As I shared in part one of my ongoing Transforming Your Relationship column series, How to Create Your Unshakable Love & Unleashed Passion in 8 Simple Steps, in each issue I will be guiding you deeper into each of the 8 transformational steps of my Relationship Transformation System® and give you a tool or strategy to implement to experience a shift in your relationships that day! In this issue, we are covering Step Three: Strategies.
Step Three of the Relationship Transformation System is all about using the tools and strategies that really work, to create your unshakable love and unleashed passion, in REAL life today!
Something that sets Paul and I apart is that we don’t stop at just teaching insights to help you understand men, women and relationships. We share practical, proven tools and strategies that have helped thousands of students – just like you – to transform their lives and relationships! We know they work.
In order for a strategy to be worth anything, it must work in real life!
What does real life look like in the modern world?
- Crazy-busy pace of life
- Unbalanced business and personal life
- Working too much with extreme pressure to perform
- Financial stress and fights about money
- Parenting challenges – especially with the number of blended families
- Addictions
- Infidelity, dishonesty or other transgressions
Family of origin drama
Bottom line: most of us are are busy, overwhelmed moms, who work a ton, and have a lot of crap going on! No one ever taught us how to have a magnificent love affair in real life today! Until now.
Paul and I are on a mission to provide the Relationship Education that works!
We are real people. We didn’t ‘plan’ to be relationship experts. In fact, our relationship was hanging by a thread over 17 years ago! (If that’s where you are today, then I have good news: there is hope!) We learned how to CREATE the unshakable love and unleashed passion that we enjoy today, and if we did it…you can too!
Today I’m going to share the biggest cause of “Kerfuffle” in relationships and teach you effective tools to deal with it, so that you can create change in your relationship right away!
FACT: Men and Women are completely DIFFERENT!
- YES, Men and Women are totally EQUAL!
- YES, Men and Women are COMPLETELY DIFFERENT!
- NO, One is not better than the other!
The #1 kerfuffle causer and killer of relationships is a lack of understanding about how masculine and feminine differ, and not knowing how to honor those differences in a way that builds a relationship instead of tearing it down!
Exactly what is different between men and women?
Well…only EVERYTHING! Thoughts, feelings, emotional processing, actions, perspectives, instincts, nervous system wiring, natural tendencies, and the meanings we attach to the exact same occurrences! It’s no wonder we get together at all! HA!
In my last column, Step Two: Shifting Perspective, I discussed how it’s human nature to see the world from your own perspective. It’s very challenging to see the world through someone else’s lens; especially if they’re a masculine energy type! They’re practically another species from you.
TRUTH BOMB: The things that drive you bat-shit crazy today are the very things that you need to learn to appreciate and ultimately cherish, so you can take yourself and your relationship to the next level.
Your intimate love relationship is designed to challenge you to become the best, most authentic version of yourself. It will stretch you through opportunities to grow in understanding, acceptance, and appreciation of the differences that your partner brings to your relationship and your life.
How do you do this?
Step 1: Move from understanding to appreciation.
“Stacey, I appreciate the differences!! Why isn’t this working for me?”
I get asked that all of the time, and my answer is the same: it’s not enough to just hear about the differences and understand them. You must be living this!
Information doesn’t lead to transformation; you must apply what you learn!
Appreciation happens in the little moments of your day, when your partner does/says/thinks something that you would never do/say/think. They way you respond ‘in the moment’ tells me whether you appreciate or merely understand.
You must learn to appreciate the difference that the masculine brings if you want an unshakable love.
Step 2: Stop doing what isn’t working!
I know you haven’t been intentionally causing Kerfuffle in your relationship. Without a Relationship Education, you would have no way of knowing just how many of the things you’re doing with positive intention, are actually triggering kerfuffle and negativity from your man.
The dynamic has been invisible until now and if you want magnificent relationships with all men and women (masculine and feminine), it is your individual responsibility to learn about these differences, and master the tools and strategies to reduce kerfuffle and increase appreciation!
While we teach our students hundreds of these differences and real-life tools and strategies, today I want to share a HUGE masculine/feminine difference, along with a tool you can begin using right away to experience a shift in your relationship!
Masculine/Feminine Difference: Asking for and Offering Help!
- Men do NOT want HELP unless they ask for it!
- Women want help ALL of the time but they won’t ask for it!
- Men will not offer help unless you ask for it.
- Women jump in and help, even after you say no!
Just by reading that list of facts, I’m sure you can begin to the problem we have here!
Sweetie, there’s something about men that all MEN know, but we women are never taught. And it causes us to unknowingly piss them off… a lot!
Men do NOT want HELP unless they ask for it!
I know you are only trying to be nice and helpful, but when you offer help to a man that hasn’t asked for your help, very often the man perceives it as…
- You don’t think he can handle this without your help
- You don’t have confidence in his ability
- You don’t think he has his shit together
- You don’t trust him to get it right
- He’s incompetent
- And… he wants the accomplishment for himself, and you are taking that away
As women, we’re been trained since childhood that ‘good girls’ offer help to everyone. We want to be good, so we do.
Men are NOT trained to be ‘good boys’ by helping everyone. They are NOT girls, and they don’t see things the same way we do. They don’t attach the same meanings we do, to the same moment.
So, when you offer your man help with something and he has not asked you for any help – he’s going to perceive (to varying degree) that you don’t have confidence in him.
We teach a very ‘sophisticated and complicated solution to help you navigate this difference:
Tool: Shut the fuck up!
Hahaha! (I couldn’t resist. We have to laugh at this stuff or it gets too serious.)
But seriously, as women we know that “shutting up” is a lot harder than it sounds! Imagine walking into the kitchen and seeing your man struggling to help your little girl get her braid just right for dance class.
What do you do if you don’t know this?
You’re either going to say something like, “Hey, you need a hand with that?” or “Oh, let me do that.”, or you might just take over without saying anything!
As a result, at some level he feels like you don’t have confidence in him.
What would you do once you know this?
You walk into the kitchen, see him struggling with that braid and…you shut up!
Not one word.
NOTHING
STILL NOTHING
……… (crickets)
If you’re a woman, you’re cringing right now! It’s harder than it sounds… isn’t it?
Because it’s so difficult for us to master the art of shutting up, we use a 2-part strategy:
- Say one of these NINJA statements to help YOUR shift your energy and serve your man at the same time:
- You are the best daddy on the planet, you know that?
- You amaze me every day baby! Fearless!
- Foolproof BONUS script: “I know if you need a hand with that you will ask me. Love you baby.”
- Walk OUT of the room! Otherwise you will be overcome by the temptation to say something else about helping and fuck the whole thing up, so just keep walking!
By honoring the fact that “He’s Got This!” through not offering to help, you’re demonstrating your confidence, admiration, and appreciation for him.
The difference between how masculine and feminine perceive help becomes crystal clear when you observe a situation with two men, like this example from Paul:
One day, Paul was working on our generator when our friend Doug stopped by to drop off some stuff at our house. He got out of his car, walked over to Paul by the generator and said, “Hi”. Not once did he offer to help Paul with his work on the generator. He just stood there and casually talked to Paul while he did his work.
When I walked outside to pick up the box Doug said, “Hey Stacey, where do you want this stuff?” and I told him that just inside the door would be fine.
I never tried to take the box from him, because I knew better. He just asked me where I wanted it to go, so he could complete his “job” and put it where I wanted it to go.
As Paul explains it, “Even though Doug was a good friend, Doug inherently knows that if I needed help, I would have asked him to… and he DEFINITELY would not have just intervened and started helping – that would really be a major trigger and cause a reaction.”
As a woman, we would typically feel hurt that the other person didn’t offer help when they can clearly see that we are working on something. This dynamic happens all the time, with the house stuff and the kids. It’s so obvious to us that he should offer help, or just jump in, and yet he doesn’t. And we feel hurt.
Without relationship education training, here’s the problem:
Most men will treat their women the way they treat other men. So, they will NOT OFFER HELP UNLESS YOU ASK FOR IT! A man who RESPECTS you would NEVER imply that you don’t have your shit together and offer unsolicited help! Or worse, just step in and do your shit for you!
Most women will treat their man the way they treat other women. So, they will offer or just step in and help ALL OF THE TIME! And they expect their man to do the same for them, without them having to ask!
Do you see where this leaves you two?
KERFUFFLE TOWN (population 8 billion)
With the best of intentions, he is NOT offering you help without being asked because men don’t do that to other men! He’s actually doing that because he respects you! But it leaves you feeling unsupported, unloved and over-burdened!
He has NO clue that you would feel that way! He has positive intention for you!
Like the saying goes, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions!”
Even with the BEST of intentions, you can still unknowingly create Kerfuffle and be living in relationship hell if you don’t learn how to understand, accept, appreciate and cherish these differences.
Until you learn to master your understanding and appreciation of these differences you will unnecessarily suffer, because you’ll think HE’S the problem and he’ll think YOU’RE the problem!
The good news is that since this dynamic causes Kerfuffle in ALL of your relationships: work, business, parenting, friendships, and family of origin, if you master this one thing, it will simultaneously improve every relationship!
In our programs and at our live events, Paul and I take a deeper dive on the multitude of differences like these, and teach proven tools and strategies to help you create YOUR magnificent relationship, in real life today!
