The Commitment Process (For A Man) With John Gray
Summary
TLDRIn this insightful discussion, John Gray, author of 'Mars Venus on a Date,' shares his five stages of dating, which offer clarity and guidance for navigating relationships. Gray emphasizes the importance of self-awareness and maturity in moving through stages like attraction, commitment, and deep intimacy. He suggests discussing the commitment stage to ensure both partners are aligned on exclusivity and intentions. Gray's wisdom helps individuals recognize and avoid common pitfalls in relationships, fostering healthier connections and potentially leading to lasting love.
Takeaways
- ๐ John Gray's book 'Mars Venus on a Date' is recommended for gaining clarity on the stages of dating.
- ๐ก The stages of dating are generally experienced naturally, but awareness of them can help navigate relationships more effectively.
- ๐งโโ๏ธ Personal growth and self-awareness can accelerate the progression through the stages of dating.
- ๐ The transition from attraction to commitment is a critical stage where discussions about exclusivity and intentions are important.
- ๐ซ Gray suggests that men should be clear about their commitment before becoming physically intimate to avoid confusion for women.
- ๐ฎ The concept of 'ritombara pragya' from the Vedas is introduced as a state of awareness that recognizes truth, which is important in relationships.
- ๐ Sometimes, even soul mates might not be recognized as such because one or both partners are not ready or have not grown enough.
- ๐ฌ Communication is key, especially when it comes to discussing the pace and exclusivity of the relationship.
- ๐ฑ The natural progression of stages in a relationship can be compared to the growth stages of a plant, unfolding organically.
- ๐ John Gray emphasizes the importance of love and positivity in relationships, as opposed to using negativity to achieve one's desires.
Q & A
What are the five stages of dating mentioned in John Gray's book 'Mars Venus on a Date'?
-The five stages of dating as outlined by John Gray in his book are: 1) Attraction, 2) Uncertainty or Doubting, 3) Commitment, 4) Deep Intimacy, and 5) Engagement or Acting as if Married.
According to the transcript, is it necessary to discuss the stages of dating with someone you are dating?
-It is not always necessary to explicitly discuss the stages of dating. It is more about being aware of where you are in the relationship and acting appropriately. However, during the commitment stage, it is important to discuss expectations and intentions.
What does John Gray suggest about the relationship between personal growth and moving through the stages of dating?
-John Gray suggests that the more mature and self-aware you are, the quicker you can move through the stages of dating because you have a clear understanding of who you are and what you want in a relationship.
How does John Gray describe the importance of knowing oneself in the context of dating?
-John Gray emphasizes that knowing oneself is crucial in dating because it allows individuals to recognize the right partner and avoid unnecessary doubts and questions. It also helps in navigating the stages of dating more effectively.
What is the significance of the commitment stage in John Gray's dating model?
-The commitment stage is significant because it is where individuals discuss their intentions and expectations for the relationship, such as exclusivity and the desire to progress towards a deeper commitment.
Why is it important to discuss the exclusivity of a relationship during the commitment stage, as per John Gray?
-Discussing exclusivity during the commitment stage is important to avoid confusion and ensure that both partners are on the same page regarding their physical and emotional investment in the relationship.
What does John Gray suggest about the role of self-awareness in recognizing a soul mate?
-John Gray suggests that self-awareness is key to recognizing a soul mate. When you know and love yourself, you can more easily recognize and appreciate the right person for you.
How does John Gray define 'ritombara pragya' in the context of relationships?
-In the context of relationships, 'ritombara pragya' refers to a state of awareness that recognizes truth, which allows individuals to see the reality of their relationships and make decisions based on truth rather than partial truths or lies.
What does John Gray advise regarding the use of negativity in relationships?
-John Gray advises against using negativity to get what you want in a relationship, as it disconnects you from your soul. Instead, he encourages using love and positivity to achieve desires within a relationship.
What is the role of heart openness in determining if someone is the right partner, according to John Gray?
-Heart openness plays a crucial role in determining if someone is the right partner. When your heart is open, you can better recognize if the person is the one you want to share your life with, as you are more connected to your true feelings and intuition.
How does John Gray's advice on dating stages apply to people who have been in long-term relationships or marriages?
-John Gray's advice on dating stages can help people in long-term relationships or marriages by providing insights into the natural progression of bonding and by highlighting potential pitfalls to avoid, thus strengthening and maintaining a healthy relationship.
Outlines
๐ Understanding the Stages of Dating
The speaker discusses the relevance of John Gray's book 'Mars Venus on a Date' and its five stages of dating. A coaching client found the stages insightful, providing clarity on dating dynamics. The stages are not necessarily to be discussed with a partner but rather understood to navigate relationships effectively. The speaker emphasizes personal growth and self-awareness as key to quickly progressing through these stages. He shares his personal journey of recognizing his soulmate and the importance of being emotionally ready for a fulfilling relationship. The conversation touches on the idea that love at first sight is possible but not common, and that personal growth is crucial for recognizing and maintaining a healthy relationship.
๐ Navigating Commitment and Intimacy
This paragraph delves into the third stage of dating, commitment, and the importance of discussing expectations and boundaries, particularly regarding physical intimacy. The speaker stresses the need for a woman to feel a commitment from her partner before engaging in sexual activities, as it can affect emotional clarity and relationship progression. The discussion also covers the impact of sexual frequency on men's interest in their partners and the importance of self-awareness and communication in maintaining a healthy relationship. The speaker advocates for women to find partners who respect their boundaries and are willing to communicate openly about the relationship's direction.
๐งโโ๏ธ Spiritual Insights on Love and Relationships
The speaker shares his insights as a former monk and his studies in Buddhism and Hinduism, particularly the concept of 'ritombara pragya,' a state of awareness that recognizes truth. He discusses how external influences like media can distort our perception of truth and affect our relationships. The speaker emphasizes the importance of being connected to one's soul to navigate relationships with love and positivity. He also touches on the idea that negativity in relationships is a form of lying, as it does not represent our true loving nature. The conversation concludes with the importance of self-awareness and emotional maturity in recognizing and maintaining a soulful connection with a partner.
๐ฑ The Natural Progression of Love
In the final paragraph, the speaker reflects on the natural progression of relationships through the stages of dating, using the analogy of a plant's growth. He acknowledges that while the stages are a natural part of bonding, being aware of them can help couples avoid common pitfalls. The speaker shares his personal experience of dating and how his relationship with his wife evolved gracefully through these stages withoutๅปๆ discussion. He emphasizes the value of his wisdom in guiding others to recognize and navigate the challenges that arise in each stage of a relationship, ultimately leading to a successful and fulfilling partnership.
Mindmap
Keywords
๐กMars Venus on a Date
๐กStages of Dating
๐กPersonal Growth
๐กCommitment
๐กSelf-Awareness
๐กSoul Mate
๐กIntimacy
๐กPitfalls
๐กLove at First Sight
๐กSelf-Love
Highlights
John Gray's book 'Mars Venus on a Date' is recommended for coaching clients seeking clarity on dating stages.
The five stages of dating provide clarity and understanding in relationships.
Conscious choice or natural progression through dating stages varies by individual.
Awareness of the dating stages can prevent common pitfalls in a relationship.
Personal maturity and self-awareness can accelerate progression through dating stages.
John Gray shares his personal experience of recognizing a life partner after self-discovery and growth.
Love at first sight is possible but not common; it's essential to be ready for a soul mate.
The importance of discussing commitment and exclusivity in a relationship.
The impact of frequency of sexual intimacy on relationship dynamics.
The role of self-love and personal growth in recognizing and maintaining a healthy relationship.
Deep intimacy involves overcoming personal issues and taking responsibility for one's feelings.
The concept of 'ritombara pragya', a state of awareness that recognizes truth, in relationships.
The importance of being open-hearted to know if someone is the right soul mate.
The natural and graceful progression of a relationship through the stages of dating.
John Gray's insights on avoiding common pitfalls during the stages of commitment.
The value of Gray's work in making an impact on relationships and personal growth.
Transcripts
[Music]
[Music]
so this one i wanted to bring up because
i wanted to bring
to the attention of this audience um a
question that was written in about your
book
mars venus on a date which by the way
john i recommend to my coaching clients
and one of my coaching clients we were
having a um
conversation the other day and she said
oh she said these five stages that john
talks about these stages of dating
that john talks about in this book she
said this gave me
so much this has given me so much
clarity so
so here's a related question from monica
she says hi john thanks for taking our
questions in your book mars venus on a
date you talk about the stages of dating
and i'm wondering if this is something
to discuss with someone
i am dating if that's the first question
if a man consciously chooses to move
through the stages of
through the stages with a woman or if it
is something that just
naturally happens you know everybody's a
little bit different
you know it'd be like you know some guys
are like
hey let's read this book together and
and check this out
and and you know it's different
temperaments like that structure
uh in most cases it's just going to be
if a woman reads the book she's aware of
the pitfalls of every stage and how to
make sure it's happening and to kind of
know
where she is as the relationship is
unfolding
i think that the more heartfelt we are
the more mature we are
and you can move to those stages very
very quickly because you have
you already have a sense of who you are
you know for me i give an example
after 34 years of marriage with bonnie
uh
you know i know who i am and i know
all my buttons that can be pushed i know
how to let them all go
so for me to start a new relationship
you know i gave myself a year to grieve
and i said okay now start a relationship
and boom
i found the person and i don't i don't
have all those doubts and questions
because i know who i am i know what i
want i know just what i want and i found
it right
away i mean it's just like my friends
say how are you doing it's oh i have a
great life and
how do you find that yes well i'm a
relationship expert you know i should
you know if you if you know who you are
you know
uh yeah and and you you see what happens
when our buttons get
pushed we get upset and then we become
judgmental or critical or doubtful of
others
when you know who you are you find the
right person right away
because they will mirror who you are and
you love who you are so you will love
them
but that's you know i've been doing this
50 years almost 70 years old and
personal growth is my thing so it's very
easy for me now to do all this stuff
only because i've been doing it for so
long so
having said that having said that
uh what is my what is that the question
here remind me of the question
the question is are the stages of dating
is it something to discuss it's
something natural okay love at first
sight for example
you know you might be right when you
have love at first sight and
and that can happen that's just feeling
strong attraction or it's a real soul
knowing
uh it's not that common but it can
happen
uh you know my kids bonnie
i think in our last year we were talking
a lot about our relationship to the kids
and
and one of my daughters said to bonnie
did you know
that dad was the one when you first
right away and bonnie said the first
time i saw him i know he was the one
really and and then they said to me dad
did you feel that i said
i said she's the one i want to have sex
with tonight
that's an honest response
actually i did say sex with the kids i
said she's the one
she's the person i want to spend the
night with
[Laughter]
so that's what i knew but ironically
even though we had such a beautiful
connection
right away we ended up breaking up and
it wasn't until i got married to
somebody else learned a lot of lessons
made a lot of mistakes did some healing
and then came back knowing she was the
one so
and she she was the one she still is the
one in my heart
so there's this
thing we have to recognize that i can
share from my own experiences you could
be with your soul mate and not know
you're with your soul mate
because you're not ready for them you
haven't grown enough to recognize the
one you don't love yourself
enough to actually stay with somebody
who truly loves you who's right for you
because you know not all of our thinking
is correct and we're
down on ourselves hard on ourselves
doubting ourselves so back to the
question i'm just trying to answer
questions today
so the the question is so do you go
through those stages mainly you go
through them being aware
of where you are in the whole thing
without trying to explain to where your
partner is in the whole thing
but the third stage first is attraction
then comes doubting then comes
commitment
then comes deeper intimacy your stuff
comes up and you're able to overcome it
then comes proposal and then you act as
if you're married but without all the
pressures of being married
then you get married so that's them in
short and every stage has
its own challenges so the one i'll talk
about right now that you do need to
you know clearly talk about the others
you just need to understand and act
appropriately rather than make the
common mistakes people make
but when it gets the commitment that's
where you need to discuss that i'm not
willing
uh to be physically intimate with you
until we get to know each other enough
to where i know that you're committed to
me and you're not going to be having sex
with other people if i'm having sex with
you
because you should in my opinion it's
extremely confusing for a woman
and not confusing for a man but
subconsciously confusing for him he
doesn't know when he's confused or not
but he'll just feel like i don't know if
i want to be with her you know
and then i don't know what went wrong
you know what
i'm ready to move on he doesn't he's
just sort of lost in the whole thing
women will often feel confused you know
they feel like i i don't know is he
right is he wrong
what does he love me to see that's when
you want to all talk about the
relationship but there's a place where
he wants to have sex with you and you go
you know i want to have sex with you but
i know
for me you're taught i'm being the woman
here for me it just doesn't work for me
to have sex if i
if if the man i'm having sex with is
having sex with anybody else
so i want to feel that as long as we're
having sex together that we have
a commitment and a promise to each other
then we're not going to have sex with
with other people and in the beginning i
still need to go really slow with it i
don't have a whole lot of sex
i mean i want to but i know that i need
to have it just occasionally maybe like
once a week where it generally works for
me
and but i also need to feel that you're
not having sex with anybody else in
between or that you're not having sex
with yourself
that's really what works for me i like
to feel that the energy is building up
now that's pretty bold to say he may not
agree to that but that's
you really want a relationship that's
why i tell women find a guy who wants
you
more than you want him and he'll be
willing to play by your rules
uh but if you're trying to please a guy
you're going to be afraid to even say
something like that
and it really is kind of weird today to
say something like i'll grant it but
i'm trying to populize this research
that shows that if men have sex if men
ejaculate
more than once a week they lose interest
in the woman they're having sex with and
are more interested in other women
and that's what causes us to become so
confused is we
you know we start to compare as soon as
a man's testosterone levels go down a
woman's estrogen levels go down that
means she's in a little stress state
whenever we're in stress we always start
comparing and comparing is the thief of
our happiness
there's always better on the other side
of the fence you know
if you're feeling stressed if you're not
feeling stressed
and you understand that the grass is
greener on the other side of the fence
is actually
what you become when you're stressed
then you don't pay much attention to
that and you focus on the good that you
have
but that takes maturity and that's why
there's stages of this whole thing
because you
before you can get to that level you
have to have deep intimacy where you
know yourself and you're able to share
yourself with your partner
so that's where your stage four is where
your partner triggers you and you have
all these
you know judgments or disapproval or
arguments that come up and you're able
to
dissipate them very quickly by taking
responsibility
for going deeper and recognizing how you
contribute to problems
rather than them being the problem you
are responsible for how you feel
and that's the deep intimacy that you
start to experience
you overcome that now you wake up one
morning you go he's the one for me
because you connected with your soul
through the relationship
then you can see if they're your soul
mate or not and sometimes
you get to that level of intimacy and
they're not the one for you
you love them but you realize they're
not right for you and that's okay too
how do you know if somebody's right
really right for you as a soul mate
your heart has to be fully open so how
do you know somebody's not right for you
your heart has to be fully open because
when your heart's open it's not like
they opened your heart
you opened your heart in relationship to
them
and were able to know if they're the one
that you want to share your life with
they could be the one you want to
grow in love with for a while and move
on there's no
there's no just because you love someone
you have to spend your life with them or
they're the right person for you
but if you open your heart then you know
knowing is something that comes to us
when our heart is open and it's just
no reasons even there may be reasons
that help you open your heart
but knowing is unknowing like if i have
a cold glass of water refreshing glass
of water
i know it's for cold it's just a knowing
well we all have that capacity
when our heart is open you know that
and i know when i i you know i have this
whole background of being a monk and
studying uh buddhism and hinduism and
all these different things is a phrase
in the vedas
which is a state of awareness which they
call ritombara pragya
which is that state of awareness that
recognizes truth
and we're not in that state of awareness
and we're constantly being pushed out of
that awareness if you watch tv
now if you watch theater our tv where
you know that what you're watching is
made up
then that doesn't cause us to start
believing lies
because we already know it's a lie it's
made up so that's healthy to do is to
have drama that's made up and it's not
real
so always in the greek days there was
laughter and there was drama
as part of catharsis which was
healing we listened to things and we
believe them and they're partial
truth they're lies anything's a partial
truth it's the sin of a mission
something else is not being expressed
so when you believe what's not true you
go further and further away of knowing
within yourself what's true and we lose
that we watch these lies and believe
these lies and act on these lies
and the same thing happens in our
relationships i'll put in here
and it wasn't the question but in our
relationships
when you use negativity to get what you
want
you're not connected to your soul the
soul uses love to get what you want
and when you use negativity basically
you're lying because you're not
negative you're a positive being and
it's a partial truth it's what you feel
but it's not the complete truth
you know you can be angry with somebody
go i'm angry about you but now i realize
that
you know you didn't mean to say that or
you really do care so i'll let it go
so i care about you so now you've you've
gotten to the complete truth which is
yes i was angry but now
it's an incomplete belief or feeling it
needs to get back to love and then
it's forgiveness and that's that's the
total truth
we want to learn how to get to the real
truth of life and that's by getting to
the truth of who we are which is we're
loving human beings but we do
interdepend on each other we're
dependent we need love we need support
we need to be loving
otherwise we're not being our true self
yeah that was beautifully said
and you know coming back just for a
second to the five stages in your book
which by the way everyone i really
highly recommend
um the stages in your book when i
thought back on this
when my husband and i were dating and
one of the distinctions
because i didn't get married till i was
43 so i dated a lot of different people
and i didn't have the easiest time
finding what felt like the right
relationship for me
which is part of the reason i do the
work that i do because i'm really
passionate about
how good that can be when you find the
right person
um and how hard it can feel when you
don't have the right person
and so um but one of the things i
noticed was that with my husband and i
we never
discussed you know the stages of dating
or anything like that but things just
felt like they
naturally gracefully progressed
in a way where it didn't feel like there
was struggle it didn't feel like there
was a drama
and it just felt like the relationship
just like
naturally it wasn't push me pull me one
person
way into it more than the other
naturally and gracefully evolved and yet
when i look in the book i can see you
know i can see how yep that's what was
happening then that's what's happening
then
we were naturally and gracefully moving
through those stages and i do think
your uh your wisdom about some of the
pitfalls to watch out for
since a lot of the women are out there
dating is so incredibly valuable
yeah so you answered the question better
than me but having heard what you just
said
the answer is i i came up with those
five stages because
you can see that people who get married
have good relationships all went through
them
and i can see at the it's a natural
unfoldment of the stages of a plant
developing for example it goes through
stages
and it's not like you're saying okay now
we're gonna we're gonna force this stage
and we're going to force this stage
it's a natural unfoldment of typically
what happens when people bond
and the bonding grows at the same time
what i did is said
be aware of what stage you're in then
you know what your challenges are
you also know what your pitfalls are so
that you don't fall into them because
like in the stage of commitment often
one of the pitfalls there
is men have a tendency to say okay now
that we're having sex
i don't have to work so hard to make you
love me
and so they they tend to become a bit
more passive and a woman will tend to
feel like oh he's becoming passive i
should work harder
you know now that we're in a committed
relationship i'll give more in the
relationship
and by giving more he ends up going
further the other direction so that
would be a pitfall
in that situation that you want to look
out for
and and so many people naturally move
through them and they're able to
overcome those pitfalls and people that
don't end up
happily married or if that's their goal
they don't
uh they don't make it because they hit
one of those pitfalls
and did made a mistake and so here's how
you can correctly
evaluate what's going on at from someone
from a wisdom point of view
rather than falling into the pitfalls so
i point those out
thank you so much john and thank you so
much for your generosity and for
being willing to field all of these
questions
and you're so generous with your wisdom
and i really love what you've shared
because i know that your work is making
such an impact in the world and
for this audience we're really honored
and we want to express our gratitude and
appreciation for
your generosity really means a lot
you're very very welcome thank you so
much thanks for being the ambassador of
love
thank you thank you all right take care
bye bye for now
bye-bye bye everybody
[Music]
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