Beyond Mars and Venus with John Gray

Aired on February 14, 2020

Episode Description

In our world with its increasing pace and stressors, relationship dynamics have changed. The changing gender roles both men and women require a new kind of emotional support that embraces greater authenticity, intimacy and personal expression. We now have the opportunity to be ourselves as we never could before. We can embrace characteristics beyond those of the traditional gender roles. This allows for relationships with a more profound intimacy than ever before. While our roles are changing, our biology remains very different. Men and women are different. We react to the changes in our roles in different ways that are often misinterpreted by our partners. John Gray details our new needs for emotional support as well as the added challenges that inevitably arise in modern relationships.

Beyond Mars and Venus

Marsvenus.com

Background

  • He was a celibate monk for 9 years
  • Because his brother had bipolar disease, Dr. Gray studied psychology

Relationships

-The expectations for intimacies and passion have changed

  • In the past
    • In the past the man had to have a good job to support the family
    • They did not expect the romance to last forever the
  • Currently
    • Men want passion, sex and partner to be interested
    • Women want romance, affection, intimacy
    • Want a higher level of emotional fulfillment
    • Want emotional support once basic needs are met
    • We don’t have these new skills

-In relationships he observed that our partners have different styles, emotional needs, desires, preferences

  • Our biology is responsible for a lot of it
    • Men require testosterone to feel attracted to their wives in order to feel more empathetic, romantic
      • When a man’s testosterone is low
    • Women need more estrogen to feel more happy
    • Our communication style can increase estrogen in women and testosterone in men
      • Communication can either increase or decrease stress.
      • Eg, listening to a woman without interrupting, showing interest and asking questions  for example saying, “tell me more,” “help me understand that better.” “I like that.” To draw her out
        • This will increase her estrogen, lower her stress hormones, she will be happier, more intimate
        • When someone listens to your feelings, this increases estrogen
        • Too much estrogen for a man can make them argumentative, angry and defensive
      • What women can do to build more testosterone is say, “what a good idea,” “I can see your point,” “You’re right.”

Testosterone leads a man to want to serve, selfless behaviour, a need to serves especially their partners

STRESS

  • Men when stressed, go into “flight or fight”
  • Women when stressed to into “tend and befriend” interacting
  • Men feel less stress when testosterone levels are somewhat high but not too high
    • Men feel stressed with low testosterone
  • Women feel less stress when their estrogen levels are somewhat high but not too high
  • To keep stress levels low and feel more love, women need to feel
    • Safe
    • That a man listens
    • That a man cares
  • To build a man’s testosterone, he needs
    •  To feel successful
    • Or he can go into his cave to regenerate
      • The woman needs to give him space
      • A woman following him with questions is   the worst thing she can do to him. (she is reacting the way she wants him to react)
      • Instead the woman should do the things she enjoys that don’t depend on him
      • If she is upset with him, he gets defensive and communication breaks down
        • Instead, she can say, “This is not a big deal, but I want you to hear my feelings,”  “I know you will do what you need to do,” “I am not asking you to change in any way,” “ I want you to understand and be more considerate of what goes on inside of me.”

-If a woman is stressed, her estrogen is out of balance or her progesterone is out of balance

  • Her estrogen and progesterone go down
  • Her testosterone goes up
  • If a woman feels overwhelmed or stressed, unable to connect with intimate feelings, hormones are out of balance

Men with low Testosterone

-When a man is stressed, his testosterone does down and his estrogen levels rise.

  • This leads to aggression
  • He needs to increase his testosterone
  • High estrogen might make him depressed, irritable, angry, not interested

Man increasing his testosterone

  • He can build his testosterone by doing something he enjoys doing
    • A challenging activity he feels confident in, requiring skill
      • Eg, driving his car, meditating, working out, reading a book
      • These are challenges that he can solve so increases intimacy
    • Going into his cave to have some “me time.”
      • She has to give him space
        • Don’t order him to go to his cave

Women with low Estrogen

Women in masculinized world have high testosterone levels during the day

  • Doing something they have to do
  • rushing

A woman rebuilding her estrogen

  • feel safe, free, enjoying what doing
  • depending on someone else in something enjoyed
    • taking a class, going to a doctor, going to a therapist
  • Interacting with someone when you depend on his support
  • Talk about emotions; revealing a secret (a deeper level)
  • for women that are still cycling, estrogen is high at mid cycle
    • progesterone high in second half of cycle

Building progesterone in women

  • Interdependent activity
  • Hanging out with other women

Cortisol

  • Produced with stress
  • Interferes with digestion so we become nutritionally deficient
  • Interferes with immunity so are susceptible to disease
  • Communication can lower stress levels
    • Listening to women more
    • Doing things for her makes him feel successful, raising his testosterone
    • She feels someone cares for her, there is support

Many women are in a masculinized world

  • Women are more in the workplace and college
  • One of reasons relationship needs have changed
  • Doing things in a woman’s testosterone during the day
  • Stress in the work place, uncertainty make testosterone
  • In the evening, need to raise estrogen
    • If you enjoy doing these things, it makes female hormones
  • If man is dependent on the woman’s income, his estrogen levels might be too high and have to be lowered

Norway /India Paradox

  • When women feel safe, they will not do masculine jobs as much
  • When women are in fight or flight, they will take more masculine jobs
  • Norway is wealthy from oil.  One of richest countries
    • Norway mandates equal men and women in government
    • In non-government jobs, women will take traditionally female jobs and males choose roles that are more traditionally done by males
  • In India, women take jobs more traditionally done by males

Heart Attacks

  • Men only have heart attacks when their testosterone is low
    • Giving a man testosterone does not protect him from heart attacks
    • Protection occurs   when men make their testosterone
  • Men who don’t work at retirement, tend to die from heart attacks within three years

Women want to be heard or held talk about nuances feelings

Men like to solve problems

  • Men should do a “non-doing doing”
  • When a man feels he a woman what she needs, he feels he solved a problem
    • This keeps his testosterone up
      • This helps him focus, keeps him attentive, empathetic

A woman’s cycle

  • Estrogen is highest in mid cycle when she ovulates
  • Then progesterone increases in the second half of the cycle (to support implantation of the fertilized egg in the uterus)
  • Going toward ovulation need a predominance of estrogen
    • Estrogen is when you are getting more
    • increase estrogen interact with someone when you depend on his support
    • if you are not looking for the man for more in the first half of the cycle, estrogen will be too low in first half of the cycle
  • after ovulation need predominance of progesterone
    • increase progesterone by doing interdependent activities
      • singing in choir, making dinner, talking with someone
    • If you are always looking to the man for more in the second half of the cycle, estrogen will be too high
  • In menopause, create balance, some estrogen and some progesterone activities
  • HE Believes that
    • when moon is going from new moon to full moon, need estrogen
    • When moon is going towards new moon, need increase of pregesterone

Internet pornography

  • Men become addicted
    • This release of energy is addictive and each time lowers testosterone
    • Less sexual with women to the point they cannot have an erection with a real woman
    • Japanese Study:
      • No release in 6 days, testosterone doubles
      • After release, testosterone drops to half
      • Ability to be attracted to partner diminishes when he releases more than once a week.
      • Too many releases numbs a man’s excitement in sex
        • They lose passion and ability to feel intimacy with wife.
      • Even releasing twice per week, men will lose the ability to feel attraction for their wives.
      • The woman having high estrogen on a sexy night can balance her hormones
      • Women feel safe when the man’s testosterone levels can go to high levels
      • Many couples eventually stop having sex as it is boring
      • The newness in a new relationship stimulates high levels of testosterone

All negative emotions are victim mentality

  • An addictive pattern: we get stuck in negative emotions
  • under every negative emotion is a positive emotion
  • Complaining with person upset with is addictive.
    • So complain with suggestion
  • Want to be able to keep our heart open to keep the ability to feel so we want to feel our emotions
  • Change thinking, behaviour to get out of victim behavior
  • All negative emotions are
    • primitive and manipulative
    • are done automatically
  • Anger is to intimidate, make people subservient
    • Heart closes when angry at partner
    • Say something like,”When you did that, I had the feelings because it makes me feel you don’t care.  I know you do,
    • Don’t demand, “  unless you change, I can’t love you.”,
    • Instead say, “I love you. These are my preferences and I know you are doing your best”
    • Talk to someone else, estrogen levels go up, heart opens up
  • Sadness is to elicit sympathy from people so they will feel sorry and want to help you
  • Fear help us to avoid things without thinking
  • Sharing fear is a way to get out of things
  • Guilt is manipulation to have people trust you again rather than feeling good and admitting a mistake
  • So are trying to get someone to do something for you rather than learning how to love them and ask for what you want.

Happiness is not someone else’s responsibility

  • It is up to us to create a life where we feel relatively happy
  • We can love our partners, but hurt them because we stop feeling the love
  • Feeling the love helps us have corrective behavior
  • Cannot have corrective, intelligent behavior when not feeling it

Sharing

  • To feel connection, To feel a part of, to feel seen, included, to sort out emotions and let them go
  • Women will give to women what women want
  • Men will give to women what men want
  • Women who give too much
  • Over giving can lead to the woman resenting him
  • If a woman gives all the time , she doesn’t appreciate him
  • She loses her feminine ability to appreciate the help he can provide
  • Man does not feel appreciated which causes them to lose their vitality
  • The woman needs to find her happiness and look to him to increase her happiness
  • If you are happy and not looking to him for happiness, men will find it easy to make the woman happy.
    • Men are drawn to this; they are drawn to what makes them feel successful

Other interesting points

  • Men might see a large gesture as important
  • Women might see a small gesture as equal to a large gesture, so a number of small gestures might rate higher for the females
  • Women with high stress hormones, may forget all the good things the man does