TIQA: She Food, Shoe Sizes, and Your Golden Shadow
Here’s your weekly TIQA.
One theme, one insight, one quote, and one action — to help you show up more fully for yourself and those you love.
Take what’s useful. Chuck the rest.
The Theme
Getting real with the men I’ve worked with this week — and with myself, as always — I’ve seen how deeply we’ve been conditioned to operate as instruments of extraction.
We seek love, care, pleasure, warmth, status — even mothering — from the women in our lives.
“I don’t have it… but she does. That woman over there. Yum. I want it. I need it. I take it.”
Like we do with the Earth’s resources, we unconsciously plug into the women around us, siphoning their energy through invisible psychic straws to keep ourselves going.
It’s not because we’re bad. No shame. It’s because we haven’t been taught another way and we’re unconsciously playing it out like most men.
Thankfully, strong and sensitive women often speak up. They call us forward — not out of blame, but out of love.
“Honey, I feel used. I love you, but what the hell — you only come to me for sex.”
“You’re acting like a child. I feel more like your mother than your partner.”
This is a feature, not a fault, of sacred partnership.
To grow, we have to turn inward and get honest:
Where am I turning my partner into a source, not a person?
Where am I sabotaging intimacy by grasping instead of relating?
The moment we remember that fulfillment is an inside job, the spell breaks.
We stop extracting and start relating. From inner fullness, we attract the love we actually long for.
The Insight
When it comes to life, we get to choose 1 of 2 options:
Depression — from squeezing ourselves into shoes too small for the full expression of our soul.
Anxiety — from stepping into shoes slightly bigger than we’re used to, welcoming the unknown, and stretching into who we’re becoming.
One is the pain of staying stuck.
The other is the unease of growth.
Which one are you choosing?
The Quote
“The paradox of individuation is that we best serve intimate relationship by becoming sufficiently developed in ourselves that we do not need to feed off others.”
James Hollis, The Middle Passage: From Misery to Meaning in Midlife
The Action
Think about a woman you admire or long for — a partner, friend, stranger, or even an imagined ideal.
Pause. Go inward.
Feel into what draws you to her.
What qualities does she embody?
How does she make you feel — or how do you want her to make you feel?
What do you hope to receive from her?
These are clues to your projected golden shadow — radiant traits you’ve unconsciously outsourced onto the beloved and haven’t yet claimed in yourself.
This week, take one small action to reclaim that energy for yourself.
💧 Rub oil on your feet.
🛁 Take a bath with salts and scent.
🌿 Caress a tree.
💃 Move your hips slowly, sensually, just for you.
Practice giving yourself the very things you keep looking for “out there.”
By doing so, you get free.
You free women from the ensnarement of your own lack. You release women from holding what’s yours.
And you begin to create intimacy not through need… but through resonance.
Want to share this issue of TIQA? Just copy and paste this link:
https://wholemanmethod.com/articles/tiqa-she-food-shoe-sizes-and-your-golden-shadow
Until next week,
Tyler White
Relationship Coaching for Men, Couples & Families
p.s. From misogyny to true power, one black man’s perspective on masculinity.