***Strong Women: 4 Tips to Help You Drop the Guard

By Lubov Skurina

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How many of us – single professional women are married to our job (or business) and have become almost incompatible with the idea of having a life partner? We want to have a love relationship in our life, yet we are so far from it, it seems like a vague dream.

It took us a great deal of hard work to get where we are, and now having reaped the fruit of our life-long journey, we realize that we lost touch with our feminine side. Through the struggle we have become too strong, intimidating for a man; difficult to approach.

When did we come to the conclusion that emotions are not important? We forgot how to feel them. If we do get to feel them sometimes, we’ll make sure no one else can see us – we can’t show vulnerability.

Vulnerable – is something we can’t allow ourselves to be, because vulnerability exposes us to the king of all fears – the fear of failure. It is that fear that kept us moving forward conquering the world; establishing our social status.

What now? We became so good at this: driving, controlling, providing, protecting (ourselves and others). We are secretly yearning for someone to walk into our life and take this burden off our shoulders. We just want someone to take care of us; someone to give us permission to make mistakes, to let go of the need to control everything.
Ironically, men that we tend to attract are “the weaker type” – followers. We don’t ever get fully satisfied and still look for “a real man,” but when we get anywhere close to such man, we know we can’t be together – it’s so hard to allow losing even a fraction of control.

What’s the solution?
We have to get in touch with our feminine side. We have to loosen the need to be always right. We have to let ourselves make mistakes, be careless, be open and vulnerable. This is what makes us human. This is what will make a man be drawn to us – our human side, our feminine nature.

Drop the illusion that you’ll be able to impress him with your credentials – they may be impressive, but they will never create a draw for him. Just as you are secretly yearning for someone to take your burden from you, he is yearning for a relationship where he is the giver, the provider, the protector. Ultimately, this is what turns him on. You’ve always known that, haven’t you?
The question is: How to do that? How can you undo decades of denying your feminine nature in struggle to excel in our power-driven world? This takes a transformation that will change your life experience. Here are some simple steps you can take to start:

1. Connect with your feelings. Allow yourself to feel your emotions to the fullest – all of them good and bad.

2. Allow yourself to be less than perfect at something and still enjoy doing it, focusing on the process rather than the end result. Fully embrace your imperfection, realize its essential quality to make you unique, human, lovable.

3. Practice asking for assistance and receiving. Question your desire to be self-sufficient. Create space for others to help you. Allow yourself to receive.

4. Transform your inner strength to open up. If today you use your strength to build protective walls around yourself, try this instead: rely on your inner strength to know that no one can harm you, no one can take away your inner power or make you sacrifice yourself. If you are strong in that knowing, you will see that no protection is needed. You then can let yourself be open and vulnerable; and allow forming intimate connections without fear.