I my experience, before I can meet the difficult experience I am learning to "connect" with it first.
Connecting is like a first "felt sense check" at the difficult that gives me a sense of how activated am I in relation to that difficulty. I want to know what kind of attitude I am meeting that difficulty with.
My point is that any solution (like "meeting" which I love and I use the same word too) must be taken with balance (like in any relation). Otherwise, at least in my experience again, striving can make "meeting" a disembodied mantra or an orderlike one like "get back to the breath now!!!).
"It goes something like this: The man’s partner is emotional or facing a challenge. When the man hears about it, he tries to provide a solution. It seems like the most natural thing to do: something is wrong, so he explains how to fix it. Problem solved, he thinks."
A related problem, I've been noticing more recently, is a sort of habitual, knee-jerk reaction against efforts to meta-communicate. Meta-communication, of course, is the process of mutual inquiry into "how we communicate".
I suspect -- though I cannot say I "know" -- that women in my own society (USA) are more apt to engage happily in metacommunication than men are apt to do, and that this causes a heck of a lot of problems of communication *between* the sexes. But I suppose most of this has to do with differences in how men and women are enculturated into "gender roles" than biological differences between the sexes. (This is also a guess or a hunch more than anything I can back up with "data".)
I'm a psychologically androgenous male who would "define" as "non-binary,: except that I'm perfectly happy to dress and live as a "dude". But my cognition isn't hampered much by gender indoctrination, and so I don't think it necessary to demand that I be identified as "they" rather than "he" and "him".
But I do notice that guys are not, on average, much interested in the skills or talents of metacommunication, while women are more willing, on average.
As a man (bisexual, biamorous-- i.e., emotionally and otherwise attracted to both sexes) who happens to have a male partner, I notice that my male partner has a tendency to numb out and go sort of oblivious around requests for emotionally salient metacommunication. I no longer take this personally. It's just his cultural training at work. Sigh. I let it slide. Other things are more salient.
I've come to see metacommunication as absolutely essential and integral to communication, generally. But too many of us are unaware of this need, this fact. Change occurs, over time. And it's wise to allow it to do so -- rather than to try and force it out of our trauma-driven "needs".
Thanks for sharing. Resonated with me.
I my experience, before I can meet the difficult experience I am learning to "connect" with it first.
Connecting is like a first "felt sense check" at the difficult that gives me a sense of how activated am I in relation to that difficulty. I want to know what kind of attitude I am meeting that difficulty with.
My point is that any solution (like "meeting" which I love and I use the same word too) must be taken with balance (like in any relation). Otherwise, at least in my experience again, striving can make "meeting" a disembodied mantra or an orderlike one like "get back to the breath now!!!).
Kind regards.
"It goes something like this: The man’s partner is emotional or facing a challenge. When the man hears about it, he tries to provide a solution. It seems like the most natural thing to do: something is wrong, so he explains how to fix it. Problem solved, he thinks."
A related problem, I've been noticing more recently, is a sort of habitual, knee-jerk reaction against efforts to meta-communicate. Meta-communication, of course, is the process of mutual inquiry into "how we communicate".
I suspect -- though I cannot say I "know" -- that women in my own society (USA) are more apt to engage happily in metacommunication than men are apt to do, and that this causes a heck of a lot of problems of communication *between* the sexes. But I suppose most of this has to do with differences in how men and women are enculturated into "gender roles" than biological differences between the sexes. (This is also a guess or a hunch more than anything I can back up with "data".)
I'm a psychologically androgenous male who would "define" as "non-binary,: except that I'm perfectly happy to dress and live as a "dude". But my cognition isn't hampered much by gender indoctrination, and so I don't think it necessary to demand that I be identified as "they" rather than "he" and "him".
But I do notice that guys are not, on average, much interested in the skills or talents of metacommunication, while women are more willing, on average.
As a man (bisexual, biamorous-- i.e., emotionally and otherwise attracted to both sexes) who happens to have a male partner, I notice that my male partner has a tendency to numb out and go sort of oblivious around requests for emotionally salient metacommunication. I no longer take this personally. It's just his cultural training at work. Sigh. I let it slide. Other things are more salient.
I've come to see metacommunication as absolutely essential and integral to communication, generally. But too many of us are unaware of this need, this fact. Change occurs, over time. And it's wise to allow it to do so -- rather than to try and force it out of our trauma-driven "needs".