January 6, 2025 • 41 mins
In this episode of Mindfully Masculine, Charles and Dan dive deep into conflict resolution strategies inspired by The Man’s Guide to Women by the Gottmans. This episode isn’t just about fighting—it's about learning how to navigate disagreements with greater empathy, patience, and self-awareness.
Key Highlights:
- Understanding Conflict: Why conflict is inevitable in relationships and how to embrace it as part of healthy connection.
- Biological Differences: How men and women experience and process anger differently—and why understanding this can improve communication.
- Self-Soothing for Men: Practical techniques like deep breathing, taking breaks, and diaphragmatic breathing to regulate emotional responses during heated moments.
- Critical Questions to Ask: The three essential questions to uncover the root of your partner’s frustration— "What do you need?", "What are you concerned about?", and "What are you feeling?"
- Managing Defensiveness: How to avoid the common trap of defensiveness by validating your partner’s emotions without jumping to solutions or rebuttals.
- The Power of Taking Breaks: Why a 20-30 minute break during conflict can lead to better outcomes, and how to effectively communicate the need for space.
Why You Should Listen:
This episode isn’t about "winning" arguments—it’s about mastering the art of managing emotions and building stronger, more connected relationships. If you’ve ever struggled with feeling misunderstood or defensive during disagreements, Charles and Dan offer actionable insights that will help you fight smarter, not harder.
Listen Now to Discover:
- How to break free from destructive fight-or-flight patterns.
- Simple yet powerful habits that can transform your approach to relationship conflict.
- Why emotional regulation is key to fostering long-term relationship success.
Tune in and learn why "fighting like a girl" might just be the best relationship advice you’ve ever received.
Keywords for Search Optimization:
Relationship conflict resolution, men’s emotional health, healthy fighting in relationships, Gottman relationship advice, conflict management for men, improving communication in relationships, relationship podcast for men, self-soothing techniques, emotional intelligence for men.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Charles (00:00):
Welcome back to the Mindfully Masculine Podcast.
This is Charles.
In this week's episode, dan andI will continue to discuss the
Man's Guide to Women by theGottmans, and topics covered
will include living with apartner, conflict in
relationships, emotionalresponses at anger,
self-soothing techniques,communication during conflict,
(00:22):
emotional awareness andresponsibility building,
resilience and confidence,practical tools for managing
conflict, relationship dynamicsand gender differences, and some
personal experiences andreflections.
Please check out our website,mindfullymasculinecom, where you
can find full audio and videoepisodes, as well as any info or
(00:43):
resources we find worth sharing.
Thanks and enjoy.
Good morning, charles.
How are you?
Hey, dan, doing great.
Thanks, how are you?
I am also well, so we'rerecording this on December 18th.
Yeah, so we're a week out ofChristmas.
Where did this year go, holycow man?
Yeah, people always say whydoes time feel like it's moving
(01:06):
faster and faster?
But it's because the older youget, the smaller percentage of
your life each year is, and sothat's why it feels like time
accelerates as you get old.
Dan (01:13):
Yeah, I never yeah, I had a my.
My Russian teacher, basicallyin seventh grade, yielded that
information to us and presentedit, and once I thought about
that, he basically ruined lifefor me.
At that point I was just oh myGod, you're right, it's just
going to get faster and faster.
Charles (01:28):
Let's get into chapter 10 of the man's guide to women
by the Gottmans.
This is a new section thatwe're just starting, called
living with a woman.
Yeah, I've only lived with myex-wife.
I've not lived with any otherpartners.
How many folks have you livedwith over the years?
Dan (01:53):
I have one, my ex-wife.
I've not lived with any otherpartners.
How many folks have you livedwith over the years?
Uh, cohabitated one, two, three, okay, yeah, not a lot, and
most of that's been like.
One of them was about two years, okay, three years.
Charles (01:59):
Another one was a couple, others were like a year,
so not a lot of experienceeither yeah, with my, with my
mobile living lifestyle, doingthe full-time rv thing, it's
it's not as easy as just movingsomebody into your place.
It would be like me making avery big change to my lifestyle
and, with another person, eithergetting a place together or
(02:21):
moving up to a larger rv, Ithink it's a big change for
everybody.
Dan (02:25):
Yeah, it doesn't matter the situation.
Charles (02:27):
Yes, there's so many things that but in my case I'm
taking my current home andeither selling it or putting it
in storage.
Dan (02:33):
A lot of people do that.
A lot of people move out andthey get a place together
because they don't want one orthe other to be like oh, I'm
going to kick you out of myhouse type of situation.
Like my house type of situation, like we're gonna get a new
place together, yeah, yeah,which adds a whole bunch of
extra complications too, becausethen, yeah, it doesn't work out
now.
Exactly now, one of us ishomeless.
Charles (02:52):
Yeah, at least temporarily.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, I can see the appeal,logistically, of spending time
with somebody that, spendingmore time with somebody that you
love, I get that.
I get the the benefit ofsplitting bills.
A lot of things that you'reboth, I get that, I get the
benefit of splitting bills.
A lot of things that you'reboth paying for now will be
split in half.
But there are also increasedopportunities for conflict and
(03:14):
disagreements, which is whatwe're going to talk about in
this chapter.
He calls it learn to fight likea girl, and that's that feels
like a little bit of a shortcutto name it.
That where the goal shouldn'treally be learned to fight like
a girl, and that's that feelslike a little bit of a shortcut
to name it.
That where the goal shouldn'treally be learn to fight like a
girl, you can still fight like aman.
You just have to learn to fightlike an effective man.
Dan (03:33):
And I think part of what was good about this chapter was
him defining what our defaultsare, men and women, in terms of
how we handle conflict, and thatwas oh yes, of when those
feelings start to arise, whatthat comes from, that it's
normal, that it's okay, and thenhow to manage it properly.
(04:08):
But so that was it was moreabout.
Even though this is Man's Guideto Women, a lot of this is
really discovering ourselves asmen in terms of what, where do
we come from, in terms of oursocialization and our behaviors,
things like that.
Charles (04:22):
Yeah, he did a great job on that.
So let's go, let's hit the highpoints at the end of the
chapter and just take those toget into the different areas.
First, he says conflict willhappen even in the best of
relationships, because there'snot going to be a scenario where
two people find each other, gettogether and have a hundred
percent matched overlap on theirvalues, their opinions, their
(04:43):
habits, all there's going to bedifferences.
Otherwise one person is goingto be redundant, right?
It's exactly the same.
Dan (04:48):
Right and think about this is how many times you have
conflict within yourself.
So this idea that you're goingto be happy to go lucky and
never need to deal with it, oroh, we'll cross that conflict
bridge when we come to it andfigure out how to communicate
and fight them when our emotionsare running hot.
No, like practice and thinkabout things ahead of time.
And he gives some goodsuggestions in there too about
(05:15):
the communication that should begoing on before conflict arises
, and I'm sure we'll get intothat too, but yeah, yeah, I like
it.
There's always conflict.
We'll absolutely have toprepare for it.
Charles (05:20):
Yes and don't.
You shouldn't use a lack ofconflict as criteria for
choosing a partner.
At least it shouldn't be aprime criteria in choosing a
partner, because you wantsomebody that you can disagree
with in a helpful and healthyway, not somebody that you never
(05:41):
disagree with, because if younever disagree with, what's
probably going on is thatthere's somebody who's not
comfortable expressing the factthat they disagree.
Dan (05:50):
Yeah, I would say so there's some sort of barrier in
between you two, or somebody'snot being expressive with who
they are and all of theirdesires or needs, and then that
gets tricky in terms of figuringout who that other person is.
So that, yeah, that could be awarning sign.
Charles (06:08):
Yeah, he sets the table here with the fact that men and
women and this is according toactual data men and women both
get angry with the samefrequency, which, uh, I don't
know if most of us would assumethat to be the case.
I think many people wouldprobably assume that men are
spending more time angry, ormaybe assuming that women spend
more time angry.
(06:28):
I guess it really depends onyou and your experience and who
you're around.
Dan (06:32):
Yeah, you mentioned, and one of the reasons why I think
the cases we think men get angrymore often is because of the
way we express it.
And where women get quiet.
Men are a little bit moreobvious when we're angry.
Charles (06:45):
Yeah, and?
And the reasons why they getquiet?
There's a couple factors thatgo into that.
One is that, evolutionarily,big, loud displays of anger by
women don't serve them in theirgoals of staying safe and
keeping their children safe.
And two, they've the women whohave survived to become
(07:07):
ancestors are ones that havedeveloped skills to self-soothe,
and when they get angry, whenthey get sad, when they get
upset, they're able to soothethose feelings through their
internal dialogue and theirsupport from other women in ways
that men haven't had thenecessity, over our very long
history as homo sapiens, to todevelop yeah, and because men
(07:31):
haven't developed that, we'realso not used to that being in
the mix.
Dan (07:37):
I think a lot of times when there's conflict between a man
and a woman at least in myhistory it's been I've noticed
that if I've not given that timefor the woman to self-soothe,
or give it or provided help,provide that type of environment
, nothing gets resolved untilthe emotions come down and done
by self-soothing for women.
(07:57):
And ultimately that's where Ithink he comes from, where he's
saying let's fight, fight like agirl, Because if we learn to
self-soothe a little bit or dosomething to dissipate the
emotions like doing somethingphysical, like going for a walk,
breathing exercises, countingto ten, whatever that is those
are self-soothing practiceshelps bring the emotions down
(08:19):
and then I think both sides areopen to discussing the issue a
little bit better.
Charles (08:24):
Yeah, he goes into the causes, or the primary causes,
of what it is that women getangry about, and I thought this
was, uh, both insightful andcompletely accurate with the,
the women that I know, and andwhy they have gotten angry.
Women get angry because ofpowerlessness, injustice or the
irresponsibility of others.
And, yeah, these would beirresponsible then, yeah, I
(08:48):
guess.
So, yeah, these are all feelingpowerless, feeling that you
live in an unjust situation oran unjust world, and that other
people don't take responsibilityfor their actions are all
threats to a woman's safety, andso it's very natural that they
would react with fear, anger,quote-unquote, negative emotions
(09:09):
that lead to them feeling like,hey, there's a problem here and
it needs to be addressed.
Men get more physiologicallyaroused during conflict, which
makes us less able to handleconflict with humor and empathy
and understanding.
Dan (09:25):
Yeah, didn't you say that part of our brain just shuts off
?
Charles (09:27):
Yeah, peripheral vision , hearing all those things, and
it really does tie itphysiologically into your pulse.
Once your pulse starts racing,your ability to handle things
yeah, effectively and healthyare just is really that ability
is hamstrung by a heart that'spounding away in your chest.
Dan (09:48):
Yeah, it flips the fight or flight response.
So we've got adrenaline pumpingthrough our body that is
keeping the heart rate up, and alot of it is.
I thought we were.
I could have sworn.
We read something where itbasically said if you don't
remind yourself at least every60 or 90 seconds of why you're
angry, eventually you won't stayangry.
(10:09):
And I think a lot of, I think alot of our time, a lot of times
when men are just just stayemotionally hot, we're getting
our minds, we're remindingourselves.
Charles (10:19):
Rumination is a is an active pursuit.
It's not something that happensautomatically.
You know you do have to.
Getting upset can be completelysubconscious, but staying upset
, you do have to recruit yourthe front part of your brain to
keep reminding yourself aboutwhy that's unfair or why you're
being targeted or why you'rebeing treated in a way that you
(10:39):
don't like.
And some of us can spend weeks,months, a whole lifetime just
constantly telling ourselves thestory over and over again about
why we're being treatedunfairly and why the world is
not giving us the respect wedeserve.
And yeah, the more time youspend in that loop, the harder
it's going to be to calm downand get along with people.
Dan (11:00):
And the thing too, the tricky part, is we come from men
who, if we didn't have thatvery sensitive reaction to
threats, we would have died.
It's literally the fight orflight response.
So our life is on the line.
Yeah, we're pre-wired to go tothat extreme and it takes effort
to be aware of it.
Realize that, hey, you don'thave all the information right
(11:23):
now, let's just pause.
And that that is one of thethings that I liked about what
he was saying here is that he'snot expecting you to not feel
those feelings, but gave ustools on how to manage them.
Charles (11:36):
Yeah, and it's so funny that he mentioned and I must've
remembered the he specificallymentions getting your heart rate
under a hundred or under 80, ifyou're in really great shape.
Just the other day we weretalking about working out.
Yeah, how much rest should youtake between sets?
How do you know when you'reready to?
And I told you, my trick is tojust look down at my Apple Watch
and after I finish a set, Idon't start the next set until
(11:57):
I'm under 100 beats per minute.
And that's my little metricthat I use to say okay, you're
ready to tax.
And that's my little metricthat I use to say okay, you're
ready to tax.
It's great because it'sobjective, right, exactly.
And yeah, I'm certainly not ina good enough cardiovascular
shape where I have to set it at80.
I think mine's ever below 80.
Yeah, it is interesting andthat is a very convenient little
hack that you could have Ifyou've got a smartwatch and your
(12:20):
wife or girlfriend is tellingyou that, hey, it really
disappointed me when you didn'tfollow through on that
commitment that you made, andyou look down and you're at 115
beats a minute.
It's probably not time torespond to her yet.
It's time to use some of theself-soothing tools that we're
going to cover, to bring thatdown a little bit before you
(12:40):
want to jump into.
Okay, let's have a, let's havea conversation about this that
has any chance whatsoever ofactually going well and leading
to a resolution of this issue.
I like that he also points outat the very beginning of this
chapter.
He was like okay, so what docouples fight about?
Is it about money?
Is it about sex?
Is it about how to raise thekids?
No, most of these conflictsthat happen are over nothing, or
(13:03):
at least meaning nothing as faras something that can't be
easily categorized in one of thebig areas that people usually
assume that is going to be thesource of conflict.
It's more of a hate.
You left the seat up again, orstop leaving your dirty dishes.
It's going to be something thatseems in the moment to be
(13:23):
inconsequential, but what thatreally means it's consequential,
be something that seems in themoment to be inconsequential,
but what that really means isit's consequential to one person
and not the other.
Dan (13:34):
Yeah, another helpful insight he mentioned in the
example he gave was if yourwoman comes over and says you're
watching TV and starts talkingto you and you don't pick your
head up from the TV to connectwith her and listen to what
she's saying, she's saying youdon't listen to me and you're
not listening to me.
And what he said was that's nota criticism of you, it's just
her not feeling connected.
At that point it is notnecessarily, yeah, something
that should get you upset, and alot of times in the past I know
(13:57):
it's gotten me upset.
But the difference is, if shegoes you've never listened to me
, that's a criticism of you atthat point I definitely like
that distinction, and it's a oneword difference, but it's very
important because if it givesyou an opportunity, then to, I
feel, rectify that situation alot more easily.
(14:18):
If you pick up on it initiallywhen she's you're not listening
to me, you're not listening tome.
Now, if that happens too manytimes, she might get to the
point of where she says thingslike you never, you, always, you
right, and then that's isn't.
That ties into the four, fourhorsemen of the apocalypse
(14:38):
stonewalling, defensiveness,criticism and contempt.
Charles (14:41):
Contempt, okay, contempt, okay.
Yeah, yeah and yeah.
Do you have a favorite out ofthose four?
Which one do you go to whenyou're not doing great?
Stonewalling probably yeah,just quiet down and step back
and just, yeah, there's no hopekind of thing.
Dan (14:58):
Yeah, that's happened a few times and yeah, it's led to.
The lifesaver is I don'tnecessarily have all of the
(15:18):
information.
I should not make big decisionsand judgments in this elevated
emotional state.
I try to.
As long as I've been doing that, it's worked out so much better
because my assumptions havealways been like 10% correct of
100% in terms of amount ofinformation and it's always.
(15:38):
Things have always turned outto be better than my brain was
initially assuming they were,and the more times I've
recognized that and look back onthat, the easier it is for me,
moving forward, to pause andbring me, bring myself out of
that state where I'm makingassumptions and I am feeling
like in going in the directionof one of those four.
Charles (15:58):
Yeah, I my.
My Achilles heel has beendefinitely defensiveness, I
would.
I jumped to defending myselftoo quickly and eventually, if
things get bad enough, thencontempt rears its ugly head too
, and I will think mean thingsand occasionally say mean things
(16:18):
because I just feel so.
I feel so attacked in themoment and I don't, I have no
idea what my heart rate's doing,but nothing good.
Dan (16:26):
When you see your shirt moving, that is, it's a little
bit of indication, yeah.
Charles (16:30):
Heart rate shouldn't be starting with a two under any
circumstances.
Yeah, the more time I spend inmy therapy sessions, my men's
group and just getting olderseems to chill guys out at some
level, even guys that haveserious emotional and mental
health challenges.
The older they get they will bemiserable to be around, but
(16:52):
they can just.
I think just getting older canchill people out in some ways,
which I've seen that happen moreoften than not.
Which is good, yeah, same.
All right, let's talk aboutsome of these skills that you
can use to bring yourself down.
As far as your physiologicalresponse, remembering to breathe
, specifically deep breaths,will stimulate your vagus nerve,
which will then lead to yourpulse rate dropping, which is
(17:16):
ultimately, I would say maybenot the ultimate goal, but
certainly an inline goal of thisprocess is get your heart rate
down.
Stop your body from trickingyou into thinking like your
life's in danger, and you'll beable to react and discuss things
way more rationally and waymore effectively.
Dan (17:33):
On that real quick note there and at the Tony Robbins
seminar that we went to, one ofthe speakers had talked about
this that there's an actualdifference.
You need I recommend, and herecommended, is figuring out the
difference between thediaphragm breathing, where your
tummy kind of pushes out whenyou're breathing in, and versus
the, your upper chest.
Yeah, because if you are doingshallow breaths in the and
(17:53):
you're you're not doing thebelly breaths, it actually can
make you more excited.
Yeah, and actually when youhyperventilate, it's your chest
going up.
Exactly, it's not your stomachgoing on, it's.
It's a difficult thing for meto do, to try to remember to
yeah, stick my, I have.
I've just the tendency to wantto inhale, make my chest
narrower, instead of push yourstomach out when you breathe in,
(18:14):
because you need to make roomfor the lungs to expand and push
your stomach out, and it's justcounterintuitive to me.
But every time I do it justthree times, like in the car
with, I feel better almostimmediately.
It's amazingly powerful.
Charles (18:27):
Yes, I, and I've heard that from a couple of sources.
One I took one voice class incollege where the poor man tried
to teach me how to sing, oh,yeah, yes, from the diaphragm.
Yeah, and that's definitely abig thing.
When you're breathing inbetween breaths of singing, it's
always diaphragmatic breathing.
And also, dr Glover hits thatpretty heavy, that's right.
(18:48):
I don't remember if it was noMore Mr Nice Guy or Dating
Essentials for Men, but one ofhis two books that you and I
have spent so much time in.
He definitely talks about thevalue of diaphragmic breathing.
And, yeah, if your chest isgoing up, it ain't the right
kind.
Belly's sticking out, it is theright kind, yeah, and putting a
hand over one or the other is agood way to tell which one
(19:10):
you're doing.
Yeah, great tip.
But yeah, the breathing in withyour belly poking out is the
one that helps the most.
The next thing is counting to10 as slow as possible, I would
add, because if you're justangry and you're like, what are
you doing?
And you go back to yelling atsomebody, that's not the goal,
it's almost like windingyourself up.
Yeah, no, you want to start slow, and even if you can get each
(19:31):
count to go slower and slower,it'll be more and more effective
, I think, as you get to that 10count and then also taking a
break, which is there's adistinction that needs to be
made between taking a break andgiving into the flight part of
your flight Running away in themiddle of the discussion right,
which look, I've done thatbefore where I've just been like
my body's telling me I need abreak and I just storm out and
(19:52):
slam the door without sayinganything and that is that's hard
.
Dan (19:56):
It's hard to even come up at that point.
That just shows how difficultit is to even just do basic
things like utter a couple ofwords when we're in that
elevated space.
Charles (20:04):
Absolutely, and it's tough because I spent literally
years of my life telling myselfthat, no, I'm not the kind of
person that gets that.
Just don't know how to talk toeach other.
What's probably going on isyour inner child and their inner
(20:36):
child are just wired to not getalong with each other because
of where your developmentstopped when you were in your
family of origin.
What were the needs that youweren't getting met when you
were a kid?
The way that those unmet needsconflict with your partner's
unmet needs.
You basically turn into twochildren that are just screaming
at each other because you haveno ability to do anything but
(20:58):
that.
Dan (20:59):
And I think it also is difficult to say I need a break,
because you're being vulnerableat that point and you're
already on the defensive, and Ifeel like, in order for you to
say I can't hand, you'rebasically saying I can't handle
this right now.
That's a tough ask for anybody,even when you're in the best of
situations, to be able to go Ican't handle this right now and
communicate that in any way atall, and so I think that's what
(21:24):
he speaks to too is ahead oftime, before you have these
conflicts, when you both arecalm, cool and collected, figure
out strategies that you canboth lower your emotional states
so that it might be hey, listen, let's do things that will
distract us.
He talks about that.
It's not thinking about yourpartner's good qualities.
It's literally taking your mindout of the situation.
Charles (21:48):
Yeah.
So he says that when you decidethat, okay, I need to take a
break from this Number one, itneeds to be at least 20 minutes,
preferably 30, where you sayand you do need to say to your
partner hey, I need to take a 30minute break, then we can come
back and I can keep discussingthis with you.
Dan (22:03):
Yeah, exactly.
Or you don't even need to say abreak.
I like for me to me it's's lessvulnerable is hey, can we just
take a break?
Not yet, no, we're not, butjust hey, let's come back to
this in 30 minutes or let'sdiscuss this later.
Charles (22:16):
So sometimes that's a little bit easier for me to say
hey let's discuss this later,but I think one, one portion of
a or one characteristic of aneffective break, which is
whether you call it that or not,that's what it is.
I think you do need to separatephysically from the other
person.
Dan (22:31):
Oh yeah.
Charles (22:32):
Oh, good point, and so just let's talk about this later
.
And then you turn around andleave there.
There needs to be some, itneeds to be clear of hey, I,
I've gotta be in a differentroom from you for 30 minutes and
then we'll come back andcontinue this.
And he says, once you do gointo that other space whatever
that is, whether you're taking awalk or whatever do your best
(22:53):
not to think about your partner.
Don't think about why you'reangry with them.
Don't think about why they'resuch a great partner for you.
Don't think about them at all.
He said in the research they did, opening up a magazine and
reading it was the mosteffective thing because it
distracted you from the person,the situation, the argument,
whatever.
And yet you got to move yourmind away from what got you
(23:14):
elevated.
And so, yeah, don't immediatelygo to oh, but she's, I should
be able to get along with herbetter.
She's such a great person inall these other areas.
No, you should be looking at asports magazine, a travel
magazine, something that can getyour mind away from what's
currently bothering you, andthen spend 30 minutes in that
space and then come back with aheart rate under 99 beats a
(23:35):
minute and say, okay, let'scontinue.
And that continuation I think wewill probably get into this
later, maybe not, but thatcontinuation should also include
some form of hey.
Here's where it sounded to melike you were coming from and
tell me how I got this wrong,and then you tell them where you
(23:57):
think their issue is and thenexpect for you to you're going
to have some parts of it wrong,probably yeah, and then let them
correct you and say you know,that's not exactly what I.
What I'm really upset about isblah, blah, blah.
Dan (24:09):
And more often than not, I think it's going to be a better
case scenario than what you wereassuming.
Yeah.
Charles (24:15):
To be honest, that's true.
That can often be the casewhere, yeah, the thing you think
they're upset about is probablyyeah.
Dan (24:21):
I've seen that in my current relationship, where I've
been all set to hear criticismand it was nothing resembling
criticism, yeah it was, justlike you said, a bid for
connection, and that comes fromour own experiences in the past
with similar situations whereit's turned out to be different
than the current one, and Ithink that's where we do
(24:42):
ourselves a disservice isholding on to that.
Charles (24:46):
That involved hypervigilance that is always on
the lookout for the worst casescenario.
Dan (24:50):
Again, that involved hypervigilance that is always on
the lookout for the worst casescenario.
Yeah, and I think the.
I think one of the causes of uscontinuing to ruminate on
negative things that are gettingus keeping us angry is if we
don't take that break.
We never lowered that emotionalstate.
So any thoughts, as goodnatured as we probably try to be
, they're tainted all by thehormone levels that are going.
(25:12):
So we're, I think, a lot morelikely to still keep talking
about other worst case scenariosbased on assumptions for
information that we don't have.
So again, yeah, um, startreading a magazine or listen to
something on audible, or listento our podcast and we'll help
you calm down.
Charles (25:30):
Yeah, as long as it's not a podcast about conflict
resolution.
If your partner is criticizingyou, she is in pain and your job
is to find out the source ofher pain by asking three
questions what do you need, whatare you concerned about and
what are you feeling?
And yeah, those are hardquestions to ask and hear the
answer to.
Because what do you need couldbe I need you to stop doing
(25:55):
things this way and start doingthis other way instead, and boom
, I feel attacked.
Now that's a possibility.
What are you concerned about?
I'm concerned about you and theway that you handle blah, blah,
blah.
Again, that could feel like anattack.
And what are you feeling?
I'm feeling betrayed by thefact that you said you'd do this
and you didn't do it.
These are all questions.
Now, those might be some of theworst case scenarios, but you
(26:17):
need to be prepared to hear andaccept those answers.
Dan (26:20):
Yes, even more important, to come in before you ask those
questions at a lowered emotionalstate and being prepared for
criticism.
Charles (26:28):
Or something that feels like criticism, even if it
actually isn't.
Dan (26:31):
Whatever, yeah, just expect the worst at that point, but
don't react to that.
If you can understand thedifference Whenever I've had a
chance to be able to do thatwhich unfortunately has only
been a few times, but it's beenmore often recently where I've
come in with the mindset, theintention that I'm going to get
(26:53):
some sort of information or I'mgoing to hear something that I'm
not going to like, and whenI've prepared for it like when
you're going on a roller coasterand you're going to, you're
preparing for it so you can makethe most of it it's a little
bit more fun and a lot lessterrifying, rather than if you
just started up there and felldown.
So when I've, whenever I've,set my intentions before any
(27:15):
kind of event, if I'm luckyenough to have thought of it,
it's always turns out to be abetter experience.
Charles (27:21):
Because your mindset has prepared you for it.
So, getting bad news or gettinga, getting criticism about the
relationship or the way you makeher feel, or something like
that getting criticism about therelationship or the way you
make her feel, or something likethat If you have done all three
things of remembering tobreathe, counting to 10, going
for a walk, taking a break, andthen you've also told yourself,
okay, I'm going to walk backinto that house, I'm going to
(27:46):
ask her what do you need, whatare you concerned about and what
are you feeling?
And I'm going to be preparedfor her to tell me that I've
dropped the ball in some area,I've not lived up to her
expectations in some area that Iought to, and it's going to
suck.
It will go much better thanasking her those three questions
at the absolute peak of yourdefensiveness.
Response.
Dan (28:06):
Yeah, yeah, I think it was Dr Julie.
He did one of the videos onInstagram about like, where
basically she's like pouringwater or tea or something into a
cup and saying, well, yourcup's already full.
If you try to add to it, itjust it, it runs.
There's no place for it to go.
So what you're literally doingis you're lowering the amount of
water in that cup and you'reallowing the all that
(28:26):
information and negative,positive, whatever that is to
then stay in that cup and you'reable to manage it at that point
, right, versus coming to astate you're already full,
you're over, you're overflowing,right, and then you can't
handle everything.
Then just makes a big mess.
Charles (28:41):
Yeah, yeah, she's great and she's got a new book coming
out.
Have you seen that?
No, yes, oh cool.
She's got a new book calledOpen when and I believe it gives
like a bunch of scenarios inthe book and how to deal with
them.
It comes out after the first ofthe year.
That's great, but I will becertainly Definitely.
We need to watch that, read it.
Yeah, I will be buying that inprobably multiple forms.
I'll get the audible versionand probably a hardcover version
(29:05):
.
Yeah, we may at some point alsoreview that on the podcast
because, as I've said, herprevious book why has Nobody
Told Me this Before?
Is the only one that we've everdone on this show where I
haven't had some problem with itand some disagreement,
something where I think she gotit wrong.
I'm excited about that, butyeah, so those are the three
questions what do you need, whatare you concerned about, what
(29:26):
are you feeling?
And sometimes the resolution toany of the problems that those
questions expose just beingasked those questions and given
the opportunity to answer thosequestions might resolve most of
the root cause of the problem.
Dan (29:44):
I think you just talk about in there.
A lot of times women arefrustrated because they don't
feel heard, and sometimes theydon't necessarily need the
perfect answer or resolutionright then and there.
They just need that connectionto know that you heard them, you
gave them the respect and youcare about them enough to
actually pay attention to whattheir needs are.
And a lot of times that willhelp put the emotional state on
(30:06):
her side quite a bit and helpbring things down.
And I've experienced that whereI've had conversations where I
didn't have an answer and Icouldn't like undo something
that I had done, and basicallymy brain was going okay, look,
this is going to be a lot ofwork.
Now I really messed up orthere's a lot of things I need
(30:28):
to do.
She's going to be really upsetand it turns out that just from
me being there and being presentand patient and listening and
asking questions and notinterrupting or not defending
myself, just sitting there andletting her express everything,
at the end of it it was.
Charles (30:46):
she was almost a different person, yeah and yeah,
and I had done nothing, made nopromises, right, communicated
really nothing, and just alittle bit of time had passed
and it was a little surprisingto me, pleasantly, but very
surprising yeah, I think one ofthe things that one of the areas
I have certainly failed at inthe past and I want to get
better at is when you do hearwhat either feels like criticism
(31:10):
or legitimately is criticismand criticism in the poor
horseman way, like negativecriticism from your partner, is
to emphasize to yourself in themoment that this is what she
believes and this is what shefeels right now, and not go into
the because, yeah, when yourwife or your girlfriend says you
(31:31):
never listened to me.
If you're like me, the firstthing you do is let me start
rolling back the history in mymind.
Of when I could disprove that Ofa time that I definitely
listened to her and I couldthrow it in her face right now
and disprove this wholehypothesis that I never listened
to her.
What about the time when yourcousin died and you wanted to
tell me all about it and how youfelt about her, and I just sat
(31:53):
there and listened to it for anhour.
What about that?
You think that's going to helpthe situation at all?
No, obviously it's not.
Dan (31:59):
It's never worked for me even though you're right, yes,
and you completely just putnobody is never or always
anything correct, so and thatshould be.
That should be then a clue thatshe is in a state that she's so
upset that it just she's usingthings that are just not an
accurate reflection of whatreality actually is.
(32:22):
That used to frustrate me somuch because it was just because
guys are pretty straightforwardwith logical and this is this
and this is this more.
I think I think more often, atleast you know, in my circles
they have been more often thanthat and that would just get
frustrating for me because Ididn't understand that's not
necessarily that that a lot ofwomen don't communicate exactly
(32:46):
what they say doesn't exactlyreflect what they mean, and that
used to frustrate the hell outof me yeah and it's really just
a reflection of such an elevatedstate, I think, to me.
Charles (32:58):
I'm taking this no, I agree, it's just such an
elevated state of emotion.
Dan (33:02):
It's just like all the words are coming out.
And I know sometimes it's hardto pull the words once they're
out of the box kind of thingback in again.
But reading this book and justcoming with that mindset of hey
look, this is just.
There's going to be a lot ofchaos right now and there's
going to be things that are saidthat probably aren't meant, and
let's just work on bringing theemotions down before we try to
(33:24):
get logical about anything.
Charles (33:26):
Yeah, I think it's fair to say that one of the
responses that, as men, we mighthave to being in that diffuse
physiological arousal, the DPAcondition, is maybe we get
hyperfactual about stuff, where,where we get part of being
defensive, I think sure yeah,super, that's not true.
(33:47):
Yeah, that's not true.
I could think of one examplewhere you just said always, you
just said never, and and evenwith okay.
Now that I'm arguing back withyou, I'm going to be super
focused on making sureeverything I say is factually
accurate, perhaps as a techniqueof avoiding telling you what
I'm feeling right now.
Instead, I'm going to recitethese facts in such a way that I
can be completely accurate andyou're not going to be able to
(34:09):
disprove anything that I'msaying.
But the thing to remember is,when you hear an always or a
never from your partner, youneed to do a little bit of the
work on yourself, or by yourself, to edit her statement, to say
right now, I feel that you neverlistened to me.
Right now, I feel that younever listened to me.
Dan (34:28):
Right now, I feel that you always leave the seat up Right
now I feel that, but rememberthat part of the brain on her
also is turned off to be able tocommunicate in that elegant way
.
Charles (34:35):
Yeah, it's going to be hard for you, it's going to be
hard for her to say it that way,it's going to be hard for you
to hear it that way, but that'sactually what's going on.
When you're hearing an alwaysor never from your partner,
there's an unspoken.
Right now, I feel like that shemay or may not be saying yeah.
Dan (34:51):
Looking back, when I've tried to throw facts into the
argument to disprove what she'ssaying, I realized the side
effect of me doing that isdenying her emotional state.
At that point, oh exactly, thatdoesn't go well.
No, because you never give hera chance to actually fully
express what she's feeling isdenying her emotional state at
(35:11):
that point oh exactly, thatdoesn't go well.
No, because you never give hera chance to actually fully
express what she's feeling.
And then I think if that nevercomes about, then there's not
gonna be a resolution or herable to relax and feel more calm
if she can never actually getout everything that she's
feeling.
Yeah, and the more so.
I think, looking back at thetimes when I haven't thrown
facts and tried to be defensiveand just let it flow, I think
(35:33):
that's probably why it's workedout so well for me.
Charles (35:36):
Yeah, I think most of our partners, especially if
we've got a pattern of this kindof defensive, super aroused
behavior and reacting to thingsthis way.
If we've got that pattern, whenshe says something to us, you
never listened to me.
If your response to that is toput down your phone or turn off
the TV, turn physically towardher and say, right now you feel
(35:59):
like I never listened to you,that must be really hard, that
must feel awful and her jawwould probably hit the floor and
that could be all it takes tomake this problem immediately be
diffused.
And so give that a try, see howit works for you.
Dan (36:12):
Yeah, yeah, because but that takes practice, so you'll
be able to handle that, yeah,and to think and remember to do
that and so many of these thingsthat we talk about on this show
.
Charles (36:23):
It's if you don't have some underlying level of
confidence and assurance thatpretty much whatever happens to
you, you can survive and be okay.
It's going to be very hard andlook from the relationships I
had with women in my childhood,I am lacking that underlying
(36:44):
foundation of no matter what theparticular woman sitting across
from you right now is feelingor experiencing or accusing you
of, you're going to be okay, youcan handle it.
If you don't have that, thenit's very it's much easier to
get so defensive and feel soattacked and all in, oh, no,
she's going to think I'm a badperson and then she's going to
leave me.
(37:04):
Or she's going to think I'm abad person, then she's going to
yell at me, or she's going tothink I'm a bad person, then
she's going to go find someother guy.
It's yeah.
When you, when you don't havethat underlying confidence and
that assurance that yeah, I candeal with stuff, everything's
going to be okay, then it makesdealing with a woman's emotions
even harder than it would beotherwise.
Dan (37:22):
Yeah, and a lot of times, unfortunately, we don't think
that we need to even do thosethings until we're in the middle
or recovering from a traumaticevent.
Oh yeah, I don't get seriousabout my own mental health until
somebody dumps me it.
Ideally, you're practicing itin the best energy state and
(37:45):
mental state possible, andthat's not right during a fight
or after a fight, it's right now.
It's, you know, times whereit's not obvious to remind
yourself that, hey, you knowwhat, I'm pretty good at my job,
I you know, I have some moneyin the bank, I've, I can pay my
bills and I've been doing thatfor 30, 40 years.
(38:07):
I'm going to be okay no matterwhat happens.
But you've got to reallyintentionally prompt yourself to
think through that and practicethat and have a good reason why
.
With so many distractions, it'shard to remember to do all
those wonderful things.
But honestly, I think that'sone of the most important things
you can do is always reassuringyourself that you're going to
be okay.
(38:27):
Worst case scenario, and a lotof times, even if you go
bankrupt and you can't pay themortgage, you still will survive
.
Charles (38:33):
Yeah, not so bad that it will literally kill you.
It's not going to put you inthe ground Right when.
Yeah, I think about that allthe time being in business for
myself since 2007.
It's yeah, if I lose thisclient, I can find another
client.
If I can't find another client,I can find another job.
If I can't find another job, Ican find another career.
And because I've done all thosethings before I, yeah, the
(38:55):
point where I had no client,there's a really where I had no
job, there's a point where I hadno career and I'm at one and
there's multiple options forgetting climbing your way back
to where you were too.
Dan (39:04):
It's not like like there's just we've got one chance and
then that's it.
Charles (39:08):
Yeah, and it's not fun.
There's going to be years whereyou drive an old, beat up car.
There's going to be years whereyou don't go on vacation.
There's going to be, but you'renot.
Here's where you don't have apartner, but you're not going to
die.
And the fact is the skills thatit place whether it's your
partner, your job, your career,your house you're still going to
have the knowledge in your headon how to do that and you can
(39:28):
still climb your way back upfrom nothing again.
Dan (39:31):
It's amazing, we just we don't think about it, so we take
it for granted and then wedon't have that support for our
confidence.
Charles (39:37):
Yeah, yeah, I knew somebody who would often say
you're I think it was RobertKiyosaki that said your greatest
assets not your house, yourgreatest asset is your ability
to generate income.
And, yeah, I found myself acareer where I could make myself
a living, and if that careerwent bye-bye tomorrow I'd have
to start over, but I could findanother career where I could
generate a living, agility andresilience, yeah, so okay,
(40:01):
that's the.
That's the message that it's alot easier to handle conflict
when you really believe deepdown in your bones that, hey, no
matter how this particularfight goes or this criticism
goes from my partner, I'll beokay, I'll figure it out and
(40:22):
things will.
The sun's going to do somepretty heavy lifting as far as
mental health work with yourtherapist, your recovery group,
your minister, whoever it isthat you go to for that kind of
work.
I, of those, I would recommendtherapy probably number one.
You could, you can build thatresilience and get that
underlying feeling of okay, nomatter how bad things get, I'll
(40:44):
be all right, and that really isthe foundation for really any
self-improvement or mentalhealth that we're going to
encourage you to take on.
So there we go.
Thanks, dan.
We will talk next about.
Why does it take so long to buya pair of shoes?
Understanding the evolutionaryimportance of shopping Sounds
great.
All right, thanks, dale, talkto you soon.
(41:04):
Bye-bye, bye.
Thank you so much for listeningto the entire episode, dan, and
I appreciate it.
Again, check out our website,mindfullymasculinecom, for all
the resources and news worthsharing.
Welcome back to the Mindfully Masculine Podcast.
This is Charles.
In this week's episode, dan andI will continue to discuss the
Man's Guide to Women by theGottmans, and topics covered
will include living with apartner, conflict in
relationships, emotionalresponses at anger,
self-soothing techniques,communication during conflict,
(00:22):
emotional awareness andresponsibility building,
resilience and confidence,practical tools for managing
conflict, relationship dynamicsand gender differences, and some
personal experiences andreflections.
Please check out our website,mindfullymasculinecom, where you
can find full audio and videoepisodes, as well as any info or
(00:43):
resources we find worth sharing.
Thanks and enjoy.
Good morning, charles.
How are you?
Hey, dan, doing great.
Thanks, how are you?
I am also well, so we'rerecording this on December 18th.
Yeah, so we're a week out ofChristmas.
Where did this year go, holycow man?
Yeah, people always say whydoes time feel like it's moving
(01:06):
faster and faster?
But it's because the older youget, the smaller percentage of
your life each year is, and sothat's why it feels like time
accelerates as you get old.
Dan (01:13):
Yeah, I never yeah, I had a my.
My Russian teacher, basicallyin seventh grade, yielded that
information to us and presentedit, and once I thought about
that, he basically ruined lifefor me.
At that point I was just oh myGod, you're right, it's just
going to get faster and faster.
Charles (01:28):
Let's get into chapter 10 of the man's guide to women
by the Gottmans.
This is a new section thatwe're just starting, called
living with a woman.
Yeah, I've only lived with myex-wife.
I've not lived with any otherpartners.
How many folks have you livedwith over the years?
Dan (01:53):
I have one, my ex-wife.
I've not lived with any otherpartners.
How many folks have you livedwith over the years?
Uh, cohabitated one, two, three, okay, yeah, not a lot, and
most of that's been like.
One of them was about two years, okay, three years.
Charles (01:59):
Another one was a couple, others were like a year,
so not a lot of experienceeither yeah, with my, with my
mobile living lifestyle, doingthe full-time rv thing, it's
it's not as easy as just movingsomebody into your place.
It would be like me making avery big change to my lifestyle
and, with another person, eithergetting a place together or
(02:21):
moving up to a larger rv, Ithink it's a big change for
everybody.
Dan (02:25):
Yeah, it doesn't matter the situation.
Charles (02:27):
Yes, there's so many things that but in my case I'm
taking my current home andeither selling it or putting it
in storage.
Dan (02:33):
A lot of people do that.
A lot of people move out andthey get a place together
because they don't want one orthe other to be like oh, I'm
going to kick you out of myhouse type of situation.
Like my house type of situation, like we're gonna get a new
place together, yeah, yeah,which adds a whole bunch of
extra complications too, becausethen, yeah, it doesn't work out
now.
Exactly now, one of us ishomeless.
Charles (02:52):
Yeah, at least temporarily.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, I can see the appeal,logistically, of spending time
with somebody that, spendingmore time with somebody that you
love, I get that.
I get the the benefit ofsplitting bills.
A lot of things that you'reboth, I get that, I get the
benefit of splitting bills.
A lot of things that you'reboth paying for now will be
split in half.
But there are also increasedopportunities for conflict and
(03:14):
disagreements, which is whatwe're going to talk about in
this chapter.
He calls it learn to fight likea girl, and that's that feels
like a little bit of a shortcutto name it.
That where the goal shouldn'treally be learned to fight like
a girl, and that's that feelslike a little bit of a shortcut
to name it.
That where the goal shouldn'treally be learn to fight like a
girl, you can still fight like aman.
You just have to learn to fightlike an effective man.
Dan (03:33):
And I think part of what was good about this chapter was
him defining what our defaultsare, men and women, in terms of
how we handle conflict, and thatwas oh yes, of when those
feelings start to arise, whatthat comes from, that it's
normal, that it's okay, and thenhow to manage it properly.
(04:08):
But so that was it was moreabout.
Even though this is Man's Guideto Women, a lot of this is
really discovering ourselves asmen in terms of what, where do
we come from, in terms of oursocialization and our behaviors,
things like that.
Charles (04:22):
Yeah, he did a great job on that.
So let's go, let's hit the highpoints at the end of the
chapter and just take those toget into the different areas.
First, he says conflict willhappen even in the best of
relationships, because there'snot going to be a scenario where
two people find each other, gettogether and have a hundred
percent matched overlap on theirvalues, their opinions, their
(04:43):
habits, all there's going to bedifferences.
Otherwise one person is goingto be redundant, right?
It's exactly the same.
Dan (04:48):
Right and think about this is how many times you have
conflict within yourself.
So this idea that you're goingto be happy to go lucky and
never need to deal with it, oroh, we'll cross that conflict
bridge when we come to it andfigure out how to communicate
and fight them when our emotionsare running hot.
No, like practice and thinkabout things ahead of time.
And he gives some goodsuggestions in there too about
(05:15):
the communication that should begoing on before conflict arises
, and I'm sure we'll get intothat too, but yeah, yeah, I like
it.
There's always conflict.
We'll absolutely have toprepare for it.
Charles (05:20):
Yes and don't.
You shouldn't use a lack ofconflict as criteria for
choosing a partner.
At least it shouldn't be aprime criteria in choosing a
partner, because you wantsomebody that you can disagree
with in a helpful and healthyway, not somebody that you never
(05:41):
disagree with, because if younever disagree with, what's
probably going on is thatthere's somebody who's not
comfortable expressing the factthat they disagree.
Dan (05:50):
Yeah, I would say so there's some sort of barrier in
between you two, or somebody'snot being expressive with who
they are and all of theirdesires or needs, and then that
gets tricky in terms of figuringout who that other person is.
So that, yeah, that could be awarning sign.
Charles (06:08):
Yeah, he sets the table here with the fact that men and
women and this is according toactual data men and women both
get angry with the samefrequency, which, uh, I don't
know if most of us would assumethat to be the case.
I think many people wouldprobably assume that men are
spending more time angry, ormaybe assuming that women spend
more time angry.
(06:28):
I guess it really depends onyou and your experience and who
you're around.
Dan (06:32):
Yeah, you mentioned, and one of the reasons why I think
the cases we think men get angrymore often is because of the
way we express it.
And where women get quiet.
Men are a little bit moreobvious when we're angry.
Charles (06:45):
Yeah, and?
And the reasons why they getquiet?
There's a couple factors thatgo into that.
One is that, evolutionarily,big, loud displays of anger by
women don't serve them in theirgoals of staying safe and
keeping their children safe.
And two, they've the women whohave survived to become
(07:07):
ancestors are ones that havedeveloped skills to self-soothe,
and when they get angry, whenthey get sad, when they get
upset, they're able to soothethose feelings through their
internal dialogue and theirsupport from other women in ways
that men haven't had thenecessity, over our very long
history as homo sapiens, to todevelop yeah, and because men
(07:31):
haven't developed that, we'realso not used to that being in
the mix.
Dan (07:37):
I think a lot of times when there's conflict between a man
and a woman at least in myhistory it's been I've noticed
that if I've not given that timefor the woman to self-soothe,
or give it or provided help,provide that type of environment
, nothing gets resolved untilthe emotions come down and done
by self-soothing for women.
(07:57):
And ultimately that's where Ithink he comes from, where he's
saying let's fight, fight like agirl, Because if we learn to
self-soothe a little bit or dosomething to dissipate the
emotions like doing somethingphysical, like going for a walk,
breathing exercises, countingto ten, whatever that is those
are self-soothing practiceshelps bring the emotions down
(08:19):
and then I think both sides areopen to discussing the issue a
little bit better.
Charles (08:24):
Yeah, he goes into the causes, or the primary causes,
of what it is that women getangry about, and I thought this
was, uh, both insightful andcompletely accurate with the,
the women that I know, and andwhy they have gotten angry.
Women get angry because ofpowerlessness, injustice or the
irresponsibility of others.
And, yeah, these would beirresponsible then, yeah, I
(08:48):
guess.
So, yeah, these are all feelingpowerless, feeling that you
live in an unjust situation oran unjust world, and that other
people don't take responsibilityfor their actions are all
threats to a woman's safety, andso it's very natural that they
would react with fear, anger,quote-unquote, negative emotions
(09:09):
that lead to them feeling like,hey, there's a problem here and
it needs to be addressed.
Men get more physiologicallyaroused during conflict, which
makes us less able to handleconflict with humor and empathy
and understanding.
Dan (09:25):
Yeah, didn't you say that part of our brain just shuts off
?
Charles (09:27):
Yeah, peripheral vision , hearing all those things, and
it really does tie itphysiologically into your pulse.
Once your pulse starts racing,your ability to handle things
yeah, effectively and healthyare just is really that ability
is hamstrung by a heart that'spounding away in your chest.
Dan (09:48):
Yeah, it flips the fight or flight response.
So we've got adrenaline pumpingthrough our body that is
keeping the heart rate up, and alot of it is.
I thought we were.
I could have sworn.
We read something where itbasically said if you don't
remind yourself at least every60 or 90 seconds of why you're
angry, eventually you won't stayangry.
(10:09):
And I think a lot of, I think alot of our time, a lot of times
when men are just just stayemotionally hot, we're getting
our minds, we're remindingourselves.
Charles (10:19):
Rumination is a is an active pursuit.
It's not something that happensautomatically.
You know you do have to.
Getting upset can be completelysubconscious, but staying upset
, you do have to recruit yourthe front part of your brain to
keep reminding yourself aboutwhy that's unfair or why you're
being targeted or why you'rebeing treated in a way that you
(10:39):
don't like.
And some of us can spend weeks,months, a whole lifetime just
constantly telling ourselves thestory over and over again about
why we're being treatedunfairly and why the world is
not giving us the respect wedeserve.
And yeah, the more time youspend in that loop, the harder
it's going to be to calm downand get along with people.
Dan (11:00):
And the thing too, the tricky part, is we come from men
who, if we didn't have thatvery sensitive reaction to
threats, we would have died.
It's literally the fight orflight response.
So our life is on the line.
Yeah, we're pre-wired to go tothat extreme and it takes effort
to be aware of it.
Realize that, hey, you don'thave all the information right
(11:23):
now, let's just pause.
And that that is one of thethings that I liked about what
he was saying here is that he'snot expecting you to not feel
those feelings, but gave ustools on how to manage them.
Charles (11:36):
Yeah, and it's so funny that he mentioned and I must've
remembered the he specificallymentions getting your heart rate
under a hundred or under 80, ifyou're in really great shape.
Just the other day we weretalking about working out.
Yeah, how much rest should youtake between sets?
How do you know when you'reready to?
And I told you, my trick is tojust look down at my Apple Watch
and after I finish a set, Idon't start the next set until
(11:57):
I'm under 100 beats per minute.
And that's my little metricthat I use to say okay, you're
ready to tax.
And that's my little metricthat I use to say okay, you're
ready to tax.
It's great because it'sobjective, right, exactly.
And yeah, I'm certainly not ina good enough cardiovascular
shape where I have to set it at80.
I think mine's ever below 80.
Yeah, it is interesting andthat is a very convenient little
hack that you could have Ifyou've got a smartwatch and your
(12:20):
wife or girlfriend is tellingyou that, hey, it really
disappointed me when you didn'tfollow through on that
commitment that you made, andyou look down and you're at 115
beats a minute.
It's probably not time torespond to her yet.
It's time to use some of theself-soothing tools that we're
going to cover, to bring thatdown a little bit before you
(12:40):
want to jump into.
Okay, let's have a, let's havea conversation about this that
has any chance whatsoever ofactually going well and leading
to a resolution of this issue.
I like that he also points outat the very beginning of this
chapter.
He was like okay, so what docouples fight about?
Is it about money?
Is it about sex?
Is it about how to raise thekids?
No, most of these conflictsthat happen are over nothing, or
(13:03):
at least meaning nothing as faras something that can't be
easily categorized in one of thebig areas that people usually
assume that is going to be thesource of conflict.
It's more of a hate.
You left the seat up again, orstop leaving your dirty dishes.
It's going to be something thatseems in the moment to be
(13:23):
inconsequential, but what thatreally means it's consequential,
be something that seems in themoment to be inconsequential,
but what that really means isit's consequential to one person
and not the other.
Dan (13:34):
Yeah, another helpful insight he mentioned in the
example he gave was if yourwoman comes over and says you're
watching TV and starts talkingto you and you don't pick your
head up from the TV to connectwith her and listen to what
she's saying, she's saying youdon't listen to me and you're
not listening to me.
And what he said was that's nota criticism of you, it's just
her not feeling connected.
At that point it is notnecessarily, yeah, something
that should get you upset, and alot of times in the past I know
(13:57):
it's gotten me upset.
But the difference is, if shegoes you've never listened to me
, that's a criticism of you atthat point I definitely like
that distinction, and it's a oneword difference, but it's very
important because if it givesyou an opportunity, then to, I
feel, rectify that situation alot more easily.
(14:18):
If you pick up on it initiallywhen she's you're not listening
to me, you're not listening tome.
Now, if that happens too manytimes, she might get to the
point of where she says thingslike you never, you, always, you
right, and then that's isn't.
That ties into the four, fourhorsemen of the apocalypse
(14:38):
stonewalling, defensiveness,criticism and contempt.
Charles (14:41):
Contempt, okay, contempt, okay.
Yeah, yeah and yeah.
Do you have a favorite out ofthose four?
Which one do you go to whenyou're not doing great?
Stonewalling probably yeah,just quiet down and step back
and just, yeah, there's no hopekind of thing.
Dan (14:58):
Yeah, that's happened a few times and yeah, it's led to.
The lifesaver is I don'tnecessarily have all of the
(15:18):
information.
I should not make big decisionsand judgments in this elevated
emotional state.
I try to.
As long as I've been doing that, it's worked out so much better
because my assumptions havealways been like 10% correct of
100% in terms of amount ofinformation and it's always.
(15:38):
Things have always turned outto be better than my brain was
initially assuming they were,and the more times I've
recognized that and look back onthat, the easier it is for me,
moving forward, to pause andbring me, bring myself out of
that state where I'm makingassumptions and I am feeling
like in going in the directionof one of those four.
Charles (15:58):
Yeah, I my.
My Achilles heel has beendefinitely defensiveness, I
would.
I jumped to defending myselftoo quickly and eventually, if
things get bad enough, thencontempt rears its ugly head too
, and I will think mean thingsand occasionally say mean things
(16:18):
because I just feel so.
I feel so attacked in themoment and I don't, I have no
idea what my heart rate's doing,but nothing good.
Dan (16:26):
When you see your shirt moving, that is, it's a little
bit of indication, yeah.
Charles (16:30):
Heart rate shouldn't be starting with a two under any
circumstances.
Yeah, the more time I spend inmy therapy sessions, my men's
group and just getting olderseems to chill guys out at some
level, even guys that haveserious emotional and mental
health challenges.
The older they get they will bemiserable to be around, but
(16:52):
they can just.
I think just getting older canchill people out in some ways,
which I've seen that happen moreoften than not.
Which is good, yeah, same.
All right, let's talk aboutsome of these skills that you
can use to bring yourself down.
As far as your physiologicalresponse, remembering to breathe
, specifically deep breaths,will stimulate your vagus nerve,
which will then lead to yourpulse rate dropping, which is
(17:16):
ultimately, I would say maybenot the ultimate goal, but
certainly an inline goal of thisprocess is get your heart rate
down.
Stop your body from trickingyou into thinking like your
life's in danger, and you'll beable to react and discuss things
way more rationally and waymore effectively.
Dan (17:33):
On that real quick note there and at the Tony Robbins
seminar that we went to, one ofthe speakers had talked about
this that there's an actualdifference.
You need I recommend, and herecommended, is figuring out the
difference between thediaphragm breathing, where your
tummy kind of pushes out whenyou're breathing in, and versus
the, your upper chest.
Yeah, because if you are doingshallow breaths in the and
(17:53):
you're you're not doing thebelly breaths, it actually can
make you more excited.
Yeah, and actually when youhyperventilate, it's your chest
going up.
Exactly, it's not your stomachgoing on, it's.
It's a difficult thing for meto do, to try to remember to
yeah, stick my, I have.
I've just the tendency to wantto inhale, make my chest
narrower, instead of push yourstomach out when you breathe in,
(18:14):
because you need to make roomfor the lungs to expand and push
your stomach out, and it's justcounterintuitive to me.
But every time I do it justthree times, like in the car
with, I feel better almostimmediately.
It's amazingly powerful.
Charles (18:27):
Yes, I, and I've heard that from a couple of sources.
One I took one voice class incollege where the poor man tried
to teach me how to sing, oh,yeah, yes, from the diaphragm.
Yeah, and that's definitely abig thing.
When you're breathing inbetween breaths of singing, it's
always diaphragmatic breathing.
And also, dr Glover hits thatpretty heavy, that's right.
(18:48):
I don't remember if it was noMore Mr Nice Guy or Dating
Essentials for Men, but one ofhis two books that you and I
have spent so much time in.
He definitely talks about thevalue of diaphragmic breathing.
And, yeah, if your chest isgoing up, it ain't the right
kind.
Belly's sticking out, it is theright kind, yeah, and putting a
hand over one or the other is agood way to tell which one
(19:10):
you're doing.
Yeah, great tip.
But yeah, the breathing in withyour belly poking out is the
one that helps the most.
The next thing is counting to10 as slow as possible, I would
add, because if you're justangry and you're like, what are
you doing?
And you go back to yelling atsomebody, that's not the goal,
it's almost like windingyourself up.
Yeah, no, you want to start slow, and even if you can get each
(19:31):
count to go slower and slower,it'll be more and more effective
, I think, as you get to that 10count and then also taking a
break, which is there's adistinction that needs to be
made between taking a break andgiving into the flight part of
your flight Running away in themiddle of the discussion right,
which look, I've done thatbefore where I've just been like
my body's telling me I need abreak and I just storm out and
(19:52):
slam the door without sayinganything and that is that's hard
.
Dan (19:56):
It's hard to even come up at that point.
That just shows how difficultit is to even just do basic
things like utter a couple ofwords when we're in that
elevated space.
Charles (20:04):
Absolutely, and it's tough because I spent literally
years of my life telling myselfthat, no, I'm not the kind of
person that gets that.
Just don't know how to talk toeach other.
What's probably going on isyour inner child and their inner
(20:36):
child are just wired to not getalong with each other because
of where your developmentstopped when you were in your
family of origin.
What were the needs that youweren't getting met when you
were a kid?
The way that those unmet needsconflict with your partner's
unmet needs.
You basically turn into twochildren that are just screaming
at each other because you haveno ability to do anything but
(20:58):
that.
Dan (20:59):
And I think it also is difficult to say I need a break,
because you're being vulnerableat that point and you're
already on the defensive, and Ifeel like, in order for you to
say I can't hand, you'rebasically saying I can't handle
this right now.
That's a tough ask for anybody,even when you're in the best of
situations, to be able to go Ican't handle this right now and
communicate that in any way atall, and so I think that's what
(21:24):
he speaks to too is ahead oftime, before you have these
conflicts, when you both arecalm, cool and collected, figure
out strategies that you canboth lower your emotional states
so that it might be hey, listen, let's do things that will
distract us.
He talks about that.
It's not thinking about yourpartner's good qualities.
It's literally taking your mindout of the situation.
Charles (21:48):
Yeah.
So he says that when you decidethat, okay, I need to take a
break from this Number one, itneeds to be at least 20 minutes,
preferably 30, where you sayand you do need to say to your
partner hey, I need to take a 30minute break, then we can come
back and I can keep discussingthis with you.
Dan (22:03):
Yeah, exactly.
Or you don't even need to say abreak.
I like for me to me it's's lessvulnerable is hey, can we just
take a break?
Not yet, no, we're not, butjust hey, let's come back to
this in 30 minutes or let'sdiscuss this later.
Charles (22:16):
So sometimes that's a little bit easier for me to say
hey let's discuss this later,but I think one, one portion of
a or one characteristic of aneffective break, which is
whether you call it that or not,that's what it is.
I think you do need to separatephysically from the other
person.
Dan (22:31):
Oh yeah.
Charles (22:32):
Oh, good point, and so just let's talk about this later
.
And then you turn around andleave there.
There needs to be some, itneeds to be clear of hey, I,
I've gotta be in a differentroom from you for 30 minutes and
then we'll come back andcontinue this.
And he says, once you do gointo that other space whatever
that is, whether you're taking awalk or whatever do your best
(22:53):
not to think about your partner.
Don't think about why you'reangry with them.
Don't think about why they'resuch a great partner for you.
Don't think about them at all.
He said in the research they did, opening up a magazine and
reading it was the mosteffective thing because it
distracted you from the person,the situation, the argument,
whatever.
And yet you got to move yourmind away from what got you
(23:14):
elevated.
And so, yeah, don't immediatelygo to oh, but she's, I should
be able to get along with herbetter.
She's such a great person inall these other areas.
No, you should be looking at asports magazine, a travel
magazine, something that can getyour mind away from what's
currently bothering you, andthen spend 30 minutes in that
space and then come back with aheart rate under 99 beats a
(23:35):
minute and say, okay, let'scontinue.
And that continuation I think wewill probably get into this
later, maybe not, but thatcontinuation should also include
some form of hey.
Here's where it sounded to melike you were coming from and
tell me how I got this wrong,and then you tell them where you
(23:57):
think their issue is and thenexpect for you to you're going
to have some parts of it wrong,probably yeah, and then let them
correct you and say you know,that's not exactly what I.
What I'm really upset about isblah, blah, blah.
Dan (24:09):
And more often than not, I think it's going to be a better
case scenario than what you wereassuming.
Yeah.
Charles (24:15):
To be honest, that's true.
That can often be the casewhere, yeah, the thing you think
they're upset about is probablyyeah.
Dan (24:21):
I've seen that in my current relationship, where I've
been all set to hear criticismand it was nothing resembling
criticism, yeah it was, justlike you said, a bid for
connection, and that comes fromour own experiences in the past
with similar situations whereit's turned out to be different
than the current one, and Ithink that's where we do
(24:42):
ourselves a disservice isholding on to that.
Charles (24:46):
That involved hypervigilance that is always on
the lookout for the worst casescenario.
Dan (24:50):
Again, that involved hypervigilance that is always on
the lookout for the worst casescenario.
Yeah, and I think the.
I think one of the causes of uscontinuing to ruminate on
negative things that are gettingus keeping us angry is if we
don't take that break.
We never lowered that emotionalstate.
So any thoughts, as goodnatured as we probably try to be
, they're tainted all by thehormone levels that are going.
(25:12):
So we're, I think, a lot morelikely to still keep talking
about other worst case scenariosbased on assumptions for
information that we don't have.
So again, yeah, um, startreading a magazine or listen to
something on audible, or listento our podcast and we'll help
you calm down.
Charles (25:30):
Yeah, as long as it's not a podcast about conflict
resolution.
If your partner is criticizingyou, she is in pain and your job
is to find out the source ofher pain by asking three
questions what do you need, whatare you concerned about and
what are you feeling?
And yeah, those are hardquestions to ask and hear the
answer to.
Because what do you need couldbe I need you to stop doing
(25:55):
things this way and start doingthis other way instead, and boom
, I feel attacked.
Now that's a possibility.
What are you concerned about?
I'm concerned about you and theway that you handle blah, blah,
blah.
Again, that could feel like anattack.
And what are you feeling?
I'm feeling betrayed by thefact that you said you'd do this
and you didn't do it.
These are all questions.
Now, those might be some of theworst case scenarios, but you
(26:17):
need to be prepared to hear andaccept those answers.
Dan (26:20):
Yes, even more important, to come in before you ask those
questions at a lowered emotionalstate and being prepared for
criticism.
Charles (26:28):
Or something that feels like criticism, even if it
actually isn't.
Dan (26:31):
Whatever, yeah, just expect the worst at that point, but
don't react to that.
If you can understand thedifference Whenever I've had a
chance to be able to do thatwhich unfortunately has only
been a few times, but it's beenmore often recently where I've
come in with the mindset, theintention that I'm going to get
(26:53):
some sort of information or I'mgoing to hear something that I'm
not going to like, and whenI've prepared for it like when
you're going on a roller coasterand you're going to, you're
preparing for it so you can makethe most of it it's a little
bit more fun and a lot lessterrifying, rather than if you
just started up there and felldown.
So when I've, whenever I've,set my intentions before any
(27:15):
kind of event, if I'm luckyenough to have thought of it,
it's always turns out to be abetter experience.
Charles (27:21):
Because your mindset has prepared you for it.
So, getting bad news or gettinga, getting criticism about the
relationship or the way you makeher feel, or something like
that getting criticism about therelationship or the way you
make her feel, or something likethat If you have done all three
things of remembering tobreathe, counting to 10, going
for a walk, taking a break, andthen you've also told yourself,
okay, I'm going to walk backinto that house, I'm going to
(27:46):
ask her what do you need, whatare you concerned about and what
are you feeling?
And I'm going to be preparedfor her to tell me that I've
dropped the ball in some area,I've not lived up to her
expectations in some area that Iought to, and it's going to
suck.
It will go much better thanasking her those three questions
at the absolute peak of yourdefensiveness.
Response.
Dan (28:06):
Yeah, yeah, I think it was Dr Julie.
He did one of the videos onInstagram about like, where
basically she's like pouringwater or tea or something into a
cup and saying, well, yourcup's already full.
If you try to add to it, itjust it, it runs.
There's no place for it to go.
So what you're literally doingis you're lowering the amount of
water in that cup and you'reallowing the all that
(28:26):
information and negative,positive, whatever that is to
then stay in that cup and you'reable to manage it at that point
, right, versus coming to astate you're already full,
you're over, you're overflowing,right, and then you can't
handle everything.
Then just makes a big mess.
Charles (28:41):
Yeah, yeah, she's great and she's got a new book coming
out.
Have you seen that?
No, yes, oh cool.
She's got a new book calledOpen when and I believe it gives
like a bunch of scenarios inthe book and how to deal with
them.
It comes out after the first ofthe year.
That's great, but I will becertainly Definitely.
We need to watch that, read it.
Yeah, I will be buying that inprobably multiple forms.
I'll get the audible versionand probably a hardcover version
(29:05):
.
Yeah, we may at some point alsoreview that on the podcast
because, as I've said, herprevious book why has Nobody
Told Me this Before?
Is the only one that we've everdone on this show where I
haven't had some problem with itand some disagreement,
something where I think she gotit wrong.
I'm excited about that, butyeah, so those are the three
questions what do you need, whatare you concerned about, what
(29:26):
are you feeling?
And sometimes the resolution toany of the problems that those
questions expose just beingasked those questions and given
the opportunity to answer thosequestions might resolve most of
the root cause of the problem.
Dan (29:44):
I think you just talk about in there.
A lot of times women arefrustrated because they don't
feel heard, and sometimes theydon't necessarily need the
perfect answer or resolutionright then and there.
They just need that connectionto know that you heard them, you
gave them the respect and youcare about them enough to
actually pay attention to whattheir needs are.
And a lot of times that willhelp put the emotional state on
(30:06):
her side quite a bit and helpbring things down.
And I've experienced that whereI've had conversations where I
didn't have an answer and Icouldn't like undo something
that I had done, and basicallymy brain was going okay, look,
this is going to be a lot ofwork.
Now I really messed up orthere's a lot of things I need
(30:28):
to do.
She's going to be really upsetand it turns out that just from
me being there and being presentand patient and listening and
asking questions and notinterrupting or not defending
myself, just sitting there andletting her express everything,
at the end of it it was.
Charles (30:46):
she was almost a different person, yeah and yeah,
and I had done nothing, made nopromises, right, communicated
really nothing, and just alittle bit of time had passed
and it was a little surprisingto me, pleasantly, but very
surprising yeah, I think one ofthe things that one of the areas
I have certainly failed at inthe past and I want to get
better at is when you do hearwhat either feels like criticism
(31:10):
or legitimately is criticismand criticism in the poor
horseman way, like negativecriticism from your partner, is
to emphasize to yourself in themoment that this is what she
believes and this is what shefeels right now, and not go into
the because, yeah, when yourwife or your girlfriend says you
(31:31):
never listened to me.
If you're like me, the firstthing you do is let me start
rolling back the history in mymind.
Of when I could disprove that Ofa time that I definitely
listened to her and I couldthrow it in her face right now
and disprove this wholehypothesis that I never listened
to her.
What about the time when yourcousin died and you wanted to
tell me all about it and how youfelt about her, and I just sat
(31:53):
there and listened to it for anhour.
What about that?
You think that's going to helpthe situation at all?
No, obviously it's not.
Dan (31:59):
It's never worked for me even though you're right, yes,
and you completely just putnobody is never or always
anything correct, so and thatshould be.
That should be then a clue thatshe is in a state that she's so
upset that it just she's usingthings that are just not an
accurate reflection of whatreality actually is.
(32:22):
That used to frustrate me somuch because it was just because
guys are pretty straightforwardwith logical and this is this
and this is this more.
I think I think more often, atleast you know, in my circles
they have been more often thanthat and that would just get
frustrating for me because Ididn't understand that's not
necessarily that that a lot ofwomen don't communicate exactly
(32:46):
what they say doesn't exactlyreflect what they mean, and that
used to frustrate the hell outof me yeah and it's really just
a reflection of such an elevatedstate, I think, to me.
Charles (32:58):
I'm taking this no, I agree, it's just such an
elevated state of emotion.
Dan (33:02):
It's just like all the words are coming out.
And I know sometimes it's hardto pull the words once they're
out of the box kind of thingback in again.
But reading this book and justcoming with that mindset of hey
look, this is just.
There's going to be a lot ofchaos right now and there's
going to be things that are saidthat probably aren't meant, and
let's just work on bringing theemotions down before we try to
(33:24):
get logical about anything.
Charles (33:26):
Yeah, I think it's fair to say that one of the
responses that, as men, we mighthave to being in that diffuse
physiological arousal, the DPAcondition, is maybe we get
hyperfactual about stuff, where,where we get part of being
defensive, I think sure yeah,super, that's not true.
(33:47):
Yeah, that's not true.
I could think of one examplewhere you just said always, you
just said never, and and evenwith okay.
Now that I'm arguing back withyou, I'm going to be super
focused on making sureeverything I say is factually
accurate, perhaps as a techniqueof avoiding telling you what
I'm feeling right now.
Instead, I'm going to recitethese facts in such a way that I
can be completely accurate andyou're not going to be able to
(34:09):
disprove anything that I'msaying.
But the thing to remember is,when you hear an always or a
never from your partner, youneed to do a little bit of the
work on yourself, or by yourself, to edit her statement, to say
right now, I feel that you neverlistened to me.
Right now, I feel that younever listened to me.
Dan (34:28):
Right now, I feel that you always leave the seat up Right
now I feel that, but rememberthat part of the brain on her
also is turned off to be able tocommunicate in that elegant way
.
Charles (34:35):
Yeah, it's going to be hard for you, it's going to be
hard for her to say it that way,it's going to be hard for you
to hear it that way, but that'sactually what's going on.
When you're hearing an alwaysor never from your partner,
there's an unspoken.
Right now, I feel like that shemay or may not be saying yeah.
Dan (34:51):
Looking back, when I've tried to throw facts into the
argument to disprove what she'ssaying, I realized the side
effect of me doing that isdenying her emotional state.
At that point, oh exactly, thatdoesn't go well.
No, because you never give hera chance to actually fully
express what she's feeling isdenying her emotional state at
(35:11):
that point oh exactly, thatdoesn't go well.
No, because you never give hera chance to actually fully
express what she's feeling.
And then I think if that nevercomes about, then there's not
gonna be a resolution or herable to relax and feel more calm
if she can never actually getout everything that she's
feeling.
Yeah, and the more so.
I think, looking back at thetimes when I haven't thrown
facts and tried to be defensiveand just let it flow, I think
(35:33):
that's probably why it's workedout so well for me.
Charles (35:36):
Yeah, I think most of our partners, especially if
we've got a pattern of this kindof defensive, super aroused
behavior and reacting to thingsthis way.
If we've got that pattern, whenshe says something to us, you
never listened to me.
If your response to that is toput down your phone or turn off
the TV, turn physically towardher and say, right now you feel
(35:59):
like I never listened to you,that must be really hard, that
must feel awful and her jawwould probably hit the floor and
that could be all it takes tomake this problem immediately be
diffused.
And so give that a try, see howit works for you.
Dan (36:12):
Yeah, yeah, because but that takes practice, so you'll
be able to handle that, yeah,and to think and remember to do
that and so many of these thingsthat we talk about on this show
.
Charles (36:23):
It's if you don't have some underlying level of
confidence and assurance thatpretty much whatever happens to
you, you can survive and be okay.
It's going to be very hard andlook from the relationships I
had with women in my childhood,I am lacking that underlying
(36:44):
foundation of no matter what theparticular woman sitting across
from you right now is feelingor experiencing or accusing you
of, you're going to be okay, youcan handle it.
If you don't have that, thenit's very it's much easier to
get so defensive and feel soattacked and all in, oh, no,
she's going to think I'm a badperson and then she's going to
leave me.
(37:04):
Or she's going to think I'm abad person, then she's going to
yell at me, or she's going tothink I'm a bad person, then
she's going to go find someother guy.
It's yeah.
When you, when you don't havethat underlying confidence and
that assurance that yeah, I candeal with stuff, everything's
going to be okay, then it makesdealing with a woman's emotions
even harder than it would beotherwise.
Dan (37:22):
Yeah, and a lot of times, unfortunately, we don't think
that we need to even do thosethings until we're in the middle
or recovering from a traumaticevent.
Oh yeah, I don't get seriousabout my own mental health until
somebody dumps me it.
Ideally, you're practicing itin the best energy state and
(37:45):
mental state possible, andthat's not right during a fight
or after a fight, it's right now.
It's, you know, times whereit's not obvious to remind
yourself that, hey, you knowwhat, I'm pretty good at my job,
I you know, I have some moneyin the bank, I've, I can pay my
bills and I've been doing thatfor 30, 40 years.
(38:07):
I'm going to be okay no matterwhat happens.
But you've got to reallyintentionally prompt yourself to
think through that and practicethat and have a good reason why
.
With so many distractions, it'shard to remember to do all
those wonderful things.
But honestly, I think that'sone of the most important things
you can do is always reassuringyourself that you're going to
be okay.
(38:27):
Worst case scenario, and a lotof times, even if you go
bankrupt and you can't pay themortgage, you still will survive
.
Charles (38:33):
Yeah, not so bad that it will literally kill you.
It's not going to put you inthe ground Right when.
Yeah, I think about that allthe time being in business for
myself since 2007.
It's yeah, if I lose thisclient, I can find another
client.
If I can't find another client,I can find another job.
If I can't find another job, Ican find another career.
And because I've done all thosethings before I, yeah, the
(38:55):
point where I had no client,there's a really where I had no
job, there's a point where I hadno career and I'm at one and
there's multiple options forgetting climbing your way back
to where you were too.
Dan (39:04):
It's not like like there's just we've got one chance and
then that's it.
Charles (39:08):
Yeah, and it's not fun.
There's going to be years whereyou drive an old, beat up car.
There's going to be years whereyou don't go on vacation.
There's going to be, but you'renot.
Here's where you don't have apartner, but you're not going to
die.
And the fact is the skills thatit place whether it's your
partner, your job, your career,your house you're still going to
have the knowledge in your headon how to do that and you can
(39:28):
still climb your way back upfrom nothing again.
Dan (39:31):
It's amazing, we just we don't think about it, so we take
it for granted and then wedon't have that support for our
confidence.
Charles (39:37):
Yeah, yeah, I knew somebody who would often say
you're I think it was RobertKiyosaki that said your greatest
assets not your house, yourgreatest asset is your ability
to generate income.
And, yeah, I found myself acareer where I could make myself
a living, and if that careerwent bye-bye tomorrow I'd have
to start over, but I could findanother career where I could
generate a living, agility andresilience, yeah, so okay,
(40:01):
that's the.
That's the message that it's alot easier to handle conflict
when you really believe deepdown in your bones that, hey, no
matter how this particularfight goes or this criticism
goes from my partner, I'll beokay, I'll figure it out and
(40:22):
things will.
The sun's going to do somepretty heavy lifting as far as
mental health work with yourtherapist, your recovery group,
your minister, whoever it isthat you go to for that kind of
work.
I, of those, I would recommendtherapy probably number one.
You could, you can build thatresilience and get that
underlying feeling of okay, nomatter how bad things get, I'll
(40:44):
be all right, and that really isthe foundation for really any
self-improvement or mentalhealth that we're going to
encourage you to take on.
So there we go.
Thanks, dan.
We will talk next about.
Why does it take so long to buya pair of shoes?
Understanding the evolutionaryimportance of shopping Sounds
great.
All right, thanks, dale, talkto you soon.
(41:04):
Bye-bye, bye.
Thank you so much for listeningto the entire episode, dan, and
I appreciate it.
Again, check out our website,mindfullymasculinecom, for all
the resources and news worthsharing.
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