Shine (15 page)

First, assess your relationships, past and present
Choose the best answer (even if the answer isn’t exactly on target)

1. What kind of men do you attract?

1. Nasty, verbally abusive guys
   
2. Weak personalities
   
3. Caring, careful lovers or friends
   
4. Not the sharpest knives in the drawer
   
5. Men whom you suspect are in the relationship only for the sex
   

2. How long do your relationships with men generally last?

1. Two to four months
   
2. Six months to a year
   
3. Closer to two years
   
4. What relationships?
   

3. You generally trust your boyfriends:

1. About as much as you trust Bin Laden—but there’s always room for change
   
2. Totally
   
3. Most of the time
   

4. When it comes to a relationship with your family and friends, the guys you date keep you:

1. Explaining away their moods
   
2. Tense
   
3. Proud and happy
   
4. Nauseous
   

5. Whenever you’ve questioned your commitment to a guy in your life, you’ve often thought:

1. You’d break up with him if you weren’t so afraid of being alone
   
2. There are many men out there who’d appreciate you more and understand you better
   
3. That no matter what he does, you want to wake up with him on your pillow
   
4. About cheating
   

How much do you know about your present boyfriend, or even the man who once was very important to you?

His Past

6. In high school he dated:

1. I haven’t the foggiest
   
2. Ms. Cheerleader
   
3. Ms. Class Intellectual
   
4. The sexiest girl
   
5. None of the above
   

7. As a child, if he ever ran away from home, it would be to:

1. I haven’t the foggiest
   
2. His religious leader
   
3. A relative’s house
   
4. A friend
   
5. None of the above
   

8. His relationship with his parents is/was:

1. I haven’t the foggiest
   
2. Devoted and respectful
   
3. Destructive
   
4. Nonexistent
   
5. Cordial
   

His Present

9. Tops on his list of Worst Things That Can Happen: he’ll lose

1. His money
   
2. His best friend
   
3. His self-control
   
4. His erection
   
5. You
   

10. In his heart of hearts he wants others to regard him with:

1. Respect
   
2. Love
   
3. Admiration for his accomplishments
   
4. Admiration for his power
   
5. Fear
   

11. Almost every day he feels:

1. I haven’t the foggiest
   
2. Misunderstood
   
3. Unappreciated
   
4. Successful
   
5. Angry at you for something
   

In general (choose one)

12. If someone brought home a gift/made dinner/cleaned up/said “I love you,” it would almost definitely be:

1. You
   
2. Him
   
3. Your mom
   
4. Because the other is dying or something
   

13. In a conflict, generally:

1. You avoid conflict totally: it stresses you out so you withdraw and hide your feelings.
   
2. You raise your voice or get violent: can’t help it.
   
3. Your partner raises his voice or gets violent: he can’t help it.
   
4. You both have conflict-solving skills (maybe you took a course?), and you avoid mayhem.
   

14. How often do you spontaneously touch, hug, stroke, or kiss your partner?

1. Often
   
2. Rarely
   
3. I save it all for bed
   
4. Occasionally
   
5. Just about never
   

15. Regarding criticism:

1. I simply can’t deal with it. I’m overly sensitive, I know.
   
2. When one of us criticizes the other, we usually explode and the insults fly.
   
3. I’ve been known to admit I’m wrong.
   
4. I hate it—but I try to hear if there’s any truth in it.
   

Now assess your emotional and mental health

16. Are the psychological aspects of your health represented by some of the following statements? I have some of the following signs of stress at least two or three times a week: (Check those that apply.)

• ___ Get seriously nuts when driving in traffic behind a slow or incompetent person
  
• ___ Feel like I want to cry
  
• ___ Have a lack of interest in sex
  
• ___ Feel like I have serious enemies who want to hurt me
  
• ___ Feel very irritable
  
• ___ Can’t stop thinking about my problems
  
• ___ Have trouble with my usual work routine because I’m stressed
  
• ___ Usually get pretty hostile when I’m challenged or when I lose at something
  

17. What do you worry about, sometimes obsessively? (Check each one that applies.)

• ___ Asserting myself
  
• ___ Making friends
  
• ___ Not finding a husband
  
• ___ Being rejected
  
• ___ Being criticized
  
• ___ Death, mine or a dear one
  
• ___ Feeling stupid at work
  
• ___ Losing an argument
  
• ___ My weight
  
• ___ A feeling of emptiness that’s not assuaged by food
  
• ___ Never being able to forgive someone who did a crappy thing
  
• ___ Throwing a party and no one comes
  
• ___ Being at a party and almost no one speaks to me
  

18. Circle one or several: In order to meet interesting men (as well as women), I might:

1. Advertise in a magazine that seems to concentrate on my interests
   
2. Hang out in a nice bar or social club
   
3. Volunteer at a charitable organization
   
4. Join an organization that deals with people in my type of business
   
5. Go to church, synagogue, or mosque—whatever calls me
   

19. Choose the creature you think you most resemble:

1. A feral cat
   
2. A beloved puppy
   
3. A shark
   
4. A porcupine
   
5. A chameleon
   
6. Roadkill
   
7. A peacock
   
8. A strong, fast horse
   

Choose your most probable response.

20. You want to be more grown-up when it comes to money matters. You’ll probably:

1. Take a course in financial preparedness
   
2. Throw out all your credit cards and only use cash
   
3. Buy your home, although it’s a huge financial stretch
   
4. Rent instead of buy your home, although you can probably take out a loan to purchase it
   

21. Regarding sex and dating: I think that

1. Opposites attract. The way you enlarge your thinking is with guys who are very different from you.
   
2. Asking people to sign a pledge of abstinence until they get married is pretty stupid and impractical; this is the twenty-first century.
   
3. I’d like to meet an interesting guy’s mother as soon as possible in our relationship.
   
4. Women ought to be smart and not tell too much about themselves early in relationships. It’s no one’s business what you privately think.
   

22. Your good friend has called, raving mad at something you did (you really did do it, but she deserved it). You:

1. Hang up. You take abuse from no one.
   
2. Break all ties with her: she’s not worth your time.
   
3. Offer to talk about it when you both cool off.
   
4. Justify yourself and explain in detail what she did to prompt your behavior.
   

23. Your overall picture of life is represented by which Chinese proverbs? (Check as many or none that apply to your way of thinking.)

1. Better to bend in the wind than to break.
   
2. Unless there is opposing wind, a kite cannot rise.
   
3. Hate rises like smoke around one who surpasses one’s peers.
   
4. Wherever one finds comfort can be called home.
   
5. A person must despise herself before others will.
   
6. Love for a person must extend to the crows on his roof.
   
7. Whenever the water rises, the boat will rise also.
   
8. Life is a treadmill and I’m the hamster.
   

24. To eliminate emotional stress, you’d probably:

1. Take a nap.
   
2. Take a pill.
   
3. Have a coke, coffee, or candy bar to pep you up.
   
4. Use your mind and willpower to convince yourself you’re not really stressed out.
   
5. Meditate.
   
6. Phone a friend or listen to music.
   

25. It’s been a very bad day. The pimple burst, the dog vomited on the carpet, and the Hammering Maniac struck in your building. You will most likely:

1. Hide under the covers.
   
2. Have a stiff drink, then another, then another, then a chocolate sundae.
   
3. Make a list of all the good things in your life and why tomorrow will be a better day.
   

SCORING

1. A=0, B=2, C=10, D=4, E=2

2. A=0, B=10, C=2, D=0

3. A=0, B=10, C=6

4. A=2, B=2, C=10, D=0

5. A=2, B=4, C=10, D=2

6. A=0; take 10 if you answered B, C, or D and are sure of it—if you’re not sure, take 0. E=10 if you’re sure—otherwise, take 0.

7. A=0; take 10 if you answered B, C, or D and are sure of it—if you’re not sure take 0. E=10 if you’re sure—otherwise, take 0.

8. A=0, B=10, C and D=0, E=5

9. A or D=0, B and C=5, E=10

10. A or B=10, C=8, D=2, E=0

11. A, B, C, E=0, D=10

12. A=6, B=10, C=0, D=0

13. A, B, C=0, D=10

14. A=10, B=2, C=0, D=4, E=0

15. A=0, B=0, C=8, D=10

16. If you checked 6–8 answers, take 0. If you checked 3–5, take 4; if you checked 2, take 7; if you checked only 1, take 8; if you checked none, take 10.

17. If you checked 8–13 answers, take 0. If you checked 5–7, take 2. If you checked 3–4, take 3. If you checked 1–2, take 5. If you checked none, take 10.

18. A and B=0, take 5 for each of C, D, or E you checked.

19. A=2 (a wild thing does not a beloved partner make), B=5 (cute you might be, but ready for an equal, loving relationship—don’t think so), C=0 (do I have to spell it out?), D=0 (don’t come close!), E =0 (if you disguise yourself so brilliantly, how will the man of your dreams get to know you?), F=0 (that bad, huh?), G=4 (self-esteem you may have, but is that all?—and is it enough for a relationship?), F=10 (you look mahvelous; you’re powerful and loving!)

20. A and C=10, B and D=0.

21. A=0, B=0, C=10, D=0

22. A=0 (you’ve probably lost a pal, forever), B=0, C=10 (an emotionally cool and intelligent response), D=3

23. Take 10 for each of the following you checked:

A (An emotionally strong woman knows that the flexible bamboo will survive a storm with less damage than the mighty oak: be reasonable and bend with your loved one instead of standing obdurately straight), B (Adversity and sometimes, even enemies give us opportunity to rise higher), C (When we lose weight, get famous, or find good fortune, envy and fear often come from colleagues or friends who we thought wished us well), D (Peace in the home is the greatest comfort), E (Self-esteem is critical to success), F (no one’s perfect), and G (Hang out with good, kind, intelligent people, and when they rise in the world—they’ll float your boat right along).

If you checked H, take 0. Okay, this isn’t a Chinese proverb, I made it up, but if it echoes your picture of life, you’re not emotionally ready for true love, mama.

24. A=2, B=2, C=0, E=10. If you answered D,
subtract
10 from your total score. You’re annoying and in a state of denial. F=10—good girl!

25. A=10. Sometimes, it just makes sense to hide in a warm place and pray that everything bad goes away. B=1. This doesn’t make much sense at all because you’ll get nauseous. If you chose C, you get 0 because now I’m nauseous: you’re too much of a Pollyanna to ring true, and emotional denial never indicates emotional readiness.

ANALYSIS: Add up your numerical responses

If you scored between 290 and 315:

You have a high emotional IQ. You’re your own best friend, you have a healthy mental outlook, and realistic and positive expectations of a future with a wonderful love. You take the time to find out about people—especially the guy who could be the love of your life. You know how to tune into the essence of people close to you. Also very important is that you understand how to deal with conflict—with your best girlfriends and colleagues, as well as with a man. And most valuable, you’re your own woman, emotionally and financially in charge of your life. You have the warmth, wisdom, and ability to accept a great guy’s support systems, but you never allow yourself to be swallowed whole by the choices another person makes—even if you are crazy about
him. You have given thought to leading the good life, and knowingly or not, have started to prepare yourself emotionally to meet your counterpart. Read further into this chapter to strengthen your resolve even further and put yourself in the best position for him to find you. Congratulations on a great score.

If you scored between 260 and 289

You are
reasonably
prepared to meet the person with whom you’ll have a seriously important relationship. I know you want an intimate connection with a partner who will be always in your corner, and that will most easily happen when
you
are most ready for him—and you’re not quite there yet. If you had to pick one quality that the most successful marriages share, it’s that both partners are self-starters—neither one is totally and childishly dependent on the other. Each is an organized and self-appreciating person—not to mention an acutely sensitive listener. Such partners hear each other—even when the other is not speaking because they’re on the same wavelength. Does this make sense to you? Good. This chapter will tell you how to think about present and your future, deal with friends (false and true), and put your financial house in order, among other things. Please read the following pages to tap more deeply into the emotional strengths hidden just below your surface.

If you scored between 230 and 259

You need some work, baby. I promise it won’t be arduous and it certainly won’t be boring. I’m a little worried about your emotional and mental preparedness because your score doesn’t indicate a well-developed maturity in these matters. You have enormous potential so, please—read on pal, and see if you can spot some of your weaknesses.

If you scored under 230, Yikes.

This isn’t the best score on the planet. You’re missing a lot of emotional nuances that aren’t spelled out in ten-foot-tall letters. You
need
your Auntie Star: I promise you’ll emerge far more emotionally and practically sound after you finish this book. Confession: I probably would have scored this low before I started my odyssey toward physical, emotional, and spiritual preparedness, but look at me now, baby—I’m soaring! And you will too.