*Editor’s Note: Elephant Journal articles represent the personal views of the authors, and can not possibly reflect Elephant Journal as a whole. Disagree with an Op-Ed or opinion? We’re happy to share your experience here.

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It’s true: we millennial women are liberated.

We are highly independent and we like to claim that we don’t need anyone or anything to fulfill us. It is 2016 and we can handle everything on our own. Flat tire? No problem.

But, in my experience as a coach and as a millennial woman myself, this fierce independence is not the entirety of what our wild hearts crave. It is not the full breadth of what our feminine souls yearn for.

I have come to find that, in addition to becoming self-sufficient, capable beings when we are on our own, millennial women want to be with a man who can take control, comfort us in our pain, make us feel safe and free to let go. We want someone that we can let see beyond our “tough cookie” “boss b*tch” avatars. We want to surrender.

The reason this is specific to “millennial women,” as opposed to just “women,” is that our culture has grown and evolved in such a way that women in their 20s and 30s spend a lot of time in their masculine. We are constantly accomplishing things. We are at the coffee shops writing our mission statements, at the gym at 6:00 a.m. getting in our Booty Blast before work. We would love nothing more than to step into our feminine, but capitalist culture demands incessant drive and forward motion. 

Ironically, I see the agenda-less flow of the feminine clearly in the millennial men in my life: my surfer dude friends who spend their time editing video for social media and cooking delicious meals together, the mala-bead sporting homie I stood next to in line at Cafe Gratitude yesterday, sweat still glistening from ecstatic dance.

With such a paradigm shift happening between the sexes, many of us women feel like it’s rare to meet a man who truly embodies that strong, stalwart archetype that was once so highly regaled in pop culture (think James Dean and Clark Gable). We have heard about the guy who can make us feel like putty in his hands while still being evolved enough to understand and respect us as empowered women on a mission…but we may not have met him in the flesh yet.

As an attraction and relationship coach, I have found that the first step is to fully take ownership of what it is that our hearts desire. We must stop believing that the evolved male partner is a mythical creature from ancient folklore and start getting serious about seeking him out.

To give you an idea of what I mean by “taking ownership,” here is a statement of what I believe the vast majority of millennial women want in relationship:

We want to be respected and revered as the powerful independent forces of nature that we are. We want to know that we can step out of our ambitious grown-up/big-girl persona and just surrender to our man and his love. We want to know we’re safe to let go; we want to know that he’s got us. We want to feel like we’re ours first and foremost…then we want to be his.

Once we are clear on what we are requesting and have set our intentions accordingly, we are ready to manifest. If the above description resonates, please feel free to lovingly borrow it—read it once a day so you know what you are committed to, so you train your eye to spot what it is you are looking for.

If you’re already in a relationship, this exercise is just as effective: once you know what you want, you and your partner can start bridging the gap between where you are and where you want to be. Or perhaps you will realize the relationship isn’t truly a match for you and it’s time to move on.

Author: Molly Joseph

Image: Sloane Smith/Unsplash

Editor: Catherine Monkman