045: Understanding Men & Having Extraordinary Relationships with Alison Armstrong
I am thrilled to welcome relationship and human behavior expert Alison Armstrong on the podcast this week. There are so many golden nuggets from the very first minute, it’s like a 90 minute masterclass on communicating, human behavior and relationships with men! Alison’s exploration of human behavior began in 1991, with her decision to study men: “To find out how I was bringing out the worst in them. And hopefully, how to bring out the best.” Her success in understanding men naturally led to studying women’s behavior and making vital connections between the two. In this episode we’re talking about everything from the things that (most masculine) men tend to look for when making a decision about marriage (and love isn’t one of them), including the main reason a man would choose not to marry someone (it’s definitely not what you think) to nervous system responses and our caveman-like instincts and urges. If you’re looking to learn more about male and female instincts, tendencies and dynamics in relationships and ways that you might be causing yourself trouble (without even realizing it) when relating to other people, then you’re going to want to listen to this one! WHAT ELSE WE’RE TALKING ABOUT: ✹ “Why are men wonderful in the beginning?” - the million dollar question that changed Alison’s mindset and the direction of her work ✹ Harboring hatred, disdain and believing men are stupid - why do we do this!? ✹ Expecting men to be some version of a woman; to think the same and behave the same. Then when they don’t do “what a woman would have done”, they are stupid, immature, emotionally unavailable etc ✹ One of the most subtle and nuanced differences between how men and women communicate: how men often mean what they say, literally, and women often don’t ✹ How to know how a man truly feels about something (hint: there is a specific of number of seconds you will want to wait until you get a true answer!!) ✹ What Alison learned about men by asking them the question, “what is your favorite thing about women?” ✹ How most masculine men believe they make their biggest mistakes when they act on their feelings (and why this is important for women who want to marry a man) ✹ What happens when we’re not consistently voicing what we actually want and owning our needs and desires ✹ How men see competition in relationships (and it’s not what you think) ✹ Emasculating the men in your life, what does that even really mean? ✹ The ways we unconsciously project our own preferences and motivations onto another person and how that often prevents resolution to conflict (this may be why you have the same fights all the time and feel like the other person isn’t listening) Connect with Alison: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thealisonarmstrong Website: https://www.alisonarmstrong.com Connect with me: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kelleymbode Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kelley.bode.90 Twitter: https://twitter.com/kelleybode