0:00 One thing a lot of us guys do— and I'll just cop to this for myself— there are a lot of guys that just cut off any of their Royal and Warrior stuff and just don't show it. They take refuge in the Magician, sort of Lover sector of the psyche. I'm not saying this is you. I'm not saying this is you. But I'm just saying that instead of ever developing the ability to be in a confrontation with another person— not just women— but to be in that confrontation without being homicidal or without really making oneself suicidal by not protecting oneself— there are a lot of guys who cut that whole, the whole active aspects of the male self off in order to survive.
0:49 And what they will do— what I did for many years— is I would just sort of be like The Wizard of Oz, and I would just disappear into that Magician. Nothing can enrage a woman more than when she's trying to confront the man, trying to engage him, and suddenly, she notices, you know, this thing sitting here with me is not really him. This is an Android. That guy put an Android in here to deal with me. I'm not kidding you. Not kidding you. And often, they don't— they could not articulate what I just said— but they think, this is not a real person. And so, then they'll start to escalate their attacks to see if this thing can sustain some punishment,
1:36 or whether it will crack and the real guy will step out. So, a lot of us become opaque, and we are not visible. When I did the Mankind Project weekend, and I was asked to choose a name, an animal name, I chose Present Lion, because in so much of my life, I have been opaque and not present, not accessible— behind my Magician capacities. "Oh, you have a problem? You know, I don't understand why." So, I'm not saying that's you, but I'm saying it is possible to be so conflict-averse
2:22 that you don't put anything out there of your true self that might lead somebody to want to bump up against you. And we call that, in psychoanalysis, when we handle things that way, we call it the false self system. Men would rather fight a whole division of enemy tanks than to deal with an enraged woman that they're in an intimate relationship with. In fact, that's why they're so eager to go off to war a lot of the time. Because one of the great, you know, realities about men of our day is how terrified they are of women— when the women have some power and some strength,
3:09 and hurl the lance of the woman's truth—her truth—at us. And I've mentioned a couple of times John Lee’s work. He's constantly pointing out the way in which we men, when the woman in our life— whoever the most special woman in our life is— begins to criticize, we, John points out, we almost always start declining in age. And fairly quickly, we're three years old. We're just shrinking and terrified. And this is the point, you know, where domestic violence from the male side starts— is when the man loses connection with his grown-up personality.
3:59 And in the face of the criticism coming from a woman that's got some firepower— which is all of them— when it's coming at him, when it's coming at him, he is immobilized, very often, until the point where the rage kicks in. And then he will become physically— often physically—violent. So, that physical violence comes out of a man who's collapsing into his weakness and self-doubt. So I'll spend a good deal of time with men trying to help them learn that if you're going to maintain a relationship with a woman— and this would be true for gay lovers as well—
4:46 when your partner starts to come at you, as they inevitably will, with disappointment and displeasure, I try to tell men: You need to have your heart protected here. You know, I'll say, you need to do a little active imagination— imagining, visualizing— a little Kevlar suit. You know what Kevlar is? That’s bulletproof. You know, that you button up in. Because if you leave your heart uncovered when the lances are being thrown with great force and accuracy to get your attention,
5:32 then you will regress, and you will not be able to function cognitively. In other words, you will not be able to listen. Now, we would like to think that all of the lances that are thrown our way are—as Parsifal kind of feels— this, what you say, unjust treatment. What is the word? And, of course, when the salvos start to come, there is a lot of wrong stuff in it. But that's not the most important part of what's in it. If a man is actually going to do his shadow work, then he needs to practice being able
6:20 to prevent himself from dying in the face of this onslaught— having his heart completely broken so he has to end the relationship. I always say to men: Protect your heart, or you will end the relationship. You don’t protect your heart? You will end the relationship. It may take you a while, depending on how masochistic you are, but you will end the relationship. But protect your heart— not so you do not feel anything. You’ll be feeling plenty with that Kevlar over your heart. You’ll feel plenty. I just don’t want you to be in such death pain that you cannot think and listen. A lot of the research now shows that when the fear comes up
7:05 and the anxiety comes up, the actual brain circuits to the ears shut down. Have you ever thought— when people kind of get hot at each other— that you've noticed they don’t listen? Well, now, the neurophysiologists have actually proven that that’s the case. So, we need to keep you protected enough at your heart level so that your brain does not shut down. And Parsifal, at this point then, you know, that point you made about the transpersonal knowledge— so here’s the feminine aspect of the unconscious being danced out by this crone. And the deepest part of the feminine is going to have the deepest awareness of the male shadow, just as you will often have more
7:56 awareness of the woman's shadow than she does. So, there’s some male part of you that is aware of the woman’s shadow, often much more than she is, and often much more than her therapist is aware of it. So, the key issue here is being able to continue to listen. Because if he cannot listen for the truth in that salvo— even if it’s only 10% or 5% of the incoming— then he is not being aided in doing his shadow work and learning where he’s blind. So, this is a really hard thing for men.
8:43 Here we see this young guy— this is heavy artillery coming at him here from the deep, dark feminine. But a number of you pointed out that this Kundry—you know, she’s pretty accurate about a lot of stuff. She is not pulling her punches, though. And I would wonder if any of you have noticed that the female of our species, when angry, will often not hold anything back. In other words, the attack will often be extremely ferocious— and listing the litany of things from the past, as you were saying, which was really right.
9:36 So, it's a huge male achievement to be able to maintain the critical listening— to listen for the gold in there, in those comments, in that attack. For him to be able to see, where is she right about this? It's horrific to me how often the women in my life, while overdoing the attack, have been pointing to things that I desperately needed to know— but could not know at the time. See? So, I think there’s the gold in this piece of the story for us. We don’t have to say, well, boy, she was very balanced in what she said to him,
10:24 because the force was not— I mean, this was full on. So, it’s not, well, now I can kick somebody’s ass as a martial artist, now I’ve got a Warrior inflation. Well, you’ve got an important part. But when you're standing in a relationship with a really angry woman, then we will find out how well your Warrior is initiated. For sure. Thank you.
