
The Right to Feel Part 2
In this webinar replay, from the 14th of Mar 19, we shared the following tools:
- The Inner Critic
- The Right to Feel – Women
- The Right to Feel -Men
- How we hurt each other in a relationship
- Nourishment for men and women
Transcript of the webinar about the Right to Feel Part 2 by the Generous Marriage Podcast Team
Hello Shachar Erez. Hello Ziv Raviv. Hello How are you? I’m good. You’re finally doing this. Second part of the right to feel webinar. I’m really excited about today. We will be ready for sharing you have the ways where a society in large and between in particular in it, uh, we, we made it harder on people who actually feel in the way that they feel. Usually everyone has a mechanism and um, does, does men, what do you think that as men and women has different mechanisms for feelings usually? Yeah, I would say so. And when we are very similar in so many ways and why all of us feel, but, uh, it’s different perspectives about feelings that most men most of the time. And most women most of the time are different than, you know, for most men it’s actually about opinions more than about feelings. But yeah, we do feel and for, for most men the most important feeling is feeling satisfied. Which is very different than women for example.
Yeah. I think maybe it’s because, uh, we have a very strong relationship with our meats because most of the men, most of the time we are, we are single focus. So we are focused on something and then focus on something else later on. Something else. We forget our needs once the weather. Well for our needs, that’s the one thing we are single focused on getting that need satisfied. Yeah. So also because of the single focus, we have missions and you know, finishing that mission is very satisfying for us. Hm. Interesting. And women again because of diffuse awareness, uh, that’s uh, something that makes you see everything at the same time. Everything is shouting at you, do me fix me. And that creates a situation where, um, you know, connection is, is something that is very important. Connecting with other people, um, being safe with your, with your connection. And that just is that mechanism that can affect your day to day. Um, and the other mechanisms as well. So today we’re going to continue the exploration, uh, with you guys. Thank you for joining. We’re going to share my screen in yes. Yeah, we are.
What is Inner Critic?
This is where we stopped last time talking about this idea of the ideal woman is Alison Armstrong calls it or, um, or the inner critic. Uh, and we have, you know, that for men and for women as well. Um, so they did women in the betterment. We discuss that idea. And that is how we, um, critique ourselves and make it harder for ourselves to just, uh, you know, enjoy the moment and have fun and we critique ourselves and which we will also critic the other people around us. And that is that, that is where we’re going to start now.
Right to Feel – Women
So when we’re saying the right to feel, and it’s a little bit different with men and women. So women has, uh, uh, so how do we, how do we help women with her, right to feel? Yeah. Um, first of all, women will just listen. She will have a hard time to listen to her inner voice. She keeps kick a hearing, um, um, about things that wrong all around her. But from her inner, uh, inner critic. And that inner critic is shouting so loudly that her inner voice, the human spirit of making choices and being herself and connecting to the, to the internal, all the spiritual or or just making things prettier and better. Um, that, that feminine trait, all of those traits are being masked by that know, you know, by, by that, you know, critic. And basically inner voice is diminished.
Our society. Society is, um, making it harder for women to have the right to feel. Society tells the, the women that they are emotional. And they, the society society says that, that your emotional in a bad way. Like, like it’s like it’s bad to be emotional. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. They, they, they say your illogical. They say you’re unpredictable. They say you’re too much that, and too much that, um, and that is, uh, that just doesn’t, uh, doesn’t help in being okay with the fact that you have your own ways of feelings. Um, the end that that is legit, that is just your making.
And what it creates is this feeling that I’m not good enough. You know, women, uh, after, uh, being exposed to all these messages that they’re too much, too crazy, too emotional, uh, not logical enough. It just brings up shame and this sense of I’m not good enough and I’m not worthy, not worthy of love, not worthy of connection. Yeah. And that’s a very painful experience and it’s an experience that breaks, interpersonal bridges, you know, it makes people hide and it makes people not be vulnerable and show up as a, yeah. You know, bring, uh, bring out more of that inner critic, bring it out. And what we wish here with this, uh, Webinar that a women will take that they’re not crazy. You’re not too much, even if society tells you that even if your husband feels that way, sometimes that’s not true. You’re not too much. Even if it’s hard for other people to contain your, shine, your energy, your enthusiasm, that’s their problem.
Right to Feel – Men
This is really, the men has a problem with the right to feel, uh, because when, when they being criticized or they being taught to believe that they are simple, it’s just actually helps the ability to produce results. It diminishes it. In this diminishing of men’s ability to produce results, which is in a way, you know, the reason why you want to be single focused is so that it will yield results. This is the, the main goal for men to produce results. Most of the time is a hunter. Women can be hunters too. And then they are trying to hunt and create results too. But um, with men it’s just something very biological. It’s affected as we showed in the first webinar a lot by the testosterone, the brain in the levels of it.
So the ability to produce results when you keep, um, like ignoring feelings and um, the, you keep disconnecting for them and you, you’re being told that you are not important and not necessarily and not even like a valuable for society, then that diminishes your ability to produce results. And what society tells men, uh, enlarge his stuff. Like your simple, we even tell ourselves that so often we see, because we are not being taught to notice that actually were very well. They’re not simple. We are, we have a lot of complexity in us. We are, we have multiple needs that are affecting us. We want to protect, we want to provide, we want to hunt, we want, we have a, and an honor and respect lead us so often. And, and we, we, we, we, we can produce results if you let us. So we are not simple. When we’re, we are being told by many people in society that are jerks, so assholes, um, that were unreliable. Um, but actually we’ll just single focused and that creates so much confusion. And in the, um, yeah, and again, up shame, this is the, the, the shame of men is about not producing enough results. And which means I’m not man enough, which means I’m not good enough, which means I’m not worthy of love, of connection, for appreciation of the all things that are so important to us as humans.
And a, and once again, we wanted to tell men this time, you know, even though society tells you otherwise. And even though there are so many jokes about how simple and jerks and unreliable and Manchild and all this stuff. That’s not true, we just go deeper. You know, we just go deep and we just have this tendency to take our word so seriously, and we have value. We have the gift as men, which is different than the gift that a women have. Yup. We are, we actually going to talk about the gifts in a few slides. So Shachar explained to us, uh, you, you are licensed family and marriage therapist. You’ve been studying, uh, these type of situations like seeing them in front of you, inside your clinic with couples for years. Um, how do we hurt each other in a relationship?
How do we hurt each other in Relationships?
Well, in many ways, and we have here a list that is not short and it’s still, it’s not exhaustive, exhaustive, but you know, with this one, give everybody a sense of how we do it. We do it by criticizing each other. You’re not good enough. You’re not enough. You’re too much, Eh, you know, I always do that. Right? You’re always, you’re never, instead of, you know, Eh, sharing some pain that where we tell our partner that they never do, they’re such jerks. They never clean up the living room. Um, contempt. Contempt is actually what maybe the worst according to John Gottman’s research, this is the worst. This is the best predictor of divorce. When when couples have eh, too much contempt between them and contempt is just this lotion of looking down at your partner and giving them the feeling that they’re nothing, that they’re worth less. And we do it, you know, with words sometimes, but we’ll, we’ll do it more with body language, with like rolling our eyes and uh, there’s a certain way to look at someone that will make him feel worth less. And also this contempt also includes stuff like losing compared to bed wards, like actually, you know, kissing your partner. Yeah. I didn’t even a rights violence here because you know, that’s like basic that violence should be, it should not be in relationships. But yeah, it probably should have wrote the cursing and stuff like that. Big enough and. So the reason that it’s so bad, it just creates such a deep, eh rupture in the relationship that it’s harder to repair. It’s okay to have ruptures all the time and the relationship or a ruptures and victories and then this stuff and especially contempt and cursing just creates such a big negativity that is hard to, to repair.
More ways that we heard each other is a comparison. Oh, we know bill is such a great builder, a just created for his wife. I don’t know who built a kitchen for her. And now when we compare ourselves to others, even in those times that we compare ourselves to other and we feel that we are better than them, even that is not a good feeling. You know, as humans we don’t really want to be less than or, or better then anyway. Shit. It’s actually about accepting that we’re all humans. We are all flawed and we have a, we all have powers and the good things. So comparison is another way we make each other feel bad. So complaining, complaining, that’s a classic one. You know, sometimes women tend to do it more than men, but men also do it. And, uh, you know, we’re just the airing some complaints and we might not even, Eh, understand how it hurts our partner but the partner, especially more masculine partners, here it is. You’re not good enough. You didn’t do this and this for me, once again, you’re not man enough. You’re not a good partner. You know, a good husband is not as bad as criticism, but it’s not far from that. Oh Man. I, I know people that take complaining is like an international sport. And he just makes it harder to be around them because eventually it will be, it will eventually be presented in a way that it is related to you as well. Yeah. That said, this cloud of negativity, people are not attracted to all this negativity.
And the last one another way. Yeah. It’s not the last one. I just the last one of this slide, but closing up or shutting down. This is something that more, that men tend to do more. We get hurt and, uh, what we do or we get upset and what we do is we close up, we shut down, we go away, we disappear in our screens or drink beer or whatever. Just kind of knocked us out and eh, Eh, closes away from our partner. And we think we’re doing it in a noble way because we don’t want to hurt her. So it’s better that we are not violent at and we just close up. But for while most women feel that as violence. Yeah. I think, I think, uh, uh, without researching this deeper, but I think workaholism this desire to just, this addiction to work is, is, is a lot of time has behind it. This, uh, situation of closing up with your spouse. And, uh, I keep, I keep mentioning a lot, um, in our, our other webinars and in our conversations how, um, when you’re looking at business, many times the business doesn’t grow because your closing up with your spouse. Yeah. I think you’re right that sometimes men have a hard time in their relationships. So they go to work where they feel empowered. They showed their power. People appreciate them. So it’s harder to go there. You’re right. It’s a way to shut down. Yup. And what it makes the woman feel that she’s not worth it. That she’s not good enough. She’s not worthy of your love and support for connection. She, she, she feels unsafe in this situation. Yeah. She, she wants to feel safe. She always look for, checking that how safe is she and how connected, if she’s connected, she’s safe. And how can she safe when you’re ignoring her and when you’re in, you’re not willing to even touch her, or look at her eyes, you know? Yeah. So painful.
So, uh, there are additional ways of how we helped each other. For example, we withhold stuff. We withhold admiration. Um, and we withhold accountability. Like we will see our spouse do something that we are supposed to tell them. No, don’t do that. But then you don’t want to be there for, for your partner in, once you, uh, in, in a situation where you are angry about something or when you don’t understand, um, the way did they are made. Uh, so for example, a man might be single focused on completing something at work and then being late for dinner. And that helps. Uh, he spouse is an example espouse, um, feelings and um, she might withhold appreciation from him or, or attention or even sex, which is a need. It’s something that is a real need for men. Um, and the other things we do to hurt each other, we boss around people we take over, uh, we interrupt.
So we, you know, we just do so many things. They go over, it’s like when a guy is taking care of the baby and his wife comes in and takes away stuffs, you know, takes over what is doing with the baby. And women think that’s actually a generous thing. But for the man, the message for the guy is, you don’t know how to do it. You’re not in good enough father, for example. You, you know what? It can be stuff that are so simple in, in a minute in importance. And yet we men notice those things, uh, to have, uh, hurt feelings and other like are we have an agreement in our home that I am in charge of taking clothes from the floor in the shower and putting them into the bin where it is supposed to be, which is in another room. That’s my, my, my responsibility doing that every morning, making sure that the floor doesn’t have a bunch of, clothes on the floor and I do it very responsibly every single day. And when I find out that the only clothes that I have to pick up are my own, and that my wife bought and didn’t leave her clothes for me to pick up. I get so disappointed. Like give me the opportunity to fulfill my destiny in life. Uh, and, and pick up those clothes and she, she means to help me. She like, she knows that I do it for her 99% of the time and then from time to time she will like try to help me by putting her own clothes by herself. But she, for me, I will feel hurt about, you know, her taking over my opportunity to give a gift. So it’s really, it’s really, and it sounds like a silly example, it’s just that it’s a tiny example and I’m sure he wouldn’t fight with her over it, but I think it does show a profound notion that I don’t think that, you know, women today are so, uh, capable. They Kinda, they don’t really need men anymore. And, and understanding that letting a guy help you is actually generous, very, that men like to provide it actually gives us a sense of satisfaction of, of fulfilling our duty. Most women don’t really get it. And like you prefer picking up those clothes from the floor. So it gives you a sense of, Eh, totally taking care and providing and yeah, that’s true. For me, being, being the man means picking up that clothes for my wife. That’s what it is. And it’s funny. Um, you know, it’s not the only thing I do obviously. Um, but, but, but um, in the end it’s a lot, it’s a lot about communicating.
What are Men’s Gift?
So we all have a gift in us, in the mechanism that we use to feel. Uh, men has this gift of being single focused and getting results and having this huge, huge need to protect and provide. And procreate those, those three P’s that Alison Armstrong, uh, describe, um, so eloquently and, and it’s, it’s a huge need and it’s a gift to give, to protect someone, to provide for him. If you don’t allow that for men, your taking away his gift to the world and women, women has this amazing ability to notice everything and to improve everything to, to, to, to notice what needs to be put into his place, to notice what needs, what can be better and prettier. And um, you know, oh my God, like my, my, my daughter went to school today with a costume because they are doing this costume day and in 10 minutes of walk my daughter and my wife managed to create this amazing costume for, for, for, for her. Going as a rock and roll girl. And this is something that as a, as a man I would be able to do something. If you give me like two hours and a budget and then you know, let’s wait two weeks for the budget. Like for, for the person that I bought something to bring it. I could hunt a good costume for my daughter, but not like that. She, that was like magical. So leveraging our gifts is embracing this whole planet can, can, can reach such an amazing place if we allow ourselves to leverage our gift and end and to acknowledge that our gifts are different.
No, you don’t need men. You want when they have an amazing gift to give. And that is what we are trying to do here. We’re trying to talk about it. That’s a a quote, you should write it down. And your, how did you say that? I love that. Oh Man. I don’t remember, but I will maybe uh, we can check it out later. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was really, I was with almost tears in my eyes and I kind of laterally actually, I apparently, um, I’m, I’m being, uh, I, I’m being connected with my emotions. That’s lovely. So in pricing you have the right to feel. Thank you. Thank you. Partner in embracing the fact that we feel differently because we are different, because we have those tendencies in our brain to be in a single focused or to be with the diffuse awareness and, and being, being in that situation and acknowledging that sometimes even women, uh, totally have the right to, to hunt and totally have the right to gather. Um, and, and it’s okay to also say that most of the time men has this tendency to hunt and most of them men, women has this tendency to be a gatherer and to connect and yeah. Just embracing that, it can even change and, and that it’s a gift and that you can receive the gift, receive the gift and give in and give a better gift back that way. Yeah.
Embracing the Difference of Men and Women
And we’re calling on all of us to make a pact to accept that we are different, accepted. That there are differences between men and women and even differences between, you know, same sex partners and celebrate those differences and embrace them and be curious about them. You know, when I’m, when a on a bad day, I might be a, my wife might be feminine and I might feel like it’s too much and become critical or something. But if I stop for a minute and breathe and really be curious about what’s going on for her, wow, it’s really beautiful. She’s shining and, and, and uh, I get nourished by that. But it’s really about, uh, you know, sometimes I don’t get it. So, and when I don’t get it, I might get critical, but if I’m able not to be critical and really try to understand what’s going on there, that’s be curious about that.
I really think the curiosity is the key here. Um, like sometimes my wife will give me instructions that are very specific about how I should do something or she will see me do something again, explain to me why this is not the right way to do it. But in they used to be very, very offended by that. Just it will drive me crazy. But now that I understand, full understanding that she’s actually caring about the details because you know, those details can make or break her experience that she noticed them. She knows that there’s a right way to do it because she, she’s been living inside her body for for many years and she’s just being loyal to those voices that she has. Which, uh, are the voices of diffuse awareness of noticing the details. And for me, I don’t really care about if I do it this way or that way. I just don’t want to be critic, you know, so. So instead of taking it as critic, I stopped for a second and I acknowledge it within my head that she has the right to, uh, notice the details and care about them. And that it’s not personal. Yeah, that’s a big point here. It’s not personnel, so, so let’s try to avoid the doctor of why the five C’s, those Eh, criticism and contempt and the, I forget the other C’s right now. Yup. Yeah. But closing gap and a, yeah. Chavez comparison. Complaining, try to avoid those and make a pact, make an agreement to avoid those and celebrate our differences. And there’s a big chance, like in my relationship with Judy, we decided we’re going to avoid those C’s. And, but you know, we’re human and we have some deeply and grand a habits. So I still get REALLY critical sometimes, but because we made a pact, we wouldn’t, I make sure that after I do that, I come and repair. I Apologize, I take responsibility. It’s a red line that I don’t want to cross and yeah, I do cross it from time to time, but you know, we immediately or you come back and fix that. In the past I might have thought that a, I have the right to be critical. Yeah. You know, but after deciding that this is not love, this is not effective, this is not bringing us together. This is not making her or me feel good and empowered and capable.
Yeah. I think in a way we’re talking about the lights. We like this jargon. We have a right to feel. And yet we don’t have a right to use those five C’s and to emasculate. Um, and it’s okay if it happens, but then we, we, it was wrong. It was something we should apologize. It was something, It is something that we should repair. And many times more, more often than not, those moments where we used the five C’s, that was when we didn’t allow the other person too have the right to feel in the way that dude like we, we keep thinking that someone else is misbehaving. They’re not misbehaving, they have their own ways of feelings. And that is so powerful. How are we can go as human beings how we can, you know, you can bring the best of us by just not doing, just avoiding the bad things can help us bring the best of us. We, we human beings. We actually want to shine.
What is the Generous Approach?
We want to be here to be present, to be, to protect the, provide whatever it is, the way you look at it. So we, we, uh, always like to go back to generosity because generosity works and because it’s a noble quality. And so we talk in, we talked about it in the past. If you go to episode three of season one of the generous marriage podcast on generousmarriage.com, you could see how the discussion about how becoming repair artists like actually being curious about repairing. About, about trying to repair them, about finding a way to do that. Uh, and you can do that in so many ways. You can apologize, you can ask, um, how can I help you become partners again? There’s like this, there’s a bunch of sentences we definitely need to research. Uh, a few of the sentences that are used in, uh, in the interview in Alison Armstrong we just did in, in does a few interviews coming up on the podcast that specifically has like really exciting. Uh, repair, repairing sentences that are powerful, are on top of apologizing, cause apologizing can wear out a debate. It’s power. If you have a use apologizing, then it’s power is being diminished. And there’s other ways of course, to repair. Which are important. Um, and, uh, we, we, we challenge you to dare to be vulnerable and to be vulnerable. It’s very generous.
Why, why being vulnerable is generous. Cause you show your heart, dropped your defenses and your show you the real you, the softer sides of you, your heart. And uh, and often what comes up is very noble and a, and in a way it’s dangerous. You might get hurt, but most times you wouldn’t get her to, you know, if you do it with the right person, like your partner. And you dare to be vulnerable most, most, most times it will echo in them and they will become vulnerable as well. And it will create this intimacy and will allow this eh, feedback, loaf of generosity, of care, of a lot of good things. Rather than it coming with defenses, with criticism, with compliant and with all those, you know, stuff we mentioned before that just creates a shame, a look of shame. I feel big of shame rather than generosity.
And it also in a way says, uh, when you’re coming out and into the relationships, then you’re vulnerable. It is kind of says, I have a strong back. I can take whatever you bring me now you can bring me something positive or something negative. I want to be here for you with my back to withhold that I have extra powers. Enough’s enough power that I want to share it with you. So it’s a very empowering moment. And, uh, and another thing that we talk about is an act of generosity, uh, is to communicate in a way that is, um, none violent and that is practical. And that is, uh, not criticizing in nature and do, for example, with the, I need it would mean sentence. So when you’re talking about your needs rather than expecting that they will be met magically, uh, that is, uh, something that, um, um, is powerful. People actually want to help you get what you need. But when you explain what it means to you, it makes it like, even even Yummy to give you what you need. Like a, Eh, rather than can you like, and some people prefer different wards. So definitely it’s good to talk about it, but um, you know, uh, just, just, uh, as a tool, uh, look for the way that you request things that makes most sense without criticism inside, without, um, sometimes even the tone of voice can matter so much. Yeah.
How Women get Nourished in a Relationship?
So you, you, you have this, uh, concept, which of nourishment, uh, which you, you use Shachar. Um, in your guidance. Tell us, tell us all about that. Yeah, I love you. I love this word, nourishment. I think a good relationship is nourishing meaning in a, in a happy, good, satisfying relationship. I get nourished, my wife gets a nourished. It’s, uh, we find solutions that are win win that fill us up with energy, with motivation, with life. Fourth, with vitality. And the way men and women get nourishment is a bit different. Again, we’re all human and we all, this works for everybody, but most women most of the time will, will prefer what we’re coming up in this slide. And it’s a lot for women. It’s a lot about safety. You know, it, it goes back to cavemen and cave women where were were, uh, it was all about survival. and women needed a men’s presence to feel safe. So today of course it’s different. It’s not so much about physical power. But something in a presence, in a quiet, regulated presence of the men just allows a woman to feel safe and then she can let go. Let go of all those responsibilities are yelling at her all the time. The laundry, the kids, the, the cleaning up, the whatever the, the, the, the job for tomorrow. So many things and sometimes in those beautiful moments where your, her guys there and present and she can let go, it’s super nourishing for her because she can rest and feel safe. Super nourishing for him because it touches his duty of providing and protecting and it feels capable and strong.
Sorry to interrupt you. This is the, just made it, it clicked on something for me. Um, this can even be like a time sensitive thing. This feeling safe for a woman. Like if you are not, um, in the same location for a longer, longer time, then it, she starts to feel unsafe. And, uh, for us in, in my home with, with our three kids, there’s like this window of time between maybe six 45 and seven 20, uh, where I can literally see what, what my wife feeling is not safe. And if I’m not present, like once I, once I’m in the scene and I’m not like sitting down and drinking my coffee. But I’m in the scene trying to be a part of the scene, she, you could actually see on her body everything is okay. She doesn’t have this voice that tells her you’re not safe. Do you know, handling with everything right now? Uh, you know, the time since the time constraint is making her feel unsafe, but just me being there even slowly, slowly, uh, setting up the, the, the delicious back from the dishwasher or something like that. Just me being me. Um, but she was already totally safe. Yeah. Something in the partnership and the way that you show up. It was a sense of partnership. And helps her take care of her anxiety around not being on time and stuff like that. Yeah. Yeah. And, and, and, and femininity is a lot about shining. The essence is shining and the way to help a woman shine is by admiring her and complimenting her and adoring her. And the masculine sides in men and women get stronger by challenges. The feminine side in men and women get stronger and by, by, by compliments in admiration. And what comes out is this shining that is super nourishing for her, and for you. I’m talking to guys now and it’s a lot, a lot, a lot about connection. Women are super sensitive to connections guys. Way less. It’s actually a difference in the brain. Um, so it’s good to understand that about your wife and, and um, develop some sensitivity to your connections specifically. That’s the most important connection. Yeah.
So being sensitive to it and find ways to, to keep the beat going. Even if you’re at work, you know, sometimes they’re small text messages are super important for women and for guys are just like, Eh, you know, something do without caring about it so much. But finding ways to hold your connection even while you’re away and especially why you’re at home. That’s very nourishing for women. And also encouraging her, especially if she is the mother encouraged her to take care of herself. Especially mothers are so busy taking care of others. The kids and the husband and the house and maybe her parents and just care taking so much. They tend to forget about themselves. And if you help her remember and do the stuff that makes her feel good, that the help her shine, like dancing, like resting. Like spending time with her girlfriends. Whatever helps her come back to her body, to her health, to movement, it’s usually to, to connection is usually very nourishing. And I can help but thinking about, uh, sex. Because this, all of this nourishment that allows a woman to want sex, to be, you know, to, to enjoy sex and to like the just if, if men needs another reason for wanting to, to help, uh, help your woman be nourished. Um, there’s, there’s always one more reason, right? But let me say something about that that’s really important. The, how do you say in English, the before sex parts for foreplay, the foreplay with a woman is 24 hours a day. It’s not the 10 minutes before the you actually have sex. It’s about maintaining the connection all for the day. That’s the only way she will want to have sex with you if she feels connected to you in her heart. Oh Man, that is your quote of the day. If you take care of her heart, she will be more open to having sex. And we talk a lot about how sex is so important for men. It’s super important for women as well in different ways. But sex is important for a relationship when every success marriage is painful.
How Men get Nourished in a Relationship?
Yup. So what about men? How do men get nourished? Well, the most important thing for to, to nourish him and man, I don’t know if the most but very important thing is to support what next thing come alive. One of the biggest mistakes women do is after they become partners with their guy, they can stop. They don’t do it on purpose, but in a way they send him a message of stop spending time with your guys. Stopped going away to your sports a if that stopped, were playing basketball. And that’s just a huge mistake. If you want your guy to be nourished by your relationship, even if you may seem, even if you’ll pay a small price of, of missing him, he will just come back. So whatever is important to him, a poker night or going snowboarding or playing ball or spending time with, with other men, it’s really important for men to spend time with other men. What do you do to nourish yourself, Shachar? Well, I do crossfit. I exercise, I have a men’s group we meet every other week. Uh, I meditate, but that’s a different, a self care thing. What else do I do? I play basketball. And sometimes I go for a walk here in the fields.
What do you do? Um, we, we crossfits together. So I do crossfit. Um, I really want to say I built businesses. This is something that really helps me come alive. Like I just, all those meeting of helping people and coaching people is just, uh, it’s very moving for me to be powerful. To be in this place where I can help people and change the trajectory. And I see so often I’m like, my wife respects that place, you know, on the emotional level, not on the, not necessarily on the results level. Like you do that because it makes money and we need money. It’s not, it’s she understand that I have a gift to give and she did. It’s a gift, not for her. Yeah. Another way to nourish a man when he’s down, what do you do with Amanda that is down? You don’t look down at him. You don’t say, Oh, poor baby. As if he’s a kid. You actually remind him of his abilities and his resources. It doesn’t, most of the time it wouldn’t want any advice. That would be belittling him, giving, giving an advice. It wouldn’t want you to tell him to give up. That’s also not empowering. It’s actually about being there, listening and just reminding him how he’s dealt with similar things in the past and how you trust them that they can handle this as well. Trust is a big thing here. Yeah. Supporting your guy. Uh, he’s not doing his work for him. Supporting your guy is reminded him how awesome he is. Yeah. And, and uh, and be sensitive to his space and his mindset because that is a, like if you’re not sensitive to it, it might give him, I’m not sure what the opposite of nourishment. I get this, I guess, I don’t know. It’s just a disturbance, you know, man, we go deep into our thoughts and where whatever we’re doing. We’re the single focused and if you just come up with your question or with your need for a connection while is not there, that might be a disaster. You, you know, he wouldn’t be nice and then it will feel guilty for not being nice to you and you get hurt and it’s way more effective.
You know what we men to each for each other too. I just did it for you. I accidentally but, but in general, we, we, we don’t wait enough for men to bring, uh, the answers to us. I just had this realization lately that I’m in, in coaching. When I ask a question, I wait. I wasn’t always there. I would suggest answers when someone will take a long time to answer. Nowadays I can wait the entire 18 seconds that are needed in the, the answers are so deep. Yeah. Just blows my mind every time. Um, yeah. And just the last point here is another, I talked about it already, but I’ll say it again. To encourage or guide to spend time with other men. It’s really important for men to spend time with other men. Because the way we talk to each other is different than how we talk to our spouse. And we can get from a good, eh, men’s circle from a good group of men. We can get accurate mirroring that sometimes isn’t comfortable. But we’re not about comfort. We’re about becoming better. We were about to challenges. So a good guy, friends, Eh, Eh, guys support, but also the right kind of challenge. So it’s, I think it’s really important for any guy to have a bunch of guys that he can count on and, and, and, and talk to.
Ending
So this brings us to the end of today’s Webinar. We gave you a few ways of how you can nourish yourself and how, what to avoid and how we, we hurt each other’s right to feel. And we want to look at it like, uh, like a partnership armor um, that you need to have any specifically. We always wrap up with the idea of the generosity, um, partnership armor called a generous partnership. Uh, more and one way to, to make it practical and simple is talking about the date nights. Uh, we really do believe on dates, nights. I just before starting the recording, I, I shared with you Sharchar how, how I’m excited about in 48 hours. For now, I will date night is going to see the place Chicago that came to Israel all the way from boardway. Um, and uh, in the end we do all sorts of date night. Some of them are very inexpensive, like just going to a coffee shop and drinking coffee and talking. And sometimes we even do stuff that, uh, you know, watching the movies or, or, or talking on a topic that was presented to us by one of our products. Like we, we, we test our ideas for dates, um, for that in the, it’s, it’s, it’s just so nourishing. It’s so important to have the space in your, in your relationships. It can bring both of the, have you back into the game of working as a team.
And this is a part of our mission to help you, um, be better as gets to be really motivated to do this. And we, we actually need your help. Um, so, and that’s you, why are you here today? Um, maybe you have the understanding that your partnership is in that it’s not working as good as you want it to be. And you have needs that are not met. That is okay. That is the human condition. But your needs, your needs needs to be met and you have the right not just to feel, but also the right to, to get your needs met. And um, so you, you are maybe here because your relationship has a little bit of problems or maybe you’re here because you, you, you really know that it’s work. It’s not going to be easy. You need to work on it. And sometimes you might ask yourself, well, what if I only work on it alone? And the other side? What will they do it? But please don’t please be in a place where you can actually affect your destiny even by yourself. You are. Um, it’s, it’s, it’s not your fault that it’s hard, but it is your responsibility to, to repair. And we are on a mission to help people.
Uh, we have, uh, the generous marriage podcast, which is free with principles and ideas and tools and stories and researchers about how to be, how to create, even just by yourself. A generous partnership in the marriage, in there’s like a free game inside every episode. You can download it for free if you go to generousmarriage.com. But more importantly, and this is our ask for you, please help us spread the world of the generousmarriage.com website. Just paste that, copy that, paste that, put that in your social feed. Our followers follow our podcast. Um, it will make our day to help, uh, additional men and women to have a better understanding of the right to feel and to, um, to, uh, help help us help them.
So I thank you so much for listening to yet another Webinar, uh, of the generous marriage team. Um, Shachar. Thank you. This was fun. It was, and enlighting, I actually got a few ideas of how to be more generous and just by talking about it. It’s really important and I hope you guys got a lot out of it too. And, um, you know, the generous marriage podcast, season two, we’re really working hard on making it an amazing season with interviews this time. Eh, that will help you get, there’s so many gifts, so many gifts inside the upcoming season. So stay tuned, make sure you listen to all the other episodes first. Uh, in the meantime, and we will, we’ll put up with all the editing and all the preparation of the content and the selection of the last minute in use. And, uh, we will come up out with the last scene, the next, the next season, uh, soon. And I’m really looking forward to it to see it online already. Yeah, me too. And it just, we, we, we, we, we handled so many topics that are important, like sex and, and in communication, the communication and overcoming the rage months of like talking in a way that that is efficient. So many things, dating, given, oh my God, there’s actually life after marriage too so many important things. Okay. Thank you for listening, guys. See you soon.
Podcast
Weekly episodes with stories, tools and research that will help you make your marriage generous
By
Shachar Erez, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, 12 years married, father of two
Ziv Raviv, 16 years married, father of three