Advices of a true Don Juan
By: Rosario Alfaro Martínez (psycotherapist)
In this article you will find the best advices to be a “good lover” in the best sense of the word, this means a man who knows how to truly love God, himself, only one woman and his family.
Many men have been told that in order to be a real man they have to have many women, forgetting the fact that our emotions do not behave like mathematics, it is totally the opposite when a man “has many women” the true is that he really does not have any woman at an emotional level. MANY = NONE.
That is why we want you to receive some advices from a man that has really been THE BEST “DON JUAN”, supported by his résumé, since he has the title of the beloved disciple. Best known as John “The Evangelist” or Saint John. Jesus youngest disciple. The Bible’s “Don Juan”, he is the best adviser when speaking about love. Let’s see the advices that “Don Juan” has for today’s men, on love matters.
TO be a good lover:
1. Take the initiative, love first!
This is one of the best advices you can find in the Bible, it is not only addressed to men, it is addressed in general for all Christians, John quoted in Jesus words during the Last Supper that we had to love just like Jesus had loved us:
He says referring to God: “We are to love, then, because he loved us first”. 1 Jn. 4, 19.
If we really want to love, we have to learn to be the first to love the others. Just as God first loved us, we have to imitate Him and learn how to love first.
This thing of loving first is not a disadvantage for men, quite the opposite, to take the initiative helps men to feel sure of themselves and above all to develop their conquest capacities.
2. Do not loose the original love
Let’s review some of Saint John’s messages to the first Christian Churches in Asia, remembering that for us Catholics, Christian marriage represents the love between Christ and the Church. By analogy we can draw the same conclusions.
John tells The Church of the Ephesians to recover the original love, “Nevertheless, I have this complaint to make; you have less love now than you used to. Think where you were before you fell; repent, and do as you used to at first, or else, if you will not repent, I shall come to you and take your lampstand from its place (Rv. 2, 4-5). This recommendation goes specially for those married man that have been for a long time with their wife, this is the time to recover the love you felt at the beginning and to have with her the details that made her fall in love with you.
3. Be faithful
Fidelity is a necessary ingredient to have an authentic and genuine relationship That is why Saint John tells the Church of Izmir: “I tell you, the devil is going to send some of you to prision to test you, and you must face and ordeal for ten days. Even if you have to die, keep faithful, and I will give you the crown of life for your prize” (Rv. 2, 10).
Having the crown of life means to be in control of our life, to be a real man is exactly that, a real man is not that man who meets a lot of women, but the one who is able to know the woman, because he has taken the time and the opportunity to deeply know one woman.
4. Be patient
To know how to wait, be sensible and careful, are important characteristics of a man, as Saint John told the Church of Philadelphia: “Because you have kept my commandment to endure trials, I will keep you safe in the time of trial which is going to come for the whole world, to test the people of the world” (Rv. 3, 10).
When you face a test, you can be safe if you know how to be patient. Y think this tests will be clearer in the following items.
5. Be generous and charitable
“If a man who was rich enough in this world’s goods saw that one of his brothers was in need, but closed his heart to him, how could the love of God be living in him? My children, our love is not to be just words or mere talk, but something real and active: only by this can we be certain that we are children of the truth and be able to quiet our conscience in his presence” (1 Jn. 3, 17-19).
For many individuals, problems start here. To talk about money with a man, is sometimes more difficult than talking about the most shameful and embarrassing thing they have ever done in life.
As Couple Psychotherapist, I can say that when a married couple goes to counseling or therapy and they talk about money problems, we are before a very serious problem. Many man have problems with being generous with money, and Saint John says that he has to be generous with the poor, not only with the people he loves but with the ones that need it, and this does not only include poor people in the city where you live, sometimes poor people are inside your own family.
• For single people: Being generous means helping your parents, your siblings, to worry and find out if they have the necessary to live, and give them a better well-being.
• For married people: your wife and your children are, most of the times, who need more from you. Sometimes you do not even want to tell your wife how much money you make, and you think that having that information in secret gives you some power.
This is not really loving! Do not close yourself and be generous!
John says something really hard in the book of REVELATION regarding money: “You say to yourself, “I am rich, I have made a fortune, and have everything I want,” never realizing that you are wretchedly and pitiably poor, and blind and naked too” (Rv. 3, 17).
There is a saying that goes like this: There are so poor people, that the only thing they have is money!
It is not about buying expensive gifts, or mishandling your money, or not having some savings for unforeseen expenses, it is only about showing generosity with the poor.
And being generous and charitable also refers to affection, tell your family that you love them, show it with hugs, caresses and kisses. That is the best way to show your love, specially your wife and children.
6. Discover yourself as a beloved child of God
This is the most important advice, nobody can love if he or she does not feel loved. This involves two things:
• To discover oneself as son of God: “Think of the love that the Father has lavished on us, by letting us be called God’s children; and that is what we are. Because the world refused to acknowledge him, therefore it does not acknowledge us” (1 John 3, 1). This is to heal fatherhood, many men have a lot of conflicts and fears about being fathers, maybe because some of them did not have a good model of fatherhood and they are afraid to become a father like the one they had. And if a man is afraid of being a father it will be hard for him to give his heart to a woman.
• What a man needs is to heal his fatherhood, and it is done healing first his filiation, that means, the feeling of being a loved child. When he discovers that he is loved not for doing intrepid things or because he is intelligent, rich or powerful, but he is loved and accepted only for being a son. When he feels accepted for being who he is, by his father, a man is able to heal his sense of fatherhood.
• Feeling loved by God. John says: “Anyone who fails to love can never have known God, because God is love” (1 Jn. 4, 8). When you discover that God loves you, that His love can transform all need of love there is in your life, then you will be able to love the people around you, but most important, you are going to be able to love yourself, and when someone really loves and has a good self-esteem he does not look for relationships that compensate his emotional need, he knows that sex is not what makes him happy, but that real love is what is going to give sense to his life. Thus he will look for a relationship with a woman who really loves him, and whom he will respect and honor because she is also a child of God.
7. Love everybody as if they were your own brothers
If you discover yourself as son of God, you will realize that you have a large family, that you have a brother in every human being, specially in those that are weaker and more defenseless.
Many men consider that manhood means being strong, aggressive, bold and the best way to show it is by evidencing others weakness, that is why some men enjoy making fun of, humiliating or offending other people, specially other men that seem weaker or does not have a leader character, or strong spirit, not mentioning homosexuals, for many “men”, being a “macho” consists in making fun of people who have problems with their sexual identity. Showing only their real and true lack of a healthy masculinity, because as we can see in psychology when someone makes fun of these kind of circumstances it is because unconsciously he is prone to become just exactly what he is making fun of.
Saint John says; “This is the message as you heard it from the beginning: that we are to love one another; not to be like Cain, who belonged to the Evil One and cut his brother’s throat; cut his brother’s throat simply for this reason, that is own life was evil and his brother lived a good life. If you refuse to love, you must remain dead; to hate your brother is to be a murderer, and murderers, as you know, do not have eternal life in them” (1 Jn. 3, 11-12,15).
Thus a real man shows a respectful and understanding attitude specially with those man that seem to be more defenseless or weaker.
8. Love God and respect the commandments
The last clue to be a real man is to love God and respect the commandments. And, how can we know if we really love God? “We can be sure that we love God’s children if we love God himself and do what he has commanded us; this is what loving God is, keeping his commandments; and his commandments are not difficult, because anyone who has been begotten by God has already overcome the world; this is the victory over the world” 1 Jn. 5, 2-3).
When a man is in real control of himself, when he is honest, authentic, brave, self confident, etc., then he can obey God.
Saint John could say that a true man has in his Herat a deep love for God, to such extent that he is not afraid to say that he belongs to Jesus. Hopefully you get to imitate him”.
