00:00So why do men need to be taught about emotional safety and more generally relationship skills?
00:04This stuff's very easy. It's not rocket science. Why do we need to lay it out for them line by
00:08line? It's a good question and I'm going to respond to it, but it has some layers. So let's
00:12sit with all of it. The first layer is important to take in so that we can really contextualize
00:17why. The second piece of this becomes important is human nature, men, women alike. We take our
00:23experiences and we project them onto the world around us. We assume that this is how it works
00:28because this is what I went through. If you take that into consideration and you use that
00:32as the lens in which you view the question, why do men need to be taught about these things,
00:37emotional safety and relationship dynamics and all that stuff for men as boys into adulthood
00:43as they become men, emotional safety isn't a thing. Men's emotions aren't safe. Their
00:50experience of that has been very much like shove it down. Don't want to hear about it. Push
00:55through, power through, don't cry. Men don't do that. Boys don't do that. You grow up and
00:58you become an adult. If you're stressed, you're overwhelmed, push through it. I don't have
01:02time for this. Go make the money, whatever it is. So since men have not experienced a
01:06whole lot of empathy for their emotions, they don't know how to show that to other people
01:11without explicit instruction. And another element of men's experience that they might project
01:17onto others when in relationship with them and which is why being explicitly taught to navigate
01:22relationships differently becomes helpful is a lot of guys have this experience or perception
01:27that they are valued for their utility. What can you do for me? Not valued for being a
01:33good person, not valued because I love you and I cherish you just for who you are, but
01:37what can you do? So then you have guys just kind of unconsciously projecting that onto their
01:41relationships and looking to their wives and like, what can you do for me? Whether it be
01:46physically or what can you do and produce within the home? Can you make me a meal? Can you clean
01:50the house? Like what can you do for me? The default setting for a lot of guys is to see them
01:55for their utility rather than seeing them as a person that I want to relate to, that I want
02:00to be present with, that I just want to enjoy the company of because they don't have a lot
02:05of experience feeling like they are treated in that way. They project it onto other people.
02:10So if you then zoom out and you ask the question, why do men need to be taught this stuff? It's
02:15unlearning these unhealthy ways that we've been taught through how we've been treated and saying,
02:20hey, healthy relationships, healthy dynamics are not built off of these things that society has
02:26kind of delivered to you as your own experience. It is built off of emotional safety. It's built off
02:32of good communication. It's built off of sharing space, empathy, compassion. Like these things are not
02:37prioritized and given to men in many cases. So it does need to kind of be explicitly laid out step by
02:45step from what they believe to be true to what is actually true for their benefit and for the benefit
02:51of everybody else.
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