Happy solstice everyone.
If you didn't know,
Today,
December 21st,
Is a real holiday.
It is the winter solstice in the Northern Hemisphere,
Summer solstice,
If you're down under.
It's a real holiday in that,
You know,
Unlike the other days that we celebrate on the calendar,
January 1st,
December 21st,
Whatever other holidays,
And there seems to be more every year,
The solstices and the equinoxes actually mean something.
Today,
Winter solstice in the Northern Hemisphere is the shortest day of the year.
It has to do with the distance of the Earth to the Sun and all that stuff,
Whereas the equinoxes are the days where the,
It's basically the inflection point.
Anyway,
Won't go into that.
But because of the fact that it is a real moment in material reality that matters objectively,
Or,
You know,
Has objective significance,
Whether or not we humans decide to celebrate the day on the calendar,
I actually haven't really paid attention to the date of this.
Like,
If you asked me a couple years ago,
When is winter solstice,
I'd be like,
Ah,
Yeah,
Somewhere in December before Christmas,
I don't remember.
But now,
Winter solstice does matter to me,
Or matters more to me,
Or I know the day,
And I will remember it for always,
Because this day is my anniversary with my partner,
Soon-to-be wife,
Nalaiah.
Actually,
I'm recording this a few days earlier,
Of course.
We might be doing actually a commitment ceremony as of today,
December 21st.
It's a significant anniversary because it's our first anniversary.
Yes,
We did move quite quickly with having a child merging our lives.
I'll be speaking about this in this episode.
But it's also,
Fun fact,
My first anniversary ever with anyone,
Which may be surprising to some,
Given that I speak about relationship dynamics quite often.
And if I'm honest,
I mean,
As a bachelor,
I would kind of semi,
I don't know if brag's the right word,
But I would mention that I had never been with someone for a year,
Kind of with a male ego,
No one's pinned me down kind of thing.
Whereas now that I've moved into a different stage of life,
I kind of feel embarrassed about the same facts,
You know,
Different meanings.
But it is my first anniversary.
This is the first time I've really commit to someone.
It's been amazing.
And I'm not just trying to gloat about my relationship.
I do notice different things that are different in this one compared to other ones.
Some things I think I can take credit for,
Some things I definitely can't take credit for.
And I want to share this in this episode because,
Of course,
We speak about relationships quite often.
I share my ideas on this podcast that I believe to be true and I've observed to be true in the many relationships I have observed intimately in my work.
And of course,
My own experiences.
But this is this relationship with Naliyah where,
You know,
It's the big one for me.
It's,
You know,
We have a child on the way.
It's given me an opportunity to test some of what for some time have been theories in terms of like real commitment.
So I'm going to share this in this episode.
I'm not sure we're going to title this yet,
But something along the lines of the inner workings of high polarity relationships.
Specifically,
You know,
We're speaking about intimacy,
You know,
Not just,
You know,
Agape type of closeness between friends or family,
But like the intimacy that involves some kind of sexuality,
The intimacy that leads at least,
You know,
To our subconscious or we've been programmed to have these experiences of romantic love for the sake of breeding,
Whether or not we decide to do that consciously.
So when I speak about,
You know,
The relationship we're speaking about and speaking about high polarity,
That's what I'm referring to.
I'm going to make a slight argument in the name of polarity.
Certainly nowadays,
Some people do not agree with the idea of polarity,
Even in romantic relationships.
If you listen to this podcast,
You're probably not in that camp,
But I do want to address that anyway of why I believe it's very important.
And actually,
Even though this is a relationship on love relationships,
Excuse me,
This is a podcast episode on love,
Might start a little cynically,
Which,
You know,
I don't know if you're certainly if you're one of the female listeners of the show,
Might not be what you expect in me speaking about the love I have for my partner.
But also,
I mean,
In speaking what actually works,
We're going to have to start with some cold hard facts.
And I think this is very important for everyone,
But especially men in different situations to hear,
Because I think one of the things that leads to a lot of discord and problems in relationship,
And really arguably in any situation,
But certainly in intimate relationships,
Is improper modeling,
Right?
False expectations.
Albert Camus has a quote that I might botch right now,
But something along the lines of,
We falsely project onto our loved ones,
We falsely project onto the people we love,
First to their benefit and second to their detriment.
Meaning like,
When you're falling in love with someone,
You think they are way better than they actually are.
And then when you're falling out of love with someone,
You tend to think they're way worse than they actually are.
Meanwhile,
Neither time in the falling in or out of love did you have a correct model of who they actually were.
And this incorrect modeling,
This incorrect,
You could call it projection,
Is one of the causes of relationship breakdown that I and probably everyone has observed at some point.
But we are going to speak about what I think definitely makes relationships work,
Because as I mentioned,
Certain things have been different in this relationship of mine.
It has been certainly the happiest and most grounded and,
Anyway,
Other positive adjectives.
So the first idea I want to lay across,
In fact,
I think perhaps the core belief that I want to share,
As far as perspective,
In this episode,
Is that love is a spell.
And in a healthy,
High-polarity relationship,
That spell is constantly renewed,
Or recast,
If you want to use the mystical language.
And let me explain what I mean,
Of course.
When I say spell,
I'm speaking about a subjective reality.
Obviously,
Love relies on emotions,
And we know that emotions are volatile.
And essentially,
When you're,
And we've all had this experience where at one point we're in love with someone,
Maybe at a different point we're not in love with them,
And we're like,
Man,
What did I see in that person?
Or even within a relationship,
A long-term relationship or any sort of connection,
When you're fighting,
You'll be like,
Ah,
This person is so terrible.
But then maybe you calm down,
And then the next day you're like,
Ah,
I'm back in love.
We know that there's certain volatility with this.
And when we're speaking about what I have referred to in other episodes as an emotional reality,
This is what we're speaking about,
Right?
So in that sense,
I like to think of it as a spell.
It is something that can be cast on you that affects your filter of reality.
We all know that love is not rational.
Love is pretty close to craziness.
And arguably,
And this is maybe the most cynical,
One of the more cynical things I'll say,
Arguably when you're closed off to love is probably when you're the most rational,
Right?
Like when people are fighting,
They tend to go into their heads.
They're fighting with their loved one.
They tend to go into their heads,
And they can come up with a very logical,
Like lawyer-esque,
You know,
Arguments against the other person and why,
Blah,
Blah,
Blah,
Why they should be condemned or,
But what,
Of course,
That's coming from pain.
We'll get into that in this episode as well,
In terms of emotional feedback loops.
But,
You know,
There is a rational side to it.
And when you're falling in love,
Or if it's easier to observe when you're watching,
Say,
A friend who's falling in love,
Maybe with someone you don't agree with,
They look crazy.
I mean,
Love,
You always kind of look crazy.
When you're in,
When you have a certain set of perceptions,
What we call subjective reality,
By yourself,
Meaning what you perceive,
No one else in the world perceives,
You would be considered crazy.
That's the actual,
Or that's,
I believe that's the actual definition of insanity.
Not this thing that a lot of people say that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over.
That's actually not the definition.
I'm actually going to talk about that in next episode when we speak about semantic consciousness.
But when it comes to love,
If you,
I mean,
And to use love as an example,
If you see someone,
You know,
If person A is in love with person B,
And person B isn't in love with person A,
Or person,
You know,
If you look at like the love from afar,
Or even stalker stuff,
And the person B isn't even aware of person A,
Which of course happens.
But we all certainly look at person A,
Let's say the stalker in this case,
Or the person who has the crush,
As kind of crazy,
Like to be in love,
Right?
We know,
You know,
If you saw the Joker movie,
Joaquin Phoenix,
I mean,
The character was crazy,
And he went into this whole fantasy of perceptions of his connection to his neighbor,
Where she didn't even know he existed.
Like he really was crazy,
Right?
It's kind of an extreme version of what many people experience at times,
Where you have a crush on someone.
However,
If you and that other person,
If the love is requited,
Even though you are crazy,
And maybe,
You know,
I mean,
When we look at a couple that kind of makes us feel like uncomfortable of how lovey-dovey they are,
Part of what makes it feel awkward for the rest of us is that they are in a reality by themselves.
They're both crazy.
However,
When two people are crazy together,
It's kind of a magical experience.
And I'm saying all this around this idea of spell,
Spellcasting,
Subjective reality,
If you will,
Because what I,
This first piece of what I believe really makes relationships work is that you're essentially crazy together,
Or you're in a subjective reality with each other,
Where you're both experiencing the same thing,
And that's,
In a sense,
The definition of connection,
Where you're both feeling the same thing together,
And you're reinforcing it for each other.
And it's something desirable,
Right?
Like,
If you're both in a reality that the other person sucks and you hate each other,
Well,
That is a consensual reality.
That's a reality confirmed by two people,
But obviously,
You're not going to stay together very long,
You know?
So that's a high-level idea that we're going to keep coming back to.
That's one.
The second part of that,
My core statement,
Is that in healthy,
High-polarity relationships,
That spell is renewed.
Polarity,
Of course,
Being the differences related to secondary sexual characteristics.
We're going to speak about this now,
Because even though,
I mean,
Let me first have a small caveat.
Obviously,
I'm a straight guy who,
You know,
I date women,
So I'm going to speak from the perspective mostly of a man who dates women,
Because that's what I know.
Some of my examples may be,
I mean,
Some of my language is going to be heterofocused,
Again,
Because that's what I know.
But I do believe that basically everything I'm sharing in this episode applies to all kinds of relationships.
I think what I'll share is useful to women,
Even though I'm speaking from a male perspective.
I hope it's useful.
Same thing for same-sex couples.
I think even though you might not call it masculine-feminine,
Because that doesn't apply exactly,
The concepts that those words represent,
Polarity,
We still observe in same-sex couples and in all sorts of configurations,
Right?
There's a reason for that,
Which we're going to get into now.
So very brief,
This first section.
This is stuff I've shared in other episodes,
So I'm going to go through it pretty quickly in regards to where some of our polarity behaviors come from and why I think it's important.
The key part of this is that all of our sexual and intimate and romantic behaviors,
As I mentioned earlier,
Are driven to have us breed,
Right?
And again,
I need to address this,
Is that even in same-sex relationships,
There is still kind of this,
You know,
We could assume that homosexuality,
For example,
Evolved later in life.
We're not even talking about humans,
Like just across all species.
It was a later thing,
Right?
The earliest single-cell organisms that,
Actually I should say the earliest sexual organisms that,
You know,
Barely could survive probably didn't have any individuals that only wanted to connect with the same sex,
Right?
Obviously,
That wouldn't,
That behavior,
If it existed,
Wouldn't have passed on.
I don't need to go into this too deeply,
But I believe one of the reasons for homosexuality or an asexuality,
Any type of sexual productivity that doesn't lead to breeding is partly that we are social animals.
There is a benefit to a social group to maybe,
Perhaps a benefit to having individuals that don't add to the population,
Like it could be one reason.
Actually,
If you read the book Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut,
It's a comedic book,
It's a bit of a satire,
But an alien comes down from Earth and explains to the main character some high-level thing that humans are actually too dumb to understand of how gay men contribute to the breeding of,
Or the growth of the human.
Or the growth of a population,
And without gay men,
The population couldn't expand.
There's something to that,
Certainly on a social level.
Anyway,
This is all to say,
And this is just,
I'm going to end my short tangent on non-breeding sexuality,
And this is anecdotal,
But a lot of gay people that I know still have some sort of,
We could call it maybe a vestigial set of desires from their heterosexual ancestors,
And I'll just give a couple examples.
A good friend of mine,
She's a woman,
She's bisexual,
She was telling me how she was dating this woman,
This female musician for a long time,
And she was saying to me that any time she saw her then-girlfriend playing music on the stage,
Something in her was just like,
Man,
I want to have her baby.
Obviously,
Logically,
That doesn't make sense,
Right?
There's something attached to this strong desire to get close to someone and experience pleasure with that person that is,
Even though it doesn't make sense,
Tied to breeding.
For another example,
When I was in South Africa,
I was hanging out with this,
I have some friends who are gay there,
Speaking to my friend's boyfriend,
Who was like a very,
You know,
Very not flamboyant,
Right?
He was a lawyer,
He's very,
You know,
Didn't have any of those outward markers.
He was telling me,
Though,
About his sexual fantasies,
Which I don't know,
People share with me for some reason,
And he was saying that his deepest sexual fantasy is to have a man come inside of him and for him to get pregnant and have a baby.
And even though he knows it's biologically impossible,
It's like the thing that turns him on more than anything.
All of this is to say,
And maybe I didn't have to go on this long of a tangent on that,
Is that even in situations where it doesn't make sense,
Or even,
You know,
Even for straight people who don't want to have kids,
All of our breeding and therefore intimate and therefore romantic behavior comes off of this,
Right?
That's why we initially were programmed to have this,
Even though in,
You know,
Modern expressions of human beings and who we are,
Maybe that's not always desired.
It's good to know,
Though.
And,
You know,
What,
Like,
My baseline argument for a lot of what I think is true and leads to happiness in individuals and in couples and whatnot comes down to at least recognizing our biological roots and our instinctual roots for things,
Because certainly the further we go away from that and try to fight against our instincts,
The more problems we have.
Whereas if we can at least know what our instincts are or why we have certain desires,
Instead of feeling ashamed or try to correct these instincts that we have,
Whether they're good,
Bad,
Or ugly,
If we can work with them and just understand that and not feel ashamed,
But instead embrace them and find a healthy expression for them,
It just makes everything a little smoother.
Which,
Of course,
Is true with what we call polarity,
Right?
The masculine and feminine behaviors tend to reduce them down to testosterone-driven and oxytocin-driven behaviors.
The key thing to understand with this is that as far as,
Like,
What we call,
You know,
In quotes,
Masculinity or femininity,
Anyone can have any expression,
Right?
We do have choice.
I would never say that men should behave one way and women should behave another way based on some moral code.
However,
It is kind of impossible for an individual at a given time to express both types of characteristics at the same time.
In other episodes,
I've spoken about testosterone and oxytocin,
And you can put other hormones in those categories,
You know,
Certainly masculine behaviors driven by testosterone,
But there are other androgens like DHT that are,
Say,
Related to aggression.
Dopamine is related to certain behaviors that we would call masculine or associated with masculinity.
And then you have things like oxytocin,
Which is responsible for a lot of feminine behaviors along with,
Of course,
Estrogen and serotonin to some degree.
While we can have a healthy presence of both of these hormones,
Let's just say testosterone and oxytocin actually have an opposite effect on us physiologically.
And then from a more,
You know,
Subjective level,
We know it's kind of hard to really be cuddly and be competitive at the same time,
Right?
You just actually can't do those two things.
So when it comes to people in a given,
You know,
Say,
Hunter-gatherer society in the Paleolithic era,
Which is arguably what all of our nervous system evolved to be in,
There were certain tasks important to a human society that fell under this,
You know,
So-called feminine mode of behavior,
Say,
Driven mostly by oxytocin.
There were other responsibilities,
The hunting,
The building,
The zero-sum activities,
You know,
Fighting against other tribes that lent itself to testosterone-driven behavior.
And it made sense that there was some sort of sexual division of labor.
It is true that,
I mean,
I think we should all recognize that even the most feminine women in the Paleolithic era were probably stronger and tougher than some of the more masculine men we have today,
Right?
So it's not a question of like,
Of superiority or inferiority,
Right?
There's no question of hierarchy.
In fact,
I would argue that in pre-agricultural societies,
A lot of them actually were lent maybe more matriarchal in that they worshiped things that were biologically female,
Such as motherhood,
Or at least were there some sort of give and take where it wasn't necessarily,
You know,
One gender superior than the others.
They were just,
You know,
They were just functions,
Right,
That were both needed.
Now,
This is,
Now,
If you flash forward to modern day,
We don't live in tight tribes anymore,
Depending,
You know,
Some of us are lucky to have like really tight communities.
Maybe you live in a small town where all your relatives live,
But most of us,
You know,
We're spread out in the world.
And what is the common,
What is the norm for a 21st century family,
And certainly in a consumerist first world society,
Is now the nuclear family,
Right,
The nuclear relationship.
Our home survival unit,
Our reference group is typically two people,
Right?
That is the norm of a relationship as opposed to say,
You know,
A so-called primitive or hunter-gatherer tribe where there might be,
You know,
There certainly is pair bonding,
But the pair isn't the entire community,
Right?
You know,
There's the whole idea of it takes a village or the reality is as a group.
Whereas if,
You know,
You go to any city,
Even a very socialized couple,
Their core reality,
Their core reference group is the two of them.
Now,
We could argue,
And I do argue,
That maybe the former is healthier,
But given that we live in a society right now,
Like,
You know,
In my relationship,
It's the two of us that makes up what I consider our core survival unit.
I think it's important to recognize,
Okay,
This is where we came from.
Our instinctual behaviors when it comes to intimacy is kind of geared for that tribal environment.
Given that,
You know,
You can't,
It's pretty hard to recreate that unless you decide to create a hippie commune,
And there's all sorts of challenges with that,
Trust me,
As someone who's been in a cult before.
We can still bring a lot of that understanding of,
Okay,
We are meant,
We evolved to exist in a different kind of environment.
It's now instead of,
You know,
As back then,
Maybe you had your pair bond with your primary intimate partner,
But it was really the entire tribe where you derived your sets of norms.
Now,
The relationship,
The modern relationship,
The nuclear family,
Has to fulfill all of that,
Which just brings up challenges.
You know,
For better or for worse,
There are certain things,
And I think a lot of strife in relationships comes from the fact that this two-person reality essentially now has to carry the weight of what a 150-person tribe used to do for people.
Right?
Like when you and your partner have a fight,
It's really,
I mean,
Unless you're like in a very forward-thinking group of friends or family or like if you're Amish or something,
I don't know if the Amish do this,
Although they seem to be pretty close to the communal aspect of Paleolithic times.
You know,
Modern-day fights with your partner,
They typically stay between you and your partner,
Maybe you phone a friend or something like that,
Right?
Whereas once upon a time,
If there was a fight between two people,
The entire village knew about it,
The entire village set things straight.
I was actually speaking with a buddy recently about his relationship issues,
And you know,
We would kind of go into the intellectual land in thinking about how,
Man,
If our entire community,
Because we have a bunch of mutual friends,
If our entire community could discuss this as a group,
Their fight,
Which has been lasting days,
Probably would have resolved very quickly,
Right?
The group would get a reality check,
Or excuse me,
The couple would get a reality check from a bunch of people that they trust or maybe an individual they trust like the tribal chief that they've both predetermined as someone who's fair and whose opinions they care about.
They could get a reality check,
And then immediately it would be determined what should move forward and it would be resolved.
Whereas nowadays,
You have a fight with your partner,
You both think you're right,
You both think the other person's crazy,
And there's no third party to get your reality check from.
We should recognize that this is one of the problems or one of the challenges with such a situation.
So our modern day relationship is basically replacing to our,
You could say our dog brain,
Our social brain,
What the village used to do,
Which means that that sexual division of labor or sexual division of,
You could even say hormonal expression,
Still exists for the relationship.
Meaning,
As opposed to in the primal village,
All the men did the so-called masculine stuff,
The testosterone-driven stuff,
And all the women collectively did the feminine stuff.
In a nuclear relationship,
It comes down to all of the testosterone responsibilities are on one person and all of the feminine responsibilities are on another person.
Now,
I know in modern day,
Especially in a consumerist,
Feminist-influenced society,
There is this idea of,
Okay,
Well,
We want equality,
Right?
That's a thing that I think is a preconscious,
Pre-rational thing.
Even dogs have a sense of equality and fairness.
But people have kind of mixed up equality and identity,
Right?
Like if we are equal,
If men and women are neither better or worse than each other,
Then they have to do the same and everything has to be split.
And that,
One,
If you just look at it from a cold level,
That is very inefficient,
But also it works against our biological drives.
And so,
A personal thing in this relationship,
In my relationship,
One of the things that drew me to Naliyah is her mind.
We actually connected intellectually before anything else,
Even though I thought she was super hot when I met her.
We didn't connect in that way.
We connected mostly by our minds.
And if I look at some of the things that have had me be so willing to commit to her and have children with her and like basically organize my entire life with her,
Without much friction actually is what we might call some of her masculine traits,
Right?
Like she's rational,
She's grounded,
She's independent,
She's on maternity leave now,
But when we first got together,
She was bringing a second income into the household.
Things that we relate to testosterone,
Right?
Masculine things,
Things that the men in a primitive tribe would be more responsible for.
And when she got pregnant,
And even though I had my ideals about polarity,
She did too,
They for the most part aligned.
When she got pregnant,
Especially,
It became so apparent to me that one,
It would actually be cruel to her,
It would be unfair to her if I let her continue to contribute,
So-called contribute,
That's the word is often used,
To these masculine roles,
Right?
Like something in me,
Some primal thing that maybe was culturally conditioned,
But I do think this was coming from something much more deep than that.
It was just like,
No,
Actually I need to let her just be pregnant.
I need to let her sink fully into her femininity and not have to think about things much and not have to worry about income because pregnancy is such a huge,
It requires so much energy.
And for her to do it in a healthy way,
And she's doing this,
She's expending so much energy for the sake of our family,
The creation of our child inside of her body,
That to have her work or do anything else would actually be unfair to her.
And this is one of the things,
If you allow me to rant a little bit,
Which I guess I've been doing already,
One of the things that makes me so anti,
Specifically third-wave feminism,
Is that third-wave feminism has actually adopted a patriarchal evaluation system,
Right?
And this is something I'm actually going to speak about in the next episode on propaganda and semantic consciousness,
That very often ideological groups that are trying to fight against something,
They end up taking on the evaluation system of their enemy.
And they end up actually furthering the evaluation system of their enemy.
So for this point,
Third-wave feminists and second-wave have spread the idea of like,
Oh,
A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle,
Or fight fire with fire,
And women should try to do all the things that have been so-called reserved for men,
Like being CEOs and engineers and all that stuff.
And all that's great.
I mean,
We're expecting a daughter,
I want her to have all the freedoms to do whatever she chooses to do.
The big problem is,
Though,
That all of those motives are driven on the ideology that what men think is cool is cool.
All of those things that I mentioned are typically what a testosterone-driven brain would find the most interesting.
Whereas someone who is actually feminine and more driven by estrogen and oxytocin,
They're not going to seek that.
In a true matriarchy,
I think our culture would celebrate motherhood more than anything else.
Because in itself,
In our consumerist patriarchal society,
We don't value motherhood that much because it doesn't produce anything.
It doesn't make money.
Motherhood isn't productive,
Which is,
In our consumerist world,
It has become devalued.
Whereas I think it's the most important thing,
And this is me speculating,
But I think in primitive societies,
It was the most celebrated thing.
Anyways,
When Naliyah got pregnant,
I think there was kind of a subconscious shift in that.
And we actually kind of had these mini fights about it where all of a sudden,
I didn't really want to engage with her on that level anymore.
And I was so drawn to engaging with her on kind of this nonverbal,
Cuddly level.
And we had these,
Like,
You know,
They weren't really arguments,
But they're kind of like mini conflicts or.
.
.
It was a little bit of friction,
Even though we were looking at it with some humor.
But she would complain,
In a sense,
That I wasn't valuing her mind as much anymore.
Or that,
You know,
She jokingly said,
Oh,
I'm infantilizing her.
Because all of a sudden,
I would give such positive feedback,
Not intentionally,
It was just like whenever she was doing something nurturing or cute or soft,
Or we could say traditionally feminine,
But I would also say biologically female,
Like when she was clearly running on oxytocin,
I became so drawn to her and I wanted to touch her and be close to her and pay attention to her and do things for her.
But when she was in what we would call maybe a more masculine mode of thinking about ideas and being logical and planning and stuff,
I kind of became less interested.
It's like,
It's not that I still value those things in her,
But it doesn't make me attracted to her.
It doesn't really make me want to,
I don't know,
Engage with her so much.
And there's even been times where,
You know,
This year I've had some ups and downs and Aaliyah is a brilliant coach.
And when I've been going through a hard time,
Her well-meaning instinct has been to ask me a coaching question or give me some sort of feedback.
And something about that,
I just did not want to engage with it.
In fact,
And it is not that what she was saying had anything wrong with it.
In fact,
She is very smart things to say.
And I even had enough sense to recognize that it wasn't the thing she was saying,
Because if a male friend of mine said the same thing,
I probably would have been like,
Oh,
Okay,
Good point.
Whereas with my partner,
When she would say it,
It just wouldn't,
I don't know,
Something didn't feel good.
And I had to check myself of like,
Oh,
Is this like an insecurity with my masculinity?
Is this like,
You know,
Am I afraid of like losing the masculine pole?
Is this somehow fear-based?
And maybe to some degree,
Of course,
That's a possibility.
But what I also think it is,
Is like,
Well,
One,
I mean,
Of course,
There's the truth that I didn't want to throw off the polarity,
Right?
Because if she,
I mean,
This is just true in a certainly in a hetero relationship,
But I think in any relationship where one person tends to hold the masculine pole and the other the feminine,
Certainly if I'm in the feminine too much,
It's just going to throw off our dynamic,
Right?
Because we're actually going to become not so attracted to each other anymore.
That's just the truth.
But also,
There's also the recognition that she,
As my partner,
As the mother of my child,
She can do something for me that none of my friends can do for me,
That none of my,
You know,
None of the coaches I've worked with or,
You know,
None of the people that,
You know,
Help me with that intellectual help,
Intellectual feedback.
She is my partner as the feminine,
As the person who I polarize against,
Right?
Because when you enter a relationship,
Instead of holding,
You know,
Because what,
Let's just jump back a second.
When you're by yourself as a single person,
You are your entire community.
I mean,
As far as the survival unit goes,
You need to deal with all the testosterone-driven stuff and you need to deal with all the feminine stuff,
Right?
Regardless of who you are or your proclivities,
Right?
There are things that have to be dealt with at home,
There are things to be dealt with at work,
Etc.
When you partner with someone,
It's kind of like a step in the direction of returning to a real tribe where they all work together for survival,
Like a real extended family,
Because then you have the opportunity to focus on what you're good at,
Right?
Like a woman,
A lot of women,
And the stereotype in our culture is that women seek relationships more because then they can really sink into their feminine,
Right?
They can allow someone else,
They can delegate,
In a sense,
Those masculine traits of holding the perimeter,
Of interfacing with outside world in terms of protection and providing to someone else,
Which gives them the opportunity to not have to deal with it themselves,
Which means they can relax,
Which is also,
You know,
Principle and what allows a woman to experience deep orgasm and also feel comfortable being pregnant,
All that stuff.
I think,
You know,
Anyway,
I could go off on many tangents,
But that's my point.
With Naliyah being the person that I've delegated my feminine responsibilities at home to,
She can do something for me that no one else can,
Which is she and only her,
The only person in the entire world who can do this is her,
Which is she can make me feel like a man,
Which is something that matters more than any intellectual advice that I can get from anyone,
That matters more than anything thinking,
Because it is subtle and it has a more profound impact on me than anything else.
And I would say the converse is also true,
Right?
A man in a relationship or the masculine person in a relationship can make his partner feel like a woman in a way that no one else can.
So this is going to this second piece of what makes relationships work in the reality creation of it.
We create each other's realities.
When two people get together,
They're entering a shared,
You could call it a delusion that maybe is the cynical way,
But it's a shared subjective reality where when two people get close,
When two people fall in love,
They develop their own inside jokes,
They develop their own language,
They develop their own perspectives.
They have shared experiences that are shared with no one else.
Essentially,
From a reality perspective,
A relationship,
An intimate relationship,
Is a two-person world.
Your partner gives you confirmation of what is true or not more than anyone else.
And this includes how you see yourself and how you see the world.
There's this great quote,
Actually it's from Jerry Seinfeld's show.
I've only seen this one episode where he has Alec Baldwin on,
What's it called,
Coffee and Cars with Comedians.
And they're going back and forth speaking about how their wives have been the biggest factor in their success.
And Seinfeld said something like,
When a woman loves you,
He might have said,
When a good woman loves you,
You can do anything.
It's like,
When I know my wife loves me,
I could conquer the world.
Which is something that most men,
I think,
Would agree with.
Like when you're with a great woman,
I mean,
This is the idea of behind every great man's a great woman.
When your partner,
When the person at home,
You delegate the feminine aspects of survival to,
Who you share your reality with and resources,
But also your perceptions with,
When she sees you as a winner,
You become a winner.
Because the person that you're confirming your reality with the most,
They're at least half of how you see things.
Which is why I think it's so critical,
Of course,
To be with someone who sees the best in you.
We're going to speak about more of that in a second.
And this is something that I share with a lot of women that I think,
For some reason,
It's not emphasized.
Like every man knows this.
This is a thing I think women should know.
Is that a woman can actually,
There's this idea of like,
Don't try to change your partner and stuff.
And certainly,
Explicitly trying to tell your man,
Oh,
Do this,
Do that.
I mean,
It doesn't work.
I mean,
Trying to explicitly change anyone is never a good idea.
And certainly in a masculine-feminine relationship,
It does throw off the polarity.
Like no man wants to be told,
And no woman really wants to tell her man what to do,
Because that puts her in the control position where she there then cannot sink into femininity.
But women can change their men.
Or I should say,
Women can greatly influence the behavior and perceptions of their man by simply deciding to see that in them.
When a woman gives approval,
Appreciation,
And I would even say adoration to a man,
He just becomes a good man.
Like,
I mean,
Good in the sense of morally good.
Any man who's getting those things,
Approval,
Appreciation,
Adoration from a woman,
Unless he's pathological or severely traumatized,
Which we're also going to speak about in just a moment,
He's going to want to do things for that woman.
And he's also going to become good in the sense that's morally good,
But he's also going to become good in the sense of competence.
Right?
Like when a woman,
And even young boys get this on a small sense with maybe girls they have a crush on in school or something,
It's like when they feel that a woman is like,
Oh,
He looks cool,
He actually becomes cool.
He actually becomes a little,
He becomes more confident,
He becomes more competent at whatever he's doing,
He becomes more grounded.
And,
You know,
So the worst thing is,
And I think every man can attest that this is one of the most,
You know,
Painful parts of,
Painful experiences that a man can experience on a micro level in a relationship with a woman is when she sees him as a loser.
Right?
There's something about that that feels so shitty.
And it's one of those things that I think culturally maybe,
You know,
Masculinity shamers would say,
Oh,
That's fragile masculinity,
So fragile,
Blah,
Blah,
Male ego.
Yeah,
There's a part of that.
Right?
But it's also like on a deep subconscious level.
I mean,
It goes way back to like inner child,
Inner boyness stuff of like,
If a woman,
Especially the woman that we're confirming our reality against,
Sees us as a loser,
Sees us as dumb,
Sees us as something,
Something negative,
It's really hard for us,
Even if we disagree intellectually,
To fight against that.
Like simply our woman seeing us as incompetent can actually make us incompetent.
It actually depresses our hormones.
You probably get a cortisol spike and reduction in testosterone.
And,
You know,
Yeah,
Anyway.
And on the flip side,
Men do this for women as well.
What do most women ask for in their relationships?
Presence.
Attention.
When a woman can feel that a man is really there for her and is willing to give his resource to her,
You know,
Whether,
You know,
Material and immaterial resources,
Like he's really there,
Which of course signals to her that he's going to stick around when she's pregnant,
Which is,
You know,
The deepest instinctual fear of a woman connecting intimately with a man that she'll get knocked up and then be stranded or she'll get knocked up and just be left and have no one to protect her in her most physically vulnerable state,
Which of course is pregnancy,
Which of course is something that can happen anytime you connect intimately.
The flip side of that is that when a woman,
When a man is giving a woman his presence and his attention and his,
And his,
Is making actions showing that he's not only happy for her to like him,
Meaning he's not,
You know,
He's not just gonna appease or do the bare minimum,
But where he's eager to spend his resources on her,
Material or immaterial,
It makes something in her relax,
Which actually makes her more feminine and safe and do all the things that most men want.
I was,
You know,
This is a common thing that comes up in,
When I'm coaching couples,
But this came up kind of recently where I was,
There was this guy,
This guy that I'm speaking to,
He's in a relationship with a woman and they both have what we might call traumas,
Right?
They both have defense mechanisms,
Not to say that either one was ever behaving perfectly,
Not that anyone ever behaves perfectly,
But he's been,
He has a genuine desire to make things right with her because they,
You know,
They've had a period of fighting and he,
She's sharing some things that she wants of him and he's trying to do all those things.
He's like,
He's got this checklist,
He's been really paying attention,
He is putting in some effort,
He's trying to check off these boxes of like,
Oh,
She said she wants this,
She says she wants that,
And she's never really quite satisfied.
It actually seems to be getting worse,
Which makes him more frustrated,
Right?
The reality shift that I offered him,
The idea that I offered him was that what she really wants is not that he checks off the boxes because then he's at most just trying to appease her.
What she really wants is him to take initiative and foresee what she actually wants before he says it because that's what signals to her,
Oh,
Hey,
I'm willing to spend my resources on you if and when you're pregnant,
Right?
Whether or not they want to have kids,
That I think doesn't matter,
Right?
This is where our emotional tendencies come from,
Right?
Breeding,
Which comes to something that I think,
Well,
First I'll say,
Well,
Let me go into the principle first,
Which is the feedback loop.
In this subjective reality of romantic connection with your partner,
You are always in a feedback loop with your partner.
A simple thing that is the cause of relationships breaking up and things going south is that you are reflecting to each other negative feedback,
Which makes things worse,
Right?
So,
Example would be,
You know,
All of us,
If we're an adult who's been in more than one intimate connection,
All of us have something of what we might call trauma or wounds,
Right?
In order to protect ourselves,
We all have defense mechanisms.
It's the idea of hurt people,
Hurt people,
It's like anything that we do,
Especially to someone we care about that is unpleasant to them,
Is basically always a defense mechanism to protect ourselves.
So,
In a typical relationship between a man and woman,
A guy does something,
He doesn't mean anything bad by it,
But maybe he just wasn't aware of it,
Or maybe his partner has like a particular thing that triggers her,
But he didn't know about it.
She gets triggered,
She throws her defense mechanism up,
Which maybe is something that makes life unpleasant for him,
Whether it's yelling or whatever,
Or being cold or anything,
Something that hurts him,
Which she does to protect herself.
He gets confused,
Like,
Wait,
What the hell?
Why are you having this reaction to,
Yeah,
I didn't mean anything by that,
And you're yelling,
You're calling me all these things,
So that triggers his defense mechanism from his own childhood wounds or earlier relationship wounds.
He throws back something unpleasant to her and it goes back and forth.
It doesn't matter who starts it,
Right?
This is what happens when,
This is basically what happens every time two people who love each other get into a fight.
The opposite is also possible,
And I think the opposite,
While it's more difficult,
Is the key to maintaining this healthy,
High-polarity,
Connected,
Mutually reinforced reality that we could call a spell,
The spell of love,
Which is positive reinforcement,
Which is,
Obviously positive reinforcement's easy when you're getting positive reinforcement.
You know,
If she's nice to you,
He's nice to you,
You be nice back,
You know,
Whatever that means specifically,
And that's easy.
But inevitably,
Unless you're dating a saint or you're a saint or totally enlightened,
Whatever,
Some sort of inhumanly perfect person,
Someone's defense mechanisms are going to get triggered,
Right?
We all have wounds to different degrees.
We've all been mistreated,
And we could even,
If you want to get a little philosophical,
Go back to like the very first person that did something mean to the very first person in any intimate relationship probably triggered this,
You know,
Cascading effect where everyone's passing around their pain due to defense mechanisms,
Right?
No one means to be mean.
No one thinks of themselves as a bad person or intends,
Typically,
No one intends to harm each other.
It's just something that happens,
Right?
We're all defending each other.
The big relationship skill and the thing that requires a lot of maturity,
And either partner can do,
Is when you're being met with your partner's defense mechanism,
Even like some of the nastiest stuff,
And you know,
I've coached many relationships,
I've heard some pretty nasty things.
I have experienced some not so nice things in my own relationships.
The big challenge is,
Can you respond to their hate,
Which is just a defense mechanism,
Can you respond to their hate with love?
It's easier said than done because of course when someone's being unkind to you,
You want to throw up your own defense mechanism,
Defend yourself,
Detach,
Either get away,
Fight back,
Whatever.
We all have different versions of this.
But,
You know,
I was speaking to a friend who,
You know,
He's been thinking about this stuff a long time,
And he's with someone who,
I mean,
She has some relationship traumas,
Right?
She has some serious wounds,
And she reacts pretty hostilely to him.
Even when he means well,
Sometimes he does like a neutral thing,
But she always perceives it as malicious,
Like always like,
You know,
You're just another man who's such and such or whatever,
And he's like,
Man,
Like,
What do I do about this,
Right?
The only thing anyone can do in that situation is,
If you decide to stay in that relationship,
Of course,
That you need to give her,
I'm just using man and woman as an example,
But you need to give your partner enough evidence that they're actually safe,
Which does mean that every time they act out,
You respond with love.
That's the only way it's gonna ever work,
Right?
You can't argue someone out of their wounds,
Or,
You know,
They themselves can't think their way out of it because they're reverting to their dog brain or their lizard brain.
It's the only thing,
And you would do that with the hope that,
One,
I mean,
You would grow as a person by being able to respond to hate without defending yourself.
But the hope is that if you can give a person enough positive evidence,
Enough evidence that they are actually safe and loved,
And I actually do think this is,
You know,
It applies to both genders,
But I think this is more of an issue for women,
Not just because,
Well,
I am.
Women tend to be more vulnerable in relationships,
Physically vulnerable,
You know,
Certainly anyone whose default breeding state,
I don't mean to use,
Yeah,
I'll just call it that,
Default sexual state,
Is to be in their feminine,
It is the more vulnerable position.
That's just how it is,
Right?
So,
I think it makes sense that,
In general,
Women tend to have more scars when it comes to love.
Not to say that men's pains,
You know,
I've certainly had my own,
Not to say that they're invalid or unimportant,
But this thing is so critical,
And I think,
I do think in a man-woman relationship,
It is more on the man's side.
I do think it's a more masculine responsibility because if you want to take on a masculine role in a two-person society that is a relationship or nuclear family,
It's your,
Your safety is your job,
You know?
It's great for your partner to reflect to you that you're not,
You know,
Say not a loser,
That you're appreciated,
That your efforts matter,
But it's your job to determine safety.
So anyway,
I would say to anyone in a situation where your best efforts or your neutral efforts,
I mean,
We should say best because you're not putting your best effort,
You know,
Maybe the relationship's not that important to you,
But if your best efforts are being met by her defense mechanisms consistently,
You do need to make a decision at some point,
Like how long do you want to go through it before we start to get positive feedback,
Right?
Like how much,
How long do you basically want to give her space to heal?
And that's a question that I,
You know,
I can't answer for everyone in a podcast,
It's certainly a case-by-case basis,
But I generally say when I'm coaching a guy,
Especially a guy who's wondering if he should stay in the relationship or not,
I always tell him that if you've done,
I mean,
First do everything you can to give her evidence that she's safe and loved.
If you see some sort of improvement with her defense mechanism reactions,
That's a good sign.
I would stick it out because it'll only get better,
Faster and faster.
But if you see no improvements and maybe even gets worse after a period of time,
That might be someone you don't want to invest in,
Right?
And that's a decision that someone has to make if,
You know,
How long do you want to try to basically allow someone to heal from their past wounds?
I will say on this front in my relationship with Naliah,
This has been the smoothest ever,
You know,
I mean,
Not to say that we've never had any sort of conflict,
But we've never really had a fight,
You know,
And I think part of it,
You know,
I mean,
There is something to her being just a great person and whatever,
You know,
Maturity on both sides.
But I know that a big part of it,
A big part of it that is different in my behavior in the past,
And I think hers as well,
Is that we gave each other real commitment.
And it was done through certain gestures like,
Well,
Some time ago,
It was like shortly before we got pregnant,
You know,
We'd been living together some amount of time and we were talking about money or something and just like on a practical level,
It's like,
Well,
We should just merge our finances.
It doesn't make sense to do this.
I'm not saying this is what everyone should do.
This was just an example of like,
Listen,
Like,
I'm in it for the long haul with you.
And for me,
It was just a practical thing,
Right?
We were transferring money back and forth.
It was getting annoying.
So that was kind of my motivation.
But she had this huge emotional response.
Like,
I mean,
We were in the parking lot of a Costco type place,
A grocery thing,
And she just like burst into tears of joy.
And I didn't really get it at the time,
But to her that was signaling of like,
Oh,
I'm really not going anywhere.
And in the moments that we do have conflict,
Because we don't agree on everything,
Of course,
Or we certainly have misunderstandings,
Any two people are going to have misunderstandings at times.
Our misunderstandings basically never escalate into an argument because we've set this foundation that we are committed.
And I think for her on her end,
And the reason why she had a big emotional response to that,
Whereas to me,
It's like,
Ah,
It just makes sense,
Is for the person who is in the feminine mode,
Or who is driven to be in the feminine,
That commitment means safety.
That commitment means she doesn't need to be on guard.
It means that she doesn't have to hold her own perimeter.
Like she could really let her so-called masculine side chill the fuck out and relax and put her guard down,
Which means we can really merge as an entity where I'm the perimeter and she's the core.
And I will say also,
This has kind of been,
Some of these things,
Of course,
Occurred before pregnancy,
But if there's anything that has reinforced my beliefs in polarity is witnessing her being pregnant.
She's actually telling me that when a woman's pregnant,
I mean,
The pregnancy brain is a real thing.
The left brain slows down an activity and the right brain increases.
So the whole stereotype of pregnant women forgetting things or being bad with dates and schedules or being bad at math,
It is a real thing.
I mean,
She's shifted into this super creative,
Feminine feeling flow.
And the more she's in that,
The more I actually feel good.
There's something primal of like,
Oh,
Anytime she's able to sink into her feminine and just be pregnant,
Not just,
Because it's such a big thing,
Be pregnant.
But to let herself,
Like,
You know,
Because there is,
I mean,
This is maybe some hippie stuff,
But,
You know,
There is so,
I mean,
I'm only observing this from the outside and what she shared,
But there does seem to be so much that a woman experiences,
Like,
Through pregnancy,
Like the opening of intuition and feeling signals from the body and recognizing there's another human growing inside of you.
I mean,
I can only appreciate this from the outside and what she shared with me,
But like,
It seems to be as,
You know,
It's the ultimate right of passage for a woman.
And,
You know,
I'm not saying that all women need to have babies.
I'm definitely not saying that,
You know,
Women should have babies or they're not good for other things.
I'm definitely not saying that.
What I'm saying is,
I think is the most incredible experience and I wouldn't want anyone who wants that experience,
Any woman to not have,
Anyway,
Because as we spoke about,
I think I spoke about this briefly in the dog brain episode.
Anytime you're connecting with someone,
It is kind of like a prisoner's dilemma,
Like the game theory game,
Where if you're both open,
There's a big payoff.
If you're both closed,
You're kind of both safe.
The thing that everyone is afraid of and the reason why we have defense mechanisms is that if you open and the other person closes,
Then you're just left vulnerable.
Like,
It hurts,
Right?
That's kind of like the game of like slowly opening up to someone when you're dating and why there's all these dumb dating rules of like how quickly you should respond to someone or how vulnerable you should be.
The thing that everyone fears and all the dumb dating advisors who basically advise people to essentially be deceptive,
Right,
Is that there's that fear of what if I'm open and they are not open?
What if I show up to the intimacy ground and they leave me hanging?
What if they stand me up?
Like,
There's something painful in that.
And I would say that certainly,
As I mentioned,
Right,
With say helping someone or like giving positive loving feedback to someone who maybe is acting out because they're scared,
There is something to that.
You're never going to meet an adult person who doesn't have any wounds.
That's something you just have to accept.
And the only way to send both of you into a positive feedback loop is to respond with love.
But certainly,
If you're constantly responding with openness and they're constantly responding to your openness with closeness,
You know,
Maybe it's not worth,
And there's no improvement there,
Maybe it's not worth sticking around,
Right?
That's basically the only time I ever advise someone to break up is like when they're really doing their best and they're getting no positive feedback,
It's just a sinkhole,
Right?
But if there's any love skill,
And I would say this is very true for anyone single and dating,
But in relationship as well,
Which is knowing that you can still be safe even if that worst outcome happens,
Right?
Even if you get the so-called sucker's payoff in the prisoner's dilemma where you show up and you're open and you're letting all your cards out on the table and you're being there and you're committing,
You know,
Your resources,
Be they physical or immaterial,
Knowing that you're going to be okay.
I wrote this article a while ago on there's two ways for men to be in intimacy,
Right?
And I use superheroes as an example.
There's the Colossus strategy,
Colossus being the Russian bodybuilder guy who's made of steel and basically can't be hurt.
He's always ice cold.
And then there's the Wolverine version where Wolverine is another superhero who does get hurt,
But he recovers right away.
And a lot of like,
Let's say red pill dating advice,
Which I do think is a lot of merit for especially for guys who are a little bit too soft or nice guy-ish,
There is something to the Colossus strategy of playing it cool and playing it icy.
You know,
Just based on practical feedback,
Women definitely respond more positively to the guy who's aloof than they do for the guy who's needy,
Right?
Because actually,
And I spoke about this in the How to be Attractive to Women episode,
The needy guy,
Even if he's really nice,
Is also signaling to her that she's on her own as far as protection,
Right?
Like he's not going to protect her because he's looking for her guidance or her approval.
Whereas,
But you know,
The Colossus guy,
He might be able to attract some women superficially,
But he never gets to experience real intimacy.
And I know a lot of coaches in that space who give advice like that,
Like the red pill style coaches,
They might attract women,
But they never have good relationships.
Like they never really get close to someone.
In fact,
A lot of times they'll end up in a relationship with someone,
They'll finally open up,
Which they've been suppressing in themselves for years and other connections,
And then they end up flipping the other way and becoming super needy.
And then of course the woman falls out of love with him because he's being so needy and ultra soft and codependent.
And then,
You know,
She leaves him and then he goes back on his rant of,
Oh yeah,
Women are all,
Women are all whatever.
And then ends up being super cold.
And he just,
They just go through the cycle.
Like I know guys who got into this whole dating psychology stuff with me,
You know,
10 years ago and they maybe had all these experiences,
But they don't have good relationships,
Right?
They,
I mean,
Anyway,
I'm generalizing,
But there is something too,
If you take on the Wolverine strategy of recognizing,
Okay,
The only way I'm really going to get close to someone is letting myself die on the battlefield,
The battlefield of love,
If you will.
Like letting myself get hurt,
You know,
Knowing that I'm going to put myself in situations where I could get heartbroken,
I could get rejected.
But if you just recognize that no matter what happens to you,
If you recognize that your heart is more like Wolverine,
That no matter what happens to you,
You will always recover.
And you don't need to fire back and you don't need to be cold and you don't need to attack anyone to make yourself feel safe.
You don't need to judge the opposite sex or whomever you date,
Right?
You can be willing to basically let your heart get broken.
It takes away all of that fear.
Like Wolverine has no fear when he gets into a fight because even though he can get pretty messed up,
He always knows that he's going to recover in 24 hours or whatnot.
Same thing with Deadpool.
So that's important.
Now that's a lot on the male to female side.
I do want to address the converse for all the female listeners because there's one thing,
Like one point that I think is the equivalent of allowing a woman to feel safe and loved,
Which is for a woman or the feminine person in a relationship to allow the masculine to feel fully accepted.
Which ties into,
You know,
Obviously adoration is kind of like extreme acceptance.
It's like,
I more than accept you,
I adore you.
I mean,
Every man wants to be adored by a woman.
It just makes them feel good and safe.
What makes men feel safe or the male equivalent of that is knowing that they're good enough the way they are,
Which is why these things,
Actually I was speaking to a client who was telling me that the thing that actually arouses him,
One of the things that arouses him or makes him want to be close to a woman,
When she says something really simple like,
Oh yeah,
You can do what you want in regards to what he wants to do on a Friday.
He's got this pattern of always being told that what he wants is wrong or something like that.
And just to have that acceptance makes him feel safe because in the way,
Or feel good in the relationship and feel okay.
Make the reality what he wants to be and invest in.
Because whereas the risk to a woman,
Biologically,
Would be to get pregnant and then be abandoned,
That would be the sucker's payoff for a woman in the wild,
Let's say.
The sucker's payoff for a man is that he invests his resources in protecting and providing for a woman and she has someone else's kid.
That to be cuckolded is the worst thing for,
I say,
The genes in a male body.
And that fear is reinforced anytime he gets a signal of like,
Oh you're not good enough.
Because not good enough,
Whether it's explicitly stated or implied,
Reinforces the fear that she's going to have someone else's kid.
This is all,
Of course,
Subconscious instincts on that level,
But it is the root of our emotions.
But of course,
This goes back,
I could hear anyone say,
In regards to both points of giving positive feedback to your partner.
What about when they're not doing something positive?
What about the woman you're with,
You don't actually feel like you love her in that moment because she's been so nasty to you.
Or the guy that you're with,
You don't feel like he's okay the way he is because he just did something you didn't like.
Whether it was confidence related or his choice of what he did or whatever,
Right?
I would say that is the trick.
That is the,
You could call it the magic trick.
Or like the way that you can really bend reality,
Perhaps.
In that,
To go back to the male example,
When a woman really accepts a guy exactly the way he is,
Gives him the freedom to express himself,
Lets him know that he's not incompetent or he's not good enough.
He tends to become good enough.
He tends to want to care more and do more and learn more even if he maybe doesn't have the skills,
Right?
There's something so motivating for a man knowing that his woman sees the best in him.
Which brings us to our last section.
In some principles that I think are universal,
And actually I think I only have two.
I'm actually going to say this backwards.
One of the things that I think is true,
Which I think is a universal principle in making a polarized relationship work,
And it is just a rule,
It should be a rule,
Is that it is your responsibility,
You,
Whoever you are,
To see the best version of your partner.
Yes,
It can be challenging when they're doing something you don't like.
When they're acting through their defense mechanisms and you're seeing them through your defense mechanisms.
But this is the trick.
This is the way that you can switch from the negative spiral that many relationships end on and put it back on a positive spiral.
Obviously,
If you've been on the negative track for a long time,
There's more work to do.
But the more you can see the best version of your partner,
No matter what it is,
Whatever your mini complaint is about that person.
Like,
Oh,
She's not in her feminine enough,
Oh,
He's not in his masculine enough,
He's too weak,
She's too hard,
Whatever your complaint is,
Right?
If you can choose and actively see the best in that person,
Essentially you are,
In a sense,
Applying selection bias to yourself,
Right?
It might not be the most rational thing on paper.
But if you can just be like,
Okay,
Every time they do something in line with what I want,
I'm going to highlight that thing.
And any time they do something against what I would like to be in a relationship with,
I'm going to forgive it or I'm going to downplay it.
I'm just going to recognize,
Okay,
This is them acting out,
But it's going to go away.
If you take on this perspective and see the best version of them,
Most people will become the best version or they'll move towards that.
And,
You know,
Again,
As I mentioned,
If you really are putting your best foot forward and you're really doing everything you can and you're not seeing that positive change,
Positive feedback,
That's probably not a relationship to stay in.
I mean,
Basically,
This is not to blame either party,
But if that's the case,
Your best efforts aren't really helping the other person.
Either they're too far gone or you're too,
I mean,
You're not,
Let me put it this way,
Your ability to affect them isn't strong enough to actually affect them.
The two of you probably shouldn't be together.
And that's just the case,
You know?
But I wouldn't jump to that.
Certainly never would jump to that because most people don't put their best version in and don't actually see the best version of their partner when they're thinking about leaving or they're thinking things aren't ideal.
That's the first thing.
The second thing is,
And I think,
You know,
I do want to go into one other subtopic before this last point.
When it comes to what I think is certainly the masculine role in a relationship and,
You know,
Even translating this to the modern times is this idea of dominance,
Right?
Dominance gets confused because we often think of,
You know,
Forceful domination and all that stuff.
And,
You know,
I won't go too deep into,
Like,
Let's say the sexual psychology or whatnot.
But the reason why every woman respects dominance in men,
Right?
Not to the level of being a dick or being harmful to anyone.
But even if you do look at extremes,
Like you look at domestic abuse relationships,
I'm certainly not saying that that's what we should do.
You'll see something does work and you look at it from the outside of like,
Oh,
What is,
Why is she with him?
Why is she sticking with him?
And it's very easy to say,
Oh,
That woman's pathological because she wants to be with a guy who abuses her.
There may be certainly something to that or,
You know,
Maybe she's traumatized or wounded or whatever.
But there is something,
There is a virtue in that even the guy who's being a dick sometimes,
That when he signals that he's basically demonstrating his strength,
Something in her primal unconscious does relax.
It does tell her,
Like,
Oh,
Okay,
He's clearly stronger than me,
Which means that I don't have to be the one that defends us,
Right?
Things like neediness or indecisiveness,
They're such turn offs to women because you're basically signaling to her that if there's a threat when she's pregnant,
She's going to have to not only be pregnant,
But defend you,
Right?
That is the worst,
I mean,
That's basically the equivalent of the sucker's payoff for a woman.
So of course,
No woman would want to breed with such a man,
Procreate with such a man.
And this is,
You know,
Arguably why,
Why on the sexual front,
A lot of women do like being submissive in the bedroom.
A lot of guys are confused and a lot of women sometimes are like,
Why do I like being dominated?
Why do so many women like being choked?
I know a lot of feminists who have this internal conflict because they have taken on this feminist,
Patriarchal driven model of reality that they should be this strong,
Powerful person and yet their body responds,
I mean,
In the bedroom,
Their body responds to the opposite.
It's again,
The same thing of like,
No woman wants to procreate with someone who's weaker than them.
It just is,
There's no benefit to them if that's the case.
But this is,
You know,
This is all we're speaking about primal instincts.
For the,
You know,
The higher level expression of all this comes down to a few things.
Things like decision making is important,
Right?
Because if you can make decisions actually when a woman's pregnant,
As we mentioned,
Pregnancy brain,
It's actually harder for her to make decisions.
There are other things that her body and mind are doing that are actually more important,
Which is why a woman,
Especially when she gets close to someone,
Close to a man,
She wants to defer that.
In our patriarchal evaluation system,
We seem to think,
A lot of us assume that someone who's a so-called leader or decision maker is therefore superior than the person who,
Say,
Is being a mother.
I would argue that that is an incorrect evaluation system and if I could redesign society to actually be more equal and be more fair,
Again,
We would celebrate motherhood.
And leadership and making a decision for a pregnant woman would actually be seen as a service,
Because it is.
It's a function.
It's a thing that,
You know,
When I'm making decisions for Naliyah,
Given that she's in pregnancy brain,
I'm doing something for her,
Right?
It's not like I'm dominating her with my will,
Right?
Because the difference between being domineering and consensual dominance and emotional leadership is that you as the man or you as the decision maker are not making your decisions from the perspective that the survival unit is you as an isolated individual.
You're making decisions as you are the head of an organism that now involves two bodies,
Right?
You are making decisions for us.
These are things that,
You know,
Most people,
Most women,
I should say,
Respond to positively because it signals basically,
Hey,
The conditions for procreation,
It's basically it's okay for me to be pregnant with you.
What this means is that,
And I think this is a challenge for a lot of men,
Again,
For maybe some of the evaluation systems that are embedded into us,
Is this idea of,
You know,
Getting away from I'm right,
You're wrong.
Because sometimes if you are the dominant one,
If you are the masculine one in the relationship,
Sometimes that does mean disagreeing with her,
Right?
And actually,
I think,
You know,
This is the idea of the comfort test or what in red pill they might call the shit test.
Like a lot of times what women say,
And I gave that example of the woman who's giving a checklist to her man of how to please her,
But really the test was for him to throw out the checklist and for him to decide it was actually good for her.
That was kind of the subconscious test,
Right?
Sometimes,
You know,
Being the healthy masculine grounded dominant one means disagreeing with her or disagreeing with what she advertises or what she says.
But the difference between doing this in a healthy way and a not healthy way is that the unhealthy guy who disagrees or the guy who's just trying to go red pill dominant for the sake of not being beta,
Let's say,
Is he's coming from the perspective of I'm right,
You're wrong.
Which even if that is the case,
I'm right,
You're wrong.
I'm trying to argue to prove that you're right,
Let's say,
In a situation and that the other person is wrong,
Is that your partner is wrong,
Is that signals,
Hey,
We are separate.
You know,
I see us as separate survival units,
Which means that even if the guy is demonstrating all the positive qualities of strength,
She's still getting a sucker's payoff,
Right?
She's still getting of like,
Oh,
Okay,
If the guy thinks,
If the guy is communicating I'm right,
You're wrong,
He's in some way signaling to her as I'm not going to stick around and protect you.
Or I'm not going to provide for you,
Right?
Which again is the deepest primal fear.
As opposed to I disagree with you because here's a better thing for us,
Right?
And I think,
You know,
Of course this can go both ways,
But I see more men holding onto the I'm right,
You're wrong paradigm or at least perpetuating it and maybe causing the same in her.
As opposed to like,
Hey,
Here's a thing that's better for the both of us,
This is why I disagree.
I think in many cases,
Assuming that the woman isn't too driven by her past wounds and,
You know,
I have to say this,
Isn't driven too hard by ideological feminism.
If you come from it of like,
Hey,
Here's a thing that's better for us,
A woman who isn't basically been sabotaged by those two,
By some sort of other force,
Some artificial force,
Will actually respect a guy for that.
Like,
Oh,
Hey,
Okay,
Because something in her will relax in that of like,
Oh,
This guy not only has a solution,
He feels confident in his solution,
Which means that I don't have to stress about this anymore.
And even if you're disagreeing,
And I think a lot of guys,
Especially raised to be good guys or nice guys,
We have this fear of disagreeing with our partner or we think,
Oh my God,
That's going to make me a misogynist or whatever.
But if you come from this perspective of like,
No,
This is the right way,
It actually allows a woman on some level to relax.
And if you give positive feedback that you do make the right decisions,
It'll actually just create more bonding and more trust.
And again,
On the flip side,
What a woman can do for a man is not trying to figure things out for him,
But try to see the best in him.
Because the other side of it is like,
Every guy will fail.
I mean,
Every man is afraid of failure.
I mean,
You can say this is true of everyone,
But certainly every man is afraid of failure.
But for a woman to try to give him the tools or do it for him,
Robs him of the ability to lead her.
It just always throws off the polarity.
I mean,
Every time something like this happens that I've witnessed,
They always stop having sex.
That's one of the key indicators that polarity has been thrown off.
And trust has also been thrown off.
Whereas if a woman,
Even when he fails,
I mean,
This is the hard part,
Right?
Even when he fails,
Even when he shows evidence of maybe incompetence,
She can hold on to the best version of him.
If like,
Okay,
He failed this time,
But I still think he's amazing.
Eventually he will live up to your expectations.
I do believe this is true in a fairly,
You know,
Someone who's not extremely traumatized,
This is true.
Just like the flip side of like,
You know,
If you see the most loving version of your partner,
The most loving,
Accepting version of her,
Even when she has her defense mechanism triggered every so often,
You can reinforce that in her and she will eventually be that.
And this is something I've experienced in my relationship.
Like,
Even when I've felt down,
I have felt Naliyah see the best in me and it kind of helps me feel sane and return to the way I want to be.
And,
You know,
To the best of my ability,
I've tried to see the most loving version of her.
And even early on when she had,
It's actually a funny thing that she said,
You know,
She's a relationship coach as well.
She said that when we first got together,
Which is,
There are going to be times that I project onto you,
Like past wounds,
Like I need you to be okay with that.
And it was actually a good thing to remember because there were a couple of times early in our relationship where I felt maybe she was reacting to something that I didn't actually do.
Just remembering,
She kind of gave me the instructions in a way,
But allowed me to in the moment come to the conclusion myself.
It just was a good reminder of like,
Okay,
She's acting out to her past wound.
I gave her positive feedback.
And it hasn't really,
I mean,
I mean,
Certainly we've only been together a year,
But I can't remember the last time we've had an experience like that.
So,
Yeah.
In conclusion,
Love is a spell.
It is a subjective reality.
It is something that is due to volatile,
Something volatile,
Which is our emotions.
But you can,
In a healthy relationship,
You reinforce that reality.
You reinforce that reality by creating a positive feedback loop where the two of you make your two-person delusion really amazing.
I say delusion in quotes,
Right?
Like you're making your two-person reality something fun,
Something enjoyable,
And you're being on the same page.
And you can do that.
You can basically renew the spell or recast the spell through certain things,
Seeing the best in the other person.
Oh,
Actually,
I went on this tangent and I missed this point.
This last point on emotional leadership,
Which is something that I do think is the last thing that I think is on the man,
On the masculine.
And I think this is like maybe the key thing that the man should lead both of them,
Right?
I mentioned like the healthy thing is,
Hey,
I disagree.
Here's the thing that's better for the both of us.
If there's one thing that I think is always true that the masculine should always lead the relationship towards is this core truth that no one in our relationship is allowed to feel shame.
I think this is also a good leadership principle if you expand this back into the tribal level,
But certainly in a relationship.
Anytime you're,
You know,
Yeah,
I'll just say I think this is on the masculine role because a woman could do this,
But I think it would throw off the polarity,
Which is anytime one or both parties are feeling ashamed,
That has to end.
Before anything,
Before anything else,
That's not allowed to happen.
I was speaking to a guy about,
You know,
His girlfriend has,
Her defense mechanisms involve blaming him and saying he's,
You know,
He fucked up or he did something wrong.
I said the first thing you have to do is not allow yourself to take on that guilt because,
You know,
By,
Because I mean,
You know,
It's one,
You know,
Obviously people mess up.
It's good to apologize if you generally,
Genuinely messed up.
But if you're taking on all this guilt for something that's really not true,
You're not actually doing anything good for your partner.
I actually think this is,
This is a meme of slave morality that's incepted into our culture that somehow showing that you feel guilty is a good thing.
It's good to apologize when you mess up,
But holding on to guilt is not beneficial to you.
It's not going to be beneficial to your partner because at best you don't fire back and you just feel ashamed,
But then you end up being a weak person.
At worst,
You end up doing something,
Acting out because you have your own defense mechanisms that make the other person,
That dump shame on the other person.
It creates this feedback loop.
I think always,
And I do think this again on the man,
Is that you need to ensure that in your relationship there is no shame,
Right?
You are not allowed to feel guilty even when she blames you.
Of course you want to make things better and do your best to correct anything that you did not ideally,
But you always have to fight,
You have to always fight against this idea that you are wrong.
And you also need to ensure that she doesn't feel that either.
You don't let her feel guilty because she's going to ultimately act out as well.
No one wants to date someone that's constantly feeling ashamed.
You cannot actually connect or relate when someone's feeling ashamed.
And you certainly are not going to apply your own defense mechanisms to make her feel bad,
Which is what a lot of people do when they feel bad,
Right?
Shame is not allowed in your relationship.
I should have said that earlier,
But there you go.
Back to the conclusion,
Love is a spell.
If you're in that reality by yourself,
You are by definition crazy.
But when you're crazy with someone else,
When that reality is amazing,
You get to be crazy together,
It is a very amazing,
Magical experience that is the greatest experience,
Right?
It is the thing that allows one to feel safe in creating life,
Whether or not you choose to have children.
It is something that is the most fulfilling thing and comes with all these chemical rewards.
I know I'm saying this in a reductionist fashion,
But also opens us up to the experience that poetry is made of.
It's like the most deeply touching experience to really be in love and really be intimate because,
Yeah,
It's a good thing when you do it right.
And it can make life wondrous.
Anyways,
That's all.
Happy solstice,
Everyone.
I hope you get to love someone on this loving day.
And if not,
Certainly love yourself because I'll just make you a magnet for the next person you want to connect with deeply.
Yeah,
That's all.
Next episode will definitely be on semantic consciousness.
I've been putting it off.
I mean,
I haven't been putting it off.
It's like I need to read more to really understand this concept.
I've been reading some dense books by Alfred Korzybski.
That will come out in a week,
Probably.
All right.
Go love somebody.
Goodbye.
