Don’t worry about asking your doctor for a prescription, appreciation is an over-the-counter medication (or over the bed rail, the kitchen table, the hood of the car…) Want to really appreciate your woman? Here’s how.

Disclaimer: administration of the information herein may result in the exposure of parts of the woman in your life that she has seldom revealed to you. Side effects may include, but are not limited to, wild abandon, sweet surrender, and squealing playfulness, as well as any other combination of the adjectives and verbs that comprise her unfathomable nature.

But Winning Is Everything, Isn’t It?

You were conceived, born, grew up. You got to the prepubescent age and started noticing that funny feeling in your lower belly when you oh-so-subtly snuck up on “that” girl on the playground and pulled her pigtails; when you acted cocky in front of your friends, for her benefit, with a joke or a heroic effort in a football game; when you ran after her in the hallway or after school, “Hey, Allison, wait up! Carry your books?”

Then you reached puberty. Your cock started getting hard when you would see Allison, think about Allison, dream about Allison…and when the wind would blow. You couldn’t keep your hands off your cock, and you could barely keep your hands off Allison. This is when you got the message that you had to become either a Nice Boy or a Bad Boy. Remember that? Oh sure, there were variations of the game—Jock, Nerd, Burnout, Poet— but it all boils down to Nice Boy or Bad Boy. Which did you choose? Nice? Bad? Some combination thereof? Was it a tag-team effort depending on which role was required in the moment to obtain the Golden Fleece (so to speak)?

So, you developed your Nice Boy-Bad Boy game plan, or you decided to sit on the bench, or you may even have been inclined to join the other team and avoid the opposite sex altogether. Whatever your game plan, this guide is aimed at those seeking to better and more deeply appreciate a feminine heart, whether that heart is in the body of a woman or a man. Modulate pronouns as you see fit.

You practiced. You adjusted your game plan. You had some degree of success and some degree of failure. At some point, you scored, you made fire, you bagged your doe, you got yourself a woman. Touch down! Two points! He shoots, he scores! It’s in the hole!

Ok, so now that you’ve got her, what do you do with her? How do you keep her? Why would she stay? What can you offer her?

It’s Not Whether You Win Or Lose…

A woman is not a goal line reward. She is not a trophy. She is not an accomplishment. She is a flower, the weather, the full spectrum radiance of light itself. She is a great mystery, an unfathomable beauty. And, like these things, she is a gift to be appreciated, not a problem to be fixed or a goal to be achieved.

Don’t get me wrong, she enjoys the hunt and the game, being the prey and the prize. So don’t box up your broad heads or high tops and put them in the basement behind the holiday decorations just yet. She feels seen and beautiful when you pursue her. But if she feels unappreciated, there will be no pursuit, or anything else.

You may be asking, “But doesn’t the fact that I won her show her that I appreciate her?” “Wasn’t appreciating her part of the whole ‘winning her’ thing?” “Can’t I just quietly slip out of bed, grab my clothes and shoes and leave…or maybe just call her a cab?” Sure. Go ahead. I’m sure she’ll let you know just how much she felt appreciated if you do that. Let me know how that works out for you.

You know when a woman’s feminine heart feels unappreciated. She is angry, grouchy and irritable. She doesn’t take care of herself. She withdraws, withholds, shuts down, closes up. She complains and nags, takes charge, tells you what to do, does things herself that she expected you to do. She undermines and threatens. She usurps your power, cuts you down to size and goes for your balls.

You may think her anger, however she expresses it, is a punishment for you, but it isn’t. Every woman knows that when she is feeling unappreciated and unloved, and is acting out in anger because of it, she is really punishing herself. Deep down in her heart, she blames herself for your lack of attention, presence and integrity. She feels she is not beautiful or loveable. She feels worthless and unseen. If you think this is how she wants to feel, then you probably think that a 4.6L DOHC 4 valve per cylinder engine sounds better with a thrown rod.

Whatever social, philosophical or psychological partnership models and rules you subscribe to, however much you value being equal partners in an equitable and comfortable 50-50 relationship, those blueprints no longer apply at this point (and never really did). When you promised to be with this woman, whether you asked for it or not, she gave you her heart. She trusted you with it. You are responsible for it. It is in your hands. If you aren’t willing to do whatever needs to be done to rise to the occasion, you should save yourself, and her, a lot of trouble, pain and grief, and simply leave.

This is a challenge, a test, my friend. She wants you to step up. She has given her heart to you and she is laying it bare, open and raw before you because she knows—she knows in the very fiber of her being—that you have what it takes, that you measure up, and that you are the man for the job. But she’s not going to keep offering her heart to you forever. Sooner or later, if you don’t step up, you’ll have used your time outs and the buzzer will sound. This is a challenge. Take it as such. Men grow through challenge. Time to separate the men from the boys.

This sounds harsh. It sounds impossible. It sounds like a hassle and a burden. A real pain in the ass. The short end of the stick. But, as men, we aren’t always attuned to the subtle messages and nuances of the feminine heart. She has probably been turning up the volume for years before we have finally heard how she feels. For many of us, it’s too late when it gets to this point. She is too angry to open up to us again, to trust us again and feel the pain of our failure to respond one more time. She leaves.

There you have it. She’s gone. No more hassle. No more burden. No more pain in the ass. Finally, a fair deal. We’re free, right? Or are we? If we can’t find our freedom, a sense of knowing who we are and what we’re here to do, while we’re in the midst of relationship and its inherent pathos and drama, then we are not really free at all, are we (notice, that’s not a question.)

The Challenge

I paint a pretty harrowing picture, I know. Edvard Munch’s painting, The Scream, comes to mind. But it doesn’t have to be this way (yet again.) As a matter of fact, there are some basic instructions you can follow to troubleshoot, repair and maintain your relationship and deeply serve the feminine heart in your life, to encourage her in giving her gift of beauty to you and to the world (figuratively speaking, of course, unless you’re into that sort of thing.)

This is a challenge, yes. But taking on this challenge presents us with unforeseen rewards. Each time we step up and stand our ground in the miraculous, tumultuous, unfathomable heart of a woman, while not compromising our freedom and integrity, we accomplish several things: we take back our balls; we allow her to give us her pleasure (which is a greater reward than feeling our own pleasure); and we become better men. If you need a payoff, and serving your woman for her sake, not yours, isn’t your primary motivation, then these rewards probably won’t be enough for you either. Better to stop reading here.

But, if you’re feeling man enough to take up the gauntlet, then enter at your own risk, for here there be dragons.

How do you appreciate a woman? 1. Earn her trust. 2. Claim her heart. 3. Be fully present with her. 4. Push past her defenses

To perfect the slapshot you have to first have a proper stance on the ice, followed by proper puck positioning, and finish with proper weight transfer and follow through with your swing. If your initial stance is out of balance, the whole shot is off, but when each phase of the shot is mastered and performed in the proper sequence, the whole slapshot transcends the sum of its parts and becomes a beautiful and powerful act of artistry. The four phases of appreciating a woman are the same. It works best to gain competency in one phase before moving on to the next. Once competency is gained in all four phases, the phases of the process can come together masterfully and artfully.

1. Earn Her Trust

Keep your word. Walk your talk. Take the initiative. Decide what you’re going to do, tell her what and when, and then do it. Seems simple enough, doesn’t it?

Before we can keep our word, we have to take the initiative, decide what our word is, and then we have to say it out loud. This takes more courage than we like to admit. Every time we take the initiative and make a decision and voice it, we risk rejection. Remember, nobody ever died from rejection, and the fear of it is always worse than the reality. If your woman knows you’ll collapse at the first sign of rejection, she’ll keep pressing that Big Red Button until you overcome it. She will continue to test you. That’s her job. You will continue to rise to the occasion. That’s your job.

Refusing to take initiative is the safe way out. We know it well. Ever say something like this to your woman? “Honey, it’s your birthday, and I want to take you out to dinner, and then shopping. We can go anywhere you want, just let me know what you decide!” I imagine you got a favorable response.

Have you ever tried something like this? “It’s your birthday. We’re going out. Wear something dressy, black and above the knee. Pack an overnight bag with the red panties, bra and fishnets that make you wet when you wear them. Be ready by eight.” Try it. Thank me later.

If you don’t take the initiative, you put your woman in the position of doing so, and she will feel you don’t trust yourself to take the lead. She wants to trust you, but she won’t if you don’t trust yourself. Why should she?

Taking the initiative doesn’t mean you’re being selfish and laying down the law. This isn’t D/S 101. Take the initiative with confidence, but remember you are doing so not for your own ego or pleasure, but to allow her to trust you, which is what you both want. If she offers positive feedback, then go with it. If she offers negative feedback, then re-evaluate your decision and make a new plan. Honor her feeling. It is her gift to you. But take it as information, not as a Royal Decree.

I have found that a woman’s heart takes priority over her words, and that her heart and her words aren’t always on the same page. She feels appreciated when you trust her heart and feelings more than her words and push past her words into her heart. (Don’t buy that? How many times have you asked an obviously angry or distraught woman what’s wrong and gotten the response, “Nothing!”?)

Taking the initiative is a necessary risk if you want to begin appreciating the feminine heart of the one you love. But keeping your word is the next step in Phase 1 of earning her trust.

Women love Harrison Ford and the men he portrays. Indiana Jones. Han Solo. John Book. Jack Ryan. Even Allie Fox, the over-driven inventor from Mosquito Coast. A defining quality they all share? They say what they’re going to do and they go hell bent for leather, risking life, limb and the security of families, nations and galaxies to get it done (and not even their woman pleading with them not to go or threatening them with divorce or death will keep them from their appointed tasks, their missions, their raison d’etre, which we will address later). Take out the garbage, come home from work on time or give her that back rub like you promised, with that attitude, and see how that reads on the Trust-O-Meter.

We’re talking about integrity here. There is very little that wounds and hurts the feminine heart more than broken promises and patterns of not doing what we say we will do. Taking the initiative and following through is a tall order for generations of men who were taught from an early age that they should be good boys and not be too assertive. Many men have become too accommodating of others to act at all. Strong masculine hearts that are decisive and trustable are too rare, but developing those qualities is a way to deeply appreciate a woman.

There’s a back door to this. If you don’t actually plan to leave the toilet seat down, mow the lawn before the game, or fix her broken headlight after work, then DON’T promise to do it. It’s far better to say NO, than to say YES and not follow through. She will trust and appreciate your NO, as long as you follow through with it. Oh, she may storm or complain, but if you stick to your guns, she will appreciate that you know what you can and can’t do, and when, and that you manage and value your time and energy enough not to placate her with empty promises.

2. Claim Her Heart

It’s a good day to die!
It belongs in a museum!
This is your mission if you choose to accept it.
To boldly go where no man has gone before.
To protect and serve.
I’m here to chew bubblegum and kick ass—and I’m all out of bubblegum.
Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.

A woman who feels your claim on her heart is a woman who feels deeply appreciated. A woman wants you to take her, pin her to the wall (or table, or floor, or bed) and claim her fully and completely—body, heart and soul. But she doesn’t want to be the reason you wake up in the morning, what drives you, what makes you tick. She doesn’t want to be your reason for being alive. She doesn’t want to be your mission in life. And you can’t claim anyone until you have staked your own claim in the world. She may say that she wants to be your everything but, if you make her your everything, she will know you are easily manipulated and swayed from your course and she won’t fully trust you.

You cannot claim your woman’s heart and make her feel, of all the wildflowers on the mountainside, that she is the woman you choose, unless you know who you are and where you’re going. She wants to be your inspiration, the energy that fires you up to take on the world, your healing balm when you return home from the battle. She will not feel appreciated if you fumble around in life with no greater purpose or mission than to make it to the weekend to watch the game, play your X-Box, or go out with the guys. If you don’t know where you’re going in life, she won’t feel safe enough to let her guard down and fully open up to you, and she will take responsibility for where the relationship is going because you have abdicated not only the responsibility for taking the lead in the relationship but the responsibility of taking the lead in your own life. A woman doesn’t open her heart when she feels needed. She opens her heart when she feels wanted. Life is a great adventure, and a woman wants to be a part of that adventure with you.

There is a John Cusack movie, one of his earlier teenage chick flicks, Say Anything. If you recall, when Cusack’s character, Lloyd, first meets his new girlfriend’s father at dinner, and the father is grilling him about what he wants to do with his life, Lloyd says, “What I want to do with my life is be with your daughter. I’m good at it.” At that moment, Lloyd became even more of a sweetheart to many of the women watching him, but it also became clear that Lloyd had no direction in his own life and was following his girlfriend around like a puppy.

The woman in your life wants to feel that you are living on purpose, that you have a mission that is greater than her and greater than yourself, that you know who you are and what you’re supposed to be doing while you’re here. And she wants to feel that you would rather die than turn from your course, and that you want to die with the rudder in your hands.

If you don’t know who you are or where you’re going, stop whatever you’re doing, including reading this how-to article, and find out. You can’t claim a woman’s heart if you don’t have any ground to stand on. And she won’t feel appreciated if she feels that she is distracting you from knowing who you are and where you’re going.

The masculine heart feels no greater pain than not knowing who he is and where he’s going. Finding out who you are and where you’re going requires that you move out of your comfort zone and be tested, learn your place in the Big Picture, and learn your mission and purpose from whatever you discover is greater than yourself. Nothing you can do will show your appreciation for your woman more than this.

But this is an article informing men how to appreciate a woman, not an article informing men how to live on purpose (although they intersect) so if you’d like that information, or you’re a woman who wants a man in your life to have it, give me a shout out, maybe there’s a how-to waiting to be written.

3. Be Fully Present

Does the woman in your life have to put a shot clock on the nightstand and get open outside the 3 point line to get your attention?

If light, flowers, art, and beauty were persons, they would all want the same thing. They would want to be seen, noticed and paid attention to. That is their nature. Same goes for the woman in your life. The more deeply she is seen, the more she will reveal herself.

You know that a woman is feeling appreciated when she reveals herself to you. She will feel appreciated and reveal herself to you if you focus your full attention on her and are fully present with her without distraction. To a woman, experiencing your full presence is like experiencing your seeing right into her heart and soul.

A woman also knows when you are not paying attention, when you are not noticing her, when you are not fully present. What are the things that distract you from being fully present with your woman? Does the woman in your life wonder if you’d rather be sleeping with David Letterman, your double-bevel laser-leveled compound mitre saw, Yuna from Final Fantasy, or your best friend, Stan?

Am I saying that you have to be fully present with your woman every moment? No. And she doesn’t want that either. As I mentioned, if the woman in your life is the only thing that attracts your attention and presence, she will know you have no sense of who you are and where you’re going. I’m saying that when you have promised to be with your woman, she will feel more appreciated if you give her your full presence and attention.

If you have promised, either directly or indirectly, to be with your woman, and you are distracted by something, your woman will feel that she is less attractive than whatever has distracted you. You may know that she’s more important to you than the latest rerun of Mythbusters, but she won’t feel the truth of that in her heart. She’ll feel unseen, unloved, and unappreciated. Is testing the deceleration rate of various ballistic projectiles in water really worth it?

When a woman feels your deep presence, she feels she can relax, let her guard down, and reveal herself deeply in her many colors and textures and hues and shapes. Remember, a feminine heart is like the weather, always changing and unfolding. She is the beauty of the calm and the storm, the light and the dark, the heat and the cold.

A woman will even begin to test you when she feels your attention and presence become more focused. She will begin to seemingly throw surprise behaviors and mood changes at you, which will seem irrational and out of the blue (because, to the masculine, they are.) She will feel appreciated if you hold your focus and presence and do not collapse. She doesn’t want to feel you check out, no matter what aspect of her heart she is revealing to you. She wants to be seen fully, even in her wildest, darkest and scariest aspects, and she wants to know you will not collapse, run or check out.

For example, a sure way to get my wife to strip for me and give me a lap dance is for me to work on a project in the same room that she’s in. If I lose focus on my project and pay attention to her, I may get some sugar, but if I stay my course and don’t collapse, I end up with her, um, deeper appreciation (read her how-to entitled How To Appreciate a Man for what that means).

4. Push Past Her Defenses

Once you have earned her trust, claimed her heart, and established a pattern of being present with her without distraction, she will want more. Who wouldn’t? Once she feels appreciated enough to give you her trust, you can continue to appreciate her even more by pushing past her defenses and guiding her to reveal parts of herself that she would not reveal if she didn’t trust you.

You have come to a point with the woman in your life that she trusts you and feels appreciated on a consistent basis. She can still open even more and reveal even more of herself to you, which is what she longs to do. She longs to give herself to you and trust you as completely as possible. She never feels any more appreciated than when you honor her longing by making yourself into a man she can keep revealing more of herself to, the man she knows you are deep down in her secret heart.

Knowing the ways in which your woman wants to open is a matter of feeling what she wants in her heart, feeling what she wants no matter what her behavior and words may say. It’s easy to get confused and be uncertain. Feeling her heart takes practice, but it can be done. It’s not magic.

You can remember those moments when you knew she would enjoy a night out with friends more even though she said she’d rather just stay home, or when she said nothing was wrong but you knew something was bothering her, or when she would feel more attractive in the red dress than the formal black. (And sometimes, no matter what she says, no matter how devoted she’s been to the low-glycemic index since a waffle-less breakfast, she really does want ice cream.)

Use those moments as guidelines to remind you that feeling her heart and acting for her sake is possible, to remember what it feels like when you do it, and practice feeling her heart and pushing past her defenses even though she may be scared or may initially protest.

My wife is a practicing doula, which is a woman who helps women, couples and families during pregnancy, birth and during the first months of the new baby’s life through education and physical and emotional support. My wife’s secret dream was to become a doula. Her first husband wanted her to have “real” job like a “normal” person.

When we first married, my wife could barely even talk with me about her dream. She was so sensitive and full of self-doubt about her dream that, on several occasions, she actually ran and hid when I brought the subject up. I could feel her desire to do this work and offer her amazing gifts in such a vocation even through her fear and self-doubt.

Through encouragement and persistence, I continued to make it safe and possible for her to make her dream a reality. Today she is a much sought-after practicing doula. I don’t take any credit for who she is or what she’s doing. I just helped her by pushing past her defenses and comfort zone so she could find the courage to do what was already in her to do. I earned her trust, claimed her heart and practiced being present with her as the groundwork for helping her to make her dream a reality.