The Way of the Superior Man Summary and Notes

Noteworthy Thoughts

This is a summary of the book The Way of the Superior Man by David Deida. I highly recommend reading it. It dives deep into the attraction and polarity between men and women. It has some solid wisdom about relationships, making decisions, leading, finding your life purpose, and embodying masculine character. There is some new agey spirituality junk that I just skimmed through since I don’t jive with that. And there’s this whole section about tantra sex body practices that I skipped over completely. However, there’s several chapters that are spot on. Definitely recommend the read. Some books you can easily summarize and put into your own words. But then, there are some books that it’s better to just keep the original quotation. That’s what I’ve done here.

The Way of the Superior Man Summary

“Men who have lived significant lives are men who never waited: not for money, security, ease, or women. Feel what you want to give most as a gift, to your woman and to the world, and do what you can to give it today. Every moment waited is a moment wasted, and each wasted moment degrades your clarity of purpose.”

Become Fearless

“If you were absolutely fearless, would you be earning a living in exactly the same way as you are now?”

“All men are afraid, unless they are perfectly free. If you cannot admit this, you are pretending to yourself, and to others. Your friends will feel your fear, even if you do not. Thus, they will lose trust in you, knowing you are deluding yourself, lying to yourself, and are therefore likely to lie to them, consciously or unconsciously.”

“Own your fear, and lean just beyond it in every aspect of your life. Starting now.”

Never Change Your Mind Just to Please a Woman

“If a woman suggests something that changes a man’s perspective, then he should make a new decision based on his new perspective. But he should never betray his own deepest knowledge and intuition in order to please his woman or “go along” with her. Both she and he will be weakened by such an action. They will grow to resent each other, and the crust of accumulated inauthenticity will burden their love, as well as their capacity for free action.”

Your Purpose Must Come Before Your Relationship

“Your mission is your priority…Your woman will be more fulfilled with thirty minutes a day of undivided attention and ravishing love than she will with a few hours of your weak and divided presence when your heart really isn’t into it. Time you spend with your woman should be time you really want to be with her more than anything else. If you’d rather be doing something else, she’ll feel it. Both of you will be dissatisfied.”

Give It All You Got

“If you are going to tryst with women and world at all, better to go all the way and ravish them from the depths of your true core, blooming them open with the wide gifts of your unrelenting heart. Otherwise, if you sheepishly penetrate them to gratify your own needs, your woman and the world will feel your lack of dedication, depth, and truth.”

Enjoy Criticism

“A man’s capacity to receive another man’s direct criticism is a measure of his capacity to receive masculine energy. If he doesn’t have a good relationship to masculine energy (e.g., his father) then he will act like a woman and be hurt or defensive rather than make use of other men’s criticism.”

“The father force is the force of loving challenge and guidance. Without this masculine force in your life, your direction becomes unchecked, and you are liable to meander in the mush of your own ambiguity and indecision.”

Don’t Use Your Family As An Excuse

“Don’t cheat your family of your fullest core, and don’t use them as an excuse to avoid the work it will take to manifest your highest vision. You can give love to your family and engage your life’s work, if you discipline yourself to act on your deepest desires with priority. Then, when you are with your family, you are with them totally, since there is no chronically unfinished business in your life to distract you, and no inner ambiguity about where you want to be or what you really want to be doing.”

Women Are Not Liars

“‘Keeping your word’ is a masculine trait, in men or women. In the feminine reality, words and facts take a second place to emotions and the shifting moods of relationship. When she says, ‘I hate you,’ or ‘I’ll never move to Texas,’ or ‘I don’t want to go to the movies,’ it is often more a reflection of a transient feeling-wave than a well-considered stance with respect to events and experience. On the other hand, the masculine means what it says. A man’s word is his honor. The feminine says what it feels. A woman’s word is her true expression in the moment.”

“Women are not liars, although they often seem that way to men. This is why a man must ultimately be responsible for making his own decisions, based on the deepest truth he can fathom. Otherwise, if he bends his course of truth to compromise for his woman’s current and changing expressions, he will probably end up blaming her.”

Praise Her

“The masculine grows by challenge, but the feminine grows by praise. A man must be unabashed and expressed in his appreciation for his woman. Praise her freely.

Men grow by challenge. So, as a man, you probably have a masculine habit of challenging people, including your woman, in order to get her to improve or grow.

Only the masculine side of your woman will grow through challenge.

The feminine side thrives on support and praise. Telling her, “I love the shape of your body,” will be much greater incentive for her to exercise than telling her, “I hope you don’t gain any more weight.”

Praise always magnifies the quality of your woman that you praise.

“You’re so beautiful when you smile,” is much more effective than, “You’re so ugly when you frown,” although they both indicate your desire for her smile. When speaking to your woman, it is always better to call the glass half full than half empty.

Praise is literal food for feminine qualities. If you want your woman to grow in her radiance, health, happiness, love, beauty, power, and depth, praise these qualities. Praise them daily, a number of times.

It is a difficult practice for most men to learn, but you must learn to praise the very qualities you feel are not yet praiseworthy in order for them to become so. In other words, praise the tiny quality that you want to grow.

If you know that your woman would be healthier if she exercised more, don’t tell her that. It will feel like an insult to her, a rejection of her the way she is. Instead, tell her how sexy she is when she sweats in her leotards. Tell her how much it turns you on when she moves her body. Whatever parts of her body you really like, let her know, frequently.

Praising the things you really enjoy when she exercises will magnify her exercising. On the other hand, by telling her why she should exercise, you are indicating that she is not acceptable to you the way she is. Praise works. Information doesn’t. Praise motivates. Challenge doesn’t. Try it.

Praise specific things you love about your woman five to ten times a day. Find out what happens.”

Tolerating Her Leads to Resenting Her

“A superior man sees his woman’s moods not as a curse, but as a challenge and an amusement. There are many ways to creatively deal with her moods and help her to open. Lift her off the ground and spin her around. Occasionally, talking with her helps, but not as often as humor and physically expressed love.”

“If you find yourself merely tolerating this feminine mood cycle because you have been frustrated by endless discussions that go nowhere, you can be sure that you and probably your woman are building up resentment toward each other. Don’t tolerate her mood. And don’t talk about it with her.”

Don’t Analyze Your Woman

“The amazing thing is this: 90 percent of a woman’s emotional problems stem from feeling unloved. So don’t stand back and analyze her, like a doctor diagnosing a patient, or like a therapist questioning a client.”

“The next time your woman is in a bad mood, try this: Assume she is not feeling loved. Simply assume it, even if it seems that it can’t be that simple, that there must be some underlying reason for her upsetness, a reason that you could fix. Assume she is more like a flower that needs watering than an engine that needs a carburetor adjustment. Don’t assume anything is wrong at all. Assume that she wants love from you, in a deep, strong, steady, and sensitive way.”

Don’t Suggest That a Woman Fix Her Own Emotional Problem

“What she really wants is a man who can figure it out for himself. She wants a man who loves her, and escorts her with his loving, without having to ask her what she wants all the time.

One of the deepest feminine desires in intimacy is precisely not to have to always figure it out for her man and guide him. She wants to be able to trust him in his direction.

Suppose it’s your woman’s birthday. If it were your birthday, you’d love it if your woman would do anything you wanted. So you think she’d like that, too. You say to her, “Happy Birthday! For your birthday, we can do anything you want. We can go anywhere and do anything. And I’ll do anything for you. What do you want to do?”

This is exactly the opposite of most women’s idea of an ideal birthday present. Most women would get far more excited if you were to say, “You’ve got thirty minutes to pack your bags. Don’t ask me where we’re going, but we’ll be gone for the weekend. Everything is taken care of. Just pack your bags, and leave the rest to me. I’m going to give you the best birthday you’ve ever had.”

One of the deepest feminine desires in intimacy (though not in business or simple friendship) is to be able to relax and surrender, knowing that her man is taking care of everything. Then, she can simply enjoy without having to plan it all herself and tell her man what to do. She can be pure energy, pure motion, pure love, without having to analyze all the options and decide which ones are best. She can enjoy her man taking responsibility for the direction, so she can be what the feminine is: pure energy.

Like the ocean, the native state of the feminine is to flow with great power and no single direction. The masculine builds canals, dams, and boats to unite with the power of the feminine ocean and go from point A to point B. But the feminine moves in many directions at once. The his masculine chooses a single goal and moves in that direction. Like a ship cutting through a vast ocean, the masculine decides on a course and navigates the direction: the feminine energy itself is undirected but immense, like the wind and deep currents of the ocean, ever changing, beautiful, destructive, and the source of life.”

“Soap operas, romance novels, and love stories touch many women deeply because the feminine’s priority is the flow of love in relationship.

But the masculine priority is purpose and direction. By analyzing your purpose and re-aligning your direction, you can solve many of your emotional problems. But love is the feminine priority, not purpose and direction.

Women do not become free by analyzing themselves. They become free by surrendering into love.

Stay With Her Intensity – To a Point

“If you are like most men, you probably aren’t too fond of feminine bad moods and hysterical emotions. You may find yourself wondering, why is she so complicated? What’s her problem? You may find yourself saying, “Just calm down and take it easy.” The feminine bad mood is so foreign and dark to you that you may actually find it somewhat repulsive.

And when your woman really goes wild, a part of you is afraid of the damage she might do. Her emotions are so much more wild and less predictable than yours that you’d rather not be around them.

Basically, most men are afraid of, or disgusted by, feminine emotions.

That’s why you try to fix them or escape from them. “I’ll come back later when you can act like a reasonable human being,” you might say.

One of the deepest feminine pleasures is when a man stands full, present, and unreactive in the midst of his woman’s emotional storms. When he stays present with her, and loves her through the layers of wildness and closure, then she feels his trustability, and she can relax.”

Don’t Force the Feminine to Make Decisions

“A man abandons responsibility by expecting that his woman will always make her own decisions and then be accountable for the results. This expectation is a withholding of his masculine gift.”

“Your woman asks you for input, and you say, ‘Whatever you want to I do is fine with me.’ This is the statement of a friend, not a lover. As friends, you want to treat each other fairly and give each other space and independence. As lovers, you and your woman are more than just friends.

You are playing the full dynamic of masculine and feminine polarity.

Feminine decisions are based on what feels right, and often this is the best way to make a decision. However, the point in intimacy is not simply to make the best decision, but to make the best decision while maintaining the force of masculine/feminine polarity that attracted you together to begin with. If that polarity begins to diminish, conflicts will begin to increase. When that polarity disappears, attraction disappears, and the life of the intimacy disappears with it.

You need to play the masculine pole if you want your woman to play the feminine. Offering your perspective on decisions is one way to give your masculine gift. Even on the most trivial decisions, never say, ‘Do whatever you want'” If she asks you which shoes you think look better on her, make a decision, and tell her. Don’t just say, ‘They’re both nice.’ Say something like, ‘I’d like the red shoes, but what’s the most important to me is that you’re happy.’ She is of course free to wear whatever she wants, but she is also the recipient of your masculine gift of decisiveness.”

“If you refuse to offer your masculine gift by saying things like, ‘I don’t really care. It’s up to you,’ then she will have to learn to depend on her own masculine capacity. Another way to say this is that she will will find begin to trust her own masculine more than yours. Then, you that she trusts you less and less across the board. She will refuse to surrender to you even sexually, because she hasn’t been able to relax and trust you all day; you haven’t offered her your masculine clarity and perspective, so she has to be her own man and give it to herself.”

“As a practice, always help your woman make decisions by giving her your perspective and telling her your choices, while letting her know that you love her regardless of the decision she makes. Often her feminine feelings will be a much better basis for a decision than your masculine analysis. So, encourage her to feel into the situation and trust her feelings. But, for the sake of polarity and happiness in intimacy, always tell would do and why, even if you think she should make her her what you own decision.”

Your Attraction to The Feminine is Inevitable

“Masculine men are attracted to forms of feminine energy: radiant women, beer, music, nature, etc. If a man tries to hide his attraction, it reveals some degree of shame with respect to his own sexual core.”

“If you are like most men, you probably hide the amount of sexual traction you feel toward women every day. At work, on the street, and in the grocery store, you see women that turn you on. Sometimes you might want to have sex with them. But many times the feeling is more of a wave of refreshment washing through you. Seeing an especially radiant woman can fill your whole day with delight. A woman’s exquisite scent can transport you to an enchanted paradise. A woman’s smile can melt the moment into sheer beatitude.

“Your sexual essence is always attracts to its energetic reciprocal. Masculine men are attracted to feminine women. Feminine men are attracted to masculine women. Balanced men are attracted to balanced women.

Feminine energy gets you out of your head and into your body. Music, beer, nature, women, they are all forms of feminine energy.

This attraction is not only natural, but healthy. It is a sign of polarity, the same kind of natural flow of polarization by which electricity flows between the positive and negative poles of a battery. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. It’s why there are men and women. The nature of nature is polarity, from the magnetism that flows between the North and South Poles of the Earth, to the attraction that flows between your masculine core and the feminine radiance of a woman.”

“If you are a man with a masculine sexual essence, you will always feel sexual polarity with anyone who animates feminine energy. You may feel this attraction many times a day, with many women. Enjoy it.

Choose a Woman Who is Your Complementary Opposite

“If a man is very masculine by nature, then he will be attracted to a very feminine woman, who will complement his energy. The more neutral or balanced he is, the more balanced he will prefer his woman.

“By understanding their own needs, men can learn to accept the “whole package” of a woman. For instance, a more masculine man can expect that any woman who really turns him on and enlivens him will also be relatively wild, undisciplined, “bonkers,” chaotic, prone to changing her mind and “lying.” Still, from an energetic perspective, this kind of woman will be much more healing and inspiring to him than a more balanced or neutral woman who is steady, reasonable, “trustworthy,” and able to say what she means in a way he can understand.”

“You have probably met a woman who seemed fantastic, only to discover she has some emotional weirdness that you don’t really want to deal with. She seemed incredibly sexy, but also a bit ‘bonkers’ or crazy, saying one thing one moment and another the next. You have probably also met some very reasonable and trustworthy women who don’t seem to constantly change their mind and, in fact, with whom you could have good conversations that don’t end up frustrating you. Although you may love these women and enjoy spending time with them, they don’t arouse your passion as much as the women whose words you wouldn’t trust to remain true for an afternoon, but who move their body in a way that drives you wild.

‘Why can’t a woman be more like a man?’ many men have wondered.

But of course, it is precisely those ways in which a woman is least like that most attract you sexually, if you have a masculine sexual essence. A woman’s feminine shine, the energy that moves her body, her utterly refreshing spontaneity and mystery, not to mention her delightful smile, her core, the less she is likely to evidence strong masculine traits, such are what attract you.

A woman with a more feminine sexual essence will say she loves you one moment, and then, when you have done something you are not even aware of, she will say she hates you. This is the beauty of the feminine; to her, the masculine grid of words and events is less relevant than the fluidity of relationship and feeling. Thank God for such women, who make no apologies for their oceanic depth and riptides of emotion.

You are always attracted to your sexual reciprocal.“

“Other men, with more neutral sexual essences, prefer women who are also more neutral, neither particularly masculine nor feminine. This kind of couple can talk about anything, and they like talking about everything. They share hobbies, friends, even career goals. Though equally loving, this kind of couple is usually less sexually passionate than highly polarized couples. It would be unusual to hear about this kind of neutral or balanced couple yelling at each other, throwing pillows, wrestling each other down to the floor, and passionately making love right there and then.

Through lack of understanding, you might have depolarized yourself and your partner into a relationship that seems neutral, but actually isn’t.

The false neutralization, or depolarization, of relationships is one of the main reasons that couples break up. The rejuvenative charge of sexual loving becomes weak, while all the things that irritate you and your partner remain just as strong as ever. The secret is not to try to change your woman’s irritating feminine ways, but to help cultivate the depth and rejuvenative power of her feminine blessings.”

“If you are like most men, you have probably minimized your appreciation of the full spectrum of your woman’s feminine energy by numbing yourself to the aspects that most irritate you. For instance, she doesn’t drive you crazy any more because you’ve learned not to take her too seriously. Perhaps you have learned to seem attentive while not really listening to her endless chat. Or, maybe you have learned to give her a daily dose of affection as a way to quell her ongoing need for more intimate time than you really want to spend with her.

This is the wrong approach. The feminine is an infinite source of love, inspiration, and power, both physically and spiritually. Feminine women ore connected with the elements of nature in ways that more masculine People, such as yourself, usually aren’t. Feminine women may seem wild, untrustable, or even irresponsible from a man’s perspective, but such women are simply free of the masculine need to live in a world governed by reason and control.

Feminine women are free to feel flows of natural livingness that you are unable to feel. They are free to be moved by currents of energy of which most men are unaware. They are free to allow their bodies to be transparent to the flow of their hearts, uncontrolled and undirected by goals and structure. The feminine body is free to be moved by love, and by life itself. And this is highly valued by most men; to behold a woman free in her expression of bodily ecstasy is one of the most awesome visions most men have had.”

“If you want real passion, you need a ravisher and a ravishee; otherwise, you just have two buddies who decide to rub genitals in bed.”

Each Woman Has a Temperature that Can Heal or Irritate You

“Some women are hotter, some are cooler. In general, blonde, light-skinned, Japanese, and Chinese women are cooler. Dark skinned, brunette, red-headed, Korean, and Polynesian women are hotter. Even though a man might choose to remain in a committed intimacy with one woman, his needs for different temperatures of feminine energy may change over time. A hot woman who aroused his passion several years ago may irritate him now. A cooler woman who soothed his heart several years ago may seem tiresome to him now. By understanding how different temperatures of feminine energy may affect him, a man could make more skillful life choices without confusion.”

“Some women are cooling. Being in their company feels like a cool drink of ice tea on a hot sunny day. You might have referred to a woman, for instance, who is an ‘icy blonde’ or who has ‘cool blue eyes.’ Other women are hot. They are fiery, tempestuous, and quick of temper.

You might have spoken of a ‘fiery red-head’ or a ‘hot-blooded Latina.’

Of course, not all red-heads or Latinas are hot, nor are all blondes cool. Nevertheless, there is something true enough to be said about a woman’s ‘temperature.’ Most men have a good intuitive sense of the difference between a woman who is cool and soothing and a woman who is hot and exciting, regardless of how they describe it. And this difference has a lot to do with why men have different tastes for women, and why your taste could change over time.

More than simple psychological preference determines your taste.

Energy plays a major role. Different women offer different kinds of feminine energy. And one of the simplest forms of this difference is the difference between hot and cool feminine energy.

If you are a particularly easygoing man, perhaps a man who has difficulty getting motivated, then a hot woman is probably better for you. Her fiery nature can heat up your system and get you moving.

On the other hand, if you tend to be quick tempered and hot yourself, you might find that a more cooling woman heals you and brings a balance to your body and psyche.

“Depending on your health, your lifestyle, your work demands, and your emotional state, you may need different types of energy at different times. The important thing is to know there is a difference, so that you can be conscious of the choice you are making and how it might affect you.

What She Wants is Not What She Says

“Sometimes a woman will make a request of her man in plain English, not to get him to do something, but to see if he is so weak that he will do it. In other words, she is testing his capacity to do what is right, not what she is asking for.”

“If you are a weak man, this feminine trait of wanting one thing and asking for another will piss you off. You will wonder, ‘Why don’t you just tell me what you really want, instead of saying one thing and meaning another, expecting me to figure it out?’ This is the view of a man who does not understand that women are an incarnation of the divine feminine. And the divine feminine settles for nothing less than the divine masculine.”

“The divine masculine is consciousness. A superior man practices maintaining full consciousness in all situations. Your woman will ask you to do all kinds of things, every day. Do not allow yourself to be swayed from your truth, from the direction of your heart. Underneath your woman’s superficial request is her actual desire and need: she wants your passionate fullness to pervade her, she wants to be able to trust the unshakability of your loving, she wants to feel in her bones that your divine masculine presence is stronger than your distractibility.”

“Your woman is a form of the goddess, taunting you, testing you, seducing you, ready to chop your head off with her wrath if you are weak and ambiguous in your truth, and ready to surrender to the force of your loving if you are steady and brilliant in your loving consciousness.”

Her Complaint is Content-Free

“The thing your woman is complaining about is rarely the thing she is complaining about. It is a mistake to believe the content of what she is saying, and then respond to her complaints, point by point.

When she complains about financial issues, she is usually feeling a lack in your masculine capacity to direct your life with clarity, purpose, integrity, and wisdom. The money itself is secondary. If you were poor but totally conscious, happy, full of integrity, fearless, humorous, loving, and giving your fullest gift to the world and to your woman, she wouldn’t complain about lack of money.

When you say you will clean the garage, and then weeks pass and you haven’t, her complaint isn’t really about the garage. Sure she’d like a clean garage, but this is a superficial issue. The deeper issue is that you didn’t do what you said you would. You gave her your word, and you didn’t follow through. She can’t trust what you say. And this hurts her, deeply.”

“Your word is a demonstration of your purpose, of your masculine core. When you don’t follow through with what you say you are going you to do, she feels that your masculine core is weak. She feels let down.

She Doesn’t Really Want to Be Number One

“A woman sometimes seems to want to be the most important thing in her man’s life. However, if she is the most important thing, then she feels her man has made her the number one priority and is not fully dedicated or directed to divine growth and service. She will feel her man’s dependence on her for his happiness, and this will make her feel smothered by his neediness and clinging. A woman really wants her man to be totally dedicated to his highest purpose-and also to love her fully. Although she would never admit it, she wants to feel that her man would be willing to sacrifice their relationship for the sake of his highest purpose.”

She Wants to Relax in the Demonstration of Your Direction

“A woman must be able to trust you to take charge if she relaxes her own masculine edge. This is true financially, sexually, emotionally, and spiritually.

The man doesn’t have to actually do all the work, but he must be able to steer the course if his woman is going to relax into her feminine without fear.”

“If your woman has a feminine sexual essence, there will be times that she would like to pleasurably relax and let go of being in charge. She would like to relax in her feminine and let you make the decisions. If you are not able to take charge, if you don’t know the direction you want to go, your woman will feel you floundering. She will have to take charge again, since you are unable. She won’t be able to relax.

The more relaxed she is in her feminine, the more radiant your woman will be. You have probably noticed that your woman’s radiance can change instantly. One moment she might seem dull and weary. Then, perhaps after you praise her or surprise her with a gift of love, suddenly she is glowing. She looks fifteen years younger. The lines in her face have disappeared in seconds.”

You Are Always Searching For Freedom

“The essential masculine ecstasy is in the moment of release from constraint. The masculine is always seeking release from constraint into freedom. The feminine often doesn’t understand these masculine ways and needs.”

“The feminine seeks fullness and abhors emptiness. She will fill her empty shelves with knickknacks, seashells, and pebbles collected from special places. When she does not feel full of love, she seeks to fill herself with ice cream, chocolate, or conversation, rather than empty her stress through TV or ejaculation, as men often do. Her dark side enjoys the emotional aggression in soap operas and romance novels, rather than the physical aggression of boxing matches and porno movies. She longs to fill her sense of spiritual emptiness by surrendering her heart and being filled with love. Her basic means toward spiritual unity is surrender into the devotional fullness of unbounded love, rather then breaking through the fear of ego-death into the unconstrained infinity of absolute freedom.”

She Wants the Killer in You

“Fearlessness, or the capacity to transcend the fear of death for the sake of love, is a quintessential form of the ultimate masculine gift.”

“The dark masculine energy of the warrior, the one who could face death and kill when necessary, is an essential part of you. Today’s current fashion is to suppress both the dark masculine and the dark feminine, so we have a large population of wimpy men and polite women. But beneath the nice veneer of most women lies the wrathful goddess who would chop the head off of every mediocre “new age” man. And beneath the patient smile of most men lies the warrior of love who would ravish his woman into bliss rather than listen to her chat in pointless emotional circles.

But the dark masculine energy has been suppressed so thoroughly these days that the ordinary man would prefer to paste a smile on his bored face, rather than penetrate his woman’s tension with uncompromising love. And he’s just as cautious about disrupting his own well-planned life of comfort and security in order to penetrate his own fear of death.”

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