DBP Chapter One

*Here is a great book that I am reading. I started to have this mind set even before I started reading it. Since I'm not good with putting my thoughts into words for others to understand I thought I would start to share it with you since I agree with it and it brings inspiration.*

Don't Bet On the Prince by Dr.Gilda Carle
This book is a manual for women to succeed in love by establishing their personal power, protecting it and attracting partners who respect it and reflect it. To help women develop skills to find men who think the world of her because she thinks the world of herself.
Chapter One
When We Dream of Princes, We Wake Up with Toads
Gilda-Gram: Ask “I am who?” before saying “I do.”
A woman’s capacity to love would not result in her loss of self if her self-esteem were well entrenched before she chose a mate. The love we give to a partner is secondhand; our first and primary love is the love we give ourselves. Women use intimacy to establish their identity.
As young girls we learn that men are kings who belonged on thrones and that someday our prince would come and that is only objective in life is to save us from whatever lay ahead. We thought in order to be chosen we must be frozen. Unfortunately kissing a toad only gets lime in our mouth.
If we can’t find our Prince Charming we try and manufacture him, thinking he will eventually change. We often entrust them to take charge because they should know best and that they should be smarter than us. Both of those are the first nails in our coffin.
To be loved we silence our needs, wants, feelings and passions. When we become a pair we shut down the things that used to turn us on and by doing so extinguish our souls. We think a man can take care of us. After all of those fairy tales and blockbusters, you believe that a happy ending is possible. Women learn to down play their virtues and play up his because they fear that if they are better then they will be abandon.
Princes have their own problems and they don’t need ours. Men seem to need the warmth and caretaking women provide more than we need them to help us. Illness, depression, and suicide are reported to be higher among single men than married ones. While single women are better off being single than those that are married, since they have higher depression rate.
Gilda-Gram: If we always do what we’ve always done, we’ll always go where we’ve always gone.
Snap out of your former habits! Remember men will hold on to their power at any cost. A smart woman accepts her partner’s fear of closeness, doesn’t take it personally, and invests in her own life so she doesn’t feel abandoned.
Gilda-Gram: Choose, rather than be chosen.
Women must cease emptying their own potency into the hands of someone else. Revisit fairy tales. They teach us that finding love takes time and that pain must be endured and risks taken for us to grow. There are no happy endings without a lot of turmoil and hard work. We learned that victory would be measured not by the power we have over others, but by the power we have in ourselves.
Love is a paradox. A woman’s power is a real mans aphrodisiac.
Gilda-Gram: Make yourself the prize before you prize a partner.
We have bet on the wrong person, another person, rather than the one reflected in the mirror. Our mistake is relaying on our men instead of striving first to better our own lives. Rather than searching for love, seek to be lovable. When you act from the heart, it’s not a manipulative means of playing hard to get. You are simply into your own life, thereby making yourself a better prize.
Don’t be on the prince, bet on yourself and protect the message that you’re worth it.
Gilda-Gram: Don’t be on the prince. Bet on yourself. Self-love is never unrequited.