional feeling (but not any justification)

Bad points (Black hat) - logic applied to identifying flaws or barriers, seeking mismatch

Good points (Yellow hat) - logic applied to identifying benefits, seeking harmony

Creativity (Green hat) - statements of provocation and investigation, seeing where a thought goes

Thinking (Blue hat) - thinking about thinking

Now whilst these areas of thought may gel well in the boardroom, they might need a little modifying when it comes to dating and attraction. Let me revise this theory for you into one you may find useful with regard to moving on from your past and embracing a future that you really deserve!

Okay, think of the guy that you’ve been thinking about far too often. You know, the one for whom you still hold a candle for yet is so unbelievably wrong for you, the one who you feel you should truly be right for on an emotional level, but there’s just far too much evidence to show that you aren’t. On a logical level you know that it’s never going to work, yet when those emotions make their way speedily through your veins of desire it’s hard to just let go. I know, I used to feel it too. Run your hopes, fears and emotions through the Mr Right 6 hats thinking system and see where you come out. A darn site better off would be my guess, but take the test and let’s see…

Grab yourself a clean sheet of paper and draw 5 vertical lines down it to give you 6 columns. Then turn the paper 90 degrees so as the lines are now horizontal. In the top column, on the left hand side, write the word White. The column below that, write the word Red, the one below that; Black, the one below that; yellow, the next; blue and the final column; Green. Now you have your chart, it’s time to fill it in. Write a list of words that resonate with you in regard to the guy you’ve found it hard to stop thinking about, but to do it in a structured, useful way I’d like you to stick to the following guidelines:

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Facts (White hat) – Where does he live? How tall is he? What build? Is he intelligent? Does he have a car? Is he patient? Is he available? How many ex-girlfriends does he have? Etc. Remember, write only facts in this column, not opinions or dreams, just the facts young lady.

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Emotions (Red hat) – How does he make you feel? Love/hate/stress/frustration/empathy/apathy? Are there moments when he can do no wrong/nothing right? How does that make you feel?

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Bad points (Black hat) – What gnaws away at your patience? Negatives, seek all that may be a mismatch, does he dress badly? Have dog breath? Too little time to see you? Selfish? Moody? (Clue: Make this list really long!)

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Good points (Yellow hat) – Where do you both enjoy harmony, what are the real benefits of having this (guy above any other) in your life. Make them real and tangible, not just wishes.                 (Clue: Make this list really short!)

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Fantasy (Green hat) – Where could things go in a fantasy world? If he was a dreamer, would success have ever really happened? Or if he was abusive, might you have ended up in A&E?

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Thinking (Blue hat) – Okay, here’s the sensible hat. Look at all you have written with an objective frame of mind; are the good emotions really worth the pain you go through with the negative points clearly spelled out? Will your fantasy of him having more time for you in the future ever come true? Take an unbiased look at all you have written and recognize the plus and minus points for both.

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Now you have an unbiased chart of how you really perceive this guy, you can make an informed decision as to whether it’s worth pursuing him any further or not. If, with your red hat on, your emotions were predominantly negative, your black hatted bad points ran to three pages on their own, and the yellow capped good aspects were summarized in three bullet points that you struggled to find, then I think you know the answer. I’d advise that you cut out the section where you’ve written your ‘Black Hat’ thinking, fold it neatly and put it in your purse. Every time you start to find your mind wandering to the danger zone of ‘What if…’ All you need to do is grab the piece of paper from your purse and read it through a couple of times. Before long, he’ll just be a distant blip in your past, allowing you to get on with the really important task of finding your true Mr Right…

 If, however, you came up with something either perfectly balanced or positively brimming with points in his favour, then you might want to show your chart to a close friend who also knows him so as you can get a second opinion.

If you still feel that he’s “The One” then you’d best read ‘Mr Right’ the book, available just one click away:

http://www.mr-right.me/products_and_services/A4pdf-1.html

Or alternatively, if you want to really fast-track your progress, you can come and attend the next “Live in London” event which is scheduled for Wednesday February 23^rd (tbc)

http://www.mr-right.me/attraction_secrets_live.html

Have fun, and always keep this quote from Mark Twain in mind:

“Never allow someone to be your priority while allowing yourself to be their option”

Luv n kisses

Hx

Author: Hag Hughes.

Lover or Provider...

Why do a number of you girls always seem to fall for the wrong kind of guy, over and over again?

The answer may be all in the timing…

Attractive men, as you no doubt know, fall into two distinct categories:

Lover

Think- Diet coke break, the pool guy, tear-away celebrities, rock stars, bikers, adventurers.

Provider

Think- Caring partner who will look after you and your offspring, devoted father and defender of the nest so to speak.

Now my guess is, that if you find yourself in repetitively wild and crazy relationships with unpredictable guys who seem a little hard to pin down into a long-term monogamous relationship, then you are most likely looking a little too keenly for the Lover traits in the man of your dreams. If, however, you always end up with the boring guy in the suit who wants to stay home on a summer’s weekend and watch the news followed by the sports channel, then you’ve probably gone too far into the Provider realm, as he’s exhausted from earning that mountain money all week (at which point you’ll no doubt find yourself wondering what time that pool guy is coming round on Monday…) This is where affairs are born, the gradual slip from needing a provider to wanting a lover, and we all know how it feels to truly feel a sense of wanting, don’t we girls…;o) So to turn this all on it’s head I’ve come up with a theory based on hair.

Yep, you read it right, hair is the reason you ended up with your last boyfriend and the one before him no doubt. Before you think me mad or a little unhinged, allow me to explain:

During a girl’s cycle, there are two distinct periods of sexual activity and inactivity. The peak of sexual desire and lustful activity is commonly strongest during the days up to ovulation. Meaning that conversely, the inactive time is usually during the less fertile periods which encompass the couple of weeks on the other end of the monthly cycle. This, I’m sure, you are all plainly aware of, but during an experiment by David Perrett of St Andrews University, something interesting came to light…

Perrett took some photographs of men, and made two copies of each face. These he manipulated with photoshop to make one slightly more masculine looking by enhancing the hair and deepening the eyebrows, squaring the chin and thinning the lips. The other, previously identical picture then had the opposite treatment applied to make it appear more feminine. These differences were extremely subtle, and one may have to look quite hard in order to put a finger on what was different about them, but when placed side by side and shown to a number of women, the reaction was clear. Virtually all the girls that were near their ovulation period had a strong preference for the more masculine featured version of the man, whereas the softer, more feminised version was preferred by all that were in the less active part of their cycle.

One conclusion to draw from this could be, that the timing of when and where you go out may be led by your natural instinct to find a certain kind of man. If you find you socialise more during the periods of or near ovulation, then your radar will be scanning for the “Lover” types of men who are generally more forward and masculine in their manner. Conversely, I might suggest that if you find you socialise more when you are in a less fertile state, then you’re more likely to go to environments where the “Provider” species of male may be found grazing in larger numbers…

Contrast this with another experiment, this time conducted by the famous (and extremely amusing) evolutionary psychologist Geoffrey Miller.

Miller conducted his work with no less than 5,300 erotic dancers and strippers. He asked each one of these girls two simple questions after they had worked a normal five hour shift:

1. How much the girl made in tips that night?
2. At what point in her menstrual cycle was she?

 Once Miller had all of the results, he divided them into three groups:

1. Those that were ovulating.
2. Those that were menstruating.
3. Those who were neither.

So what was the outcome? What group did the men find most attractive? Remember there are over five thousand girls being studied here, so there’s no question of one group being better dancers or more physically attractive, it’s all down to the “vibe” they are giving off.

Well, the ovulators came out on top, so to speak, with an average tip of £325 versus the menstruators average of only £180. That’s an enormous 80% increase in wages for the ovulators versus the menstruators! They’re obviously sending a signal out that’s massively more attractive to the men around them than their counterparts.

So not only are you discarding the “Provider” types of men from your radar whilst you’re ovulating, and hunting specifically for a rugged “Lover” type of man, you’re actually sending out a signal that specifically draws him to you as well. No wonder you always attract the “Love you and leave you” types!

This month’s experiment:

A simple experiment to help you become more attuned to your body. Whenever you find yourself talking to a guy you find attractive, firstly give him a hotness rating out of ten (you can do it in your head, you don’t have to write it down). Then, make a note of where you are in your cycle. The number you first arrived at is correct if you are neither ovulating or menstruating. If, however, you are ovulating, then deduct three points from his hotness rating. Conversely, if you are menstruating, then you need to add three points to his rating.

This is just a fun idea, but will allow you to have a more level view of if you’d met him at another point in your cycle, and how your feelings may have differed then.

Go out, have fun, and get more of these wild ideas at http://www.mr-right.me/
Author: Hag Hughes.