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Welcome.

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I'm Shelley.

And I'm Kathy.

As a woman, have you ever wondered if your man is from a different species or on a different planet when it comes to communicating with him?

I know I have.

In 1992, Dr.

John Gray revolutionized how we look at relationships between men and women with the book Men are from Mars, Women Are from Venus.

According to a CNN news report, it was the highest ranked nonfiction work in the 1990s.

It was on the bestseller list for over 121 weeks.

USA Today listed it as one of the top 10 most influential books of the past 25 years.

It's been published in over 45 languages and has sold over 20 million copies.

Dr.

Gray's insight talked about how men and women are essentially from different planets and have fundamental psychological differences in the ways they interact and think.

Men and women communicate differently.

They respond to stress in different ways.

They also view and give love differently.

Dr.

Gray is internationally recognized in communications and relationships.

He helps men and women better understand and respect their differences in both personal and professional relationships.

His approach combines specific communication techniques with healthy nutritional choices that create the brain and body chemistry for lasting health, happiness and romance.

His many books, blogs and free online workshops are@marswevenus.com they provide practical insights to improve relationships at all stages of life and love.

Dr.

Gray is a certified family therapist, a member of the distinguished advisory board of the International association of Marriage and Family Counselors, and consulting editor of the Family Journal.

He's authored over 20 books.

His newest one is a page turner.

It's called Beyond Mars and Relationship Skills for Our Complex Modern World.

We have the honor of having Dr.

Gray on our show today to talk about his insights and his newest book, which is going to help so many people in today's crazy technological world.

Welcome, Dr.

Gray.

Thank you for being on the show with us.

Well, I'm happy to be with you.

Thank you, Shelley.

Kathy and I are so excited to talk to you.

You really, really are welcome.

It's interesting.

Your perspectives were so different, weren't they, from your peers in your first book?

It was really so very revolutionary.

You set the world on fire with your guidebook for men and women.

Well, it's still very controversial.

I was kicked out of Stanford and Harvard for these ideas and continue on.

And more and more therapists love this book because their clients come back and say how it changes their lives.

But it's definitely not accepted in the universities.

The idea that men and women are different is still considered to be old fashioned and not true.

When.

Oh, come on.

That's right, Kathy.

They still think we're the same.

And the problem is when we think we're the same, then we get really frustrated when our partners don't react or respond the way we react.

Respond.

And when we can understand how we're different in a positive way, which is what my work does answer so many of the confusing questions people have.

It really can help relationships.

Absolutely.

I have never thought that men thought like women.

You know, it's common sense.

It's common sense, but our world is no longer thinking common sense.

But even though we understand we're different, people have always known we're different until we foolishly decided not to think that.

We didn't really understand how we're different in such a positive way.

And by understanding those differences, we could get closer together.

And my goal is to help couples not just have harmony in their relationships, but to sustain the attraction and the passion.

Because that seems to be the biggest issue people have today is when relationships become kind of routine and boring.

People today want something more.

Historically, you know, my parents stayed together, they're very happy.

They certainly didn't have passion after, after seven kids and raising them all.

But today people want that and I experience it and I know it's possible.

If we use new insights that science has given us on how men and women are different so that we can sustain the attraction.

And that's, that's good news.

So how are men and women different?

Well, I can look at that 150 different ways.

But I'll start with one of the most significant.

When you're stressed.

And why I talk about stress is because when you're stressed, whether you're a man or woman, your biology dictates how you react.

Suddenly blood flow goes to the right prefrontal cortex, which only sees the negative, and it stops going to the left prefrontal cortex, which only sees the positive.

And what we want is a balanced perspective.

Yes, life is full of problems, but there's also solutions to those problems.

And particularly for women when they have a certain moderate stress, for them, more blood flow goes to the Right part of the brain which sees problems.

And for men under moderate stress, more blood flow goes to the left prefrontal cortex, which makes them very optimistic.

So quite often a woman could be talking about problems, and he'll say, don't worry about it.

It's no big deal.

It's not a problem.

And she's like, I'm not saying it's a big deal.

I just want to talk about it.

Because here's another biological difference between men and women is that when women can talk about problems, a hormone called oxytocin gets produced, which says, I need someone to listen.

And if somebody does listen, then her estrogen levels will go up, which comfort her brain, calm her brain.

And the biological response of oxytocin, coupled with a surge of estrogen, a woman's stress level will go down.

Now, what's different about men and women is that when men experience a moderate level of stress, there's something in the brain called mirror cells that allow you to feel what somebody else is feeling.

That's why we can have empathy and compassion and connection.

Well, under moderate stress, a man's mirror cells turn off as he focuses on giving solutions.

To have solutions, his testosterone levels go up, which causes his stress levels to go down.

This is another big biological difference between men and women.

When we understand how our hormones are different, which is when men's testosterone levels go down, a man's stress level goes down.

When a woman's estrogen oxytocin, go up, her stress levels go down.

So when you take all that information, which in one paragraph can seem a little overwhelming, unfortunately, people can listen to this over and over.

But the bottom line is, if a man is a good listener and knows how to listen to a woman, he can lower her stress.

And if a woman understands men, she can give him clear instructions on how to listen so that he will feel what she's feeling.

And that will allow him to bond with her more, allow him to feel a sense of empathy and compassion for her, and increase his motivation to be there for her.

But if she doesn't know how to communicate because he doesn't know his biology, just the mirror cells turn off as soon as she starts talking about problems.

So he's thinking how to solve them as opposed to what she's really looking for today.

Sometimes she wants a solution, and that's fine, but most of the time, women are complaining.

He doesn't really hear me, you know, he just wants to give solutions.

He interrupts me.

He wants me to get to the point.

Well, That's.

You know, men are like emergency men.

They want to put out the fire.

And so you have to say certain things to remind him that this is not an emergency.

I just need you to not say anything.

Ask me some questions.

I'll feel better.

Don't give me advice and give me a hug afterwards, and I'll feel so good.

Men don't know that instinctively, but we can gradually learn it.

If women learn how to communicate their needs to a man and ask for help in that way, it makes so much sense.

But, you know, you do run into guys who they tend to shut down.

They aren't good listeners.

That is a biological.

It's not guys.

It's every single man.

If he cares about you, he's biologically wired up so that if you talk about a problem, his mirror cells literally shut down.

This has already been proven.

It's simple biology.

He will now, instead of connecting with her, feeling what she's feeling, he will, in his mind, be thinking about, is this really a problem that needs to be solved?

What could she look, how could she do it differently?

And that's his way of helping.

Think of us men as emergency guys.

We're not.

We're sitting around the fire station waiting for the alarm to go, and then we just take action.

You know, for police, we gotta be our guns really fast.

You know, there's a.

It's the biology of us.

That's who we are.

Is.

And so if you just.

It has to be prefaced, it's as simple as training a man, so to speak, and actually helping to rewire his brain.

You know, rewiring the brain can happen.

You know, we have this tendency as men to.

Our mirror cells will shut down as soon as we hear a problem exists.

So what we can do is, is if a woman really was.

Her life's in danger, she'd be so glad that he jumps right into solving problems.

Okay?

He wanted to fix that problem right away.

But much of the time, three quarters of the time, when women talk, it's really their look to their husbands.

They're looking for some kind of connection, some kind of compassion, some kind of empathy.

You know, just an opportunity to sort her ideas out with a good listener.

So this is what she's looking for.

Men do not instinctively understand to do that, but their brains can be rewired so that they can.

Because what happens is brain.

The science of brain plasticity points out that when something happens that surprises you, that takes you by surprise, that you didn't expect to happen, and it happened when that occurs, particularly if there's emotions involved and the outcome was positive, the brain will immediately rewire itself to approach that situation differently in the future.

So I'll give you an example of how my brain rewired itself, which is one time my wife was, you know, she was telling me a whole bunch of problems.

And as I'm listening to her, I'm thinking, how can you be happy when you think about all these problems?

And I'm listening.

And she could see I was just feeling exhausted.

And she said, john, I know this sounds like you listening.

There's no point in listening or something like that.

I know it sounds like there's no point to this, but I want you to know, just you listening to my feelings helps me to feel better.

That was shocking to me.

I couldn't imagine how just talking about problems could make you feel better.

And then she just said, all I need from you is a hug and I'll feel better.

Well, that changed me.

I still remember that.

That was over 40 years ago, but that was a turning point for me.

Not that I still intuitively understand it.

If a woman wants a man to be a good listener every time he listens, and you're not looking for a solution, but you're just listening, make sure to let him know with words, that was really helpful, or, I really like that, or thank goodness I have somebody to talk to, and it's you, because I know you love me.

Some kind of little finishing statement to remind him that just listening actually is very helpful to a woman.

And sometimes she doesn't want him just to listen.

She wants him to solve the problem.

Then she needs to be clear about that.

So it's like understanding that we communicate in different languages, but the words are the same, but the intent behind them is sometimes she wants to talk, sometimes she wants to solve problems.

Let's figure out which one we're doing right now.

So men are retrainable.

I think a lot of women would like to hear that.

You rule.

Women have the power.

You know, the whole thing about women's empowerment.

I'm all for it and everything, equality.

But the real power women have is the power to get people to do things for you.

Male power.

And women have male power and female power.

But male power is getting things done, achieving your goals, making a difference.

And certainly that's great.

It feels powerful, it feels good.

It fulfills our mission and purpose in this world.

That's one of our powers.

But the other power that's hugely missing today in women is the power to get other people to do that for you so you don't have to do it all, so you don't have to do so much.

And when I say the women, I'm talking about the women that I meet.

I'm a therapist, so maybe there's other people I don't see, Although I've spoken, spoken to millions of people.

Is women have this thing going on now, and I watched it since the 80s increase more and more every year.

This feeling of overwhelm where women feel overwhelmed, telling me, there's no time for me or no time for this, there's too much to do.

And that feeling of overwhelm.

If you look at her biology at that time, her biology is her male hormone testosterone is off the chart.

She's thinking, I have to do this, I have to do this, I have to do this.

And at the same time, her estrogen levels are low.

Estrogen is the hormone that goes up when you have other people doing things for you.

When you feel, I can depend on my husband for this and this and this, and I'm grateful for that.

Your estrogen levels go high if you're not married to a man, you can go, I depend on my doctor, and I go talk to my doctor.

Her estrogen levels will go high.

Her stress levels will go down.

If she has a good friend who can support her or her backup, she can go to that person.

I was just coaching a woman in one of my classes, and she was saying, you know, I realized she was in her 70s and she was single for quite a while.

And she said, I realized that I don't really like men, generally speaking.

And I can understand why.

She didn't know how to talk to men, but she didn't like men.

But I do notice that these men that I hire to do things around the house, I like them.

And I said, well, that's because you're finally realizing how to use a man.

You know, the whole thing.

We men want to be used.

We're like tools.

And as long as we get paid, you know, that's what I do.

I work hard because I'll get paid.

Well, the payment a man needs from a woman is not money.

It's that she appreciates him, that she depends on him, that she looks forward to seeing him, that she delights in his presence without trying to change him.

That is the ultimate.

I'll say it again, the ultimate form of love for a man is you delight in his presence with no intention to change him, but you have all freedom to ask for help.

And get support.

That's the key.

But when you see the man as a problem, he can't solve your problems.

He's the problem.

So learning how to communicate your feelings about him being a problem, you don't do that to him.

That will never work.

That's called complaining about him.

It will never work is that her mirror neurons will shut down instantly if you have a complaint about him.

This is biology.

This is.

The littlest bit of stress will shut down the mirror neurons in his brain, which means he doesn't feel any compassion or empathy for you.

He will go right into defending himself to explain to you why he's not the problem and you're the problem for thinking he's the problem.

The man pointing out to you that when you make a man the problem, look at your own experience.

I'm just telling you what it is with men.

And it's the same thing with women.

If I make my wife the problem, she's going to make me the problem.

If a man says you shouldn't be upset about something, then you're going to give him more reasons why you should be upset about something.

It's, this is human nature.

We just tend to do it in different ways.

But nobody wants to be viewed as the problem.

So therefore, when women do have a stressful, you know, feel unsupported, ignored, not not cared about, not important, or he's lazy, he's irresponsible, he doesn't follow through on things, he's not doing what you expect him to do.

That all causes frustration, disappointment, anger, hurt, all those feelings.

Those feelings go talk to a friend about, because if you can talk to somebody who can hear your feelings, your stress will go down.

Those insurmountable problems actually become much smaller.

There's still problems, but at that point, you don't have an emotional charge of upset with him.

And then you find him, you give him the opportunity to solve those problems one thing at a time by asking for help.

See, the key here is that women are not good at asking for help.

And if they are, it often sounds like a complaint.

But if you can ask for help, when a man is bonded to you, then he's automatically motivated to help you.

Now, how does a man bond with you?

Well, there's two major ways men bond with you, and that's when you share yourself in the most vulnerable way.

Now, the obvious way, which the research backs up, is a man's mirror cells, which once again allow him to bond with you.

They open up the highest when he's making Love to you.

If he's making love to you and you're enjoying it in the most positive way possible, okay.

So when you're responding to his movements in the bedroom and you love it and you want it, then his mirror cells will open up the most.

So that's one situation.

But you can't just go and do that if you're a woman, if you're not feeling loved and supported and so forth.

So how do you end up feeling loved and supported?

So you can bond with him?

So you want to let him bond with you in that way is that's called being vulnerable.

When you're vulnerable, of course, in the bedroom, you're very vulnerable.

Vulnerability is what opens up a man's mirror cells.

When you're vulnerable in a relationship, you could go and share with him on a regular basis.

Today I just want to talk to you about what happened at my work or with my friend so and so or when I visited my mother.

You share with him emotions and feelings that you would not normally share with anybody else.

That makes him special and you able to share those things because a lot goes on inside of women.

They don't share with anybody.

But when you can start to share your emotions and feelings with him in a way that causes his mirror cells to open up, he will bond with you more and be more motivated and energized to please you like he was in the very beginning.

That's women's biggest complaint, is that he's not like he was in the beginning.

And of course, his complaint is you're not like what you were in the beginning.

And then your complaint will be, well, that's because you're not.

You were in the beginning.

Yeah, it's kind of interesting.

I can totally relate everything you're talking about.

Yep, yep.

And this is.

This is a lot to take in.

But the reason I bring in all this science is that there's such a force in the world that wants to say that, oh, this is just John Gray's opinion.

This is just his ideas.

Even though millions of people have benefited from these ideas.

There's just the common knowledge in our society, to a great extent, is that men should be like women.

Another way is that men should talk about their feelings.

Well, 95% of all therapists, experts in psychology say that, oh, talking about feelings is the antidote for everything.

No, it's not.

It's literally the antidote for everything for a woman, if she has a good listener and some knowledge, extra knowledge about how to understand why things are going Wrong in her life.

But talking about feelings actually weakens men.

And this is why we have this phenomena in America where every year men's testosterone levels go down 2%.

That means by the time he's 50, it's half of what it was when he was a young man.

And for the poor young men today, on average, this isn't every man.

It's like me.

Not me, for example.

I'm in my 70s, and my testosterone is 50% higher than when I was a young man.

But the young men today at 20, their testosterone levels are already 20% lower than just 20 years ago and 50% lower than what it was probably 80 years ago when they first started testing this.

Wow.

Huge drop in testosterone in males.

And testosterone once again gets this bad rap.

Everything about men gets a bad rap these days.

But we associate men's aggression and violence, and men are the more aggressive, violent people on the outside.

For sure, 90% of the people in jail are men, but that's still a sliver of men.

That's less than 1% of men.

So just keep that in mind.

Men are not these violent creatures.

They're just some that are out there.

And therefore, we need our husbands to be somewhat violent to protect us.

But somewhat doesn't mean to be aggressive.

But aggression in a positive way is a good thing.

Competition is a good thing.

Now in the schools.

Oh, competition is terrible.

Boys should not be faced with having to challenge themselves and face the possibility of losing.

No win and loss.

You have to learn to adjust and adapt, and you learn to how to be the best you can be through competition, Learning what you're good at and what you're not good at.

Being happy for other people's success.

They'll be happy for your success.

There's so much that's missing in our childhood today for males, but the biggest thing is just getting them to talk about their feelings.

It's like some kind of cult that says, oh, every dysfunctional thing a man has ever done is because he didn't get to cry as a little boy.

That's nonsense.

I teach in the prisons to real criminals.

It's not.

They didn't get a chance to cry.

They, they.

They had something to cry about.

That's the problem.

And they didn't get to talk about their feelings.

But.

But it's that they had something to cry about, is that their parents weren't happy, that their parents were violent.

The parents were addicted, the parents abandoned them.

That's the trauma that goes on inside of men.

And when men have trauma inside their hurt.

What happens typically for men is when they feel hurt, they hurt others.

For women, when they feel hurt, they hurt themselves with low self esteem, with being codependent, with making other people's needs more important than her own by picking the wrong men, by trying to please men who aren't available.

This is how women react to the abuses of our childhood, which would not be considered abusive in other time periods.

In other time periods, people didn't have the sensitivities that we have now.

But with the sensitivities we have now, we tend to act out the wounds of our childhood.

In our relationships, we pick partners to be that way.

And we can also pick partners who are like our parents in some way, like our childhood.

But we can change ourselves and bring out the best in them.

The answer is not always Find a new partner.

Many times, find a new part of you and you'll bring out a new part in your partner.

Then you'll know clearly, is it you know, do I really need to leave this relationship or not?

But women have no idea.

The women I've experienced over 50 years of counseling understanding how men think, how women think.

Women don't know how they unknowingly sabotage their relationships with men.

And if you don't have a relationship successful with a man and you want one or you wanted one, then you just don't understand how you unknowingly sabotage.

Stay tuned for more of Women Road warriors coming up.

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Welcome welcome back to Women Road warriors with Shelly Johnson and Kathy Tucaro.

If you're enjoying this informative episode of Women Road Warriors.

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We want to help as many women as possible Dr.

John Gray believes that men and women are not the same.

They don't think or react or respond the same way.

This controversial common sense approach to relationships has led to much debate among his peers.

With the insight he promoted over 30 years ago, Dr.

Gray's goal is to sustain the attraction and passion in a couple's relationship.

He says that's the biggest issue men and women have today.

People want those two things, he says attraction and passion are accomplished by using the insights that science has given us on how men and women are different and we can't ignore the facts.

His insights into how our bodies and hormones impact how we react is amazing.

Something else amazing is women can rewire men's brains, which is an interesting fact Kathy and I liked Men are wired to get things done and women can get them to do that for them so they don't have to do as much.

You can also get men to listen and bond with you more.

Dr.

Gray has been telling us how to get the best possible outcomes.

He's the author of the overwhelming bestseller Men Are from Mars, Women Are From Venus.

His many books, blogs and free online workshops are@marsvenus.com Dr.

Gray has a new book, Beyond Mars and Relationship Skills for Our complex modern world.

Dr.

Gray's been sharing his knowledge with us.

In our last segment, we learned that women unknowingly sabotage their relationships with men.

You know, that was something that I was reading in your materials, Dr.

Gray There are three ways women sabotage communication and unknowingly lose the respect of men.

What are those three ways?

Wow.

Well, in my mind I think of 10 ways, but what three ways did you hear?

And I'll comment on them.

Or I can just do the three ways.

Yeah, I thought maybe you could list them because that was just the bullet Point that I saw them like three way women's sabotage.

Yeah.

Okay, so three ways women sabotage is they unknowingly.

They assume that when you talk about your feelings that a man will be able to hear you.

No, he can't hear you unless you say to him.

You have to literally say, this is not a big deal.

That's a very important thing.

Just this one idea.

I just want to talk about my feelings and it's not a big deal.

Now, why is that important to say?

Well, the reason that's important to say is that when men want to talk about their feelings, it's only when their stresses are really high.

Biologically, if a man's having moderate stress, he'll have zero feelings.

Now, let me explain that.

This is measurable again.

Under moderate stress, that's called adrenaline.

What happens in a man's brain is blood flow stops to the emotional part of the brain.

Literally stops, turns off, gone, disappeared.

When a woman has adrenaline, moderate stress, the daily routine stresses that we go through, she experiences five to eight times more blood flow to the emotional part of the brain.

So for her, Moderate stress is 8 times more blood flow, more emotion for a man, moderate stress is no emotion.

So that's step one.

Step two is if a man doesn't resolve the problems that are causing him more adrenaline, then what will occur is his body will begin making a more a severe stress hormone, a more unhealthy stress hormone, which is called cortisol.

When a man makes cortisol, now, his brain, his emotional brain will have five to eight times more blood flow suddenly.

So high stress for a man is an emotional brain.

Low stress for men is no emotion for women.

For women, low stress is a lot of emotion in the brain and high stress is no emotion in the brain.

This is like when a woman is so stressed in marriage, she says, I have no love left for this guy.

Okay?

That's just chronic cortisol in her brain, cutting her off from the emotional part of her brain.

So now you understand.

I'll say it one more time so it's very clear.

Low stress for a man is no emotion.

Low stress for a woman is a lot of emotion and a wanting to talk about it.

High stress for women is she's given up, she's shut down.

High stress for men is an expression of a lot of emotion.

Anger, fear, anxiety, fight, flight, fold, fake.

All those kind of strong emotional states is particularly fight or flight and freeze.

These are the high emotion states.

So under moderate stress, if a woman's talking about her feelings he's going to misinterpret her thinking that she's saying, this is a big deal.

You know, I got guns blaring.

This is terrible, terrible.

And she's just saying, you forgot the butter.

It's not understanding.

So all she has to do is, this isn't a big deal.

I just wanted to talk about it is I expected you to bring home the butter.

And tomorrow I'd really appreciate if you remember.

Because we need it so we can make blah, blah, blah.

So in a.

In a moderate way, he doesn't react as if my wife is making a huge deal out of this.

Because what do men say all the time?

Because they don't understand women.

They say, my wife, she makes such a big deal out of everything.

She's never happy.

I feel it's like nothing I do is ever good enough.

When from her point of view, there's so much he does, it's good enough.

But now she's just having this strong emotional reaction.

So the way she sabotages is not by setting him up for hearing what she has to say.

The second thing a woman does to sabotage communication is when she's not getting what she wants, she just points out to him that he has failed.

She will complain, you forgot to do this.

You didn't do this.

Why didn't you do that?

She'll ask a lot of questions like, he's on trial.

And she does this so effortlessly, it's amazing.

It's hard for me to even remember all the ways they can do it.

I have to write them down as my clients are giving me examples.

Is that she can just use rhetorical questions to tear a guy down.

And she doesn't realize she's doing it.

She's really just trying to give him the message, what she wants and what she needs.

So what does she need to do if she's upset?

Whenever she's upset, don't ask for more.

See, when women are upset, that's when they do ask for more.

And they justify the request with an emotional charge, like, I'm really unhappy, so unless you do this, I won't be happy.

Okay?

That's not the time ever to ask for help.

What you want to do is whenever you have any emotional charge, you want to use him to reduce that charge by hearing what you're feeling about other problems and not him.

Because whenever you make him the problem, he can't be the solution.

It's a basic idea.

Whenever you make a man the problem, he's not going to be the solution.

But what you can get from a man is a solution to lower your stress by talking about other things that are upsetting to you.

And when he hears that, not only do you feel better, but he bonds with you more.

Now this is biological.

There's his bonding hormone will get released at that time when it's called prolactin.

But that hormone will get released when he feels successful in connecting with your emotions and you appreciate him for it.

So your stress levels go down, your oxytocin levels go up, you bond with him more, he bonds with you more.

Now this prolactin hormone has other benefits too.

The prolactin hormone inhibits a man's ability to want have sex with other women.

All men are designed to have sex with as many women as possible.

This is sort of the instinct of the lower unconscious part of his brain.

And all these books use that as a justification for having lots of partners and so forth.

And yes, that's.

Isn't that called the lizard brain?

That's called the lizard brain.

And women have one too.

Men have one.

It's twice as big in a man as it is in a woman.

And it's directly linked to sex for men.

So it's to get men to procreate.

You know, it takes a lot of drive for a man to face rejection.

Because a woman's job, if you look historically, is only to have sex with a man if he's worthy of being having sex with because he would make a good father.

I'll just say that again.

It used to be culture protected.

Women with this knowledge don't have sex with a man unless he's capable of being a good father and you want to have a baby with him.

So naturally, when women have sex, there's consequences.

At least before birth control, there's the consequences of having sex.

So women have to be careful.

They're not just going to have sex with anybody.

They're not going to let them go to that place.

And that place, by the way, for a woman is actually stronger than for a man if certain requirements are fulfilled.

So she has like a mechanism that says certain things have to be fulfilled.

I need to be the only one in your life.

I need to be special in your life.

I need you to see me, hear me, respect me, care about me.

I want to be the number one person in your life.

And that's called bonding.

And so this is where men will bond with women.

One of the ways they bond with her is by having sex with a woman.

They're in a committed relationship with.

Then this hormone called prolactin gets produced, which now inhibits his desire for sex with anybody, including her.

Unless, unless they're able to bond in a particular way, which is where she's able to share her vulnerability, which is talking about feelings and emotions she wouldn't share with anybody else.

She's able to share that with him in a way that his mirror cells will open up, meaning he's not the problem.

And so when he now is the solution to her vulnerability, this bonding hormone gets produced.

What also gets produced is his testosterone levels go high, which allows him to once again want to have sex with her and her estrogen levels go high and that allows her to want to have sex with him.

It's very paradoxical for women in that in a marriage, generally speaking, there's exceptions where, you know, many women today are so masculine that they want to have sex all the time, like a guy.

But we're not talking about those women.

We're talking about a woman who's more grounded in her feminine energy.

She's not that interested in sex until her estrogen levels double her normal level.

Now this is measurable in her brain.

When a woman's estrogen levels go up, it means she's trusting, she's feeling appreciative, she feels, I can depend on him and he's actually delivering the goods.

When he delivers the goods, her estrogen levels go higher.

When her estrogen level go higher, another hormone called luteinizing hormone gets released and causes her testosterone levels to surge very high.

And that surge of testosterone is what causes her to want to have sex as much or more than any guy.

And that's the healthy relationship that good communication can deliver.

But just bonding through sex, what happens is men lose their interest in sex with everybody.

And that's what you see.

These 45, 50 year old guys, they have to have Viagra to have sex.

They're only having sex because they remember how good it feels.

It's not like their penis remembers it.

They need help.

It doesn't have to be that way.

And it's not that way for all men.

I know other men as well, like me, who have extremely high libidos.

And their wives have high libidos in their 70s because they have these good communication skills.

So her vulnerability is what stimulates his mirror cells to open up.

The mirror cells open up once again, the dopamine levels rise, which motivates him.

The testosterone levels rise, which give him his, his libido back.

And they make love and they bond and that's wonderful.

And.

And typically, that's not enough to keep it going because they're not having sex all the time.

They're raising kids, they're going through their life.

But every day, even without having sex every day, a woman can.

Or not every day, every other day, whatever, a woman can share her vulnerable feelings.

It's a woman's vulnerability shared in a way where a man can be her solution to that rescuer her.

Her fix her to support her at that time through good emotional conversation.

Now, how she sabotages this is.

Women have this deal, and they are.

You know, think of a.

Think about a woman who doesn't instinctively understand men and women are different.

And even though she knows on the surface we're different, there's certain subtleties she doesn't understand.

And that is when two women talk, we'll say women on Venus, when they talk, it'd be rude for you to say to another woman, oh, I'm so happy to see you.

I just want to talk to you about my kids and what's going on in my life.

And I really don't want to hear anything from you.

So please don't speak, don't say anything.

Just listen to me, and I'll feel so good.

And then I just want to hug at the end.

That would be the rudest thing in the world on her planet.

And yet that is the best thing you can do for a man.

That's going to be the most powerful bonding thing you can do is to share what's inside, bring an emotion to it, and he just listens.

His mirror cells open up, he bonds with you, because what's happening is he wakes up.

See, women don't understand men.

Our Testosterone levels are 10 times higher than a woman's.

A woman's estrogen levels are 10 to 20 times higher than a man's.

So estrogen gives you emotion and feeling.

Testosterone gives you detachment.

And it's not that a man can't access his estrogen, it's just if he accesses too much, then his stress levels will go higher.

When a man is experiencing that high stress level, what's happening there?

When men have fight or fight, when they're aggressive or when they're grumpy, irritable, they're mean.

All of that is not who men are.

That's what they become when they're not their true self.

What happens is when a man's cortisol levels get produced, the standard thing, standard knowledge, is fight or flight and freeze.

But what's going on?

Biologically which now research proves, I've been Talking about for 15 years now, I've got research actually backing it up.

Solid studies all over the place, is that when a man's producing cortisol, his female hormones are 10 times higher, they're shooting up and his testosterone is shooting down.

Now if a man is, if he's stressed, the worst thing he can do is to talk about his feelings.

If you talk about your feelings, whether you're a man or a woman, your estrogen goes up.

That's the function of talking about feelings.

Women, when they're stressed, they need more estrogen.

So talking about feelings is the holy grail.

It doesn't apply to men.

All it does is it suppresses testosterone in men and makes men go too far to estrogen land.

And what is estrogen land?

Estrogen land is where you depend on someone for your happiness.

And that's the foundation of why we have so many more men who are addicted.

When you are addicted to alcohol and drugs or violence, any of those activities or procrastination, that's where you're overly depending on someone else or something else to fulfill you.

And you're a man, your testosterone is down and your estrogen is up.

And that creates the greatest weakness in men.

And to sit and talk about your feelings is the worst thing you could possibly do.

Now the flip side of that is, you know, you look at 12 step programs helping alcoholics and so forth, and drug rehab.

Not that they always work, but the aspect that does work is when people get together and they share.

But for men, the real benefit is listening to other people's problems.

When men can listen to other people's problems, they're stepping outside of their own problems.

And that creates testosterone detachment, not indifference.

But he's detached, he's not talking about his own problems.

So what you get is a mixture of men in a group where some are willing to share their feelings, all the others are listening.

And that listening quality is what raises testosterone in men.

So even if you're one of the men who does share and your estrogen levels are going up, you're also listening to other men or other women talk about their feelings, talk about their experiences.

And your mirror cells open up because you're not blaming them, you're relating to them.

If you have the same addiction.

So this is all good news.

So it's understanding.

Men and women are different.

Don't expect men to talk, don't ask them questions.

When a man is stressed or upset.

So we'll go to the third There was quite a bit of points, but I'll say one more on sabotaging.

So when a man sabotage.

When a woman unknowingly sabotages communication is after a day of stress.

Men typically, if they're stressed that day, they run out of testosterone.

They need to rebuild their testosterone before they can enter the world of Venus.

The world of Venus.

Listening to my wife talk or helping her, doing things for her, that's always going to increase my estrogen, make me feel good.

Estrogen feels good as long as I have high testosterone.

But when I get home from work, I have exhausted myself on some days, so my testosterone levels are low.

This is typical for men.

How do they rebuild their testosterone?

They do what I call in.

Men are from Mars.

They go to their cave.

The cave is very important.

They basically.

The man cave.

That's right.

That came from Men are from Mars.

You know, this is the whole idea for women to understand that men could be in their man cave, and they don't have to take it personally.

So many women over the years have thanked me for understanding the man cave because they realized when he would pull away and show little interest in her, that it was not personal, it was not about her.

It was literally him needing time to rebuild his testosterone.

Now, this is.

There's a lot to that.

I can't go into all that now, but think about anything that a woman would consider to be a waste of time is actually ideal activity for a man cave.

So that now there are certain things that are not helpful in the man cave for men.

You know, if a man is weak in his masculinity, then he'll do things that aren't that great in his man cave or he hasn't been guided.

One is porn.

Porn will give a man an instant rush of testosterone to rebuild it, but it will immediately deflate and drop back down.

So it just becomes like an addiction.

Like cocaine gives you a surge of dopamine and testosterone and it crashes down lower.

So now you're depending upon that high hit.

So addictions are not a good thing to do in the cave.

Some things in the cave could become addictions.

Like if he was to sit and play a game on the computer.

If he did it for 30 minutes and stopped, it's not an addiction.

But if he continues on for hours, it becomes an addiction.

Listening to the news is my favorite one.

But if it goes on for hours, it's become an addiction.

So, you know, you have to, like, the way you overcome addictions is you get the benefit of the surge of testosterone.

And then you have a wife who says to you, honey, I need your help.

When you get a chance, would you help me?

That's what always pulls me out of the cave.

The honey do list, right?

That's right.

But that's the key.

When we get to the honeydew list.

That's another set of ways women unknowingly sabotage getting help in the relationship.

But enough to cover for right now is that through good communication, he will bond with her.

And when he bonds with her, then he doesn't resent doing lots of more things for her.

And that becomes the way to truly help him to continue growing in his attraction for her is when he's earning her support by doing things for her.

And women notice a man in his cave, they don't want to ask him for help.

Yes, always when he's in his cave, you can say, hey, when you're done doing what you're doing, you're fixing your carburetor in the garage, whatever it is, playing with your toy set in the attic.

I need your help.

Okay?

You know, this is women.

You're the alarm bell that gets Mr.

Emergency man woken up.

So we go to the third.

I wanted to get to the third way women sabotage their communication with the man.

When he's in his cave, he doesn't want to talk.

So I could be sitting there watching the news.

It's not the time for me to talk.

I'm trying to rebuild my testosterone and talking particularly about what I'm feeling inside.

And men have feelings inside, but they process them not by talking about them out loud.

They process them inside by just feeling them and mulling them over and trying to figure them out, solve the problem or realize they're not a problem.

And he lets it go.

Just like women can talk about problems, and then suddenly the problems don't exist anymore, or they're not a big deal.

Or now she knows what she's going to do about it and she feels better.

For a man, that's the same thing.

He just does it internally, he does it quietly.

And if she gets in there and gets him to talk about it, it only makes it worse.

He's trying to rebuild his testosterone and center himself in that way.

And if she gets him to talk at that time, it's the worst thing.

And women will feel like, you must talk.

What are you feeling?

What's going on?

Are you upset with me?

And he says, no.

And she says, I don't believe it.

And.

And what's going on inside of you?

And why aren't you talking?

And now she says, I think you're mad at me.

And now I can honestly say, well, yes, now I am mad at you because I don't want to talk.

So this is just the wrong direction to go.

I understand women's panic and fear when a man doesn't want to talk when he's detached.

Why?

Because when women detach, they are indifferent.

They decided, I don't want to talk to you because I don't trust you, I don't care about you, their stress levels are really high, they're mad at you.

And so she assumes instinctively, if he doesn't want to talk, then he must be hiding something, he must be mad with me, I did something wrong.

What is it then?

Then if she did do something wrong?

Because sometimes she, my wife can say something, whatever, it's very annoying to me.

I need to not talk, I need to suck it up, reflect on it, do something that makes me feel good, that raises my testosterone, that's not anti productive like porn or taking some alcohol.

I need to do something that's productive to raise my testosterone.

And lo and behold, the thing that she said was annoying and irritating is not annoying and irritating.

It's my wife.

She's not perfect, I love her, I adore her.

Nobody's perfect, I'm not perfect.

And so this is how we rationalize things, is we come back to love.

You know, love melts all that go away, right?

Oh my goodness, the dynamics here.

So much to unpack.

And I, and I probably could have said that all in a few short minutes.

Oh no.

But get all that information.

This is fascinating and you really are offering some tremendous insight.

Your whole website offers so many different things.

And of course you've got this new book.

I wanted to touch on that.

Beyond Mars and Relationship Skills for our Complex Modern World.

What is that about?

I mean, that's so needed.

Our world is just totally out of control.

It seems like what our world is.

Doing to women and to men is that when women are out there in the world solving problems, fixing things, making money, being single, supporting their kids, all those things are exceptionally stressful.

Because she's making testosterone, the male hormone, whenever she's solving problems for money.

When you're doing things for money, that's the reward you're getting, so to speak.

That produces testosterone when you do things from love, just because you care and you love and you enjoy and you like, that produces female hormones.

There's nothing wrong with women being on their male side solving problems as long as their life is balanced, where they have support to come back to their female side.

And that's what's missing today.

So this book, Beyond Mars and Venus, is how men and women have changed.

In a sense, our roles have changed.

Whereas women are more on their male side, and when women are more on their male side, they need a new form of help from men.

The new help they need from men is how to get back to their female side.

So a lot of women feel like they want better communication because that helps her get back to her female side when it's done correctly.

They want more romance.

They want more affection and warmth and participation from him in the relationship, which they're not getting if he doesn't bond with her through good communication.

And three is they want more help around the house.

And yes, help around the house is something very, very practical, but it's not gonna stimulate the romantic hormones.

It does in the beginning, but then it becomes routine.

What stimulates the romantic hormones is the bonding of good communication, which then motivates him to actually be more romantic and makes her more receptive to him being more romantic.

And then she practices asking for help around the house.

And he's very happy to apply to help out more, more and more, to whatever extent he's been trained to do it.

You don't have to ask.

You know, I never saw my dad doing housework, so my wife had to train me to do it.

And I did, actually did a whole research project, oversaw the research on men who do housework.

And it was very interesting.

Conclusion.

When a man made all the money, he was not inclined to help out much at all with the housework.

When a man made half the money, in almost all cases, he was inclined to do half of the work around the house.

There was a sense of equity that men have, and yet in that case, women still complain.

But, yeah, he does wash the dishes, but he's not very good at it, so I ended up having to do it again.

So there was always the complaint from her side.

So.

But I'm all in favor of women learning how to bond first.

Create romance, and then what you have is a man with more energy and motivation to help out around the house and do jobs that will make her job easier because it's very hard.

Women come home and they have a stronger instinct of wanting beauty in the environment.

Not all women, but most.

And therefore, things have to get done.

And typically, except for a few, unless they're compulsive disorder, they don't have that.

I can walk home and the house can be messy, and I don't see it.

She will see it all.

And of course, I've always thought men could just trip over dirt.

Some guys are just nothing.

Most guys don't care that much, but they appreciate it so much.

My wife is so, so makes this home so beautiful that I greatly appreciate that.

And I'm glad to have a partner who's like that.

But again, those are differences in temperament and so forth.

But the differences in communication is where I especially focus on.

And our hormonal needs are so, so completely different.

So the book Beyond Mars and Venus goes a deep dive, which you've just heard me go through, in terms of how our hormones are different and how women need to make enough estrogen to lower their stress.

And then a man can come along and make enough estrogen to raise you to the orgasmic level.

Not just sexually, but through good communication and understanding where you're coming from, how to offer support, what he needs to do.

But most importantly, if a man doesn't read the book, women get all the goods on how to get him to do that stuff.

You can control men without men feeling controlled.

Men are designed.

All my happiness primarily comes by being able to provide for my wife so she is happy.

That's the number one reason men will leave women.

They will always say to me, if I can't make her happy, then logically, what's the point?

He'll come to his logical side as opposed to.

Fortunately, he comes to me and I say, well, let me explain why she's not happy.

Because you're not doing what you need to make a woman happy.

And then he defends himself, but I make this much money and I do this.

And I said, yeah, my father did that for my mother, and that was enough.

But women today are different.

They want to have a new level of support, a level of emotional support, romantic support, and good communication support.

My mother didn't care about that.

She was in a different world where if you had a good provider, a good husband, and she had seven kids, you know, she was so grateful dad would come home.

He was a policeman.

You know, dad provided for her.

We lived in a nice neighborhood, so, you know, she ended up living in heaven.

That's not the case anymore.

Women are out there struggling just like men.

They're stressed out.

What they need is the help coming back to their feminine side, which is not stressed.

And a man can help tremendously in doing that.

When women learn how to communicate in a way that a man can listen, and that's what this book provides, there's a lot of different insights.

Understanding how she can be happy without a man and how she can be even happier with a man.

Wow, this is really needed.

Do people find this beyond Mars and Venus relationship skills for our complex modern world?

Do they find that on your website?

Certainly you can buy it at Amazon and it's always in stock there.

But at my website you'll get a link to that.

And at my website there's wonderful courses.

There's one I highly recommend called Understanding Men that I did with my daughter Lauren.

I edited it, she wrote it.

She's a master of relationships as well.

And she kind of speaks, she can be a little more tougher with women than I can because she's a woman.

You know, I have to walk around on ice where she's very direct in helping women to understand men and understand the ways they unknowingly sabotage their relationships with men and how they can get more.

And I do more at my website.

You know, I, when I would turn 50 years old, I'm 73 now, I had Parkinson's disease and my family members have had that.

My younger sister died of Alzheimer's at 60s.

You know, this is sometimes genetics in the family.

Well, I wasn't settled for that.

I started researching after I'm a researcher and I opened up a wellness center, brought in all the top experts on alternative health and I learned how to reverse my Parkinson's.

I don't have it at all.

And I realized the importance of protein, pre digested proteins for the brain.

Your brain requires amino acids in order to function in a positive way.

And long before I was diagnosed with Parkinson's, I didn't realize I had ADD like so many people do.

And what I did is it not only did it fix my Parkinson's, it fixed my add, got my brain working well, gave me lots of energy.

And so I give that formula for people.

I wrote a whole book about it.

It's, it's.

I no longer make that available because I used to have a series of products that I developed that would do it and now they're not available.

It just confuses people.

But if people would like free coaching on, you know, how to optimize your brain function so you know you're feeling really good positive feelings.

How amino acids can lower your stress levels.

And particularly with all my work on women's hormones, there's wonderful products, patented products out of Korea and various places in the world where they can proven to reduce or eliminate the symptoms of menopause.

But Even after menopause, you know how to keep everything working right, is we get free coaching on that.

And the other thing, which is, you know, fit for dating.

A lot of single women want to start dating and whatever.

If you don't feel that you're beautiful, it's really hard for a man to think you're beautiful.

So it's important and healthy.

Healthy and beautiful.

So what I say for women, it's natural for all of us to gain a little weight as we get older.

If you can lose five or ten pounds in a few weeks, your enthusiasm increases so much in terms of feeling beautiful because it's so interesting just losing a few inches.

You just feel like it's the greatest.

And that's a change.

When you have power over your body, you don't feel powerless in life.

And that's very powerful for dating.

So we provide free coaching for women.

I don't put that on my website at all.

But if you go down to the bottom of the website and say, contact us, you can ask for free wellness coaching.

Put your phone number down and we'll contact you.

Or give us your email at the top of the page.

I used to have 40 products on my website.

Now there's so many people that do this on.

I didn't.

I stick with what I'm best at.

But there's one product that nobody talks about and that's at the top of the page.

And I don't have time today to explain the details of that, but it's called Elemental Orotates.

It's something very unusual for most people.

If you click on that one for men or one for women, it's a little different.

It will take you to a page on Amazon that will explain in great detail, but it would take about 10 minutes for me to explain it.

And you know, we're just focusing on, on relationship skills right now.

But those two resources I find still very, very helpful.

It's something that will prevent your brain from looping.

What happens for women is when they're stressed, they ruminate, they loop again and again and again.

And this will stop it almost instantly, stop it in its tracks.

And you take two capsules a day.

Then the other thing is at the bottom is contact us for free coaching on weight loss, on hormone balance and optimal brain function, those things.

And just for women to know, whenever you're overwhelmed and there's so much to do and you're thinking about this and this and this, that's female add.

Male ADD is hyper focused.

He's just sitting on that computer for hours.

He can't let any new information to come in.

But for women, they're too wide open and they're letting too much information come in.

And that's a female version of add, and that can be corrected, like literally within weeks.

You'll notice the difference.

And that's what's great about getting pre digestive proteins into your system and knowing the right amount and the right times.

And there's a lot of research on that as well.

So that's a service we provide.

I think it's so helpful for women.

You know, this is fit for dating if you want to explore that.

Wow.

You cover everything.

And I totally agree.

Nutrition's so important.

It really impacts everything that we do your website again, Dr.

Gray, people just.

Go to marsvenous.com, okay?

And women say, how can I get my husband or my boyfriend to learn some of this stuff?

First of all, the way I write it's.

Women have the power through sharing their feelings the right way and asking for help the right way to transform a man to give you more and more and more at the same time.

Once he's into the whole thing and realizes that you're happier because you're reading my books or whatever, you can introduce him to my ideas with my TED talk called Mars Brain, Venus Brain.

It's 20 minutes.

It's very funny, and most men think it's amazing and then read some of the comments.

But the comments all talk about how great this information is.

And it's good to feel that you're not alone.

You're part of a group that's appreciating this.

I even have to look at that sometimes.

It's all supporting men and women to love each other more by respecting our differences as opposed to thinking we should be the same.

Amen.

We are different.

There's no getting around it.

And men have outies, women have innies.

Right?

I mean, it's just obvious.

Oh, my gosh.

Dr.

Gray, you are just a wealth of information.

This has just been fascinating.

I really appreciate you being on the show.

I know Kathy does too.

Oh, my gosh.

This has been absolutely wonderful.

I mean, our listeners are just going to be head over heels to have you on the show.

Thank you so much.

Yes, it is just terrific.

Thank you so much, Shelly and Kathy.

It's a pleasure talking to both of you.

We hope you've enjoyed this latest episode.

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