How to Let Your Guard Down

Vulnerability can be a challenging and sometimes scary concept to think about. Jumping in and taking a risk requires being bold and being yourself.

Letting your guard down is vital in dating and relationships.

I was in a five-year relationship that was very restricting and caused me to become very guarded. After that, I went into a nine-month relationship that was nothing but freedom.

The girl in the second relationship allowed me to hang out with friends and do what I wanted. However, I still had my guard up as an artifact of my previous relationship.

Through this second girl, I learned what it meant to let my guard down.

I have also learned how to let my guard down in general when it comes to meeting women in different situations.

It is a vital key to having long-term potential with a woman and having her respect you over time rather than become resentful of you if things don’t work out.

Here are some practical tips on helping you let your guard down:

The first point I want to talk about is honesty with yourself. Before you talk to a woman, you want to be able to be honest with yourself.

That means you should know what stage you are at and what that stage will be able to accommodate.

For example, if you are in a stage of your life where you just want to party and meet new women, then you should be completely honest with yourself and tell yourself you may not have the desire to have a committed relationship with anyone.

How that transfers into communicating with the person is you will have to present them with your situation and let her decide if she is OK with staying with you or if she needs to move forward and find a guy who is looking for the same thing.

What happens is many men and women will hide the fact that they aren’t ready. They will tell a person they are ready for commitment, but they will want to have their fun on the side.

What happens is it creates big communication barriers and causes you to hide things. That results in having to keep a guard up all the time.

It is the cause of many failed relationships that shouldn’t have started in the first place.

“If you accomplish these

things, you will have success.”

The second point I want to make is the idea of trusting in the process. You have to understand that a woman can be lost or gained.

You should not hold on to the power of the relationship for the desire of yourself not getting hurt. Relationships are somewhat of a risk of being hurt, but that is their nature.

For example, I used to not give too many compliments, play hard to get and keep other girls as back-up in case my girlfriend decided to leave me. I did all of this out of fear.

It created huge barriers in the second relationship that I mentioned.

It is much better to jump in and just understand that relationships can sink or swim but at least you were honest about who you were. Then you can truly say you were or weren’t meant to be with each other.

Just like in poker, if you’re going to put your chips on the table, do it. If you don’t play, then you can’t win or lose. You’ll just end up in a vague gray area with nothing.

You have to take the risk of winning or losing the game. You won’t know until you play your hand.

See the person for who they are, not what you interpret them as.

Many times having a guard up is the result of having your thoughts in the past or future.

A personal example from me is many times I have been with a woman and have changed my behaviors due to having my mind focused on past bad experiences.

Or I have changed my behaviors around a woman due to me thinking about how the future will turn out and worrying too much.

Being centered and in the present allows you to react to what is happening at the moment and removes your guards of the past and present or random possibilities that can clutter your mind and adversely affect your behavior.

You must react to the person in front of you without the lenses of assumption that can cloud who they really are.

You want to give someone the benefit of the doubt rather than framing them as people you have interacted with in the past. Otherwise, it will be extremely difficult to see them as they really are.

As a recap, you should be honest with yourself about what you want, see the person without seeing them through the lens of past experiences, trust in taking a risk and understand that’s part of being in a relationship.

If you can accomplish these three things, then you will have much greater success in dating and relationships.