At the outset, I must inform that the title of this piece has been inspired by a book with the same name, “Permission to Feel,” by Dr. Marc Brackett.
Women may quickly get a sense of what I am trying to say here, but men may find it abstract in the first read. Nonetheless, this is written first for myself as a man and then for my male readers primarily.
Most of what I am writing here is homegrown and not inspired or learned from a book/course/videos.
As basic and obvious, this may sound, we can feel about a person. A person has an impact on us because of how we feel in the presence of the person. Sometimes by the sight of the person, sometimes by their voice, sometimes by their demeanor, sometimes by the way they look at us, etc.
We can feel in the first few seconds of seeing a woman, we can feel as we keeping looking at her, we can feel as we are talking to her, we can feel as she is talking to us, we can feel when she looks at us, we can feel when she is seated or standing next to you, and we can feel when we touch her and vice versa.
We can feel so much just by the mere presence.
Yet we abandon this faculty because we have only known the scientific, dissectable, analysts, and measuring way to relate with the opposite gender.
There is no madness to our method but only steps. And that’s not such a good thing in polarizing – romantic aspect of life.
Some of the best traders of stock markets have ascribed a Feel to their trading success. Yes, they have developed this aspect over a period of time and not born with it.
I’ll come to developing part later.
As I said earlier, we have the capacity to feel about a person. Sometimes, we can feel in the first two seconds of seeing the person first time.
Have you seen the movie Titanic or Godfather?
In both movies, the male actor pauses (not freeze) on seeing the woman who just appeared in front of them.
The pause is by product action that unconsciously happens when we intensely Feel something within us. It’s difficult to label the feel in this particular context of movies, but being aware in real time that this woman has paused me is good enough.
The “paused” is the impact she had on us, which is a result of different feelings she invoked in us.
I know of stories where a man (who never approached a woman before) randomly approached a woman to get to know her or pursue her, and that woman becomes his girlfriend or a wife.
He followed his impulse as I would like to put it. What impulse, you may ask? I guess even he doesn’t know how to put in words.
But the matter of the fact is that a woman’s (who may not be your type) mere presence can have an impact on you that is Not psychological in nature.
What do I mean by psychological? You know, sometimes we see a woman who is of a certain type in tangible sense and that certain types happen to influence us. For example, a man’s type is Middle Eastern, and when he comes across a woman who communicates that she is Middle Eastern either through her attire or by mentioning, the man perks up because he is psychologically already influenced by the Middle Eastern narrative.
Another example is when a woman perks up when she comes to know that the man next to her is famous. Until she knew he was famous, she overlooked him.
These are the examples of psychological impact.
The impact I am referring to transcends the psychological aspects of life. It touches the intelligence of our innate body.
Why is this important?
Well, this may guide our actions that may result in an outcome that can be life altering.
Women generally are good at this. That doesn’t mean they are always right. But a lot of times woman can spot a man in a full room, who she would like to be approached by, not because he is tall and great looking, but because his presence sparks something in her.
This ability to feel extends to when we are speaking to the woman we just met, while we are listening to her, while we are looking at her, while we are in conversation with her, etc..
But a lot of us (men) are sometimes disconnected from this aspect we have within us. How so?
Well, in real-time, we are unable to recognize, identify, label, and express how we are feeling about a person and the kind of impact she is having on us.
Simply because men are not used to touching this aspect of themselves. They don’t ask themselves consciously or subconsciously in real time, “How do I feel?”
For men, it’s simply about finding her attractive or not in merely physical sense.
The kind of impact: We all have an impact on someone. It’s either mild or intense. It’s can be delightful, or pleasant, or mischievous, or purely sexual, or a combination.
Why is this important?
Why am I suggesting to men to develop the ability to feel about women in real time?
The number one reason is that men must be able to go beyond the objective physical features of women. I am not saying to overcome but go beyond.
For a large segment of men, the way they go about women begins and ends with a womans physical features. In my experience, it’s a weak position to be in as a man.
The ability to feel and use that as a qualifier to decide about a woman will put you in a position where you will feel grounded.
Even as simply to decide which woman to approach or communicate in a room, the Feel aspect can be a great qualifier.
Beyond that, you will land up connecting with women more often. By connecting, I mean more tangible outcomes.
Why?
Well, in my experiences, connection/chemistry is a symmetrical concept. Not always but majorly.
Let me elaborate on how this works in real time.
Person X sees Person Y or comes in proximity with each other. Person X feels a certain impact on encountering Person Y. Person X does not hide the impact, and the impact is clearly visible on Person X face or either in his voice or his demeanor. Person Y will witness the intensity and genuineness of impact, and in turn, she will too feel a certain impact, which will ignite a curiosity in her to begin with..
The impact is contagious in nature.
If we see a person delighted to see us, we also feel in return a certain sense of warmth or joy or affection for the person just because we see that the person is genuinely delighted to see us.
However, when it comes to a man in relation to women, usually a man is too caught up with features of a woman plus voices in his head dominates his sense of self in real time and lastly he is too apologetic to let this game of possible impact play out.
On a ground level, this applies even when you are on a date, while you are in a conversation with a woman socially or professionally, you are going about your day to day life, etc..
The question is how a man develops this ability to receive a person on the feel level and thereby act accordingly?
Honestly, this requires months of work in social environments with the right vibe. Hence, my words here can not really do justice.
First is by becoming aware and taking a leap of faith that such aspect exists. As this is not a scientific realm, a certain leap of faith is important.
Then start practicing “How I feel?” Question on day to day basis when you are with a person.
Ask yourself how I feel while you are in proximity of women either visually or in a conversation.
Try to recognize different feelings that may be invoked within you in the presence of a woman.
Try to label it if you can or at least label the impact. For example, when I saw her, I paused in my steps (that’s an impact).
With time, you should be able to get glimpses of this ability being developed within you.
I am just scratching the surface here.
It surprises me when I coach men that how many of them are absolutely unaware of this aspect.