Dana,
I can't understand the "think like a woman" part in some ways. I think my posts elsewhere show a certain antipathy to some of what passes for "thought" in MOST people... I'm a bit cynical.
Here's something to consider, though: Women are traditionally seen as the passive partner. Submissive. Not in the "I don't do anything, I only respond, I'm a doormat for others" sense, but in the giving, nurturing, assisting, lifting others up. She doesn't go to the moon; she raises the engineers, the astronauts, the physicists, the software developers, the dreamers... Plants dreams in their heads, picks them up when they fall down, fixes their boo-boos... She gets her entire ego gratification through others.
This is true from the selection of her mate, to the adoration and infinite love her children reflect back at her. (And there's a reflection there, I think. Line from The Crow: "Mother is the name for God on the lips and hearts of all children.")
Also, we need to act and react on emotion. Not the "if it feels good, do it" type, but on the positive emotions, again, focused on helping others. We're NOT the star of the show if we're feminine. We're the support team, and we know there'd BE no show without us - but we're not the ones taking the first bow.
Example careers/jobs: Daycare, nursing, teaching (mostly thinking young children, by 10 or so there should be men teaching, masculine energies are needed to mold and control developing boys into proper men.)
Software QA also comes to mind, technicians, TAs and PAs, secretaries by all names.
Work on multi-tasking, and learn to hold multiple ideas in your head, and conversations, at once. E.G., a woman can carry on three parallel conversations almost simultaneously. Gets enough of the context to understand the message of each, and craft a response to each.
Men are more single-focus creatures. They can move mountains because of it, but they're very different in that focus. Emulate the women. (I'm jokingly thinking of Spock in Star Trek 4, after he was regenerated on the Genesis planet, and re-training his mind. Two or three jeopardy-style questioning consoles running at once, forcing him to change focus and mental frame to answer as quickly as possible. Could be done with multiple computer monitors running separate programs; can be done at meetings and in conversations.)
And the more masculine the mind, the more you need to work on FEELING things. Practice crying when something is sacharine-sweet - and make sure it's tears of happiness (different chemistry!) - so you must NOT think SAD thoughts to get the tears going. Rather, think how sweet it is, and how you should be weeping for joy, and empathize (NOT sympathize - see
http://www.wisegeek.org/what-is-the-diff...youknowout) with the person. Try to FEEL what she is feeling, and then amplify it - objective being, to train your brain to feel that way in similar circumstances.
I also would quietly point out, I DID think and feel that way for most of my life. Too emotional for a man, I'm hurt and scarred because of it. That's normal for TG/TS, I think, because we're straight-jacketed into this life of masculine "privilege" where we're seen as the disposable sex. Taught to be tough, to not feel, to not show emotion, except anger. I think it is even more destructive than our actual condition. I posted a while back about John's Hopkins head doctor stopping their SRS program because many of the patients still committed suicide after SRS (GRS). He doesn't understand what's actually happening, though, he's conflating cause and effect. Most of us have PROBLEMS, all capitals, and we're doing our best to deal with them. If you have NO demons, you won't commit suicide. Sex is unimportant, gender is unimportant. But force someone to live in a box? They're going to have PROBLEMS... Examples are easy to find, humans who were raised by animals are a good source. Tarzan (Sir ???) was real. Mowgli, the Wolf Boy, too. Tarzan walked like an ape, and Mowgli ran like a wolf. Not like the movies! Now, not sure, but I think Tarzan was brought back to England, became a "celebrity" (sideshow freak type of celebrity, but in high society), and when he could he went back "home" - and later killed himself. The Wolf Boy died from illness, I think, due to massive deformities of his bones. Crushed his internal organs, basically.
What happened to them in physical AND mental state, is exactly what's happening to us. We are just embracing our REAL minds here.
We find out the box has been removed, but Mowgli and Tarzan still can't stand and walk upright. We've been taught to walk like an ape or wolf, and our bodies have been used to adapt that way, and now we're being laced into a new corset that forces us to stand up straight. It's even more painful! Eventually, we might adapt... But the scars and deformities will still be there. J-H Doc doesn't think it through. We have the injuries from the world's treatment of us. Those patients didn't commit suicide because they GOT SRS. They developed problems from trying to cope WITHOUT SRS, or even validation of who they were! You'd be a bit F'ed up, too, Doc! Try likening it to PTSD. We laugh about drive-bys because they don't happen where WE live...
But any of you who do? I know when a car backfires, you're kissing the concrete. Like more than a few vets, that first sound moved you to the ground before you you knew it had happened...
So we need to open those pathways back up, and part of that is - we're allowed to cry. To feel joy and cry. To be sad and cry. To be overwhelmed with emotions. To flirt from the submissive (yielding) side. To "love up" the cute puppy... Just because. To be silly! To be Cute! To be immature! Play with a dolly, just because! Color a page or a fuzzy poster! Pierce something, or get a tattoo on a whim! To NOT think through every little detail!
After that polemic... :-P
Well, in my past, I've cried over breaking an icicle. Literally cried over spilling milk. Cried over the loss of a pet, of course. Cried over breakups. When my father died, I don't know if he even knew who I was; I couldn't talk, can't even think about it, without almost weeping. I literally never said good bye, and he was so drugged up (and blind without glasses) that I don't think he knew me. And I think that if he KNEW me - I.E., the gurl me - he'd disown me. I used to be a great listener, and I had NONE of the interests of a "normal" boy. Not interested in running faster, hitting the ball, competing... but I could talk to the girls in my class all through grade school. (To be fair, we were all screwed up. Boys AND girls.) I stay away from chick-flicks because I CAN lose control of my emotions. (and if I show weakness with this woman, she'll use it against me.)
I'm somewhat nurturing, especially for a man. (Though I can't stand children any more, but I think that's more a discipline thing. The parents should be whipped for allowing the little beasts to behave the way they do. Next door neighbors, for example, the girls are screaming all day and most of the night. They're old enough to know better. And you can hear them when they're inside, outside, where ever! On the bus, they're running around screaming! 7 and 10 years old, howling like banshees. Never a word - just screaming. But hardly unique. If they were 2, it would be a different story.)
When I was younger, I was better.
Walked like a girl, talked like a girl, liked to get my nails painted, was a teacher's pet (not a tattle-tail), disliked getting dirty from a fairly young age (Call it 7 or so, no more playing in the mud.) Then again, I also grew up in the 70s, and my parents - for all their railing against the world - were actually pretty invested in it. I LOOKED girlish, too. Mom kept my hair long, and I had no muscles and no mass until I got fat in my early teens. (IE, T boosted my appetite, but I didn't have the activity to develop muscles; and no E to make girl features develop, it seems, except I had boy-boobs from maybe 12?)
Our bodies grow to reflect our psyches.
I'm "armored" via fat. Masochistic in my training (punish the girl out of me.)
So this gives us a hint about how to fix things...
Get rid of the tensions, the fears, the mental damages. Don't imitate the girl, release the girl.
Look at the cute boy (it's not gay if you're a girl.)
Flirt with the cute girl. (Girls flirt all the time, it's also jockeying for social position.)
DO NOT react like THE MAN. Be as dainty and delicate as possible. People-watch and see how women behave (again) and re-learn how to be one. Make smaller motions, occupy less space, look smaller. Smile often, especially at "big, scary" men. (Obviously, context is important. Don't go grinning like a loonie, and not in the men's locker room! And "big, scary" is a girl mindset - she can be 6' 300#, and she'll still see me as "big, scary" despite being bigger. Doesn't mean she's afraid, just that she's assessing things, and smiling is a reflexive action for her, so she breaks down his defenses without saying a word. Her smile says she's not a threat to him.)
Other things that might help, dance. Specifically looking at belly dance. It makes the hips move, which most of us would benefit from, it adds to grace and delicacy in movement, and especially dancing the woman's "following" role, you'll get used to being led, to being passive and supportive rather than the motivator.
Hope I don't derail the thread with this post. I considered splicing it in as a new thread with a link, but that didn't feel right, either...
-Dianna