August 14, 2025 • 65 mins
What if everything you thought you knew about men and women was incomplete or entirely wrong? For over 30 years, world renowned researcher Alison Armstrong has been exploring one humble question: "How am I bringing out the worst in men, and how can I possibly bring out the best?" The answers have transformed millions of relationships worldwide.
In this profound conversation, Alison reveals the fundamental differences between masculine and feminine energies that create both harmony and friction in our relationships. Masculine energy, she explains, is about "making way" driving forward with focus and determination toward goals. Feminine energy creates space where understanding, love, and freedom can flourish. Understanding these polarities helps us recognize how we might be unconsciously sabotaging our connections.
Alison shares eye-opening insights about how wounds manifest differently in our bodies and psyches. Those in a committed, productivity-focused state experience wounds as a crushing sensation when trust and respect are violated. Those in an open, connected state feel emotional wounds as a "stack of pancakes" in the chest layered feelings that can overwhelm us when we perceive someone doesn't truly care.
Perhaps most powerfully, Alison challenges our victim narratives around parental wounds. "What if they didn't intend to hurt us? What if they were just being human?" This perspective liberates us from carrying childhood pain into adult relationships. She explains how authentic expression not trauma responses creates the foundation for genuine connection, noting that men consistently associate women's authenticity with courage.
The conversation culminates with practical wisdom: clarity about your non-negotiables, the physical embodiment of feminine power as radiance, and why women should feel empowered to initiate contact rather than waiting to be pursued. Whether you're healing from past relationship patterns or seeking to deepen your current connections, this episode offers transformative insights to help you rise into more authentic partnerships.
To dive deeper into Alison's magic:
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If you felt something shift inside you today… hold that. Honor it.
This is how we rise — one choice, one voice, one brave breath at a time.
If you’re ready to go deeper, download your free ARISE Activation Workbook at www.arisewithanita.com
And if this message landed in your soul, subscribe, leave a review, and share it with a woman who’s done playing small.
Because we don’t just rise alone — we rise together.
I’ll see you in the next episode. And until then… stay rising.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Rise With Anita podcast, the space
where soul meets strategy anddreams are no longer optional.
I'm your host, anitaKurdayan-Gurgis, a
transformational mindset coachand founder of the Her Method.
This show is for the woman whoknows she's meant for more, who
feels the call to rise higherbut sometimes feels trapped by
her old stories, patterns orcircumstances.
(00:22):
Here we don't just talk aboutgrowth, we embody it.
We activate the woman inside ofyou who leads, who creates, who
claims her next level.
You'll hear a mix of soulepisodes from me and interviews
with soul-driven leaders, thebest in their fields, who live
what they teach and rise byexample.
Each conversation is a catalystfor your next breakthrough.
You're not broken.
(00:43):
You're breaking through.
Let's go ahead and risetogether.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
All right, welcome back to they Arise with Anita
podcast.
I am so excited for today'sguest because Alison Armstrong
is more than a researcher and aspeaker.
She is a devoted guide in therealms of love, power and
partnership.
Her journey began over 30 yearsago with one humble human
question how am I bringing outthe worst in men and how can I
(01:11):
possibly bring out the best?
That level of personalresponsibility and genuine
curiosity ignited a body of workthat has since touched millions
of lives, helping us understandnot only men and women, but
ourselves, our, our instincts,our hearts and the ways we
disconnect or um or move towardreal connection.
(01:31):
Wisdom is the kind of thatspeaks to your nervous system
and your soul.
Our books, seminars and onlineprograms are filled with
compassionate truths, faithfullyhuman stories, and practical
tools that make us embody thesacred dance between masculine
and feminine in a world thatoften forgets how to honor
(01:52):
growth.
He is this rare gift that makesthe complex look clear and the
tender hearts of us feeling seen, and today I am beyond honored
to share space with her tosettle in, breathe in a little
deeper and open your heart,because this conversation is an
invitation into more love, moreunderstanding and more of your
(02:14):
true self.
Welcome to the extraordinaryalice nernstrog.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
I am so honored wow, I'm honored, I think.
I think that's the bestintroduction that you created.
Right, we didn't write that.
That's the best introduction Ithink I've ever had.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
Thank you and I know that this is just going to be
magic for our listeners.
So I always kind of start offour conversations off the bat
with what is bringing you joy inthis moment.
Speaker 3 (02:53):
Oh my gosh, I would have to say my family.
And then my family is in mywell, they're all together.
So there's the men in my life,right, there's my boyfriend,
there's my late husband, who'sstill in my life and he's up to
(03:20):
so much mischief, and the whichmy late husband keeps hanging
out with my year and a half oldgrandson which might sound weird
, but it's pretty commonClimbing Okay, good it's.
Oh my gosh, and my son and Iare planning a trip to Japan
that I'm so excited about, andthis may sound weird, but as I
(03:44):
was getting your email with thenew link, I saw a.
There was an email that mydonkey, who we had returned to
the rescue from which I got him10 years ago, has just been
adopted by a family in Aspen,colorado.
He's off to another part of hishappy life, and he was a, he
(04:06):
was a.
Donkeys are the masculine of theequine world.
They're extremely logical.
You, you can't scare them intodoing anything.
It has to make sense to them orthey won't do it.
And so Samwise is a reallyimportant part of my life for a
long time, and now he's got anew life, and that gives me joy
(04:26):
in this moment.
I found it out right when Iwent to get your link.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
I have loved this.
I am so happy to hear how youreally enmeshed.
It's not only like family andintegration, but you're also
talking about kind of like theouter world of once people pass
on Yep.
Speaker 3 (04:48):
It's been a great feature for the last six years.
It was a big surprise and itkeeps bringing something really
cool.
It's affected me a lot.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
It's beautiful because it shows that our love
doesn't end right on this plane.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
Not at all, not at all, not at all.
The these, these, these shells,they wear out right, we're not
gone.
No one ever leaves the universepeeing.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
I'm so excited this conversation is.
I can already tell it's gonnabe amazing so what do you want
to do next?
Okay, so I have what I callkind of the her method, which is
heal and body rise, and so ourquestions are kind of going to
be geared towards that.
Okay, we're off with heal andit.
(05:44):
What would you say are commonwounds you see in the masculine
and feminine these days, and dothey unconsciously play out in
our modern relationships?
Speaker 3 (05:56):
oh my gosh.
Well, the second question.
First, unconsciously andconsciously, there are so many,
sadly, there are so manybehaviors in both men and women
(06:16):
that both men and women justifyby our wounds.
Well, you can't talk to me likethat because you know what
happened to me and you know Ican't take someone being that
direct.
Or like, well, you know mymother, so you know you can't do
(06:39):
that with me, like there's allthese.
We call it one of the benefits.
One of the benefits of wounds isthat people use them in lieu of
boundaries instead of saying no, you can't be that way with me.
It's, you know, you can't bethat way with me because this
terrible thing happened, right,and instead of just stop, I
(07:06):
understand why you that you justcan't do it around me.
So make up your mind.
You wonder you got it.
Or you want to be around meStraight up, and so that's the.
So yes, unconsciously,absolutely we have.
I mean, if we tried to list theconclusions we have about
(07:28):
ourselves, which we have peopledo in our Extreme Freedom course
, what's true about me?
What's true about Allison?
What's true about Allie?
Like all the nicknames, andthen all this just dumpster
diving right, all enough that wedon't even know is deciding for
us.
Right?
It comes to the surface andthen it could be released.
(07:49):
So, consciously, unconsciously,wounds definitely, there are
similarities in the kind ofwounds that I've seen in men and
women and there are also reallybig differences.
Which way do you want me to?
Speaker 2 (08:07):
go first.
I don't know which way.
I mean I guess let's start onthe differences, just because I
feel like we can always find ourcommonalities.
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (08:22):
Yeah, I mean, the commonalities are simple.
We're wounded by not being seen, Not being seen, not being
heard, not being honored, andone of the biggest difference
(08:48):
that I see part of it is maleand female, as in affected by
gender hormones, and part of itis what you would refer to as
masculine and feminine, or ortony would.
That's how he teaches my work.
I I have moved on, becausethose terms have a lot of
baggage and it doesn't.
It sticks it too much right.
It like locks it in instead ofokay.
If you're in a committed stateof mind, you're focused on
(09:11):
productivity and destinationsand goals, and, and what you
need is to be trusted andrespected, and we're wounded by
people doing things that weperceive as being the opposite
of that, that they don't trustus and they don't respect us.
And even men have said if youdon't trust me, you don't know
(09:36):
who I am and therefore youcouldn't possibly respect me,
but we don't even know what theyneed to be trusted for.
Like we don't engage in aconversation.
What do you need to be trustedfor?
Or it's awful for you, right?
Whereas and we'll be that too,whether you're a man or a woman
(10:00):
if we're in a committed state ofmind.
Trust and respect, productivity, get her done.
They all come together in apackage.
And then, on the other hand, ifwe're in an open, connected
state of mind, right, becausethat productive state of mind
screens out everythingconsidered irrelevant to the
(10:21):
destination of the goal, so it'snot connecting.
You can connect over what'sbeing focused on, which is
something I've been teachingpeople for years.
Instead of trying to get yourson to stop playing a video game
, connect over the video game.
Don't try to take him away fromwhat's built to stimulate the
(10:45):
brain, that testosterone madefor him.
Connect through it, right.
But if we're in an open stateof mind which, as you would know
from engaging in my work,estrogen creates something as
awareness work.
(11:08):
Estrogen creates Duffy'sawareness.
Biologically, we naturally havean open state of mind, which
occurs as being distracted.
But it's also what has, likekids thinking that mom has eyes
in the back of her head Becausewe can't not be awake.
There's so much input, so weget overwhelmed and we also
(11:29):
can't talk fast enough tocommunicate everything we
perceive.
Yeah, and we'll.
And so it will tend to havewhat we would say our feelings
hurt, you hurt my feelings, andthat's when somebody says
something or does something.
(11:51):
That, how we interpret it is,they wouldn't have said or done
that if they really loved us, ifthey really cared about us and
respected, will get thrown inthere.
But usually it's love and carelike we talk about in the
Queen's Carouden, so we end upwith these.
(12:13):
Physically it's different too,anita.
We'll end up with what feelslike somebody punched us or
stabbed us in the chest, and Icall it the pancake, that we
have a stack of pancakes righthere, a ton of feelings located
in one place and layered sosadness and joy and happiness
(12:36):
and hurt.
It's the stack of pancakesright here.
And I remember a man said whydo women make their feelings the
center of everything?
And I was like we don't.
They are in the center ofeverything already, which is,
(12:59):
you know, side note, why I thinkwe need to make sure that we're
clearing all that stuff out,because I think it merits us
physically.
Breast cancer, because it'sright, right there with the
dendrites, and so that's wherewe'll have our injury, that's
where we'll feel it, whereasmost men there's the term
(13:23):
crestfallen, which this is thecrest, so they'll like, they'll
get shorter, their wounds willhave them like curl over
themselves.
In other words they use.
This crushed when a woman thathe cares about doesn't trust him
for something he believes hedeserves to be trusted for.
(13:45):
Crushed, just like.
So, all this part of his bodyis where that happens.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
I never really thought about how it actually
physically manifests, which isironic because everything has a
physical consequence but youdon't necessarily think about.
Well, what does it actuallylook like in the day-to-day?
So, kind of to reverse and gointo a different aspect of this
(14:20):
question what would you say isthe difference predominantly
between masculine and feminineenergies?
Speaker 3 (14:35):
Can I say bad words, or do you want it to be clinical
or Bad words?
Are between ane and an aude,the difference between a vagina
and an erection.
So, whether exhibited by a maleor female human being,
(14:59):
masculine energy is make way.
Here I am make make way, we'regetting this done.
It's very, it's driving, it'sforceful.
It doesn't really pay attentionto what's being impacted.
It's so destination oriented,it doesn't pay attention to that
(15:24):
.
Whereas feminine you couldthink of like a vagina, feminine
energy makes space.
So if you think, for example,about compassion, right,
compassion is actually a spacelike a womb.
(15:45):
Even In the space of compassion, love arises, understanding
arises even peacefulness arises,freedom arises, like that space
of that feeling.
It's not an emotion, it's afeeling which I think is
important to distinguish.
It's not an emotion, it's afeeling which I think is
(16:17):
important to distinguish.
And it's like a garden that'sbeen all these nutrients have
put in and then these things popup like babies in rips.
I mean, you actually said it inthe introduction.
I try to make things simple.
I try to make things memorable,visual and we can even check
ourselves like am I coming atthis?
Do I feel like you know?
I'm barging into the room andI'm coming at this conversation?
I'm gonna get somebody to dosomething and that can be
(16:41):
effective in a lot of contexts.
There's a, you know, there's abuilding on fire and you got to
get people out the door.
You want masculine energy to dothat appreciation and love and
(17:09):
safety, like emotional safetyand communication, people
coughing up what's true for them.
You got to bring the otherenergy and recently I was at
something called the Big Tentand it's a summit for the future
(17:29):
of what's known as men's workand it was by invitation only
and it was amazing to be therewith men of all ages.
Right, there were men in their20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s,
80s, who were engaged in theirown process of balancing, of the
desire to own and balance both,which I think really is the
(17:53):
work for all of us.
Neither one of them is right,neither one of them is wrong.
It's all about for what purpose, to what end.
Speaker 2 (18:03):
I think, simply put, a lot of times we try to be one
or the other and it's reallybeing a dance flowing from one
to the other as we operate inour day-to-day lives.
Is that it, yep?
Speaker 3 (18:18):
Yeah, almost like what I saw right then in my head
was actually doing it.
It's like the wave comes in andthen the wave retreats and
makes space Right soenergetically.
The sailboats behind me wouldhave a good time with that.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
I love this conversation so much I want to
win.
Females who tend to find me areusually like me in the sense
that I've did a lot of healingaround the masculine wound.
So, in your perspective, whatis the easiest or not easiest,
but what is the best way tostart the journey of healing
(18:58):
your wounds with the masculineenergy?
Speaker 3 (19:04):
Wow.
Well, I'm big on peoplestarting where they're at, so I
wouldn't prescribe trying to getto someplace else to start.
So whatever someone is presentto Like I didn't know.
When I saw in 1991, when mycolleague was called a frog
(19:28):
farmer as in turning princesinto frogs, and she rejected it
outright and my life flashedbefore me and I saw that I not
only that I was bringing out theworst in men, but I was so
happy to see that I was, becauseuntil then that's just who men
(19:54):
were Like they're scary, they'rejerks, I'll use a polite word.
They can't be trusted, theydon't care about what you need
or they're actively withholdingit.
They're not safe, not safe, notsafe, and they abuse power.
And so I was primarilyinteracting with men in fight
(20:20):
mode.
So, if you think of when weperceive an opportunity or we
perceive a threat, we react infight, flight or freeze.
In often a sequence.
My sequence is fight, and then,if that doesn't work, I freeze
to figure out a new way to fightand I go back to fighting.
It's not fight, freeze, fight,freeze, fight, freeze.
(20:40):
Right, with this look on myface like everything's fine, and
then, if I can't figure out away for it to work, I finally
just get the heck out of there.
I flee.
So how I mostly dealt with menin my 20s was was in this fight
mode that the my stepdad used tosay the best defense is a good
(21:03):
offense.
So I was on the offense likehand me your testicles and then
we'll talk Like just cut themdown from the very beginning and
see who stays in the ring, notknowing what I was doing, not
knowing how vulnerable men areto women, not knowing how they
(21:24):
everything we do to try to getthem to love us.
We don't have to do it.
They naturally love women, theynaturally have an awe of women
and the misogyny and theugliness that we see that, the
way they say it in men's work iswounded men you do wounding
(21:46):
things and if we can see that.
So you asked about where do youstart?
Where are you at right?
I was sure I knew why men didwhat they did.
The question popped into myhead what if men are responding
to women?
And then I started checking tosee and I checked with real men.
(22:08):
Did you do that because of this?
It seemed like legitimatereasons.
I was always wrong In thebeginning.
I was always wrong, but I, youknow, I would never do anything
for that reason, and noself-respecting man would.
What Women do things for thatreason all the time.
(22:32):
And so if someone's angry startwith the anger, if someone's
hurt, start with the hurt, andoften, if you look in either
direction you look at the hurtor you look at anger what we'll
see is, if we're willing to look, we'll see that we have
(22:55):
expectations and they didn't dowhat we expected them to do.
And then we assigned a reasonfor why they didn't do it, and
the reason we assigned hurt orthe reason we assigned enraged
us.
Oh, it's the patriarch you get.
(23:15):
Maybe it is, maybe it isn't,but does that really get you
anywhere?
Speaker 2 (23:28):
Oh, my God, I'm loving this so good.
In your view, our unresolvedmother or father wounds show up
and shape our abilities torelate to the polarity in our
partnerships.
Speaker 3 (23:44):
Excuse me, Aye, aye, aye.
Okay, I have to go way back.
I mean, I'm talking way back,I'm talking primordial.
So this is we have a programcalled Freedom from being
(24:07):
Ordinary and after the beginningof the year, people can
participate with me in it, in ajourney, which is I love
journeys where people watchvideos and then we interact and
we get to take it further thanit went in the video.
I always wanted to take itfurther than it went in the
video.
I always wanted to do a furtherthing and so, in freedom from
(24:30):
being ordinary, we look atordinary, what is ordinary, and
so, in answer to your question,I would propose and I build a
case for it in that course.
But I'll just cut to the chasewhat if?
What if?
Our immune system is based ondistinguishing is this me or not
(24:58):
me?
And if it's, if it decides me,it's let in, and there's all
kinds of conclusions.
If it's not me, it's rejectedor attacked.
So, like a sneeze A sneeze is anot me reaction Can you see
(25:18):
that it's an instant rejectionto something?
So what happens if you thinkabout our minds?
And this isn't just human, bythe way my dog does the same
thing, a cat does the same thing, that trees outside my window
do the same thing.
That's what I mean byprimordial.
Everything on the planet issorting is this me or not me, me
(25:43):
or not me, me or not me?
And then we take it from there.
So if we identify, for example,with our mother, that our
mother, I'm female, she's female, therefore we're alike I should
(26:04):
be able to trust I think I cantrust her to act like me, to
interact like me.
And then when she does it andhurt, well, my mother's imprint
passed down right, my mother.
I don't think there's any womanon earth my mother trusts.
(26:27):
My mother competes with everysingle human with a vagina and
it doesn't matter that she's 83years old, she still competes
and she still competes in thesame way that she did when she
was 20.
And so, depending, like,depending, if I identify with my
(26:52):
mother, I don't identify withmy mother, right, then there's
going to be wounds.
So my, one of my highest valuesis honesty.
It's truth and seeking truth,speaking the truth, revealing
the truth, uncovering the truth,standing by the truth.
Little t truth, right Like.
(27:15):
And my mom would say shelearned to lie starting at 13
years old and her default is tolie and I thought she loves me
so much she won't lie to me,right?
And that's again what we see.
If she loved me more, shewouldn't lie to me.
(27:36):
No, it's not personal.
Lying is a human behavior.
We have fight, lying, freeze,lying.
What I mean?
We have a thing.
What I mean lie?
We have a thing, called why menlie.
When women lie, basically,babies lie.
Even my horse used to lie to me.
(28:00):
Lying is concealing.
We get all upset that a man isconcealing from us.
Conceal is normal.
Conceal is normal.
Conceal is a default.
It doesn't mean anything.
So so mother-father wounds Onon a free.
(28:21):
I think they could have moreenergy because we give them more
energy.
But she's my mother, but he'smy father.
My father should have.
When I figured out, my fatherwas a man who had had the
gorilla of alcoholism on hisback since he was about 15 years
(28:43):
old, but it didn't define whohe was.
I just thought my dad was analcoholic.
No, my dad is a man who hasthis thing and instead of
interacting him alcoholic,alcoholic, alcoholic like my
mother did I started interactingwith him as a man, and what I
learned about men completelytransformed my relationship with
(29:06):
him.
I adore my father.
My father adores me Completelytransformed my relationship with
him.
I adore my father.
My father adores me, and he'snot the man who lived in the
house with us when my mom wasattacking him all the time.
So we're going to be wounded bywhat we it to and by how
(29:29):
personal we think it is, insteadof what if it wasn't personal.
What if our mothers were doingtheir thing?
Our fathers were doing theirthing?
What if they didn't intend tohurt us?
They didn't intend to neglectus, they didn't intend to
(29:53):
dishonor us, they didn't intendto project things onto us that
were gross to us?
And how could you ever thinkI'm like that?
What if they didn't mean to?
What if they were just beinghuman?
And is this making sense?
Like we can make those woundsbigger or we can go?
(30:16):
Well, wait a second.
What if there's no intent in it?
What if they were just scared?
And do you know what the hellthey were doing?
And they're doing the best theycould in a circumstance where
it was.
I mean, my mother was 19 yearsold, with three children under
the age of four I was 19 yearsold, yes and a husband who was
(30:43):
four years older in his nightstage.
You know.
They knew if the surf was outhe wouldn't be on time to work
and they accepted it because hewas a brilliant mechanic.
That would scare the pucky outof you.
With three kids and being a kidyourself, you know All right
(31:07):
what kids and being a kid-yourself.
Speaker 2 (31:08):
You know all right what.
For me, this totally makessense, because it's like we have
to remember our parents,whether they've done something
that you may or may not agreewith.
There's the means, at the endof the day, and they're on their
own human journey of learninglessons as they go.
Speaker 3 (31:29):
Yeah, when my daughter was pregnant with my
first and so far only grandchild, I was interviewing
grandmothers that I admired,which are my boyfriends to older
sisters, and Shay said to meAllison, what it comes down to
is, if you loved being a mother,you'll love being a grandmother
(31:51):
.
And I just like what was rightthere was.
I don't think my mom everwanted to be a mother.
I don't.
I don't think my mom ever chosebeing a mother.
What, really, the one thing Iwanted to get out of this life
(32:14):
with was being a mother.
It was a privilege to me to bea mother and everything I did as
a mother flowed out of that.
Everything she did as a motherflowed out of a different place.
Not right or wrong, but wow,okay.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
I love this conversation so much.
So how can women begin todistinguish between trauma
response and authentic feminineessence when engaging with men?
Speaker 3 (32:48):
Wow, it feels good.
This is one of my favoritethings about men, okay, and have
(33:10):
you ever read making sense ofmen, the book that I wrote,
making sense of men?
Okay, so it's.
It's the research that wentinto finding out what are the
four most attractive qualitiesthat has a man want to have sex
(33:33):
with a woman, versus the fourmost attractive qualities that
have a man want to take care ofher, contribute to her, protect
her, make her life better, fallin love with her, want to be her
mentor or her husband or herbig brother.
What was awesome to me and andif we can lean into this, it
(33:58):
could change everything that thesecond most attractive quality
is authenticity.
That men crave real.
They crave real.
They put up with pretense, butit gives them the heebie-jeebies
they're just like really, do wegotta?
(34:20):
And when men talk about womenbeing authentic or real, I swear
I don't think I've ever heardit and we're talking hundreds of
men.
I don't think I've ever heardthem say authentic or real about
a woman without using the wordcourage.
(34:41):
When a woman has the courage tobe real, when she has the
courage to be direct, when shehas the courage to be real, when
she has the courage to bedirect.
When she has the courage to beauthentic.
Doing that, she has the courageto say straight out what it is
that she needs.
They they think that is awesome, right, it has them feel
(35:02):
respected.
It has them feel respected, ithas them feel honored.
It has them be in awe of her,and a trauma response isn't
authentic.
A trauma response is going tobe some kind of fight, flight or
(35:22):
freeze, some kind ofmanipulation.
We're trying to controlsomething in a certain way to
protect ourselves, which isnatural, but also why it matters
so much to do the work to healand restore and release all that
(35:42):
stuff.
Extreme freedom is all aboutthat.
I don't have you done extremefreedom?
Not, yet I need to, oh my gosh.
Okay, when you do, feel free touse the tools in what you do
because they're they're.
The only credit I would take isthat freedom is mine for noble
(36:08):
quality and the truth does setyou free.
So now you got my top two andthese, these.
There's things that I logicallyfigure out.
There's things that I'vestudied.
There's things that people saidthat I've been surprised and
I've chased down, and thenthere's just the things that
come through Like it feels likethey're using me to force
(36:32):
themselves into the world.
This must be known and I'llwatch videos of myself and I
don't know what that Allison issaying and extreme freedom.
That whole course is.
This must be known, must beknown, must be known.
(36:53):
And even session five, there's ahandout called Restoration
Requires and it says each, allor many of these, all of these
might need to be present inorder to be restored, in order
to be full and free again.
And there's a whole sectioncalled giving up the benefits of
(37:16):
being wounded or ashamed.
And there's so many benefits wetalked about it from the very
beginning right, using them tomake false boundaries, right,
instead of just no, you can't dothat.
But there's also belonging.
I mean, we have wound groupsand even within the group,
(37:40):
there's a competition for statuswho's the most wounded, status,
who who's the most wounded?
And I, yeah, so, and oh my gosh, there's why person more than
(38:10):
yours exactly?
And I mean we can, instead ofhaving a real boundary to
justify behavior, to belong andhave status, to even the, to get
the attention of a great story.
And you might notice, in ourcourses, like in Understanding
Sex and Intimacy, we don't letanybody ever tell a trauma story
Ever, because the our brainsare designed for survival, and
so when someone else tells atrauma story, the brain is
(38:33):
listening as if that happened tome and I've got to survive it,
and, and, and that's why thesestories, like they, create
neural pathways of and andtrauma is in the details, and so
we don't let anybody ever givedetails.
(38:54):
And, and I stopped givingdetails like so how did this all
start, alison?
I was 16 and something badhappened, and I decided that men
are bigger and stronger andthey'll hurt you.
That.
And I found out the opposite.
Yes, they are bigger andstronger, and 90, at least 95%
(39:17):
of them.
What they think the point ofthat is so that they can protect
you.
That's what the bigger andstronger is for is so that they
can protect us.
Who do they want to protect?
One man called it thethree-foot rule.
Another method anyone withinreach.
They don't have to like you.
They can be mad at you andthey'll still be compelled to
protect you.
(39:37):
It's who they really are, andso when we're authentic, instead
of like we're acting out theconclusions of our trauma and
punishing them with it becausethey belong to the gender of the
person who did that, then theyhave to protect themselves and
that brings out the worst inthem.
But when we're authentic aboutokay, like what I say in my
(40:01):
birth, like okay, I'm having ahumonger moment and I'm like
Kelly, what do you need?
And a few months ago I thankedhim, I said thank you for loving
me, and he said you're welcomeand I said thank you for loving
(40:27):
me even when I'm difficult.
That's the hard one, yeah.
Speaker 2 (40:41):
And he said.
He said, well, when you'redifficult, I love you even more,
because you seem to need that.
Aww, Aww but that.
Speaker 3 (40:57):
but he can respond because when I'm difficult, I'm
owning, I'm I'm prickly, I'mgnarly, I'm trying to own as
much of this as I can, right.
And then he has compassion forhow and men do that.
He has so much compassion forwatching us deal with the stuff,
(41:17):
because they have stuff too.
Speaker 2 (41:21):
Absolutely, absolutely, oh my gosh.
So, moving into the embodiedphase of this, what would we say
it feels like for when a womanis deeply in her feminine
essence and a man is in hismasculine?
Can you somehow point that outsomatically, if you could Listen
(41:44):
?
Speaker 3 (41:46):
All right.
So, hmm, for men in masculinestrength, masculine power, where
it shows up in their bodies isacross their shoulders, their
(42:12):
neck, their backs and their armsand their chest and so, like,
like, like.
When men have their armscrossed, we think that they're
closed.
They actually have their armscrossed because that's the
easiest way to support anenormous amount of physical
weight.
This is where their strength is.
(42:33):
This is where their strength is, this is where their weight is,
this is where their muscles are.
They're so heavy here.
And when a man is empowered,you will see it.
You will see it, instead ofcrust falling right, the crust
will rise.
So this place in our chest,which also is the, the location,
(42:59):
an unconditional love, locationin favor being ordinary, this
is where fire, which is yourspiritual sword, comes out.
So, power, masculine power here, and unfortunately, for the way
(43:20):
that we react to each other,when a man is happy, happiness
and power arise together,happiness and victory arise
together, and we're afraid oftheir power.
We're afraid of their power,we're afraid of their strength.
So a happy man actually mostnormal women will react to a
(43:47):
happy man by attacking him.
They want to take the wind outof their sails.
They'll criticize them.
They'll make a snarky comment,they'll roll their eyes, they'll
do something to take them downbecause it's scary.
We don't know how much men notonly intend to, but strive to
(44:08):
use their power for us.
And so when we are scared of itand we take it away for us, and
so when we are scared of it andwe take it away, now, they have
to protect themselves and theyturn into their worst and it
just, it just aye, aye, aye.
It just keeps going.
So, so yeah, physicallyembodied, a man in his masculine
power, it's, it's gonna show uphere, it's going to show up
(44:34):
here and it's going to show upin a blaze or even a twinkle in
his eye.
The twinkling shows up the moreas they evolve themselves which
is what men's work is all aboutthe twinkle shows up more and
more Stunning.
I've got to be in a room fullof men like this.
(44:58):
I'm 65 over there.
Yeah, it's amazing.
So that's where I came up withthat.
And then, for a woman, aye, aye,aye, okay.
There's a simple answer.
And then there's a more complexanswer, but embodied.
I love that.
The E's for embodied, becauseour instincts, human and
(45:23):
pre-human, they're embodied,they're hardwired and everything
that goes with them.
So if we perceive, if we'reunder any kind of stress, so the
perception of a threat or anopportunity we're under stress
(45:43):
only what's embodied is a viablechoice.
If you want to think of interms of neuroscience, only
what's embodied is an exit fromthe freeway or entrance to the
freeway that it can choose, thatthere's a neural pathway, and
so there's a lot of work to bedone between the brain and the
(46:07):
body to connect.
And specifically for feminineforms of power is what we call
it Feminine forms of power.
How they occur in the body isas a feeling, and this is why I
distinguish between emotionswhich I think are triggered
instinctually, like anger, forexample.
(46:30):
Anger is an energy emotion.
Somebody called emotions energyemotions.
So it travels, fear travels.
So one way to look at it wouldbe the difference between fear
which is going oh, I'm in a rushand dread.
Dread has a location.
Can you see it?
(46:53):
Dread actually had.
It's a feeling that lives inyour body in a particular place,
and you can feel dreadAbsolutely Okay Now.
So this is true for everything,and this is why we work so much
on what we call noble qualities.
(47:13):
So if you think of your highestvalues, notice as a feeling.
Where in your body iscompassion, what's its location?
And one of the and we do this.
We do this unconsciously, likewhen we realize, oh gosh, be
patient.
Like when we realize, oh gosh,be patient.
We'll unconsciously check thelocation in our body where we
(47:37):
feel patience, and we can evenmeasure how full we are with
that feeling.
Does this make sense?
Like, oh, I don't know thismuch patience or how many of
patience, and what I used tofocus on was making sure our
(47:58):
tanks were full.
Right, all our highest values,whatever they are, make sure
your tanks are full.
So get the human need met thatputs that feeling in your body,
wherever it's located.
Well, a few years ago, Istarted talking about
overflowing.
So this is where clarity comesin.
(48:21):
Right, we have to become, wehave to be clear about.
So what is my feminine self?
There's at least a hundredadjectives that could describe
feminine ways of being.
So which of those?
When you feel that way, youfeel like yourself.
(48:41):
You would describe this asmyself.
How Well, I'm being empowering,I'm dedicated to the truth, I
feel free to express myself, I'moffering partnership, I'm
practicing contentment in myspiritual practice.
I'm so myself right now.
(49:03):
But so when you put thosefeelings in your body, which has
to do with sleep and movementand nature and time with special
people and time alone.
And nature and time withspecial people and time alone, I
mean they're all really prettyplain human needs.
If we get enough of them, whichis also a key ingredient paying
(49:29):
attention to enough.
It doesn't have to be the idealamount.
We can end up where this is adifferent kind of self-care,
where you're overflowing asyourselves and your particular
flavor of yourself.
And I've never met I'veinteracted with thousands of
women about this I've never mettwo women who are exactly what
(49:53):
they define of themselves.
Would be the same qualities inthe same order, because the
order action matters.
So that's the long, complicatedanswer.
The short, complicated answer.
The short, simple answer wouldbe radiance.
When a woman is seated in herfeminine power, it's it's the
it's Seated in our femininepower.
(50:14):
It's it's the it's Home fromJapan said is there a beauty
that is every woman's birthright?
Yes, it's called radiance.
When we're in our femininepower, light and heat is coming
off of us.
And men are so sensitive toradiance, oh my gosh.
(50:41):
It's like food to them, it'snutrients to them.
And if they do something thatcauses a woman to lose her
radiance.
They're just like, oh no, andDan described it once.
(51:04):
He said I knew I'd donesomething because your face went
flat and I should have had mywent flat.
What and I?
How did my face go flat?
And I looked in the mirror like, hmm, you lost your flat.
Yeah, and like literally thecheeks, the glow, the all the
(51:25):
form that goes with me beinghappy and feeling able and
capable and powerful andspacious and gone, just so
Radiant.
Are you Radiant?
Speaker 2 (51:44):
I love this answer so much I'm going to try and make
this really quickly.
I will.
I'm too.
Speaker 3 (51:54):
We're going to have to wrap up.
Yeah, what's?
Speaker 2 (51:57):
going on.
So let's just go in and skip torise.
In this age of evolving genderroles, how conscious, how can
conscious feminine leaders callforward helping masculine
without emasculating them orbeing in dominant state?
Speaker 3 (52:36):
called Own your Ultimatums, and it has
everything to do with beingclear about what you won't live
with and you won't live without,and it applies to every context
.
As a mother, my not saying pickyour battles really matters.
(53:01):
And what my kids knew was thatI would not live without respect
Respect for me and respect foreach other and I would not live
without kindness.
And I would not live withoutkindness and I would not live
with meanness of any flavor.
(53:22):
My oldest daughter calls me themost ruthless person she knows,
and I would pursue kindnesswith ruthlessness.
I would pursue kindness withruthless, pursue respect with
ruthless.
I would enforce thoseboundaries and when we're not
(53:48):
clear about you, could call themdeal breakers, ultimatums what
we won't live with or without.
When we're not clear about it,and especially when we're not
clear about what it costs us,the price, how high the price is
.
The more we get clear about theprice of it, the more likely we
(54:11):
are to be true to it, to honorour own boundary.
And one of the ways that I putit is don't ask anybody else to
give you what you need untilyou've committed to what you
need.
And so, like our Smart Singlesprogram, which I just ended, the
one for this year.
Our Smart Singles program is allabout developing the clarity of
(54:35):
I am better off with a personwho's like this and I'm better
off without a person who isn'tlike this and just like not
fudging for but he's so cute,he's so rich, he's so what my
mother always wanted for me.
He has such high status.
(54:55):
He's so cute, he's so rich,he's so what my mother always
wanted for me.
He has such high status, he'sso important.
No, this is what I live withand this is what I live without.
And it's part of thatauthenticity that men love
thinking they love it when we'reclear and we're consistent,
that we don't sometimes say, no,you have to be that way, and
(55:17):
other times we let them be thatway.
That creates confusion, andit's one of the questions in our
partnership work, which is thehighest level of our work.
Are you contributing to clarityor confusion?
And you know we even start withit in our understanding men
course.
Are you a trusted source?
(55:39):
How do you become a trustedsource for a man?
Because facts come from trustedsources and most women aren't
trusted sources because they'reinconsistent.
You need to feed Por favor.
Speaker 2 (55:55):
Very true, and yet if we had the inconsistency from
men?
Speaker 3 (56:02):
we wouldn't tolerate it.
Well, but we do.
If they're really cute or wehave a lot of chemistry or we're
completely.
We think we're dependent uponthem or we're afraid of them.
We put up with all kinds ofthings and you know, I had to
(56:23):
come at it all these ways.
And why did men treat somewomen some ways and other women
other ways?
My boyfriend at the time I saidwhat are you looking for?
This is like about eight monthsinto studying men.
(56:44):
I'm like what are you lookingfor in a relationship?
What do you really want?
And God bless him, he was alsoa friend of mine and so he told
the truth.
He said truthfully I want to bein a relationship where the
woman is giving me everything Ineed while I provide nothing.
Speaker 2 (57:08):
So God provides, it brings him to the point.
Speaker 3 (57:12):
There is something to the point, but that was before
I learned.
What is it about us that givesmen this profound desire to
provide?
They don't want to providenothing.
They want to provide so much.
What is that?
Because it's part of beinghuman.
(57:33):
We're all providers and we wantto provide and we need to be
received from and we needquality information, so we're
not wasting our energy andresources on providing something
that someone's like thebullseye.
As we talk about understandingmen, they want to hit the
(57:55):
bullseye and they needinformation to hit the bullseye,
but as long as we think theyshould know what we need without
us having to tell them they'rein trouble, they miss all the
time and they quit okay, finalquestion before we wrap up what
is one piece of outdatedrelationship advice you believe
(58:17):
we need to release, to rise intoour partnerships today?
Don't call men.
We should release.
Don't call men, Don't initiate.
Now we definitely should notchase them, but invite.
(58:38):
Men need to be invited becausethey're so sensitive to us it
hurts to be rejected by us, andso when we invite them like the
message I left for I didn't knowhe was going to end up being my
husband for 26 years themessage I left for Greg was
(59:06):
thinking about you and I'mthinking we should be really
good friends or something.
If you think so too, you shouldcall me.
No time limit.
I love Watt.
Speaker 2 (59:19):
Because, set for the prime, we're almost expected to
leave the pressure on the guys.
And it's like well, sometimes,if you're interested, you might
as well make it known.
Speaker 3 (59:31):
Well, but interested, not like I want whoa.
What did that that remindyou're up, right, that's their
job.
What's wrong with the bras, bro?
Exactly when there was a, thereis a man on one of our panels.
Gosh, I wish we were.
We were filming in those days.
So imagine, like like a ryangosling in that movie.
(59:55):
Where is this really classy,well-dressed guy that even his
shoe was a turn on?
Do you know the movie I'mtalking about?
I think it's this.
He was beautiful, right, and hehe was.
He was all the things right.
And he picked the question if awoman is looking at you and
(01:00:20):
making eye contact with you, isthere a reason why you wouldn't
approach?
And he picked this question.
And we're thinking this guy, hewould approach anybody anytime.
He'd have to have so muchconfidence.
And he said, and he read thequestion, and he said if she
wasn't smiling?
And he goes and it's not justlike she's smiling at first.
(01:00:45):
So if she's smiling at me andthen I start to get out of my
chair, is she still smiling?
And then, when I take a step,is she still smiling?
And then I take a step, is shestill smiling?
If she isn't smiling on myentire approach, oh, what a
relief which, yeah, like sheliterally has to smile him all
(01:01:08):
the way to her.
Speaker 2 (01:01:11):
Oh, ladies, careful, if you have RBF.
Speaker 3 (01:01:15):
Oh yeah, I got that.
I wondered why people said Iwas intimidating, and then I
caught my face in the mirror andI was just relaxed and I was
really interested.
So each one of us, at least youknow put a little.
Speaker 2 (01:01:33):
A little bit of a something there.
Okay, I'm going to do a quickrapid fire round.
One word answers.
Speaker 1 (01:01:42):
Robo.
Speaker 2 (01:01:43):
What's your current mantra?
Speaker 3 (01:01:50):
It's both of you, sir .
Speaker 2 (01:01:53):
It doesn't have to be a bad one.
Speaker 3 (01:01:55):
I don't think my current mantra is Om, shanti,
shanti, shanti Om.
Speaker 2 (01:02:07):
Love it.
A book that changed your lifeoutside of your words.
Speaker 3 (01:02:13):
Outside of my book that changed your life, outside
of yours, outside of mine, abook that changed my life.
Oh gosh, I'm reading a book nowthat I know is going to change
my life and my work.
It's called Fierce and Tender,healing the Deep Masculine in
Men and Women.
And I met him.
(01:02:34):
His name is Denae MariaSebastiani, and what a privilege
.
And it's all about men's workand it's a memoir of his journey
.
And just the introduction, justthe introduction, the beginning
of it.
Like I wish all women couldread this.
Speaker 2 (01:02:56):
So good, yeah.
And then final on, what's oneword that describes your current
season?
My current, what Season?
Speaker 3 (01:03:06):
Season, season, definitely summer.
Ouch, what was your?
Speaker 2 (01:03:18):
Describes your current season.
So, For example, mine is bold.
Speaker 3 (01:03:25):
Oh, I thought you meant a season word Open.
Speaker 2 (01:03:35):
I love this.
It's been a pleasure having you.
Lastly, where can peopleconnect with you and just learn
all the greatness?
Speaker 3 (01:03:45):
Go to alisonarmstrongcom.
You can even spell it with twoL's, it'll still work.
Audible only has what I created20 years ago or more, so
everything I've done in the lasttwo decades is on our website.
Speaker 2 (01:04:07):
That'd be the place to go.
And is your main social?
Just Instagram.
Speaker 3 (01:04:14):
Well, I don't think of it as a social platform and
she can connect with you.
Well, youtube, youtube, alisonArmstrong videos is.
We have like 60 videos now,including one that for all,
whether dating or married.
It's called Chemistry andConnection and it debunks the
(01:04:39):
idea that chemistry is scarceand connection is scarce, and
having both is impossible.
And it teaches you where itcomes from and how to cause more
and less of whichever you wantmore or less of, how to cause
more and less of whichever youwant more or less of.
If you're being controlled byhaving too much chemistry so
you're a mini you can reduce it.
(01:05:00):
It tells you exactly how toreduce chemistry for somebody
who makes you stupid, or how doyou increase chemistry for
someone you think is such agreat person?
Speaker 2 (01:05:13):
but you don't have any chemistry for them.
Beautiful, well, I'm sure wewill get some lovely people
connecting with you.
I'm so honored to have you onthis episode again and for those
of you watching or listening tothis, please subscribe so we
can continue to bring onwonderful guests like allison
and until the next one.
Speaker 1 (01:05:29):
That is it for today thanks, anita thank you thank
you for rising with me today.
If this episode moved, youshare it.
Tag me at arise with anita andmake sure to subscribe so you
never miss a future activationand, if you feel called, leave a
quick review.
It helps more women find thespace and rise into their power.
(01:05:52):
Your next level is alreadywaiting.
Now go claim it.
I'll see you in the nextepisode.
Welcome to the Rise With Anita podcast, the space
where soul meets strategy anddreams are no longer optional.
I'm your host, anitaKurdayan-Gurgis, a
transformational mindset coachand founder of the Her Method.
This show is for the woman whoknows she's meant for more, who
feels the call to rise higherbut sometimes feels trapped by
her old stories, patterns orcircumstances.
(00:22):
Here we don't just talk aboutgrowth, we embody it.
We activate the woman inside ofyou who leads, who creates, who
claims her next level.
You'll hear a mix of soulepisodes from me and interviews
with soul-driven leaders, thebest in their fields, who live
what they teach and rise byexample.
Each conversation is a catalystfor your next breakthrough.
You're not broken.
(00:43):
You're breaking through.
Let's go ahead and risetogether.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
All right, welcome back to they Arise with Anita
podcast.
I am so excited for today'sguest because Alison Armstrong
is more than a researcher and aspeaker.
She is a devoted guide in therealms of love, power and
partnership.
Her journey began over 30 yearsago with one humble human
question how am I bringing outthe worst in men and how can I
(01:11):
possibly bring out the best?
That level of personalresponsibility and genuine
curiosity ignited a body of workthat has since touched millions
of lives, helping us understandnot only men and women, but
ourselves, our, our instincts,our hearts and the ways we
disconnect or um or move towardreal connection.
(01:31):
Wisdom is the kind of thatspeaks to your nervous system
and your soul.
Our books, seminars and onlineprograms are filled with
compassionate truths, faithfullyhuman stories, and practical
tools that make us embody thesacred dance between masculine
and feminine in a world thatoften forgets how to honor
(01:52):
growth.
He is this rare gift that makesthe complex look clear and the
tender hearts of us feeling seen, and today I am beyond honored
to share space with her tosettle in, breathe in a little
deeper and open your heart,because this conversation is an
invitation into more love, moreunderstanding and more of your
(02:14):
true self.
Welcome to the extraordinaryalice nernstrog.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
I am so honored wow, I'm honored, I think.
I think that's the bestintroduction that you created.
Right, we didn't write that.
That's the best introduction Ithink I've ever had.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
Thank you and I know that this is just going to be
magic for our listeners.
So I always kind of start offour conversations off the bat
with what is bringing you joy inthis moment.
Speaker 3 (02:53):
Oh my gosh, I would have to say my family.
And then my family is in mywell, they're all together.
So there's the men in my life,right, there's my boyfriend,
there's my late husband, who'sstill in my life and he's up to
(03:20):
so much mischief, and the whichmy late husband keeps hanging
out with my year and a half oldgrandson which might sound weird
, but it's pretty commonClimbing Okay, good it's.
Oh my gosh, and my son and Iare planning a trip to Japan
that I'm so excited about, andthis may sound weird, but as I
(03:44):
was getting your email with thenew link, I saw a.
There was an email that mydonkey, who we had returned to
the rescue from which I got him10 years ago, has just been
adopted by a family in Aspen,colorado.
He's off to another part of hishappy life, and he was a, he
(04:06):
was a.
Donkeys are the masculine of theequine world.
They're extremely logical.
You, you can't scare them intodoing anything.
It has to make sense to them orthey won't do it.
And so Samwise is a reallyimportant part of my life for a
long time, and now he's got anew life, and that gives me joy
(04:26):
in this moment.
I found it out right when Iwent to get your link.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
I have loved this.
I am so happy to hear how youreally enmeshed.
It's not only like family andintegration, but you're also
talking about kind of like theouter world of once people pass
on Yep.
Speaker 3 (04:48):
It's been a great feature for the last six years.
It was a big surprise and itkeeps bringing something really
cool.
It's affected me a lot.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
It's beautiful because it shows that our love
doesn't end right on this plane.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
Not at all, not at all, not at all.
The these, these, these shells,they wear out right, we're not
gone.
No one ever leaves the universepeeing.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
I'm so excited this conversation is.
I can already tell it's gonnabe amazing so what do you want
to do next?
Okay, so I have what I callkind of the her method, which is
heal and body rise, and so ourquestions are kind of going to
be geared towards that.
Okay, we're off with heal andit.
(05:44):
What would you say are commonwounds you see in the masculine
and feminine these days, and dothey unconsciously play out in
our modern relationships?
Speaker 3 (05:56):
oh my gosh.
Well, the second question.
First, unconsciously andconsciously, there are so many,
sadly, there are so manybehaviors in both men and women
(06:16):
that both men and women justifyby our wounds.
Well, you can't talk to me likethat because you know what
happened to me and you know Ican't take someone being that
direct.
Or like, well, you know mymother, so you know you can't do
(06:39):
that with me, like there's allthese.
We call it one of the benefits.
One of the benefits of wounds isthat people use them in lieu of
boundaries instead of saying no, you can't be that way with me.
It's, you know, you can't bethat way with me because this
terrible thing happened, right,and instead of just stop, I
(07:06):
understand why you that you justcan't do it around me.
So make up your mind.
You wonder you got it.
Or you want to be around meStraight up, and so that's the.
So yes, unconsciously,absolutely we have.
I mean, if we tried to list theconclusions we have about
(07:28):
ourselves, which we have peopledo in our Extreme Freedom course
, what's true about me?
What's true about Allison?
What's true about Allie?
Like all the nicknames, andthen all this just dumpster
diving right, all enough that wedon't even know is deciding for
us.
Right?
It comes to the surface andthen it could be released.
(07:49):
So, consciously, unconsciously,wounds definitely, there are
similarities in the kind ofwounds that I've seen in men and
women and there are also reallybig differences.
Which way do you want me to?
Speaker 2 (08:07):
go first.
I don't know which way.
I mean I guess let's start onthe differences, just because I
feel like we can always find ourcommonalities.
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (08:22):
Yeah, I mean, the commonalities are simple.
We're wounded by not being seen, Not being seen, not being
heard, not being honored, andone of the biggest difference
(08:48):
that I see part of it is maleand female, as in affected by
gender hormones, and part of itis what you would refer to as
masculine and feminine, or ortony would.
That's how he teaches my work.
I I have moved on, becausethose terms have a lot of
baggage and it doesn't.
It sticks it too much right.
It like locks it in instead ofokay.
If you're in a committed stateof mind, you're focused on
(09:11):
productivity and destinationsand goals, and, and what you
need is to be trusted andrespected, and we're wounded by
people doing things that weperceive as being the opposite
of that, that they don't trustus and they don't respect us.
And even men have said if youdon't trust me, you don't know
(09:36):
who I am and therefore youcouldn't possibly respect me,
but we don't even know what theyneed to be trusted for.
Like we don't engage in aconversation.
What do you need to be trustedfor?
Or it's awful for you, right?
Whereas and we'll be that too,whether you're a man or a woman
(10:00):
if we're in a committed state ofmind.
Trust and respect, productivity, get her done.
They all come together in apackage.
And then, on the other hand, ifwe're in an open, connected
state of mind, right, becausethat productive state of mind
screens out everythingconsidered irrelevant to the
(10:21):
destination of the goal, so it'snot connecting.
You can connect over what'sbeing focused on, which is
something I've been teachingpeople for years.
Instead of trying to get yourson to stop playing a video game
, connect over the video game.
Don't try to take him away fromwhat's built to stimulate the
(10:45):
brain, that testosterone madefor him.
Connect through it, right.
But if we're in an open stateof mind which, as you would know
from engaging in my work,estrogen creates something as
awareness work.
(11:08):
Estrogen creates Duffy'sawareness.
Biologically, we naturally havean open state of mind, which
occurs as being distracted.
But it's also what has, likekids thinking that mom has eyes
in the back of her head Becausewe can't not be awake.
There's so much input, so weget overwhelmed and we also
(11:29):
can't talk fast enough tocommunicate everything we
perceive.
Yeah, and we'll.
And so it will tend to havewhat we would say our feelings
hurt, you hurt my feelings, andthat's when somebody says
something or does something.
(11:51):
That, how we interpret it is,they wouldn't have said or done
that if they really loved us, ifthey really cared about us and
respected, will get thrown inthere.
But usually it's love and carelike we talk about in the
Queen's Carouden, so we end upwith these.
(12:13):
Physically it's different too,anita.
We'll end up with what feelslike somebody punched us or
stabbed us in the chest, and Icall it the pancake, that we
have a stack of pancakes righthere, a ton of feelings located
in one place and layered sosadness and joy and happiness
(12:36):
and hurt.
It's the stack of pancakesright here.
And I remember a man said whydo women make their feelings the
center of everything?
And I was like we don't.
They are in the center ofeverything already, which is,
(12:59):
you know, side note, why I thinkwe need to make sure that we're
clearing all that stuff out,because I think it merits us
physically.
Breast cancer, because it'sright, right there with the
dendrites, and so that's wherewe'll have our injury, that's
where we'll feel it, whereasmost men there's the term
(13:23):
crestfallen, which this is thecrest, so they'll like, they'll
get shorter, their wounds willhave them like curl over
themselves.
In other words they use.
This crushed when a woman thathe cares about doesn't trust him
for something he believes hedeserves to be trusted for.
(13:45):
Crushed, just like.
So, all this part of his bodyis where that happens.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
I never really thought about how it actually
physically manifests, which isironic because everything has a
physical consequence but youdon't necessarily think about.
Well, what does it actuallylook like in the day-to-day?
So, kind of to reverse and gointo a different aspect of this
(14:20):
question what would you say isthe difference predominantly
between masculine and feminineenergies?
Speaker 3 (14:35):
Can I say bad words, or do you want it to be clinical
or Bad words?
Are between ane and an aude,the difference between a vagina
and an erection.
So, whether exhibited by a maleor female human being,
(14:59):
masculine energy is make way.
Here I am make make way, we'regetting this done.
It's very, it's driving, it'sforceful.
It doesn't really pay attentionto what's being impacted.
It's so destination oriented,it doesn't pay attention to that
(15:24):
.
Whereas feminine you couldthink of like a vagina, feminine
energy makes space.
So if you think, for example,about compassion, right,
compassion is actually a spacelike a womb.
(15:45):
Even In the space of compassion, love arises, understanding
arises even peacefulness arises,freedom arises, like that space
of that feeling.
It's not an emotion, it's afeeling which I think is
important to distinguish.
It's not an emotion, it's afeeling which I think is
(16:17):
important to distinguish.
And it's like a garden that'sbeen all these nutrients have
put in and then these things popup like babies in rips.
I mean, you actually said it inthe introduction.
I try to make things simple.
I try to make things memorable,visual and we can even check
ourselves like am I coming atthis?
Do I feel like you know?
I'm barging into the room andI'm coming at this conversation?
I'm gonna get somebody to dosomething and that can be
(16:41):
effective in a lot of contexts.
There's a, you know, there's abuilding on fire and you got to
get people out the door.
You want masculine energy to dothat appreciation and love and
(17:09):
safety, like emotional safetyand communication, people
coughing up what's true for them.
You got to bring the otherenergy and recently I was at
something called the Big Tentand it's a summit for the future
(17:29):
of what's known as men's workand it was by invitation only
and it was amazing to be therewith men of all ages.
Right, there were men in their20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s,
80s, who were engaged in theirown process of balancing, of the
desire to own and balance both,which I think really is the
(17:53):
work for all of us.
Neither one of them is right,neither one of them is wrong.
It's all about for what purpose, to what end.
Speaker 2 (18:03):
I think, simply put, a lot of times we try to be one
or the other and it's reallybeing a dance flowing from one
to the other as we operate inour day-to-day lives.
Is that it, yep?
Speaker 3 (18:18):
Yeah, almost like what I saw right then in my head
was actually doing it.
It's like the wave comes in andthen the wave retreats and
makes space Right soenergetically.
The sailboats behind me wouldhave a good time with that.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
I love this conversation so much I want to
win.
Females who tend to find me areusually like me in the sense
that I've did a lot of healingaround the masculine wound.
So, in your perspective, whatis the easiest or not easiest,
but what is the best way tostart the journey of healing
(18:58):
your wounds with the masculineenergy?
Speaker 3 (19:04):
Wow.
Well, I'm big on peoplestarting where they're at, so I
wouldn't prescribe trying to getto someplace else to start.
So whatever someone is presentto Like I didn't know.
When I saw in 1991, when mycolleague was called a frog
(19:28):
farmer as in turning princesinto frogs, and she rejected it
outright and my life flashedbefore me and I saw that I not
only that I was bringing out theworst in men, but I was so
happy to see that I was, becauseuntil then that's just who men
(19:54):
were Like they're scary, they'rejerks, I'll use a polite word.
They can't be trusted, theydon't care about what you need
or they're actively withholdingit.
They're not safe, not safe, notsafe, and they abuse power.
And so I was primarilyinteracting with men in fight
(20:20):
mode.
So, if you think of when weperceive an opportunity or we
perceive a threat, we react infight, flight or freeze.
In often a sequence.
My sequence is fight, and then,if that doesn't work, I freeze
to figure out a new way to fightand I go back to fighting.
It's not fight, freeze, fight,freeze, fight, freeze.
(20:40):
Right, with this look on myface like everything's fine, and
then, if I can't figure out away for it to work, I finally
just get the heck out of there.
I flee.
So how I mostly dealt with menin my 20s was was in this fight
mode that the my stepdad used tosay the best defense is a good
(21:03):
offense.
So I was on the offense likehand me your testicles and then
we'll talk Like just cut themdown from the very beginning and
see who stays in the ring, notknowing what I was doing, not
knowing how vulnerable men areto women, not knowing how they
(21:24):
everything we do to try to getthem to love us.
We don't have to do it.
They naturally love women, theynaturally have an awe of women
and the misogyny and theugliness that we see that, the
way they say it in men's work iswounded men you do wounding
(21:46):
things and if we can see that.
So you asked about where do youstart?
Where are you at right?
I was sure I knew why men didwhat they did.
The question popped into myhead what if men are responding
to women?
And then I started checking tosee and I checked with real men.
(22:08):
Did you do that because of this?
It seemed like legitimatereasons.
I was always wrong In thebeginning.
I was always wrong, but I, youknow, I would never do anything
for that reason, and noself-respecting man would.
What Women do things for thatreason all the time.
(22:32):
And so if someone's angry startwith the anger, if someone's
hurt, start with the hurt, andoften, if you look in either
direction you look at the hurtor you look at anger what we'll
see is, if we're willing to look, we'll see that we have
(22:55):
expectations and they didn't dowhat we expected them to do.
And then we assigned a reasonfor why they didn't do it, and
the reason we assigned hurt orthe reason we assigned enraged
us.
Oh, it's the patriarch you get.
(23:15):
Maybe it is, maybe it isn't,but does that really get you
anywhere?
Speaker 2 (23:28):
Oh, my God, I'm loving this so good.
In your view, our unresolvedmother or father wounds show up
and shape our abilities torelate to the polarity in our
partnerships.
Speaker 3 (23:44):
Excuse me, Aye, aye, aye.
Okay, I have to go way back.
I mean, I'm talking way back,I'm talking primordial.
So this is we have a programcalled Freedom from being
(24:07):
Ordinary and after the beginningof the year, people can
participate with me in it, in ajourney, which is I love
journeys where people watchvideos and then we interact and
we get to take it further thanit went in the video.
I always wanted to take itfurther than it went in the
video.
I always wanted to do a furtherthing and so, in freedom from
(24:30):
being ordinary, we look atordinary, what is ordinary, and
so, in answer to your question,I would propose and I build a
case for it in that course.
But I'll just cut to the chasewhat if?
What if?
Our immune system is based ondistinguishing is this me or not
(24:58):
me?
And if it's, if it decides me,it's let in, and there's all
kinds of conclusions.
If it's not me, it's rejectedor attacked.
So, like a sneeze A sneeze is anot me reaction Can you see
(25:18):
that it's an instant rejectionto something?
So what happens if you thinkabout our minds?
And this isn't just human, bythe way my dog does the same
thing, a cat does the same thing, that trees outside my window
do the same thing.
That's what I mean byprimordial.
Everything on the planet issorting is this me or not me, me
(25:43):
or not me, me or not me?
And then we take it from there.
So if we identify, for example,with our mother, that our
mother, I'm female, she's female, therefore we're alike I should
(26:04):
be able to trust I think I cantrust her to act like me, to
interact like me.
And then when she does it andhurt, well, my mother's imprint
passed down right, my mother.
I don't think there's any womanon earth my mother trusts.
(26:27):
My mother competes with everysingle human with a vagina and
it doesn't matter that she's 83years old, she still competes
and she still competes in thesame way that she did when she
was 20.
And so, depending, like,depending, if I identify with my
(26:52):
mother, I don't identify withmy mother, right, then there's
going to be wounds.
So my, one of my highest valuesis honesty.
It's truth and seeking truth,speaking the truth, revealing
the truth, uncovering the truth,standing by the truth.
Little t truth, right Like.
(27:15):
And my mom would say shelearned to lie starting at 13
years old and her default is tolie and I thought she loves me
so much she won't lie to me,right?
And that's again what we see.
If she loved me more, shewouldn't lie to me.
(27:36):
No, it's not personal.
Lying is a human behavior.
We have fight, lying, freeze,lying.
What I mean?
We have a thing.
What I mean lie?
We have a thing, called why menlie.
When women lie, basically,babies lie.
Even my horse used to lie to me.
(28:00):
Lying is concealing.
We get all upset that a man isconcealing from us.
Conceal is normal.
Conceal is normal.
Conceal is a default.
It doesn't mean anything.
So so mother-father wounds Onon a free.
(28:21):
I think they could have moreenergy because we give them more
energy.
But she's my mother, but he'smy father.
My father should have.
When I figured out, my fatherwas a man who had had the
gorilla of alcoholism on hisback since he was about 15 years
(28:43):
old, but it didn't define whohe was.
I just thought my dad was analcoholic.
No, my dad is a man who hasthis thing and instead of
interacting him alcoholic,alcoholic, alcoholic like my
mother did I started interactingwith him as a man, and what I
learned about men completelytransformed my relationship with
(29:06):
him.
I adore my father.
My father adores me Completelytransformed my relationship with
him.
I adore my father.
My father adores me, and he'snot the man who lived in the
house with us when my mom wasattacking him all the time.
So we're going to be wounded bywhat we it to and by how
(29:29):
personal we think it is, insteadof what if it wasn't personal.
What if our mothers were doingtheir thing?
Our fathers were doing theirthing?
What if they didn't intend tohurt us?
They didn't intend to neglectus, they didn't intend to
(29:53):
dishonor us, they didn't intendto project things onto us that
were gross to us?
And how could you ever thinkI'm like that?
What if they didn't mean to?
What if they were just beinghuman?
And is this making sense?
Like we can make those woundsbigger or we can go?
(30:16):
Well, wait a second.
What if there's no intent in it?
What if they were just scared?
And do you know what the hellthey were doing?
And they're doing the best theycould in a circumstance where
it was.
I mean, my mother was 19 yearsold, with three children under
the age of four I was 19 yearsold, yes and a husband who was
(30:43):
four years older in his nightstage.
You know.
They knew if the surf was outhe wouldn't be on time to work
and they accepted it because hewas a brilliant mechanic.
That would scare the pucky outof you.
With three kids and being a kidyourself, you know All right
(31:07):
what kids and being a kid-yourself.
Speaker 2 (31:08):
You know all right what.
For me, this totally makessense, because it's like we have
to remember our parents,whether they've done something
that you may or may not agreewith.
There's the means, at the endof the day, and they're on their
own human journey of learninglessons as they go.
Speaker 3 (31:29):
Yeah, when my daughter was pregnant with my
first and so far only grandchild, I was interviewing
grandmothers that I admired,which are my boyfriends to older
sisters, and Shay said to meAllison, what it comes down to
is, if you loved being a mother,you'll love being a grandmother
(31:51):
.
And I just like what was rightthere was.
I don't think my mom everwanted to be a mother.
I don't.
I don't think my mom ever chosebeing a mother.
What, really, the one thing Iwanted to get out of this life
(32:14):
with was being a mother.
It was a privilege to me to bea mother and everything I did as
a mother flowed out of that.
Everything she did as a motherflowed out of a different place.
Not right or wrong, but wow,okay.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
I love this conversation so much.
So how can women begin todistinguish between trauma
response and authentic feminineessence when engaging with men?
Speaker 3 (32:48):
Wow, it feels good.
This is one of my favoritethings about men, okay, and have
(33:10):
you ever read making sense ofmen, the book that I wrote,
making sense of men?
Okay, so it's.
It's the research that wentinto finding out what are the
four most attractive qualitiesthat has a man want to have sex
(33:33):
with a woman, versus the fourmost attractive qualities that
have a man want to take care ofher, contribute to her, protect
her, make her life better, fallin love with her, want to be her
mentor or her husband or herbig brother.
What was awesome to me and andif we can lean into this, it
(33:58):
could change everything that thesecond most attractive quality
is authenticity.
That men crave real.
They crave real.
They put up with pretense, butit gives them the heebie-jeebies
they're just like really, do wegotta?
(34:20):
And when men talk about womenbeing authentic or real, I swear
I don't think I've ever heardit and we're talking hundreds of
men.
I don't think I've ever heardthem say authentic or real about
a woman without using the wordcourage.
(34:41):
When a woman has the courage tobe real, when she has the
courage to be direct, when shehas the courage to be real, when
she has the courage to bedirect.
When she has the courage to beauthentic.
Doing that, she has the courageto say straight out what it is
that she needs.
They they think that is awesome, right, it has them feel
(35:02):
respected.
It has them feel respected, ithas them feel honored.
It has them be in awe of her,and a trauma response isn't
authentic.
A trauma response is going tobe some kind of fight, flight or
(35:22):
freeze, some kind ofmanipulation.
We're trying to controlsomething in a certain way to
protect ourselves, which isnatural, but also why it matters
so much to do the work to healand restore and release all that
(35:42):
stuff.
Extreme freedom is all aboutthat.
I don't have you done extremefreedom?
Not, yet I need to, oh my gosh.
Okay, when you do, feel free touse the tools in what you do
because they're they're.
The only credit I would take isthat freedom is mine for noble
(36:08):
quality and the truth does setyou free.
So now you got my top two andthese, these.
There's things that I logicallyfigure out.
There's things that I'vestudied.
There's things that people saidthat I've been surprised and
I've chased down, and thenthere's just the things that
come through Like it feels likethey're using me to force
(36:32):
themselves into the world.
This must be known and I'llwatch videos of myself and I
don't know what that Allison issaying and extreme freedom.
That whole course is.
This must be known, must beknown, must be known.
(36:53):
And even session five, there's ahandout called Restoration
Requires and it says each, allor many of these, all of these
might need to be present inorder to be restored, in order
to be full and free again.
And there's a whole sectioncalled giving up the benefits of
(37:16):
being wounded or ashamed.
And there's so many benefits wetalked about it from the very
beginning right, using them tomake false boundaries, right,
instead of just no, you can't dothat.
But there's also belonging.
I mean, we have wound groupsand even within the group,
(37:40):
there's a competition for statuswho's the most wounded, status,
who who's the most wounded?
And I, yeah, so, and oh my gosh, there's why person more than
(38:10):
yours exactly?
And I mean we can, instead ofhaving a real boundary to
justify behavior, to belong andhave status, to even the, to get
the attention of a great story.
And you might notice, in ourcourses, like in Understanding
Sex and Intimacy, we don't letanybody ever tell a trauma story
Ever, because the our brainsare designed for survival, and
so when someone else tells atrauma story, the brain is
(38:33):
listening as if that happened tome and I've got to survive it,
and, and, and that's why thesestories, like they, create
neural pathways of and andtrauma is in the details, and so
we don't let anybody ever givedetails.
(38:54):
And, and I stopped givingdetails like so how did this all
start, alison?
I was 16 and something badhappened, and I decided that men
are bigger and stronger andthey'll hurt you.
That.
And I found out the opposite.
Yes, they are bigger andstronger, and 90, at least 95%
(39:17):
of them.
What they think the point ofthat is so that they can protect
you.
That's what the bigger andstronger is for is so that they
can protect us.
Who do they want to protect?
One man called it thethree-foot rule.
Another method anyone withinreach.
They don't have to like you.
They can be mad at you andthey'll still be compelled to
protect you.
(39:37):
It's who they really are, andso when we're authentic, instead
of like we're acting out theconclusions of our trauma and
punishing them with it becausethey belong to the gender of the
person who did that, then theyhave to protect themselves and
that brings out the worst inthem.
But when we're authentic aboutokay, like what I say in my
(40:01):
birth, like okay, I'm having ahumonger moment and I'm like
Kelly, what do you need?
And a few months ago I thankedhim, I said thank you for loving
me, and he said you're welcomeand I said thank you for loving
(40:27):
me even when I'm difficult.
That's the hard one, yeah.
Speaker 2 (40:41):
And he said.
He said, well, when you'redifficult, I love you even more,
because you seem to need that.
Aww, Aww but that.
Speaker 3 (40:57):
but he can respond because when I'm difficult, I'm
owning, I'm I'm prickly, I'mgnarly, I'm trying to own as
much of this as I can, right.
And then he has compassion forhow and men do that.
He has so much compassion forwatching us deal with the stuff,
(41:17):
because they have stuff too.
Speaker 2 (41:21):
Absolutely, absolutely, oh my gosh.
So, moving into the embodiedphase of this, what would we say
it feels like for when a womanis deeply in her feminine
essence and a man is in hismasculine?
Can you somehow point that outsomatically, if you could Listen
(41:44):
?
Speaker 3 (41:46):
All right.
So, hmm, for men in masculinestrength, masculine power, where
it shows up in their bodies isacross their shoulders, their
(42:12):
neck, their backs and their armsand their chest and so, like,
like, like.
When men have their armscrossed, we think that they're
closed.
They actually have their armscrossed because that's the
easiest way to support anenormous amount of physical
weight.
This is where their strength is.
(42:33):
This is where their strength is, this is where their weight is,
this is where their muscles are.
They're so heavy here.
And when a man is empowered,you will see it.
You will see it, instead ofcrust falling right, the crust
will rise.
So this place in our chest,which also is the, the location,
(42:59):
an unconditional love, locationin favor being ordinary, this
is where fire, which is yourspiritual sword, comes out.
So, power, masculine power here, and unfortunately, for the way
(43:20):
that we react to each other,when a man is happy, happiness
and power arise together,happiness and victory arise
together, and we're afraid oftheir power.
We're afraid of their power,we're afraid of their strength.
So a happy man actually mostnormal women will react to a
(43:47):
happy man by attacking him.
They want to take the wind outof their sails.
They'll criticize them.
They'll make a snarky comment,they'll roll their eyes, they'll
do something to take them downbecause it's scary.
We don't know how much men notonly intend to, but strive to
(44:08):
use their power for us.
And so when we are scared of itand we take it away for us, and
so when we are scared of it andwe take it away, now, they have
to protect themselves and theyturn into their worst and it
just, it just aye, aye, aye.
It just keeps going.
So, so yeah, physicallyembodied, a man in his masculine
power, it's, it's gonna show uphere, it's going to show up
(44:34):
here and it's going to show upin a blaze or even a twinkle in
his eye.
The twinkling shows up the moreas they evolve themselves which
is what men's work is all aboutthe twinkle shows up more and
more Stunning.
I've got to be in a room fullof men like this.
(44:58):
I'm 65 over there.
Yeah, it's amazing.
So that's where I came up withthat.
And then, for a woman, aye, aye,aye, okay.
There's a simple answer.
And then there's a more complexanswer, but embodied.
I love that.
The E's for embodied, becauseour instincts, human and
(45:23):
pre-human, they're embodied,they're hardwired and everything
that goes with them.
So if we perceive, if we'reunder any kind of stress, so the
perception of a threat or anopportunity we're under stress
(45:43):
only what's embodied is a viablechoice.
If you want to think of interms of neuroscience, only
what's embodied is an exit fromthe freeway or entrance to the
freeway that it can choose, thatthere's a neural pathway, and
so there's a lot of work to bedone between the brain and the
(46:07):
body to connect.
And specifically for feminineforms of power is what we call
it Feminine forms of power.
How they occur in the body isas a feeling, and this is why I
distinguish between emotionswhich I think are triggered
instinctually, like anger, forexample.
(46:30):
Anger is an energy emotion.
Somebody called emotions energyemotions.
So it travels, fear travels.
So one way to look at it wouldbe the difference between fear
which is going oh, I'm in a rushand dread.
Dread has a location.
Can you see it?
(46:53):
Dread actually had.
It's a feeling that lives inyour body in a particular place,
and you can feel dreadAbsolutely Okay Now.
So this is true for everything,and this is why we work so much
on what we call noble qualities.
(47:13):
So if you think of your highestvalues, notice as a feeling.
Where in your body iscompassion, what's its location?
And one of the and we do this.
We do this unconsciously, likewhen we realize, oh gosh, be
patient.
Like when we realize, oh gosh,be patient.
We'll unconsciously check thelocation in our body where we
(47:37):
feel patience, and we can evenmeasure how full we are with
that feeling.
Does this make sense?
Like, oh, I don't know thismuch patience or how many of
patience, and what I used tofocus on was making sure our
(47:58):
tanks were full.
Right, all our highest values,whatever they are, make sure
your tanks are full.
So get the human need met thatputs that feeling in your body,
wherever it's located.
Well, a few years ago, Istarted talking about
overflowing.
So this is where clarity comesin.
(48:21):
Right, we have to become, wehave to be clear about.
So what is my feminine self?
There's at least a hundredadjectives that could describe
feminine ways of being.
So which of those?
When you feel that way, youfeel like yourself.
(48:41):
You would describe this asmyself.
How Well, I'm being empowering,I'm dedicated to the truth, I
feel free to express myself, I'moffering partnership, I'm
practicing contentment in myspiritual practice.
I'm so myself right now.
(49:03):
But so when you put thosefeelings in your body, which has
to do with sleep and movementand nature and time with special
people and time alone.
And nature and time withspecial people and time alone, I
mean they're all really prettyplain human needs.
If we get enough of them, whichis also a key ingredient paying
(49:29):
attention to enough.
It doesn't have to be the idealamount.
We can end up where this is adifferent kind of self-care,
where you're overflowing asyourselves and your particular
flavor of yourself.
And I've never met I'veinteracted with thousands of
women about this I've never mettwo women who are exactly what
(49:53):
they define of themselves.
Would be the same qualities inthe same order, because the
order action matters.
So that's the long, complicatedanswer.
The short, complicated answer.
The short, simple answer wouldbe radiance.
When a woman is seated in herfeminine power, it's it's the
it's Seated in our femininepower.
(50:14):
It's it's the it's Home fromJapan said is there a beauty
that is every woman's birthright?
Yes, it's called radiance.
When we're in our femininepower, light and heat is coming
off of us.
And men are so sensitive toradiance, oh my gosh.
(50:41):
It's like food to them, it'snutrients to them.
And if they do something thatcauses a woman to lose her
radiance.
They're just like, oh no, andDan described it once.
(51:04):
He said I knew I'd donesomething because your face went
flat and I should have had mywent flat.
What and I?
How did my face go flat?
And I looked in the mirror like, hmm, you lost your flat.
Yeah, and like literally thecheeks, the glow, the all the
(51:25):
form that goes with me beinghappy and feeling able and
capable and powerful andspacious and gone, just so
Radiant.
Are you Radiant?
Speaker 2 (51:44):
I love this answer so much I'm going to try and make
this really quickly.
I will.
I'm too.
Speaker 3 (51:54):
We're going to have to wrap up.
Yeah, what's?
Speaker 2 (51:57):
going on.
So let's just go in and skip torise.
In this age of evolving genderroles, how conscious, how can
conscious feminine leaders callforward helping masculine
without emasculating them orbeing in dominant state?
Speaker 3 (52:36):
called Own your Ultimatums, and it has
everything to do with beingclear about what you won't live
with and you won't live without,and it applies to every context
.
As a mother, my not saying pickyour battles really matters.
(53:01):
And what my kids knew was thatI would not live without respect
Respect for me and respect foreach other and I would not live
without kindness.
And I would not live withoutkindness and I would not live
with meanness of any flavor.
(53:22):
My oldest daughter calls me themost ruthless person she knows,
and I would pursue kindnesswith ruthlessness.
I would pursue kindness withruthless, pursue respect with
ruthless.
I would enforce thoseboundaries and when we're not
(53:48):
clear about you, could call themdeal breakers, ultimatums what
we won't live with or without.
When we're not clear about it,and especially when we're not
clear about what it costs us,the price, how high the price is
.
The more we get clear about theprice of it, the more likely we
(54:11):
are to be true to it, to honorour own boundary.
And one of the ways that I putit is don't ask anybody else to
give you what you need untilyou've committed to what you
need.
And so, like our Smart Singlesprogram, which I just ended, the
one for this year.
Our Smart Singles program is allabout developing the clarity of
(54:35):
I am better off with a personwho's like this and I'm better
off without a person who isn'tlike this and just like not
fudging for but he's so cute,he's so rich, he's so what my
mother always wanted for me.
He has such high status.
(54:55):
He's so cute, he's so rich,he's so what my mother always
wanted for me.
He has such high status, he'sso important.
No, this is what I live withand this is what I live without.
And it's part of thatauthenticity that men love
thinking they love it when we'reclear and we're consistent,
that we don't sometimes say, no,you have to be that way, and
(55:17):
other times we let them be thatway.
That creates confusion, andit's one of the questions in our
partnership work, which is thehighest level of our work.
Are you contributing to clarityor confusion?
And you know we even start withit in our understanding men
course.
Are you a trusted source?
(55:39):
How do you become a trustedsource for a man?
Because facts come from trustedsources and most women aren't
trusted sources because they'reinconsistent.
You need to feed Por favor.
Speaker 2 (55:55):
Very true, and yet if we had the inconsistency from
men?
Speaker 3 (56:02):
we wouldn't tolerate it.
Well, but we do.
If they're really cute or wehave a lot of chemistry or we're
completely.
We think we're dependent uponthem or we're afraid of them.
We put up with all kinds ofthings and you know, I had to
(56:23):
come at it all these ways.
And why did men treat somewomen some ways and other women
other ways?
My boyfriend at the time I saidwhat are you looking for?
This is like about eight monthsinto studying men.
(56:44):
I'm like what are you lookingfor in a relationship?
What do you really want?
And God bless him, he was alsoa friend of mine and so he told
the truth.
He said truthfully I want to bein a relationship where the
woman is giving me everything Ineed while I provide nothing.
Speaker 2 (57:08):
So God provides, it brings him to the point.
Speaker 3 (57:12):
There is something to the point, but that was before
I learned.
What is it about us that givesmen this profound desire to
provide?
They don't want to providenothing.
They want to provide so much.
What is that?
Because it's part of beinghuman.
(57:33):
We're all providers and we wantto provide and we need to be
received from and we needquality information, so we're
not wasting our energy andresources on providing something
that someone's like thebullseye.
As we talk about understandingmen, they want to hit the
(57:55):
bullseye and they needinformation to hit the bullseye,
but as long as we think theyshould know what we need without
us having to tell them they'rein trouble, they miss all the
time and they quit okay, finalquestion before we wrap up what
is one piece of outdatedrelationship advice you believe
(58:17):
we need to release, to rise intoour partnerships today?
Don't call men.
We should release.
Don't call men, Don't initiate.
Now we definitely should notchase them, but invite.
(58:38):
Men need to be invited becausethey're so sensitive to us it
hurts to be rejected by us, andso when we invite them like the
message I left for I didn't knowhe was going to end up being my
husband for 26 years themessage I left for Greg was
(59:06):
thinking about you and I'mthinking we should be really
good friends or something.
If you think so too, you shouldcall me.
No time limit.
I love Watt.
Speaker 2 (59:19):
Because, set for the prime, we're almost expected to
leave the pressure on the guys.
And it's like well, sometimes,if you're interested, you might
as well make it known.
Speaker 3 (59:31):
Well, but interested, not like I want whoa.
What did that that remindyou're up, right, that's their
job.
What's wrong with the bras, bro?
Exactly when there was a, thereis a man on one of our panels.
Gosh, I wish we were.
We were filming in those days.
So imagine, like like a ryangosling in that movie.
(59:55):
Where is this really classy,well-dressed guy that even his
shoe was a turn on?
Do you know the movie I'mtalking about?
I think it's this.
He was beautiful, right, and hehe was.
He was all the things right.
And he picked the question if awoman is looking at you and
(01:00:20):
making eye contact with you, isthere a reason why you wouldn't
approach?
And he picked this question.
And we're thinking this guy, hewould approach anybody anytime.
He'd have to have so muchconfidence.
And he said, and he read thequestion, and he said if she
wasn't smiling?
And he goes and it's not justlike she's smiling at first.
(01:00:45):
So if she's smiling at me andthen I start to get out of my
chair, is she still smiling?
And then, when I take a step,is she still smiling?
And then I take a step, is shestill smiling?
If she isn't smiling on myentire approach, oh, what a
relief which, yeah, like sheliterally has to smile him all
(01:01:08):
the way to her.
Speaker 2 (01:01:11):
Oh, ladies, careful, if you have RBF.
Speaker 3 (01:01:15):
Oh yeah, I got that.
I wondered why people said Iwas intimidating, and then I
caught my face in the mirror andI was just relaxed and I was
really interested.
So each one of us, at least youknow put a little.
Speaker 2 (01:01:33):
A little bit of a something there.
Okay, I'm going to do a quickrapid fire round.
One word answers.
Speaker 1 (01:01:42):
Robo.
Speaker 2 (01:01:43):
What's your current mantra?
Speaker 3 (01:01:50):
It's both of you, sir .
Speaker 2 (01:01:53):
It doesn't have to be a bad one.
Speaker 3 (01:01:55):
I don't think my current mantra is Om, shanti,
shanti, shanti Om.
Speaker 2 (01:02:07):
Love it.
A book that changed your lifeoutside of your words.
Speaker 3 (01:02:13):
Outside of my book that changed your life, outside
of yours, outside of mine, abook that changed my life.
Oh gosh, I'm reading a book nowthat I know is going to change
my life and my work.
It's called Fierce and Tender,healing the Deep Masculine in
Men and Women.
And I met him.
(01:02:34):
His name is Denae MariaSebastiani, and what a privilege
.
And it's all about men's workand it's a memoir of his journey
.
And just the introduction, justthe introduction, the beginning
of it.
Like I wish all women couldread this.
Speaker 2 (01:02:56):
So good, yeah.
And then final on, what's oneword that describes your current
season?
My current, what Season?
Speaker 3 (01:03:06):
Season, season, definitely summer.
Ouch, what was your?
Speaker 2 (01:03:18):
Describes your current season.
So, For example, mine is bold.
Speaker 3 (01:03:25):
Oh, I thought you meant a season word Open.
Speaker 2 (01:03:35):
I love this.
It's been a pleasure having you.
Lastly, where can peopleconnect with you and just learn
all the greatness?
Speaker 3 (01:03:45):
Go to alisonarmstrongcom.
You can even spell it with twoL's, it'll still work.
Audible only has what I created20 years ago or more, so
everything I've done in the lasttwo decades is on our website.
Speaker 2 (01:04:07):
That'd be the place to go.
And is your main social?
Just Instagram.
Speaker 3 (01:04:14):
Well, I don't think of it as a social platform and
she can connect with you.
Well, youtube, youtube, alisonArmstrong videos is.
We have like 60 videos now,including one that for all,
whether dating or married.
It's called Chemistry andConnection and it debunks the
(01:04:39):
idea that chemistry is scarceand connection is scarce, and
having both is impossible.
And it teaches you where itcomes from and how to cause more
and less of whichever you wantmore or less of, how to cause
more and less of whichever youwant more or less of.
If you're being controlled byhaving too much chemistry so
you're a mini you can reduce it.
(01:05:00):
It tells you exactly how toreduce chemistry for somebody
who makes you stupid, or how doyou increase chemistry for
someone you think is such agreat person?
Speaker 2 (01:05:13):
but you don't have any chemistry for them.
Beautiful, well, I'm sure wewill get some lovely people
connecting with you.
I'm so honored to have you onthis episode again and for those
of you watching or listening tothis, please subscribe so we
can continue to bring onwonderful guests like allison
and until the next one.
Speaker 1 (01:05:29):
That is it for today thanks, anita thank you thank
you for rising with me today.
If this episode moved, youshare it.
Tag me at arise with anita andmake sure to subscribe so you
never miss a future activationand, if you feel called, leave a
quick review.
It helps more women find thespace and rise into their power.
(01:05:52):
Your next level is alreadywaiting.
Now go claim it.
I'll see you in the nextepisode.
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