Stop Trying to Understand Her

So recently, a friend of mine and I were out having coffee, and we were just chatting about dating and modern dating, dating apps, I mean, the whole gamut. He's in his early 40s, he's single, he's enjoying the dating world. Also had quite a few complaints about the dating world. And we got talking about what women want. And there's two things that I really want to talk about here. Because, you know, he started to ask me, you know, you said, connor, like, you've worked with, you know, so many men over the years, helping them save their marriages and in relationships, and you've worked with couples and you worked with women. He said, what do you think that women really want? And what do you think that men need to understand about women? And I said, well, that's. Those are. Those are two massive questions. And I said, first, I think that what we as men need to understand about women is that we don't understand women. And that's not our job to trying to figure them out. Right. Like, in a relationship, our work is not to try and figure out the woman that we're with. You know, and there's this notion in the manosphere and certain pickup communities and dating advice and some of the dating coaches that I see that paint a picture that women are a certain way. Right, right. That if you just act this way, that you'll get those results because women are this way. And that we as men have somehow figured out women. And it's just amazing, right? Like, what a beautiful notion that we as men have figured out this. How. Figured out women. There's a very certain framework and modality that you need to follow. And if you just follow that modality, then you'll be successful with women, because women are this way, and you can tell that they're going to go through certain phases in their life. And it's universal. All women act this way. So one of the things that I said to him was I think that we need to let go of the notion that we need to understand women fully. You know, Carl Jung had this great quote where he said that women stand at the edge of what a man knows about himself. Women stand at where a man's shadow begins. And so the notion here is that women are the unknown within the masculine psyche to men. You know, we don't know what it's like to have ovaries or to be able to bear children or to have that much estrogen coursing through our body. I mean, I just have no context for that. Just like my wife has no Context for what it's like to have testosterone ripping through my body constantly, and the thoughts and the emotions and the experiences that come along with that. And so we don't need to pretend that we know exactly what women are like, and we don't need to pretend that we know why they're going to feel a certain way or when they're going to feel a certain way or any of those things. Right? This notion that I don't need to figure out my wife, I don't need to figure out the women in my life, opens up this gateway of curiosity and this freedom to say, you can have your own experience. I don't know what it is, I don't know what that's like, and I don't need to know. But I can be curious about it. But I can say, hey, you just got really upset about that, about what I said. And I don't. I genuinely don't understand why, but I'd like to. So how come you got upset about that? What are you feeling right now? What does that feel like in your body? You know, when you get angry like that or when you get sad like that, what happens internally for you? What do you experience? And we can start to get curious about what a woman is going through, what it's actually like to be in her body. And we don't actually need to have full context for that, and we don't actually need to pretend like we fully get it, but we can just say, tell me about what it is that you're thinking. Tell me about what it is that you're feeling. And for most women, you'll notice this paradox that what they're really craving for from a man is to be understood. And yet, if you talk to most women, what they'll say is, a man will never really understand me. A man will never understand my experience. A man can never fully get me. So there's this paradoxical nature of A woman wants to be understood, but she also simultaneously fundamentally believes that she can never be understood. And so men get caught in this trap because we, as men, we are external beings, right? We love to go out into the world. We love to build, we love to create. We love to look out in the world and try and figure shit out. Like, we love that kind of stuff. Stuff. And so we get into a relationship with a woman and we start to fixate on trying to sense, make her behavior, her choices, her decisions. Why is she feeling that way? Why is she acting? Why is she pissed off at me right now? What the hell does she want from me? And we get consumed by these questions. And all of these questions come back. The very fundamental question of, how do I figure her out? How do I understand her? And if we can just let that question go and we can say, who do I become when I'm around her? Who do I become when I'm around her? It opens up the space and the possibility for you as a man to see your own psychological makeup, to see the unknown aspects of yourself that are being revealed around a woman. Because like Jung said, women stand at the very edge of what a man knows about himself. Women stand where a man's shadow begins. So what he's really saying is that women are going to evoke and provoke your shadow. They are going to evoke and provoke the parts of yourself that you don't know about, that you don't like, that you don't want to admit are there that you don't want to see. Your insecurities, your neediness, your aggression, your violence. Violence, your vitriol, right? Your bitterness, your resentment, the pain that you've been carrying since childhood, the anger that you had towards your mom for not being there, for your father, for disappearing, for whatever it is, she's going to provoke those parts of you. And so the best thing that you can do is to reel in the nets, to reel in the energy, the time, the focus, the mental bandwidth that you have put on trying to figure her out and pull that in towards yourself and ask yourself the question, who do I become when I'm around her? Do I become less patient? Do I become more volatile? Right. Have I become a man who's tolerating something in his life that he really doesn't want to, that's building a tremendous amount of. Of resentment. Who do I become when we are in conflict? When I'm in conflict with my wife, with my girlfriend, with my boss, with my colleague? Who do I become around her? That question is arguably much more important than how do I figure her out? Yeah, you can ask her questions and you can have her tell her, tell you what her experience is, but that's completely different from who are you around her? So comment below. What did you think about this? Practice this. Try this out next time. Notice who do you become when you're around your woman, when you're around the woman that you're dating, when you're around women that you want to date, when you're around women that you want to sleep with, because those women are going to evoke parts of yourself that you don't want to see that you're unaware of that. Maybe you don't like that, maybe you don't want to interact with. And rather than trying to figure out who she is and you know how to say certain things or be funny at certain times, or not do certain things so that she doesn't get pissed off, you can step more fully into who am I as a man? Who do I want to really be? Because you can leverage and utilize your relationship as a sharpening stone for your own masculine core, for your own masculine nature, for your own psychology, for your own ethics, for your own values in life, for your own dreams and ambitions and what your soul ultimately wants you to be doing for your own purpose in life. Right? Your relationship can become a vehicle for you to more fully see who you are meant to be as a man. But it can't do that if you're fixated and focused in on trying to understand her, trying to figure her out. That's a labyrinth. That's a maze that you can get lost in for years, decades and a lifetime. But when you reverse that lens and say, who am I being right? Am I being an asshole? Am I being ignorant? Am I ignoring things about myself that I don't wanna see? Do I not wanna admit that I've been putting up with something? That I haven't been saying what I actually want, That I haven't been taking action and initiating the things that I actually need within this relationship? Right? When we do that, there's a chance, a chance, a huge chance that we will begin to step in and sharpen who we actually want to be as a man, who we are capable of being as a man. And it will free us. It will free us in such a way that we will be able to see the woman as she actually is. We'll be able to see who she actually is and love her for who she actually is without needing to fix her or change her. And maybe she's not the right woman, but. But it'll become a hell of a lot more clear when you have become the right man for you. So comment below, let me know what you thought about this video. Do you have questions? Do you disagree? What parts of it stood out to you? And let me know if there are certain topics that you would like for me to comment on next time.