Personality Disorders

People who score high on this scale are tender-hearted and compassionate. Other signs include being excessively emotional, dramatic, or sexually provocative to gain attention; speaking dramatically with strong opinions, but few facts to back them up; being easily influenced by others; shallow, rapidly changing emotions; thinking friends are closer to them than they really are; and excessive concern with physical appearance. Creating connection rituals can be repeated shared moments.

Their relationships are often overly intense and they may be very demanding of the time and attention of anyone who is close to them. Give the most precious gift, gift of yourself in vulnerable ways. Whether you just met and want to be best friends or even lovers, this person will not give in.

What Guarded People Are Trying To Tell You Vs. What They Actually Say - The used in the 5 factor model are Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Neuroticism and Openness to experience.

A guarded heart is one that has been through one traumatic experience after another, leaving a person unable to open up to new friends and loved ones easily. Those of us with guarded hearts are often incredibly caring individuals who have been hurt in the past and, because of this, will do their best to keep their shields up around most people. If you find yourself dating someone with a guarded heart, understand that: 1. We treasure alone time People with guarded hears trust themselves more than any other person on the planet. Because of this, we enjoy being alone much more than others may. Meeting new people is a draining process because we have to keep our guard up at all times until we are sure we can trust somebody. When dating someone with a guarded heart, understand they would rather spend a quiet night on the couch with you than out with a group of friends. Unfortunately, having been hurt in the past has led us to be untrusting of ourselves, and we will always second guess ourselves when start to be attracted to a certain someone. Those of us with guarded hearts have most likely fallen in love too quickly in the past and ended up getting hurt. We have trust issues It should be clear by now that people with guarded hearts have a tough time trusting others. But if you constantly show your mate you can be trusted, and your intentions are genuine, they will slowly but surely open their hearts to you. Scroll down to continue reading article 5. But we do listen to everything those close to us say. If you notice us being quiet during a date, we just want to get to know you before opening up about ourselves. In fact, it may be the exact opposite. This may have been part of our problem in the past: we fell in love too quickly, moved too fast emotionally and physically, and ended up absolutely heartbroken when the relationship came to an abrupt end. This should be an incredible compliment to those who strive to be as genuine and trustworthy as possible. Once this happens, be prepared for a long-lasting relationship full of love and trust. Featured photo credit: Be honest: how many good friends do you have? If you are a man, the chances are slim that you have a tribe of good friends. As men we tend to become isolated. You may have hundreds of social media friends. But how many of them can you call at 2 AM to help you in a crisis? I started out in a small Vermont town. Everyone knew you… and your business. There were not many places to hide. I felt secure in knowing others were watching out for me. I can remember years ago living in Phoenix sobbing as I read a Vermont Life magazine article. In that moment I longed for community and close friends. Not having close friends since high school, I created a plan to develop them. We are helping other men start groups and develop deep friendships. The core of what we learned was the ROC formula: Relax, Open and Connect. They are the first three strategies to generating close friends. How to Thrive in Friendships Using the ROC Formula I started out in a small Vermont town. There were not many places to hide, and I felt secure in knowing others were watching out for me. I can remember years ago living in Phoenix sobbing as I read a Vermont Life magazine article. In that moment I longed for community and close friends. Not having close friends since high school, I created a plan to develop them. We are helping other men start groups and develop deep friendships. The core of what we learned was the ROC formula: Relax, Open and Connect. They are the first three strategies to generating close friends. Step 1: Relax We live in a world that continues to run faster with more to do. Your nervous system starts to habituate to that pace along with all those around you. Once you begin to accept and experience your pace you can start to relax. In relaxing, you may feel anxious. This is a lifelong process. You need to start to see results. Mindfulness is a great tool to speed the development of this skill. By slowing down, you are more able to do the next skill. Step 2: Open Once you begin to accept your body, mind and emotional experiences you have more room to open up to being vulnerable to others. This is THE KEY to close friendships. You may be rejected, hurt or shamed. Without vulnerability, another person has nothing to connect with other than your external mask. With vulnerability you are real, you are human. Sure, some will not like you. Step 3: Connect Once you relax and open, you are ready to reach out to connect to another. If vulnerability is the key, connecting is the door. When you step through your fears to reach out to another while being present and vulnerable, you upped your game. Shifting from being passive to active by moving forward to connect has you give up some control. Sure you can connect from your hyper-persona, but you know what that will get you. If you want more friends sooner, apply these three steps tomorrow. The Key Points of ROC Creating a Safe Space This is critical to the ROC formula and friendships. To the extent you feel unsafe your physiology will shift into its survival state. If you feel unsafe, there is a good chance the other person feels unsafe. You can push your way through by denying your physical and emotional feelings. Or you could slow down to allow yourself to feel the lack of safety AS your risk to move forward towards connecting. A safe space is the fertile soil for friendship. Clarify What You Want When you slow down to connect to the kinds of friends you want you are more likely to create them. Rather than hoping, you get clear so you can create a plan. If you want friends that enjoy nature, hanging in bars may not be the place to meet them. Joining a hiking club would set you up to meet nature lovers. Sure, a good friend is there for another when he or she is not receiving from the other. You know what I mean. When you see his caller ID, you hesitate to pick up. If you fill your life with relationships that suck you dry you will have no room for those that can nourish you. Start saying what you truly feel and want. Sometimes the truth will set one of these people free. Others speak of having good boundaries. I say fill your boundaries with all of your feelings and wants. Be courageously authentic and the need to work on strong boundaries will be irrelevant. Those that you would want will be attracted to you. Scroll down to continue reading article Go for Something Bigger Than Yourself We are attracted to people who have a purpose in life. We read books and see movies about people who stand up for something that puts them at risk. Go for more than finding your passion. Explore what you want to live and die for. Enjoy Your Solitude The more you enjoy your own company, the more others will. The more you enjoy being by yourself the less you have misplaced needs. We instinctually and biologically, let alone psychologically, need others. I am speaking about being OK with your own company. Connection Can Be Critical We are trained to understand, diagnosis and fix a problem. We are social animals; we are hungry for connection. We want to be heard and witnessed, not analyzed and lectured to. The next time you find yourself not being heard or see yourself go into problem-solving mode, slow down. Use the ROC formula to reorient. Back away from seeing the person as a problem. Encourage the person to express vulnerable feelings with your actions and words. If it feels right, you may touch the person. Research proved that touch is a powerful connector that can immediately tell someone they are OK. Shared moments of heighten connection. When a situation has intensity and possibly perceived danger we will move beyond our hesitations to reach out for help. Studies were down during the bombing of London in the Second World War. Rather than people fighting each other for the limited resources they bonded together to share. Going on a strenuous hike with another can cement a friendship. Maybe you got lost. Once you rediscover the trail, you start laughing at all the mistakes you both made. Those mistakes become your shorthand to remind each other about the experience and how good it felt. Plan special moments to catalyze a friendship. Creating connection rituals can be repeated shared moments. We need predictability in our lives. In lieu of no positive rituals, our unconscious will use negative rituals. A couple may have a date night every week. Through the week each person, rather than daydream about the last argument, can reflect on their weekly date that will be relaxing and connecting. Plan activities with friends that bring you closer. Most would not have thought hanging with other men would be fun. They know if something tough happens, they have their group. Listening may be the best quality of a deep friendship. Your ability to listen allows another to go deep into their experience. But how many people do you have that can sit with you for an hour and listen? When you look at listening as a mental task, it looks boring. When you look at listening as emotional intimacy, it can be scary or exciting. As the person speaks, feel your response. Notice how your body responds. Notice how you are opening up. You can reflect back to the person the impact what they are saying is having on you. When is the last time you were truly heard? Fun is the magnet that draws others to you. Laughter a social phenomenon opens us up. To have fun, you need to relax and express. I was one of them. It was when I started being like a kid that I started having fun. When I teased people in a loving way and laughed at myself that I started having fun. We are drawn to those who are fun. To be one of those people you need to risk making a fool of yourself. You will at first do or say something that is not fun. Write it off as learning. Keep putting yourself out there. Your failures will feel worse for you than others. Others will appreciate the risk-taking. Be your own friend first. Practice the above behaviors with yourself. Have a weekly fun activity. Use the ROC formula with yourself. If you are doing a lot of negative self-talk, go to the underlying emotions. Feel them so you can release them. Shift your state, get your body moving. Often as kids when we had no one to console us, we did it for ourselves. Now as an adult you have more choices. Choose to feel and express as you move through life. Stand up for yourself, as you would for a good friend. Others will sense how you take care of yourself which sets them up to believe you could do it for them. They will naturally trust you more. Give—to others knowing you may not get anything in return. Give the most precious gift, gift of yourself in vulnerable ways. Reveal not to get attention. Reveal to be the first to take the emotional risk. Tell the woman at the checkout she looks good in her dress. The more giving becomes a habit, the more you will be the person others want to be around. You want to have good friends in your life, first be a good friend to others. Be willing not to have others like you. Like in business when they say a product for everyone is a product for no one. Have your focus be less on making friends and more on relaxing, opening and connecting. Take on one of these skills every day. Go out of your comfort zone. Put yourself in new, possibly mildly scary, situations to expand your repertoire of friendship skills.

Unconscientious people may be criticized for their unreliability, lack of el, and failure to stay within the lines, but they will experience many short-lived pleasures and they will never be called stuffy. They don't want to talk about their weekend because they unwillingly stayed in and played on their computer for the sixth week in a row. They tend to be custodes and are very organised. But guarded personality characteristic and extroversion are not personality types. To the extent you feel unsafe your physiology will shift into its survival state. It may help to.