Shows such as Mad Man, PanAm and The Playboy Club are teaching new generations about the rigid gender roles of the 1960s. It’s reminding those of us old enough to remember the Bad Old Days how grateful we should be that things have changed.

We know what we don’t want: rigidly prescribed roles in society that we have no say in creating. But what do we want? And how to we create it when we never had anyone modeling it?

We play at it first. We experiment taking on different roles. The last few decades of men exploring being more liberated brought us sensitive men, metrosexual men, and expressive men. After trying on new roles, we are narrowing our choices.

It is as if we are leaving our collective adolescence behind to settle down into being a man none of us saw. This is a man who retains the awareness the last 50 years brought, and the backbone to create the life we want for ourselves and our families.

A friend of mine, Ammi Midstokke, a former marketing executive in Europe, now mom and blogger wrote in her post – Androgyny vs. Equality: Maintaining Machismo in the Kitchen:

How is your experiment going? As a man what role are you playing? If you are a woman, what do you see a man’s role being?

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This is a continuation of part one.

How do you get over the biology and into the heart of things?

Next time you’re in a heated conversation with your mate, and your head gets in the middle of the chaos, and you feel like you’re trying to pull apart fighting kids, remember this:  you and the other person are overreacting. You don’t need to know how or why, just know that you are. No matter what the topic, it is NOT life or death, and you CAN accept your biology, and pull yourself out of the fight-or-flight response.

Realize part of your fire, and your partner’s, comes from the passion of how deep you care. Your investment makes you care. Regardless of how tough you are, or if you are a man or a woman, you are sensitive. Your feelings and sensitivities don’t need to be understood or justified – they’re just there.

Stay vulnerable. This skill takes some practice. The Buddhists are best at teaching how to keep your heart open in the face of conflict. You let it hurt. Let it be like a good massage therapist leaning on a tight muscle. Your first response is to resist, then you decide to maybe allow her in, then you release it a bit, then it hurts more, you surrender more…. Eventually you have a relaxed muscle and a relaxed body.

As you continue to surrender to your vulnerability, and offer your vulnerability on the altar of your relationship, you will deepen your connection. This vulnerability is not weakness. It’s not giving up; it’s staying present to all your emotions and wants as you open up in the face of alienation.

I suggest that you repeat back what your partner is saying until he or she says you are saying it like they said it. This isn’t necessary, but it will build your listening skills as it strengthens your vulnerability–and she will feel heard.

For the men:

• The emotional flood. In an unconscious or instinctual way, a woman will test you to see if you can stand her emotional full expression. She uses this to test to see if you will defend her and the family (if there is one). She can’t physically spar with you, so she will test you emotionally. There will be days you will fail. But as you prove to her—and yourself—that your love is worth fighting and dying for, she will feel safe. She will back down. I have seen this in my life and with countless other men and women.
• Deer in the headlights. Most men will freeze when a woman becomes upset. I have seen powerful men stopped in their tracks by a woman crying. Know that this can happen to you, accept it, because then you can relax—and not do that third thing we instinctually do in stress, after the fight-or-flight option doesn’t work. Our third survival strategy is to “play dead.” We freeze, go into shock, unable to respond, hold our breath and mentally check out. Realize when you are doing this, choose to go beyond this response, and start expressing your feelings. The more you are able to feel the emotion as you shift your behavior, the more you will heal the past – there will be less of the biology having you pushing you to ‘survive’.
• It’s ok to be sensitive. Let go of the macho “I don’t feel; you can’t hurt me” attitude. You are being affected. If you weren’t, you would be fully present, relaxed and engaged. You are checked out, or in reaction, because you are sensitive. That said, you don’t need to be some New Age wimp. Power comes from honestly expressing yourself while in the face of feeling or reacting.
• Don’t fix! I know you want to fix her and the situation. As guys we are programmed to give advice and fix. Women HATE that when they are upset. They want to be heard. They want to know you are trying to understand how they feel, and that their emotions can affect you. Attempting to fix her or her problem comes across to a woman as an invalidation of her experience. Men know you’re offering it out love, but when women  are upset, they feel attacked, like you’re saying, “There’s a simple way to fix this.” They need just room to finish feeling what they need to feel. When they’re ready for solutions, they will ASK!
• Dual attention. Here is the challenge: you need to stay open and expressive as you hold the space for full expression. Your Lover Aspect must be engaging while your Warrior stands guard, making sure there are no intruders. You are your partner’s lover, rolling around in the emotional mud with her, while standing guard providing and protecting both of you.

I realize women read these posts, so let me include a few suggests for you ladies. These are not just my interpretation of you what you should do; this list is taken from all the education I have gotten from women! Plus, this will help men better understand our partners.

For the women:

• The power of appreciations. Here is a secret to getting what you want from your man: honor him. He will do just about anything for you if you tell him how you appreciate and respect him for what he is doing. We aren’t wired to be as expressive as you are. Honor is huge for men. We die for it. I know it seems stupid from a woman’s perspective that we go to war over honor. It might be, yet we do it. You can often stop a man in his tracks with a sincere acknowledgement for a specific action. One woman friend told me, “Every time my husband gets paid, I say, ‘Thanks for working so hard for our family.’ Every time.” She expresses her feeling of being cherished and protected (she’s staying at home while their children are young), and he feels appreciated for being the provider. (By the way, she told me he always says, “Wow, thanks for cleaning the house.” It goes both ways!)
• Connect to the sensitive part. As these posts point out, no matter how tough a man appears, he is sensitive. In fact, often the most sensitive men are the ones who come across the toughest. So as your tough guy puffs up his toughness, see the scared boy behind that facade. Don’t attack that scared little boy, even if he scares you by showing up, and you think, “Oh god, is THAT what’s underneath all this crap?” Love him. The intensity of your emotions is scaring him. I am not saying hold back, or that you need to take care of him; I am simply asking you to recognize that your man’s toughness is only the shell he is using to protect himself.
• Men are linear. Women are awe-inspiring with your ability to go for it emotionally. You are willing to abandon the need to justify your feelings, and you are pure emotions. As men we are linear, particularly under stress. So when you start bringing in past  events, that we think were resolved, our circuits start frying. We are thinking, “What the fuck?! We dealt with that!” Realize that we need to understand, and when the rational logic leaves the room, we become more confused and scared. As you know, this will set us off. You get a reaction from us when you aren’t making sense. All this is OK. Just know we really don’t know what to do at this point.

You can say to your man that you need to express. Tell him, OUT LOUD: “I just need to vent, and I don’t want you to fix it, or tell me what the problem is, or why I’m wrong to feel this way. I just. Need. To vent.” That little warning may allow for him to be prepared and frame your emotional expression in a way that allows him to be more present. When he knows there is nothing he needs to DO, and he has no task to perform other than to hear you, he can relax.

• Once you have released your charge – stop. After you feel the release of the built up emotions, stop and breathe. Let your man catch up to you. For him it’s like running the rapids, and he just rolled the kayak several times! He needs a breather so he knows where he is going. Giving him a few breaks will allow him to stay more connected to you.

Bottom-line

We are all emotionally sensitive. How we experience and express our emotions will follow general patterns based on our sex. This dance of feeling, expressing and receiving is something you will be learning for the rest of your life. Developing relationships--real, deep relationships, where you feel connected--demands exposing your sensitivities.

We all need to learn how better to relate with our sensitivities. There is no tougher—or better—teacher than the opposite sex.

I have sat with hundreds of men over the years, and I can say no matter how tough we appear, we all have our sensitivities. We all hurt. Much of the work that occurs in men’s groups is the healing of those injuries and the learning of how to lead with our emotions.

Please share your thoughts and feelings about being sensitive. Where have you been hurt? How do you heal and move forward?

photo by DMahendra

Accessing your full power lies in utilizing what you avoid. This power lies behind the stress and trauma. Your stress and trauma freezes you, preventing you from being that man you want to be.

Jonathan Field’s new book, Uncertainty: Turning Fear and Doubt Into Fuel for Brilliance speaks about this place we protect. You know, that deep treasure we hoard from ourselves and others. It is going into that frozen place that melts the frozen treasures.

The simplest way to go there is through the practice of mindfulness. If you are reader of this blog you know I have spoken about mindfulness before because of its simple power. Well Jonathan is a practitioner of mindfulness also.

Here is a short course in Jonathan’s use of uncertainty and mindfulness… and it free for the next few days. Part of the course is video interviews done by Michael Port who I had the fortunate to meet in New York last year. Michael wrote the best seller Book Yourself Solid, a book I recommend to many service providers as way to grow their business.

In June I heard Jonathan speak at WDS in Portland about uncertainty. This course is an enhancement of his presentation. Get it. When you can use what your hide as your secret weapon you will certainly win. …this is a great reminder for me to continue to do this.

You don’t believe me? I have science backing me up. The Huffington Post’s article by Peggy Drexler explains how scientists discovered that men are hardwired to be more emotionally sensitive than women.

University of Pennsylvania neuroscientist Dr. Ruben Gur says that the same way men and women have different bodies, they have different brains — with eons of evolution creating distinct wiring. It goes well beyond the formative impact of testosterone and estrogen. Other studies elaborate on the biological link to male-female communication styles. Men are wired to act during times of high emotion, since emotion can lead to violence; there is a shut-off mechanism. He stops talking — just when women, wired entirely differently, want to talk.

The article goes on to say:

… boys reacted to the crying with a higher release of stress hormones. Boys are more fragile than girls medically and emotionally. Boys are more susceptible to birth defects and developmental disabilities; they are more vulnerable in the womb, with more fetuses lost in miscarriage. As children, they are more easily stressed, which means they cry more when they are upset and have a harder time calming down. And they are more emotionally vulnerable to the ill effects of extreme lack of affection.

Men avoid confrontations with emotional women

I know I am not alone in saying that I have avoided confrontations with a partner when she is upset. Obviously, I do it less now that I understand what’s going on. Yet, I still find myself recoiling when a partner is upset. I can taste the sharpness of my cortisol and norepinephrine rushing through my blood. I want to run, but if that doesn’t work, than the urge to fight arises.

At the same time I feel the love and concern for my partner. I am overwhelmed between my reptilian-brain needs and my love. Then my head jumps in to tell me what I should do. I feel trapped in a no-win, triple bind. All this is going on while my partner is getting more upset.

Does this feel familiar?

Understand the biology before condemning the man or woman

Both the man and the woman are in an autonomic nervous system reaction – a fight-or-flight reaction that might be linked to a past event(s). One or both of you could be having a mini or major PTSD event taking over. Regardless of what it is, it is overwhelming. On some level you and your partner are scared. The person who loves you the most, understands you the best and feels safest with you, is not the enemy.

When I posted this article by Peggy Drexler on Facebook, there was a heated exchange between a man with a PhD and a woman with an MD discussing… arguing about how each didn’t understand it, or understand their sex. Both were making great points, both were ultimately more in agreement than not, but both were doing what we all do: a beautiful job illustrating what the article and this post is discussing, and at the same time not listening to the vulnerable feelings behind the words.

It was obvious these two people were intelligent, caring and committed to a better world. Yet they still became more excited than connected. I know I continue to project and react when I am excited. A few hours later they both apologized for their overreaction.

Do you let your biology rule? Do you deny your physiology and emotions? What do you do when both of you are reacting?

You breathe. In survival you naturally try to eliminate your options so you can react quickly. Your instinct kicks in to choose what is best. This narrowing of choices restricts your connections to others. When you breathe, accept the distress, give up control – I know that’s hard, but you gradually relax to experience a bigger world. The pressing need to take action subsides and you see the person moving closer to you. Like the Facebook example, sometimes what we need is time and space to stop our PTSD cycle.

The paradox: love deepens when signals say step away from the person, and we move forward. That act of courage goes against our dominate biology of the moment. In the face of our experience, you bet everything—what feels like your entire existence—on a hope that love is there and it will be received and returned if you take the risk.

Photo by MissTurner

Please read part two for how to make all this work for you.

We do not honor other men. Not nearly enough. You have to be a sports star, a business mogul, or a war hero to be celebrated in our culture.

What about the “little things,” though, that are so important?

When was the last time you honored a man? When have you sought out a man to tell him what impact he had on you?  I don’t do it often enough, but occasionally I really get it right.

A few years ago, my old teacher Ron Kurtz came to mind. Back in the mid 1970s, just after Ron published his first book, he started teaching students. I was lucky to be in his first class. He changed me as a man, and seeded my entire life personally and professionally. He taught me about how our bodies and emotions are connected. He taught me mindfulness before it was hot. He taught me that I was OK.  I wanted him to know how much he had helped me before he passed away, so I emailed him my appreciation two years ago. Last summer, he had a sudden heart attack and died. I was just in time.

My last words to my father were my words of love and honor. We were both in tears. I never said it as directly as I did kneeling at his feet as he sat in his chair dying of pancreatic cancer. I made him hear it. I learned my non-expression of emotions from him, but I wanted him to see that his fear of speaking love was not going to hold me back. I knew he felt bad that he never spoke of his deep love to us kids–but he felt worse that we had learned to live those same strategies. My last gift to him was this one time I could break the family contract to not speak.

Why do we hold on to such a precious gift so tightly? You think we were giving away our fortune when we are just giving away our love.

So, if you want to change your life, give. Give your appreciation to another man with as little expectation as possible. Be as direct and as personal as possible. Be specific with what that man gave to you or did for you.

Lay it at his feet, and then step back. Breathe. Let both of you take it in… and let go of any expectations.  You have no idea how he will react. There’s no “right” way. But his reaction is not important for you. For you, the act of giving, the expression of that love, is what’s important.

I am willing to bet if you do this regularly you will see a change in your life. You certainly will see others honoring you.

I created a short video to further inspire and guide.

Do it. Then encourage a friend to do it. Spread the honor and appreciation. We all could use some in this recession.

Let me know how it goes.

Photo by Tony the Misfit

Several of you asked for the recording of my radio interview I did on September 27^th. Click on the link to listen to or download.

Stacey Stern did her homework which was part of why it’s a great interview. You will learn about men, women and relationships and how they all can be remarkable. I also speak about the evolution of men – how men are now showing up different. I give both man and women simple practices to enhance their relationships.

Listen to the interview and tell us how you feel after listening.

I recently had a conversation with Marianne Else on Facebook about what men birth. She pointed out that, “the incubation period [for men] sometimes is measured in years and years.... the man is more future-oriented.” [note: I believe women also birth ideas.]

This ability to birth is particularly seen with entrepreneurs—men and women—where the fertilization of an idea can come from some obscure place…  and can lead to a new industry. To gestate an idea, and manifest into reality, takes a power. Marianne uses the term etheric force, the same term an old teacher and friend of mine, Nelita Anderson, a Hawaiian Medical Kahuna, used to describe our life force. Both these women were trained in Anthroposophy.

You could say it is will that allows a man to make things happen. I have seen it done that way, but there is a price paid when done solely from a place of will. First the man gets tense and stubborn, then old before his time, and often lonely from alienating others. A man who is able to not only tap his life force but find a way to renew it through his quest of manifestation has found his fountain of youth.

Men who are impassioned by their cause naturally enroll others to continue on. Our greatest leaders are these men: Martin Luther King, Jr.; Gandhi; Churchill. In spite the stress they were under, they continued to stand up and lead others. They won through enrolling others with their passion and vision. It wasn’t their will that changed the world.

How to birth big

Short course: Discover your passion. Allow your vision of how that passion needs to manifest to guide you. Start.

Here are some secrets to birthing big.

• Your vision needs a “womb.” It needs a protected place to first grow. Announcing it to the world too prematurely can cause its death. Even though you are excited, which is great, allow yourself time to be with it. Nurture it with experiences that nurture you. In other words, allow for alone time to dream with it. Then go out exploring other knowledge and experiences that could feed your vision.
• Find a midwife, or two, to help you birth it. Create a small circle of friends or associates who can support you to bringing your baby into the world. I’m not talking final product, I’m talking the alpha version. It’s something that is real, but may not be functional. At this stage it is about growing and refining not producing.
• When you do release it to the public, breathe. Know that there will be mistakes – don’t take them personally. Let go, let go of your will. See that at this stage the community is raising your child. You are no longer the sole parent. You roll is now the role of visionary champion, less directing the steps of your child and more leading the direction of the movement.
• Enroll others. Allow your love for what you are doing to bring in the right people to help. Keep putting it out there, knowing you will turn off some. The right people will be attracted to your baby and its purpose.
• Have fun. The more fun you have, the more others will want to join you and the more renewed you will be.
  

Take a lesson from mothers: keep letting go of your creation. Realize at some point it will no longer be just yours. You want that if you want success.

As a man, how are you birthing? If you are a woman, what tips can you give us to birth our ideas?

We love a woman’s beauty – all her beauty. Guys we think once we said it a few times, she’s gotten it, and we can move on. I can tell you, I learned the hard way, it’s not that way. Even though WE know and feel she’s beautiful, some part of her needs to hear it again. At least every once in a while.

My recommendation: connect to the place in you that you feel her beauty. Then speak to her from that place. It only needs to a short sentence. If her intellect wows you, say, “There is nothing more beautiful than a brilliant woman.” If she looks beautiful to you covered in sawdust and paint as you’re remodeling, tell her, “You know what’s sexy? A woman who can wield a paint roller.” There is nothing else that takes so little effort and that will produce such returns.

Here is a short video to this point by Alison Armstrong an expert about men and women correcting Jack Canfield around women.

photo by linh.ngân