Learn to Fight Like a Girl

In this episode of Mindfully Masculine, Charles and Dan dive deep into conflict resolution strategies inspired by The Man’s Guide to Women by the Gottmans. This episode isn’t just about fighting—it's about learning how to navigate disagreements with greater empathy, patience, and self-awareness.

Key Highlights:

• Understanding Conflict: Why conflict is inevitable in relationships and how to embrace it as part of healthy connection.
• Biological Differences: How men and women experience and process anger differently—and why understanding this can improve communication.
• Self-Soothing for Men: Practical techniques like deep breathing, taking breaks, and diaphragmatic breathing to regulate emotional responses during heated moments.
• Critical Questions to Ask: The three essential questions to uncover the root of your partner’s frustration— "What do you need?", "What are you concerned about?", and "What are you feeling?"
• Managing Defensiveness: How to avoid the common trap of defensiveness by validating your partner’s emotions without jumping to solutions or rebuttals.
• The Power of Taking Breaks: Why a 20-30 minute break during conflict can lead to better outcomes, and how to effectively communicate the need for space.

Why You Should Listen:
This episode isn’t about "winning" arguments—it’s about mastering the art of managing emotions and building stronger, more connected relationships. If you’ve ever struggled with feeling misunderstood or defensive during disagreements, Charles and Dan offer actionable insights that will help you fight smarter, not harder.

Listen Now to Discover:

• How to break free from destructive fight-or-flight patterns.
• Simple yet powerful habits that can transform your approach to relationship conflict.
• Why emotional regulation is key to fostering long-term relationship success.

Tune in and learn why "fighting like a girl" might just be the best relationship advice you’ve ever received.

Keywords for Search Optimization:
Relationship conflict resolution, men’s emotional health, healthy fighting in relationships, Gottman relationship advice, conflict management for men, improving communication in relationships, relationship podcast for men, self-soothing techniques, emotional intelligence for men.

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction
• 1:28 Living with a Partner -- Personal Experiences
• 2:52 Conflict in Relationships -- Inevitable but Manageable
• 6:08 Understanding Anger -- Gender Differences
• 9:48 Self-Soothing Techniques for Men
• 13:34 Effective Communication During Conflict
• 14:41 The Four Horsemen of Relationship Conflict
• 17:33 Practical Tools for Managing Conflict
• 21:48 Why Taking Breaks is Essential
• 25:30 Asking the Right Questions to Resolve Conflict
• 32:58 Emotional Awareness and Resilience
• 40:51 Closing Thoughts and Preview of Next Episode

Transcript

Charles: 0:00

Welcome back to the Mindfully Masculine Podcast. This is Charles. In this week's episode, dan and I will continue to discuss the Man's Guide to Women by the Gottmans, and topics covered will include living with a partner, conflict in relationships, emotional responses at anger, self-soothing techniques, communication during conflict, emotional awareness and responsibility building, resilience and confidence, practical tools for managing conflict, relationship dynamics and gender differences, and some personal experiences and reflections. Please check out our website, mindfullymasculinecom, where you can find full audio and video episodes, as well as any info or resources we find worth sharing. Thanks and enjoy. Good morning, charles. How are you? Hey, dan, doing great. Thanks, how are you? I am also well, so we're recording this on December 18th. Yeah, so we're a week out of Christmas. Where did this year go, holy cow man? Yeah, people always say why does time feel like it's moving faster and faster? But it's because the older you get, the smaller percentage of your life each year is, and so that's why it feels like time accelerates as you get old.

Dan: 1:13

Yeah, I never yeah, I had a my. My Russian teacher, basically in seventh grade, yielded that information to us and presented it, and once I thought about that, he basically ruined life for me. At that point I was just oh my God, you're right, it's just going to get faster and faster.

Charles: 1:28

Let's get into chapter 10 of the man's guide to women by the Gottmans. This is a new section that we're just starting, called living with a woman. Yeah, I've only lived with my ex-wife. I've not lived with any other partners. How many folks have you lived with over the years?

Dan: 1:53

I have one, my ex-wife. I've not lived with any other partners. How many folks have you lived with over the years? Uh, cohabitated one, two, three, okay, yeah, not a lot, and most of that's been like. One of them was about two years, okay, three years.

Charles: 1:59

Another one was a couple, others were like a year, so not a lot of experience either yeah, with my, with my mobile living lifestyle, doing the full-time rv thing, it's it's not as easy as just moving somebody into your place. It would be like me making a very big change to my lifestyle and, with another person, either getting a place together or moving up to a larger rv, I think it's a big change for everybody.

Dan: 2:25

Yeah, it doesn't matter the situation.

Charles: 2:27

Yes, there's so many things that but in my case I'm taking my current home and either selling it or putting it in storage.

Dan: 2:33

A lot of people do that. A lot of people move out and they get a place together because they don't want one or the other to be like oh, I'm going to kick you out of my house type of situation. Like my house type of situation, like we're gonna get a new place together, yeah, yeah, which adds a whole bunch of extra complications too, because then, yeah, it doesn't work out now. Exactly now, one of us is homeless.

Charles: 2:52

Yeah, at least temporarily. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I can see the appeal, logistically, of spending time with somebody that, spending more time with somebody that you love, I get that. I get the the benefit of splitting bills. A lot of things that you're both, I get that, I get the benefit of splitting bills. A lot of things that you're both paying for now will be split in half. But there are also increased opportunities for conflict and disagreements, which is what we're going to talk about in this chapter. He calls it learn to fight like a girl, and that's that feels like a little bit of a shortcut to name it. That where the goal shouldn't really be learned to fight like a girl, and that's that feels like a little bit of a shortcut to name it. That where the goal shouldn't really be learn to fight like a girl, you can still fight like a man. You just have to learn to fight like an effective man.

Dan: 3:33

And I think part of what was good about this chapter was him defining what our defaults are, men and women, in terms of how we handle conflict, and that was oh yes, of when those feelings start to arise, what that comes from, that it's normal, that it's okay, and then how to manage it properly. But so that was it was more about. Even though this is Man's Guide to Women, a lot of this is really discovering ourselves as men in terms of what, where do we come from, in terms of our socialization and our behaviors, things like that.

Charles: 4:22

Yeah, he did a great job on that. So let's go, let's hit the high points at the end of the chapter and just take those to get into the different areas. First, he says conflict will happen even in the best of relationships, because there's not going to be a scenario where two people find each other, get together and have a hundred percent matched overlap on their values, their opinions, their habits, all there's going to be differences. Otherwise one person is going to be redundant, right? It's exactly the same.

Dan: 4:48

Right and think about this is how many times you have conflict within yourself. So this idea that you're going to be happy to go lucky and never need to deal with it, or oh, we'll cross that conflict bridge when we come to it and figure out how to communicate and fight them when our emotions are running hot. No, like practice and think about things ahead of time. And he gives some good suggestions in there too about the communication that should be going on before conflict arises, and I'm sure we'll get into that too, but yeah, yeah, I like it.

Dan: 5:18

There's always conflict. We'll absolutely have to prepare for it.

Charles: 5:20

Yes and don't. You shouldn't use a lack of conflict as criteria for choosing a partner. At least it shouldn't be a prime criteria in choosing a partner, because you want somebody that you can disagree with in a helpful and healthy way, not somebody that you never disagree with, because if you never disagree with, what's probably going on is that there's somebody who's not comfortable expressing the fact that they disagree.

Dan: 5:50

Yeah, I would say so there's some sort of barrier in between you two, or somebody's not being expressive with who they are and all of their desires or needs, and then that gets tricky in terms of figuring out who that other person is. So that, yeah, that could be a warning sign.

Charles: 6:08

Yeah, he sets the table here with the fact that men and women and this is according to actual data men and women both get angry with the same frequency, which, uh, I don't know if most of us would assume that to be the case. I think many people would probably assume that men are spending more time angry, or maybe assuming that women spend more time angry. I guess it really depends on you and your experience and who you're around.

Dan: 6:32

Yeah, you mentioned, and one of the reasons why I think the cases we think men get angry more often is because of the way we express it. And where women get quiet. Men are a little bit more obvious when we're angry.

Charles: 6:45

Yeah, and? And the reasons why they get quiet? There's a couple factors that go into that. One is that, evolutionarily, big, loud displays of anger by women don't serve them in their goals of staying safe and keeping their children safe. And two, they've the women who have survived to become ancestors are ones that have developed skills to self-soothe, and when they get angry, when they get sad, when they get upset, they're able to soothe those feelings through their internal dialogue and their support from other women in ways that men haven't had the necessity, over our very long history as homo sapiens, to to develop yeah, and because men haven't developed that, we're also not used to that being in the mix.

Dan: 7:37

I think a lot of times when there's conflict between a man and a woman at least in my history it's been I've noticed that if I've not given that time for the woman to self-soothe, or give it or provided help, provide that type of environment, nothing gets resolved until the emotions come down and done by self-soothing for women. And ultimately that's where I think he comes from, where he's saying let's fight, fight like a girl, Because if we learn to self-soothe a little bit or do something to dissipate the emotions like doing something physical, like going for a walk, breathing exercises, counting to ten, whatever that is those are self-soothing practices helps bring the emotions down and then I think both sides are open to discussing the issue a little bit better.

Charles: 8:24

Yeah, he goes into the causes, or the primary causes, of what it is that women get angry about, and I thought this was, uh, both insightful and completely accurate with the, the women that I know, and and why they have gotten angry. Women get angry because of powerlessness, injustice or the irresponsibility of others. And, yeah, these would be irresponsible then, yeah, I guess. So, yeah, these are all feeling powerless, feeling that you live in an unjust situation or an unjust world, and that other people don't take responsibility for their actions are all threats to a woman's safety, and so it's very natural that they would react with fear, anger, quote-unquote, negative emotions that lead to them feeling like, hey, there's a problem here and it needs to be addressed. Men get more physiologically aroused during conflict, which makes us less able to handle conflict with humor and empathy and understanding.

Dan: 9:25

Yeah, didn't you say that part of our brain just shuts off?

Charles: 9:27

Yeah, peripheral vision, hearing all those things, and it really does tie it physiologically into your pulse. Once your pulse starts racing, your ability to handle things yeah, effectively and healthy are just is really that ability is hamstrung by a heart that's pounding away in your chest.

Dan: 9:48

Yeah, it flips the fight or flight response. So we've got adrenaline pumping through our body that is keeping the heart rate up, and a lot of it is. I thought we were. I could have sworn. We read something where it basically said if you don't remind yourself at least every 60 or 90 seconds of why you're angry, eventually you won't stay angry. And I think a lot of, I think a lot of our time, a lot of times when men are just just stay emotionally hot, we're getting our minds, we're reminding ourselves.

Charles: 10:19

Rumination is a is an active pursuit. It's not something that happens automatically. You know you do have to. Getting upset can be completely subconscious, but staying upset, you do have to recruit your the front part of your brain to keep reminding yourself about why that's unfair or why you're being targeted or why you're being treated in a way that you don't like. And some of us can spend weeks, months, a whole lifetime just constantly telling ourselves the story over and over again about why we're being treated unfairly and why the world is not giving us the respect we deserve. And yeah, the more time you spend in that loop, the harder it's going to be to calm down and get along with people.

Dan: 11:00

And the thing too, the tricky part, is we come from men who, if we didn't have that very sensitive reaction to threats, we would have died. It's literally the fight or flight response. So our life is on the line. Yeah, we're pre-wired to go to that extreme and it takes effort to be aware of it. Realize that, hey, you don't have all the information right now, let's just pause. And that that is one of the things that I liked about what he was saying here is that he's not expecting you to not feel those feelings, but gave us tools on how to manage them.

Charles: 11:36

Yeah, and it's so funny that he mentioned and I must've remembered the he specifically mentions getting your heart rate under a hundred or under 80, if you're in really great shape. Just the other day we were talking about working out. Yeah, how much rest should you take between sets? How do you know when you're ready to? And I told you, my trick is to just look down at my Apple Watch and after I finish a set, I don't start the next set until I'm under 100 beats per minute. And that's my little metric that I use to say okay, you're ready to tax. And that's my little metric that I use to say okay, you're ready to tax. It's great because it's objective, right, exactly. And yeah, I'm certainly not in a good enough cardiovascular shape where I have to set it at 80. I think mine's ever below 80. Yeah, it is interesting and that is a very convenient little hack that you could have If you've got a smartwatch and your wife or girlfriend is telling you that, hey, it really disappointed me when you didn't follow through on that commitment that you made, and you look down and you're at 115 beats a minute. It's probably not time to respond to her yet. It's time to use some of the self-soothing tools that we're going to cover, to bring that down a little bit before you want to jump into. Okay, let's have a, let's have a conversation about this that has any chance whatsoever of actually going well and leading to a resolution of this issue.

Charles: 12:52

I like that he also points out at the very beginning of this chapter. He was like okay, so what do couples fight about? Is it about money? Is it about sex? Is it about how to raise the kids? No, most of these conflicts that happen are over nothing, or at least meaning nothing as far as something that can't be easily categorized in one of the big areas that people usually assume that is going to be the source of conflict. It's more of a hate. You left the seat up again, or stop leaving your dirty dishes. It's going to be something that seems in the moment to be inconsequential, but what that really means it's consequential, be something that seems in the moment to be inconsequential, but what that really means is it's consequential to one person and not the other.

Dan: 13:34

Yeah, another helpful insight he mentioned in the example he gave was if your woman comes over and says you're watching TV and starts talking to you and you don't pick your head up from the TV to connect with her and listen to what she's saying, she's saying you don't listen to me and you're not listening to me.

Dan: 13:45

And what he said was that's not a criticism of you, it's just her not feeling connected. At that point it is not necessarily, yeah, something that should get you upset, and a lot of times in the past I know it's gotten me upset. But the difference is, if she goes you've never listened to me, that's a criticism of you at that point I definitely like that distinction, and it's a one word difference, but it's very important because if it gives you an opportunity, then to, I feel, rectify that situation a lot more easily. If you pick up on it initially when she's you're not listening to me, you're not listening to me. Now, if that happens too many times, she might get to the point of where she says things like you never, you, always, you right, and then that's isn't. That ties into the four, four horsemen of the apocalypse stonewalling, defensiveness, criticism and contempt.

Charles: 14:41

Contempt, okay, contempt, okay. Yeah, yeah and yeah. Do you have a favorite out of those four? Which one do you go to when you're not doing great? Stonewalling probably yeah, just quiet down and step back and just, yeah, there's no hope kind of thing.

Dan: 14:58

Yeah, that's happened a few times and yeah, it's led to. The lifesaver is I don't necessarily have all of the information. I should not make big decisions and judgments in this elevated emotional state. I try to. As long as I've been doing that, it's worked out so much better because my assumptions have always been like 10% correct of 100% in terms of amount of information and it's always. Things have always turned out to be better than my brain was initially assuming they were, and the more times I've recognized that and look back on that, the easier it is for me, moving forward, to pause and bring me, bring myself out of that state where I'm making assumptions and I am feeling like in going in the direction of one of those four.

Charles: 15:58

Yeah, I my. My Achilles heel has been definitely defensiveness, I would. I jumped to defending myself too quickly and eventually, if things get bad enough, then contempt rears its ugly head too, and I will think mean things and occasionally say mean things because I just feel so. I feel so attacked in the moment and I don't, I have no idea what my heart rate's doing, but nothing good.

Dan: 16:26

When you see your shirt moving, that is, it's a little bit of indication, yeah.

Charles: 16:30

Heart rate shouldn't be starting with a two under any circumstances. Yeah, the more time I spend in my therapy sessions, my men's group and just getting older seems to chill guys out at some level, even guys that have serious emotional and mental health challenges. The older they get they will be miserable to be around, but they can just. I think just getting older can chill people out in some ways, which I've seen that happen more often than not.

Charles: 16:57

Which is good, yeah, same. All right, let's talk about some of these skills that you can use to bring yourself down. As far as your physiological response, remembering to breathe, specifically deep breaths, will stimulate your vagus nerve, which will then lead to your pulse rate dropping, which is ultimately, I would say maybe not the ultimate goal, but certainly an inline goal of this process is get your heart rate down. Stop your body from tricking you into thinking like your life's in danger, and you'll be able to react and discuss things way more rationally and way more effectively.

Dan: 17:33

On that real quick note there and at the Tony Robbins seminar that we went to, one of the speakers had talked about this that there's an actual difference. You need I recommend, and he recommended, is figuring out the difference between the diaphragm breathing, where your tummy kind of pushes out when you're breathing in, and versus the, your upper chest. Yeah, because if you are doing shallow breaths in the and you're you're not doing the belly breaths, it actually can make you more excited. Yeah, and actually when you hyperventilate, it's your chest going up.

Dan: 18:00

Exactly, it's not your stomach going on, it's. It's a difficult thing for me to do, to try to remember to yeah, stick my, I have. I've just the tendency to want to inhale, make my chest narrower, instead of push your stomach out when you breathe in, because you need to make room for the lungs to expand and push your stomach out, and it's just counterintuitive to me. But every time I do it just three times, like in the car with, I feel better almost immediately. It's amazingly powerful.

Charles: 18:27

Yes, I, and I've heard that from a couple of sources. One I took one voice class in college where the poor man tried to teach me how to sing, oh, yeah, yes, from the diaphragm. Yeah, and that's definitely a big thing. When you're breathing in between breaths of singing, it's always diaphragmatic breathing. And also, dr Glover hits that pretty heavy, that's right.

Charles: 18:48

I don't remember if it was no More Mr Nice Guy or Dating Essentials for Men, but one of his two books that you and I have spent so much time in. He definitely talks about the value of diaphragmic breathing. And, yeah, if your chest is going up, it ain't the right kind. Belly's sticking out, it is the right kind, yeah, and putting a hand over one or the other is a good way to tell which one you're doing. Yeah, great tip. But yeah, the breathing in with your belly poking out is the one that helps the most. The next thing is counting to 10 as slow as possible, I would add, because if you're just angry and you're like, what are you doing? And you go back to yelling at somebody, that's not the goal, it's almost like winding yourself up.

Charles: 19:29

Yeah, no, you want to start slow, and even if you can get each count to go slower and slower, it'll be more and more effective, I think, as you get to that 10 count and then also taking a break, which is there's a distinction that needs to be made between taking a break and giving into the flight part of your flight Running away in the middle of the discussion right, which look, I've done that before where I've just been like my body's telling me I need a break and I just storm out and slam the door without saying anything and that is that's hard.

Dan: 19:56

It's hard to even come up at that point. That just shows how difficult it is to even just do basic things like utter a couple of words when we're in that elevated space.

Charles: 20:04

Absolutely, and it's tough because I spent literally years of my life telling myself that, no, I'm not the kind of person that gets that. Just don't know how to talk to each other. What's probably going on is your inner child and their inner child are just wired to not get along with each other because of where your development stopped when you were in your family of origin. What were the needs that you weren't getting met when you were a kid? The way that those unmet needs conflict with your partner's unmet needs. You basically turn into two children that are just screaming at each other because you have no ability to do anything but that.

Dan: 20:59

And I think it also is difficult to say I need a break, because you're being vulnerable at that point and you're already on the defensive, and I feel like, in order for you to say I can't hand, you're basically saying I can't handle this right now. That's a tough ask for anybody, even when you're in the best of situations, to be able to go I can't handle this right now and communicate that in any way at all, and so I think that's what he speaks to too is ahead of time, before you have these conflicts, when you both are calm, cool and collected, figure out strategies that you can both lower your emotional states so that it might be hey, listen, let's do things that will distract us. He talks about that. It's not thinking about your partner's good qualities. It's literally taking your mind out of the situation.

Charles: 21:48

Yeah. So he says that when you decide that, okay, I need to take a break from this Number one, it needs to be at least 20 minutes, preferably 30, where you say and you do need to say to your partner hey, I need to take a 30 minute break, then we can come back and I can keep discussing this with you.

Dan: 22:03

Yeah, exactly. Or you don't even need to say a break. I like for me to me it's's less vulnerable is hey, can we just take a break? Not yet, no, we're not, but just hey, let's come back to this in 30 minutes or let's discuss this later.

Charles: 22:16

So sometimes that's a little bit easier for me to say hey let's discuss this later, but I think one, one portion of a or one characteristic of an effective break, which is whether you call it that or not, that's what it is. I think you do need to separate physically from the other person.

Dan: 22:31

Oh yeah.

Charles: 22:32

Oh, good point, and so just let's talk about this later. And then you turn around and leave there. There needs to be some, it needs to be clear of hey, I, I've gotta be in a different room from you for 30 minutes and then we'll come back and continue this. And he says, once you do go into that other space whatever that is, whether you're taking a walk or whatever do your best not to think about your partner. Don't think about why you're angry with them. Don't think about why they're such a great partner for you. Don't think about them at all.

Charles: 23:00

He said in the research they did, opening up a magazine and reading it was the most effective thing because it distracted you from the person, the situation, the argument, whatever. And yet you got to move your mind away from what got you elevated. And so, yeah, don't immediately go to oh, but she's, I should be able to get along with her better. She's such a great person in all these other areas. No, you should be looking at a sports magazine, a travel magazine, something that can get your mind away from what's currently bothering you, and then spend 30 minutes in that space and then come back with a heart rate under 99 beats a minute and say, okay, let's continue.

Charles: 23:39

And that continuation I think we will probably get into this later, maybe not, but that continuation should also include some form of hey. Here's where it sounded to me like you were coming from and tell me how I got this wrong, and then you tell them where you think their issue is and then expect for you to you're going to have some parts of it wrong, probably yeah, and then let them correct you and say you know, that's not exactly what I. What I'm really upset about is blah, blah, blah.

Dan: 24:09

And more often than not, I think it's going to be a better case scenario than what you were assuming. Yeah.

Charles: 24:15

To be honest, that's true. That can often be the case where, yeah, the thing you think they're upset about is probably yeah.

Dan: 24:21

I've seen that in my current relationship, where I've been all set to hear criticism and it was nothing resembling criticism, yeah it was, just like you said, a bid for connection, and that comes from our own experiences in the past with similar situations where it's turned out to be different than the current one, and I think that's where we do ourselves a disservice is holding on to that.

Charles: 24:46

That involved hypervigilance that is always on the lookout for the worst case scenario.

Dan: 24:50

Again, that involved hypervigilance that is always on the lookout for the worst case scenario. Yeah, and I think the. I think one of the causes of us continuing to ruminate on negative things that are getting us keeping us angry is if we don't take that break. We never lowered that emotional state. So any thoughts, as good natured as we probably try to be, they're tainted all by the hormone levels that are going. So we're, I think, a lot more likely to still keep talking about other worst case scenarios based on assumptions for information that we don't have. So again, yeah, um, start reading a magazine or listen to something on audible, or listen to our podcast and we'll help you calm down.

Charles: 25:30

Yeah, as long as it's not a podcast about conflict resolution. If your partner is criticizing you, she is in pain and your job is to find out the source of her pain by asking three questions what do you need, what are you concerned about and what are you feeling? And yeah, those are hard questions to ask and hear the answer to. Because what do you need could be I need you to stop doing things this way and start doing this other way instead, and boom, I feel attacked. Now that's a possibility. What are you concerned about? I'm concerned about you and the way that you handle blah, blah, blah. Again, that could feel like an attack. And what are you feeling? I'm feeling betrayed by the fact that you said you'd do this and you didn't do it. These are all questions. Now, those might be some of the worst case scenarios, but you need to be prepared to hear and accept those answers.

Dan: 26:20

Yes, even more important, to come in before you ask those questions at a lowered emotional state and being prepared for criticism.

Charles: 26:28

Or something that feels like criticism, even if it actually isn't.

Dan: 26:31

Whatever, yeah, just expect the worst at that point, but don't react to that. If you can understand the difference Whenever I've had a chance to be able to do that which unfortunately has only been a few times, but it's been more often recently where I've come in with the mindset, the intention that I'm going to get some sort of information or I'm going to hear something that I'm not going to like, and when I've prepared for it like when you're going on a roller coaster and you're going to, you're preparing for it so you can make the most of it it's a little bit more fun and a lot less terrifying, rather than if you just started up there and fell down. So when I've, whenever I've, set my intentions before any kind of event, if I'm lucky enough to have thought of it, it's always turns out to be a better experience.

Charles: 27:21

Because your mindset has prepared you for it. So, getting bad news or getting a, getting criticism about the relationship or the way you make her feel, or something like that getting criticism about the relationship or the way you make her feel, or something like that If you have done all three things of remembering to breathe, counting to 10, going for a walk, taking a break, and then you've also told yourself, okay, I'm going to walk back into that house, I'm going to ask her what do you need, what are you concerned about and what are you feeling? And I'm going to be prepared for her to tell me that I've dropped the ball in some area, I've not lived up to her expectations in some area that I ought to, and it's going to suck. It will go much better than asking her those three questions at the absolute peak of your defensiveness. Response.

Dan: 28:06

Yeah, yeah, I think it was Dr Julie. He did one of the videos on Instagram about like, where basically she's like pouring water or tea or something into a cup and saying, well, your cup's already full. If you try to add to it, it just it, it runs. There's no place for it to go. So what you're literally doing is you're lowering the amount of water in that cup and you're allowing the all that information and negative, positive, whatever that is to then stay in that cup and you're able to manage it at that point, right, versus coming to a state you're already full, you're over, you're overflowing, right, and then you can't handle everything. Then just makes a big mess.

Charles: 28:41

Yeah, yeah, she's great and she's got a new book coming out. Have you seen that? No, yes, oh cool. She's got a new book called Open when and I believe it gives like a bunch of scenarios in the book and how to deal with them. It comes out after the first of the year. That's great, but I will be certainly Definitely. We need to watch that, read it.

Charles: 28:58

Yeah, I will be buying that in probably multiple forms. I'll get the audible version and probably a hardcover version. Yeah, we may at some point also review that on the podcast because, as I've said, her previous book why has Nobody Told Me this Before? Is the only one that we've ever done on this show where I haven't had some problem with it and some disagreement, something where I think she got it wrong. I'm excited about that, but yeah, so those are the three questions what do you need, what are you concerned about, what are you feeling? And sometimes the resolution to any of the problems that those questions expose just being asked those questions and given the opportunity to answer those questions might resolve most of the root cause of the problem.

Dan: 29:44

I think you just talk about in there. A lot of times women are frustrated because they don't feel heard, and sometimes they don't necessarily need the perfect answer or resolution right then and there. They just need that connection to know that you heard them, you gave them the respect and you care about them enough to actually pay attention to what their needs are. And a lot of times that will help put the emotional state on her side quite a bit and help bring things down. And I've experienced that where I've had conversations where I didn't have an answer and I couldn't like undo something that I had done, and basically my brain was going okay, look, this is going to be a lot of work. Now I really messed up or there's a lot of things I need to do. She's going to be really upset and it turns out that just from me being there and being present and patient and listening and asking questions and not interrupting or not defending myself, just sitting there and letting her express everything, at the end of it it was.

Charles: 30:46

she was almost a different person, yeah and yeah, and I had done nothing, made no promises, right, communicated really nothing, and just a little bit of time had passed and it was a little surprising to me, pleasantly, but very surprising yeah, I think one of the things that one of the areas I have certainly failed at in the past and I want to get better at is when you do hear what either feels like criticism or legitimately is criticism and criticism in the poor horseman way, like negative criticism from your partner, is to emphasize to yourself in the moment that this is what she believes and this is what she feels right now, and not go into the because, yeah, when your wife or your girlfriend says you never listened to me. If you're like me, the first thing you do is let me start rolling back the history in my mind.

Charles: 31:38

Of when I could disprove that Of a time that I definitely listened to her and I could throw it in her face right now and disprove this whole hypothesis that I never listened to her. What about the time when your cousin died and you wanted to tell me all about it and how you felt about her, and I just sat there and listened to it for an hour. What about that? You think that's going to help the situation at all? No, obviously it's not.

Dan: 31:59

It's never worked for me even though you're right, yes, and you completely just put nobody is never or always anything correct, so and that should be. That should be then a clue that she is in a state that she's so upset that it just she's using things that are just not an accurate reflection of what reality actually is. That used to frustrate me so much because it was just because guys are pretty straightforward with logical and this is this and this is this more. I think I think more often, at least you know, in my circles they have been more often than that and that would just get frustrating for me because I didn't understand that's not necessarily that that a lot of women don't communicate exactly what they say doesn't exactly reflect what they mean, and that used to frustrate the hell out of me yeah and it's really just a reflection of such an elevated state, I think, to me.

Charles: 32:58

I'm taking this no, I agree, it's just such an elevated state of emotion.

Dan: 33:02

It's just like all the words are coming out. And I know sometimes it's hard to pull the words once they're out of the box kind of thing back in again. But reading this book and just coming with that mindset of hey look, this is just. There's going to be a lot of chaos right now and there's going to be things that are said that probably aren't meant, and let's just work on bringing the emotions down before we try to get logical about anything.

Charles: 33:26

Yeah, I think it's fair to say that one of the responses that, as men, we might have to being in that diffuse physiological arousal, the DPA condition, is maybe we get hyperfactual about stuff, where, where we get part of being defensive, I think sure yeah, super, that's not true.

Charles: 33:47

Yeah, that's not true. I could think of one example where you just said always, you just said never, and and even with okay. Now that I'm arguing back with you, I'm going to be super focused on making sure everything I say is factually accurate, perhaps as a technique of avoiding telling you what I'm feeling right now. Instead, I'm going to recite these facts in such a way that I can be completely accurate and you're not going to be able to disprove anything that I'm saying. But the thing to remember is, when you hear an always or a never from your partner, you need to do a little bit of the work on yourself, or by yourself, to edit her statement, to say right now, I feel that you never listened to me. Right now, I feel that you never listened to me.

Dan: 34:28

Right now, I feel that you always leave the seat up Right now I feel that, but remember that part of the brain on her also is turned off to be able to communicate in that elegant way.

Charles: 34:35

Yeah, it's going to be hard for you, it's going to be hard for her to say it that way, it's going to be hard for you to hear it that way, but that's actually what's going on. When you're hearing an always or never from your partner, there's an unspoken. Right now, I feel like that she may or may not be saying yeah.

Dan: 34:51

Looking back, when I've tried to throw facts into the argument to disprove what she's saying, I realized the side effect of me doing that is denying her emotional state. At that point, oh exactly, that doesn't go well. No, because you never give her a chance to actually fully express what she's feeling is denying her emotional state at that point oh exactly, that doesn't go well. No, because you never give her a chance to actually fully express what she's feeling. And then I think if that never comes about, then there's not gonna be a resolution or her able to relax and feel more calm if she can never actually get out everything that she's feeling. Yeah, and the more so. I think, looking back at the times when I haven't thrown facts and tried to be defensive and just let it flow, I think that's probably why it's worked out so well for me.

Charles: 35:36

Yeah, I think most of our partners, especially if we've got a pattern of this kind of defensive, super aroused behavior and reacting to things this way. If we've got that pattern, when she says something to us, you never listened to me. If your response to that is to put down your phone or turn off the TV, turn physically toward her and say, right now you feel like I never listened to you, that must be really hard, that must feel awful and her jaw would probably hit the floor and that could be all it takes to make this problem immediately be diffused. And so give that a try, see how it works for you.

Dan: 36:12

Yeah, yeah, because but that takes practice, so you'll be able to handle that, yeah, and to think and remember to do that and so many of these things that we talk about on this show.

Charles: 36:23

It's if you don't have some underlying level of confidence and assurance that pretty much whatever happens to you, you can survive and be okay. It's going to be very hard and look from the relationships I had with women in my childhood, I am lacking that underlying foundation of no matter what the particular woman sitting across from you right now is feeling or experiencing or accusing you of, you're going to be okay, you can handle it. If you don't have that, then it's very it's much easier to get so defensive and feel so attacked and all in, oh, no, she's going to think I'm a bad person and then she's going to leave me. Or she's going to think I'm a bad person, then she's going to yell at me, or she's going to think I'm a bad person, then she's going to go find some other guy. It's yeah. When you, when you don't have that underlying confidence and that assurance that yeah, I can deal with stuff, everything's going to be okay, then it makes dealing with a woman's emotions even harder than it would be otherwise.

Dan: 37:22

Yeah, and a lot of times, unfortunately, we don't think that we need to even do those things until we're in the middle or recovering from a traumatic event.

Dan: 37:39

Oh yeah, I don't get serious about my own mental health until somebody dumps me it. Ideally, you're practicing it in the best energy state and mental state possible, and that's not right during a fight or after a fight, it's right now. It's, you know, times where it's not obvious to remind yourself that, hey, you know what, I'm pretty good at my job, I you know, I have some money in the bank, I've, I can pay my bills and I've been doing that for 30, 40 years. I'm going to be okay no matter what happens. But you've got to really intentionally prompt yourself to think through that and practice that and have a good reason why. With so many distractions, it's hard to remember to do all those wonderful things. But honestly, I think that's one of the most important things you can do is always reassuring yourself that you're going to be okay. Worst case scenario, and a lot of times, even if you go bankrupt and you can't pay the mortgage, you still will survive.

Charles: 38:33

Yeah, not so bad that it will literally kill you. It's not going to put you in the ground Right when. Yeah, I think about that all the time being in business for myself since 2007. It's yeah, if I lose this client, I can find another client. If I can't find another client, I can find another job. If I can't find another job, I can find another career. And because I've done all those things before I, yeah, the point where I had no client, there's a really where I had no job, there's a point where I had no career and I'm at one and there's multiple options for getting climbing your way back to where you were too.

Dan: 39:04

It's not like like there's just we've got one chance and then that's it.

Charles: 39:08

Yeah, and it's not fun. There's going to be years where you drive an old, beat up car. There's going to be years where you don't go on vacation. There's going to be, but you're not. Here's where you don't have a partner, but you're not going to die. And the fact is the skills that it place whether it's your partner, your job, your career, your house you're still going to have the knowledge in your head on how to do that and you can still climb your way back up from nothing again.

Dan: 39:31

It's amazing, we just we don't think about it, so we take it for granted and then we don't have that support for our confidence.

Charles: 39:37

Yeah, yeah, I knew somebody who would often say you're I think it was Robert Kiyosaki that said your greatest assets not your house, your greatest asset is your ability to generate income. And, yeah, I found myself a career where I could make myself a living, and if that career went bye-bye tomorrow I'd have to start over, but I could find another career where I could generate a living, agility and resilience, yeah, so okay, that's the. That's the message that it's a lot easier to handle conflict when you really believe deep down in your bones that, hey, no matter how this particular fight goes or this criticism goes from my partner, I'll be okay, I'll figure it out and things will. The sun's going to do some pretty heavy lifting as far as mental health work with your therapist, your recovery group, your minister, whoever it is that you go to for that kind of work. I, of those, I would recommend therapy probably number one. You could, you can build that resilience and get that underlying feeling of okay, no matter how bad things get, I'll be all right, and that really is the foundation for really any self-improvement or mental health that we're going to encourage you to take on.

Charles: 40:51

So there we go. Thanks, dan. We will talk next about. Why does it take so long to buy a pair of shoes? Understanding the evolutionary importance of shopping Sounds great. All right, thanks, dale, talk to you soon. Bye-bye, bye. Thank you so much for listening to the entire episode, dan, and I appreciate it. Again, check out our website, mindfullymasculinecom, for all the resources and news worth sharing.