Just a couple things I learned tonight that I'd thought I'd journal. Some I agree with/recognize, some I don't.
- Talking about feeling disconnected with a man will never get you to a place of feeling connected. - Men don't like to have eye contact during conversation. It's too intimate. - If you have a lot of love without compassion, then the other person becomes just a source of emotion for you. They're not a separate person. If you're not compassionate, all of the M disputes are going to be, "Why aren't you more like me?" - Compassion is that when a person is feeling a core pain, their partner is likely feeling it too. - The most harmonious and intimate memories are times when no one was talking (not for me. This sounds like a reference to sex) - A shared experience is caring about where the other person is in their life right now, without necessarily talking about it. (Huh?) - It's critical to be compassionate and understanding of the emotional state of the other person (but somehow you have to be able to do that without talking about it.) - In the world of social animals, there are only males in the pack if there are predators or competition for food. The function of the males is to protect the females and the young. If they don't need protection (like elephants and rhinos) they don't have males in the pack. - For men, criticism = failure = shame = retreat. - Any fear and anxiety in women, even if unrelated to the man, instills shame in men. - If a man had to choose, he would rather have his W be happy than have himself be happy, because he'll feel like a failure if she's unhappy. (Can't say I've ever witnessed this.) - If the woman feels anxious and disconnected, she tries to reconnect by talking, but this causes the man to retreat, which makes her feel more disconnected and need to calm herself more, which causes the man to retreat more, etc. - If a man feels like a failure as a protector, he can't connect. - Men are largely touch-deprived. - Men like routines. - Men can't separate a criticism of their behavior from an attack on them personally. - No matter how right one person's perspective might be, it's still incomplete because it's only part of the picture.
