EPISODE 16: ALISON ARMSTRONG - renowned thought-leader, speaker and author of THE QUEEN'S CODE and THE AMAZING DEVELOPMENT OF MEN, creator of LUX relationship course

There was this vibration that was affecting my nervous system. And then I realized, oh my gosh, these men are attracted to me. And they're controlling, they're overriding the impulse. And it had me explore what is the impulse. Grab it, grab it, grab it. And they're overriding, overriding, overriding. and I'm feeling this vibration that my new gay friend, he does not have at all because there's no impulse he's controlling around me. And of course, my reaction to that, Dan, was, why don't men get credit for this? Why do we think all men are the men who aren't overriding that impulse for whom it hasn't been modeled to override that impulse, which is, if something isn't modeled for us, all we have is the lizard brain. That's all we have. If someone doesn't model the override of choice. Hello and welcome to episode 16 of Omega Mail. I'm your host Dan McKenzie and I could not be more excited to be talking to today's guest, Alison Armstrong. I have become such a huge fan of her work over the past few months. As I say at some point during the interview, I think she understands men better than pretty much any man I've ever met. And she understands women that well too. And it's it really shines through in her work. She's brilliant. Here are a few words about her career. Allison's exploration of human behavior began in 1991 with her decision to study men. In her words, to find out how I was bringing out the worst in them, and hopefully how to bring out the best. Her success in understanding men naturally led to studying women's behavior and then making vital connections between the two. Besides fulfilling the need to understand why people behave as they do, Allison offers practical, partnership-based alternatives. Through her seminars, books, online programs, and media contributions, she's been giving millions of people access to more fulfilling lives, loving relationships, stronger families, and productive organizations. Allison is a sought-after speaker and thought leader amongst people with the desire to live empowered lives. Allison's live events and over 100 hours of online programs are available at allisonarmstrong.com. The only thing I would ask you is what Omega Man means to you. How committed are you to the name of your podcast and what does it mean? Okay. Well, I came up with omega male as opposed to omega man, kind of in reaction to this terminology that men employ a lot about alpha male and beta male and this sort of hierarchical power structure of men. To me, that seems like a very caveman-y, outmoded way of looking at men and classifying men. and so I really thought about this and I thought, you know, alpha, omega comes from the Greek alphabet. It's not so much a vertical integration and so I began to look at the omega as the ultimate. It's the end of the alphabet and so I think humanity is evolving and so for me it's about not one type, which is what the alpha male is, but what is a future paradigm that doesn't prioritize one type of man but looks toward some kind of universal balance within the individual and how can we strive or hold some kind of an ideal like that so that we're moving towards a potential that anybody can embody just by finding balance within themselves and i think a lot of it has to probably do with the balance of the masculine and feminine qualities so that's the philosophy behind that oh it's awesome i'm just like ah taking a deeper breath and a deeper breath and um are you familiar with a book called Wolf's Message? No. You probably, given what you've said, would get a big kick out of it. Okay. And it's a true story. And the author is, she's considered in the top five evidentiary mediums in the world. And Wolf's message, it's life after life. The messages come through after his death, which he predicts and actually leaves evidence of the prediction. I mean, it's crazy cool. But ultimately, his message is very aligned with yours, that the future lies in each of us balancing the yin and the yang within us. It's completely congruent. And I also love what you said about omega, because I have women who idealize alpha male, that they want an alpha male. And I've spoken a lot about we have human instincts, but humans are both predator and prey. And so we have pack instincts and herd instincts. And so the whole alpha beta is based on basically a wolf pack. And what women don't know about what it means to be the alpha is that you're accountable for the safety of the entire pack. And women want an alpha male that then will focus on her and make her their first priority. And whenever women say that, I want a man who'll make me his first priority. I'm like, no, you don't. their capacities are too huge for you to be the focus of it will drive you nuts yeah so awesome yay keep doing you and i can i just always want to know more so i'll follow you anywhere but if i know what your intent is then i can be more in sync with you i can partner better And I ask, how committed are you to the name of your podcast? Because I literally met people who have no commitment to the name of their podcast. It doesn't capture their message at all. They've drifted away from it or they're still changing out words. And so I was like, okay, if you don't take it seriously, then I will take it seriously. And so thanks. Oh, good. Okay, so what I wanted to say when I thought we weren't beginning yet was just to kind of express my profound appreciation. I wanted to love bomb you a little bit. And I say that facetiously, of course, because I think that's an unhealthy psychological term. What I really want to do is honor you by saying that I've heard a lot of voices in this space of men's work and a personal self-transformation. and I find that your insights and the depth of your understanding of men generally surpasses that of any man that I've heard in the space, truly. I expect that that has something to do with the fact that you not only understand men really well, but women, and I think maybe that gives you sort of like, you know, the 3D perspective that comes with using both of your eyes. There's a lot of men that have a lot to say about men and a lot of profound things to say about men, But you have a depth that is unprecedented for me. And so I've been really blown away by your work, starting with my reading of The Amazing Development of Men, which I recommend to everyone and anyone, and also this course that I heard on Audible, Understanding Women. So I have a little taste of your work with men and with women. Also, though, beyond that, your ability to convey the insights that you have in a language that anyone and everyone can understand. You do this with such a palpable reverence and real love for men and for boys and for women and for everybody. It's just that your work is really steeped in this. It's really a marvel and you're hilarious. I'm never going to read one of your books again unless it's not available to listen to because you convey so much with your voice. You've had me cracking up, welling up, crying a couple of times, and your work really fills me with hope and with optimism for humanity. It's so in alignment with what I'm trying to do, and yet I've learned so much more. And so I recommend your work and your workshops to anyone and everyone. And I think I would just be doing the world of service if this was a three-minute interview where I just said, please, if you're a man, if you're a woman, if you're a human being, go engage with Alison Armstrong's work. So it's beyond admiration and inspiration for me. When I listen to your work, I'm literally filled with love and gratitude. So thank you for that. I expect you get that reaction a lot. Well, I was advised about 20 years ago to not read my press. So, because I get opposite reactions too. And especially because I'm not polarizing. I don't take one side or the other. I propose what if no one's misbehaving? What if there's a good reason for everything you do? What if there's a good reason for everything I do? And I think like an engineer, I'm always pursuing what works. Like in every domain, I want to know what works. And I've learned from neuroscience that the brain learns by the perception of a difference. And I learned that way after I started studying men in 1991. and I would discover something about men that blew my mind. Like, what? And what was right there was, how come women don't know this? And what came right after that was, well, because women are like this. So the contrast between men and women kicked in without me trying. One thing that I found helps to understand is that we actually have two nervous systems. It's been known for a long time. They call it the sympathetic and the parasympathetic. And we actually have the limbic part of the brain, what they call the lizard brain, that is ancient. And we share instincts, not just with wolves and horses. We share instincts with trees and viruses. And I mean, this is primordial reactiveness right here. And it was Bill Harris who taught me of Holosync that the limbic brain is always a split second behind the prefrontal cortex. So we've got the crown chakra, right, in the prefrontal cortex where they call what they call the executive decision making. Right. So one way that I think about it is this, and I felt it in my body actually, is impulse. And if you pay attention, you can actually feel your body being pushed towards something. like when I'm about to get on an airplane my body has the impulse to collect as much food and water as possible and anything that would make me warm and comfortable and it just like walking through the airport and I have to remind myself I have enough I have enough so I have a border collie right they're considered this one of if not the smartest dogs in the world and I accidentally taught my border collie to jump up on me and lick my face when he was a little tiny puppy he would crawl up the front of me and lick my face well now right as he got older and for a big jump up on me he actually cracked my teeth um and in learning about impulse and choice that And my dog shaking is literally the impulse to jump on me, the choice to not. Jump, don't, jump, don't, jump, don't, jump, don't. And his body is shaking, and I commend him for it. I praise him for doing what he knows I want him to do instead of what he wants to do. And if you want to bring it into the human domain, At one point, I had the opportunity. There's a time in my life when I spent a lot of time with gay men and women. And then I was thrown entirely into the heterosexual world. And then I was at a conference of many leaders in transformation. It's how I know so many of these people. And I was with a gay man. And I was reminded of how relaxing it was. and then right after that I was in one of my workshops with two of my heroes of my work even teachers of my work and I noticed it wasn't relaxing being with them even though they're fathers and mentors to me that there was this vibration that was affecting my nervous system and then I realized oh my gosh these men are attracted to me and they're controlling they're overriding the impulse and it had me explore what is the impulse grab it grab it grab it grab it and they're overriding overriding overriding and i'm feeling this vibration that my new gay friend he does not have at all because there's no impulse he's controlling around me and of course my reaction to that, Dan, was why don't men get credit for this? Why do we think all men are the men who aren't overriding that impulse for whom it hasn't been modeled to override that impulse, which is if something isn't modeled for us, all we have is the lizard brain, the instance that are installed. That's all we have. If someone doesn't model the override of choice, like a father who gets angry and then comes back and apologizes to his children for not having a grip on that and having them be subjected to that reaction. If it's not modeled, we don't even know that it's possible. And instincts are like getting on a train and they'll take you all the way to hell. every time. And men and women literally have opposing instincts, which is the source of the misery between us. Okay, I'll stop. Yeah, it reminds me of, you know, you did at one point say crown chakra. And to me, that was a little bit of a reveal that I get from your work as sort of spiritual sense, again, not religiously, but in the sense of considering the human being is not just a physical pile of atoms, right? And you talked about the nervous system, the parasympathetic and sympathetic but isn't there some aspect that has to do with that which distinguishes us from animals per se like that thing that you're talking about which is the impulse control the override mechanism that says this guy just honked at me and i i want to throw a rock at him but really i'm just going to wave and smile and you know like whatever it is or i'm attracted to this woman that i'm talking to but it's inappropriate for me to make a pass at or whatever i'm just going to let that be controlled in some part of me. It's so generous of you to recontextualize that in a way as being something that should be acknowledged and praised and valued rather than vilified and like, ooh, men are these gross, disgusting pigs. But at the same time, I'm curious what your sense is. Like, I've been working with this idea that the masculine and the feminine exist as capacities within men and women. I always say that men are the primary custodians of masculinity and women the primary custodians of femininity but we both have the yin and yang And I wondering if we can place this all in the context of the spiritual human who has their animal elements and impulses and nervous stuff going on but also has a kind of higher autonomy and is learning to engage with these capacities and balance. In what way is it different for women to navigate their way through the masculine and feminine versus how men are able to or tasked with it. Ah. Okay, you could have gone in a lot of places. I have to fill in a couple of things. Okay. Something that most people, many people have expressed that is helpful for them is that the gender hormones kick in at 21 days of gestation. So just been conceived, three weeks later, these hormones kick in, and the body is flooded. So the male fetus is flooded with testosterone. And this is why when boys are born, their testicles reflect the amount of testosterone that they've been embodying. And that testosterone configures everything about them. It configures their brains. It determines everything about their musculature and their bones. And it's odd because testosterone is associated with strength and ought to be because the physical strength of men is astonishing, the difference between men and women. and most men don't actually even understand. And there's a sample of our Understanding Women online course on our website where that's demonstrated. And so I encourage everybody to watch it. It's free. But while testosterone creates this incredible physical strength, it also makes men highly vulnerable. There's much greater percentage of miscarriages of male fetuses than there are females. So there's a, yeah. So it's almost like it's balanced in the beginning. You're stronger, but you're weaker. And then on our side, we're physically weaker, but we have a higher pain threshold, right? And men are built with a lack of instinct for preservation. You guys don't naturally preserve yourself for later. where women naturally are paying attention to everybody's well-being. And this is a way that we can complement each other, right? But then, so the same thing has happened to the female. For two years after birth, she'll have as much estrogen as a grown woman. And this is why a baby girl can walk into a room and steal everybody's hearts. I call it an estrogen bomb, right? Right. And and so hormones create brain configurations. Right. What we call diffuse awareness. Estrogen connects everything to everything. And where testosterone is compartmentalizing and creating single focus, which is the mental state of being committed, which is why I get so mad when women say men are noncommittal. It's the opposite. Women are noncommittal, not men. And it, and so it makes it like for a woman, if we gave men credit for overriding their, their sex instinct, which procreate is the number one instinct for everything on the planet to do that override of that impulse, women should get credit for any time they can make themselves get to the point. Like who should get credit for that? Right. Because our brain is pulling everything in. And so to focus and just answer the question without context, situation, background is almost impossible. So all of this is happening. And then this add to it, Dan, that not only do hormones create our capacities for thought and our thoughts, They also, thoughts, create hormones. So, for example, if a man is resting and building testosterone, which is the hormone of ambition and sex drive and short-term memory, and so he's building testosterone and he wants to get up off the couch and now get something done, I think she can smell it. And she can tell when he's gone from useless to handy. And then she sits down and says, just listen to me. Could you just listen to me? Well, all these explorations come in a funny way. Like I was in an elevator with these people who were going to this wedding. And this man said he was going to this museum. And the woman says, do you like those? And he said, no, I'm just killing time. and I've learned to listen to men literally killing time. What does that mean, killing time? Why would you need to kill time? So I started asking men, what does it mean to kill time? And one man gave the analogy of, well, it's like when you have something to accomplish, you're ready to accomplish it, but you're a racehorse and the gate won't open and you have to wait. And now time is your enemy because you're already revved up and you can feel yourself being disempowered. So one of the things that women don't know is when a man has built testosterone, he needs to spend it. He needs to get to kill something, build something, solve a problem, help somebody. He needs to do that. And if he doesn't get to do that, there's an enzyme called aromatase that will convert his testosterone to estrogen. Oh, wow. Yes. So while you tell him to sit there and just listen and not set it up with, could you help me by holding the trash while I vomit this alien out of my body? Right. If you don't set it up that he's helping you, that he's saving you from a state that is really uncomfortable for you and you don't want to be that way. If it's not set up that way, he will be being, if he's trying to just listen, he will be biologically emasculated and he can feel himself weakening. And that is the cause of his fidgeting and impatience because he feels I'm getting weaker and weaker by the moment. And that is not a state a man is ever looking for. No, we don't love that. Never, never, never. This is so interesting to me because, again, there's this duality that I see in your work and that truly resonates, which is there's, first of all, delving into understanding these differences as they exist. I remember a while back there was this popular book, you know, Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus. I feel like what you're doing is sort of like triple next level in that there's a compassionate understanding of our differences. And so one component is understanding the differences from across the aisle and learning to accept and appreciate rather than vilify. It's so funny how in the beginning of the amazing development of men, you say one of the biggest mistakes women make is just to think of men as hairy women. And men do the same thing too. So we expect each other at our own peril to behave like we would. But then there's this element that I also find interesting of not just accepting and understanding, oh, this is this alien being and this is, you know, but how can we come towards each other by developing aspects of ourselves that are kind of similar? similar to me that's some of the use of the men having a femininity and women having a masculinity is when you say can i present a shorter meadow report as you call it or can i pre-curse this as you said with like this is what we're going to do now so the man can adjust and i think that a man can develop within himself the capacity to say okay i'm going to receive this even though there's a million things i want to do and instead of just saying what's the point what's the point that's the problem yeah people are fine you're listening what the default for most men is what's the point. And if someone's upset, you're the default listening, which I've delved so much more into this, Dan, since what you've listened to. It's called Lux. Okay. And the original question is you wanted to know about how men and women approach the spiritual differently and how do we become masculine and feminine? How do we deal with it? Which is a huge, great question. So, I want to bring in a couple different things. Yeah, please do. So when you start with the biology and then what neuroscience teaches us about neural pathways and how they're formed and dissolved and how they end up with neural highways. And so you deal with the physical and then interact with parts of our brain, like the pineal gland, which is a physicalization of a spiritual miraculous ability to heal that we actually can get a hold of. and I used it often. But one way to think about it, and I mentioned crown chakra because when people are causing themselves to shift into a spiritual state, most people experience it here in the top of the head. Like when I described the effect of happiness on women, the way it travels through the body and then it ends up in the top of the head with happy thoughts. And it's literally a spiritual quality. Well, most of our highest values, if you think about yours, most of our highest values are literally spiritual qualities. They're qualities of higher consciousness. And so one of the things that I was compelled to reverse engineer, and I learned it from listening to men. And the first one was a man said, I'm no good until I've had my run. And I started hearing, I'm no good for anybody. I'm no use to anybody until I've had this. And so they're distinguishing their desire to provide and be helpful, but that their physical body needed something before they could be that. So what is the relationship between embodiment and being? And being extraordinary as a woman and being extraordinary as a man, which is in the second level of our curriculum, is all about how do you take your highest values and literally put them inside your body? Because I assert only what's embodied is available to you under stress. Right. And our most primitive instincts are embodied. We're born with them embodied. So we actually have to put, for example, compassion. Compassion is a spiritual quality. If you think about, hmm, when do I naturally have compassion? Oh, when I slept enough. Oh, when I've been in nature. Oh, like everybody has different answers and there's similar answers, right? When do I, one of my patients is literally a spiritual quality, patients. Yeah. And when do I naturally have patients? When do I run out of patients? Right? And so we actually quantify these things so that every one of us can actually define greatness. What is extraordinary to you that when you be that way, it feels so much like who you really are. You're proud of yourself for being that way. The impact you get to have on people is gorgeous. So how do you cause yourself to be that? So like you mentioned, love, that everything comes through with so much love. Well, because I've spent over 20 years excising everything that isn't love. Reverse engineering literally what causes us to embody love. How do we cause love for others? How do we cause love for ourself? It's on our website, under shop products, causing those loving feelings. It's so simple. It's so simple. and magnificent. And so, in terms of this masculine-feminine thing, I don't use those words very often anymore. They're used in the Queen's Code, and so many people, I mean, it's an international bestseller, and so many people still need that language. Yeah. Mostly in our culture, they have too much baggage and not enough richness or dimension to them. But if you think of, so that's why I talk about in terms of instead of feminine and masculine, I think I talk about gathering and hunting, or then I've even evolved from that to an open state of mind versus a committed state of mind. Interesting. I sometimes say hard skills and soft skills. It's like there's penetrative and receptive, reflective and radiant, all these different ways of talking about these things that are more important. Yeah, and it's great to keep finding ways. And one of the most important things, and why I say we have conflicting instincts, is in an open state of mind, whether it's a man or a woman, they're going to experience being safe, which when we have a reality of safety is when we're our best selves. We're not responding to a threat or an opportunity. We're just ourselves. So in an open state of mind, we experience safety through a sense of connection, through connectivity. Where in a committed state of mind, and usually the word secure is used instead of safe, we experience being secure in a committed state of mind through productivity. So open versus committed, connected versus productive, and then you put these two opposite oriented people in the same home because of either when they're not working or now when they are also working. and the connective person senses the distance of the single focused productive person, and to gain their sense of safety, they interrupt the productivity of the committed state of mind in order to connect. And the committed state of mind, not only have you interrupted their productivity, you've interrupted their sense of security and also as my husband taught me, their sense of peace They committed as a peaceful state of mind And so we interrupt all that and then we think men are assholes because we interrupt you in order to connect and you go what Right. And we expect you ought to be able to go, excuse me, just a moment. Yes, dear? Right. We have that expectation, which is incongruent. And so, but in terms of masculine and feminine, we actually both can choose. Do we want to be in a productive state, be in an open state of mind? Okay, what gives me the ability to do that? What puts that in here and in here? And so much of what we try to control, almost everything that we try to control is out of our control. Yeah. But who we are, we actually can choose it and cause it. It is under our control and including something else you might have encountered in my work. And that is, I mean, I always have these dolphin earrings on. The little tiny dolphins. Yeah, little teeny tiny dolphins. because I found out you can't identify a dolphin by the marks on their bodies because they shed their skin 12 times every 24 hours. Oh, wow. And so within a couple of days, a bite mark, which was a way that another dolphin was communicating, has disappeared. And I decided I want to be a dolphin. I don't want to be recognized by my wounds. And so I said about reverse engineering, how do you completely restore a human being? Restore them from shame, restore them from hurt feelings, restore them from disempowering conclusions about themselves and others. How do you become completely whole again? And so that's the other side, that the part of being able to cause who we are is also to heal and release who we're not. Right. And it's a daily process, but also a process over time, right? A cumulative and a restorative. Yeah. So I practiced the Sedona Method for, I don't know. I got to learn it from Hale Dwoskin, who's the guardian of the Sedona Method. And I practiced it for, I don't know how long now, well over a decade. And because of neuroscience, I literally have releasing highways. I can be completely rattled by something and just think, maybe I should call Lori and do a release. And then, oh, but she's not available. So I imagine doing a release with Lori. And within about a minute, I'm completely grounded again. But yes, it's both doing it on a regular basis. It's also celebrating it. That's why you have to celebrate awareness. Your brain, this is something Anath Banyal taught me, who's an amazing neuromuscular reeducator. she said Allison you are not your brain well that was a surprise to me I'm not and she said your brain works for you yeah and you have to tell it what you want from it and then I added you you also have to appreciate it you have to admire it you have to thank it and so when it shows you where you made a mistake if you're like oh no not that the brain goes oh don't waste energy showing them that right it will stop showing the mistakes but if you're you see the mistake and you you oh thank you for showing me that right i want to apologize what can i do differently oh you're the best brain keep showing me it and so like women in our workshops and it's a little tricky for men because you get to watch the understanding men workshop which no men were ever allowed into and i'm i'm pointing out ways that women emasculate men diminish men reduce men and cause everything they don't want and i'm telling showing them ways they do it and i'm having them raise their hands so how many of you do that and okay i noticed i noticed i knows about the notice dance because you want your brain to keep showing you that you're doing the thing that's causing what you profess to not want right and and without awareness i mean that's what happens there's a reason passing the crown chakra yeah impulse awareness choice i've never said that that way before by the way i never even brought up the crown chakra before in that process until today. That must be you. I love that we got something new on the books just through this conversation. So yeah, there's so much, again, that you've said that I want to address. Well, two things. One was when it comes to danger, I have a son and he's just about to turn seven. And so my instinct is to have him learn how to deal with danger. His mother's, my partner's instinct is to just remove the danger, right? So she's got this protective thing where it's like, let's just keep him away from the danger. And my contribution is the danger comes, let's let him know how to deal with it. And so between the two of us, we have this very complementary aspect. And what I wanted to say further about that in terms of our conflict, because you mentioned about how men and women can dip into conflict if she wants to connect and he's being his producer self and then gives the asshole response one thing i've just learned from her she comes from this italian american background where there was just a lot of flare-ups and like loud arguing you know but but letting go immediately you said about this shedding the dolphin skin you know she's she's always been able to just kind of be incredibly seemingly mad and then five minutes later totally connective in a way and i come from this very repressed waspy east coast you know let's hold a grudge for 10 years and not talk to each other and just if somebody offends you you'd have to stay mad for a day and so there was something about this ability to be able to shed in some way is there a male female thing about i've now been dishonored and i have to like stew in this and she just can blow up and then move on from it or is this a cultural thing that has more to do with our waspy versus uh italian well um first of all i would assert that nothing culturally takes hold unless there's the receptor side of instinct in other words if there isn't a loop it can't get hooked and um and in general um If you're oriented around productivity, then you will get the most – the anger spectrum will escalate the most quickly with the perception of disrespect. Okay. Because your productivity depends on how respected you are. Right. If you're not respected, you hunt alone and you bring home bunnies and small deer. You do not get to go after the mammoth. So respect is huge, and there's a fast, fiery response, whether it's suppressed or not, to the experience of being disrespected. And it's in the modern, the current Understanding Women course online, we teach how to restore your partner from them experiencing being disrespected, which is very hard for women because we think you could only have been disrespected if I have the feeling of disrespect in my body and I don't have that feeling, so how could you be disrespected? A woman in general will have that huge reaction that ends up in what we call the rage monster from having her feelings worked, which, as you know, from understanding women comes from how we interpret what happened. And, I mean, it's huge, and we can hold it for – we can hold it forever. So you give the ouch – just to interrupt and jump in because I love this part of that workshop. you have this ouch button thing, right? It's like the shortcut where the woman says, ouch, and the man's opportunity is to say, I'm sorry, I hurt your feelings. And it's sort of a magic pill of sorts. So is there, when the reverse has happened, when a man has felt disrespected, is there a process that's similar? It's exactly like that, but to make this whole, and I've, oh my gosh, I've spent so many hours talking to men about that. Like, how can I say I'm sorry I hurt her feelings when I did it? Right, right, I heard that. And so while a woman has a terrible time saying I'm sorry I disrespected you, when she doesn't feel disrespected, men are sure that they can't have hurt someone without the intent to hurt them. Right. Men have a huge belief in intent. well you don't have to intend for her to end up trashed and we don't have to feel disrespect for you to be in a rage a survival rage you're gonna die because of the lack of respect and so this is where this huge victory of human spirit where we honor the other person's reality so that they can be recovered. We say, I'm sorry, I hurt your feelings, and we mean it. When we know that what really hurt their feelings was how they interpreted what we did, and we didn't do it for that reason. We know that, but she's blind to it right now. And the way one man works it out, he says, well, I just figure if I wasn't born, it wouldn't have happened. So I'm sorry I hurt your feelings. Right. And as a woman, to honor that in his world, he was disrespected. My husband was the second maddest he'd ever been at me in 28 years because I rented a Mitsubishi instead of a fort. I tell the story in other standing women. Yes. Okay. And part of it, Dan, is that men don't know, that women don't know, that when we ask you, what should I do? if you're willing to answer the question say you should that you are giving us a lifetime of knowledge and sorting things by information and when I asked my husband should I rent the Ford or the Mitsubishi he said I think you'll be happier with the Ford now this is a man who had spent about 25 years paying attention to what made me happy he was the expert on what makes me happy and so but i have a prejudice against fords and i wanted to try the mitsubishi so i completely disregarded the time and energy and commitment that he put into answering that question. And I didn't own it. I could have said if I'd known it, thank you for your commitment to making me happy. I don't know why I don't like Fords. Just on principle. And I'd like to try the Mitsubishi. What do you think? And then he would have been honored. He would have been respected for his effort. And I could have done what I wanted to do too. but I didn't even know that was happening and that was that's how I've learned everything like I've learned everything by what doesn't work by what blows up the connection and the love and the honoring and go okay wait a second instead of he's a jerk or she's an idiot or they're narcissistic or they're whatever typical Leo right instead of that okay what if there's a good reason for that Let's find out what it is. And something that's shocking to women is, you know, I teach women to assume that and then ask, okay, I'm sure you had a good reason for what you did, but I'm utterly confused and reacting poorly. Could you unpack it for me? Could you reveal it to me? Because the reasons you do what you do are totally obvious to you. And men say all the time, there's no point in stating the obvious. In other words, don't waste time and energy stating the obvious. And this is a big difference between men and women. Men are acutely aware of the passage of time and expenditure of energy. The more a woman is connected to her femininity and therefore has this constant link to the spiritual, we live in the eternal where there's an infinite amount of time and energy so everything is worth doing and and so again we're opposites and hi yeah yeah there's so much in what you're saying that puts a spotlight on the importance of curiosity you know i was advising men that the best way to learn about women is well two things one to just engage with the female psyche have relationships with women beyond your partnership relationship i've always had the benefit of having great friendships with women and engage with work that comes from women like you know a lot of men don't listen to music that's made or performed by women they don't watch tv shows or movies made for or by women they don't read books by women and there's so much to be learned there but that's just sort of all external stuff metaphorically i say it's about being a good tourist. You know how going to a foreign country, the classic bad American tourist is like the tourist that goes to some country and like, where's my hamburger? And why are these people kneeling on the ground? And, you know, should I eat what I can't tip, you know, versus the good tourist is somebody who has like goodwill, and openness and curiosity, really, right? I want to learn your ways. And I want to honor your ways, you know, and there's so much of this that comes through in your wisdom about men, I sort of pictured you in this sort of Jane Goodall phase where you immersed yourself among the apes of men to learn, oh, and they're not actually all these dumb gorillas. They're actually, they have good stuff going on for them. But I think men can really have that same curiosity about women. And so I'm grateful for that element in your work, because I think it also does translate to this day-to-day in the moment thing. Like, I'm curious about what you want from me in this interaction, and I want you to express that I'm I wonder if there something that you observe in this present moment in the world culturally So much of your work I think is kind of universal It timeless But we are always in a given particular cultural moment. And there's a lot of dialogue about the challenges men in particular face. Can you speak to that a little bit? You've been doing this for decades by your own calculation. What do you see happening now that is new or different or maybe more pronounced for men? And what's your take on it or healing remedy? Wow. You probably know curiosity comes from the Greek word that means to care. I did not know that, but I love it. Yeah, and one man coined what I teach as how to go from furious to curious. And that's why I proposed the question, what if no one's misbehaving, including you? What if we could be curious? Okay, so then what? And so I started saying to men, I'm sure you have a good reason for this. Could you unpack it for me? Could you reveal it to me? Help me understand. And one time I said that to a man, you know, I'm sure you have a good reason for what you did. And you went, ah, nah, I was just being an ass. Oh, wow. Yes. And it was just the best part about it was I women think that men won't acknowledge wrongdoing, but they don't know. They paint men into a corner that if he acknowledges wrongdoing, it's going to be used against him forever. We've taught you that by using it against you forever. And since I wasn't attacking him, I was granting good reason, he could out himself. And it was one of the few times that men use the word safe. They'll talk about safe in terms of the people they care about are safe, like during the fires a year ago. You know, all my family is safe. Or men will say, she's safe to talk to. Or my wife's not safe to talk to. And being safe to talk to, that is a series of victories of human spirit for women. We're not made safe to talk to. and but it's one of the biggest things I've been teaching for more than 30 years and if a woman practices being safe to talk to oh my gosh I mean it's a treasure trove you guys just open the chest and it's extraordinary and one of the things on our website and shop products is um it's called why you can't trust men to tell the truth. And I produced that event when I got into the point where instead of just seeking people who were receptive to my message, like our workshop originally was called Celebrating Men, Satisfying Women, and it put off women who wanted to belittle men. It just put them off. They were not interested. But I got strong enough in interacting with their wounds and their beliefs that I now could poke the bear. And so I had something called using anger to get what you need on purpose to attract women who did use anger and women who wanted to use anger. And then the whole thing was about how it doesn't work. In fact, it. Love it. It takes. Yes. Yes. Yes. And so why you can't trust men to tell the truth. When I advertised that, my graduates were like, what happened to Allison? They freaked out. And we sent an email to all the men on our mailing list. And the subject was, Allison still has your back. yes she just had this event and the subtitle could be how women teach honest men it's not worth it because we do we use your truth against you and we try to we think if you know how upset we are about your truth you'll change your truth but you're smart enough to know that's been true for you for decades and the only thing that got you in this pickle was you told it to her. That was a mistake. And women try to motivate men through upsets because women are motivated by people being upset. We do everything we can to avoid upsetting people, but those are our instincts is the smaller and weaker sex. So to your original question, what's happening now? I mean, I thought decades ago when the rules and the game, when those two books were published, the game as in how to use women's instincts against them to seduce them, and the rules, how to manipulate men into marriage. I thought that was the bottom of the barrel. And then we had hashtagged me too, which I thought was the bottom of the barrel because of all the false accusations that emerged and all the shame that good men were feeling for not protecting us from that deep, deep shame that men felt. And so I thought that was the bottom of the barrel. And now watching, because I do participate with leaders in the men's movement and in what they call men's work. So I don't know if you're familiar with the New Warrior course that's produced by the Mankind Project, which is international and has been around for decades. I know I get to interact with leaders in the Mankind Project, and I so appreciate my husband and my nephew both did the new warrior training, which is based on those instincts to protect and to fight for, and how do you upgrade that into a higher level of consciousness? And unfortunately, there's men's work, right, which is about elevating the consciousness and the lives of men, there's the men's movement. And there's a portion of the men's movement that is committed to not needing women. Yeah, that's... Like, we're totally rejecting the need for women. Well, but why would you do that? Men naturally need women. They know they need women. Women took on not needing men. Why? for the same reasons. We're both so frustrated in our ability to get what we need from each other. So, our cure is don't need anything from them. Well, that's not my cure. In, I mean, in understanding men, in the Queen's Code, it spells out how do you help a man give you what you need. Because if he cares about you, which means you haven't displaced his ability to care by overwhelming him with sexual energy and skin and activating his most primitive instinct, which displaces his ability to care, if you haven't done that, which is what Making Sense of Men is about, by the way, the only nonfiction I've produced. And it's, as a book anyway, Everything else are audio recordings because I'm way more verbal. It's funny you said you were surprised about the spiritual aspect because Keys of the Kingdom and the Queen's Code are both channeled works. I want to be clear. I wasn't surprised by it. I just feel like it's such a strong element that you sometimes, I don't want to say nefariously cloak, but you translate it into language that's palatable to people that wouldn't maybe respond to spiritual talk. And so when you talk about the woman needing to be rebooted, there's all this computer stuff or my feelings live in this place. But I'm hearing it as a person who's sort of spiritually attuned and exquisite if I hear the spiritual element. So, it's not that I was surprised to encounter it, but I think it's very prevalent, and I'm just amazed by your ability to transmit that in a sort of secular communication. Yeah, thank you. I just have absolute respect for people's pursuit of the spiritual and where that encounters or doesn't encounter religions and the truths, the real eternal truths at the heart of virtually every religion. And then there's just really different needs and practices that are fulfilled by different religions. And one of the first things I learned about men with testosterone and a committed state of mind, right? So that single focus is the natural way to go about things for most men until you get older and it's happening to you. So you're gaining some diffuse awareness, which gives you access to your wisdom. The verbal centers are now connecting to the other parts of the brain. But to notice that we're a woman, we literally can just decide, okay, let's bring in the sacred. Boom. It's right there. Whereas what a man will do is he'll interact with spaces. So, a physical space that's conducive to focusing on the spiritual, right? And they'll either be austere beautiful or extravagant beautiful, but there will be beauty in it because you guys taught me this. Beauty reminds you of the spiritual. Beauty is spiritual. It's why you find it in nature. It's why you find it in the radiance of a woman, right? The sparkle in her eyes. But you cause yourself to have a physical space, a time space that you have plenty of time. It happens every Saturday or every Sunday or every Friday night, right? This is the time for that spiritual. And that it's something to be respected, right? We have different ways to access. But it's a rare person that isn't at least tickled by, tempted by, whispered to, and by the spiritual and feeling the yearning of their own spirit to connect at that greater level. and I'm more of an integrator, right? Like instead of excluding any part of ourselves, how can we bring it together? And we have a course called Extraordinary Choices, which teaches the elements of partnership, there's 14 elements of partnership. And it starts with if the heart of partnership is you plus you. and that we can't partner better with anybody else than we're partnering with ourselves. And we've been talking about this from the very beginning. Essentially what we've got to do is partner instinct and higher consciousness. If we invalidate and make wrong our instincts, which happens all the time, people are denigrated for just instinctual behavior instead of having understanding and compassion of it and then making that awareness so then there's the chance for the conscious choice. We literally have to partner within ourselves in every way. Instinct, higher consciousness, openness, and committed state of mind, right? Connectivity and productivity. Like ultimately we've got to negotiate all of these with as much awareness as possible to choose. Like when I go see my mother this afternoon, what is going to have the best effect that I intend? Right. It will not be productivity. It will be connectivity and compassion and listening with the question, what's real for her? Right. And which is a discipline, right? Yeah. Utterly failed yesterday. I was being productive yesterday and blew the thing to smithereens, which is what happens to a woman when you don't give her enough time. That's what's called switch a woman from connective to productive is a dead line, aptly memed. Yeah, that reminds me of the thing you talked about, women preparing to go out. If you give a woman a deadline, you get a man with makeup on going to the party. So that was very funny. I can tell you were paying really close attention. Well, I mean, your work resonates with me. It's hard for me to pay attention if I feel like I'm not being given wisdom. And I feel like I've learned so much from your work. And, you know, if I had my druthers, I would, if I were the secretary of education in this country, and if that department still exists, I would commission you to create a college course about men and women for men and women. It would be required core curriculum for freshmen coming in. I thought the world would be a better place. Well, actually, Cal State Northridge, not that far from you. Okay. One of the people that I have taught to teach my work, she's a professor there, and she has a course for which the Queen's Code is one of the texts. So that's happening. It's happening. Good. That's great. Yeah, it just gives me so much hope. Thank you for sharing so generously your time, your wisdom, this flow to this conversation. I barely looked at questions I had, and I'm sure I'll go back and think, oh, I wish I'd said this or asked this, but it's been so rich just sharing some time with you and getting your downloads in the moment and introducing my audience to what you do. So thank you so much for that. you're most welcome keep going keep going with what you're doing it matters I am a messenger and there are so many people who can't hear me and there are people who will be able to hear you that won't have been able to hear anybody else so it matters so much that you are speaking and thanks I'm glad to be on the same team with you thank you all for listening Please follow the podcast. Please review it favorably if you feel so inclined. To read my various written pieces, please also subscribe to my Substack account at omegamail.substack.com Email me at omegamailsays at gmail.com That's omegamail, S-A-Y-S omegamail says And for you tweeters, my X account is at omegamailsays take care until next time thanks for your support