Why Women Emasculate Men — and Why You Must NEVER Cave | Alison Armstrong Interview

Okay, if you're a frequent listener of the Dad Starting Over podcast and you find yourself saying, "Yeah, that sounds like me," well, you don't need another podcast episode. What you need is support. The Help for Men Brotherhood is where men go when they're done pretending that they got it all handled. You know, your dead bedrooms, your divorce, your loneliness, your rebuilding life. We have private forums, frequent live Zoom meetings, one-on-one coaching, courses, all my books at no additional charge. And yes, we get together in person. Real men and real conversations. So stop doing this alone and join the Help for Men Brotherhood today at help4men.com/join. I look forward to seeing you in the next member meeting. Miss Allison Armstrong. Okay, so we're starting this off laughing. For guys that are watching this going, what happened? We had a nice little funny moment here for a recording today. But most of your work speaks to or talks to women talking about men, helping women better understand men, the other side of the aisle. But my audience is mostly men, and a lot of them are coming out of long-term relationships and they're really struggling. So they're having a hard time trying to— what's my identity now that my title of husband's gone? And what often happens for a lot of these poor guys is it's perfect storm. It's like when it rains, it pours. And then he loses his job. You know, either the job came first and then the marriage was lost, or the marriage is lost and he's all stressed out and he's not able to perform at work and he loses his job. And often a lot of the friends go with the wife because she was the social conduit in their relationship. And, and on and on. What do you wish that those guys knew about themselves that will help them in their relationship future and what they bring to relationships?

Oh my gosh, that's a huge question. Um, first, if I may tell you why for 3 decades I was— I mostly addressed women about men. Can, can I tell you that? Please. So I started studying men in 1991 when I found out I was bringing out the worst in them and thinking that that's who men really are, which is so unfair. And when we started our workshops in 1995 and for the next 10, 12 years, we taught almost exclusively women. It was because in our view, in my view, the so-called war between the sexes which I didn't know could get worse, but it has. Um, women are the aggressor. Women are the ones that are on the attack, and even when they don't know they're on the attack, they're doing something that's just classic female estrogen-based brain, not knowing that a man experiences it as an attack. And that's why he's responding with whatever fight, flight, or freeze response he has or sequence of that. And so for us it was triage, like let's address where this whole thing begins. And for decades we had proof, we had proof that just by women striving to understand what a man's really doing instead of what she's accusing him of doing, like she accuses him of ignoring her when all he is is focused and almost always focused on producing a result or focused on resting so then he can then produce a result. And, um, and so, I mean, just so much of what I've worked on has been that. And then there came a time, and the result was our Understanding Women course, um, that I realized that these women had given up the right to justify emasculating men. They were doing their darndest to be honoring and respectful and, and totally curb their own instincts in order to allow for things like transition time and/or Listening, listening, at least count to 30, listen longer. He's first got to commit to the question and then search for the answer and he's going to give you the best he's got. So when you cut him off 2 seconds in because he hasn't responded half enough, fast enough, it's never going to work for the intimacy you're looking for, right? So all these things. So they were doing all these things, but they were living with men who were unwittingly aggravating their survival instincts. And by things that to a man would mean nothing, like amongst men, raising your voice is, it's nothing. It's, it's, it's, it does not have a nervous system activation for a man to raise his voice. He just raises his voice. To a woman, you raise your voice and then you raise your hand and then I'm hurt. And we are terrified of all kinds of hurt. And that's what we're always guarding against is being hurt mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually, even etherically. Some women are aware of, "Oh, you can affect my aura." And so, So that's why we did what we did. And then, and then when The Queen's Code was published in 2012 and men started reading it, men like Will Spencer of The Renaissance of Men, then it started to get incorporated in what men were reading to empower themselves. And that's when I, as I found out about that, I became actively involved in Okay, The Queen's Code, I didn't write it, I typed it, it's channeled. Its purpose was to transform the way women relate to men. And if men read it and can see what causes women to emasculate them, whether if it's a fight reaction, like this criticism, this spew out of our mouth, or it's a flight reaction, freeze reaction, which just the occurrence is withholding, she's withholding everything, right? Or flight, we could go on along there. But it, if he can see that in that moment when the dragon is trying to incinerate him, if he can look into her eyes and see the fear and frustration that is hidden behind that flame. If he can see it— and men who've participated in our curriculum, they've, they've— now they can see it, right? They can, they can see it. And instead of having to be defensive, and however they do it, they can lean in. And even like, lean in like, it seems like there's something you need from me. Do you think you could just tell me directly? And even have compassion for how terrified she is, because she is. Our, our main experience of life that we will not talk about publicly, we just rage about the injustice of it, is powerlessness. Which, from what you were saying before we started, is also the experience of so many men at the end of a marriage, or as watching it dissolve, that they don't have enough power to fix it. They don't know how to fix it, and they're trying so hard to figure it out. I won't even talk about how much of what's available is detrimental, but beware of what's written by women about how to fix your relationship with women, because it's mostly about how to contort yourself to be more pleasing to her, which is going to sap you of your strength and have you not have the one quality that she needs the most, both to feel safe because you're strong and hopefully stronger than her in the ways that she needs, and to be sexually attracted. So, aye, aye, aye. Okay, so sorry, that was, that was the one that I've done for so long.

You're not the first to come up, you're not the first to come up with the, I guess you could say, theory, if you will, of a lot of the relationship advice coming from women seems to knock us off of our masculine pedestal, if you will, and maybe feminize us in a way, if you want to say it that way, soften us if you want to say it a different way, to the point where we are legitimately unattractive to them, which is just like, that just makes no sense. But there's plenty of people that say exactly that. So why on earth would a woman want to sabotage and turn a man into something that she finds woefully unattractive. Is that a form of a test, if you will, to see if he will in fact crumble?

It's not intended as a test, but it ends up being a test. Women do it because they think it will work. They don't know why it doesn't work, so they just like turn the heat up and do it more. And so they're just desperately trying to get what they need. From someone that they think is like them and purposely withholding what they need. Instead of— instead of— they're missing a whole lot of quality information. And, and their men are not motivated the way women are until they've been emasculated. So to put it simply, Let me see if I can do this just very simply, and then you can take wherever you want. So men and women are both seeking strength. So they're— they're— women are scanning for strength, men are— tend to be hunting for strength depending on testosterone and estrogen and focus and diffuse awareness. And but what's really different is that Unbeknownst to women, because men wisely do not reveal these, and I encourage you to not, they will be used against you. Men don't reveal their weaknesses. They know their weaknesses, but they're not, they don't want to, you know, sit down and talk about them because instinctually, don't reveal anything that you believe can or will be used against you. And unfortunately, most wives have proven they will use it against you. You reveal a feeling to me, you reveal a fear to me, I will use it in an attempt to manipulate you. Why? Because ultimately I experience being dependent upon you, and dependency always creates manipulation. Wherever there's dependency— men, heterosexual men being dependent upon women for sex— it's gonna result in manipulation unless he is shown how he can authentically pursue that need being met in a way that is honoring of her. But she has to teach him how to do that, because as much as men are— men grant women more being different than women grant men. For women, men's differences are You're misbehaving and your justifications, you're trying to— your attempts to explain yourself are just poor justifications for bad behavior, and now you deserve to be punished on top of everything else. So in this seeking for strength, men wisely are looking to pair with, to partner with, to be on a team with in all contexts and double down with a mate a woman who he sees as having— he knows his strengths and he knows his weaknesses. He's looking for the woman whose strengths will complement his and will literally alter the possibilities of his life if he were with her instead of without her, which is what makes it worth it to him for how annoying we can be. So, but what happens, and I just actually made this last connection about 2 weeks ago, which is astonishing to me. It's like, because I kept trying to figure out, all right, so what a man wants from the woman he chooses, or any teammate he chooses, is to be admired for what he brings. Because he admires them for what they bring, and all he needs from the person he admires is to be admired in return. It's very simple. And in fact, When admiration is expressed, competition, adversarial competition chills, right? It's so important to do. But what happens, and this was the connection I made a couple weeks ago, like, why do we do this? Why do we do this? So once we pair with this man, then we start our program to change him because we're driven to be perfect, which means good at all things. So now, we're going to get him, or think we are anyway, to get good at what we're good at because we're now losing admiration by the perception of his weaknesses. And yeah, so we're losing admiration. So, and this was the thing I was like, oh my gosh, that's why. We don't want to be responsible for our part. I want you to get good at it so I don't have to carry the weight of it. I want you to be perfect at everything so I'm let off the hook for what I've been relied upon and even for what you married me for, I want to not have to do. Oh my gosh, okay, well, I'll work on the other side of the aisle for that. But it just, um, I've trained many, many, many therapists. They've been— they see light in my work, and they have since we started training people in 2006. Um, and they, they're, they're able to then do the work they're uniquely schooled for, which is to address what is personal for this human being. And unfortunately, because they're not educated that way, and we live in a psychological patriarchally based society, which is maybe all first worlds at this part, countries at this part, point in the game. But we, and I learned so much from men. You guys, your phrasing, which is what I tell women all the time. If you want to know what a man means, look it up in the dictionary, not dictionary.com, I don't trust it. But if you go to Merriam-Webster, that is men writing down what men mean when men say that. And you guys have this thing that you say, like, don't take it personally. Why does she take everything personally? And unpacking that, we literally do. You are saying something that's over in your space, that's your truth. And we reach over into your lap and we take it personally. Why does she make it about her? Because we're sure it's all about us. Because we're sure, we're sure since we're feelings-based for the most part, meaning driven by our feelings, our feelings tell us the right thing to do. We're sure that if we can just get you to feel the right way about me, then you'll treat me the right way. We think your actions are based on your feelings, so we're trying to change and manipulate your feelings all the time by being more or less of you seem to respond to, or we've been taught response to us through. Modeled is a better word than taught, what's been modeled for us. And aye, aye, aye. So for the original question is, what would I tell men? I would say it's bad enough that women intentionally and unconsciously emasculate you, don't do it to yourself. Find out the good reasons for everything you do and stand what you— where you stand. This is, no, I will not be held to account for behaving like a woman. I'm not a woman. If you want a woman, go get a woman. If you want a man, then I'll show you how to get what you need from me. I'll tell you how to get what you need from me, but you'll have to start by being willing to believe me when it's the opposite of what you think and have done for maybe your entire life. And just like, place your feet in the sand, the dirt, the cement, and and be unbudgeable because she doesn't necessarily mean for it to be a test. She doesn't mean for it to be a test. She's really trying so hard to get what she needs. But when you cave, it scares her to death. When you cave to her, how the heck are you gonna save me from a tiger, from an enemy, from a burglar, from a rapist? How are you gonna protect me from them if you can't protect me from me? We know, we know where our greatest enemy is. Our greatest enemy is right here between our ears. And we need you to save us from that.

Mm-hmm.

But would we ever say that to you? Could we ever say that to you in this culture at any time in the last I was going to say, especially nowadays. Hundreds of years, we couldn't have said it. And okay, so that would be the short version. Don't buy it. Don't buy it. Don't cave to it. Double down on what your values are, what your life is about. Think ahead. What will I be proud of myself to have been in the midst of this? What qualities do I want to embody in the midst of whatever this is? Because, because you talked about the cycle, right, of whether they lose their job and then their marriage, or they lose their marriage and then their job. Another thing that women don't know about men is, well, we're Depending on our hormones levels, we'll land heavily on the side of safety is in connection. And so we're constantly like auto-redial trying to connect with you, connect with you, connect with you. That's why we interrupt so much. We're trying to connect. We hate you being focused on something else. We feel abandoned. So we'll interrupt trying to connect and then you're mad at being interrupted. And then it's worse and we think you're a— can I say asshole? Okay, we do, that's what we think, something like that. And so we don't perceive, even though many of us now are pursuing security through productivity, through achievement, through titles, accountabilities, money, money, money, money, more money, we're going to feel safe, we're trying to achieve that as well, we don't register that that's what most men, the way most men pursue a sense of security, which is the word that I hear men use most. I almost, well, I would say I hear men use the word safety in everyone's safe, right? Like, okay, everyone's safe, whether there's fires or whatever's going on. How are you? All my people are safe. My family's safe. Other than that, you guys only usually say safe as in, she's safe to talk to, or I can't believe how safe you are to talk to. Mostly you guys talk about being secure, about being confident, right? And it has everything to do with productivity and for how long you've been productive, how much you've experienced being productive right now, how much you anticipate being productive in the future. Which is why really successful men can be completely depressed. They're retiring and they don't have a purpose for the next part of their life. And now they're like, they see no future productivity. Then they start to experience being powerless, which then will cause despair and a whole cycle of stuff. And, and yet as we diminish men which one man described emasculation as diminishing my ability to produce results. And as— and one of the ways we diminish our men's ability to produce results is, is we don't believe in you. We have no— we have no idea how much that means, and we don't— we don't reveal the information that will— that you realize is so much our heart's desire, so much what's gonna have us be happy, which is what I was starting to say before. Men are focused on providing what women need and what makes them happy until they fail at that enough that their focus shifts to don't upset her. Right? And she, thinking he's a woman, is attempting to manipulate him by letting him constantly know how upsetting he is to her, thinking that anything that upsets her, he will change because a woman would. And so, that's what dependency does. So, oh my gosh, I didn't know this was going to go here, but it's, it's worth it. So if I were going to sit down with your men, which I'm happy to do, by the way, have me come on one of your Bald as the Moon things and I would happily answer questions. But if I was going to sit down with them, when things look like they're going to fall apart, I would talk to them about grab a hold of those hallucinations and head into them. All those what-ifs, but what if, but what if, but what if, answer them. Answer them until you have a plan B and use your imagination. To picture, to feel in, to articulate a Plan B that gets more and more viable, more and more attractive, more and more, "Wow, I hope this blows up," because then you're not protecting in an ineffective way something that you can't fix, and instead, you're now standing in your future, your life, 'You want to come with me or not?' Which—

I love it.

Yeah. I mean, one of the first things I read when I realized I wanted to read some men authors, especially who was popular at the time in 19— early 1990s. And I only read like 4 pages or so of Sam Keen's book, which I tend to get everything I need at the time that I'm aware of in the first 4 pages of any book. What he said was, a man has two questions to answer: where am I going and who's going with me? And he better answer them in that order. I don't think he said deep trouble, but I know that was— or he's lost. He's got to answer, where am I going and who's going with me? It's the only way you'll be able to honor yourself first, which is what I teach to everybody, honor yourself first or all is lost. Honor yourself first, then others. That's how you have a partnership, then others. Without honoring, there is no partnership. Partner with yourself first, then attempt to partner with others. And if you do that, the clarity you'll develop about who you are will actually attract women who want who you are. And keep enhancing your stand for yourself and your boundaries. No, no, I won't be here to be spoken to this way. Or so funny, we're going on 6 years— well, it'll be 6 years in October, um, my partner who I met like about a year and a half after my husband passed. And we just, it was a very tender time, right? It was very early beginnings and he was driving and I was afraid because he was so far over on the right lane and there was a ditch right there. And I couldn't see very well 'cause of where I was sitting. And I was trying to figure out an okay way to bring this up. And I finally said, "Do you always drive so close to the white line?" And I was in the back seat behind him because his dog, his aged dog was in the front seat where he could be more comfortable. And so, all I saw was the back of his head and I heard him say, "That sounds a lot like criticism and I stopped taking that a long time ago." Ooh. My nervous system calmed. Yeah, it calmed. The strength that he was exhibiting in that moment, it calmed. Calmed the fear. I burst into tears. The Alison Armstrong criticized a man, right? That was horrible. But I felt safe enough to then look and see what was it really. And I said, I'm so sorry. I was afraid. And then he had the steering wheel, right? And he's still driving down the highway and he starts tapping the steering wheel. This is when I found out how much he was focused on learning me. And seriously, this was 2 weeks into knowing each other. And he's tapping on the steering wheel, when she sounds like that, she's scared. When she sounds like that, she's scared. When she sounds like that, she's scared. Like he was already teaching himself to perceive the dragon, and he didn't know anything about my work, right? And then, and then he said, okay, so as I get to know you, I'll probably learn better what scares you. And, and, and then this, this 'This could be better. You would be scared less.' And that sounded very kind. And I said, 'Yes, given how observant you've already proven to be, I think you'll learn the few things very quickly. And how about instead, when I'm scared, I just say so? And then you can find— ask why or how or what am I doing?' And He's like, "Yeah, that'd be good." And I wasn't scared for a long time and then I got scared when he was tailgating months later, months, months later and I was trying to figure out how to say something the same way, right? Same neural pathway. And instead I said, "I'm scared you're too close to that car." And immediately, I mean the words without the attitude, right? Like the criticism was the knife underneath the nice words, right? There was no knife under there, there was just authenticity which, y'all are so attracted to, which women don't know who live in a world of pretense. And I just— and it was actionable, which is the thing that women don't know. You guys, actionable information gets acted upon, and we just want to fix things. And it— yeah, and it goes into the category of actionable even if you can't fix it now. That information is captured. But complaints aren't actionable. Criticism isn't actionable. There isn't, "This is what I need and this is what it would look like and this is the difference it would make. And please tell me my part in this." That's what you always need to know. Always. Always, always, always. I've seen it for 35 years in every context. And I mean, even the way you said it, there was this like this relief. Like, yeah, that's all we need to know.

It's blunt adult talk, and that's what we like. We just communicate at different levels. And when we hear something like that come out of your mouth of like, do you always drive that close? What do we call it? We call it nagging. Like, oh, here we go. And it doesn't hit the right part of our brain and we become defensive and you just saw what happened there. But you two were adult enough to go, Timeout. I hear you. Gotcha. Cool. Now I know you're— and you were able to communicate, and away you go. I mean, that's everything. Um, I want to go back to a couple points you made which are huge in our world. Another way to label what you talked about with a man, he needs something to strive for and everything, is a mission in life. And what a lot of guys determine is, especially after a divorce, wow, my mission in life was basically make this woman happy keep a roof over our head, work, work, work, make sure these little kids are alive and thriving and so forth. And then when that goes away, I don't know who the hell I am anymore. And what's interesting is, to use some of your verbiage and some of the things that you teach, you talk about the different stages that men have— the page, knight, prince, and king. And then you talk about— if I'm— correct me if I'm wrong— there's a funnel or tunnel between the, the knight and the king. Is that right? No, between the prince and the king. Excuse me.

Yeah, there's a tunnel between the prince and a king. And then there's also, I think, maybe about 10% of men who literally transform from kings to elders.

Interesting. So what I was wondering is, for these guys that are in this life transition that they didn't ask for, post-divorce, are some of those guys in that, in that tunnel between the, between the, uh, prince and the king, possibly?

Well, many of them are because The tunnel, when the tunnel begins, seems to be about 12 to 15 years after a man is seriously building. That, that's— he's focused on what it is that he's building. And so it can happen. I know a man who went into the tunnel at 34, right? And my dad said, yeah, I didn't do that until after I was in my 50s, right? So, so the range of it— but that range of it also can coincide when a marriage has gotten to the point where her estrogen levels have fallen off significantly. Even isn't a big enough word for it, right? As the ovum disappear, which by the time we're 37 years old, we are not considered to have enough to harvest, to be worth harvesting. The estrogen levels dive because they come almost entirely from those little tiny eggs. And so our brains are shifting from connectivity to productivity, and we're now interacting in an almost man-to-man kind of way, if you wanted to put it in those words, and we're competing to be productive. We're assessing, am I better off with you or without you? And if I can support myself with what I'm able to earn and what I'm gonna make sure the courts give me of yours, then I'm starting to get really better off without you. And especially if you're not going to do what I say. Oh, it's so horrible. Um, I think this is why there's a lot of men who only want to even begin to consider a romantic relationship with one of my serious students. Um, we so contribute to the demise. And that thing that you said about mission— mission is good, purpose is good. Um, strongly encouraged to have a purpose that's bigger than, than keeping a woman happy and, and maintaining and supporting a family. Get a bigger purpose, um, because you're— I tell women this all the time because they want to be a man's first priority. I said, no, you don't. You're Men's capacities are so huge that if you are their focus, they will drive you crazy with what you perceive as neediness because they need you to need too much of them. You can't need that much of them for their capacities. And so it's At whatever point, if a man can for himself have a purpose which then she is part of instead of all of, then he will pay enough attention to the care and tending of her, if you want to put it that way, although I don't like that, that book about husbands, The Care and Tending of Husbands.

Yeah.

Yeah, like they're fragile. You guys are so not fragile. You're just way more sensitive than we think, and you give us way more credit than we often are earning.

So I would agree.

Yeah. Anyhow, I discovered something about this. I don't know if you've seen any of the interviews because I've been talking about it almost for a year now because I'm actively In the odd way that I do research, I'm working on the sequel to The Queen's Code. And yes, and much to my surprise, which seems silly, I was informed that the title of it is The King's Code. And like, oh my gosh. And then that was 2 years ago. And I keep having things revealed to me because in the way that these books come through, they're like movie trailers, movie clips that are picked from different parts of the movie, not literally, and they just come when they come. And I got very stuck in the— it's— the book stopped coming, and I, I had this thought that I wasn't open enough, that I wasn't a big enough aperture for the King's Code to come through, that even though I'd been studying men since 1991 and thought I had mapped all the constellations in the universe of men and that the distinctions I was making now were more fine-tuning, I was in my kitchen and this sentence dropped into my head The ever presence of death. I was like, what? And, and just waiting and listening for it to unpack. And all that it went from that was, men live with the ever presence of death. You are nodding the way every single man I have spoken this to in the last year nods. It took me 3 months before I brought it to Dan, my partner, because I just hadn't seen enough. And when I said it to him, he said, "Yeah, it's sitting right here." And I just— it's come— it's still coming. It's still connecting the dots, right? And it's connecting the dots to every other thing I've learned about men. Every other thing. There isn't anything left out from the ever presence of death, including that once again, we are opposites. And in women, you find the ever presence of life. And all you want is for it to thrive because as it thrives, it feeds you. And as that the thriving female, and it doesn't have to be romantic. It can be sisters, it can be friends, it could be any woman who is— it's beyond nurturing. It's nurturing and empowering and enlivening, what we would call all of what femininity allows a woman, the temptress and the mother and the queen. And that, that you need that, and especially a purpose in serving that in the world. Because she— I didn't understand it when this man said this about 25 years ago. I asked, "What makes a woman worth dying for?" And he said, "A better question is, what makes a woman worth living for?" And I did not catch up to that statement until a year ago, that, that with the ever presence of death, that I could die at any moment, which I now have been asking men about. And that while men don't want to die and some fear death, a bigger fear is to die for nothing.

I had, uh, I had someone who was doing like a little analysis of me, and they said they think they got me figured out. And I said, well, what is that? And they said, I think to you, leaving a legacy is really important. They say it's like all of your work is you trying to leave a mark, like writing all these books and doing all these things. It seems like— and your kids, and always talking about your kids— like you want to leave your mark on the world. And I was like, I hadn't outwardly, overtly thought of it that way, but you're right. And I think what you'll find is that's a lot of men, that death is always hanging over us and it's there. It's going to happen. Hopefully not tomorrow, but, and I just turned 50 here recently and that really put it more at the forefront of like, you know, halfway point. Oh, I'm past the halfway point. So it's, yeah, it's interesting.

Well, to take what you said, I think virtually Every man wants to make a mark on the world, and depending on his values, and you could say his level of consciousness beyond survival instincts, will depend upon if that mark is to have conquered, or is, or is it to improve to have improved the lot of humanity, which obviously you're working on, improve, expanding our possibilities as a species instead of the mark that is identity, do you know, that is the name. And it's something really important to pay attention to. Right? And there's a man who's part of Sacred Sons organization, men's work I admire. And there's a workshop I led for them that's now on YouTube, which I didn't know it was gonna be there, but I'm kind of delighted. Well, actually I'm really delighted. I also just feel really naked. And he goes by Bear Heart and he's like, this much taller than me and he's looking down at me. He's, "Alison, men have to have purpose." And he says, "Yes, I know." And he goes, "And we need to know what will make a difference." I'm like, "Okay, yeah, yeah." And he goes, "And we need the aunties to tell us." And he's just boring into me. "And I want you to tell them that." And, and because women aren't paying attention enough to our sensitivity to life and where life is thriving and where it's suffering, and that that needs help, and that men, as the problem solvers of the world and with the desire to help if they can— and I teach women this— you ask a man, will you help me? He says yes.

What?

And then, if he can't do the thing you're asking, he'll start thinking, "Do I know someone who can?" Right? Because he's gonna— he'll help you at least with that step. If you ask a woman, "Can you help me?" She says, "That depends." Hello? And women think men are non-committal?

Yes.

What? Right? And, but women don't know that the way your minds work that make you such great problem solvers and hunters of solutions is also what is going to screen out the indications that we're sensitive to. This is an area of life that needs your help. And the more I keep unpacking this ever presence of death, ever presence of life, and it's just been happening for decades now, just we're so well made for each other.

It always comes down to that, doesn't it? The yin and yang, they're just such good compliments to each other.

And we need each other so much to, fulfill the possibilities of who we are. We just do. And I remember in 1992 when I'd gotten really upset with my soon-to-be fiancé because I found personal items in the closet from his previous life. Scared the heck out of me. I, when I finally saw what it was, I grabbed a hold of him and I whispered in his ears, "If you tell anybody I said this, I will kill you." And he's just like, "Okay." I said, "What scares me the most is I need you." I was a feminist. Anything you can do, I can do better. There was a while where I installed commercial carpeting. My last name's Armstrong. I'm gonna, right? I have a lot to prove since I was a little kid. And it just, to say, I need you. Women are horrified to find that out. But when they first start working on wanting to have a powerful relationship with a man, I said, I teach them, start scanning, start scanning for how is this man strong. And then when you see it in all rainbow of colors, all these ways that men of every age, from, you know, my 2-and-a-half-year-old grandson on up to 95-year-old. How is this man strong? Because you all are. And once you can see it in a rainbow of colors, then start asking, how is this man stronger than me? And if you're willing to see it, then keep going. If you're not, it's over. Don't even try, right? But if you're willing to see it and you start seeing how is this man stronger than me, then go to the next step. How is this man stronger than me and I like it? I love it. That's when you're starting to get into this is a man who can give me what I need. But I've But you got to make sure to tell him, I need you to be the guy who said, that feels like criticism, more than I need you to be earning more money than me.

I love it. Miss Allison Armstrong, thank you so very much for coming today. I love your work. Keep doing what you're doing. You plan on just doing this for— until your days are up? Do you have an end in mind? You have so many more books in mind, or what's, what's next for Miss Allison?

Ah, well, I know, um, The King's Code, the, the, the video started up again after I led the workshop at Sacred Sons, which was my first— the first time ever in my life I witnessed the brotherhood Producing results together, empowering each other. Ah, stunning. And the next day the movie started running again and I'm like, of course, if I hadn't witnessed it, I couldn't receive the King's Code. So I don't know when it's gonna be done. I think we'll be lucky if it comes out next year 'cause my awareness of the process that I have no control over. But I can't imagine not always teaching in some way. I am a messenger and not everybody can hear me. So we've taught over 600 people to teach our work because they speak different languages, right? They can tie it into attachment styles, by the way, in a way that doesn't drive me crazy. And it's— yeah, I mean, our biggest challenge right now is having the hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of hours of teachings I recorded translated and interpreted accurately for that language, for that culture. Like, words in English— we found out a word in English is abhorrent. Abhorrent in Yiddish— in Hebrew, forgive me, in Hebrew it's abhorrent. Like, where to most men speaking English it's a call to action, to them it's a huge aversion. So it's not just translation, it's an interpretation. And so that's something I'm working on, and also more teaching more people to teach our courses for people who'll never come online or never come online in English because that's where I poured everything to reach the most people. Um, but honestly, Ralph, when Greg died, um, 7 years ago, interacting with my students saved me. You know, he died on Saturday And on Tuesday, I was interacting with the leaders that I had taught. And on Tuesday night, I was interacting with the people at the beginning of my curriculum. And I just showed up because that was the best way to honor Greg. He— I, I think when I asked him about his purpose, he said He said, supporting you is my purpose. And I said, don't you want a bigger purpose? Sorry, honey, for being insulting. He said, God bless him, he said, have you followed you around lately? Pretty big. Yes, I loved it when he would stand up to me that way. It was so hot, and it just— which we love being stood up to, um, and so I can't imagine, you know, it would be dishonoring of him to no longer do what he gave his life for me to do. None of my work would exist in the world if it weren't for him. It just truly wouldn't. Him and one other person, Joan McLean, who started our company with us and gave it its own foundation, which is not my forte. And So the King's Code, I don't know if there's any after that. We're starting to work on a curriculum for parents, which I've just— I'm passionate about parents modeling conscious choices as opposed to just the enactment instincts for young people. I've only done a little bit of work in this area. We have something called Empowered Parenting and Parenting in Partnership is on our website. But that's, that's a big commitment for me. And, and part of it is, you know, I have my second grandson is going to be born in about a month. And I'm— it's why I'm moving. It's why I'm moving to northern Idaho. To be, to be in their lives as little men and to be in their lives learning. I'm getting to learn what a mother can be to a son by observing my daughter and who grew up in my work, right? Did our first workshop when she was 13, started volunteering, was on staff, started working with me by the time she was 15. But watching her translation into being a mother and She never talks to Leon like a baby. And I heard, I was talking on the phone and I heard him say, "More water, please." And she looked at him and she said, "Oh, you've poured it down your shirt." Yes, more please. And she says, well, your clothes are all wet. What do you think we should do about that? She assumes, you know, he had a good reason for it, that he wasn't misbehaving. He's part of solving the problem, always.

And so you're back there going, yes, that's my girl.

I, I, no, not even that. I can't. I didn't make her that, right? She, she's taken everything that she's done in her life and she keeps choosing partnership. And we, yes, we modeled partnership imperfectly, me and her father. But it— she's so far beyond me. She's next gen. That's the ultimate compliment. Yeah. And I'm literally, I'm just, I'm in awe of her and I try to express it because she just thinks Li Lan is perfect. And I try to tell her about, like I said, you guys are in this upward spiral, in this swirl, the two of you. You adore him and he adores you adoring him. And you just keep doing that even when you have to set a boundary with him. No, you can't do that. And she is firm as all get out. And it just, she doesn't see her part in it. To her, being this way with him is, of course, natural. Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, my golly. And I know it's because of how she listened. I know it's because of her values that I did not instill in her. We come with them. We literally come with— we're born with values. You, you have children, yes? You can— you can instill in them your idea of right and wrong and what it means to do the right thing and be honorable. But ultimately, their foundation, what's more important than anything else, I don't think we shape it. But except for in the bad way, I would say we shape it. Defend your territory no matter what, including any slight to your identity.

There's a lot of that going around, yes.

Okay, that was a long answer to your question. I don't know if I'll ever retire. I'm slowing down. I'm definitely slowing down.

I would hope so, for goodness sakes.

Yes, I have a lot of this in my future.

I love it.

Yep, we're both moving to northern Idaho. It's less— very, very close to the fourth largest— fourth deepest lake in the whole US. Ooh, nice. Yeah.

So very cool. Well, Miss Alison Armstrong, I wish you all the best. Thank you for everything that you do. Thank you for coming on here. The guys that— my listeners, viewers are just going to be delighted. You're one of the biggest names in our world. You know that. And we just all love what you do. We love you. And thank you again. We appreciate you.

Thank you. Thanks for being you.

Thank you.