{SHARE} : Lean Into Your Pain, Don’t Run From It.

Morning Apex Gang. This week ownership and accountability has been heavy on my mind. With the accountability chat in the recent Zoom call, and going through my own journey, I’ve been down a rabbit hole of self discovery.

As many (probably most lol) of you know, I broke up with my LTR of 3.5 years back at the end of May. There were a lot of reasons I won’t get into, but it was a break up neither of us really wanted, but our frustrations lead to resentment that got the best of the relationship.

From a societal standpoint, most people react to break ups the same way : that sucked, let’s find the next one. It’s why I believe majority of people go from failed relationship to failed relationship. Each time they quickly exit and enter something new, they’re carrying the pain they didn’t heal from on top of their own shit they haven’t identified as their blind spots. They dump all that baggage on the new person and cycle repeats.

For the first 2 weeks after my break up, I fell into a similar trap. Fuck her, she’s missing out, time to be a savage and slay pussy. I quickly learned the thrill of smashing randoms was pretty empty, and I missed the connection with my LTR. I gave myself some time to reflect on what was important, and it kept pointing me back to her. At the end of June I initiated contact and set up a time for my Ex and I to chat. Everything I had thought about I laid out on the table. I wanted to get back together, but she wasn’t ready.

Over the last 4 weeks, it’s been a rollercoaster of emotions for me. My ex wants me, she doesn’t want me. We had rockstar sex the first 2 meet ups, the 3rd she couldn’t do it emotionally. I’m her person, she just wants to be friends. It’s been a very confusing time, but each time we met I would gain more clarity over our situation which fueled my own personal growth.

Last week I hit some major breakthroughs on how my prior trauma affected my relationship, almost self sabotaging it in a way. It’s a surreal moment for me though, as the price came at the cost of my LTR. Despite that, I couldnt have come to these realizations if things happened any differently. The last four weeks needed to almost happen EXACTLY how they unfolded. Instead of pursuing coping mechanisms to escape the healing, I tackled it head on. Looking back, I know it’s unconventional to keep working on a relationship that’s dead, but it’s fueled such incredible growth for me.

Onto the accountability side, I’d like to hold myself to the fire and share some discoveries I’ve learned from this experience, hopefully you guys get something out of it. In no particular order :

Not everything is a nail. After my divorce and becoming Red Pill I overtightened my behaviors WAY too much. The goal was to protect myself, but in reality I built up walls so no one could really get in.

2. Sometimes girls do dumb girl shit, especially when they’re hurting. It doesn’t make them narcissistic, it doesn’t mean they’re manipulating you. Women probably hurt on a deeper level than we do, and their emotions are in the drivers seat.

3. Surrender to the outcome. It’s kind of like abundance, you can fake it for a little bit, but if you don’t believe it in your core, it’ll crumble quickly. When you surrender to a relationship, you allow yourself to experience REAL intimacy. When you fight against surrendering the outcome, it’s easy to start to get controlling and push your girl away.

4. Give people in your life enough rope to climb back onto the ship or hang themselves. The easy choice is always to fire the nukes and exit the relationship once boundaries are crossed. I’ve learned recently the key is to hold boundaries, while giving opportunities for them to comply. It can lead to more pain if they repeat the same patterns, but it’s also increases the chances to build equity in each other. Don’t rob yourself, or rob the other person of this.

5. I can live with rejection, I can’t live with regret. I definitely hold on for too long, but looking back on my life I can’t say I have many actual regrets. With my current ex, it would’ve been easy for me to walk away after the initial break up and never look back, but I would’ve had so much doubt that could’ve haunted me for years.

6. Integrity and High Value Behaviors are core needs of mine. I think part of it is to protect myself from pain. If I surround myself with high quality people I believed I was less likely to get hurt. On a more personal side though, reaching peak personal success is at the core of everything I do. If I don’t share that same belief with another person, it’s likely we’ll turn each other off with our own behaviors.

7. It’s important to give ourselves grace. Paul reminded me of the famous quote from Jesus on the cross “Father forgive them for they know not what they do”. Not only does this help us give OTHERS grace, but we need to apply the same standard to our own lives. My childhood abuse is still effecting me to this day, and that’s not my fault, but it’s my responsibility. I need to give myself more grace for my mistakes without making excuses.

8. Alphas lose the girl too. I think I tried building myself up the last few years into “alpha” status as a way to protect myself from rejection. Prior to my divorce, I was getting rejected from women for being too much of a beta/provider role and lacking the knowledge of how attraction works. The obvious solution at the time was become the opposite. However becoming Alpha just opened up more problems I wasn’t prepared for, like dealing with the dread the I’d create with the women in my life. Managing dread has been by far the hardest thing for me to learn. Managing dread in an LTR needs to have game dialed in at its highest level.

9. Giving comfort to your girl doesn’t make you a pussy. Probably the biggest area I over tightened after my divorce. When I “killed the beta”, I killed a lot of the qualities I bring to the table that provided women in my life a sense of comfort and safety. It’s great for attraction and burning desire, but total shit for keeping a girl in your frame. Saying I love you more often, doing little things to let her know you’re thinking of her, planning dates for her enjoyment sometimes…this is how you balance the fear she has of losing you with the fear of not being able to keep you.

10. DONT FORGET LUCA. Looking back on my LTR, the times we were the strongest was when I held frame and used LUCA to open her up. The times it went to shit? Usually I wasn’t opening her up, and instead let my emotions get the best of me. I swear I might get LUCA tattooed on my fucking hand as a reminder. PRACTICE THESE SKILLS GUYS.

11. Smashing dates and plates is fun, but it gets tiresome. If I wasn’t able to source women for threesomes and get side action while in an LTR with my ex, I probably would’ve never come to this conclusion so quickly. Having both at the same time really caused me to pull closer to her in a strange way. Now that I’m single again I’ve come to realize it’s cool to have a one sided open relationship for a season, but it wasn’t worth the cost : losing a woman I loved. Now I’m much more open to monogamy with the right woman and looking for that legacy partner.

12. No matter what happens to me, this experience has shown me I’ll always come out on top. I won’t always be immune to major fuck ups along the way, but I’m a savage once I identify problem areas in my life. I have such an intensity most people can’t match, and that’s why more times than not I always fucking win. Every time I sense weakness, I’m humble enough to seek and destroy. The stronger I get, the more isolating it becomes, but I can’t imagine another way to live.

13. Don’t neglect your inner circle. It’s been interesting to watch this dynamic play out with my ex. Her friends are pulling her down to their level and tolerating her dumb girl behavior, while my friends are encouraging me to dig deep and supporting my needs in a healthy way. I could’ve never leveled up this quickly without having the strength of my squad behind me. Not only have they helped me grow, but through walking this journey with me, they’ve been able to grow too. Iron sharpens Iron, we are stronger together than we are apart.

14. INVEST IN YOURSELF! Most people rob themselves of this because it’s not easy, it’s HARD WORK. In the last 4 weeks I’ve probably spent close to $5k on coaching, therapy and self improvement. I don’t think it’s a coincidence I’ve made groundbreaking discoveries and seriously leveled up in my personal life. When it comes to value like this, I never look at the price (within reason obviously). Part of this is my pitbull mentality, but there’s never been an easier time to force yourself to grow with the type of access we all have to top tier professionals. Every dollar you spend on self improvement is an investment into yourself so don’t cheap out.

Big thanks to

@Paul Benjamin

and the Apex squad for giving me the opportunity to share this journey with. I’ll be meeting my ex later today to take ownership of my faults within our relationship. I couldn’t have gotten here without the help of all the strong leaders in my life who’ve walked with me through these hard times.

I’d like everyone to post what stood out to them the most, or even better : what resonated with you from my post.

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