From the day you learned to speak, your parents probably engrained into your mind the need to say “I’m sorry” for any wrong doings. We’re raised to apologize for anything for which we might have the slightest degree of blame. 

What if I told you that being overly apologetic can ultimately make you less appealing to women, compromise your individuality, and lead to a lack of respect from your friends and peers?  I’m sorry(not sorry), but it’s the truth!

After a breakup, your manliness is significantly called into question. How could you let this happen? How did you fail at this relationship? Are you less of a man now?

If your relationship was overly codependent where you relied on your significant other to provide all of your happiness, then you likely neglected your primal urges and needs to express your manliness.

To add to that, masculinity has been on the decline for decades. With each new generation, the connection with our own unique manliness degrades over time. Your dad likely embodied more of a masculine approach to life, and your grandfather more then him.

When you think about it, the odds are against us to fall in love in the perfect hopeless romantic sense. You have to balance personal compatibility, sexual attraction, common interests, and arguably most importantly, position in your life trajectory.

No matter how compatible you are physically and emotionally, if one of you isn’t in the right place, it’s not going to work out in the long run.

And since knowing if your partner is or isn’t ready for a relationship with you is just about the most important question you’ll ever have to answer, I’m going to make this quick.

After you split with your ex, you lose a sense of yourself. You have, for quite some time, been a couple. That identity has defined a large part of who you are.

In a sense, your significant other had validated who you are. By selecting you as a mate, she approved of your lifestyle, career, looks, and personality.

That validation can be a great feeling. Everything you’ve worked to accomplish in life has been signed off on by someone you really care about. Your purpose as a being on this planet seems to make sense. 

The Ego is a powerful part of the human psyche that controls our own self-image, but is not our true self. It operates off of labels, judgments, and image.

When not kept in check, the Ego can overpower your mind in very negative ways, one of which is making unnecessary comparisons to others.  

This is a slippery slope and a losing battle. If you constantly view colleagues, friends, family, and even strangers through a lens that compares them relative to your own ego, you will always find people that are “better off” or “worse off” than you.

When you constantly strive to be something that you’re not, you’ll always come up short and never achieve true happiness. Once that inner-critic emerges, it leads to insecurity, depression, and guilt.

“I never think of the future.  It comes soon enough.” – Albert Einstein

The anxiety that ensues after a harsh breakup can be unbearable. Thoughts run through your mind about what you could have done differently to avoid coming to this point. 

You look back at all of the memories you shared together. You ponder the future and how you will find another companion meant for you. 

Being torn from the present into the past and future places a great deal of stress on the mind and soul. You have no control of what has been or may be.

When your brain starts cycling through all of these hypothetical scenarios, it stalls out realizing that it can’t fully control those variables. What is within your grasp and power is the “now.” Right here, where you sit today, at this moment.