324: What does it mean to open a woman? | Dear Men

Jason Lange: What's going on with that shame is even beyond the threat of, oh, this person will finds me unlovable right now. It's. Well, the truth is I don't think I'm lovable, right? So I don't feel worthy. I don't like myself. I don't feel like I belong or deserve.

Melanie Curtin: Hey everyone, just a quick note about this episode. First of all, I switched the order of the episodes that dropped last weekend this week, so you're going to hear Jason and I talking about the retreat, which we're actually on right now. When you are listening to the episode, we are on retreat. We're at our live event. So that note about a spot being left is no longer the case. Sorry about that. The episode order got switched and I wanted to share a celebration from one of our clients who this is. This is a great story. This is one of the things that we really work on in Pillars of Presence in our program is advocating for oneself and being able to ask for what you need and ask for what you want in romantic relationships, but also in other places in one's life. And this man, with the support of the community, asked for time off from work for the first time in several decades. So this is his celebration during and after his vacation. He says. I had an amazing week with close friends in a beautiful, not crowded area of Greece. It was the first time in 20 years I was able to take some time off and enjoy the magic of summer. It was a real blast. The villa was right at the beach. There was no need to set an alarm clock or worry that I would be late for something. I spent time with my closest friend, recollecting old times and talking about potential new holidays together. On the way back to the US I had a 5 hour layover in Zurich and took the train to explore the city. The cute little town is very charming and has a unique European architecture that is worth visiting. It also has a lot of chocolate traditions. So I stocked up on mini Toblerone chocolates for colleagues and friends. I'm really grateful for the Pillars community supporting me and giving me the courage to request and be granted this time off. Since joining the program, I gradually feel more comfortable expressing my needs, setting boundaries, staying away from the noise, and not just reacting to everything that comes my way. I feel like this has been the beginning of something I've always wanted to do but been afraid of doing and just sticking with the known. My life is different now and I feel more possibility. So if you are inspired and you are interested in coaching you can always go to Evolutionary Men to get more information on that. And if you're interested in supporting the podcast, you can become a patron. Just go to. Just Google Dear Men podcast Patreon, and it'll come right up. And I just want to say congratulations again to that client. You know who you are. I'm really proud of you for. Yeah, for advocating for yourself and for getting that time off and just really enjoying it and really experiencing the magic of that time. And this is just the beginning. Hey, everybody. Welcome back to another episode. Always good to have Jason Lange with us. Thanks for being here.

Jason Lange: Good to be back.

Melanie Curtin: So today we're talking about what does it mean to open a woman? And this podcast is primarily for folks who identify as men, who date and relate with folks who identify as women. But this topic is really. It's bigger than that, and it's more like, what does it mean to open the feminine? Which can be the feminine in. In any of us. Right. That. That part of us. So that the frame we're taking today is how. What does it mean to open a woman? But we're also going to talk a little bit about just what does it mean to open someone? And what does it mean to be opened by someone? And I think there's a lot of healing that's possible in these spaces, especially if you were not. If you were. If you were not opened when you were young. Right. If you. If there wasn't space created for you to be who you genuinely were without a lot of blocks or noise in the way. So there's a lot of healing that's possible, and I find that inspiring. So before we talk about what it means to open a woman, we thought we would start a little bit with what does it mean to close a woman? And I'm wondering if perhaps you could kick us off by sharing a memorable moment or two of when you closed a woman.

Jason Lange: Sure. You know, you could probably fill up a year's worth of episodes if Violet was on right now. She could give you plenty of examples. But, you know, I'll kind of give the meta version in a sense, which I've maybe spoken to just particularly early in our relationship when particularly right after we got married, you know, something would happen, whatever it is, just something would happen. And I would quickly, instead of actually acknowledging what she was feeling and actually getting curious about it and wanting to, like, acknowledge that in her, it would trigger a lot of my wounding about, you know, not being enough as a man or whatever. And so what I would do is I Would try to explain to her why she was wrong in a sense. Like, well, you don't need to feel that way because here was my intention in doing that. My intention was X, Y or Z or I wasn't even thinking about us when I said that. You know, like. And you can just kind of feel where some of that goes. The point of it being though is I would try to get, I would make her feelings wrong. So I would try to say you're feeling, you know, and I think a lot of us men can do this. What you're feeling isn't rational or logical because of this. And so if you just had this bit of information, you wouldn't feel that way. So I'm going to focus on making you understand this bit of information. And generally what that would do to my wife is close her down, right? Her body would tighten up, she might get angry, she might withdraw, she might literally just leave because she wasn't feeling acknowledged or seen or met. Would be a pretty strong example that we had to work through a lot. Kind of on more the like emotional in, in presence level or, you know, another example I can probably give is like, maybe there's something like if, if I was feeling or wanting something but didn't actually go for it in conversation or connection and there's like a sense of I'm kind of closed. And then she can kind of, you know, I'm just giving like one word answers or being a little like more withdrawn. That'll also close her down very fast. Very, very fast.

Melanie Curtin: Those are both great examples. And I'm really appreciating the, the first, the first section of you shouldn't be feeling that way because I didn't mean like, you shouldn't be feeling hurt because I didn't mean to hurt you. You shouldn't be feeling angry because I didn't mean to anger you. You should feeling left out because I didn't mean to leave you out. You should be feeling dropped because I didn't mean to drop you. And the exquisite simplicity of that, just the way that you phrased it about. You really shouldn't feel that way because that's really not what I meant. And if you just understood what I meant, you would stop feeling this way.

Jason Lange: Yeah, right. Which in one sense it's like, I can kind of see why we would hope that would make sense. And then on the other hand, it's like, I mean, it's basically the equivalent of like if I hit you with a baseball bat and I was like, I didn't Mean to hit you. You're like, it still hurts. It still hurts. Like, your intent doesn't actually remove the discomfort I'm in. Yeah. You know, certainly it might feel better to know it was an accident, but I'm still in pain right now, and I need you to acknowledge that. You know, I think it's kind of what we're pointing to. And when I wouldn't acknowledge the emotional truth of my partner, of Violet, like, that's when. Yeah, she'll close right down.

Melanie Curtin: When I didn't acknowledge the emotional truth of my partner, that's when she shut down. I think there's something powerful about that. And I really like that analogy of the baseball bat, because I think we all grasp in physical terms that that's very easy for us to comprehend, Right. If we accidentally. If we accidentally hit someone, right, we turn around really fast and we end up hitting them, and they're in pain. And what do we say? Well, we say, I'm sorry, even though we didn't mean to. It's the first thing that we say if we're attuned. I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to. I'm so sorry. Is there anything I can do? Right. There's. There. There is that acknowledgment. And. And I'm curious if you can delve briefly into what is the hesitation or. Why. Why is this so common? Why? And we'll just take you as a kind of microcosm of the macrocosm. What were you defending against? Or what did you. What were you afraid would happen? Why did you do that?

Jason Lange: A lot of it was honestly just my capacity to stay present in discomfort or emotional discomfort, Conflict. My discomfort. So there's a wanting to, you know, remove that. And, you know, that's. There's a. There's a positive version of that for the masculine in all of us that wants to reduce suffering in the world. Right. Wants to make everyone better. But sometimes it was just like, I, you know, I would be blown out. Like, I can't handle that anger right now. So I need to remove her anger and explain to her why it's wrong or, you know, work I've done over the last, you know, four years in particular, it was just because it was, you know, to feel that would go straight to the core of a vein of shame that I hadn't yet digested. And so for me to sit in that shame was so overwhelmingly painful that I would do anything to get out of it, which in that. In this instance, would be, oh, if I shift how she's feeling, then I won't have to feel shame. Right. If she realizes, oh, you didn't do that on purpose, it's okay, then I don't have to feel any kind of shame around, which oftentimes that vein of shame didn't even have to do with what was happening in the moment. It was just left over from previous times in life. And that habit, for one, just habit of not being present and attuned is a big one. And this thing we've talked about before, I think for a lot of us men is where, yeah, we're just. We fear emotions because it's like, wow, if she's emotional, that means she's going to be mad at me and I'm not going to be okay, or I'm not going to love, be, receive love anymore. So I've got to change her emotions to keep her feeling okay, so I'll feel okay. I mean, there is. It's not always the case, but particularly for some of us nice guys, there can be a pretty covert kind of narcissism in there that it's actually like, I don't want you to not be feeling well or to be an emotional state, because then I don't have. Because then I don't feel good. So I want you to feel okay. So I can feel okay. If we haven't learned to, you know, boundary ourselves, in a sense, first.

Melanie Curtin: I want to go back to what you said about the vein of shame, because I respect that awareness deeply. And what I've witnessed repeatedly in myself and in others, especially the men that we work with, is that shame is almost always the driver of. What is the word that I'm looking for? Intense emotions. That intense emotions often, very, very often stem from shame, but that it can be hidden. Can be hidden. Right. You know, you mentioned that vein, which the implication is it's all the way deep in the rock. It's not on the surface. It's not the first few layers. It's deep in there. And so I'm wondering if you can speak a little bit to that, because I feel like, in a way, you're sort of a pioneer or an explorer or you're, you know, further down this path. And for men that are maybe not as far as far down, it might be hard for them to grasp or put together. What, what is the shame? Where. Where is the shame? What does that mean? When. When your wife is upset, when your partner's upset, and you're basically defending. Right. You shouldn't. You shouldn't feel that way because I didn't mean it that way. You know, where is the shame? Can you explain that a little bit for the men?

Jason Lange: Yeah, it does take practice, which is why we focus on that so much. And you kind of gotta. There's no thinking about it with this stuff. There's just doing it. There's just doing it. And it's messy and sloppy and not perfect, but it works over time. It's just that simple.

Melanie Curtin: Yeah, I like that. It's messy and sloppy sometimes, but it works. And I'm curious, you know, just again, I'm sort of thinking about the guy listening in the car. Right? What. How long would you say that it took you to get more skillful at that part? That part about sharing your own, your own vulnerability, your own truth still happening?

Jason Lange: I mean, it's. Yeah, I mean I've had some huge wins with that just this year. So it's, it's a continual process. You know, I've been married now for seven years. I think seven or eight, I would have to do the math.

Melanie Curtin: Um, it's seven.

Jason Lange: Seven. Yeah. Yeah, I was, I was thinking so. But it's taken that long, you know, in a sense for me to feel comfortable bringing some of this stuff forward and just not even because my partner couldn't handle it, or we hadn't built the trust, but like I just wasn't there in myself in a sense. I was still doing some of my excavating and so now I feel a lot more comfortable most of the time, not all the time. You know, I still get caught in loops or bad days or whatever that might be, but it's getting easier. And then, you know, the thing I say about long term relationship is the Deeper trust we form is, oh, we can do this, we can have hard conversation, we can move through conflict that you don't have at first because it's like, ah, you know, gonna go through this and I don't know what's gonna happen. Um, but you do that, you know, over seven years and it's like, okay, this thing that feels totally unmovable and broken and stuck between us, you know, whatever that might be. Turns out we've had a few of those before and look what happened. We moved through that. So there's a deeper kind of relaxation of, okay, this isn't pleasant, but I trust we can move through it and that I've developed enough capacity and she's developed enough capacity to do that.

Melanie Curtin: Yes. And the other thing I want to add to that is that when it was too much for either of you to lead it, you brought in help.

Jason Lange: Totally.

Melanie Curtin: And I think that's important to note because particularly when we're talking about deep attachment wounding, you're not always going to be able to do it as a couple by yourself. Sometimes you're going to need help. A little holding from outside. And I think that's something that we don't really talk about enough as a culture is just basically every couple is going to need that at some point. And I think there's some shame and stigma around, well, if we get help, right, if we go to a couple's counselor or a therapist or a coach or something, it means that we're broken. When you would never think that about a sport, right? If you were learning tennis and you'd kind of plateaued, you'd gotten to a certain level or whatever was happening, you just couldn't figure out a certain thing about your serve. And you hired a coach, you hired an expert, you hired someone to help you and guide you and hold you, you would not think that you were terrible at tennis and it was never going to work, right. We, we have this association with going to couples therapy or going to couples counseling as something like you're broken and you're just trying to, It's a last, last ditch effort to save it. And I think we need to shift that to, we should be going sooner. Couples should be going sooner and learning more skills and being held through really difficult places and know going in this is basically going to happen. If we're going to have a healthy relationship, we're going to need help at some point and going in with that open eyed acknowledgment rather than, we think we can do this all ourselves. And if we have to reach out for help, there's something wrong.

Jason Lange: Yeah, you think of it as, you know, it's relational fitness. You don't wait. If you wait till after you've fallen to work out, you've already suffered most of those consequences and your body may never recover. You can do some rehab and whatnot, but the best type of exercise is preventative. Right. We go to the gym all the time to keep our body, our coordination, our mobility, our strength up so that we have capacity to be in our lives, in relationships. And therapy is that too. You know, I think that's the big shift that's happening right now. And I know who said it, someone in our community or whatever, but it was like, yeah, it's not. It's not people who are messed up that go to therapy. It's the people who don't go to therapy that are messed up. You know, like, honestly, you work out your body, you got to work out your heart and mind and emotional self for yourself and as a couple. And so you are going to hit these roadblocks. So you might as well be proactive about it and it's going to keep your fitness up as a couple. Doesn't mean you have to go all the time with. With therapy. But you want to know who to call and you want to have done enough work with that person that they know you're couple of them.

Melanie Curtin: Yeah, that's a great point. Okay, so I want to keep going with, what does it mean to open a woman? And a few memorable times that I have felt opened. So one of them was I. Okay, I'm going to tell this story. This is from. This is fun. This is from my 20s. I was seeing a guy and it was like nighttime. It was like nine or ten at night and it was snowing. And this was when I was in New York City and he. We had been texting and he was like, hey, come to the place. Like, come to the bar where I'm at with my friends. It'll be fun. And it's an Alphabet city. Here it is, you know, whatever. And so. And there was something like, yeah, I don't remember all the details, but basically I went, I went to the bar and I was outside and for some reason I was waiting for him to come out. I don't remember all the details or some, or. Or he told me like, the cross streets, but not which bar it was. I don't remember. Something happened. And basically he didn't answer his phone. He wasn't checking his phone. He didn't answer his phone. He wasn't checking his phone. And so I stood there for probably like 20 or 30 minutes. And it was cold. It was snowing. It was cold. Upon telling the story, I'm like, this isn't logical. I don't know why I didn't just go inside. I don't remember. But there was some reason why I didn't. I didn't have the address or something. And so I left, went back to my place, and I felt really annoyed and really dropped and really angry and just like, why would you invite me out and then, like, do that? You know, like, just forget about me, basically. And so, you know, speaking of your. Your point about doing something different, right? Like flipping the script. So normally my M.O. would be, you, you up, I'm shutting you out. Like, go yourself. And I could feel that. I could feel that, like, desire and that defense structure. And what I did was I journaled for probably an hour. I don't remember. But it was pretty long time. Like, a pretty long time. I'm journaling all this stuff out and then I hear from him, and he either texted me or called me or something and said, I'm so sorry, can I come over? And this was another choice point, because my defense structure was like, you. No, you can't come over, you motherfucker. Like, you fucked up. I'm fucking pissed. And I was like. Could feel it again, right? I could feel it. And same thing. I was like, I'm gonna do something different. I'm gonna make a different choice in this moment. So I said yes. He came over and he held me and he said, I'm really sorry. How are you feeling? And I was really honest and I said, I'm feeling all these things. And I kind of, you know, shared in a pretty vulnerable way. Like, I didn't. I didn't. I didn't let the defense structure attack him. I was like, I'm feeling dropped. You know, I'm feeling all these things, whatever. And then I remember saying, how are you feeling? And he said, I feel like I fucked up. And that really opened me. Like, that really, really opened me. It felt really. I felt really met in that moment. And what was. What was really interesting was there was a part of me that was feeling shame. To your point, feeling shame about, I shouldn't feel this dropped, I shouldn't feel this angry, I shouldn't feel this fill in the blank. I should. I should have a thicker skin. I should be able to get over this more quickly. I should be more Casual, I should. Whatever. Should, should. All this stuff. And I. I was crying at one point. He was holding me and I was crying, and I said something like, I just feel like I feel more than other people. And he said, what if you don't feel more than others? What if you just show it more? And I thought that was pretty profound, because I do think that that's very true, is all of us have deep feelings. If you're a human being on the planet that's conscious, you have deep feelings, how much you feel like you're allowed to show those. It differs and on a bunch of things. But I thought that was a really profound and memorable moment of feeling opened by a man. And it connects directly to. Yeah, what you said about taking responsibility and being willing to. To not defend. Because he was really good about not defending. And I think that when he came over and I think he understood what a risk I was taking by letting him back in the door, I think he really got the fragility of that, or the. Maybe fragility is not the right word, but the sensitive nature of that and how special it was that I was allowing him back in on a night when I felt really dropped. And so his acknowledgement of how, you know, how are you feeling? Well, I feel like I fucked up was, like, so honest and real and raw. And, you know, that was a really deep connection. That was a really deep moment of connection. And I really want to acknowledge myself as well in that story because I really feel like so much of our work as human beings is to grow beyond our defenses, grow beyond those ways of being that are trying to protect us and finding other ways of communicating the same thing without all of the. The rage or the noise or the withdrawal or whatever the defense structure is, finding what needs to be expressed and being able to be more direct about that instead of the defense structure, which is just trying to. To hang on. Do you have any comments about that particular section?

Jason Lange: We've got one spot left.

Melanie Curtin: Okay. If we have one spot for our live retreat, which is happening next weekend, if you resonated with this episode and you want to do deep work, you want to do it in person with both of us, come to the retreat. It's next weekend. If you can swing it in Northern California for more on that, you can go to Evolutionary Men. And if you are looking for a longer container than just a weekend, you can also look at our program for Men, and that's also at Evolutionary Men. All the details are there and we would love to have you. So please reach out. Da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da.