Transcription
If I'm not bringing out the worst in men, can I swear? Is it okay to swear? God damn it. Go ahead. Well, if I'm not bringing out the worst in men, then they are in fact [ __ ]. And if this is who men were, then I was doomed.
So the idea that I was bringing out the worst in them, I came to think of it as that my attitude was like being surprised. Like if someone kicks a dog and the dog bites or kicks a dog and the dog runs away and they think, you know, that dog's an [ __ ]. That is how women interact with men. It's not popular to defend men nowadays. And it's not popular to hold women accountable for their behavior. And oh, let me just ask you, how do you think we got to this place where we've been for some time where everything is the man's fault and nothing's ever the woman's fault? Cuz I'd say probably for the last 20 years because no more Mr. nice guy's been out about 25 years.
People have been saying, "Do you know who Allison Armstrong is?" And it's funny when they mention you, it's almost it's this in reverence, right? Almost like you are this goddess. um and said because she's a woman teaching a lot of the same things that you're teaching and she's teaching them to women and and and so I've had your books in my Kindle for years and um when when you know you agreed to come on the call I thought okay I'm going to read them now and I have been I've been reading them and I've been loving them and and you know I don't know that we're like just mirror images of each other but you know we both teach you you're teaching women I'm teaching men basically take responsibility for your experience in life and and and let's you know quit blaming this on other people. And so I'm I'm really loving uh reading your material, hearing these things about you uh about how you feel about men and women, their interactions. So how did back in 1991 did you get interested in these kind what what what got you looking at this kind of stuff?
But one of the reasons I said yes to doing this now is because I'm working on the sequel to The Queen's Code. And which I always knew there would be a sequel, but to my great surprise, the sequel is The King's Code. Oh, yeah. It's blowing my mind. um So have you read The Queen's Code yet? I am. I haven't completed it. I did read um the your other book about men. Uh what's the name of it?
You tell us. Well, so we have Making Sense of Men, which that's the one I've read. I've completely read that one. Okay. That's the only non-fiction book I've ever published. And I specifically published it to get through to Oprah Winfrey, who for some reason, it doesn't matter how many people tell her about me, she can't remember being told about me. So I see everybody tells me about you and I remember that. So Oprah so you wrote a non-fiction book just to get on Oprah just to get her attention because be because Oprah's organized around empowering women. And so this book was was was specifically in that way called Making Sense of Men: A Woman's Guide to a Lifetime of Love, Care, and Attention from All Men. And that came after we had published Keys to the Kingdom, which Keys to the Kingdom is the literally the prequel, like Star Wars. It's the prequel to The Queen's Code. The Queen's Code was the book I realized I needed to write in 1992 because I was just blown away by what I'd learned about men. And that was completely different than what I was taught or that I saw everywhere in our culture, right? And I had to get the word out. And so so how come I ask is because what happens in the first chapter of the Queen's code I have read that. Okay. That happened to me. It was the frog the frog farmer thing the frog farmer.
My colleague made this announcement in a landmark seminar just like challenging why are men wonderful in the beginning and then turn into sports eating sports watching pizza eating beer belching couch slugs why is that she made that challenge and the landmark trainer I I was watching very closely she's standing right next to me and I expected him to get defensive and instead he leaned into it. He loved that question and he was the one that sauntered up to her purposefully checked her out as in as antagonized way as he possibly could cuz she led with sexuality and and he said, "Oh, I see you're a frog farmer." And and she and there's like gasps around the room. There about 200 people there and she's like, "A what?" And then he explained, "Some women turn frogs into princes. You, my dear, turn princes into frogs." And then he he literally just like shrugged his shoulders and turned around. She stuck. That was it. She stuck her tongue out at him. Very mature. Very mature feminine behavior. Very very mature. Yeah. And this is a woman that um I worked with. She worked part-time. She didn't make very much money. And when I was, she said she was broke and I said, "I'm, you know, do do you need help? Do you need money?" And she said, "Oh, no. I'll just date a lot." And she literally would have a breakfast date, a lunch, dinner date. She just used dating to fill in for her budget. And it was, oh my gosh. um And I had been separated, was divorcing from my husband. I had a a two and a half year old son, but my life flashed before my eyes when he said that. And I I saw all these frogs with little human heads. And they were all my 10 day to two week ex-boyfriends and my and my ex-husband and the relationship that I just jettisoned. And and I just knew it was true that that I was turning princes into frogs. And I was elated. I was so excited because I'd been part of transformation since I was 19 years old. Now I was 30 years old. And it everything I learned about personal responsibility was making no difference in my relationships with men. And the idea that I was doing something that brought out the worst in men, well, I could transform myself. I'd done it again and again. I tried to change men and it didn't go well. It always went badly. So, I I was really excited because my mind made the leap that if I'm not bringing out the worst in men, can I swear? Is it okay to swear? God damn it. Go ahead. Well, if I'm not bringing out the worst in men, then they are in fact [ __ ]. And I'd been in love with men since I was 10 years old. And if this is who men were, then I was doomed. So, the idea that I was bringing out the worst in them was so exciting to me. And and after a while, I came to think of it as that that my attitude was was like being surprised. Like if someone kicks a dog and the dog bites or kicks a dog and the dog runs away or kicks a dog and the dog bites and then runs away and they think, you know, that dog's an [ __ ]. That is how women interact with men. That that you should be able to handle and you should put up with anything I throw at you and you should be wonderful to me. And and if you if you flee, then you're chicken. If you fight, then you're violent. If you shut down, then you're emotionally unavailable. And those are all natural reactions to being attacked. And some women know they're attacking men. They attack men on purpose. Most women don't know how much of what's natural in an interaction with women is an attack to a man. They don't know that. And so that's how it all started. I had three men who I got along just fine with because all I needed them to do is pay me for my time. I was their cheerleader and their sounding board. And they were the ones that I started this studying men. This question popped into my head in in the seminar. What if men are responding to women? And and it's gone from there. I have literally been guided by questions popping into my head since February of 1991. And they're brilliant questions. And I thought they came from my brain. And a couple years ago, I realized, no, no, no. I am so guided by higher consciousness and these questions drop in. What if there's a good reason for that? What if what if everyone only does what's important enough to rise to the top? So, we should find out what's important to people, right? What if no one's misbehaving, including you? I mean, all these things have popped into my head and I've just followed the trail. And honestly, my attitude towards men, I thought it would take 2 or 3 months to learn everything that was worth knowing about these shallow, intellectually questionable, pretty sure they didn't have any souls. For sure knew I couldn't hurt them because they didn't have any feelings anyhow. So, so, so we didn't we didn't even qualify as sentient beings then. You were definitely a lesser form of human than women. Wow. Yeah.
Is that is that common? I mean, is that is that really how most women feel about men? Because I do know you're bucking the trend and and you know, it's not popular to defend men nowadays and it's not popular to hold women accountable for their behavior. And let me just ask you, how do you think we got to this place where we've been for some time where everything is the man's fault and nothing's ever the woman's fault? How how do we get there to where that's almost the, you know, the conventional wisdom and accepted wisdom and and to say anything different, which you are, is is heresy. I'm sure you've gotten your your share of flack.
Well, it it began in 1995 when we started the workshop celebrating men, satisfying women. And we started that workshop so by teaching women what I learned about men, they could teach me how to write the book because I knew I needed to write a book that women couldn't escape with their existing point of view. That if I just told them what I learned about men, they would do what I did in the beginning, which is I used it against men. I became more manipulative. I was more effective. I could attack men more in a more exacting way. The more I learned about you, the worse I was. And I left out because 6 months into it, I was called on the carpet by the only woman whose life I wish I had. She's the only person I would have listened to. And she walked me through all the ways she had seen me. And she used the word castrate. And in the Queen's Code, we use that word. And it's a harsh word, but I like the word emasculate now because if you look just technically you could only castrate a man once. You can emasculate. That's good news. I hope so. That's good news. But you can emasculate him from dawn to dark. And but why why why do women want to do that? I mean, again, how did we get to this place? How do we get together of women hate hating on men and wanting to castrate them and wanting to make them bad and that becoming a almost universal meme that how do we get there? I mean, I'm I'm actually curious because I'm a study of human nature as you and I believe in a muse as well. I'll sit and write or I'll stand up to speak and things come out of my mouth that I never even thought of before and so I know there's something happening. I agree with you 100%. Yeah.
But I curious keys of the kingdom and keys of the kingdom and the queen's code are channeled. I wrote keys of the kingdom. I typed keys of the kingdom. I was watching a movie. I typed it in eight days. There's this movie playing. These characters were doing all these things. The Queen's Code, it took three weeks. 96,000 words. It took three weeks to type it. The same thing has happened with the King's Code. I just I'm washing dishes and like watching movie previews and Oh, and then Oh, and Oh. Oh, and Oh, that's going to turn out good. Yeah. Oh, it's Yeah. It's It's I It makes me cry. It makes me laugh. But I So, you've asked a couple different questions and so I'm going to finish part because I want to say where here is before I say where I think how we got here. Okay. And so what I had to distinguish to get to the bottom of women taking men down, um, which after it was pointed out to me and I and I I got that as long as I was taking men's power, I would never know my own. Mhm. I could see it that every time I took a man's power, I'd have a moment of glee, but that it just reinforced my own sense of weakness that I that I didn't have enough power to deal headon, to be honest, to let alone be in partnership. Are you kidding me? And so when I laid down my sword, I I was stunned because I set out to learn how I was bringing out the worst in men and maybe how I could bring out the best in men. And when I just stopped attacking, just stopped. Every every time I was triggered, I just I just sat down with a grenade that it seemed like a man would, you know, show up late with a wrinkled shirt. He might as well have just given me a pistol. I'd always shot it. And I just I just set him down. I didn't attack no matter how I was provoked. And I was stunned at who men became around me. I wasn't doing anything nice. I just wasn't being mean anymore. And a woman who was in a landmark seminar with me for for in a 10-week ceremon seminar after I gave up casting men, she called me on the phone and said, "I've been watching you and you can't possibly be sleeping with all of them. So, what do you know about men that I don't?" And that was that was the beginning. And I I called it the transformation of the castration club. And I would I would find out there there three parts. I'd find out what triggered a woman to emasculate a man. What was her trigger? And now I know almost all the triggers. And then I'd find out how they did it. So how did they attack his power? Try to take his power, undermine him, take the wind out of his sails. There's all these expressions for him. Yeah. And then most importantly, which may sound weird, but most importantly is how they justify having done that. What triggers it, how they do it, and how they justify that. And so the Queen's Code, our workshop celebrating men's satisfying women, which became the Queen's Code, which became the Understanding Men online course. We don't ask women to stop emasculating men. It's it's a a response. It's a it's a fear. and frustration. It's a reaction to fear and frustration. Sometimes terror, a lifetime of terror. And this this terrible fear that if men have power, you obviously you're going to use it against us. And and the hard thing about trauma is it only takes a big brother like I had to use his even the length of his arm that he could hold my head and keep me from fighting him. Right? It it only takes one man to have a trauma at the cause a trauma at the right time to think that's who all men are. Right? I was 16 years old when I decided men are bigger and stronger and they'll hurt me. And I adopted the best defense is a good offense. And it was just like hand me your balls and then we'll talk. And I used everything. I I used my sexuality. I used my intellect. I used my sense of humor. I used everything to protect myself from men, right? But I didn't know I was doing it. And and so we what we ask women to do in our programs is to give up the right because women believe they have the right that anything any man has done that's bad gives us the right to emasculate all of you. Anytime a man's used his power against us gives us the right to take every man's power. It's it's hideous. It it it it's hideous. And guys, you can become impervious to it. That's my message. If you look the dragon in the eyes and see how terrified she is, you can lean into it. And and and we're terrified. And so and it's how we interpret men's behavior based upon what a woman would have done. And most women don't even know they're doing it. So we ask women to give up justifying emasculating men. Now, I know men are horrified to find out that women think they do have the right to emasculate men. So, what? You're just asking them to give up the right? Where did they get it in the first place? It's it's given to each other. And like in the Queen's Code, it's even considered in the culture of women that if a woman is not taking a man down, she she's a slacker. She's endangering all of us by letting that man run around full of himself.
How do women communicate that to each other? I mean, what what's going on when you guys go to the bathroom at dinner and leave us guys at the table? Is that what you're doing? Talking about, you know, how to take us down and and don't don't be slacking. Oh, we don't. No, it's a it's a there's a there's a scene in the Queen's Code where where one of the insurance salesmen walks in and he's so stoked because he made this big sale and one of the processors is like, "You're still behind on your quota." And another's like gh, you know, like they just there's just this just flatten him. He's too full of himself. Flatten him. Yeah.
And the thing that the thing that women don't know and I'm so sorry I'm so sorry men one of the things I've had to pay attention to is the difference in where our feelings reside and we don't have feelings in the same place which is why it's so tricky it's so confusing and I distinguish between emotions which is energy and motion they move they travel so like fear and chemistry, that's energy and anger, that's energy and motion. Whereas feelings, feelings for women, you could think of it, we have a stack of pancakes in the middle of our chest. And a man said, "Why do women make their feelings the center of everything?" And I was shocked. It's like, "We don't make them the center of everything. They they already are the center of everything. We've got sadness, joy, happiness, compassion, love. Like, it's all a stack of pancakes right here. And and and men, you you have a whole different setup. You have happiness and power and anger overlaid in your neck, your your clavicle, your shoulders, your arms, and out your hands. And and when it's an overwhelming feeling, it does go down your arms and out your hands. And it's the source of it's the source of the high five. Did a high five, you know, a high five or the the hitting the hitting the hoop on the basket or whatever, spiking the ball, that extreme happiness. And it's the source of punching a wall, which of course women don't understand that either. And we illuminate that in the Queen's code, you know, like he's such he's such a jerk. He punched the wall and and Claudia's like, "Would you be willing to look at it from another point of view?" And for those who don't know, Claudia is the grandmother teacher in the Queen. It for those who don't know, it's a novel, right? Is I I would I'm I'm far enough into it. I would call it a romance novel even though it's not your typical so romantic. So romantic. Yeah.
Well, here's here's why I call it a romance novel. I read one or two romance novels a year just to understand how women think and experience and because they all follow the same formula. You know, yours is following a little different formula. what what I get out of I remember I was reading 50 Shades of Gray years ago and I was also reading the Count of Monte Cristo at the same time and I was taking reading one chapter of one then one chapter of the other and 50 Shades of Gray is one of the worst written books I've ever read and Count of Monte Cristo I just couldn't wait to get back to the Count of Monristo but what what I find in the romance novels and I'm seeing it in the way you just you you're an amazing writer because I'm I'm watching the women having interaction, you know, the young women with Claudia, with each other, with their friends, and I'm reading this going, "Do women really analyze every god damn interaction going on around them? Wonder what it's really about? What you know, look for the pretense of it? Look for the pretext of it. Look for what's not really being said. Analyze it. How does it relate? Every always relates to them. Because like when I was reading reading Fifty Shades of Gray, the two things I I can't I said this is a terrible written book, but women bought 50 million copies of it. But I thought women could relate to it because the woman constantly questioned why could this amazing man want me? I mean, it was just constant her head all the time. How could he possibly want me? And the other one was, I love everything he does to me. How can I change him? And that was just constant through the book. And so when when I read romance novels, it I guess the thing I always take away is the glimpse inside of women's head is that they're just analyzing everything all the time. And that must be a burden. That must be painful and overwhelming. So even so far just even just reading the Queen's code, I'm just because you write it well. Every interaction one woman has with the other woman, with another woman, with they analyze every single aspect of that. So they're doing that to to us guys as well, right? They're analyzing every what does that really mean? What did he mean by that? Oh, he did something nice. There must be some ulterior motive. My you know that no good deed goes unpunished. Yeah. I can't tell you how many nice things I've done for women and they got mad at me and accused me of something and told me that I was really just doing it because X Y and Z. And I'm going, I just [ __ ] wanted to do something nice for you cuz that's how I am. and and yet and then I get punished for doing something nice because of their analysis of it. That and that that goes on all the time in their heads, right? Is that what what am I am I close based on on what I get out of your book and the romance close and it you're close and it can be simpler.
Okay, help me. um And I think like an engineer, so I'm always breaking things down to the moving parts and then figuring out a better way to put it together. So um first yeah you're talking to about 35 plus engineering types so this will awesome so first I just about the queen's code thank you for acknowledging the quality of the writing I didn't write it I typed it I I watch a movie I hear their thoughts and I I think we're all in our own blind spot and and so that's why there's eight different points of view in the in at the beginning of each section that the word in caps the name in caps is whose point of view you're looking from now and you can see how much how much like the women do not know how they occur to the men at all and and the thing that happens this is the this is the crux of ity. um, oh boy, it goes all the way back to all these roots. But the the point is that most men women when they look at a man, they see a kind of woman, a hairy woman, as you say, a hairy misbehaving woman who knows the right thing to do and purposely is doing something else. So, and because of that stack of feelings here, right? Like you you had put up the quote about until we notice our thoughts, they think us. Well, for women, until we gain an awareness and discernment of our feelings, that's what we act upon. They they feel you. They they feel you. And the the thing to know is that what we project onto men is that that your actions are compelled by your feelings. And if I can get you to feel the right way about me, then you'll act the right way towards me. And the right way is what a woman would have done. an idealized. Yeah. As you say, a perfect woman including perfect woman. So the standard that you are being judged and condemned by is what a perfect woman would have done in that situation. And if you didn't do that, you must not love me enough. You must not care about me enough. And you must not respect me enough. And as Claudia points out in the Queen's Code, we're not done there. We're like, why don't you love me enough to act right? Why don't you care about me enough to act right? Why don't you respect me enough to act right? And then it comes back to what's wrong with me? What am I too much of? What am I not enough of? And and and you know, the women are resisting this. Karen and Kimberly are resisting this like crazy, especially Karen. And and then she shows them, so how do we know what's wrong with us? We compare ourselves to an idealized woman, right? We compare you and we compare us. We compare children. We compare parent. Everything is compared to these ideals. And we're just sure if I could change myself enough so you would love, care, or respect me enough, then you would take out the trash. I mean, it really comes down to I I I you know, I've been a marriage therapist for over 40 years, so I've listened to a lot of stories and, you know, even like, you know, I'd be in a a room with a couple and, you know, the woman would make a statement that apparently the guy did not agree with the factuality of it. And one thing I try to teach men, women make an emotional statement, guy hears it as a factual statement, guy argues the facts, woman feels unheard and unloved. And guys will say, "How do you know if it's an emotional statement?" And I'll go, "Because it's going to sound batshit crazy to you, and you're going to want to argue it." That's how you know it's an emotional statement, not a factual one. But I've had, you know, women would say, you know, if the guy disagreed with the woman's version of something in the relationship and and she would go, "I feel completely invalidated and unheard." And I go, "You're talking to two guys, your husband and me. You're going to have to tell us what does that mean to you when you say you feel unvalidated and unheard just because he doesn't agree with your view of the world." And and you know that that's always amazing to me that my my second wife if I disagreed with her opinion on anything whether or not a song was good, a movie was good, she thought I was either stupid or lying because how could I not agree 100% with her? I either must be stupid for not agreeing with her or I must be lying because there's no other explanation of why we might have differing opinions. and and you know and and I've seen so many of those patterns and and I I I like how clearly you pointed out that the woman while it looks like she's measuring us guys and finding fault, she's really beneath all that measuring herself and finding fault. And she feels like if I was just lovable enough, as you say, he'd take out the garbage. If I was just lovable enough, he would agree with my version of the story. if I would just, you know, love well enough, fill in the blank. And and I I think that's something that we men do need to know and understand cuz I I've been sharing something with these guys. I'm I'm I'm in my third marriage and I love my wife dearly and and she's a strong woman. She's had her she's had more trauma than any woman should ever go through. Born in poverty, eight out of 10 kids in Guadalajara, Mexico with an alcoholic father who never supported the family. just all kinds of trauma. And she's the most generous, openhearted, loving woman. And like all women, something goes on in her head, something goes on in her stack of pancakes, she'll withdraw or she'll get that look in their face or she'll get quiet or, you know, she'll get rigid and doesn't respond to my touch. And used to be I would project my story on that. I haven't done anything wrong. Why is she mad at me? And I've started I've been switching that for a while now. And now whenever I sense my wife is not happy, not open, not what, whatever, instead of trying to guess what it is, I just assume my woman's either not feeling sufficiently loved by her man, my woman's not feeling sufficiently connected to her man, or my woman's not feeling sufficiently safe or secure with her man, and is there anything I can do about any of those three things? And then usually it's just me just showing up, getting present, bringing her into the now, being a little bit physical in a very loving, conscious way. But it's it's helpful to to know for us men to know what's going on in the woman's head or her feelings when we think she's just punishing us, you know, she's just lashing out at us. She's just withdrawing us. She's trying to hurt us. And it's good to it's good to know that they're hurting and because they're feeling less than lovable. And as as you say for I guess in the feminine mind if they're not perfect they're not lovable.
[Music] Hey, [Music] hey, hey.