I don’t know if this is your first episode or you have heard all of my previous podcasts.  I think it’s important to listen to episode #2 and #3 around beliefs because it’s going to be heavily correlated to today’s episode.  Today I’m going to be talking about why it’s so difficult for some guys to talk to girls.  It’s all because of past programming.  It’s going to be a fun filled episode and hopefully you will get a better picture of how you see the world around you.  I always like starting with examples from my own life so let me share with why it was so challenging for me to approach the women I was attracted to from a mental perspective.

      I can start out by telling you I have not been that smooth with the opposite sex.  Every relationship I’ve been in, I have not been the one in pursuit.  In my life I’ve been in two serious relationships, both these women pursued me.  It was really strange because whenever there was someone I was attracted to, I would get flat out weird, and anxiety would fill my chest. I’d get nervous and most importantly I would go really quiet. 

     If you heard in the previous podcast how I hit rock bottom after my relationship with Katie ended and a trip to a psychic who gave me the message that I would meet my soul mate is what saved my life.  I was convinced that my soul mate was this really pretty girl who would go to my gym. 

     She was beautiful with a pretty face, great skin, dark hair, and amazing smile.  I remember there were several moments where our eyes would lock and it was clear that we were both into each other.  It was very flirtatious.  All I had to do was go up and spark up a conversation and that was it, but for whatever reason I couldn’t.  The resistance was too great.  I swear to you there was some invisible presence that was holding me back from going up and talking to her. 

     I would tell my friend Dan about her and we started referencing her as gym girl.  As time went by she would no longer flirtatiously look in my direction.  I lost my opportunity.  The highlight of my week would be the moments when I would see her at the gym.  It was a mild obsession.  Occasionally I would tell my buddy Dan about her and of course he was always like, why don’t you just go up and talk to her.  I always came up with some excuse like, “you don’t go up to girls at the gym when they are working out, and that’s poor etiquette.”  I of course was a real classy dude, or so I pretended. 

     I couldn’t go up and talk to her.  There was something that I hid from myself that I knew was there but didn’t want to deal with because it was too darn painful.  Every single interaction I’ve had with a girl I was attracted to and started a conversation with, went horribly wrong.  Two things would typically happen.  Sometimes I would just freeze up.  Other times something would come out of my mouth which would bring a high level of discomfort and awkwardness.  Nothing inappropriate per say.  Just awkward. 

     At a college party I once went up to a girl and introduced myself as Denzel Washington.  Both my parents were born in Poland and I’m the furthest thing from black.  It made no sense to why that would come out of my mouth.  She looked at me funny, rolled her eyes and walked away.  I have no idea why I said that for it wasn’t preplanned.  I’ve never heard anyone else use that line before and I hadn’t even watch one of Denzel’s movies recently.  No matter what, weird things come out of my mouth or I freeze up when talking to pretty women. 

     One time I played beer pong against this gorgeous girl at a college party.  I was walking in the campus center the next day and we crossed paths.  We were walking towards each other and she gave me a warm smile, stopped right in front of me and tried sparking up a conversation.  Saying what a good party that was.  I stopped for 2 seconds, said yea it was a good time, then felt so uncomfortable internally I ended up walking around her, leaving here there in some state of wonder and confusion.  I didn’t even say bye.

     Another time I was dancing at a Halloween party and I saw this pretty girl dancing across the room.  I ended up staring at her for way too long to the point where I could tell she was uncomfortable and left the dance floor.  That was my life when it came to women.  I would either freeze up, be awkward or both freeze up and be awkward. 

     So that was the reason why I didn’t want to go up to gym girl.  I had my little infatuation and I didn’t want to ruin that fantasy, because if I went up and talked to her I would ruin it somehow. A year goes by and I’m still thinking and talking about gym girl and I don’t even know her name.  Eventually a day after I get my wisdom teeth out and still slightly medicated I see her at the gym.  This was the big moment.  I was going to do it. 

     I was going to talk to gym girl.  I get off the treadmill go over to the weight area where gym girl was and I go right up to her and say this.  “Hey my name is Thomas.  I’ve seen you around and I always wanted to introduce myself.  What’s your name?” She gives me this warm smile and tells me her name, then it happens.  My already always self-fulfilling prophecy and I’m not talking about the psychic prophecy.  The extremely awkward when talking to a woman prophecy came true.  I felt really uncomfortable and my mind went blank.  Instead of just standing there not saying anything I just walked away and started lifting some weights on one of the machines.  My buddy Dan was like, “that’s it?” I was like “yeah that was it.” 

     Any time I saw her after that either at the gym or in town, I’m pretty sure she would go in the opposite direction of me.  After this gym girl experience I could see that I was actually kind of creepy with my interactions with women.  I hated it.  I was a genuinely nice guy and unintentionally I turned into a creep and I discovered it all stemmed from a program that was created in my past.

     I was doing a regression with my friend Kelly around my awkwardness with women.  I ended up going back to the 6th grade.  My sister was having a sleepover party with the girls in her 8th grade class.  They were all beautiful to me and I had crushes on every single one of them.  I remember when they were outside playing, I decided I was going to hide out in the closest in the basement where they were having their slumber party.  I was eavesdropping on their conversations.  Suddenly, I moved slightly and made a noise.   It was loud enough to gain their attention.  I could hear one of them say, “what was that?”  One of her friends opened the closest and saw me.  They said, “It’s your brother Tommy.” 

     I get out of the closest and I remember my sister was asking what I was doing in there.  I froze.  All of these beautiful girls I had crushes on were staring at me.  My sister ended up calling me a weirdo and embarrassment filled the core of my body.  I ended up just running upstairs and ran out of the house into the woods behind our house behind our red picket fence.  This highly emotional event caused a program to be created.  The program that was created was, “I’m a weirdo,” even though it was my sister who said it. 

     Often times we take on whatever language we hear and store it as the limiting belief.  What my sister said to me when I was highly embarrassed was the computer code to my program.  This belief of being a weirdo with beautiful women was now a way of life.  My behaviors were completely consistent to this program.  It didn’t matter how much I rehearsed something in my head before saying something to a girl I was attracted to.  The way I acted and the things I said were weird and unfortunately the word creep goes synonymous with the word weird. 

     Here is the thing, because of this program I acted like a weirdo around women.  I also had no idea if any of these women thought I was weird or not.  Did any of them actually call me a weirdo or a creep?  Maybe gym girl.  I don’t know because I would always run away from them, but the program caused me to perceive these interactions with women as me being weird or creepy.  Your beliefs systems shift how you perceive the world -- what you pay attention to. I became a mind reader and I was convinced I could read people’s minds.  Because I had a limiting belief that I was weird with women I’m attracted to so I would always look for the evidence of this being true, like their facial responses or their avoidance of me. 

     Perception is such an interesting thing.  Let’s compare the conscious and subconscious minds.  The subconscious mind can take in tons of information.  If you know anything about computer storage than let me tell you that your subconscious mind can take in millions of bytes of information at any given moment.  Your conscious mind can only take in 40 to 100 bytes of information.  That’s a huge disparity.  All your memories are stored in great detail in your subconscious mind but your conscious mind can only focus on four to seven things at any given time. 

     The programs you store from the past are there to protect you.  You experience painful emotions and your subconscious mind creates a belief associated with that experience and now moving forward you act out those beliefs.  How that works is that your conscious mind is focusing on those four to seven things in any given moment connected directly to your beliefs. 

     So my behavior matched up to me being weird and I was focusing on any facial expressions from the cute girls I’d go up and talk to.  My conscious mind was looking for anything in my environment around pretty women that would match this belief. Any facial expression out of the norm I immediately perceived and believed that girls think I’m weird.    

     How you see the world is unique to anyone else because you have lots of beliefs.  What you see is based on those beliefs.  For example, if you are a woman who believes she is unlovable.  Say your boyfriend does all these really nice things for you, is romantic, and accepts you for who you are.  Yet, if you believe you are unlovable then you see these kinds of gestures differently.  You could be convinced that he is lying to you when he says that he loves you or at least are skeptical to how long it will last, because you have a program that is going to over and over again bring you back to the belief of being unlovable. 

     You end up sabotaging the relationship and he dumps your crazy ass, proving how unlovable you truly are, even though you aren't crazy, it's just your actions and behaviors are going to match up to your beliefs, same with your perceptions.  You create this reality based on how you perceive the relationship through your beliefs. 

     You can take any belief and dissect how your perception is influenced by these beliefs.  If you believe the world is flat you will look down a street and confirm this belief.  If you believe old people are useless and boring, then you will ignore your grandparents at family parties.  Yet in Asia, old people are revered for their experience and wisdom and are perceived in a much higher light.  They are treated much differently than the old people here in the U.S. 

     Morality is a great indicator of perception.  Using religious doctrines to determine whether a person is good or bad.  Many people vote for a president that matches their religious beliefs.  It’s very easy to cut people out of your life if they don’t match the beliefs you have, especially if you are a “sinner”.  Even though everyone sins, but if you practice a different religion you will perceive all the sins of others at a much greater level. 

     Understand that everything you think is likely a perception connected to a belief.  At any given moment you can realize that being affiliated with one of the two major political parties is futile because both sides are corrupt and manipulative.  You can switch your perception of this if you watch the biased media for each respective party.  They cater the news based on your beliefs, by attacking the other party and glorifying yours. 

     You see, perception is so easily malleable.  If you think your life sucks, you can compare it to people starving in a third world country and that perception can shift to being grateful for the life you do have.  Happiness is not based on where you live, because there are people who live in third world countries who are much happier than people living in New York City or Los Angeles. 

     The only reason a man has difficulty talking to a woman is because of past programming.  You could easily shift that programming from being a weirdo into being a confident, well-desired gentlemen.  Your perception and reality shifts immediately once you work on those past limiting beliefs.  So stop torturing yourself and do something about those belief systems, it’s your access to falling in love.