Transcription
Uh, it's one of the hardest things for women to understand because estrogen configures a different brain. We literally do not ha know how to interact with a committed state of mind and testosterone configures your brain for a committed state of mind. And the moment you commit, it literally screens out everything it thinks is irrelevant.
Welcome to Bridging Connections with Brian Reeves. There we go. We're off and running. Welcome to Bridging Connections, the podcast formerly known as Men This Way. I am your host, Brian Reeves. Brian with a Y Reeves. And alongside me as co-host is my lifelong childhood best friend of over 40 years, Tate Erand. Tate, welcome to your show as always.
Today we have a very, very special guest, Allison Armstrong. uh a brilliant woman whose work I first came across uh around 15 years ago when I first started actively learning about how to do relationships well. I was 36 and I was finally beginning to really get that I actually sucked at relationships. Like I was just starting to realize that there were secrets to love and intimacy that should never be secrets. Like someone should have let me in on those secrets. and Allison Armstrong was one of the first teachers who began to actually invite me in.
Allison is a visionary educator and one of the foremost voices in understanding the dynamics between men and women. Her groundbreaking work has transformed how we view relationships, masculinity and femininity, offering profound insights into the human experience. So whether you're looking to strengthen your approach and skills in relationship, whether you're curious about your own developmental journey or you're just fascinated by what makes us tick, this is going to be a good conversation. Right, Tate? Right, Allison. This is going to be amazing. I'm so excited for this. So, let's dive in.
Welcome to the show, Allison Armstrong. So honored to have you. Thank you. I'm glad to be here. Thanks for what you guys are up to. Seriously, so needed. So very Thank you.
Well, before we started recording, you know, Tate uh uh pointed out this this observation that I think he and I lived without for many years, which is we have a lot of olders, but not a lot of elders. And you know, we've been starving. I mean, this podcast was born out of the longing to connect with elder wisdom in the world. And so to be able to speak with you, you know, Allison, you've you've been in just on the journey of life, you figured some out. I don't know if you would necessarily frame it that way, but uh you know, we're just truly honored to have you here to sit at the the feet of an elder. We're grateful. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
So So let's start here. As I shared in in my intro, I started listening to your work 15 years ago or so. So that I'm third I'm 50. So that puts me, you know, mid mid-30s, mid to late 30s. You were the first person, Allison, that I ever really heard say, "I love men." You know, living in a world where we men do get kind of beat up, especially in this modern age, you know, we've we've been a lot of us grew up with moms that were angry at men and understandably, right? Understandably. And I'd never really heard anyone, especially not a teacher, really embrace the heart of men. It was it was a kind of a revelation. So, I'm just curious. Let's let's start here. Like, tell us about how your own journey to understanding and loving men unfolded for you.
Oh, goodness. Okay. It would help me if I knew. Have you read or listened to The Queen's Code? I've I've read The Keys to the Kingdom. Okay. I don't remember. I I may have listened to The Queen's Code years ago, but I The Keys to the Kingdom definitely. Okay, so Keys to the Kingdom is the prequel to The Queen's Code. And The Queen's Code is the book that I knew I had to write and I didn't know how that had us 30 years ago this month start our workshops for women called Celebrating Men Satisfying Women. I wanted to teach women what I had found out about men. That was astonishing to me. I wanted to teach them so they could teach me how to teach them. So in the struggle to teach them that I would learn how to teach them so that I could learn how to write the book that would convey all this miraculous information that I had discovered about men are so not who women think they are and and so much good news. But I wanted to convey it in a way that wouldn't just give women information because little did I know when I started studying men in 1991 in the background it wasn't conscious in the background was know thy enemy and as I was listening very carefully to two men that these days you would call me a coach I thought of me as their committed listener they were three men entrepreneurs different ages different stages in life and in their businesses, all single. And because I wasn't involved with them romantically, I didn't need anything from them. I could be curious about them. I could care about what they cared about. I could focus on what's one of my highest values. I could focus on empowering them by the way that I interacted with them. And so in 1991 when I found out that I was a frog farmer, which is part of the first chapter of the Queen's Code, one of the main characters finds out she's a frog farmer. And in other words, instead of turning frogs into princes, I was turning princes into frogs. H. Now, at the time that I found that out, I was 30 years old and I was sure that men were well, I'm going to say jerks because I didn't clear ahead of time how much I could swear. It all goes here. It's all welcome here. It all goes well. I thought men were Yes. Word. And I was sure that men were conmen, that they that they were charming and wonderful in the beginning and then after they knew they'd caught you, they would change. And I decided that what they changed into, which I didn't like at all, was who they really were. And the rest was just a friend. And when my colleague was called a frog farmer and with this strong implication, she was bringing out the worst in men, I got so excited. I mean, I didn't been involved in transformation since I was 19 years old, and I knew I could transform myself. I had tried to change men. It did not work. And it was just some women really hate my work. And you'll see like responses to interviews and stuff like that on YouTube. Why is it all up to us? Why do we have to change? Why do we ecstatic because I knew I could change me? So, if I'm bringing out the worst in men, that means they're not as bad as I think they are. So, h how am I bringing out the worst in them so that I can stop? And maybe I'd learn a little bit about bringing out the best in men. That was like I had this tiny hope that maybe I could become the opposite of what I knew I was in that moment. And I didn't recognize this actually until a few years ago. I have been literally guided from that moment. And how it happens is these questions are pop into my head. What if men are responding to women? And I've learned over the last almost 34 years that the questions are very specific. It's not how are men responding to women, right? Or men are responding to women. What if men are responding to women? And thank goodness it was that question because I had nothing to prove. I just became curious. What if? Then what if that would illuminate why men that I thought were proven had wives who were happily married to them? Like so how were they responding to her versus how they responding to me? And this was the beginning of listening. I first thing I had to do is start is learn to listen to men which is one of the first things I try to teach to women. If you really want men to reveal, to divulge, to give you the full answer, you have to shut up. And not shut up like yada yada yada, whatever. Mansplain, mansplain, mansplain, which broke my heart when I first heard that term. Um, no, actually be curious and do what we always say we want men to do. Just listen, right? Just listen and listen for what's important to him, what's true for him, what's real for him, what matters to him. There's so many better questions to listen with. Um, it's and it's I think one of the most important things that I've done. It's called Lux and we recorded it five years ago and it's all about one of the few things that we have a say in and that is what is the filter and mostly how human beings automatically filter we never hear each other. We mostly listen with is that true for me? Do I agree with that? What do I want to say about that? What do I think about that? And if you want to find out what people are listening with, just pay attention to what they how they interrupt. Well, what I know about that is this. Well, that's how they were listening. That's not true for me. That's how they were listening. I don't agree at all. That's how they were listening. People reveal because the conversation they're really having with themselves brings up something that they've got to interrupt with. Right? So, I had to learn to not interrupt. And we call it waiting for the wow. We teach women to, you know, ask only ask questions you're willing to wait for the answer for. Just only only if it's not that important to you that you'd wait maybe days for the answer don't ask um and and and wait don't refrain don't give options wait for it I'm precise and I think like an engineer and I'm compelled to quantify most men come in at about 18 seconds unless of response to a question yes after asking the question 1 1000 2 100 thousand. Most women will interrupt you after giving you a question. They'll interrupt and restate the question maybe five seconds. And because they don't know, they don't know what I found out, right? That o the opposite of what women believe about men that you're non-committal. You're naturally committal. So, I ask you the question. The first thing you're doing is committing to the question or realizing you can't. I can't answer that right now. You can't commit to the question. Commitment takes time. Takes a lot of time, ladies. It takes a lot of time. And think about your title, bridging connections. Oh my gosh, so many things. So, we got to wait. That's a whole lesson, just waiting. So, I had to learn to wait.
And then well I want to just Allison I just want to speak speak to that for a moment because that's something that you know my wife and I work together almost 10 years and it's something it's a theme that has definitely come up and we've we've talked about um you know this the well that you you speak of like when she asks me a question yeah I I take her question seriously. I don't I don't just take it unseriously. I take it seriously. I want to make sure that the answer I give is has integrity to it which requires that I go internal for a time to really explore and especially if she's asking me like feeling questions you know like she'll often ask me uh you know are you excited for XYZ and I have to like sit okay well am I excited like I have to ask my I have to check in am I really excited well why would I be excited why wouldn't I be excited like I have to really explore the answer and I think what happens happens for a lot of men is we get frustrated because the patience isn't there for our response, right? So after a time I'm just conditioned to be like, "Look, you don't want my answer anyway, so I don't give a shit." It's a tragic spiral, you know, downward downward spiral into disconnection really in the end. Yeah. Why should I commit to your question when you're not even committed to your question? Right.
And the same thing happens. y'all have um a sense of congruency that women don't know. So, for example, I'm really tired. Could you put the kids to bed? H yeah, I'd do that for you. Oh, thank you so much. And then he observes that she's not going to bed. She says she's tired, but she's finishing the dishes. She says she's tired, but she put a load of laundry in. She said she's tired and now she turned on the TV. I guess tired doesn't mean to her what it means to me. Right? So the next time she says, "I'm tired. Would you put your kids to bed?" He goes, "No. Why should I?" You don't do what a tired person would do. Well, now like in our understanding women course when you find out that women can't fall asleep until they've quieted their environment till this all the dishes are done till this is straightened till that's this like we we actually have to quiet our environment to quiet our minds to go to sleep and I had to learn from men when I started teaching courses for men it was time to go for a break but I wasn't finished saying what I needed to say I learned I could stop and say, "It's lunch time. We're going to put a pin in it and stop right here. Let's go to lunch like I said we would. The meal break is at." And I could keep my word for when the breaks were and just stop talking in the middle of what I was doing and I never got a complaint from any man. You didn't finish what you were saying. They just got up, went to lunch. And it's such a different way of being, a different way of thinking. You can stop in the middle of something, transition to the next thing that has to be done and come back to it. And there's things you can't come back to. Right, honey? I got to tell you something. Not now. That you don't mean to be mean. You're, you know, this requires this ultimate focus and you're just about to the thing and if you walk away, you won't recover it. Like to trust that you know you is this a good time? Yeah. No. Is this a good time for what? Because you're because you're committed. My husband, I had to work it out. If I say, "Can I ask a quick question?" He didn't take his eyes off of the race that he was watching, the motorcycle race. "Can I watch you? Can I ask you a quick question?" He go, he go, he go, "And then I would wait for him to turn to me." And after a while, he'd go, "What?" and he's still looking at the television and and I finally realized he couldn't commit to a quick question. He needed to know what the quick question was. And it if I said it as a quick question, it had to be a quick question. No background. It had to be chicken or fish. And then you go, hm, chicken.
So, uh, it's one of the hardest things for women to understand because estrogen configures a different brain. We literally do not ha know how to interact with a committed state of mind and testosterone configures your brain for a committed state of mind. And the moment you commit, it literally screens out everything it thinks is irrelevant. Yeah. And I heard about this. I picked up on this. I didn't get it until I got older and my hormones were shifting and testosterone was taking over and I was trying to clear a bunch of emails before I ended for the sorry before I ended for the evening. After a while, I became aware of it felt like a did a helicopter land in my office like it like wap wap wap. It was like this pressure wap wap wap wap wap against my ear. And I finally turned and looked and my husband was talking. Then I said, "I can see that you're talking, but I can't hear you." He goes, "Single focus. Single focus." You get it. You get it. Finally. Exactly. You get it. And women don't know that your brain does that. They're like, "He just tunes me out." No, he doesn't. His brain does that for him the moment he commits. But it's also why we love it when you pay attention to us, right? When when you're focused on paying attention to us, it's like uh straight tequila, you know? It's it's the nectar of the gods. We don't get that kind of attention from women ever. There's always some part of our environment that is pulling our attention away, which which makes it all the more painful when we're not giving our attention because if it's nectar of the gods when we're when we're, you know, tuned in, then it must be pretty painful when we're not. Yeah.
Well, yes. And and how come I say this is because of so many women I interact with. We have a program called smart singles. It's co-ed but it's mostly women. And so many women want to what they say is I want a man who will make me his first priority. And I tell them no you don't. Yeah, probably men have such enormous capacities that if you are their first priority, they will drive you nuts because we do want that undivided attention, but not always. We just want it when we want it. And that's why we have to learn to ask for it. And and there's the asking for has to be very specific because you're so impact-oriented to use the word performance-oriented and we change you give you guys another 10 years and your brains are going to be rewiring and you'll have a whole new perspective on an open state of mind. It's not just something that happens when you're at play, right? When you're at play, you have no results to produce. That's when we fall in love with you because you're the most available to connect, right? Yeah. But we admire you from what you accomplish from being focused. It's really the beginning of the disconnect. Right.
So, in this bridging connections, the beginning of the disconnect is how we seek safety or security. Mhm. And most men most of the time will use the word secure. I know I'm secure. I feel secure when and it'll have to do with accomplishment, productivity, respect, right? Um, something right when we started talking today that I literally have never connected this until you guys were talking like wait a second. Men aren't just seeking security and productivity. They're also seeking security in that one person. Tate, it was when you said that intimate relationship with one person, one of the pillars. Oh my gosh. And what has a man experience being secure in his relationship? And like everything I've learned about you just like all lined up in answer to that question. And and it's one of the reasons why one of the things that makes a woman the right person to marry is that you have evidence. You believe and you have evidence that you can make her happy. Happy wife, happy life. If your wife is wife is happy, that is a sense of security in the relationship that you have everything invested in. Yes. Yeah. Absolutely.
And just to clarify, we were having some conversation before we started recording, so our our listeners may not know what you're referencing, but we were talking about our the five pillars of a thriving man that that Tate and I have conceived of over the last number of years. And one of those pillars being intimacy and and intimacy with self as a foundation for intimacy with with other and um, you know, it is interesting this word safety, security. Most men won't use the word safe when it comes to relationships. like I want to feel safe with my partner. They do want that, but we won't you typically use that word. Most of us men, we think of the word safe. We're thinking purely physical safety. And of course, I'm physically safe. If people do anything, I invite you to go to aliceong.com and and click on the free sample of understanding women because it starts with the fundamental thing from which everything comes and it's the difference between men and women and safety and and I ask a question and Tony Robbins picked up on this but he he doesn't do it right. I asked the question I asked the question of men to um he watched the video. So I asked the question of men to think about when was the last time you had a concern for your physical safety and and then I give them time periods like do you have to go all the way back to being a child and a really good proportion of men will raise their hands. Okay. So in your teen years and then another proportion may raise their hands and then and then how many of you it's been in right the last the x many years by the time I get to in the last year there might be one man out of a hundred men who has his hand up and there are still men who they can't remember a time that they were concerned for their physical safety and that is that the word safe inter you apply to physical safety. There is one other place though that men use the word safe not secure you use word safe and I've heard it so many times in the last 34 years. Wow, you're so safe to talk to. She's not safe to talk to. My wife's not my girlfriend's not safe to talk to my mother. Why would I tell her anything? She's not safe to talk to. That's the only place I hear you use the word safe because Yeah. You don't though you use safe when you're like honey do you do you feel safe are you safe are the kids safe right you'll pay attention to that way but the the point here is that how men cause security sense of security is one way to put it is through productivity and even making one's wife happy is a kind of productivity I made her happy and But women who we're constantly monitoring our physical safety, we are so much weaker than you. It's astonishing. And that's part of the sample I invite people to watch is is a measure of that. But we're we're constantly monitoring our safety. Sometimes we feel safe through productivity sometimes because we're enough in that space. But mostly we experience safety feeling safe which is another difference factually safe versus feeling safe. We feel safe through connectivity when we feel connected to you. And so for a woman's from an instinctual standpoint con feeling connected 100% of the time would satisfy consciously what I'm teaching women to do a lot of the time is first of all safe is a decision. We instincts will never say we're safe enough. We have to decide I'm safe enough. Yeah. Instincts will never say we've had enough connection. We have to think about, okay, how often do I need to connect with my mate? How often do I need to connect? I don't actually need to connect 43 times a day through a text. How often do I need to connect? And you know, my husband died five years ago. I started a new relationship four years ago. I was freaking out after a little over a year when I had left my home, moved to his part of the world and I I wasn't getting enough attention to get enough connection and I was freaked out like this is a bait and switch. What the? And I finally coughed it up. I moved here to see you every day. I need attention every day. Undivided attention where you're paying attention to me every day. And I was I was so scary to say it. And God bless him. He he goes, "Okay, this is what we're going to do." Because I didn't live with him. I lived in the backyard. goes. So, you pick a time because you're busier than I am and um every day I'll come over or you'll come over to Long View and and we'll lay down. We'll lay down and we'll hold each other and we can talk and maybe we'll get frisky. Maybe we'll fall asleep, but we'll do it every day no matter what. Really like started to cry. you would give me that. And up until that point, I was so jealous, which jeal that that feeling of jealousy requires a sense of possession. I was so jealous of the time he had with his three kids because he would schedule something with me and then one of them would say, "Dad, do you want to have dinner? Do you want to have lunch?" And he would go. He would I mean, he would tell me, but he's like, "Hey, Trey, asked me lunch. I'm gonna go and I'd be like, "Is nothing sacred?" Like, so he's like, "Could I have three hours a week and you'll tell your children that's Allison's time?" Well, after he invented laydowns and he kept his word about it and all I had to do was pick a time and text it to him and he'd show up. All of a sudden, I had enough connection. I had enough attention. I had enough connection. I encouraged him to go be with his kids. You know, New Year's Eve. Yeah. Normally, I'd be like so protective. New Year's Eve is my special time to get attention. No, I'm sick. Honey, say yes to any invitation you get to be with your kids and enjoy it. And it texted back, you're the best of the best. And I realized, oh, I can be because I'm full because I've gotten enough attention. Yeah.
Alison, I'm I'm so I'm so uh thrilled that you're on the bridging connections version of our podcast because what you're speaking to is is the the nuances and the and the beautiful needs and desires that exist and the beautiful differences that exist between us men and women. I I wasn't fortunate enough like Brian was to be introduced to your work 16 years ago. I happened upon you in the social media realm, maybe it was six months ago, when you gave this beautiful talk about how men are icebergs. And and so what what I think would be really interesting is if you could just speak briefly about what what you meant by that. And if men are like icebergs, what are women like? [Music] Oh boy. Okay. So men are like icebergs. There's I think there's two really important parts of that. Um, one is because women ask questions and then interrupt before you can answer. Women think men are shallow. They don't know that emotions are are not trusted and need to be sorted out before you speak about them. Feelings are mysterious and you have to go hunting for them and figuring out what the heck that feeling is. And then maybe you find a huge feeling. Like, oh my god, I care about her. The biggest feeling a man can have, the biggest investment of his life, he can have to care. And then if you say, I care about you, she's like, oh, what the She doesn't even know what she was just handing. So there's there's such there's such a depth to men. And when I started studying men in 1991, right, to find out how I was bringing out the worst, honestly, I thought so little of men. I thought it would take three to four months to learn everything worth knowing about you. Wow. Wow. I wish I wish I was exaggerating. I am not. And and I have never committed to set amen. I've never committed. I've been enraptured. I I've been like, "Oh my gosh." Right. For all these years just there's I pull a string and I I keep pulling and there's something else and something else and something else and like just even what you guys said earlier and I'm like security. Oh, secure in relationship. There's so many ways that women let men know you're not you're not succeeding here. We we don't tell you the right things. Oh, I love it when you do that. Oh, I gosh, that's one of the things I really admire about you. Or, can I tell you something I really like about you? Oh, I like that you did that. Oh my gosh, I just fell in love with you all over again. We don't keep it it, right? We don't keep feeding you. And we also one of the biggest things talk about bridging connections. Women are so worried about being desired. So worried about being desired. We are clueless that men need to feel desired. We're clueless about it. And okay, I'll out us. So, so Dan will lead his way down the hall to somewhere and um we've been sharing the same house for the last couple months in preparation of sharing an RV for three months. And that's a big move. And he'll be walking down the hall and I'll reach out and rub his bottom. I'll pick one cheek and I'll rub his bottom and he says, "Thank you." Great. Yes. Yes. And it's women don't know. Women don't know that you want to know you're attractive to her. That that I love you sexy beast. Really? And when we used to do our live workshops and panels of men, we we talked about there was one question about being treated like a sex object. And one man was like, "How do I get that?" to a woman that's the most horrifying thing in the world. I want to be that. Could you treat me like a sex subject? We don't get it. So, okay, I know I started somewhere, but there's so much. There's this I said there were two parts that are important. The second part of it, the first part being how oh my gosh, you're so deep and and I swear your feelings or emotions are way more intense than women, including including love in it's so much more intense for men and but it's all below the surface. You're playing it cool because you're warriors and you're not going to reveal what can be used against you. You're built that way. It's instinct. It's it's the default is to conceal everything and except what you don't care about. You can talk about what you don't care about till the cows come home. But the other thing that's like an iceberg, it looks like this. [Laughter] Shoulders up to your ears. Shoulders up to your ears. Frozen. I Well, it's not frozen. It's not frozen. It's I learned this because I started bio identical hormone therapy and my receptor sites sucked up testosterone way beyond the levels a woman should have and someone did something that ticked me off and my body felt like an atomic bomb. M I mean it I thought I could blow up the entire valley and I was like no wonder men are proud of having a grip on their emotions. And it had me get a whole bunch of people together and talk to men about anger. And all these men lined up to come to the microphone to talk about anger. And this is what they would describe as anger is a Tasmanian devil and I have it in a trash can and I'm sitting on top of the trash can trying to keep him in there as best I can. But what we see, what women just see is right. That is the tip of the iceberg of how huge the emotion of anger can be in a man. Yeah.
Well, flip that over. If you haven't seen it, um, Tate on YouTube, search Allison Armstrong rage monster and you'll see me enact the experience of being in the grips of a rage monster, which as a woman is the most terrifying thing that can happen to us. We are literally 99.9% cut off from our own spirit, from our own connection to God, to the eternal. And we are it's the le it's the most unsafe we can ever be is in the grip of the rage monster and we say terrible things if I mean we can be completely shut down and then a man goes what's wrong with you now spew the most terrible things and it's out of our control it and we're terrified about we're just I'm destroying my marriage right now and I can't stop it. Well, I found out, and this wasn't that long ago, that men are afraid of the rage monster because you assume it's the tip of the iceberg. It's not. It's the whole iceberg. It doesn't get any worse than that. It's not bigger than you. It's a 30 foot fireb breathing dragon that can be stopped in its tracks. and shrunk down this little squeaking toy monster just by saying, "I'm sorry if I hurt your feelings." What? And and I I mean, I teach men do it prophylactically. I'm If she all of a sudden she's out of swords. Honey, I'm sorry if I hurt your feelings. You'll get three responses. Number one, if you hurt my feelings, confirmation, I hurt your feelings. Apply the the cure. Or she might say, you didn't hurt my feelings. You pissed me off when you disrespected me. I was telling you what I thought about that and you just cut me off and you disrespected me. Oh, okay. There's that's a different solution. Or the third possibility is, "Oh, honey, I'm just cranky. It has nothing to do with you, but it's so sweet of you to say that you get a thousand points just for reaching out. Which, by the way, for any ladies listening, points. Men play for points. You don't even have to be koi about it. You get 100 points for that, right? I said, you got you got a thousand points for that. Really? How many points were available? That's right. And then tell them and then also and then tell them you just you just achieved level 14. Doesn't even have to mean anything. We just love that we got to the next level. Doesn't have to mean anything. You could say you achieved level parthonon. Cool.
So I'm curious, Allison, what do you think is um because you know I can very much relate. I also over the years have gotten some angry hate mail from men because I when I started really waking up to all of this to to my own you know to to these so so-called relationship secrets uh really one of the biggest secrets was how little I knew about relationships and so I you know I really became an advocate for men taking responsibility for our role in things right you know this this whole 5050 model I I personally I like the 100 100 model like we're both 100% responsible for the relationship. But so I I get I've too over the years at first get some angry, you know, what about her? How do you how dare you, Brian? You like you are you anti-men? Yeah. No, not at all. I'm not not at all. I'm not anti- myself. I'm a man. I love being a man and I'm for us, but I'm also for us taking responsibility. What what I'm curious about is, you know, what that suggests is people are still following a lot of ideas and advice and ways of seeing things that isn't helpful. It's not working. So, I'm I'm curious like what's a common approach to relationships or a common piece of relationship advice that you wish people maybe women, maybe men, maybe maybe both, but that you just wish people would stop following immediately? [Laughter] Just one. Give us two or two or three if whatever. We could do a whole show just on that question. Yeah. No doubt. Can I Can I pick two? Yes, please. Okay. Um, and if I had to only pick one, I would say that the most important thing to avoid, which is the most compelling thing to do because it gives an illusion of power, an illusion of control, is labeling. And labeling is a response. We talk about this in the Queen's code, but labeling is a natural response. It's an it's an expression of objectification, literally. So take a complex being called a human and put a label on them. It's like this coffee milk. It's putting a handle on it. If I can label it, I think I can get a grip on it. This is why I mean starting in 1991. I was born in 1960. So I was in my teens when men are pigs showed up. Men are pigs. Right. So you're a pig with the example. So men are pigs. Men are non-committal. Men are emotionally unavailable. Insensitive. Pardon me. Well, insensitive. I'm thinking of some of the things that we sensitive. Well, now there's like they um, you're emotionally unintelligent and the worst of all is narcissist. We had we had psychopaths before that and then narcissists. Why do people do it? Because it makes us feel safe. Oh, he's a narcissist. She's a narcissist. That's narcissistic behavior. Now I feel in control. It's an illusion. We're actually less effective the moment we label anything including ourselves. Oh, he be behaves that way because I'm too dependent. He behaves that way because I'm too independent. He weighs He's that way. He does that because I'm not enough. This we want to define the problem because then we think we can fix it. I call it false cause. Most people suck at relationships because they're not solving the real problem. They're identifying the not problem and spending all their energy solving what it isn't. And that's why nothing changes. Yeah.
And if I may, could I could I do something to kind of blow it up for you? Blow it up. We love blowing stuff up here. Say what you got. Okay. So in the course that I created five years ago called Lux that we did live and made into a online program. It's the only huge production I've ever done and lights and flash and but it's also really really fun. It's only eight hours long. One of the biggest ways that it helped people was for them to find out that they didn't suck at relationships. They just thought they were doomed. They had so many failed relationships and I suck at relationships. I'm not good at relationships. Well, talk about a label, a handle that we put on something that makes us ineffective. So, I was creating our workshop about relationships. It was originally called celebrating men in marriage. And I'm a dictionary girl. So, I knew this was about relationships and but I wanted the definition of relationships. Now, I went to the dictionary expecting to find a definition that fit with how people interact about relationships. And how people interact about relationships is that there's a thing called a relationship. And like I could say, Brian, you and I, we met today. You started studying with me many years ago. So, you began a relationship with me 15 years ago. I got to begin a relationship with you as I contemplated being here today, right? I just met Tate. We've begun a relationship. So far, so good. We'll see how it develops and how big a thing between us may become. And even as it develops, we'll be able to ascribe qualities to it. It's fun. It's interactive. We're partnering. We seem to be on the same team or and we'll say things about our relationship. Our relationship is rocky. Our relationship is tense. Our relationship is angry. Our rel we'll actually so describe your relationship. And two people may even describe their relationship differently, but they both believe that they have a relationship and people are like, "Oh man, there's just we just got there's too much water under the bridge. We'll never be able to come back from that. There's it's just the bad is just too huge." Or we think the opposite that there's been so much love in this relationship it can withstand anything. Well, what the diction do you know what the dictionary said? And by the way, men wrote the dictionaries. Yep. If a woman wants to know what a man means, don't ask another woman what he mean. Go to a dictionary. Try Websters. Right. Um he said he's busy. Asked me if he wanted to come over, but he said he's busy. Do you think he doesn't like me anymore? What did I do wrong? Well, if you look in the dictionary, it says occupied, previously engaged. He's busy. He's already doing something else. But you guys aren't very good at counter offers. You just say you don't do counter offers. But if you wanted to do something, do counter offers. Anyhow, so so I go to the dictionary and it says an instance of being related. Very very helpful definition. Not at all. I don't even know. Oh, it actually is helpful. It I kept looking. I kept trying to find the thing. But where's the thing? Uhuh. And then I realized there is no thing, right? There's no such thing as a relationship that what we think is the past that started a vault somewhere and it's going to save us or doom us, it literally doesn't exist. It doesn't exist anywhere other than a memory which is no place. and and especially God bless you men, single focus gives you an inability to maintain the past the way women can.
Alison, you know, you know, another word in the dictionary that I spent time looking up uh not long ago that's relationship oriented is the word connection. And the word connection in the dictionary, what I found over and over almost had said nothing really about emotional intimacy or closeness. Connection was like the connections in a circuit, you know, between two parts of a of an electrical circuit. The connection between a train and and another train, you know, a connection. There was your connections like you like you got drug connections, you know, you got someone you can get drugs from. That's a connection. Like there were all these definitions of connection that in the end had nothing to do like if a man if you know when when a lot of times you know Tate and I laugh about this a lot like we hear the feedback from a woman I don't feel connected to you. Okay, let me go to the dictionary and figure out what the hell she's talking about. The dictionary will tell us nothing about what she's talking about. Well, because it was written by men and they don't know either. Written by men and it was all productivity, right? producing results. Tangible thing. But yes, but here but here's the freedom. Here's the freedom. What if we suck at relationships 100% of us because they don't exist? There's nothing to be successful at. That in truth, the only thing we can impact is this instance of being related. M and in this instance, so I think like an engineer, right? I drill down in this instance of being related. What if there's only three things going on and they and these are the only three things that I can that I can have any control over. One thing that's going on in this instance of being related is how am I being? Yeah. How am I being literally how am I being? Which being has everything to do with what I've embodied. Am I being loving? Am I being caring? Am I being curious? Am I being playful? Am I being snarky? Right? How am I being? We can affect how we're being. Yeah. How am I listening? I mentioned this before. What am I listening for? If I'm listening for what's wrong with him, what's wrong with him? What's wrong with him? Guess what I'm going to end up with? Lots of good answers about what's wrong with him. Exactly. Exactly. If how I'm being in this moment is curious and I'm listening for how is this man sensitive? How is this man honorable? How is this man admirable? How is this man caring? How is this man? You switch from is he generous to how is he generous? And you practice that in your life, you end up living in a world of generous people in in a rainbow of expressions. And because men don't move from failing to working harder, you guys move from succeeding to playing harder. So if so, if I start with something you're good at, I notice you're really generous with the information that you have about what I'm concerned about. Thank you for that. I'm wondering would you be willing to also be generous in this way? You may or may not, but I'm not telling you something wrong with you. You're really stingy over here. You're a stingy guy because of the way that you do or do not pay attention to this. Right? So, so that's the second thing we effect. How am I being? How am I listening? And they go together. You change how you're listening, you'll change how you're being. It's like a it's a trim tab. You just shift from from What is he saying to me to what does he care about? This is how I knew Dan's kids were his highest priority in the first hour of talking to him on the phone. And I was so glad of it. Yeah. Like, yay. I don't want to be his first priority. When my husband retired, my life became a kind of nightmare. Go do something. Right. Right. So then the third thing is, what are we speaking for? What are we speaking for? And unfortunately, most speaking is driven by instinct, just like most listening is. Most speaking is for either we're speaking to conceal, we're speaking to accuse, we're speaking to establish status, we're speaking, we speak for a particular purpose. One of the things we teach in understanding women is how much women are speaking so that there's sound. We call it shoe the critters so that there's sound. It's called shoe the critters. You don't walk into a meadow silent. I mean, I've I've hiked into Denali National
Park and and the naturalist guy, who happened to be my son, but was doing what he was trained to do was teaching people, keep conversation going so that the animal life knows we're coming and they can move out of our way so we don't surprise them because people fight is a common response in defense, right? So we actually consider talking to be an obligation. It's a safety duty. And if you won't talk, I have to keep talking. When are you going to do your part? So most women don't know that they're speaking so that they're sound and it's okay to be quiet.
There one of the funniest moments in cinema is in the show Elf. It's so subtle. You know, the the Christmas show Elf. I'm sure my my wife and I caught this. I'd never seen it before, but there's there's this one scene where someone's just reading off a list of like Santa's list of what all what all these kids around the world want to kind of prove that, you know, this is really Santa. He's like reading it on the the nightly news anyway. And and this girl, he's like, "Susie, she wants she or like, you know, Charity, she wants a Suzie talks a lot doll." And my wife and I burst into laughing. Susie talks a lot. That's the name of the toy that this little girl wants. And the little girl claps like, "Yay, Susie talks a lot." My wife and I, that is one of the most cherished moments because, you know, my wife, we we joke she's kind of a chatty Kathy. And now she's a Susie talks a lot. And and this whole, you know, shoeing the critters. I'll have to remember that the next time I see Sylvie. Don't remember that. Please don't remember that. Okay. All right. All right.
Um, you know, there's it's instinctual and if someone can't seem to stop talking, if you just reach over and touch your hand and and hey honey, I'm I'm listening. You're saying, "Oh, I can be quiet." We My daughter was I think she was nine. She had a boyfriend, which meant that she wrote notes that she gave to her best friend. and her best friend gave it to her brother and the brother gave it to the boy, right? So there whose best friend the boy was. So they had this circle and then she was terrified. She's like, "Mom, I'm going to be with Jason today. What do you mean?" "Well, we're doing something together. What do I say?" And I said, "I'll tell you a secret. If you just stand near him and you're happy, everything will be fine. you don't have to say anything. And she goes, "Really?" Like, just be content to be standing next to him. Everything will be fine. And she looked at me. She goes, "I can see that having you as my mother is going to be really helpful."
You know, you know, Allison, I want to say too that Tate, maybe you've seen this as well, but I saw the Tony Robbins demonstration of the, you know, men, have you felt safe? Women, when you it was and I saw that that was probably, you know, 12, 14, 15 years ago. He's still doing it today. So, and and and I will say he did not credit you. And someone else later, someone else told me that in the in the as I was started to share how how impactful that was on me. Someone told me that that was that Allison Armstrong thing. I want you to know there are people out there advocating for you in that in that regard. And so I've never forgotten that, but I just want to call out acknowledge it. Yeah. Thank you. Well, um I was a little disturbed in the beginning because he took the original understanding women video and I think actually someone excerpted it and told him what to teach and I was involved with him a few years ago and spoke on his stage and I was there because I'd asked to teach him how to teach what he was teaching without my permission, how to teach it accurately. Yeah. And I went through all these hoops in order to be able to do that. and I was still declined. He wasn't interested in learning how to teach myself better. And and you know, there's hundreds of thousands of people who have gotten something they need out of what he does. And I've never had to train him, manage him, or pay him. So, it's a good thing I'm impact-oriented.
And the only thing that I have a big gripe with is he collapses a very important way of listening into one that's really two. One is holding the trash for a woman. A woman needs to just get everything out of her that she has absorbed throughout the day versus venting. And when a woman is emptying her basket, you add nothing. You just are holding the trash and you're adding nothing. And every once you go, "Anything else? Anything else?" And she just h she gets to empty. And then she has space including for parts of your body within hers foreplay. It's total foreplay. And the opposite venting and men need it even more than women. Venting is is when you want to push that stupid truck off the cliff and you're trying to push it off the cliff and most women instead of helping you push off the cliff, they'll tell you why it's a good truck and you shouldn't push off the cliff or why they probably didn't mean to cut you off on the freeway or honey, why are you yelling at the coach on the football game? He can't even hear you. No, it it's it's this thing that's got to get expressed. If we get on your team, put our shoulder to it. Yeah. How do you get a driver's license in the first place? Yeah. Instead of arguing with you about he probably didn't mean to cut you off and you're thinking, "Why are you being disloyal? Why are you defending them?" That I've been in that one a lot with my wife. Yes.
Well, Allison, I I will just say, I know we're coming up on time here. There are a thousand rabbit holes that I would love to go down with you. Y and and I I will just say we would love to have you back really to dive deeper into the Queen's code. I think there's some just brilliance there that we would love to uh mine and and have more conversation with you. But but as we wrap up, where where could our listeners hear more about your work and and learn more about the impact that you're making in the world? Well, thank you. I would love to do it again. Um, allison Armstrong.com is where everything I've created since 2006 lives. Um, the stuff on Audible is all almost 20 years old and it's evergreen. It's worth listening to. Um, our online curriculum, I interact with our students in our online curriculum 10 hours a month. I answer questions and look at stuff with them. So, that's also at alison.com on YouTube. Alison Armstrong videos. There's like I think there's 47 videos on there um that go through all kinds of things about this that make a difference or people. And um if you go to YouTube and just put in Allison Armstrong, I think in 2024 people spent two and a half million minutes watching videos on YouTube. So there's lots of stuff. I I didn't mean to. I didn't mean to. I just I found out how amazing y'all are and I've had to tell the world for the last 30 some years and thankfully we decided to start recording it. So yeah, there's lots out there.
Well, there's and there's, you know, and this this this happens from time to time, but there's a whole Tate talked about many rabbit holes. One of the things and and I really would and and we'll reach out to your assistant to to have you back on because I want to dive into the developmental stages of men because that was a revelation and you know I'm 50. Tate's 50. I've probably been in the tunnel for the last few years. Okay, I can help with that. We gota we got to do this again. I think that will be so so enlightening for for for men and women alike. And so we'll we'll reach out to make that happen in part in in a part two of this conversation. Let us say goodbye. We we'll we'll stop the recording so that Allison, thank you so much. Don't hang up just yet. Thank you so much. We'll see you in part two.