If you walk out the door thinking, “I’m going to have great interactions with women today,” you’ll probably have shitty interactions with women that day.

Why?

Because your focus is wrong. Your focus should be on feeling amazing. Feeling completely on fire. Feeling the blood coursing through your veins. Feeling your excitement for life, your radiant enthusiasm.

If you feel that way, you’ll naturally have fantastic interactions with all people you encounter—including the shapely, nubile, babe-o-licious female people you encounter.

I often find myself walking outside, seeing an attractive woman, and thinking, “How can I have a great interaction with her?” This was my default thinking during my PUA days. I would think about my opener, my body language, my “routine stack,” all in the hopes of having a great interaction with her.

And why did I want to have a great interaction with her? To feel great.

Do you see the problem here? I was locating the source of my feeling great outside of me.

What the hell was I bringing to the interaction? All I was doing was looking to her to complete something missing from me. I was a feeling-great vampire, wanting to suck all the feeling-greatness out of my interactions with women for my own sense of wholeness.

Now, whenever I see an attractive woman, and I notice myself starting to think, “How can I have a great interaction with her,” I yell to myself “STOP!” I step back from the situation, and check my internal state.

Am I present?

If not, I take a deep breath. I notice whatever I’m feeling. Even if what’s present is a negative emotion such as anger or loneliness, I can be in a good state so long as I am present to it and truly feel it coursing through my veins rather than ignoring it, stuffing it, or distracting myself from it.

Next, am I in appreciation?

Am I seeing all that is happening in that moment as part of the glorious dance of this mystery called being alive as a human, or am I trapped in a narrower perspective, such as “It’s Tuesday and I’m heading to an appointment?” If the latter, I adjust my focus to a larger perspective. Pretty much everything is great if you think about what a fucking miracle it is that you’re alive—indeed, what a miracle life itself is! (Wow, now I’m really starting to sound like the Bay Area native that I am)

Next, am I in integrity?

Am I in touch with what I’m here for on this planet, my purpose, my mission? Every month or so, I refine my mission statement for my life. My current mission statement is “To ignite creative, emotional, intellectual, spiritual, and sensual passion within myself and everyone I come into contact with.”

If I can’t directly relate whatever I’m doing in that moment to that mission, then in my view, I’m out of integrity—I’m wasting time and not doing what I was put on this planet to do. I either need to change what I’m doing, or look closer and see if there is an authentic and meaningful way to reframe what I am doing so that it fits into that vision.

Next, am I feeling whole?

If I am feeling whole, I can want lots of things in my life, and still feel whole.

Right now, I don’t get a massage every day, and in my ideal world, I’d sure like one. I live in a small room without a lot of light, and I’d like my own spacious, sunny apartment. I could go on and on with my want list. All of these things would add even more to the enjoyment of my life.

The thing is, I don’t need any of these things. To begin with, I have love in my life, which makes all of these things look like insignificant specs of dust on a gnat’s ass by comparison.

But even if I didn’t have a girlfriend and all the love she brings into my life, I still wouldn’t need these, because my love cup already runneth over from my own love and appreciation within myself—states which I was able to access within me after AMP, even before I met my current girlfriend (and which, I would venture a guess, played a large part in attracting her to me.)

In the emotional, inner realm, I am a rich man, richer than most millionaires I’ve met personally or heard about, so it really doesn’t matter what or who else is in my life in the moment.

If remember all of this, I am living in wholeness. If I forget, then I am looking for things in the outside world to complete me, to fill some perceived void, and I better damn-well remember fast that there is actually no void to fill, I am already complete.

So, presence, appreciation, integrity, wholeness. . . the other thing AMP talks about is play.

I admit, that’s one I don’t understand much yet in my life—I tend to be a pretty serious guy—and am looking forward to understanding this more as I dive deeper into the AMP work. But I find that even with a few moments’ attention to the first four, presence, appreciation, integrity, and wholeness, I can usually turn my mental state around within a matter of minutes (sometimes even seconds.)

Once I am in that state of feeling alive, amped (is that why they made the acronym AMP?). juiced, pumped, excited on life—then amazing interactions with women just happen naturally.

(You may be asking, if I’m in a relationship, why am I writing about having amazing interactions with other women? Three words. License to flirt. My girlfriend and I are currently exclusive sexually, but we are both big flirts, and we give each other license to enjoy this expression of ourselves out in the world. She reads all my blog posts about my flirtations with other women, and giggles when she reads them.)

The particular woman I was looking at when I realized my mental state was out of whack and paused to regain it may be long gone, she may be two blocks past me down the street now.

But it doesn’t matter.

I’m not out to have amazing interactions with women, and certainly not with any particular, specific woman. I’m out to feel the passion and juice in my life, and when I’m feeling that, amazing interactions with women just happen naturally.

Why?

Because women are about 1,564.78x more sensitive to vibes than we guys are. When you have major good vibes emanating from you, women feel it and are drawn to you. All of the sudden, you are bringing major value to them, rather than needing something from them to fill some gaping void in your own life.

Which position do you think is the more attractive one?

Focus on your vibes (i.e., your mental state, your inner world), the women will follow.

-Michael E.
AMP Intensive Grad, ’07

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