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: Sure. In my manifestation. But I think it's probably true for a lot of people. You know, what's going on with that shame is even beyond the threat of, oh, this person will finds me unlovable right now. It's. 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 or whatever. And so when I don't have that solidity inside myself, it's like, you know, we can do all. I can do all kind of gymnastics to maneuver around it and create a facade. And it's like a delicate, you know, kind of construction inside house of cards. But then if some conflict or intensity or emotion or disappointment comes in, like it touches the house of cards and the whole thing falls apart. And you know, a lot of the shadow work I do with men, the. The idea is whether it's shame or anger or grief, you know, those are kind of the big three we often work with. But it's like, you know, you and I will be going on retreat again and dovetails beautifully with some of the land work stories we got of, you know, part of the intensity of somewhere like California and really the whole west right now is there's over a hundred years of debt of wood, debt, wood that has to burn. Like there's nowhere for it to go. It has to burn. And so what would normally be a tiny forest fire right now explodes into these huge, huge, all encompassing forest fires. And so whether it's shame, anger, grief, some of this unprocessed stuff inside of us, the shadow stuff, it's like kindling for a fire. So what would normally be like, oh, my partner's disappointed in me. Oh, yeah, okay, she's disappointed in me. I can work with that. That's okay. It's like that little spark hits all this undigested stuff. In my case, it was shame. And then the whole system collapses for me, right? And I just disappear or posture around it. And our work, you know, as humans, but particularly the work I do with men, is to uncover that stuff and take responsibility for it. Of like, oh, okay, it's actually. My partner can actually heal that part of me. I have to do my work to, to just become aware of that and know what my tender spots are and what that part of me needs. And we all have that. And I think nice guys in particular almost always have some vein of unlovability or shame or there's a way I have to be. I have to keep my partner pleased or else I'm not going to be loved.

Melanie Curtin: Yeah. And I. I really want to highlight the fact that, you know, you mentioned metabolizing that shame and learning to be with it. And I'm wondering, because I think that you're a good example of the capacity that you have so far outpaces your father. It's extraordinary. You are one of those people who has already broken a lot of lineage patterns, and I imagine we'll continue to do so. But I think one of the main takeaways that I want people to have from this episode is how much. How doable this is, how possible this is, how learnable this is. And if you could just share a little bit about how you metabolized some of that shame, how you accessed it and worked with it, you don't need to go into the whole thing because really, it's personal growth work. Right. It's all of all the stuff that we do. But if you could just share a little bit about that, I think that would be helpful. Because if I were a man listening, I would say, oh, yeah, I identify with that. Unlovability, shame. How the fuck do I deal with it? What the fuck do I do about it? How do I. How do I do this?

Jason Lange: Yeah, for me, it was, you know, men's work, shadow work therapy, and then learning to paradoxically bring that forward intentionally in my relationship. So, oh, hey, here's something I feel ashamed of, or here's a part of me that feels unlovable, whatever. Which is very different than it, you know, the idea with all this kind of stuff is when we're unpracticed, when we haven't done the work and an emotion happens, the emotion takes us. So we are being run by the emotion and growth and development. In a big sense. One of the big shifts is instead of the emotion, having us, we have it. Oh, I have shame right now instead of I am shame. I'm just collapsed in it. Or I have some grief right now, or I have some anger right now. And all the work I've done is just about that. And it's not glamorous work. It's snotty, it's tearful, it's fights with my wife. This is just long, dedicated stuff, in a sense. But it's not like rocket science. It's not a mystery. It's just a commitment to keep stepping in and becoming more intimate with myself and tracing where these things started. You know, in my family of origin and experiences, I had feeling that stuff in my nervous system in safe containers. And then it starts to change and release. And then I become you be. We become more aware of the first signals. I think that's a big thing. Ooh. You know, kind of like the early detection on an earthquake. It's like, oh, hey, hey, here's those vibrations. That thing's about to happen here. So now I have a choice. Do I replay the script I've been playing for, you know, 43 years here, or do I want to play a different script? Let's try a different script. And turns out, you play a different script, and you often get different results. And it's a lot more engaging and connecting. And in my experience, when I brought that forward, Von Honorably, with intention, not collapsed, lo and behold, it totally opens. My wife totally opens it. Her.

Melanie Curtin: That's a great way of saying it. I really like that. I. We're gonna share some stories about memorable times that I have felt opened by a man. And one of those was we were. I think I've told this on the podcast before. I'll keep it brief, but I was at a dinner with my partner, and it was just not going well. Like, there was obviously some tension that was not being spoken, and it was just really uncomfortable. And then we left the restaurant. We were sitting on a bench, and he said, I'm having trouble connecting, and that. That opened me. And other stuff happened after that. But that. That moment is a good. I think a bit of what you're speaking to. Of him proactively sharing where he was at and what his vulnerability was. And that's not even really that vulnerable, to be honest. But I love what you just said, because the difference I can sense is she's with her partner, and he's closing down, or he's shutting off, or he's kind of going into himself. He's withdrawing, and. And he can feel that that's happening. He can feel like up doing that thing again, like you said, the early detection system. And instead of just shutting off, closing down, going in the other room, acting like everything's fine, even though it's not. He says, the story I'm telling. The story I'm telling myself right now is that you're angry with me because I didn't do a good enough job yesterday and that you don't want to be with me anymore. And that is opening because it's sharing. It's sharing It's. It's literally. I think there's a. There's a sense of, I am showing you who I am right now that invites her in instead of, I'm shutting down, I'm closing off. I'm shutting you out, which does not invite her in. And in actuality, for a lot of women partners, that triggers all of her shit. Right? You shut down, you close off, you go away. And now she's freaking out, and whatever defense structure she has is now activated. And so she's, like, worried, anxious, stressed, concerned. And now maybe she's. Now maybe she's pissed. And she's like, oh, he's doing that thing again. I can't believe he's doing it again. Whatever. We're off to the races. So I. I really like that as one of the ways to open a woman is to share your truth. We never saw that modeled.

Jason Lange: Totally. That vulnerability can be so powerful. And it's. You know, sometimes it's my truth, sometimes it's the truth. Sometimes it's just this sense of really actually speaking to what's happening. Like, it's not always pleasant, but there's almost always an opening when we actually acknowledge what is. And so oftentimes we'll pretend or want to ignore, you know, as men. I'm too tired. I don't want to get into it with her. But, like, to. Hey, I'm noticing, like, I'm having a hard time being present because I'm just exhausted. And I imagine that doesn't feel good to you. Like a boom. That can totally open a partner because they're like, oh, great. I feel let in. I feel connected to you. I would like you to be more present, but that's better than you just slumping on the couch, you know, or whatever that might be. The. The. The leading invulnerability we teach in our PILLARS program. This is one of the ways, right, that we can open our partners that I think we'll dive into more here as we go.

Melanie Curtin: Yeah, I want to shift into the memorable. So, okay, in terms of closing, what is it? Excuse me? What. What leads to closing? Woman, the ones that. The notes that I took were. One thing that will close me is you need to just calm down. Like, you're really. You're overreacting. You're getting hysterical. Anything that's about. You're being too much right now will shut me down. Well, it will close me. It'll piss me off, but it'll also close me. Because closing doesn't necessarily mean withdrawing. Closing can be okay, now my defenses are activated. Let's. Let's do this. Oh, and yeah, the. The other one that I wrote down, which is essentially what you said is defending, which is, I didn't mean to do that. So you shouldn't be feeling that. You shouldn't be feeling the way that you're feeling. Whatever is happening for you right now is wrong, and you should just. Just make that go away, because that. That should. That shouldn't be happening. That shouldn't be happening. Therefore, make it stop. That's going to close me. And it's interesting because I took notes before this, and I was looking at memorable times of being opened by a man feeling opened. And many of them were apologies, which I wasn't expecting. I wasn't exactly sure what was going to show up when I did this, but I'm going to give a few examples. So the first one that I have is I was in. I had a fight with a guy friend, a very close guy friend. And he and I had been, like, we had been in conflict before, and so we had talked through and kind of debriefed about conflict in the past. And one of the things that I said was, it's really painful for me when we're in conflict and you're just ignoring it. Like, I have to be the one to bring it up. I have to. I have to lead. Like, I just have this feeling like if I never brought it up, we would never repair. Like, it's just all on me. It all falls on my shoulders. And so it would feel really nice for you to be the one to approach me sometimes. It would just change everything for me. So we had this conflict, and we were in, like, that, like, mucky part where you're just, like. It just sucks, you know, Just part. And I remember that he physically crossed the room and came towards me and said, would you like to go for a walk and talk about this? And there was definitely a part of me that was angry and really wanted to push him away. And I. I think that this is one of those bifurcation moments, one of those choice points where if you vulnerably extend the way that he did and your partner, like, brushes you away or pushes your hand away or metaphorically just pushes you away in that moment, that's not a good sign. What I'm trying to say is there was a part of me, my defense structure, wanted to be like, you. No, I don't want to go for a walk. You. You up. Like, I'm fucking mad at you. But that's not what I did. I didn't do that. I chose not to do that. And he. So when he came over and he said, would you like to go for a walk? I said yes. And that really opened me that he did that in large part because I knew how. How much of a risk that was for him. I knew because of the conversations we'd had in the past that that was an act of love from him. That was. It was really uncomfortable. A big part of him didn't want to do it. He was not used to leading. He's very used to being passive. And so that was actually a big deal moment. And I could feel that. And so I said yes. And we did repair. And interestingly, what really opened me was the generosity. The generosity. I could feel him extending. I could feel him taking a risk and extending towards me because he cared about me and the relationship. And then when we went on the walk, you know, the other thing that really, really opened my heart was he said this was about the situation that happened, which I don't want to go into. But essentially what he. He said was, this was a really hard part of my last love relationship was what you said and the way that you said was a really hard part of that relationship. And it brought up all this stuff. And he was crying, and he was really sharing really vulnerably from the heart. Here's what was happening for me in that room. And that really opened me so that I think we're coming back again to disclosure. The ability to share yourself, yourself, your heart, your truth with another person, whether that's a man or a woman. That tends to open someone. And I know it sounds obvious, but it's true. It's a big. It's a big deal. It's a big part. And I just want to point out that I think that that's part of why. Why men's work is so critical. And because when you get into spaces, you know, I can't tell you the number of men that have come through our program and have said, I have never been in a space with men like this. I have never been in a space where men shared so openly and so vulnerably and so truthfully about themselves and their struggles. I've never been in this space, and that blows my mind. I mean, I understand that we live in the patriarchy, and I get that men are separated from one another, and you have to kind of put on this shell and this hard casing in order to look, quote, masculine. But I don't think that as a woman, I truly grasp how lonely that is. Really, I don't think I really, really get it because I can't imagine being in my 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, and never having been in a safe space essentially where men could really drop their guards and be real with one another. So that work, men's work and the kinds of, the kind of work that we do, the kind of work that's done in personal growth spaces, it's so important because if you don't have any practice disclosing your heart, sharing your truth, being vulnerable with someone, how are you supposed to do it with your partner when you're triggered? It's even harder, right? It's even harder. We need to do drills before we can play the game. And I think that's part of why men's work is so critical, because it's drills, it's practice, it's practice perceiving others truths and it's practice sharing your own.

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: I mean, I think I just want to tie it into, you know, when I. When I kind of. Part of what prompted this was a conversation we had on one of our group calls recently. And the first thing I just want to say is part. Part of why I want to highlight this is this is one of the greatest gifts we can bring to another human being. So, you know, we're particularly talking in a, you know, hetero context here, men and women, but this can go any direction with any kind of person. But the idea here is the, you know, to open someone. In my mind, it means a lot of things. But one of the ones that I've been really restricted kind of sitting with is in a sense, it's giving someone permission and safety to just be. To be exactly as they are feeling. Exactly as they are feeling. And that might sound a little simple in a sense, like, okay, but that I'm telling you guys, your capacity to bring this to a woman you're interested in or your wife is the thing. It's not how much money you make, it's not how strong your abs are, your status, any of that bullshit. It's, can you open her and bring her into her heart and body in the moment in a way where she feels both permission and the safety to just be. To just be in her body in the moment. You know, in a sense here. And this is something we can train ourselves to, you know, to work, to bring. But it is a great gift. I think that's the thing I want to point to here and to open a woman as we're talking about in this episode. It's. It's. Yeah, it's. It's guiding her deeper into just beingness in the moment, being what's in, you know, allowing the truth of her heart to come through, allowing the truth of her body to come through and being viscerally connected to that at an emotional level, at a sensational level, and again in the moment. So this is one of the gifts, you know, our masculine leadership or capacity might be having an interaction with someone and feel they're kind of, you know, spinning off into story or rumination or fears. And there's a way we can actually lead our partner into and yeah, what's, you know, and what's happening for you right now while I'm with you, you know, and we get curious about that and that attention, that bringing it into the moment will often open a partner. Right. And these words of permission and I think safety are. Are big and there's lots of ways they can show up. And again, you know, I'm just going to name this here because it maybe just reveals a little bit of my own ideology. And so I'm just going to own this. This is my perspective on things. You know, there's always a little bit of a chicken in the egg in terms of, you know, do we act certain ways as men and women because of our biology or what I kind of more believe is our biology is kind of a manifestation of certain energies, you know, in a sense, that kind of worked their way in. And when we even just think about male and female sex organs right what happens with us men is we get erect, right? We fill up and we kind of elongate, ready for penetration for women, right? What happens? The cervix opens. It actually opens to receive. There's an opening there. And I think that is a manifestation of this energy of being right, in a sense, in our gift, when we are bringing our presence as men and creating safety in the moment with that presence that's often conducive to opening, right? So one of the ways we can open someone is being deeply present with him. Just I'm right here right now with you, and my attention is right here. And, you know, I certainly had experiences. I've told these stories before of, you know, when I was still fumbling through things in my 20s, but, like, starting to get some of this capacity online of, you know, being out at a bar, talking to a woman, asking her questions. And I don't know why I'm telling you all this, like. And she's just totally just sharing so much and so deeply. It's not because it was magic or anything. It was just because I was paying attention, right? It was. There was structure, presence, safety, attunement. And so she opened. She just naturally opened to that presence, in a sense. And I think this stuff is important too. You know, even just at a physiological level. This is stuff I've had to work in my relationship. If I'm not in my body and so I'm not attuned to myself, I'll often show up in a way where I'm not attuned to my partner's body, and my touch can be totally off. I might be too hard or too aggressive or too fast and not actually be moving at the pace of her body. And lo and behold, that'll close her pretty fast, right? And not all men, but, you know, I would wager many women have experienced a man who just kind of tries to go right for penetration. And. And it's like, well, that I can't actually open to that. And that'll sometimes shut a partner down, right? It's like, oh, wow, that's too much. I'm not ready for that right now. There's a process of opening that takes a certain amount of attunement in presence and whatnot, but that this capacity to all. And this is why the emotional stuff is so important, that if a partner doesn't feel they're allowed to. To be feeling what they're feeling, they're not going to open because then the predisposition there or the. The judgment is There's a way I have to be. And if there's a way I have to be, oftentimes some part of us is armored up, right there's, it's not relaxed of just, oh, I get to just be. There's a way I have to be and just, you know, you guys can't see me, but just what I'm doing with my body is tensing up. There's a way I have to be. I'm posturing versus, oh, I just get to be flow in the flow receiving in a sense. And you know, I'm going to tell. I just wanted to tell this story here, I think I, I don't know if I've mentioned on the show before or not, but in one of my men's groups back in 2018, my buddy, my buddy got tickets to Guns N Roses at Dodger Stadium on a Friday night, which for those outside of la, let's just say traffic on a Friday is the stuff of actual nightmares. And the way Dodger Stadium, you know, they like demolished a whole neighborhood and put it in the middle of nowhere and you can only get there by driving. Anyway, it just worked out that he was across town or something and he's like, okay, be downtown at this time, I'm going to pick you up. And he picked me up on his motorcycle, which I had never really been on a bike before then. And I got on the back and just put my arms around him and he lane split all the way through the gnarliest LA traffic from downtown to Dodger Stadium. And I kid you not, 15 minutes just like this. Gorgeous, weaving in and out and he was tracking so much. Rear view mirrors, cross traffic, speed, where people are coming from. My life was very much in his hands and it opened me so much to just be able to relax. And I'm like winds in my hair, watching the beautiful city fly by me, smelling, feeling the sun. I didn't have to hold any structure and I felt really opened and relaxed and just safe and free in my body and trusting in a sense. And that, that was, you know, that's a version of this, of why we focus so much on, you know, structure and leading is. It's conducive to opening. You know, if someone is having to hold structure, it's kind of harder to open, right? It's harder to just be. And this idea of opening is just, it's being. You're allowing your partner to just be and for energy to flow through them as needed, whatever that energy is. And when we stop judging the energy. But we just welcome it as it is. It becomes often a vortex of like generative, beautiful, even the hardest stuff, you know, tears, grief, anger, become like, wow, this is incredible. It's, you know, seeing my partner open, certainly as a man, whatever her emotions are, it's actually a turn on to me. It brings energy into my body and I want to be close to her when she's open, when she's raw, when she's vulnerable. And last thing I'll just share around this, which has been big learning for me, is I think this is just one in particular for guys that are married. So much is involved in this and you know, every person's different. But like for my partner, disorganization, messiness, like a house in disarray, lots of chores that need to be done. Those are. It's like sandpaper on her nervous system. And imagine if I was with you and I was like, hey, relax. And I kept rubbing sandpaper on you. It's like, hey, why? Why can't you relax? Aren't you turned on? Why can't you relax? Aren't you turned on? You're like, no, there's sandpaper rubbing against me. I think this is a big one for our guys. That environment, things like that for our partner really do matter, right? They really do matter for some partners more than others. But these are the things we have to start attuning to of okay, how can I help co create that then? Doesn't mean I have to do it all, but how can I help bring that in my relationship? So my partner arrives in a place of feeling relaxed and safe and then, you know, she's much more willing to just open in a sense. And then if I lead with a little vulnerability or some honesty or something, it's like the whole thing just ignites pretty fast.

Melanie Curtin: I want to go back to something you said because it made me cry when you said I didn't have to hold any structure when you're on the motorcycle, it. It made me cry. And I think that's such a good example of. It is true that for Omega, for the feminine, the deepest longing that I have is to surrender. That is the deepest longing that I have. And that is only possible with someone, a partner, a mentor, a coach, a friend, whoever it is that can hold the structure of the moment. And what you said is so beautiful because holding the structure of the moment is I've got you. Whatever you're bringing, I've got you. And I'm not going to judge you. And I'm not going to. You're not going to have to be a different way or hold it together or say it perfectly or be organized or logical or rational or reasonable. You get to just be. And I've got you. And I think that's. I really want to bring this up in, in this section, which is. I have experienced, I have been with men, and I think a lot of women have, and I think a lot of our clients can probably relate to this, where the man really wants her to be rational and logical. He really. And a lot of the men that we've worked with go into their heads a lot. And so logic, reason, rationality is important to them. And it's a lot of where their mind goes. And a lot of these men have a tendency to ruminate and to think a lot, to cogitate, to think more than to feel. And I just want to say that part of the reason it's so important for you to do your work as a man, for you to get your own structure handled, is because you need to be okay with your own emotions in order to hold hers. And what I have seen repeatedly is that there are men who want to be the man that opens her. They want to be the man that can hold her, but they haven't done their own work. And the. The way that I think about it is again, back to physical, physical form. It's like if you were a partner figure skater and you wanted to be able to do lifts with your partner. You wanted her to trust you, and you wanted to be able to lift her up, but you weren't doing your reps. It's not enough to want to be able to hold her. You have to train and you have to grow and you have to expand your nervous system, and you have to be able to root down. And that. That work is not just with her. That's embodiment work. That's men's work. That's. That's your own. That's your own work. And it's training to be able to hold her. And when we talk about it, when we talk about, you know, we often use the analogy of being the oak tree, that when whoever's holding Alpha, whoever's holding the masculine, is the oak tree, and that whoever is, you know, holding omega is the. Is the butterflies, is the. Everything that's moving around that gets to perch on the oak tree. That's sort of the movement. You can't fake it. You can't fake being the oak tree. There's no faking it. And it. It's I really appreciated what you said, Jason, about, you know, it's not glamorous, it's not. It's snotty, it's messy, it's. I guess what I'm trying to say is in order to hold immense Alpha, you have to be able to access your own Omega. You have to go into all that. You have to be held by others. You have to have mentors and support and places where you can fall apart. You have to do that work in order to become the man that can hold her. And I think that's the thing that's so often missed, is that a lot of men, they don't want to do that messy work. They don't want to go into their own stuff. They don't want to look at their own shame. They don't want to. They don't want to feel all of that. They don't want to have to do all of that. But they want to hold her. They want her to feel held with them. But you have to go through the muck in order to become that oak tree. You can't just will yourself into it. Can you share a little bit about that?

Jason Lange: Yeah. I mean, it's a capacity in the nervous system, in our nervous systems to, to just be present. You know, it's why we do do a lot of embodiment work and shadow work and inner child work and mindset work to be able to hold presence for our partners, you know, in a sense. And you know, another way I've been thinking about the masculine is it's really just the capacity to be with whatever's here. I can be with it, and the capacity to be with whatever is here. And as we can do that, that does something to the nervous system of people around us. It actually relaxes often their nervous system and allows more of them to come through. And lo and behold, most of the time that's what we're attracted to them, their energy, their thusness, their. Their, their themness, whatever, however you would put that. So this is where the beautiful cycle of this goes. And you know, I kind of want to use an example here, even in a kind of non romantic, non sexual way of, you know, as a father of a four and a half year old, you know, spending time around kids and a lot now you can just imagine like, you know, if there's like a group of young kids and they're feeling a little shy and you can feel it, you know, one of the great gifts a parent can do or a father or a mother is, you know, you could. I could go in and I can be a little goofy. I can like, oh, you know, we're practicing for something, and I trip and fall and I kind of laugh, and then all the kids laugh, and you can feel the nervous systems just go, boom. It's like the space is opened. Oh, we can be silly now because he was silly, so we can be silly, or he messed up so I can mess up. And it's so visceral, right? You can see when a child is closed and when they're open. And when they're open, they're just comfortable being themselves. And there's ways we can support that. And oftentimes you can support that by going first, right? This is the leading with vulnerability thing of saying, you know what? Oh, I really want something more from my partner, and she doesn't give it to me, you know, or like, hey, I'm going to go first. I'm going to go first because I love my partner. I want this to work. Not going to wait. And in doing that, she feels permission to bring herself in. Or I see this in the men's groups, I lead all the time. When we do our shadow work retreats, right, it's like eight guys, and each one's going to get attention. And we call it the vortex, because one man will step in, and then suddenly the next man's like, well, damn, if he can do that. I kind of think I'm safe to do what I want to do. And just like dominoes. Boom, boom, boom, boom. Deeper, deeper, deeper and deeper. And it comes from each man being willing to kind of go first, in a sense. And then other men feel more comfortable stepping in of, oh, it's okay for me to be mad or sad or horny or angry or whatever that might be. And now we can play with that energy and it's safe and there's literally opening. You know, we'll see it on retreat next week with our guys. You know, some will come, come in on guard and vigilant and not feeling totally safe. And we'll do work. We have a strong container. And they'll leave often just open. Their body is more open, they're relaxed, they're feeling connected, they feel way more themselves. And this is just one of the great gifts that we can learn to cultivate that you know, more than any sexual technique you can learn as a man, it's this. Can you be deeply present with your partner, however she is, and create that container permission and safety where she really feels that, and then she just gets to Be the. The flow of love gets to move through her, in her body, whatever it looks like. It's not always going to look like love. Sometimes it's going to look like, you know, anger or tears or whatever it might be. But again, this is the great gift we can bring. And we're telling you guys, this is the capacity you want to develop if you want to change your marriage, change your relationship, change your dating. Your ability to open a partner is the thing that is, frankly, unforgettable. When someone can open us, we remember that experience. It's special, it's novel. And unfortunately, in our culture, it's pretty rare.

Melanie Curtin: Yeah. And it occurs to me as you're sharing that one of the reasons that, you know you're able to open your partner is because you've been in places where someone was able to open you 100%. That's kind of what I'm trying to say. And we've, you know, shared this story before, but I will share it again because it was so powerful for me. At your wedding, your best man, to my memory, his entire speech was, he put his hand on your back. He had his two feet on the earth, and he said, while you've got her, we've got you. That. That's what we're going for. We want you. You, all you men that are listening, we want to support you. We want to help you. We want to help you develop yourself. We want to hold you so that you can then hold others in this way. It's not about you having to do all of this alone. It's about you being held first and then being able to hold. So I just want to share one more memorable story of being opened. I was with a partner, and we had kind of like. We'd had tension, like, a significant amount of tension for a while, and we had repaired with words, and we. And we were seeing each other for the first time in, like, maybe a week or something. And I remember just being honest with him and saying, I. I'm not sure what to do because I. I feel like I'm, quote there in my mind, but my body doesn't feel. I'm having trouble coming back into safety with you. And he was very accepting of that. He didn't get defensive. He didn't say, like, well, we've talked about this. Why are you feeling this way? I thought we were okay. He just said, all right, let's. Let's. Let me hold you. Like, let me come towards you. Let me physically hold you and see what happens next. See where that leads us. And that was really helpful. And essentially what happened was he held me physically, and then I was able to open my heart more and say, share a few more things that I hadn't really known were there in the same way, once I felt held. And I think that there's something really, as someone who, you know, I work with couples now, something that I see repeatedly is that physicality, physically holding, touching, yabyam, the position, yab yam. Physical, physical holding. Energy in the body connecting the two physical bodies can then open the way for whatever emotions are still there, whatever still needs to be shared that sometimes can't be accessed without that physical holding that sometimes there's. You know, they say our issues are in our tissues. And I think there's a way that it can be a lot more efficient for a couple to use physical touch and physical holding as a way of getting to what's next, getting to the next layer, getting to the next way of opening. And instead of being sort of stuck in our heads and trying to connect with our minds, bringing in the physical body is like a hack. And I wanted to just share that because I have a couple other stories I'm not going to share on this episode, but many of them involve physical touch, physical holding as part of the. Part of what opened me. So I think we're going to close there. We're very interested in your own stories of this, of memorable times when you have opened a woman or felt open to yourself. If you have those stories, please get me at Dearmen PodcastMail. Would love to hear your stories. And if this episode touched you or you were impacted by it, please let me know that, too. Because we're thinking of doing a girl talk potentially on the same subject. It feels like such an important subject, and so I'd be interested in knowing if that would be of interest to you to hear. And do we have one spot left for the retreat or are we full?

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.