This Is Woman's Work with Nicole Kalil - The Truth About Women with Alison Armstrong | 217

Episode Date: June 12, 2024

THE Alison Armstrong returns to our show to continue what was a wildly popular discussion earlier in the year where we talked about men, because when we stopped recording I had more questions than I had even started with. This time around we are talking all about women, and how our needs and behaviors affect those around us.  Alison Armstrong’s exploration of human behavior began in 1991, with her decision to study men. She says she thought it would take her a few months to learn everything worth knowing about them, and ended up being surprised by many of her findings. Over the years, her success in understanding men naturally led to studying women’s behavior and making vital connections between the two, which we’re going to dive into today. As a sought-after speaker and thought-leader, Alison has been giving millions of people access to more fulfilling lives, loving relationships, stronger families and productive organizations and her philosophy and approach are referenced and taught by other well known authors, speakers, business consultants and therapists. Here’s what I know for sure: The only place I’m interested in leading anyone is back to themselves. To the part that lives inside you and me, and every one of us – the part that knows who you are and gets to decide who gets your best. Instinct, inner knowing, gut feeling – I don’t care what you call it, but I do care that you listen to it. As Alison says, honor yourself first, or all else is lost. Connect with Alison: Website: www.alisonarmstrong.com  IG: @thealisonarmstrong FB: https://www.facebook.com/understandmen  Like what you heard? Please rate and review  Thanks to our This Is Woman’s Work Sponsor: Book your in depth virtual visit with the menopause and perimenopause medical experts at Midi Health by going to joinmidi.com - they accept most major health insurance plans! 

I am Nicole Kalil, and have I got a treat for you. The Alison Armstrong returns to our show to continue what was a wildly popular discussion earlier in the year when we talked all about men. Now, if you didn't listen, you might be thinking that when a podcast called This Is Woman's Work does an episode about men, which we titled A Man's Job, both because it's a playoff of woman's work and because we knew it would catch some attention, you might think that we turned that into an opportunity to bash men, that we spent our time talking about what they're doing wrong and how

they are the problem. But that's not what we did. And if you're a regular listener, you know that's not something I would do because I don't think that men are the problem or that women are the solution. I'm not trying to replace men with women, and I don't advocate for women at the expense of men or any other gender because Because I believe doing that would make me an asshole. And my problem isn't with men, it's with assholes of any and every gender. And trust me when I say that I know for sure without any hesitation that women can be assholes too. And while I did have many aha moments during my conversation with Allison, like starting with the assumption that nobody is misbehaving and that men truly don't see And while I did have many aha moments during my conversation with Allison, like starting

with the assumption that nobody is misbehaving and that men truly don't see the dust or the misplaced pillows that drive us women absolutely bonkers, and that I definitely thought that I needed to prove how wrong my leaders were in order to make it to the top. I mean, there were so many general and personal mind-blasting moments in that episode for me. But when we stopped recording, I had more questions than I had even started with. And when I shared that with Allison, she very generously offered to come back to the show. So yes, we are all in for a treat. And yes, I have one million questions. And no, I probably won't get through all of them. So I'm going to keep my intro short and get right to it. Alison Armstrong's exploration of human behavior began

in 1991 with her decision to study men. As she shared, she didn't think this would become her life's work. She thought it would take her a few months to learn everything worth knowing about them and ended up being surprised by many of her findings. Over the years, her success in Understanding Men naturally led her to studying women's behavior and making vital connections between the two, which is what we're going to dive into today. A sought-after speaker and thought leader, Allison has been giving millions of people access to more fulfilling lives, loving relationships, stronger families, and more productive organizations. And her philosophy and approach are referenced and taught by other well-known authors, speakers,

business consultants, and therapists. Allison, thank you for literally the honor of being here with us again. And I want to direct our conversation a little bit more towards women in our time together today. And I want to start by asking about something you mentioned on the last episode about how we tend to criticize or nag at men because it works with other women. Yep. I don't even understand. Like, let's dive into that a little deeper. Yeah.

Oh, and it's so worth diving into. And I just have to tell you, my eyes are teared up. I'm laughing, crying. I'm so in love with you. The feeling is so very mutual, but I thank you. Yeah, you're welcome. And I, I would, I do this next quarter and the next quarter, and I would feel privileged to do it.

I love what you're up to. I love how you do it. So as you can imagine, someone who has created understanding men, understanding women, understanding sex and intimacy and understanding love and commitment. And that our website forever was understand men.com until a couple of years ago. I have been dedicated to understanding for decades. And then in early 2020,

I was doing a course called Lux in Los Angeles, huge production, less than eight hours that completely changed people's lives. And what we're proposing in that course is honor yourself first, or all is lost. And we, we teach something I call a process of honoring. And a process of honoring is the foundation of partnership. Without honoring, there's no partnership available. And we have to start with honoring ourselves. And one might think that if you were engaged in a process of honoring that you would ultimately after working at it for a while get to respect you would get to I respect you like that's so honoring well actually a process of honoring starts with respect the definition I loved so much is granting innate value. So granting innate value. And this is so relevant to criticism. We are still on the topic of why criticism, we think it works with them, right?

So I propose in that course, what if you started with a great granting innate value to yourself? I have an innate value. What if you went further? What if you granted innate value to everything about you? Every single thing about you, the things you are ashamed of, the things you think are terrible, the things you think are weak, the things you think are just like, oh, gross. What if you granted innate value to those as well? What if every single thing, the way you look, the way you talk, the way you be, what upsets you? There's innate value in what upsets you. You can learn so much about people by what upsets them. So I'm going to do this really fast. So from respect, granting innate value in a process of honoring goes to seeking.

Once you grant it's there, well, what is it? Right? Seeking. You don't see if you're not seeking, right? So once you commit to seeking, curiosity, then you end up seeing. Ooh, look at that. And then what we're driven to do as human beings is to understand what we're seeing. Why is that?

How did that come to be? What is that for? What does that do? So we naturally go from seeing to compelled to understand. We also have the same response. Like say we're on a date and there's something about how the person's being with us that has us experience being seen. Oh my gosh, you see me. Well, that has this want to be understood. You're seeing me. Oh my gosh, this is joyous. If I had it all my way, people would only have relationships that went like that. But in working on all of this, what I saw was everything in a process of honoring, respect, seeking, seeing, understanding,

and then it goes on from there. There's like four more steps. It's beautiful in partnership. It's beautiful as a conscious choice. It's beautiful as a disciplined practice of ways of listening and ways of speaking. Like we can speak to be understood. We can speak to be seen. Many people want to be seen while hiding. They don't ever speak to be seen. Right. Well, and with social media and all that, like there is this way of being seen without ever

being seen. Like we have these new outlets that allow for that, if not create it. Yes. And we can show just the parts we want to show, which is part of human instinct, is only show what makes us more attractive or intimidating. But so I could see in human instinct, human animal, you could call it human normal,

respect is needed for survival. Someone looking for what's valuable in us, needed for survival, being seen for what we really want to provide for the herd, the tribe, right? The hunting group, the team needed for survival, being understood. Being understood is interesting by some people. We need to be understood. And it feels like we're just so upset when they don't understand us. But one of the things that we got to uncover was that the need to understand, right? Also a survival need to understand, to be able to draw conclusions so you can strategize to cause something to happen or to prevent it from ever happening again.

And that this drive to understand, we do a release in Lux. We do a lot of releasing. And one of the things we release is the need to understand, we do a release in Lux. We do a lot of releasing. And one of the things we release is the need to understand. Because there's so many things that people won't proceed with because they don't understand it. Or thinking that understanding why someone does something means you have to accept it. Means you have to have it in your life. Instead of, I understand. something means you have to accept it means you have to have it in your life instead of I

understand I heard you and I understand why you do this I require that that isn't done around me so are you going to get a hold of that you raise your voice and yell at me and cause my whole nervous system to shift or are we not going to do anything together that would ever get to that point or prevent me from immediately disconnecting? Like if we could have an agreement, you raise your voice, I hang up, then we can proceed. But it will be an immediate, you will get no warning. This is your only warning. You raise your voice again, I will hang up on you. Call me back when you've chilled out. There will be a limit to how many times I will keep answering the phone, right?

So there's, we think we have to understand it before we act on it. The need to be understood, one of the ways that gets in the way, especially for women, is we think someone needs to understand why we need something in order to give it to us. And so we'll ask for what we need and we'll say, I need this because, and the because will be about the past. It'll be about our history, our upbringing, our injuries, our shame, everything that we think adds up to needing this. And if someone understands why we need it, then they'll give it to us. Men aren't wired that way.

Men don't want to spend their whole lives making up for everything that happened to you before. We need to discipline ourselves. And this is women's work. No doubt. And men do well to do this as well, to ask for what we need, not because of the past, but for the future. This is what I need in order to. This is what I need in order to feel fulfilled. This is what I need in order to agree to being your girlfriend. This is what I need in order to stay in this marriage. This is what I

need in order to take this job. This is what I need in order to stay at this job. So it's all about the future, including what men care about the most. This is what I need in order to be the version of me that you're in love with, including to be happy, which is a way that men judge themselves. They can't commit to someone they don't think they can make happy. And they have no idea the thousand things that go into making a woman happy.

95% of them are up to her, right? When men find out that they're like, because they have thought they were failures the whole life because they couldn't make a woman happy. I'm sorry, honey. 95% of it was on her part. And if she doesn't do her part, your part isn't going to turn out.

And another part of women's work is to figure out what do we need that we can't provide for ourselves that someone else would give to us or support us in doing that that is the baseline of I'm fine I'm fine I'm good I'm solid I can now get happy because happy is a cherry on top but it's also what makes women so extraordinary to men. Our happiness is their life is good, like heaven on earth. It's the nectar. So criticism is one of the things that's like, you don't see me.

You don't understand me. You don't, how could you say you love me and say that, right? And it hurts so badly. It changes us. And I'll tell you about that. And that's why we think it would work with men, but it, it changes us in a primitive way, not, it eliminates choice in the change and without choice in the change, which is how men are protected, they get to choose to make the change. We're just compelled. So, okay, I'm going to stop. So the elimination of choice that happens, is that because of survival instinct? Like I need to belong in order to, you know, if we go back into a very long history, women needed to be part of the community for survival. Is that why we get so quick to respond to criticism as like, I can't be shunned. I can't be ostracized. I can't be

pushed out or I'm not going to make it. So the belonging has everything to do with herd instincts. Pack and herd. If you think of human beings, we're both predator and prey. So we have both pack and herd instincts. It's one of the things that makes us complicated. And who am I now? Am I a predator now or Or am I prey now? We have two nervous systems. We also, within the survival nervous system, we have two sets of instincts to go with, path and herd. So belonging critical to our sense of safety. What is our status within the group that we belong to?

We could do a whole show just on that. But probably the simplest word, and it's a thing that if I could have men and women stop taking it personally, pleasing. We're compelled to be pleasing and avoid displeasing. So this is why we don't speak up about our boundaries. We're afraid that people will be displeased, which could end up in dying. A revelation for my husband that when he's angry at me, I am sure he will not protect me. And how come I'm sure of that is because I wouldn't, which is shocking to men. Like our best friend, we can get hurt badly enough that

we will betray their secrets. And men are like shocked at that. That is so dishonorable to have your feelings determine your actions, right? Well, our feelings are the center of us for good reason. Men are like, why do women always make their feelings a center of everything? We don't make them that way. That's where they are. They're right here in the center of everything in the downlink connected to the eternal that fills us with all the magic and mystery and glory that you love and need. And if you hurt my feelings, that turns it petrifies. It turns to stone it and everything you love about me is going to disappear. And that's why you got to take my feelings very seriously. Just like when a man experiences being disrespected, he becomes hideous.

Whether his hideous is flight or his reaction is freeze, right? And just shuts down with holds or it's a fight reaction. All of them are going to be horrible. And so it's pleasing is a good word. And the difference between pleasing and pleasure, men want to please women in bed. They really want to pleasure women in bed. And we're compelled to please and that's why the green beans are salty. If someone says something's too salty, or not salty enough, or has in their lifetime had that happen, they won't salt anymore. They'll just put the salt on the table, keep the salt on the table. I'm going to give you the baseline, you season from here, because I can't win, which is something that many want to have in common. If we can't win, we just stop trying.

So with the beginning of criticism, I think, yeah, what I think we're going to, so with the pleasing element, I think one of the things that is problematic is when we care about pleasing everyone. So when we think about terms like people pleasing, I can see and have experienced how that pleasing my daughter and my parents. And there's an element of there's these people I care about and I care about how I contribute to their life and that I don't want to take anything away from it. But we've extended this pleasing thing out to literally everybody, strangers on the internet, bosses, coworkers. Are we taking pleasing too far or am I misinterpreting pleasing here? You're not misinterpreting it,

but we haven't taken it too far. Human instinct is stuck in an on switch and there's no such thing as too far we don't take it too far it starts as universal it starts at universal especially for women because we come from a profound ancestral awareness of being the smaller and weaker gender. And we, that has been used against us for millennia. And it's why so many movies these days are women kicking men's asses and kicking the asses of bully women, right? Being physically more able to take them down. We're just, if anyone wants to do something, and I don't know if I said this before, on our website, scroll down the homepage, there's a free sample and you just put your email in you can unsubscribe anytime you want but it's 30 minutes it's the beginning of our understanding women workshop and you and it starts with the biggest difference between men and women and you'll get

to see because it's a co-ed audience it's video. You'll get to see me interacting first with the men and their relationship to physical safety. And then with the women and their relationship to physical safety. And the difference is profound. And the jaw dropping of the men, the stunned looks on their faces, how much they don't know this. I mean, it brings tears to their eyes. And then, and their reaction is to now, not only do they want to make women happy, they want to make women feel safe. And until I caught on, men were contorting themselves to make women feel safe. They became volcanoes. They were so suppressing what they needed to express. And I had to learn to tell them, you cannot make a woman feel safe. The best you

can do is help her feel safe. Ultimately, because safety is a survival on for a woman, it's a constant scan. It's part of why we have diffuse awareness. These works are constantly scanning for threats and scanning for threats. And depending on the vibration coming from a man's body, which we don't often even don't even know we can perceive, right? We can perceive so many things that it's going to take so long for science to prove it, but they've started. But we can perceive a man as a protector or an attacker. Before he ever opens his mouth, we can feel the energy, protector or attacker.

And we can have a husband, because he's pissed, show up as an attacker. And or show up as he's so displeased he won't protect me he's not a protector anymore he'll just let the tiger eat me we don't do it we don't extend it to everybody it is extended to everybody so part of women's work and we define who is going to get her best. Who is she saving her best for? Who is she protecting her best for? I can tell it's amazing. Yeah, it is resonating.

It brought tears to my eyes because that is really the fundamental question. Who gets my best? You know, who do I offer that to? And what, I mean, just, I don't know, for whatever reason, that feels very powerful to me. I live just outside of Boston and I still struggle to find great doctors to help me understand perimenopause, let alone to provide expert care and to guide me through it, which is one of the many reasons I love what Midi Health is offering for women. The only comprehensive virtual clinic for women navigating midlife, Midi supports us with experts, like working with women ages 40 plus who are experiencing hot

flashes, night sweats, brain fog, and body changes is what they do. And they help us with hormonal and non-hormonal medications, supplements, lifestyle coaching, and vital preventative health guidance. No matter where you are, you have access and Middy accepts most major health insurance plans. Book your in-depth virtual visit by going to joinmidi.com. With no membership fees or hidden costs, Midi puts relief and support within reach for more women than ever before. Go to joinmidi.com because you deserve to feel great. Yes, even during perimenopause. And once you've done that, let's head back to the show. It is. It's extremely powerful because what people do normally is give their best, you could say outside their home, just as a metaphor, and then come home to get recovered.

And so we have what I would call half empty swimming pools trying to fill up from the other. And instead of whatever we do in the outside world has to fill us so we can come to the people we love and care about the most and overflow to them they don't have to suck the life out of us we have so much of it it overflows to them and they are uplifted they are empowered because of how we're being so how we're being. So how we're being is the universal language. It's that vibration everybody can pick up on even when they don't know it.

It's one of the few things that we can control. And yes, so it's why I talk to women all the time about be very careful about what you're being accountable for because the fuel of accountability is testosterone men have 15 to 30 times more than we do naturally it will drain you and you will lose its protection and testosterone is the protection against criticism at a cellular level. It's crazy. This is why as our hormones fluctuate, it's one of the best things about menopause. Postmenopausal, menopause is just a day,

but postmenopausal, we stop having the variation in testosterone levels. They may be a solid low, which is why I do bioidentical hormone therapy, but testosterone is the protection. And so this is why men are like, oh, is it one of those days of the month? Because when we're pre-period and having our periods, our testosterone levels are very low. And so two weeks ago, he could have have said something the green beans are salty oh okay i'll remember that and now the green beans

are salty i can't ever win you're so picky what i'm trying he's like what happened so many places to go with this. Okay, I'm going to finish this one thing. So in being extraordinary as a woman, which originally its nickname was called The Queen Workshop, which makes sense how the book ended up being The Queen's Code, is we divide it into two groups, okay?

And so we define your best your greatness right um is going to be a combination of the what i just lump as a bunch of archetypes from what i learned from men um the temptress the mother and the queen and the temptress is the physical aspect of women, which includes the energy of playfulness, right? And sexuality. Our children, everybody, when we play, they can't not participate. It's essential, right? And especially our mates need our playfulness so much. If you need more affection, if you want more affection, just be more playful. People cannot not hug someone who's playful. So the temptress, the physical aspect, the mother, the emotional aspect, the queen, the spiritual aspect. And the most powerful is a combination

of all three. And so even if you're going to be a queen, you have to pay attention to the temptress and the mother as well. And fortunately, all the same methods work for all of them. And to the question, who do I give my best to? We may make a distinction that's useful of as a queen, who's in your court? And who's in your village realm? You could say if you wanted to, but it's all your realm. It's your court and your village and your court. An easy way to tell your court is because you use the word my. So someone who says I have a daughter who there's some distance there.

My eldest daughter, my youngest daughter, my middle daughter, my fourth daughter, my seventh daughter, right? My daughter, Claire, right? My, my boyfriend, my sister in lawlaw as opposed to my brother's wife right so you can tell and they're the people that and i warn men about this if you say to a woman how are you honesty and the compulsion to be understood will compel her to tell you about her physical state, mental state, emotional state, spiritual state, maybe even a theoretical state, right? The space of energy around our bodies and how all the Mayas are doing because how they're doing is how she's doing. So how my eldest daughter is doing being a new mom, how my youngest daughter's doing here, how my son is doing, how my boyfriend is doing, how my donkey's doing, how my dog buck is doing, right? So we're

going to tell you how everybody's doing, how my company's doing, right? My company. So that's your court. Well worth saving your best for. The people to save your best for, your court well worth saving your best for the the people to save your best for your court because if they are that to you you're likely to be the only one of you for them does that to them, my best friend, her best friends. So this is awesome. Thank you very much for this. I never said it that way before ever. If they're that to you, you are that to them. I have never said that. And it is pure and it's so clear. And thank you so much. Bless you for that. And it completely connected. And like that, there was a physical, emotional reaction when you said it. So stick with it because it lands. And it's probably a good reason to find out who we are for people because we may not know.

I had someone tell me yesterday, my life is better when I'm interacting with you. Always. At a completely different level. Okay. Okay. Good to know. Good to know. Take it seriously. So then your village, your village is going to be made up of a couple of things. You can have groups in your village, like my students. My students are in my village. They're also who I save myself for. They're also who I decide what I'm going to do in the morning. So I'll still be great with them at night, right? They're also important because of the effect that they have on your realm so my sister-in-law because of the effect she has on my brother and my nieces and my nephew and my great nieces and

nephews right and and so someone it doesn't matter like how much you resonate with them or like them, there's still someone you want to, maybe not your best bestest, but you, you don't want to leave them disempowered, right? You, you want to leave them as best you can. And you, and so you, you carry out boundaries with an intent to leave them as best you can, but you're not going to sacrifice your boundary, even if it's going to disempower them. You don't, you can't. Well, I don't know what I think too, is like, I can't drain the pool of my court, right? Like I'm mixing metaphors, but like, my absolute best is for my court. I cannot, I have to have boundaries and I have to stick to those boundaries or I drain something that makes it so that I can't show up over here to even be able to give my best, even if the desire

is there. Yes. Yes, yes. Double yes. And it's worth it to decide, okay, and people can end up not in your court. Like they don't get to be in your court by being a blood relative. They don't get to be in your court by how many years of friendship. They don't have an entitlement to you deciding they're the people you're going to be your best for okay and then your village it can have groups of people can have people are there because as i said they're related to people in your court they affect the people in your court um and but yeah, ideally, you give to your village from your overflow. And you interact with your village in a way that the exchange, you're not depleted from, or at least minimally in a way that you then can refill, which being extraordinary as a

man and a woman is all about what do you need? What fills you up to be the person you've decided to be? What gives you that? If you've decided to be a patient person, what leaves you with the capacity, a full tank of patience, a full tank of compassion, right? So it's, it's, I'm, I think you probably got this right now. Well, and myself as a pragmatic visionary. Right. So it's, it's, I'm, I think you probably got this right now. Well, and myself as a pragmatic visionary.

And it's triggering a bunch of other questions, but I cannot let you go without asking this one, which I think is very aligned, but a little bit of a, of a difference is this honor yourself first or all else is lost. I mean, that is a profound, powerful, life-changing shift for many of us. And I have to be honest that I don't know that I see very many people doing this, living this way. So can you give us some examples and like, how do we do that? What are we, how do we make ourselves whole so that we can be full and whole? And what did you say earlier? Granting our innate value first and then bring that to our relationships and our opportunities and our businesses and all the things that matter. Yes. That I haven't seen done very often and I'm a visual learner. So how do we do this?

Okay. I'm committed to completing criticism because we started with it so i'll give you the bottom line do this for me nicole and you can close your eyes or not notice what your body's telling you where does it feel good where is energy flowing where is it achy? Where is there pain? Where is it just uncomfortable and wishes you would change position, right? How much energy do you have? If you were going to rate yourself zero to 10, how much energy do you have right now? What's happening up in your brain? Are there parts of your brain that feel fuzzy or there's an ache anywhere or maybe

it's starving? Are you thirsty? Are you hungry? That's just your body, right? Like what's your attitude? What's your mood? What are you feeling as an emotion? Is there anything you're irritated by? That's the beginning of what I call the anger spectrum. What if it's a messenger telling you you need something to start or something to stop? And then what are you thinking about? What are you focused on? What are you worried about? What are you hoping for?

What can you not even think? You can't go there. If you had it all your way, what would happen next? And for how long? And by whom? So me interacting with you, even with all the crazy perceptions that we're built with, that I exploit, you have a thousand times more information about you than I do. At least. And you always will. Always will. It's why one of my favorite questions to ask and to be asked is, what do you want me to know about you? Because if you sort all the things you could tell me, if I said, how are you? All the things you could tell me to what do I actually want her to know about me now? That is going to be important information.

So we have to first pay enough attention to ourselves to even know what to tell the people who love us, who want the best from us, to tell them what we need. And so this is Dan and I interact with, what do you want me to know about you and if you had it all your way we we interact between those two things to make choices and it's one of the reasons we don't live together so that I can do what fills me up my evenings where he's flat and unsociable. My evenings is when I'm interacting with my students because 100% of the time I am left better off. I am better off from getting to talk to them and answer their questions and poke and prod their blind spots than doing anything else.

And criticism and this impulse to be, this compelling desire to be pleasing, it says we failed to please. We have anywhere from no protection to some protection from hearing that. And one of the worst things we do is we think someone's displeased. And if someone, if you just wanted to implement one thing that would change your life, whenever you think someone's mad at you or if you've displeased them or they're not delighted by what you just fed them or what you're doing in that moment, ask. And the best way to ask is say, it seems like. It seems like you don't like what I made you for dinner. It seems like the restaurant I want to go to, isn't it good like you don't like what I made you for dinner. It seems like the restaurant I want to go to,

isn't it good for you? Could we find something? Because women are like, why do I always have to pick the restaurant? Because the whole point is making you happy. And he doesn't know you can't be happy if he doesn't like it. So criticism will change us even against our own desire. Like you, you say to somebody, you know, interesting choice of lipstick for someone with red hair. Every time they put that lipstick on again, it'll be screw Allison, but screw Allison. I'm going to wear it everywhere else because it pleases me. And I mean, the simplest little thing, we can just like get a look on their face, like,

right. And men will get a look on their face or an edge in their voice. And we will change whatever we're doing. We'll change. And that's why I tell women to ask men, He might just have gas. A lot of those are just gas. It had nothing to do with your joke. It had nothing to do with your perfume. It had nothing to do with the garlic you just breathed on him and nothing to do with it. Well, and it's interesting how we ended here, because when you asked me to close my eyes and you asked all those questions, one of the things that just felt sort of instantly obvious is I don't do this. I don't check in with myself at that level. I don't ask those questions. And yes, I know more about me than anybody else could ever possibly. And yet I don't give myself very many opportunities to be intimate with myself, to be connected, to listen. I mean, like really, really listen. So there's that. But if you add

that in with then information from others in the form of criticism, the not honoring myself makes me far more open to and reactive to and, you know, then I make up a lot more shit. And the other thought is I have desires and I have wants and I have needs. And when I check in with myself and my emotions and my feelings give me insight into those. That's information for me. But one of the things that I think we make the mistake of is we try to get one person to meet and fill all of those needs. And oftentimes it's our partner, which oftentimes is somebody of a different gender. So is there an element of when we say honor ourselves first of asking for our needs to get met, but if that person can't or isn't willing, that we have to keep asking. We have to go to other people. We have to find it for ourselves.

We can't just throw up our hands and be like, well, you know, they didn't do it. Fuck them. What an asshole. I guess. Can I interrupt a second? Please. Let's do our next show on this. Okay. Yeah. Because as usual, you're asking huge questions and to complete this one, because a lot of it's going to be about interacting with the other person. If you feel criticized, just or you're reacting, you're shutting down because you felt criticized. Speak up. It sounds like.

Yeah, that felt like criticism. It seems like you don't like something about me. And my request is, instead of saying things like that, could you please just tell me what you need to be different and what it would provide for you if it was? And that's the beginning of the next conversation. But it's my goal. I want women to watch the Understanding Women course, which is like 15 hours of videos,

maybe. And it's extraordinary what you learn about yourself and men too. Um, is I want women to become impervious to criticism, just like I want men to become impervious to attempts to emasculate them. And criticism does emasculate women. It disempowers us. It diminishes us. If you look at the definition to deprive of vigor, we will lose energy so fast when we experience being criticized. And that's why I want women to understand themselves so that they don't let people criticize them anymore. Don't call me scattered. That is a function of diffuse awareness.

It comes with the estrogen, which is where these curves, this soft skin, and the twinkle in my eye that gives you life also come from. Do not criticize one part of me when you want the rest. If you'd like to help me focus on something, I'm open to that. If you'd like to leave me alone so I can blissfully utter around our house without my attention on you for, let's say, a weekend, that would be lovely. But don't tell me I'm scattered and leave your fucking socks on the floor. And everybody listening said, amen. Alison Armstrong, thank you. Thank you for, you know, as a member of your realm, thank you for giving your best and for the incredible work that you do. If you're listening, absolutely go

to alisonarmstrong.com. Check out Lux. Do Understanding Women. I'm so excited about the next book. There are hundreds, possibly thousands of hours of online programs. Go to Alison Armstrong and start wherever feels best and right for you. And of course you can find and follow her on Instagram as well as Facebook. Alison, thank you. Thank you. My absolute pleasure. Okay. When it comes to redefining woman's work, we are all part of the problem and we can all be part of the solution. Except assholes, they have no place here. And here's what I know for sure. The only place I'm interested in leading women is back to themselves, to the part that lives inside you and me and every one of us. The part that knows who

you are and gets to decide who gets your best. Instinct, inner knowing, gut feeling, I don't care what you call it, but I do care that you listen to it. Honor yourself first or all else is lost. Honor yourself first because that is woman's work.